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Monthly Archives: July 2019

State of the Frontier – July 2019

It has been a crazy month and I’m amazed I got as much done as I did. That said, it was a really good month too.

Looking Back

This month saw the completion of two major items. The first was the Expanded Frontier Map that I’ve been working on for a while. If you haven’t already, you can see the final Player’s Version without the sathar jump routes and the final Referee’s Version with those routes. While there is still more for me to do on the software, the maps themselves are finished.

The other major item was getting issue 25 of the Frontier Explorer magazine out the door and available for download. You can grab it on DriveThruRPG or on the Frontier Explorer website. This is a sathar themed issue and almost every article relates to the sathar in some form or another. While not specifically part of this blog, the Frontier Explorer is one of my major endeavors and can suck up a lot of time in the month before publication.

I also got a post in about the Streel mega-corp describing my vision of the company in my campaign. This was part of the July RPG Blog Carnival and I might start doing more of these corporate write-ups if people are interested.

Finally I had my monthly post with the updated timeline events and I managed to get another installment of the module based campaign series done as well.

Behind the scenes, in addition to working on the Frontier Explorer, I’ve started back in on my writing projects. I’ve mostly been working on my Star Frontiers novel but have also started looking at the sequel to my book Discovery. My uncles were actually bugging me about writing the sequel at a family gathering recently.

Looking Forward

There will definitely be the regular timeline post at the beginning of the month and I plan on doing another post in the module-based campaign series this month. So you can expect those to show up.

I’m headed to Sydney, Australia on Friday for a week to attend a conference for work. I’m hoping to get a bunch done on the flights when I can’t sleep. I might also get some work done in the evening if I don’t do too much sightseeing.

While it won’t be a regular post, you can expect to see an announcement for the opportunity to purchase a printed poster of the Player’s and Referee’s versions of the Extended Frontier Map. I posted a poll on the Star Frontiers Facebook group to see if there was interest and the response was positive enough that I will make them available. I have print proofs of the map already so I know that they will look great when finished.

While I really need to finish up the Death at Rosegard and Ghost Ship Osiris adventures, I’m really itching to start a couple of new projects as well. Ghost Ship Osiris was supposed to be the third module released for FrontierSpace but the second one still isn’t out so there is really no rush on that front. Which is why you haven’t seen much on it in the last few months. I will probably put some time in on Death at Rosegard during my trip so I might have some sections of that adventure ready to go by the end of the month. Or at least identify holes that need to be filled.

I’m looking at two new projects and possibly starting one from really early in the blog. The first, and this one will probably happen and get finished by the end of the month, is to take the map I have for the star sector in my Discovery module and give it the treatment that I gave the Frontier map. The major difference is that there is effectively only one jump route at the moment, and the stars are distributed in 3 dimensions instead of on a flat plane. I’ll have to update the printing of z-coordinates on the map, something the software does but which I’d turned off for the Extended Frontier Map. This won’t be a long series of posts, just one with the final product describing what went into it.

The other thing I’m itching to do is create another ship and associated Technical Manual like I’ve done for the sathar destroyer and UPF assault scout. Back at the beginning of this blog, I laid out the plans to do a sathar assault carrier to round out the minis for all the sathar ships. But I’m also considering doing either a UPF frigate, or maybe a civilian ship of some sort. That would probably be a rework and extension of the CDCSS Nightwind, published in the first issue of the Frontier Explorer, with updated maps, and alternate configurations for passengers, troop transport, or other activities.

I’ve also mentioned working on a simple starting adventure for Star Frontiers and that might get looked at as well.

Your Thoughts

Do any of those possible projects sound more interesting than others? Is there something specific you’d like to see worked on? Let me know in the comments below.

And thank you to everyone reading, commenting, and especially to those supporting this work on Patreon. I really appreciate the feedback and support you provide.

July 31, 2019 Tom 1 Comment

A Module Based Campaign – part 3

We’re back to the campaign outline. I can’t believe it’s been over two months since I posted about this but the map project did suck up most of my time. This post will cover the two UK produced modules, SFAD5: Bugs in the System, and SFAD6: Dark Side of the Moon. If you need to catch up, you can read part one and part two by following the links.

These two modules, unlike the first four, have the AD designation as they were published after the release of the Knight Hawks expansion and related modules that carried the KH designation. The AD specification let us know you didn’t need Knight Hawks skill to play the module which is good, as our intrepid adventurers don’t have any yet.

We’ve skipped over SF4: Mission to Alcazzar as I like to do that one last. I’ll cover that one in part four of this series and explain why. It’s really a toss up between doing SF4 or SFAD6 last, and in some ways might make sense to run SFAD6 as the final Alpha Dawn module but I think Mission to Alcazzar makes for an easier transition to the Knight Hawks modules. In any case, let’s look at the next steps of the campaign.

Getting Started

Just like it took a little bit of work to get the PCs in position for Sundown on Starmist, the same is true for Bugs in the System. At least if you keep the Belnafaer system in the position indicated by the module itself. You are always welcome to move it where ever you want in your game.

Here’s where Zeb’s Guide and the module puts the system. And I just realized I misspelled the system name on my Extended Frontier Map. Now I need to go fix that.

