TransTravel TV-04R Small Freighter

Here’s the next ship that the PCs will have the option to buy: a small tramp freighter. It’s not super fast or maneuverable but fairly cheap to operate.

TV-04R Small Freighter

The TV-04R is a small early-model freighter from TransTravel. While not sleek or glamorous, it is a completely functional vessel. In the early days of of TransTravel’s history, they had nearly 100 of these vessels plying the spaceways. Mostly replaced by larger, more efficient vessels, most TV-04R freighters are at least a decade old and have been sold off to independent traders.

The ship is lightly armed with two laser batteries and can carry up to 50 cargo units (7500 tons) of material. Designed for a typical crew size of 6, it has an additional 6 berths that can be rented out at Journey class rates to those seeking passage on its route.

The TV-04R is not a speed demon but has two reliable Class B Ion engines to provide steady, worry-free operation. It is also not aerodynamic by any stretch of the imagination and its ion engines preclude it from landing on any planet with an atmosphere.

The full ship specs are:

Hull Size: 5
HP: 27
ADF: 1 (5 if no cargo)
MR: 1 (5 if no cargo)
DCR: 37
Engines: 2 Class B Ion Engines
Fuel Capacity: 10000 fuel units per engine
Accommodations: 12 Journey Class
Life Support:
– Primary: standard system – 12 beings, 200 days
– Backup: standard system – 12 beings, 200 days
Communication & Detection Equipment: Videocom radio (with a master and 3 secondary control screens), Subspace Radio, Intercom (2 master control panels, 30 standard panels, 15 speaker panels), Radar – Type I, Skin Senors, Camera system
Computer Level: 4 FP: 102
Computer Programs: Ion Drives 4, Life Support 2, Alarm 2, Computer Lockout 4, Damage Control 2, Astrogation 4, Laser Battery 1, Laser Battery 1, Communication 2, Information Storage 2, Installation Security 3, Skin Sensors 1, Maintenance 2, Cargo Arm 2, Cameras 1
Ship’s Vehicles: small launch, small lifeboat
Other Equipment: 2 cargo arms, complete backup computer
Weapons: LB (x2)
Defenses: RH
Control Spaces: 8
Cargo Capacity: 50 cargo units (7500 cubic meters, 15000 tons)
Volume: 10339 cubic meters (total), 2271 cubic meters (inhabited)
Unloaded Mass: 3766 tons
Loaded Mass: 18766 tons
ADF per Fuel Unit: 1 (5 if no cargo)
Crew Size: 8
Cost: new: 2,127,851 cr. (unfueled)

The ADF of 1 is the value when the ship’s cargo hold is fully loaded. Completely empty the ship can actually achieve and ADF of 5. Every 12.5 cargo units (3750 tons) of material transported reduce the ADF by 1 from the maximum of 5.

The ship available to the PCs is 14 years old and currently lacking the following items from the above description:

small launch
small lifeboat
both laser batteries
all life support supplies

In addition, the atomic fuel pellets for the ship’s two engines each need to be replaced (32,000 cr. each). Fuel for the ships ion engines is 17 cr per fuel unit.

Given the age of the ship and the lack of equipment, the ship is available for 1,580,552 cr.

A New Starship Construction System – part 2 – Starship Engines

I was going to post another ship next but realized that I should probably talk a little bit about the way I redesigned the engines in my new starship construction system. Otherwise, some of the bits of information about the ships won’t make sense. I’ve published some of this on-line before but I don’t remember exactly where so I’m repeating it here for completeness. Here is the section on engines from the starship construction system document.

Engines

Now that we know the mass of our ship, it’s finally time to determine its propulsion. Each type and size of engine is rated to have a specific thrust and fuel capacity. Your ship’s hull size determines the maximum number of engines it can support. You don’t have to have to fill all your engine slots if that number of engines is not needed to achieve the performance you desire. And regardless of hull size and engine type, the maximum acceleration of any ship is 6g.

Hull Size	Max Engines
1	1
2-4	2
5-8	4
9-12	6
12+	8

(Note: I didn’t even follow my own rules when I created the PGC C-10 Fast Courier as I gave it 4 engines at HS 4. This is something I’m still thinking about/working on.)

Engine thrust is given as an arbitrary thrust rating that has been scaled to work with the mass of the ship as given in tons. To determine the maximum acceleration of your ship, add up the thrust ratings of all your engines and divide that by the total mass of your ship in tons. The resulting number is the maximum acceleration of your ship in multiples of one standard gravity (10 m/s/s). Round all fractions down to the nearest tenth of a g.

Chemical Engines

These engines use a high efficiency chemical fuel that burns and is expelled out the engine nozzle to provide thrust. These engines are relatively cheap and easy to produce. While very powerful, because of the large volume of fuel needed, these engines have limited capability in regards to how long the engines can operate on a single fuel load. These engines are typically used for ground-to-space shuttles and system ships.

Ion Engines

Ion engines work by ionizing hydrogen and accelerating the resulting protons and electrons to high velocity and expelling them out the back of the engine to provide thrust. Each engine contains a small nuclear reactor to provide the power needed to ionize the hydrogen and accelerate the particles to the relativistic speeds needed to generate thrust. This reactor uses the same atomic fuel pellet as an atomic engine but only needs to be replaced once every 10 years. The initial fuel pellet is included in the cost of the engine.

While not as powerful as chemical or atomic engines, Ion engine fuel is relatively cheap and if a ship is properly equipped, can be harvested from any gas giant for free.

