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Monthly Archives: August 2020

August RPG Blog Carnival – What we need is … more focus

This is going to be a bit of an introspective post (and a bit late again).

RPG Blog Carnival Logo

I’m a bit behind in reading through all the posts on the blogs I follow and finally read the kickoff post for August’s RPG Blog Carnival which is being hosted by Campaign Mastery. The topic is “What We Need Is/Are …” When reading the post, I had to chuckle at the comment that “more prep time” wasn’t a good answer given the current COVID-19 situation.

But to be completely honest, that really is one of the things that I need. Since the pandemic shutdowns started, I’ve actually had less free time to do gaming activities than I had before this all started. I already worked from home full time before the pandemic. My wife was still going to work every day. And I had all of my kids home full time, many of them still in school and even over the summer, trapped in the house without friends to distract them and keep them out of my hair. I could definitely use more time. But since that is off the table, I have something else to write about.

To be honest, I hadn’t planned on doing a blog carnival post this month, but as I was driving to pick up one of my kids from work (the joys of having 6 people working and only 3 cars), I was mulling over the topic and the thought hit me that what I really need, more than more time, is more focus on what I spend my time on.

And that got me thinking about all the irons I have in the fire.

Myriads of Projects

Not counting my full-time job, plus my wife and seven kids and all the things that go along with that, here’s a list of all the different hobby projects that I’m involved with or have on-going.

Obviously, the biggest part of my distraction revolves around the Star Frontiers RPG. For many years now, I’ve sort of been the primary torch bearer for the game in the on-line communities. With that comes a number of projects.

Websites & Social Media

To start I host all of the following websites on my personal server here at my house:

  • This site
  • The Star Frontiers Network (starfrontiers.info) – wiki and on-line game forums
  • Star Frontiers: Join the Revival (starfrontiers.us) – forums, development projects, character generator, and other items.
  • The Frontier Explorer fanzine (frontierexplorer.org) – currently active
  • The Star Frontiersman fanzine (starfrontiersman.com) – currently dormant

I didn’t initially create all of those sites (just 3), but have inherited them over the years as the original owners have drifted off to other things.

With the exception of possibly this site (which is relatively new) and the Star Frontiersman site (which I rebuilt when I inherited it), the others are all in desperate need of of updating. Two of them date from 2007 and one from 2012. I have standing projects to update all of those sites to new technologies. But those are daunting tasks and require a lot of dedicated time.

In addition to the websites, I’m a founding member or admin on multiple social media platforms including a Facebook group and a Discord server. There are a few others but they are not nearly as active (or were shut down as in the case of the Google Plus group). Each of those also compete for some of my time.

Fanzines

Circling back, the Frontier Explorer fanzine is still active. With the exception of the year we took off at the request of Wizards of the Coast (due to the attempt to acquire the trademark by Evil Hat), we’ve put out an issue every 3 months. I’m getting ready to start working on issue 30. This takes up a significant chunk of my time the 6 weeks prior to each issue being released.

Related to the Frontier Explorer, I’ve done two starship technical manuals in the past that were full products by themselves and released in the “Frontier Explorer Presents” line. I’ve been asked about doing another one on the HSS History’s Hope which I’m considering. We are also in the editing and art stage on another Frontier Explorer Presents” publication that will be a short story collection based around the Khad’dan, a fan-created Yazirian honor weapon.

And we are also looking at resurrecting the Star Frontiersman magazine to be a vehicle for publishing adventures in, separate from the Frontier Explorer. I have several submissions from authors that might end up there.

Another project in this category waiting for my attention is an on-line index of all the articles from all of the fanzines and the old Dragon, Imagine, Polyhedron, and Ares articles. I have that list mostly compiled (it was complete up the the hiatus), but still need to make it searchable on-line.

Finally, there is the project to get all the articles on-line in HTML format as opposed to just the magazine PDFs. Some of that is done and we had the intention of doing that for all the Frontier Explorer articles originally, but that fell by the wayside early on (issue 7) and I’ve never gotten back to it.

Blogging

Then there is this blog. The writing of each article takes 1-2 hours, sometimes more, depending on the topic and length. And that doesn’t count all the time that goes into making the content that I’m writing about.

Which brings me to the next list. Namely projects that I’m working on related to this blog.

  • Detailed Frontier Timeline
  • Death at Rosegard adventure
  • Ghost Ship Osiris adventure
  • 3D ship models
  • New starship construction rules
  • probably others I’m forgetting

Long time readers should recognize the items there. Newer readers can peruse the archive to find my posts on those projects.