The module says to put Belnafaer in one of the single star systems between Scree Fron, Truane’s Star, and Athor. I had originally put it in the system labeled FS22 but the Zeb’s Guide map put it straight out from Scree Fron and there wasn’t really any reason not to use that location so that’s where I put it on my final map.

The problem is that, just like before Sundown on Starmist, the PCs are all the way on the other side of the Frontier from where the adventure is supposed to take place. It might actually be easier to put this module before Sundown on Starmist. That way, they are at least in Truane’s Star. You still have to come with a reason for them to be headed to Scree Fron and back so as to take this route but the distance isn’t as great. Then you only have to get them over to the right side of the map once as the rest of the adventures take place in that part of the map.

Running this today, I’d use the Jurak Hangna Foundation, a character and institution created by Eric Winsor for the Frontier Explorer. Jurak runs an botanical and zoological preserve on Hosakar in the Scree Fron system. Whether they are leaving Volturnus or Starmist, I’d have them contacted by the Foundation requesting them to either transport some fauna from that world to the preserve, or maybe the Foundation had already acquired some and wanted their expert advice about it. In either case, the would have reason to travel to and from Scree Fron and layover in the Belnafaer system thus kicking off the adventure. I would have the adventure occur as they are returning from Scree Fron. Their time in the Scree Fron system should be a short adventure netting them an additional 3XP for their time.

Running Bugs in the System

I just want to say that I love the way the computer systems were set up in this module. It something I want to emulate in adventures I put together in the future and something I need to look more closely at as I haven’t actually read the module all the way through in a couple of decades.

Running the module is fairly straightforward. The PCs receive the job offer and go off to investigate the cause of the problems and effect the repairs needed. Over the course of their time on the Jetsom platform, and their return to the Moneyspider, they discover and hopefully defeat the virus that is causing the problems.

According to the module, the PCs should receive between 15 and 27 XP for the adventure with 21 being average. I’m going to award them 24XP for succeeding in solving the mystery and preventing the virus from leaving the system.

The Dark Side of the Moon

Once again we need to get the PCs across the Frontier as Kraatar is over on the right side of the map and Zeb’s Guide gives it a jump route from Theseus. This can be partially alleviated is you just have them take a longer trip on the spacecraft. While the module makes it sound like the trip is fairly short, you could have the PCs recruited in Prenglar, an appropriate place for the award to be presented, and the trip to Kraatar could take several weeks. Or you could come up with some middle small adventure to get them in the general vicinity of Theseus. And if you ran Bugs in the System before Sundown on Starmist, they are either in White Light or K’sta-Kar and are fairly close by. At some point, they need to be recruited and on their way to Kraatar.

Otherwise, this module can just play out as presented. It definitely presents a darker side to the Frontier than the other modules but is a great adventure with lots of intrigue and action.

By the time the characters get to the climax on the moon, hopefully one of them has reached level 6 in their Technician skill so that they can fly the shuttle. If they are laser focused, it is possible by this point to have even achieved a level 1 skill in Piloting but that isn’t necessary. The AD rules specifically say that level 6 Technicians can fly shuttles.

This is a pretty long adventure with a lot of possible XP. The module itself explicitly lists 39XP available if they do everything exactly right. I’m going to award my characters 32 XP (Legrange manages to slip away and they weren’t perfectly successful in all the parts of the adventure). Also as part of the ending, they get a free ride to Theseus or White Light (their choice) as that is where I want them to be for the next stage of the adventure.

The Characters

So from these two adventures and the little side adventure along the way, the PCs have managed to pick up 59 more XP. That, plus the 13 from Sundown, gives them 72 XP that they’ve been spending along the way to increase their skills. Now seasoned adventurers, their skills stand as follows:

Name: Yanni

Race: Yazirian, F

STR/STA: 40/40

DEX/RS: 55/55

INT/LOG: 55/55

PER/LDR: 45/45

Racial Abilities: Battle Rage 5%

XP: 136/142

PSA – Technological

Skills: Technician 4, Robotics 4, Computer 2, Beam 3, Melee 2

Notes:

Born on Hentz, Araks. Yanni likes to tinker with gadgets and vehicles.  She’d love to be able to tinker on starships as well.

 

Name: Mekar

Race: Yazirian, M

STR/STA: 45/45

DEX/RS: 70/70

INT/LOG: 55/55

PER/LDR: 55/55

Racial Abilities: Battle Rage 5%

XP: 130/142

PSA – Bio-social

Skills: Medic 4, Environmental 3, Projectile 3, Psycho-social 2, Melee 1, Gyrojet 2

Notes:

Born on Pale, Truane’s Star.  As Mekar will tell anyone who asks, his job is to understand the local critters and keep everyone else in one piece. [Mekar will eventually have a Rocket Weapons spaceship skill but getting a bio-social PSA character there takes a bit of work.]

 

Name: Dolnab

Race: Dralasite

STR/STA: 55/55

DEX/RS: 65/65

INT/LOG: 70/70

PER/LDR: 50/50

Racial Abilities: Lie Detection 5%

XP: 138/142

PSA – Techological

Skills: Technician 6, Computer 2, Robotics 1, Projectile 3, Melee 1, Demolitions 1

Notes:

Born on Inner Reach, Dramune.  Dolnab loves to tinker with computers and also play flight simulator games. 