Because of the nature of the engine, ships with ion engines cannot land on or take off from planets.

Atomic Engines

An Atomic engine is a supercharged version of the chemical engine and uses the same fuel. The engine works by generating a quantum field that temporarily increases the momentum of particles by a factor of hundreds. These temporarily super-massive particles are ejected out of the back of the engine to generate thrust for the ship. Because each particle is effectively much more massive, less fuel is needed to achieve the same thrust and instead of a single fuel load lasting for only few minutes of thrust, it can last for days and allow the ship to accelerate to Void jump speeds.

However, generating this field requires a huge amount of energy (which is transferred to the particles) during operation. To provide this power, each engine contains its own nuclear reactor, similar in design to the reactor in the ion engine. However, the large power requirement of the atomic engine means that it consumes one atomic fuel pellet after only 10,000 minutes of full thrust operations (about 8.5 days) instead of the 10 year life span for the atomic fuel pellet in an ion engine.

In addition, atomic engines require an overhaul every few jumps, again depending on the size of the engines. This overhaul is necessary to make sure that the quantum field generators are properly aligned and positioned to only affect the fuel and not the body of the engine itself. The number of trips that a ship can go between overhauls depends on the size of the engine and is given in the table with the fuel costs below.

Engine Costs

The following table gives the cost and thrust values for each of the different types and sizes of engines. Determine the number, size, and type of engines your ship will use and then record the engines chosen for your ship.

	Class A		Class B		Class C
Engine Type	Thrust	Cost	Thrust	Cost	Thrust	Cost
Chemical	6,250	50,000	20,000	175,000	80,000	770,000
Ion	3,000	100,000	10,000	400,000	40,000	2,000,000
Atomic	6,250	250,000	20,000	1,100,000	80,000	6,000,000

Fuel

Next you need to provide fuel for your engines and determine how much acceleration each fuel load will provide for your ship. Each engine uses different types of fuel and has different storage capabilities and requirements.

Chemical Engines

Each fuel load allows a chemical engine to operate at maximum thrust for 60 minutes. This is typically enough to allow the ship to make one round trip between the ground and orbit or limited acceleration and maneuvering in space. Each engine can only hold a single fuel load and must be refueled after each load is expended. The cost of a fuel load depends on the size of the engine and is given in the following table.

Engine Class	Cost of a fuel load
Class A	300 cr
Class B	1000 cr
Class C	4200 cr

Ion engines

Although not as powerful as chemical or atomic engines, these engines are reliable and can hold more fuel. While they can technically run off any material, the fuel of choice is hydrogen. Using any other fuel source decreases the thrust provided by the engines by a factor of two. Each engine can hold 10,000 fuel units and each unit provides 10 minutes of operation at maximum thrust (A fully fueled ion engine can operate continuously for over 80 days without refueling). A fuel unit costs 5, 17, or 70 cr per unit for Class A, B, or C engines respectively.

Once every 10 years, the atomic fuel pellet in the ion engine’s reactor needs to be replaced, the cost for this fuel pellet is the same as that for a similarly sized atomic engine.

Atomic engines

Like the other engines, Atomic engines store all their fuel internally. The fuel for these engines consists of two parts. The first is a load of fuel like the chemical rockets, the second consists an atomic fuel pellet (typically uranium) to power the reactor. The amount of fuel that can be stored depends on the size of the engine and is given in the table below.

Each atomic fuel pellet and load of chemical fuel provides enough fuel for 10,000 minutes (about 8.3 days) of operation at maximum thrust. The cost of a fuel pellet depends on the size of the engine, given in the table below. The cost of the chemical fuel is identical to that of the chemical engines of the same size.

Consult the table below to determine the number of fuel loads & pellets held and time between each overhaul for each engine size.

Engine Class	Trips between overhauls	Maximum Fuel Loads & Pellets loaded	Cost per pellet (cr)
Class A	1	3	10,000
Class B	3	6	32,000
Class C	10	12	125,000

Compute total acceleration per fuel load

Acceleration is measured in ADF. One ADF is defined as 10 minutes of acceleration at 1g. (For you Star Frontiers grognards out there, I’ve redefined the boardgame hex scale to 3600 km so that 1 ADF does equal 1g acceleration for 10 minutes, and 1 g is defined as 10 m/s/s not 9.8.)

If you want to keep it simple, you can simply assume the following:

a load of fuel in a chemical rocket provides just enough thrust to make one round trip between the ground and orbit around a planet or can provide a total of 8 ADF in space.
Ion engines use one fuel unit per engine per ADF and a total of 1000 fuel units per engine for a single interstellar jump
Atomic engines use one chemical fuel load and one atomic fuel pellet for a single interstellar jump or the same fuel provides enough thrust for a total of 1000 ADF if operating solely in-system.

If you want to be a bit more exact and track the exact fuel usage you can do the following to compute the total number of ADF that a load of fuel will provide for your ship. This will depend on the type of engine you have. It requires more bookkeeping but actually results in less fuel being needed in the long run, sometimes significantly if the ship has a high maximum ADF.

Chemical Engines – Take the maximum acceleration you calculated for the ship earlier and multiply it by 6. This is the total number of ADF your ship gets from using one load of fuel in each engine.
Ion Engines – The maximum acceleration calculated above is the number of ADF provided by expending a single ion fuel unit in each engine.
Atomic Engines – Take the maximum acceleration calculated earlier and multiply by 1000. This is the total ADF provided by using one unit of chemical fuel and one atomic fuel pellet in each of your engines.