I have a couple of other blogs that are no longer active. One of the things I’ve been meaning to do is consolidate all the writing I’ve done on those blogs into a sort of “blog archive” on my personal site (thomasstephens.info)

Active Games

Next there are the on-line Star Frontiers games I’m either running (Skills for Hire) or playing in (a Second Sathar War game from the Knight Hawks Campaign Book). The SSW game doesn’t take up a lot of time but it does consume some. Prepping for the Skills for Hire game, on the other hand, does take a fair bit of work as I need to prepare adventure outlines, maps, etc. for each adventure. The goal was to have a weekly session. I quickly discovered that I didn’t have time to prep for that and so dropped back to bi-weekly. But recently, as my players can attest, even that hasn’t been possible. On the flip side, this prep does give me items to share as blog posts here.

Podcasts

Addendum: I completely forgot about the podcast projects until after I posted the article originally. I want to start a podcast as well a post the audio from my on-line games on-line. The game sessions are recorded. I just need to convert them into an audio format and get them posted.

As for a regular podcast, I have several ideas (and did one a decade ago) but with all the other projects, this has just never gotten off the ground. Maybe it won’t happen. But it is definitely something I want to do. One idea I’ve had is to do a discussion of the Star Frontiers rules. Start at the beginning and go through them discussing the rules, how they work, and various fan-created variations.

Other Projects

In addition to all of that, there are a few other projects kicking around. One is my Second Sathar War computer game. I started that a long time ago. It’s about 90% of the way to the full base functionality. It works (except for seeker missiles and repairs) but needs a lot of polish (and a few bug fixes). I haven’t really worked on it recently (other than to get it working on Windows 10 a couple of years back) but it’s always sitting there in back of my mind begging for attention.

Another project is a pair of books I’m writing. One is a sequel to my book Discovery. That is roughly outlined and has one small section written. The other is a Star Frontiers story set on Pale when the sathar attack that planet. That one is outlined and I have about 1/4-1/3 (~56000 words) of the first draft done. Both of those are projects I’d like to get back to.

Next, there is some freelance stuff I do including indexing games for DWD Studios (publishers of FrontierSpace), editing FrontierSpace modules for Trevor Holman, and I’m on tap to do some science nuggets to include in the upcoming Space Kids RPG by Nick Landry. Those are hit and miss but when they come up, they can take most if not all of my free time for any given week.

Finally there are my other blogs and website, most notably my personal site (thomasstephens.info) and my game company site (newfrontiergames.com) Both need a lot of work.

I’m sure there are other things I’ve worked on (and probably not finished) that could go here but this list is already long enough as it is.

Gaining Focus

As you can see from the list above, I have a lot of irons in the fire. While I’m not necessarily actively working on all of those things, they are are there hoping to gain my attention. And because there are so many options, I can get easily distracted bouncing between them all. Hence the need for more focus.

I’m not sure what the best path forward for me is right now. The Frontier Explorer and this blog are definitely my highest priorities. Mostly because I enjoy them, but partially because they actively generate some income (through their respective Patreon campaigns) that I use to keep the websites going, cover my time spent working on them, and reinvest into time or resources for other projects. If you like the magazines and the blog, and want to encourage me to keep them going, consider supporting the Patreon campaigns for the Frontier Explorer (per issue) or this blog (monthly).

Even just the blog suffers from a bit (okay, may a lot) of a lack of focus. There are a lot of topics I’ve covered and would like to continue covering. To focus on fewer of them may mean that I don’t post as often as there won’t be anything to post about. So I could see the blog slowing down if needed. I’ve been consistently getting out at least a post a week (even though some, like this one, don’t get out on time at 8am on Tuesdays) for over two years but maybe I need to scale that back a bit. The real question is where to put my focus.

For all the other projects, I think what I need is to sit down and really prioritize them. Then focus on one until it’s done and move on to the next. I think part of the problem is that the huge number of projects creates a large cognitive load as they are all vying for attention and so I can’t pick just one and I spend a lot of time thinking back and forth and don’t make any progress.

The only other thing is the on-line games. As much as I love them, they are a huge time sink and I often find prepping for the game I’m running takes all my free time and then some. Maybe the option there is to fall back to one session a month. Although they do help generate content for the blog that are inline with my original goal for the blog, namely to create and provide resources that others can use in their games.

What’s Next?

I’m not sure. This is going to take some more thinking. I might have more to say about this in my next State of the Frontier post next week. Or it may take a bit more time to sort all of this out. School just started and that might free up time (as I have the kids around less during the day and so get less distracted from work that I have to make up later) or if they shut down due to COVID-19 again, it may mean less free time like it did last March and April.

But this is a chance for you, dear readers, to chime in. Which of all the projects I’ve listed above would you like to see more of? Which should I focus on? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

August 25, 2020 Tom 9 Comments

Skills for Hire – Rescue

I always forget how long it takes me to get back into my regular routine after a big family vacation. Which is why this post is going up a little later in the day than normal.

Two weeks ago the players in my Skills for Hire game finished this adventure so it’s time to post up the adventure notes. This time around, I’m going to post them as is, exactly as I have them written down, so you can see what I was working off of. I’ll also provide a quick summary of the way it actually played out. Hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll get the audio of the session on-line as well.