 

Name:  Michaella

Race: Human, F

STR/STA: 55/55

DEX/RS: 64/61

INT/LOG: 50/50

PER/LDR: 40/40

XP: 137/142

PSA – Military

Skills: Beam 6, Melee 4, Environmental 1, Thrown 3, Martial Arts 2, Medic 1, Projectile 1

Notes:

Born on Minotaur, Theseus. Michaella grew up as the youngest of seven with six older brothers.  She learned to shoot and hold her own with her brothers’ rough-housing at a young age.

 

Name: K’sta’n

Race: Vrusk, F

STR/STA: 50/50

DEX/RS: 75/75

INT/LOG: 50/50

PER/LDR: 35/35

Racial Abilities: Comprehension 15%

XP: 135/142

PSA – Military

Skills: Gyrojet 5, Martial Arts 4, Projectile 4, Technician 2, Melee 2, Thrown 1

Notes:

Born on Terldrom, Fromeltar.  K’sta’n has always had an interest in weapons, but also in the forms of the various martial arts.

 

Name: T’vor

Race: Vrusk, M

STR/STA: 40/40

DEX/RS: 55/55

INT/LOG: 65/65

PER/LDR: 40/40

Racial Abilities: Comprehension 15%

XP: 142/142

PSA – Technological

Skills: Computer 6, Robotics 3, Beam 3, Melee 1

Notes:

Born on Gran Quivera, Prenglar.  T’vor used to hang aout at the University of Prenglar as a kid and chat up the tech professors.  He loves to hack computers and robots and can usually get anything working, eventually.  He also has a deep interest in astronomy.

The PCs are now right on the cusp of getting their Knight Hawks skills. While it’s possible that they might have gotten them already, I chose to spread the XP out a bit more. They will definitely pick them up after the next adventure.

In the next part we’ll finish up the Alpha Dawn modules and the PCs will be ready to start their careers as spacers.

July 30, 2019 Tom 1 Comment

Frontier Explorer issue 25 now available

Just a quick note to let everyone know that issue 25 of the Frontier Explorer is not available for download. You can get it at either DriveThruRPG or on the Frontier Explorer website.

This issue is a sathar themed issue with articles about all aspects of the sathar from vehicles and weapons, to biology and social structure.

Grab your copy any enjoy!

July 29, 2019 Tom Leave a comment

The Streel Mega-corp

This article was inspired by the July RPG Blog Carnival topic, Movers & Shakers, hosted by the In My Campaign website.  Often the topics of the RPG Blog Carnival don’t really apply to sci-fi settings – like last month that was focused on the Fey – and so I don’t always have an entry.

But this month’s topic is generic enough.  And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I think that I might make this a regular feature here on the blog – diving into a specific organization to give background and details.  So you’ll probably see more material like this in the future.  And while this article is focused on an organization from the “canon” Star Frontiers material, it is definitely my take on the company and could be dropped into any game system with just a bit of tweaking.  This will also be true of any future organizations I detail as well.

I had originally planned to write this article last week, but decided to finish the Extended Frontier Map instead.  But now it’s time to talk about the Streel Corporation.

Streel Corporate logo

Streel is a mega-corp in the Star Frontiers game.  They are listed as the second largest mega-corp in the Frontier.  As such, they can play a major role in the game if the referee desires.  Personally, I use them regularly, especially if the PCs are near Truane’s Star, where they are headquartered.

History

The modern Streel Corporation has only existed since the end of the First Sathar War.  The current company represents a reorganization and realignment of the older Streele Mining Corporation that previously existed on the planet Pale in the Truane’s Star system.

Streele Mining was formed some 170 years ago by a pair of brothers, Dixon and Truane Streele.  Originally working on Gran Quivera, the brothers decided to try something bold and find a completely new world on which to work.  Their endeavors in the Prenglar system were very successful and they financed the construction of a small exploration vessel, hired a crew and set off into the unknown.

In a good-natured argument about who would get to name the first system, they decided to settle it with a game of dice and Dixon won.  Thus when they arrived in the star system some five lightyears northwest of Prenglar, it received the name Dixon’s Star.  Unfortunately, the habitable planet in that system was very dry and hot and not particularly hospitable.  Dixon decided to call it Laco because, in his words, it had a “lack o’ what they needed”.

The brothers continued to move out from Prenglar in the same general direction and after another 5 lightyear trip, came to the system now known as Truane’s Star, since he got to name the second system.  There were two habitable planets in this system, the inner one was hot, humid, and had dinosaur-like creatures, plus had a really high gravity at 1.4g, not the most inviting for setting up a mining operation.  The outer planet was a little on the cool side, but with lots of mountains and a 0.9g surface gravity, was much more inviting.  They arrived when most of the land mass was in winter and the planet, according to Dixon, “looked a bit pale” from all the snow.  Truane liked that and the planet earned its name.