Round all fractions down. Assume that that small difference is used up in minor station keeping and maneuvering

Examples

Chemical Engine

Fully loaded a Digger Shuttle (HS 2) has one Class A chemical engine and a maximum acceleration of 4.7g. Since it has chemical engines, the total ADF provided by the single load of fuel in its engine is 4.7 x 6 = 28.2 or 28 ADF.

Ion Engine

A small (HS 7) freighter is equipped with four Class B ion engines. Fully loaded, its maximum acceleration is 1.1g. Thus by using up one fuel unit in each of its four engines, it has 1.1 ADF available. If each engine carries it’s maximum fuel load (10,000 units each), the total ADF available to the ship is 11,000 ADF. Since each interstellar jump typically takes 1000 ADF to complete, the ship can make 11 trips without refueling if it needed to.

Atomic Engine

The newly designed Swift class assault scout has a total mass of 2470.83 tons and two Class A atomic engines for a total thrust of 12500. This gives a maximum acceleration of 5.059g which rounds to 5.0. The total ADF available to the assault scout from one load of fuel in each engine is therefore 5×1000 = 5000 ADF. After expending this much thrust, the assault scout will have used two loads of chemical fuel and two atomic fuel pellets, one in each engine.

PGC C-10 Fast Courier

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m in the process of setting up a play-by-post game and the players want to be a group of adventurers with a ship that knock about the Frontier doing odd jobs and generally getting into and out of trouble. As part of that I want to give them a few choices of ships that they could start with. So for the next few posts, starting with this one, I’ll be presenting the ships I’m designing for the adventure.

While these are specifically designed for Star Frontiers, they could easily be adapted to other systems. Each of these ships is being designed with some new starship construction rules that I’ve been working on. The rules are designed to be a drop in replacement for the existing Knight Hawks construction rules but more flexible and a bit more grounded in physics.

In these posts, I’ll just be presenting just the stats for the ships and a brief description. I’ll probably go back and create detailed deck plans for them at some point starting with whichever ship the PCs decide on buying with their starting fund. I might even do a 3D model.

So with that introduction, lets get to the first ship.

PGC C-10 Fast Courier

The C-10 Fast Courier is a small, hull sized 4 vessel that is aerodynamically streamlined and capable of planetary landings. Designed to be a fast transport ship, it can carry cargo, passengers, or both and evade most pursuit. Lightly armed with two laser batteries, it also carries four ICM salvos and a pair of decoys to help it evade pursuers.

The full ship specs are:

Hull Size: 4
HP: 21
ADF: 4
MR: 4
DCR: 35
Engines: 4 Class A Atomic Engines
Fuel Capacity: 3 full loads per engine
Accommodations: 2 First Class, 10 Journey Class
Life Support:
– Primary: standard system – 10 beings, 200 days, deluxe – 2 beings, 200 days
– Backup: standard system – 10 beings, 200 days, deluxe – 2 beings, 200 days
Communication & Detection Equipment: Videocom radio (x2, each with a master and two secondary control screens), Subspace Radio (x2), Intercom (3 master control panels, 30 standard panels, 15 speaker panels), Radar – Type II, Energy Sensors – Type I, Skin Senors, Camera system
Computer Level: 4 FP: 164
Computer Programs: Atomic Drives 4, Life Support 2, Alarm 4, Computer Lockout 4, Damage Control 4, Astrogation 4, Laser Battery 1, Laser Battery 1, ICM 3, Communication 2, Information Storage 2, Installation Security 3, Robot Management 4, Skin Sensors 1, Maintenance 2, Cargo Arm 2, Cameras 1
Ship’s Vehicles: small launch, small lifeboat, 2 escape pods
Other Equipment: cargo arm, complete backup computer
Weapons: LB (x2)
Defenses: RH, ICM (x4), Decoy (x2)
Control Spaces: 10
Cargo Capacity: 10 cargo units (1500 cubic meters)
Volume: 4955 cubic meters (total), 2764 cubic meters (inhabited)
Unloaded Mass: 2728 tons
Loaded Mass: 5728 tons
Crew Size: 8
ADF per Fuel Load: 4364
Cost: new: 2,548,731 cr. (unfueled)

The specified ADF of 4 is for the ship fully loaded. Unloaded, the ship would actually be capable of and ADF of 9 but is limited to a maximum of 6 due to the limits of the PCs’ physiology. It can achieve this higher ADF of 6 as long as it is carrying 1400 tons (4.7 cargo units) or less of cargo.

The ship available to the PCs is 26 years old and currently lacking the following items from the above description:

small launch
small escape pod
one laser battery
all life support supplies
both decoys
all ICM missiles

Given the age of the ship and the lack of equipment, the ship is available for 1,597,460 cr.

A New Starship Construction System

I was going to start posting the designs for some new starships for Star Frontiers. However, since I’m building them with my custom starship construction system, I realized that some of the bits of information won’t make sense for those that are familiar with the standard system.

I’ve been working on this system off and on for years but it’s finally at a point where it is usable. While it’s possible to generate all the ships from the standard Star Frontier system, this system is a bit more flexible and allows for a wider range of ship designs. And the ships created can be dropped directly into the existing game alongside existing ships. At least in terms of boardgame statistics. The sizes of the ships are somewhat different.