Adventure Outline

What follows are my notes for the adventure, as I had them written down for me to use. As you’ll see, there isn’t a lot there, just some basic notes and names and general events that I wanted to happen. These are literally my crib notes.

The setup

The daughter (Brandi) of a prominent politician (Carter Albach, wife: Melody) has been kidnapped by organized crime bosses that the politician won’t bow to.  The police, probably in the crime lord’s pay, are taking too long and not making progress.  The mercenaries are being hired to get the young woman (22 years old) back.

Major segments

This list was my original idea of the major segments of the adventure, the PCs pretty much skipped over 2 and 4 was really short as well due to the actions they took.

  1. Finding the location
  2. Surveillance
  3. Springing her free
  4. Getting safely home

Details

She’s being held in a manor house in Myra’s Beach.  The manor is owned by a yazirian, Gornar Welnat, who owns several of the larger hotels/resorts in the city.  He is also the head of a local organized crime operation, the Tristars. 

Tristars are a known organization in the city but no one knows exactly the extent of their operations.  Some members are known for generally bullying but there are other members that are more into more sophisticated endeavors including controlling some of the local police and businesses in town.

Brandi and her friend (Jula Keray) were visiting Myra’s Beach for the weekend and met up with a group of others their age.  Heading back to their hotel from the beach with two young men (Karl, tall blond, & Christian, shorter, dark haired), they were accosted by a group of thugs who hit them with a doze grenade.  Jula woke up alone a few minutes later in the small street where they were ambushed.  Neither Bandi nor the two young men (who are part of the gang) were anywhere to be seen. 

This list was the breadcrumb trail that I had envisioned for them finding the location of the Julia at the manor. They mostly skipped over #2 but otherwise this was the path first session of the adventure took (except for #6; they didn’t find that out until they were in the manor).

  1. Jula can describe/identify the tattoo of the three stars the young men had (https://starfrontiers.info/pics/SkillsForHire/TriStarLogo0.png)
  2. Showing that mark around will identify the Tristar group but people won’t say much about it beyond that it’s a local group/gang.  They either don’t know anything or are afraid to talk.
  3. After poking around, the team will get accosted by a group of young thugs from the Tristars
  4. Capture of one of the members will point them to a bar where they hang out.
  5. At the bar they can catch a middle level member of the gang (dralasite, Garzdan) that can point them to the manor.
  6. Brandi is being held in the upper rooms of the left tower.

The manor

As I noted in my write-up of the manor, a lot of specifics were left unstated so the Referee could customize it as needed for their adventure. This section was my specifics for this adventure and the PCs I had on hand. I didn’t want it too tough as they are early level characters but I didn’t want it too easy either.

Level 2 locks on offices

Level 1 locks on bedrooms except on master bedroom – level 4 there

The door to the room where Brandi is being held is level 3

During the day, there are typically 15-20 beings in the manor.  Mostly business men or staff with a five being security detail in the manor and five more about the grounds.   There are 2 security robots, 4 maintenance robots, and 2 service robots.

At night, there are 8 people living at the manor, Brandi, and a 2 man security detail in the building and four on the grounds.  Plus the 2 security robots.

Running the Adventure

That was everything. Combined with the work I had done on the city of Myha’s Beach, the Brekstoone Manor, and the Tristars, that was what I used to run the adventure.

When I was creating the adventure, I suspected that in this case, the challenge was going to require to sessions. I just didn’t see a way for them to get through it all in a single 4-hour block. And it turned out I was right.

I had my biggest group yet for the first session with 8 players. However, due to audio difficulties, one of the players had to drop out. The PCs got to their start point in Myha’s Beach, and after talking with Jula, investigated the location of the attack. They correctly surmised that the two young men were part of the organization that had captured Brandi.

A pair of characters then went looking for groups that were rivals of the Tristars (something I hadn’t anticipated and had to make up on the spot). However, their investigation rolls went so badly that they found a group of Tristars instead and a fight ensued (#3 from above). They wounded several of the thugs and drove three of the four off. The fourth had been knocked out so they took him back to their base of operations for questioning. Under Telol, he revealed the location of a couple places that the Tristars liked to hang out (#4) as well as some other information about the organization including his contact up the line.

They picked one of the locations (the closer one), a restaurant/bar near the old town and planned a raid. Three of the team members went in and got a table to scope out the establishment and try to identify the upper level member identified. The others took up positions around the building including Joey, the humma, watching the back door.

Only about 1/3 of the beings in restaurant were members of the Tristars but they were are clustered to a side of the dining area. With their target identified, the three PCs in the building all tossed doze grenades into the area where the Tristars were seated. At this point pandemonium ensued as the diners all tried to get out of what appeared to be a battle scene. Luckily for the PCs all but 3 of the gang members succumbed to the doze gas. Unfortunately, their target (a dralasite) was one that didn’t. They waded in with stunsticks and electrostunners while other PCs tried to get into the building through the outflow of panicked diners.