They did some initial prospecting and found some viable sites but decided to return to Prenglar, resupply, and come back during the summer.  Upon their return, they set up operations in a mountain valley near a large lake and called the place Point True.  This initial settlement would eventually become the capitol of Pale and be the only settlement to survive the First Sathar War.

Streele mining continued to do well over the intervening decades between the original discovery and the Great Sathar War.  At the time of the war, they were a large profitable company with mines all over the planet, headquartered at Point True.  While not the largest company on Pale at the time of the invasion (that honor went to the Pan Galactic Corporation), they were definitely the dominant mining organization and responsible for nearly 80% of the mineral production on the planet.

When the sathar invaded, the company actively resisted the occupation, resulting in many of the upper leadership, including all of the Streele brothers’ grandchildren, being rounded up by the worms and either executed or carried off-world.  The fate of many of the companies leaders are still unknown to this day.

During the sathar occupation of Point True, one of Streele’s middle managers, a yazirian named Hilo Headrow, worked diligently to help both the company and the citizens of Point True survive and deal with hardships and troubles caused by the sathar.  While his methods were sometimes a bit ruthless and heavy-handed, and many likened him to a mob boss, it was hard to argue with his success, even if it sometimes went against company policy. He became somewhat of a folk hero and once the sathar were driven off, Hilo quickly rose through the remaining ranks of management to become the CEO.  He rebranded the company from Streele Mining to the Streel Corporation and quickly got the company involved in a large number of reconstruction projects in a variety of different areas, not just mining and resource development, diversifying the company’s portfolio and changing it from a mining company to an organization with a wide variety of interests.

With the planet’s government mostly destroyed by the invading sathar, Streel, under Hilo’s leadership, played a major role in governing the planet right after the war.  Hilo applied a very light hand in this regard and helped to quickly get the established government back up and running but with a pro-business leaning.

In the intervening decades, Streel has been a behind-the-scenes player in the planet’s government but has worked hard to establish an environmentally- and business- friendly climate that allows Streel and other businesses to flourish on the planet.

In that time, Streel has also expanded off-world and across the Frontier.  It is now widely considered the second most powerful mega-corp after Pan Galactic.

Goals & Activities

Hilo Headrow has, on many occasions, publicly stated that Streel intends to claim the number one mega-corp spot from Pan Galactic.  But they still have a way to go.  Unlike most of the new mega-corps, which tend to specialize on a single, or at most a few, areas of interest, Streel, like Pan Galactic, is a polyglot, covering a wide and diverse range of interests, and dabbling in almost everything.

All up and down the management chain, Streel has two main objectives: increase Streel’s, wealth, power, and influence, and be the dominant player, or at least beat out Pan Galactic, in their given area. Managers and employees are given wide latitude in accomplishing those goals.

Having really come into his own fighting the sathar in Point True, Hilo has extended this aggressive and militant mindset to all of the companies business endeavors.  The company is not above fighting hard and dirty to get what they want.  If you are up against a Streel team, expect them to be armed, aggressive, often underhanded, and not willing to back down.

The exception to this seems to be on Pale itself.  Encountering Streel agents on Pale, especially after having run afoul of them off-world, can seem like night and day.  On Pale, the company strives for collaboration, philanthropy, and even support of competitors.  This is a strategic decision on Hilo’s part.  He cultivates the “Hero of Point True” image he earned in the war and works hard to keep the company in the good graces of the citizens and government of the planet.  While reports often trickle back to Pale about aggressive Streel activities on other worlds, those reports don’t reflect the lived reality on the planet and are often ignored by the populace of Pale. Hilo, and by extension Streel, actively encourages new start-up companies realizing that if these small companies become truly innovative and profitable, they can often be bought out, thus adding their skills to Streel itself.  This has happened hundreds of times over the past decades.

Streel has fingers in everything including mining, banking, research, weapons, medicines, vehicles, computers, starships, and everything in between.  They are heavily involved in corporate espionage, and as mentioned, are not above using direct force to get what they want or push other organizations out of their way.

Current Organization

Streel is headquartered at Point True on Pale in the Truane’s Star System.  Hilo Headrow is the CEO and has a small board of directors that manage the overall company.

The company has two sets of vice presidents, with orthogonal jurisdictions.  The first set are the more traditional, business area vice presidents.  Each of these oversee an aspect of Streel’s endeavors such as mining, starship construction, banking, etc.  While a large number of these vice presidents are located on Pale, many are located on the worlds where Streel’s operations in their area are concentrated.  So the VP of Banking works out of the Streel offices on Gran Quivera in Prenglar and the VP of Mining is located on Pale, while the VP agriculture is located on New Pale.

The other set are the “Planetary” vice presidents.  They are effectively regional managers. Each of these VPs work and live on the planet in the Frontier where they are assigned.  There is a planetary vice president for each world where Streel has an operation, which is each of the settled worlds in the Frontier at this point.  While the business area VPs are responsible for the operations across the Frontier within their domain, the planetary VPs are responsible for managing and running all Streel operations on their planet of responsibility.  They handle resource allocation, personnel assignments, and dispute resolution within the company and act as the liaison to the planetary government.

At the lower levels of the business, the company is organized as desired by the business area VPs to best accomplish their goals.  There are large manufacturing planets, research groups, and small individual teams as needed to get the job done.