So before I start posting the new ships, I thought I should at least provide an introduction to this new system. And I’ll do that by simply posting the Introduction section from the new rule system. I’m working on polishing this up and will be releasing it sometime in the future.

Knight Hawks Starship Construction 2.0

This is an alternate ship construction system for the Star Frontiers RPG. While all the components are the same as in the standard Knight Hawks rules, this system takes a more realistic approach to the construction of the starships that is based on the volume and mass of the ship’s components. While the original Knight Hawks system is based on picking a hull size and then limiting what the ship could do based on that, in this system you pick the components of the ship based on what you want it to do and the capabilities and performance you want it to have. The hull size is then just a function of the ship’s systems.

From the perspective of both the Knight Hawks board game and general role playing, the resulting ships are nearly identical to those generated with the original Knight Hawks system. The differences are mainly in size and cost.

The main differences are as follows:

Life support systems have more variety, are more detailed, cost more, and are bulkier than in the Knight Hawks rules. They also scale more realistically as you increase the number of beings supported.
Hulls have more variety and are more expensive. In addition to the standard hull, we introduce three additional hull grades that have varying cost, mass, and hull points. Instead of the cost of the hull scaling linearly with the hull size of the ship, it now scales with the volume of the ship.
Engines are more appropriately scaled. Each engine type and size now has a thrust rating. This, combined with the mass of your ship, gives you the acceleration that the ship can achieve. The engine classes are scaled appropriately to provide proper amounts of thrust to move the bigger ships. The costs are also scaled appropriately to the thrust provided by the engines. Fuel costs also scale with engine size.
These ships are more expensive. This is primarily due to the changes in the cost of hull, engines, and life support. All three of these systems are more (and in some cases much more) expensive than the same systems in the Knight Hawks rules. This was done for a variety of reasons but primarily to make the costs scale realistically with the size and capability of the systems as they grow larger.
Hull size is computed a little differently. While it still scales exponentially with the volume of the ship, it has now been modified so that the hull size and volume are mathematically related instead of being arbitrarily scaled. This has the result of making the smaller hull sizes larger than the corresponding hull size from Knight Hawks while the larger ships from this system are actually smaller than a ship of the corresponding hull size from the original rules. For example, an average HS 1 ship in the new system is 64 cubic meters in volume which is double the size of a HS 1 ship in the original rules. And HS 1 in this system goes up to 216 cubic meters which is nearly half the size of a HS 2 ship from the original. On the other end, an average HS 20 ship in the new system has a volume of 512,000 cubic meters which falls between HS 11 and 12 in the original Knight Hawks system. [Note: This is something I’m not completely happy with and am still working on.] Additionally, there is no upper limit on hull size. You can build your ship as big as you have the budget for.
One final difference is that the definition of a cargo unit has been standardized to a specific volume. This is more realistic than the Knight Hawks system of one cargo unit per HS since in that system you could increase the HS by 2 and double the volume but only increase the cargo capacity by 2 not doubling it even though the ship was vastly larger. This change eliminates that discrepancy. It also means that ships will have tens to hundreds to even thousands of cargo units of hauling capacity. A future work will redefine the cargo tables to give prices and volumes to work with this new system.

Unless otherwise described, assume that all systems are identical to the systems described in the original Knight Hawks rules.

So what will I notice in the new listings

All of the old bits of information about the ships are still there. What has been added are a few new descriptors related to mass, volume, and fuel consumption.

Now instead of just listing the hull size, the actual total volume of the ship is provided. There are two parts to this. One is the overall volume including the cargo areas if any, and the other is the “inhabited” volume, or the part of the ship where the crew lives and works that doesn’t include the cargo hold. For vessels that are not primarily freighters these numbers are nearly identical.

In addition to the total volume, the mass of the ship, in tons, is provided. Again this has two values, one for the ship with the cargo areas empty, and another for the ship with a full hull (which assumes 2 tons per cubic meter of cargo). The ship’s ADF value is computed based on this full-loaded mass volume. For most ships there isn’t a different between that and the unloaded value. This isn’t true for freighters as unloaded, their engines can move the ship at much higher accelerations.

Finally, each listing provides a values labeled “ADF per fuel load”. This value represents the total number of ADF that can be achieved by fully burning through a load of fuel in all of the ship’s engines and is related to the fully loaded ADF value. These ships are actually more fuel efficient than in the original rules. It takes 1000 ADF to make an interstellar jump (and stop at your destination). Since most ships can run at an ADF of 2 or more, they only need a fraction of their fuel to reach jump speed and thus can make multiple jumps on a single load of fuel as long as they don’t run into trouble along the way and have to do a lot of maneuvering.

Playtesting

These rules are definitely a work in progress. I’m starting up a play-by-post game that will involve a lot of ships and traveling so I plan on testing these rules out extensively during that game.

That’s the basics. For my next few posts I’ll be sharing some ships that the PCs will have the option to buy as their starting vessel in that play-by-post campaign that are designed using this new system.

Expanded Frontier Map

Happy Halloween! In my “State of the Frontier” post last week, I mentioned that I was working on updating an old map that I had created many years (i.e. decades) ago for use as my main campaign map of the Frontier region. Today, I’m posting the (near) final version of that map. Along with a bit of history and explanation.

Background

The original map was hand drawn in the late 80’s on six 8.5″x11″ pieces of quad-ruled graph paper and then taped together. I’ve kept it in a cardboard poster tube all these years when I haven’t actually been using it. Right now it’s rolled up inside out to try to get some of the decades of bend rolled out the other direction.