Despite several successful attacks on the target, he hadn’t be knocked out, although they had knocked out the other two gang members. At that point, one of the PCs who had gotten in from the outside, a vrusk, fired his laser rifle into the ceiling (set at 1 SEU) and bellowed “Stop!” A very successful (rolled a 1) Leadership check and everyone in the building froze, including their target as he was about to slip out the door into the kitchens. The other PCs hit him once again and he collapsed. Scooping the dralasite up, they slipped out through the kitchen and the back door. They made their way to a place they could be picked up by aircar and flew back to their base of operations.

Questioning the new prisoner with Telol, they learned that he was not involved in any way with, nor had any knowledge of, the kidnapping but that if it had happened, they would probably be holding the girl in Brekstoone Manor. They also gained a bit more information about the organization. That ended the first session.

The second session opened with them trying to decide how to best assault the Manor. Calling several different pizza parlors to schedule a delivery to the manor gates at the same time to create a diversion, they went around to the forested region of the grounds and used the trees, the yazirian gliding ability, and some rope to get them over the walls and onto the grounds. Slipping through the forest, they watched the house from the edge of the trees where they discovered two security robots making rounds around the manor and the occasional random patrol by a human guard as well.

Timing the robot patrol, the roboticist dashed across the open space and attempted to disable the lead robot. Failing to remove the security lock on his first attempt, the robot smacked him with it’s hands doing a good amount of damage. The roboticist got the security lock off on the next round and after taking some more damage, disabled the robot. They dragged it into the garage and everyone else joined them there. In the garage they found a nice sports car, and explorer, and two hoverbikes. I considered having the robot sound an alarm, but since they were doing so well, I decided to give them until the second robot came back around and would have it sound the alarm. But they got under cover before it spotted them.

When the second robot came around they jump it in the same manner. The only complication was that just as that was happening the human guard came walking around the manor from the opposite direction. Luckily, one of the PCs was waiting for this and hit him with anesthetic needler darts and knocked him out. Dragging him in the garage along with the other robot, they relieved the guard of his id card and keys and the roboticist went to work reprogramming the robots to go patrol the outer wall instead of around the manor (They didn’t have time to do anything more complicated and didn’t want the robots completely off-line.

Using the guard’s keys, they entered the manor from the back on both the main level and the first floor balcony. Carefully working through the rooms of the manor, they found someone in the library who they stunned and tied up. They heard noises coming from the stairs to the basement and posted a guard there. They also heard noises from one of the offices on the second floor. Tossing in a doze grenade, they knocked out the occupant there. That turned out to be the security offices and since the occupant didn’t have time to react, the computer was still logged in. They were able to turn off all the door locks and alarms.

Checking the rest of the rooms they discovered that this floor was just offices and took the elevator up to level 3. While one group covered the hallways, a couple of PCs opened on of the doors to discover a bedroom. The noise of the door opening woke the person sleeping and the first PC took a shot with his needler rifle and while he hit, it did not knock the occupant back out. Kneeling down so the person behind him could take a shot as well, he discovered that it was the humma who only had a laser rifle and no non-lethal weapons. The humma took a shot (3 SEU) and hit the occupant squarely in the chest who cried out from the injury. They asked th injured occupant where the girl was and he told them across the hall. The first PC then took another shot with the needler and this time knocked out the occupant. However, the occupant’s chronocom came to life asking if he was okay. They texted back that he was fine.

Quickly moving across they hall, they tried the door into the tower and found a small sitting room with stairs going up. Ascending the stairs they found Brandi sitting on her bed in the room at the top of the tower. First thinking that they were more Tristar goons, she gave them a bit of lip but after discovering who they were, she went with them.

While they were in the tower getting Brandi, Gornar, the owner of the Manor and head of the Tristars, came out of his suite, electrostunner in hand to investigate the noises come from the room right below his bedroom (and he didn’t believe the text). However, the group watching the hall were ready and got the drop on him. Hitting him with an electrostunner of their own and knocking him out.

They left him lying on the floor and made their way down to the ground floor of the manor. While they were searching the building, the roboticist had finished reprogramming the robots, parked the explorer blocking the front door with the explorer’s side door open, and then went into the building. They made their way to the front door and loaded Brandi and part of the team into the explorer. The others went out the back door to the garage and some took the sports car while one of them climbed on a hoverbike.

They they headed for the main gate of the grounds and back into the city. They were expecting to have to ram the gate with the explorer but the gate’s sensors recognized the vehicles and opened for them. They ducked into the the first public parking area near the grounds and the beach and called for their aircar pickup. Being the middle of the night, there was only one other car in the parking lot and no one to be seen nearby. They dumped the keys to the Tristar’s vehicles in the lone car, loaded into the aircars, and flew back to Point True.

Amazingly, they managed to do the entire adventure without actually killing anyone. It was a close thing in the manor and they definitely roughed up a few people but no one was actually killed. It was a fun adventure and I enjoyed seeing how they PCs handled the various situations.