Hilo believes in taking care of his employees and Streel personnel are well paid and well taken care of.  Any Streel team in the field will have good, and plenty of, equipment to do their job. Employees tend to be very loyal to the company.

Potential Interactions

Since Streel has its fingers in everything, it is possible to run into Streel employees almost anywhere.  If someone in Streel management deems something important enough, they will have agents pursing that goal.  Some possibilities include low level corporate espionage, a raid on an outpost or research facility, sabotage of rival operations, or maybe just running into a group of Streel employees that just got off work.

While Streel has a reputation of being hard-nosed and cutthroat, that is often more a corporate stance than the personality of any random employee.  Most employees have their own individual personalities and don’t mirror the corporate image.  Unless of course you run into one of the troubleshooting teams.  They often live up to the stereotype and are probably its source (see my players in the “A New Can of Worms” game for an example). 

Streel is currently competing against Pan Galactic for control of the planet Laco, in the Dixon’s Star system, and the Tetrarch ruins on that world. If the PC’s are in the Dixon’s Star system and especially on Laco, they can expect to see, be caught up in, or hear about clashes between Pan Galactic and Streel as the corporate war between the two companies heats up on that planet.

It may even be that the characters are approached by Streel and offered positions in the company.  The pay will be good but they might be asked to do some morally questionable activities.

Some Adventure Seeds

In writing up this description several adventure ideas came to mind:

  • Tracking down the Streele descendants – This may or may not involve exploration into sathar controlled space, depending on what the Referee wants. In that case, the PCs will be trying to find out what happened to those residents of Pale that were carried away by the sathar during the war. Or it may be a cold-case murder mystery trying to track down records and witnesses from the time of the sathar occupation. It’s only been 50-60 years and with 200 year lifespans, many of those that lived through the occupation are still alive. No matter what, the PCs can expect opposition from Streel if they pursue this openly. Any of the Streele children would have a strong claim to retake the company from Hilo. He’s not too keen on that idea.
  • Hostile takeover – If the PCs have more of an entrepreneurial bent and are looking to set themselves up in some sort of business endeavor, they might have Streel show an interest in their work. On Pale, it might be cordial with assistance being offered to help them (at a cost in the future), or even an offer to join the company. Anywhere else, they might get the same treatment or may just have Streel agents show up to cause havoc attempting to sabotage or just bully them out of the way.
  • Unfriendly competition – The PCs are hired (or on assignment from their employer) to do a job or acquire some item or resource. If the goal is important enough, Streel is probably interested as well and there is probably a Streel team out there trying to get to it first. The Streel operatives can me as small or as large of an obstacle to the objective as the Referee wants.

Final Thoughts

Streel is a popular mega-corp in the game. I know of several other people who have developed and made Streel a major component of their game. They are the major antagonist in one of the published Star Frontiers modules, Mission to Alcazzar, so this isn’t really that surprising.

I’m curious to hear if you find this write-up useful and/or interesting. What additional information about an organization would make a description like this more readily usable for you at your table. Let me know and I’ll try to incorporate those aspects into future write-ups.

July 23, 2019 Tom 6 Comments

Extended Frontier Map – final update – Referee’s Map

Okay, I had planned to do a different post this week as part of this month’s RPG blog carnival but that will have to wait. I decided instead to just push through and finish the Expanded Frontier Map instead.

Corrections

If you downloaded the color player’s map from last week’s post, go back and do it again. As I was working on the final map, I found a bunch of mistakes that I completely missed while working on last week’s map. Most of them are minor, like names overlapping jump lines, but a few of them are pretty bad like names overlapping each other or running over jump distances. In any case, I’ve fixed those and uploaded new maps to the links in that article.

Adding the Sathar

The only difference between this map and the previous one is that I’ve added in all the jump routes known by the sathar as well as some labels on the map that give the location of the sathar homeworld, their ten starship construction centers, and the location of their Tetrarch ruins complex similar to the one on Laco (If you are following the timeline posts, this is where the signal went out to and was returned from). I haven’t defined which of these systems are actually inhabited by sathar, I’m leaving that up to the individual referee to decide.

Let’s start by showing the black and white version of the map and then I’ll talk about how I filled it in.

Extended Frontier map containing all the sathar jump routes and system labels.
Sathar jump routes are shown in red. Click for full scale version.

Jump Routes

As you can see, most of the sathar systems are up and to the right of the Frontier. This is the their main population center. The tendrils that surround the Frontier tend to be more outposts and travel lanes than population centers.

In addition to the jump routes marked in red, it is assumed that the sathar know all the UPF routes marked in black as well.

The routes don’t extend to the left side of the map as the sathar stopped their expansion in that direction after encountering the Rim. They were also stopped by that big nebula in the upper left. I have plans for some of the star systems up in that area on the far side of the nebula.

I consider the jump routes along the bottom of the map, from Saurian space, past Liberty, into S’esseu space, and then up to Prenglar to be newly explored routes. In fact, in the current version of my background material, the starship construction center just south of PanGal, labeled SCC#1, is still under construction and hasn’t even started producing ships yet in my timeline project.