The map was drawn back before I acquired a personal copy of Zebulon’s Guide to Frontier Space, Vol 1. I didn’t get my first copy of that until 1992, many years after Star Frontiers went out of print. My copy was actually a gift from some fellow role-players.

I had, however, looked at a Zeb’s Guide and its beautiful map at some point before I drew mine. There are too many similarities between the area just around the Frontier in my map and the Zeb’s map to chalk up to mere coincidence. The two most noticeable are the star cluster to the upper left of the Frontier and the neutron star just below it. I would have had zero reason to put a cluster like that (I had four stars and the Zeb’s Guide map had 3) anywhere, let alone there, if I had not seen the published map at some point. And I had exactly the same use for the neutron star system at the location of Lynchpin as the published timeline had. I had a different route to it but the idea was there from a perusal of Zeb’s Guide in a bookstore.

I have now updated my map to better match the map in Zebulon’s Guide as well as included some additional fan created maps of the areas of space the Saurians and S’sessu come from. These changes mainly affect the area below the Frontier and to the right of Liberty system (from the Beyond the Frontier modules).

There are a few differences. Most importantly is the location of the new systems described in the published modules. I place the Rhianna (Mission to Alcazzar) and Starmist (Sundown on Starmist) systems in the locations specified in the modules, not where the Zeb’s Guide map places them. I always thought it was strange that they would move them from the published locations. In truth, only Rhianna was given a general location (inside the loop formed by Cassidine, Timeon, and White Light) but given the way Starmist was discovered (by emergency landing which I took to mean from a mis-jump), I don’t think the Zeb’s Guide location (outside the main Frontier) makes sense for that system and I like mine better (and the system I chose was left off the Zeb’s map completely!). My location for the Belnafaer system (Bugs in the System) only differs by one star from the Zeb’s map and both correspond to the module description. For now I’ve left it where I originally placed it but might move it for consistency. Finally, the location of the Tristkar system (Dark Side of the Moon) is exactly where Zeb’s Guide places it. From the description in the module, the location of the Solar Major system would make a little more sense but since I didn’t actually have this system on my map originally, using the Zeb’s Guide location works just fine.

Second, I don’t have the plague worlds from Zeb’s Guide (the system I choose for Rhianna is actually Zeb’s Delta plague world). On my map they are just unexplored systems.

Finally, while I don’t normally use the MegaCorp systems in my campaign I’ve included them for completeness. I’ve also redrawn the nebulae in the Frontier region to more match the ones drawn in the Zeb’s Guide map and added in the Rim planets.

On the side of fan produced materials, I’ve added in the locations of the Saurian and S’sessu worlds from maps published in issues 4 and 16 of the Frontier Explorer and adjusted my map accordingly.

The New Map

So with that introduction, here’s the updated map.

Expanded map of the Frontier Sector with the systems from Zeb's Guide, the modules and some fan creations added in. — Updated map of the Frontier. Click for the full-sized image.

The smaller blue box is the area covered by the original Frontier map and the large blue box is the area covered by the Zeb’s Guide map.

This is very much a “player-facing” map. It doesn’t contain secret jump routes (with the exception of the one between Truane’s Star to Cassidine that I forgot to remove 🙂 ) that are known to the UPF, MegaCorps, pirates, or the sathar. If I was using it for my game, there are even parts of this map that I would not use (i.e. the MegaCorp planets, and S’sessu and Saurian space) at least not to begin with as those are discovered in game. I’ve set the map up with all these bits and pieces on separate layers so that I can turn them on and off as needed.

The map extends more upward from the Frontier than down because the Vast Expanse, an area that I consider to be fairly devoid of stars, is “down” and exploration is easier (due to shorter jump distances) in the “up” direction. You can see the much lower density of stars in that direction. It gets even worse going further off the map.

While I still have some small tweaking to do on this map, mainly with labeling, it is completely usable.

Future Work

While this is a completely functional map, it’s not super pretty. One of the things I’d like to do is give it a color makeover so it looks more like the maps that my star sector generator program produces. Those maps look like this:

However, that might have to wait for a while. Although when I get to it, it will make a pretty awesome poster.

The actual next step is to work out the logistics of the Second Sathar War and the sathar assault on the Frontier. The sathar are out there on that Extended Frontier map although I didn’t show their systems and jump routes. Given that I know know all the jump routes, I can start figuring out how long it would take for them to maneuver and launch offensives and resupply their ships from their starship construction centers. Some exploration by the UPF and well placed raids could significantly influence the outcome of the conflict.

If you have any thoughts or comments on the map, let me know.

Update: Just saw today that the RPG Blog Carnival topic for November (hosted by Nuketown) is “All These Worlds …”. My post was a day early (and I didn’t know the topic or I might have waited) but it’s close enough that I think it applies. So this post is part of this month’s blog carnival and I might have some more related posts in the coming weeks.

State of the Frontier – Mid Oct 2018

Things have been pretty quiet lately here on the blog as non-game related things have been keeping me away. I won’t bore you with the details but it includes fixing a garage door, repairing a furnace, and replacing a dead smartphone among other things.