August 18, 2020 Tom 1 Comment

Brekstoone Manor

In my post on Myha’s Beach back in June, I had this little snippet:

Front view of the manor (click for larger image)

The city’s growth northward was effectively halted in FY18 with the construction of Brekstoone Manor. The manor is simply referred to as Observatory Manor by the locals, due to the large observatory dome on the manor’s north tower. The Brekstoone family secured a large tract of land that ran from the sea several kilometers inland on which they built the manor. With no more room northward to grow, the town continued to grow southward.

This post is going to detail out that Manor.

I’ve had the maps done for a while, but I was waiting for the most recent adventure of my Skills for Hire game to finish as the Manor was where they had to go find the young lady they were rescuing. I didn’t want to give away the details of the manor to my players so it had to wait until the adventure was complete. They successfully rescued the prisoner and managed to do so without killing anyone. (Although that was a close thing as the humma in the group didn’t have a non-lethal weapon and almost blew someone’s chest out with his laser rifle. But now the adventure is done and I can post the details of the manor.

History

As mentioned above, the manor was built in FY18 by the Brekstoone family north of Myha’s beach. Their land included both beach-front property as well as some forested property back away from the beach.

Manor Grounds. The black lines are 5m high walls around the property, grey is road, and yellow is a footpath. This was drawn with Inkarta which doesn’t have good sci-fi tokens in it’s free version.
Back view of the Manor (click for larger image)

In FY 41, the Brekstoone family decided to move their operations off of Pale to New Pale and sold the manor to a local businessman, a yazirian by the name of Gornar Welnat who you might remember from my post about the Tristars organization. He runs his commercial (both legal and illegal) enterprises from the offices in the Manor.

While Gornar has upgraded some of the features in the manor, most of it still retains the original systems and structures from its construction. The telescope dome still houses an operating 1 meter telescope that Gornar lets the local schools use for projects and star parties.

Floor Plans

Including the observatory dome, the manor has five levels above ground and a full basement. Each level (with the exception of the dome which is a little larger) is 4 meters high. Ceilings in the manor are just over 3m high with nearly a meter of space between the levels for ductwork, piping. and other infrastructure.

We’ll look at each of the levels in turn from the basement up. In these descriptions, I’ll be presenting the manor as I used it in my game. Feel free to adjust it as needed for your game.

All of the maps are 1 meter per square and 70 pixels per square for use in VTTs. At the end of the post will be a zip file with both labeled and unlabeled versions of the maps. Also, all the maps are on the same grid so that they overlay each other to show relative positions between layers.

Basement

This level contains exercise and workout rooms, a small theater, a food storage area, and the robot storage area where they go to recharge when not working.

Ground Level

This is the main level of the Manor. Most of the space is taken up by a large open main hall that is also used as the dining room. The main doors are to the front of the house and there is a salon for discussions on this level. The bottom levels of the towers are used for storage of tables, chairs, and other furniture for the main hall. There is also a kitchen and pantry on this level. Stairs by the front door (behind a door) go down the basement, and a pair of stairwells on either side of the main hall ascend to the 1st floor.

1st Floor

This is the main working level of the manor. The center of this level is open to the level below with a small balcony running around the main hall. This is also where one accesses the outdoor balconies in both the front and back of the house.

This level also houses the manor’s library, several offices, and a small tech/robotics shop and the manor’s computer system. There are stairs going up to the 2nd floor along the back of the house.

2nd Floor

This is the level with most of the bedrooms. Each room has its own small bathroom with a shower and toilet. Additionally, the room in the observatory tower is a small study. The center back of this level is the beginning of the master suite; on this level is a sitting room.

The room in the left tower is a sitting room and bathroom for a small bedroom suite that takes up the top two levels of that tower. There is no stair access to the 3rd floor in the public areas of this level but there is a spiral staircase in the master suite that goes up.

3rd Floor

There are three offices on this level that are accessible by the right (north) elevator. This is also how one accesses the observatory control room which is also on this level. On the top level of the left (south) tower is the bedroom for the small tower suite reached via a small staircase within the suite. The rest of the master suite is also on this level with a private study above the sitting room, and then a master bedroom and master bathroom only accessible from within the suite. Finally, there is a small secret passage connecting the Master Study to the public hallway on this level and the elevator. In both the Master Study and the Hallway, these doors are concealed as part of the wall.

Observatory Level

The only thing on this level is the observatory dome itself and the telescope. This room (and level) is accessed by a stairwell in the observatory control room on the floor below.

Things I Left Out

I realized after I made these maps and was creating this post, that I left a couple of things off.

One is a garage. That was actually intentional. The garage is a detached building (to the right and a bit behind as you look at the front of the Manor) that can house three vehicles. It has three garage style doors and one regular access door.