When I first made this map back in the 80’s, I didn’t have Zeb’s Guide and obviously none of the fan material existed so this region of space looked a little different on my original map (I should probably scan that in and post it for reference). But the idea was that these routes were established to give the sathar the jump route right into Prenglar in the Second Sathar War game in the Knight Hawks Campaign book allowing them to strike at the heart of the Frontier. In creating this map, I modified my original concept to work through these modified regions of space. It also provides an opportunity for interdiction as the UPF could potentially cut off some of the Sathar routes.

Starship Construction Centers

The numbering on the starship construction centers may seem a little odd and requires a little bit of explanation. I originally built this map for two purposes. The first was to give me a more strategic level view to write a Second Sathar War timeline, taking into account sathar ship production as well as the UPF ship production. I wanted to see how the balance of forces would work if you stuck to the rules on ship construction. This is now being realized in my timeline project.

The other was to provide a larger Frontier region for a big exploration campaign inspired by the Beyond the Frontier series of adventures (SFKH 2-4) where the PCs would explore out from Truane’s Star upward on the map. I have had the beginnings of that campaign in a notebook for literally decades. Maybe it’s time to dust it off and use it for material here on the blog.

It’s the former purpose that resulted in the numbering of the starship construction centers. I originally had the ones labeled 1-5 dedicated to the Second Sathar War effort. They were strictly producing military vessels with which the sathar would be attacking the Frontier. And I just started at the one connected to the Prenglar jump route and numbered them counter-clockwise.

SCCs number 6-9 were added in to provide “civilian” ship construction for the sathar population and exploration away from the Frontier. They are not labeled on my original map but were added in as part of this project. The final SCC, #10, was added as part of my timeline project to provide the production capacity for the Sathar offensive against the Saurians. I’ll probably do another post about the production capabilities of all these construction centers at some point in the future.

The Sathar Homeworld

The sathar homeworld is labeld on my original map. I had always envisioned it as a slightly cooler star than the sun with their home planet close relatively close in and warm and muggy. As such, I’ve given it a K4 spectral type on the map. Someday I might actually design and write up the system.

The Final Color Map

Now that we have the background information covered and everything else in place, it was time to make the final color version of the map.

This was done in two steps. First, I made a separate data file that had all the star systems again but instead of the jump routes known to the UPF, it contained the jump routes known only to the sathar. Using this, I generated a new map.

Since the map is generated with the jump routes on different layers, the second step was to just open the new map, and copy everything off the jumps route layer, open the Player’s map, create a new layer for the sathar jumps, and paste them in. I then had to adjust the position of all the features after pasting them in but that was just a matter of looking up the position in the original image and entering that in to the final image.

Of course, it really wasn’t that simple. The last step in adding the jumps was to adjust the color. The program makes all jumps in white. I simply changed the color to red in the final map. But that does give me an idea for an enhancement in the program, namely allowing the user to specify the link color.

The next step was to add the sathar specific labels. To do this I created a second names layer that I could add in the labels for the sathar homeworld, the starship construction centers, and the Tetrarch complex. Since the sathar jumps and labels are on separate layers, I can turn them on and off as need to make a player or referee version of the map as needed.

The final step was simply clean up. I went through the entire map and moved star labels and jump route distance labels in order to have the map as clean and clear as possible and fix and small issues the program has in drawing the labels. This is where I discovered the errors in the original version of the Player’s map and fixed them. And since the sathar names and jumps were on separate levels in the image, it was easy to re-export that map.

And that was it. The map is now done. (Unless I find some more typos as I start using it.) Here it is in all it’s glory.

The sathar jump routes don’t quite show up at the resolution of this preview. Click for the full sized version (~4.5 MB). There is also a very high resolution version (~20 MB) available.

The Code

Again, if you want to play with the code and make your own maps, it is written in Python and you can grab it from my GitHub repository. I’m going to continue to work on this code. This will be to add in the remaining features it’s lacking to make it more user friendly such as command-line options, the jump route colors, and creation of nebula, but those will fall under a different article title going forward. If I get really ambitious, I might even add in a GUI to make it a windowed program instead of a command line one. We’ll see. I’m curious how much interest there would be in that project.

Final Thoughts

This has been a fun project. I’ve really enjoyed doing it. As you can probably tell by the number of posts I’ve made. And I love the look of the final map. If you see any errors, feel free to let me know and I can update the map to correct them.

I think if I was doing this again, I would make the map dimensions a little different. This map was original made by taping together six sheets of graph paper (landscape orientation). while that ended up with a nearly square work area, it wasn’t quite. The map is 90 ly wide by 100 ly tall. If I were to do it again, I’d make it either perfectly square, or conform to a more standard aspect ratio.

I’m also curious if anyone would be interested in a printed, poster sized version of the map. 24×27 inches. This is actually what prompted my thoughts on the dimensions. As a purely digital product, the aspect ratio doesn’t matter. But when you try to print it, you start to run into problems. I’ve been looking at possible printing options, and while most of them want you to use a standard aspect ratio (16×24, 24×36, 12×18, or square), I have found a few that would let me print it to exact size. Final costs would be in the $15-$25 dollar range for the 24×27 inch one. If that is something that would interest you, let me know in the comments. I might do this as a small Kickstarter for those that are interested.