On the plus side I also got my internet service upgrade and to my surprise, instead of going from 10 Mbs out to 100 Mbs out, I’m regularly measuring 600 Mbs in bandwidth. What that means is that once the site starts loading, it should be very quick and the large image files should not take much time to download. I was going to be happy with the 10x increase but getting 60x is amazing. I suspect that as more people in my neighborhood upgrade to fiber that might go down but we’ll have to wait and see.

What I’m working on

Despite the quiet, I have been working a bit. Here’s what’s happening and what you can expect to hear about in the future.

Ghost Ship Osiris

I’m currently working on writing up the details of the adventure that take place on Outpost Osiris now that I have the map in place. This was going to be my focus over the past couple of weeks but all my free time got chewed up by home repairs. I have made some progress and it should go quicker now that most of the issues are (hopefully) behind me. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to share here on that project until I get to the next section and start designing the Pursale ship. Although I will be sharing the write-up with my Patreon supporters once it’s finished.

Death at Rosegard

I have a few more maps to create and post for this adventure (the Streel mine complex, a different old mine system, and Trey Mulden‘s compound). I also need to provide a write-up on the NPCs at the Streel mine. And then there is lots of writing to make it into a coherent adventure.

Other stuff

I’m currently running a Star Frontiers game on-line that is set at the beginning of the Second Sathar War (Death at Rosegard was the opening adventure). There has also been a lot on interest expressed in having an on-line play-by-post game that I would set in the same time period. Which got me to thinking about the actual events of the Second Sathar War. I don’t use the timeline in the Zebulon’s Guide to Frontier Space (at least not completely) but have my own ideas about how that would work.

I’ve dabbled a bit with that over the years but never actually sat down and come up with a comprehensive outline of what the sathar would do. And so that has started taking over my brain as I look at logistics and such from the sathar point of view.

I have a map of the expanded Frontier that I created before I ever owned a copy of Zeb’s Guide. I’ve posted that on-line in the past but not here so I’m including it for your enjoyment. This is the “player” version so that everything beyond the Frontier is unexplored. It does include most of the systems from the modules (and apparently a supposedly secret jump from Cassidine to Truane’s Star that is part of my universe, not sure how that got on to this version 🙂 ).

star map of the expanded frontier region — Digital version of my original hand-drawn map of the “Expanded Frontier”. Shown with where I placed (almost) all the module systems (the one from *Dark Side of the Moon* isn’t there). Click for full size image.

I’m currently working on tweaking this map slightly so that the location of the star systems match the slightly larger Frontier map from Zeb’s Guide. I’ll be keeping the module systems where I put them (Zeb’s moves Sundown and Rianna and has a slightly different location for Belenafar) and adding in the Rim systems. I’ll probably also add in the Saurian systems from the Frontier Explorer and possibly the Se’sseu systems too. I had obviously seen Zeb’s Guide before I made my map because I placed a few systems (most notably that cluster to the upper left of the original Frontier) in nearly the exact same place as the Zeb’s map. Luckily none of those changes affect where I had put the Sathar systems.

With the star map in hand, I’ll begin working on the logistics and timeline for the Second Sathar War. I have a number of adventures in the back of my mind that would allow the PCs to directly intervene and affect the outcome and there will be write ups for those in the coming months (years at my current rate of production 🙁 ). But first, the map, then an outline of the Sathar attacks on the Frontier that will serve as a background for the campaigns. I should probably do a project overview post for this stuff.

Suggestions?

Is there anything you’d like to see more (or less) of in the coming months? With winter coming, all the sports activities are winding down and I’m doing less chasing and should have more time for these projects. Let me know what you’d like to see.

Alyssa Tinett

I had intended for Alyssa to play a larger role in the Death at Rosegard adventure when I ran it for my group. But, like many of the things GMs put into their adventures, the party didn’t really take an interest in her. I used her for the first role she was supposed to play and then I forgot about using her later on. So it is at least partially on me.

Alyssa is the daughter of Larroy & Camryn Tinett, the village’s vet and computer specialist respectively. Her maternal grandparents also live in the village, Steven & Janie Hite. She is very intelligent, inquisitive, and adventurous. She is also an only child.

Alyssa Tinett

Picture of Alyssa in shorts, shirt, and shoes. Her hair is in a ponytail and she has a sword at her side. — Sketch by Danae Stephens

Physically, Alyssa is about 137 cm (4’6″) tall and weighs about 32 kg (70 lbs). She has long brown hair that reaches her mid-back which she typically wears in a pony tail. She has green eyes, and a light tan complexion.

She has her mother’s interest in computers and has picked up quite a bit of experience helping around her mom’s shop.

Alyssa is curious and friendly and a xenophile, very interested in the non-human races of the Frontier. As such, she likes to visit the Streel mine compound and talk to the staff there. She has befriended the resident geologist, a yazirian named Talnor Malon, who has been teaching her how to sword fight, probably against her parents wishes.

Note: If any of my players are reading this, they may notice that I describe Talnor here as a geologist. In the game when I ran it I made him the roboticist but that was a mistake I made when introducing him and just went with it (as it really doesn’t affect the game much at all). He was supposed to be the geologist and I just read my notes wrong.

Stats

STR/STA: 25/25
DEX/RS: 45/45
INT/LOG: 60/65
PER/LDR: 60/60
Skills: Computer – 1, Melee (sword only) – 1

In The Adventure

Introduction

When the PCs arrive in town, there will be a party going on at the city center and the PCs will be flagged down by one of the mine staff and escorted inside to join the celebrations.