The other bit I realized that I forgot was a mechanical room for the buildings water heaters, furnaces, air conditioners, and other systems. I left room between the floors for the duct work but forgot a room for the equipment. The other was a laundry room. However, that oversight is fairly easy to fix. All that is needed is to convert the food storage room in the basement into two or three different rooms. One for the mechanical equipment, one for the laundry, and if a bit of storage is desired, reserving some of the space for that as well. You could also covert the weight room, sauna, or robot room on this level if you wanted to exclude those from the manor.

Details, Details, Details

I’ve left the exact details of the individual rooms unspecified to allow those using the manor to add the details that they want based on how the manor fits into their world. I also didn’t specify things like security systems, locks, alarms, etc. Again to allow flexibility in use. Feel free to fill in those details as they best fit in your particular game.

I’ll be posting a write-up of the adventure I used this manor in, probably next week. In that post I’ll give the details I used for my game, which was geared toward early level characters.

Wrapping Up

That’s it for the Brekstoone Manor. Here’s a zip file with all the maps and the front and back view of the manor: ObservatoryManorMaps.zip. (It’s about 650 kB).

What do you think about the manor? What other features did I forget to include? I’m always trying to build better maps and can use suggestions. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

August 11, 2020 Tom 1 Comment

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY61.142 to FY61.172

This was a busy month in the timeline. There are a number of threads that all piled up on each other. The Dramune Run (SFKH1) is nearing completion, the Mutiny on the Elanor Moraes (SFKH2) occurs, the HSS History’s Hope continues it’s journey, the sathar make their final push on the saurian worlds to eliminate them, and we see the completion of the first ships for the new Strike Force Meteor come out of the shipyards.

In some cases, I had six different events on a single day. That definitely wasn’t planned. If I was really planning this out all in advance and not just doing it a bit at a time, I probably would have spread some of these things out differently. But, given the way I add in events and work out their consequences, this is how they fell out and it probably is more organic and accurate that way anyway. Sometimes events all pile up on each other.

It was also a tough month on the posting side. Because there were so many intertwined and detailed events happening, I had to make sure I wasn’t missing anything and so got behind in writing the updates and getting them posted. If you’re following along on Twitter, you would have noticed that there were large gaps of no daily posts followed by floods of posts over several days as I worked on getting caught up.

In any case, we made it through the month. Here are the events happening in the Frontier over the last 31 days.

Date (FY)Events
61.142The last shipment delivered by Obar Enterprises to Triad (Cassidine), a shipment of rubies from Pale (Truane’s Star), triggered a flag in a resource tracking system on Triad due to the speed of the high profile delivery. It is flagged for future investigation.
61.143The UPFS Eleanor Moraes successfully arrives in the Waller Nexus system and begins scanning the system for planets.
61.144The Gullwind successfully jumps into the Cassidine system and begins deceleration toward Triad station.
61.145Strike Force Nova leaves Cassidine and begins accelerating for a jump to the Dramune system.
61.146– Calculations nearly complete, the HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating for a jump to YS06. If successful, this will complete the jump route between YS06 and YS05.

– Initial scans by the UPFS Eleanor Moraes detects a potentially habitable planet orbiting Waller Nexus.  An atmoprobe is launched toward the planet. They adjust  their deceleration vector to take them into orbit around the planet which they dub Mahg Mar.
61.147– After scanning the OFS179 system for 20 days, the 7th Saurian ark ship has identified all the planets near the star and none are suitable for colonization.  They begin working on jump calculations to their next system.

– Results of the atmoprobe sent to Mahg Mar indicate that the atmosphere  is breathable but contains trace toxins. Breathing masks will be required at all time when outside on the surface.

– The 8th Saurian Ark Ship is completed.  With sathar ships in the system and suspecting that the ships that razed Rock (Sessar) will be joining them, the shakedown cruise is skipped and loading begins immediately.
61.148– Arriving at Triad station (Cassidine), the crew of the Gullwind replenish supplies and spend a day decompressing from their recent encounters before making the final leg of their trip to Inner Reach (Dramune).

– Having confirmed the destruction of the saurians on Rock, the Sathar fleet in the Sessar system begins accelerating toward the Sauria system to join with the other fleet there.
61.149– The UPFS Eleanor Moraes settles into orbit around Mahg Mar and begins preparation for landing on the surface of the planet.

– Fearing that this might be the last Ark Ship launched, the Saurians move all of the remaining cultural artifacts that were planned to be spread out across the remaining 12 Ark Ships under construction to this one.  All resources are dedicated to getting this ship underway before the expected sathar attack occurs.

– The Gullwind leaves Triad station (Cassidine) and begins accelerating for the final jump back to Dramune.
61.150– The HSS History’s Hope successfully jumps to the YS06 system and begins decelerating while planning their next jump.

– A day out from Triad station, the Gullwind is intercepted by an assault scout, the MESS Maltharia.  In the ensuing battle, the assault scout is damaged but takes out the Gullwind’s engines.  It disengages, leaving the freighter adrift. (SFKH1)
61.151– The first two ships for the new Strike Force Meteor emerge from the Pan Galactic shipyards orbiting Gran Quivera (Prenglar).  They depart to Morgaine’s World (Prenglar) to begin exercises with elements of Task Force Prenglar.