And that wraps up the the Extended Frontier Map project. Let me know your thoughts, ideas, and any remaining questions you have about the project and let me know if you’d like to see more things like this in the future.

July 16, 2019 Tom 5 Comments

Expanded Frontier Map – update 5 – The Player Map

Woo-hoo, we’re approaching the end of this particular project. In this update we present the final* “Player” version of the Expanded Frontier Map, both the color and black and white versions. This version just contains the systems and jump routes known by the UPF as presented in the rules, modules, and some fan content.

(* Final assuming I don’t find any typos and such)

Changes

First up, as I was generating the data for the color version of the map, I realized that there were just way too many neutron stars on the map. There’s one on the original AD map, five on the Zeb’s Guide map, and I had added in a couple dozen or so more.

One is too many for this volume of space. You might find one (anything is possible) but beyond that is really stretching it. However, since the five are in the original materials, I left them in. I also left in two of the ones I added in the lower left of the map. This puts all the neutron stars in the Frontier region and towards the Vast Expanse. Maybe there’s an explanation for that.

For all the other neutron stars, I replaced them with multiple star systems. That changed two dozen stars systems from neutron stars to multiple star systems, some with as many as five stars.

In comments on the previous update, it was pointed out that I forgot to label Mechan, the world in Zeb’s Guide where the Mechanons fled to when they left Volturnus in the Zeb’s Guide timeline. I don’t typically include that event in my games which is why I probably forgot to include it. Mechan is just up and to the right of Scree Fron on the map. That just required changing the label.

In fixing the labeling on Mechan, I also noticed that the Zeb’s Guide map adds another star 3 light years above Mechan near Capella. So I added a star in there as well.

As far as I can tell, that fixes everything.

The Black and White Version

So that gives us the new and updated black and white version of the map.

The Color Version

Creating the color version was mostly a matter a generating a large number of random systems and then positioning them on the map. Since I had to manually update all the positions, that took a couple hours of work to get all the data into the file and the coordinates updated.

After that, I could generate the rough map with my mapping software. The next step was to go through by hand and tweak the position all the labels that needed to be moved. There actually weren’t that many, I just had to move a few names and a few of the jump distances so that they were not overlapping any of the jump route lines. That cleaned up in just a few minutes.

The other major portion of the map was creating all the nebula. Since I had the outlines of them on the black and white map. I just copied (and scaled) those outlines to the color map. In a few places where the B&W map has little wisps of nebula next to the big ones, I connected them as the process I use to create the nebula would make those wisp-like areas.

This actually took less time than I was expecting. Since I was working zoomed out on the map, the rendering went fairly quickly. Whenever I zoomed in, however, it would take some time to redraw the screen due to all the detail in the nebula. From the earlier sample map, which was zoomed in, I had experienced a bunch of slow down and was expecting the same here. I thought I was going to have to do the nebula on a series of layers so that I could turn them off and on. That wasn’t actually necessary and this process only took a couple of hours instead of the several hours I was expecting.

The hardest part for me was picking colors. The truth is that there probably wouldn’t be any nebula in this part of space but since they look cool and were included in the original material, they are part of the map. I tried to pick colors for them based on the stars that were around as most of the nebula would be reflection nebula since none of the stars in the area put out that much ionizing radiation to cause the gas to glow on its own. I’m not completely happy with it but I like it. This is something that might get revisited at some future date.

The next step was adding in a legend. This also might get redone in the future to include each of the different stellar colors but it is good enough for now.

Finally, I decided I didn’t like the flat black background but wanted there to be a bunch of faint “distant” stars speckling the background of the image. To get that effect was pretty simple. I just applied the Textures->Cracked Glass filter to the black background layer. I’ll admit that I got lucky here and it applied the exactl level of background noise that I wanted. There are other filter combinations that would work as well but that was good for now.

With that done, I signed it and exported the final image.

This is a scaled down image. Clicking on the image above downloads the medium resolution one which is the same scale as the black and white map (4 MB) There is also a full, super high-res version (18 MB).

Up Next

The next step is to do the Sathar worlds and jump routes. Since all the stars are there, all I need to do is add in the links and update some labels. That will be the topic of the next and final (at least for a while) update.

Share you questions, comments, and impressions in the comment are below.

July 9, 2019 Tom 1 Comment

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY60.145 to FY60.175

Here’s the next installment of the detailed Frontier Timeline.