The event is a birthday party for Alyssa who is turning 12. When the PCs enter, she will be seen across the hall in a pale blue summer dress. Despite her feminine attire she will be engaged in a mock sword fight with a boy that looks to be a year or two older and a few inches taller than her. She is also winning. Any yazirian PC will notice that she is wielding her sword as a yazirian would wield a kha’dan (yazirian honor blade).

When Alyssa notices the PCs, she will let out a loud squeal of excitement, abandon the sword fight, and race over to talk with the PCs, especially the non-human ones. She will be full of questions and youthful curiosity but her questions will be very intelligent.

Regular interactions

As the PCs investigate and interact with the town, Alyssa will tail around with them if they let her. She will mostly stay out of the way but will try to strike up conversations when they are not busy and will provide information if asked. She received a short sword from Talnor as a birthday present and will be conspicuously wearing it whenever she is out and about.

Up until now she has typically gone by the nickname “Ali” and most of the townspeople will call or refer to her by that name. However, now that she’s 12, she wants to go by her full name and will always introduce herself as Alyssa and correct anyone that calls her Ali. The exception to that are her grandparents, they still get to call her Ali.

Leaving Town

When the PCs leave the village, she will attempt to hide in the back of their explorer. Unless the characters are explicitly looking or being careful to prevent it, she will not be discovered until they are many hours away from town. For each hour of travel, there is a 5% cumulative chance that she will be discovered (i.e. 5% after one hour, 10% after 2 hours, and so on).

Because she ranges round the town and mine so much, she won’t be missed until near the end of the day that the PCs leave. At which point, if they haven’t discovered her and let the village know that she is with them, they will get a call on their radiophone asking if they have seen her. At which point she will accidentally give herself away in the back of the vehicle.

Alyssa has dressed and packed for an adventure. She is wearing jeans, shirt and boot, and has a backpack containing a jacket, 2 liters of water, 4 days of travel rations, an all-weather blanket, a compass, a pocket tool, and a change of clothes. She also has a chronocom and the short sword she received from Talnor on her birthday.

She wants to have an adventure and will do anything she can to convince the PCs to let her stay with them. The referee should play up her excitement, desire to explore and learn, and willingness to help the PCs anyway she can to try to convince them to keep her with them as long as possible.

Further Interactions

What the PCs do with her is up to them. Depending on when they discover her and where they are at, they can return to the village delaying what they were working on or can decide to keep her with them.

Returning her home will result in a severe scolding for her from her parents and profuse thanks to the PCs for keeping her safe. The longer they keep her with them, the less profuse the thanks will be, however, as her family will be worried about her.

On the other hand, if the PCs keep Allysa with them, she will be obedient and helpful, although very curious and inquisitive about what they are doing. She realizes she is there only at their whim and wants to stay on the PCs’ good side. It’s up to the referee to decide on the final responses and repercussions from the village and Streel for whatever course the PCs choose.

Outpost Osiris

I had intended to have this post up on the first but I’ve been a been sick and under the weather. I’m mostly recovered and back to work. This is the follow on post to my Osiris Base – Rough Sketches post where I present the final maps.

In working on the Ghost Ship Osiris module, the next portion of the adventure deals with the PCs rescuing the mining and administrative crew at the outpost from several Pursale robots that the scavenger crew set loose. In order to write that part of the adventure, I needed a map of the base.

I presented the rough sketches I did in the previous post. This one presents the final versions based on those sketches, along with some short descriptions of changes made. Details of the individual rooms will be in the final module. So let’s take a look:

Asteroid Cross-section

First up we’ll start with the cross-section map showing where everything is placed relative to one another.

Click for full sized image

The asteroid is a fairly small one for the outer belt, measuring only 1.4 km long and 1 km wide. Nova Vista was interested in it because of the anomalous readings generated by the presence of the Pursale ship at its core, although they didn’t know the cause at the time.

The main docking and mining level is on the asteroid’s rotation axis to facilitate ships docking with the base. “Below” that are the crew’s living level and the power level.

The mines mostly run through the upper part of the asteroid (as displayed on the map) although a shaft has been started into the “lower” section.

Finally there is a shaft that runs straight into the heart of the asteroid to intersect with the cavity containing the Pursale ship.

Docking/Mining Level

This level contains the base’s docking bay as well as the mining facilities, storage, and technical facilities.

Docking bay on the — Click for full size image

This level ended up almost exactly as I sketched it out. The only real tweaks were to the exact sizes of some of the room.

I just realized that I need to tweak this map just a bit as it looks like the docking bay is inside the asteroid. In reality it sticks out a bit and the silhouette is part of the asteroid that sticks out below it.

Crew Level

This level holds the living and recreation areas for the crew as well as the base’s main computer, offices, and communications and sensor arrays.

This level ended up being a little “shorter” that I had sketched it out. When I started drawing in the rooms, I realized that the individual apartments in the housing area were a little large. As is, the smaller ones are about 1000 square feet and the four larger ones about 1,200 square feet. Plenty big enough for a single person.

I had also drawn the offices a little big as well, but even drawn smaller in this map they are very spacious.

The sensor and communications room is off by itself since it needs to be on the surface of the asteroid.

Power Level

This level is quite simple and just holds the base’s nuclear reactor.

The reactor is fairly self contained but does have a maintenance access airlock as well as a fuel loading/waste removal port.

Other Features

The mine shafts don’t have a map as they are twisty, turny, and loop back on themselves in three dimensions as the mining followed the ore veins through the rock.