– Unable to repair the engines outside a spacedock, the crew of the Gullwind call back to Triad for assistance.  The UPFS Melinda McCoy (destroyer) and UPFS Dirk (assault scout) respond to their mayday.  (SFKH1)

– After hearing the Gullwind’s crew’s story, the Melinda McCoy’s captain, Commodre Klat-tic M’tal, a vrusk, arranges a tug to take them back to Triad.  He also radios ahead to SF Nova, current decelerating toward Inner Reach (Drammune) with the story. (SFKH1)
61.152– After three days in orbit generating a preliminary map of Mahg Mar’s surface, the crew of the UPFS Eleanor Moraes selects a preliminary landing site and the ship descends to the planet’s surface.  Work begins immediately on overhauling the ship’s engines.

– The HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating for the jump to their next target system, a binary M dwarf system 7 light years away.
61.153– The sathar attack fleet from Sessar arrives in the Sauria system.  The remains of the sathar fleet still in the system begin accelerating toward Kischen, the saurian homeworld.  The Battle Rays tailing this fleet radio the news home and begin accelerating home as well.

– The Gullwind arrives back at the CDC shipyards around Triad. Luckily there is room available in the shipyard and the Gullwind is immediately admitted for repairs.
61.154– Calculations complete, the Saurian ark ship begins accelerating for their jump to the FS58 system, an F3 start, probably too hot for them but more likely than the M0 star they are currently at.

– Strike Force Nova arrives at Inner Reach (Dramune),  they only spend a day at the station before continuing on to Fromeltar.
61.155– The decelerating fleet from Sessar is detected by the saurian forces, three days away from the planet.

– Fully repaired, and short on cash, the Gullwind departs the CDC shipyards and once again begins accelerating toward Dramune. (SFKH1)
61.156– Overhaul of the first engine complete, the captain of the UPFS Eleanor Moraes, Winston Marlboro, authorizes an initial scouting expedition to survey the surrounding area.  Preparations begin for an expedition that will leave in the morning. (SFKH2)

– After a day of acceleration, the crew of the Gullwind have noticed that they have a shadow, a pair of ships following their course but always remaining just at the edge of radar range.  They suspect it is the UPF Melinda McCoy and Dirk but cannnot confirm this. (SFKH1)
61.157– With the sathar fleet less than a day away, loading of the last Ark Ship is aborted with only 90% of the material goods and 50% of passengers loaded.  The ship departs Kischen with a small military escort and heads toward the Precipice system, the last remaining saurian system.

– A small detachment of the sathar fleet breaks off from decelerating and begins accelerating in an attempt to catch the departing ark ship.

– The HSS History’s Hope successfully completes the jump to the new system, which they designate as YS07.  Decelerations commences as they prepare to plot the return leg of the jump.

– Shortly after Captain Marlboro, along with most of the ship’s crew, departs to begin surveying the surrounding area via airship, Bill Terry, first officer of the Eleanor Moraes, turns on the remaining crew and stuns or otherwise incapacitates them, taking over the ship. (SFKH2)

– With the ship secure, Terry remotely orders the survey robot accompanying the airship to attack and destroy the airship.  The captain is injured as is the chief engineer. After a brief message from Terry explaining that he is abandoning them on the planet, he cuts all communications between the survey party and the ship. (SFKH2)

– Salvaging what equipment they can, the uninjured members of the survey party are ordered by Captain Marlboro to take the survey robot and proceed overland to recapture the Eleanor Moraes.  There is still 45 hours of work to do on the ship’s engines before Terry can leave so they must hurry. (SFKH2)
61.158– Battle of Kischen – The remaining saurian forces engage the attacking sathar vessels.  After hours of battle, the saurian forces are destroyed but the sathar vessels are similarly devastated. 

– The remaining sathar forces around Kischen begin bombarding the planet, paying particular attention to heavily industrialized areas.  The remaining ark ships under constructions are destroyed.

– Three days out from Inner Reach, a small group of ships breaks off from SF Nova and begin decelerating back toward the inner system.

– The crew of the Eleanor Moraes continues their travel back toward the ship.  Bill Terry uses some of the survey robots remaining at the ship to attempt to ambush the party while en route but they manage to defeat both of his attempts and overcome the natural obstacles in their way. (SFKH2)
61.159– The 7th saurian Ark Ship successfully jumps to the FS58 system.  They begin decelerating and scanning for planets.

– Strike Force Nova makes the jump to the Fromeltar system and begins decelerating toward Terledrom.