Date (FY)Event
60.146 Strike Force Nova departs the Timeon system to return to Prenglar.
60.147 Saboteurs damage the CDC shipyards around Triad, reducing capacity by 27%.  The initial hull of the Spacefleet battleship is completely destroyed.  Work on the ship will have to be restarted once the wreckage is cleared away.
60.148 Ninland (Minotaur, Theseus) announces the construction of a new Volturnus themed series of attractions allowing for experiences native to that world.
60.149 SynthCorp unveils a line of “edible paintballs” for the dralasite youth market on Inner Reach. Bloop’s “Every Flavor” Battle Balls are launched with a massive paint ball tourney through downtown Synthtown (Inner Reach, Dramune). The only real losers are those that got tagged by the “rotten egg” flavored balls.
60.150 With the prospect of several new ships coming on-line in the next few years, Spacefleet starts a recruitment effort to grow its officer ranks in anticipation of staffing the new ships.
60.151 Loading complete, the first saurian Ark ship departs Kischen to search out a new home for the saurian race. This ship heads away from the Frontier, skirting the Vast Expanse.
60.152 Construction begins on the ZKKDA assault scout for the K’aken-Kar system militia.
60.153 CDC shipyard around Triad (Cassidine) completes initial cleanup and begins repairs.  Work on the Spacefleet battleship is restarted.  Construction of the CDCSS Mystic delayed as repairs to the shipyard take precedence.
60.154 The TTSS Destiny returns to the White Light system after visiting the Theseus system.  After a brief stay it will continue its Grand Tour through the Vrusk and Dralasite loop of the Frontier.
60.155 Strike Force Nova returns to the Prenglar system where the ships will undergo some routine maintenance before continuing patrol.  It will be in the system for 19 days. 
60.156 Sathar starship construction center near Fromeltar completes construction of a frigate
60.157 Pirate frigate seized by Pale militia completes its refit and departs on its maiden cruise as a militia vessel, the TSSS Tiger, with a new crew. 
60.158 Forty days after the hatching of the first crèche of Eorna eggs from the lost egg ship, five of the babies have passed away due to unknown illnesses.  Eorna scientists are scrambling to find the cause of the deaths and prevent the loss of the other newborns.
60.159 The TSSS Tiger, on patrol in the outer Pale system, is set upon by a pair of unidentified assault scouts. Severely damaged, it manages to drive off one of the assault scouts after destroying the other. Other militia assets are dispatched to investigate the wreckage at the Tiger returns to port.
60.160 Pale starship construction center repairs bring it up to 75% capacity.
60.161 The TSSS Tiger returns to the Pale starship construction center where it will spend the next 19 days undergoing extensive repairs.
60.162 Sathar starship construction center near Zebulon completes a light cruiser
60.163 The Yaziria Heritage Foundation’s exploration ship, the HSS History’s Hope, completes its refit in the Hentz (Araks) starship construction center and begins its maiden voyage to Histran (Scree Fron).
60.164 After several weeks of investigation, the probe into the source of Ixiol has made little progress. Believed to be produced by Malco Enterprises, there is no firm evidence as several key agents have vanished while investigating in the Dramune system.
60.165 Several “flavors” of SynthCorp’s Bloop’s Every Flavor Battle Balls are recalled due to many reported incidents of strange side effects. While the company and MSO investigate, they remain popular and often jokingly referred to as “Missing Every Flavor” Battle Balls.
60.166 The Spire Dragons begin the next stage of their ascent of Mt. Spire (Lossend, Timeon) from their second advance camp halfway up the mountain.
60.167 News leaks of an attack against the corporate headquarters of Nesmith Enterprises of Triad (Malicon Valley, Triad, Cassidine) resulting in the theft of several advanced computer designs and system controls.  NET has not made any official announcement of the incident.
60.168 Nesmith Enterprises of Triad releases a statement confirming the security breach and indicates that it was executed by unnamed agents of a rival mega-corp working under sathar control.  The company is working with Star Law to investigate the incident.  No details are given as to what technology may have been compromised.
60.169 The “Beyond the Frontier” committee generates its first report with two major proposals. First that Spacefleet vessels be sent to investigate the signals being received in the Gruna Garu system and second, that a Frontier Expeditionary Force be established to begin probing the systems outside the current Frontier borders.
60.170 Word leaks out that some of the technologies lost by the raid on Nesmith Enterprises include command and control systems used on many of the starships in the Frontier. Concerns for the security of Spacefleet and civilian vessels arise.
60.171 Several Interplanetary Industries computer systems across the Frontier randomly lock up and shut down disrupting manufacturing and other business processes. Eventually restored after several hours, millions of credits are lost due to lost productivity.
60.172 Interplanetary Industries (II) launches an investigation into the cause of the disruption to determine the cause and how best to prevent it from occurring again. Rumors indicate it was an attack by a rival mega-corp. As Nesmith Enterprises is II’s biggest rival (ZG), initial suspicion falls on them.
60.173 The HSS History’s Hope arrives at Histran (Scree Fron).  Preparations begin for its journey into the unknown to attempt to reach the system believed to house Yaziria, the yazirian homeworld.
60.174 Strike Force Nova departs the Prenglar system headed to Gruna Garu on a patrol of the “yazirian” loop of the Frontier.  The patrol direction is dictated by the Council of Worlds so that the Strike Force can investigate the signals being received there.
60.175 – The life support system on Spacefleet’s armed station orbiting Triad shuts down and locks out all access. Control is restored after several tense hours as evacuation plans are organized but ultimately not needed.
– As this station incident seems to be related to the Nesmith Enterprises incident, Star Law doubles down on its investigation of that event quarantining the station and not allowing anyone to leave.

And here’s the PDF of the full timeline to download if you wish.

DetailedFrontierTimeline-1Download
July 2, 2019 Tom Leave a comment
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