– Realizing that he won’t get the engine overhaul completed before the rest of the crew arrives, Bill Terry begins preparing the Eleanor Moraes for liftoff anyway. (SFKH2)

– The Eleanor Moraes crew arrives at the ship before Terry is ready to lift off.  Breaching the defenses he has put in place they gain access to the ship.  In a tense standoff on the bridge, the crew convinces Terry to surrender. (SFKH2)
61.160– The Gullwind makes the jump to the Dramune system and begins decelerating toward Inner Reach. Almost immediately, their shadow reappears and hail the Gullwind, identifying themselves as the Melinda McCoy and the Dirk. They begin decelerating with the Gullwind, slowly closing the gap between the ships. (SFKH1)

– With the ship secured, and the captain and chief engineer recovered from the airship crash site, the crew of the UPFS Eleanor Moraes send a subspace message back to Theseus informing the Frontier Expeditionary Force HQ of the recent events and their status. (SFKH2)
61.161– The last saurian Ark Ship successfully jumps to the Precipice system.  They immediately radio ahead to the outpost there to prepare for a full evacuation as they begin decelerating toward the planet Edge. The sathar ships pursuing them return to the main force orbiting Kischen.

– Two assault scouts, part of the new Strike Force Meteor, are completed at the Triad starship construction center.  The UPF crew takes command of the vessels and begin accelerating for a jump to Prenglar.

– The UPFS Eleanor Moraes receives a response from the FEF HQ that the CMS Osprey is being dispatched from White Light with material and personnel to effect repairs.  The Moraes crew is to continue their primary mission of surveying the planet until the Osprey arrives in 28 days. (SFKH2)
61.162– Deceleration complete, the HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating for the jump back to YS06.

– After two days of deceleration, just as they are approaching the orbit of Outer Reach, the Gullwind and it’s escorts are enveloped by a powerful jamming field preventing all communications.  They are assaulted by 9 vessels (3 frigates, 2 corvettes, & 4 assault scouts) that include the Outer Reach militia. (SFKH1)

– After a brief but intense battle, the UPF vessels are destroyed and the Gullwind is disabled and taken in tow.  The Gullwind and UPF ships manage to destroy one of the corvettes and an Outer Reach militia assault scout as well as severely damage one of the frigates. While under tow, the jamming field is maintained to prevent communication. (SFKH1)
61.163– Strike Force Nova arrives in orbit around Terledrom (Fromeltar).  They will remain in the system for 16 days while it waits for the ships detached in the Dramune system to catch up.

– The CMS Osprey begins accelerating for Theseus and the first leg of their mission to rescue the UPFS Eleanor Moraes. (SFKH3)
61.164– Now slowed in the inner system, the 7th saurian Ark Ship discovers a habitable planet.  However, due to the intensity of the star (F3 vs their native G8), the high gravity (1.5g) and slow rotation (40 hours), they deem the planet unsuitable.  Preparations are made to depart the system.

– The Gullwind arrives at Darkworld station, home the Malthar who orchestrated their capture.  The crew is overwhelmed my the Malthar’s robots when whey refuse to leave the ship.
61.165– The 7th saurian Ark Ship begins accelerating for their next jump which will take them to the Theseus system.

– Having destroyed all visible traces of the saurian population on the planet Kischen, the sathar fleet begins accelerating toward the Precipice system.
61.166The 8th saurian Ark Ship arrives in orbit around the planet Edge (Precipice) and immediately deploys shuttles to start loading the population.
61.167The HSS History’s Hope successfully jumps back to YS06 completely charting the route between the two systems.  They relay the jump data back to their home foundation on Histran via subspace radio and begin the return journey back to YS07.
61.168After incorporating lessons learned from the false start and several weeks of successful operations, Synthcorp’s “Muffin Button” is declared a success and begins to roll out in other locations on Inner Reach.
61.169With the population and as many supplies as possible loaded from Edge, the 8th saurian arkship begins accelerating out of the Precipice system.  They decide to follow the general direction of the 7th Ark ship and begin accelerating toward OFS191. 
61.170– The two new UPF assault scouts arrive at Morgaine’s World (Prenglar) and join up with their sister ships exercising with Task Force Prenglar.

– The 7th saurian Ark Ship successfully jumps into the Theseus system where they immediately detect radio signals from the inhabitants and ships in the system.

– Vectoring their deceleration to stop deep in the outer system, the saurians begin studying the signals coming from the inner system.  They are not detected by the system’s inhabitants.

– The sathar ships make the jump to the Precipice system.  They detect the saurian ark ship beginning its acceleration out of the system.  Several ships are detached at high speed to try to intercept it.
61.171The CMS Osprey arrives at Minotaur station (Theseus) where they are briefed on all the details available about their jump route and the Moraes crew and status.  They take on additional supplies for the stricken ship. (SFKH3)
61.172Two more assault scouts, destined to be part of Strike Force Meteor, are completed at the Streel shipyards orbiting Pale (Truane’s Star). The UPF crews take possession of the ships and begin accelerating for a jump to Dixon’s Star and then to Prenglar.

And here’s the full timeline to download.

DetailedFrontierTimelineDownload
August 4, 2020 Tom 1 Comment
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