The Pursale ship will be mapped separately in a future post once I figure out what the inside of it looks like. I’ll leave it for you to speculate which end is the front and which is the back.

What’s Next?

Next on the docket for the Ghost Ship Osiris adventure is to detail what is happening in the base when the PCs arrive and what they have to do to secure the base. I’ll be generating the base staff, along with their locations and conditions.

While I’m working on that, I have some more notes from the Death at Rosegard adventure to write up and post as well.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions on the maps, feel free to let me know below.

Osiris Base – Rough Sketches

I’ve been working on roughing out the map for Osiris Base and thought I’d share the rough sketches with you. Especially since I won’t have much to post for a while as I work on the final versions of these maps.

Starting with this part of the project, I’ve started working out a new workflow. I recently purchased a new laptop, so instead of an really old (7+ years) netbook with an Atom processor, I’ve got a shiny new Lenovo Yoga 730. These images were drawn on the touch screen of that laptop in tablet mode using a Lenovo Active Pen 2 Stylus and using the Autodesk Sketchbook app.

Previously I used to do my sketches on my Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2″ tablet. Then I would transfer it to my desktop and work on the final images. The new laptop allows my to do the initial sketches and final work all on the same computer. The laptop is more powerful than both my tablet and my old desktop so it was been really nice to work on.

Enough about the setup, on to the sketches.

Overview and Main Level

Osiris base is carved out of an asteroid in the outer belt of the Duergan’s Star System that I detailed in the last post. This first sketch shows and overview of the asteroid and the relative positions of the various parts of the base, along with a detail of the docking and processing level. This level houses the ore processing plant, technical facilities, docking bay, and ore and supply storage areas. Access to the mines themselves is on this level

Click for full sized image.

Crew Level

This level houses the crew quarters along with the base’s computer system, life support system, offices, and recreation facilities.

Second level containing living quarters and recreation facilities. — Click for full sized image.

Power Station Level

This level simply houses the nuclear generator that powers the complex. It is buried deep within the asteroid away from the crew level.

Power level — Click for full sized image.

Suggestions/Comments

That’s it so far. The ship buried in the core of the asteroid (seen on the overview map) will be detailed in a different section of the adventure so I’ll work on that later. I also don’t plan on detail the mines as they twist and turn through three dimensions as they followed the richer ores.

If you have any suggestions or comments as to things that I forgot or should include in the map, feel free to let me know in the comments below. I’ll probably think of some as I start working on the details. When I first started, I forgot to add in the ore processing facility. I was posting sketchs on a Google Plus community when I realized I had overlooked that major detail. Luckily it was easy enough to add in.

As I mentioned at the beginning, there probably won’t be any major posts for a while while I work on these maps. I need to develop a process to match the style of maps that Bill has already produced for FrontierSpace so that things look consistent. I don’t know how long that will take. I’ll try to keep you posted as I go.

Duergan’s Star

Duergan’s Star system is where the Ghost Ship Osiris adventure takes place. Part of the module is a short write-up of the system. Presented here for you enjoyment.

There might be a few tweaks to this after Bill looks over it but for the most part this is the final description of the star system. Bill wrote most of the background, I primarily did the astronomical data.

Duergan’s Star System

History

In -391 GFT, a starship from a distant point of origin crashed on a terrestrial world orbiting a yellow star. The Hawthorne was a rather large science research vessel that supported a crew of 100 Human scientists and technicians. The captain of the vessel, Dr. Duergan Mindner, identified it as a safe place to set down the failing ship, saving its crew but stranding them far from home. This was the first time Humans set foot on any of the worlds of the Frontier sector, and would become the start of their long legacy of influence. Just under 40 years later, Human migration vessels began their voyage from afar to make these worlds their homes.

Today, Hawthorne and Parnell have heavy Human populations. These two habitable planets reside within the habitable zone of the system’s primary Star. Its people share a cultural and economic brotherhood with those of the Kassel and Bhant Systems, the three comprising a region known as “The Ring,” a central hub of cultural, corporate, industrial, and economic activity for the Galactic Federation.

The local government of Duergan’s Star, headquartered on Parnell, is a member of the Galactic Federation and has been since its founding. The Federation keeps a naval garrison here and operates three navigational buoys, providing secure trade routes to Kassel (4 LY away), Bhant (4 LY away), and Krighton (11 LY away, gateway to the Asimaar Prelacy).

Star System

The star itself is a yellow G7V main sequence star with a mass of 0.9 galactic standard solar masses (1.795×10³⁰kg). It has a luminosity of 0.693 stellar luminosities (2.69×10²⁶ W) and a diameter of 0.93 standard diameters (1.29 million km). Its surface temperature is 5472K.

Most of the star system is relatively close to the planet (less than 13 AU) but it has one distant world in the outer reaches. The Duergan’s Star system contains two asteroid belts, two habitable planets, an ice giant planet, and three other worlds. The FTL horizon is at 1.5 AU, 0.38 and 0.65 AU beyond the two habitable planets.

Inner Belt

The inner belt is a very high density asteroid belt filled with smaller objects that orbit between 0.2 and 0.4 AU from Duergan’s Star. There are considerable resources to be found by those that work the belt and numerous ships can be found here.

Wescott

Wescott is a large terrestrial planet orbiting 0.5 AU from the star. It has a surface gravity of 1.6g and is 1.34 standard diameters in size. It has six small moons that are asteroids captured from the inner belt. Its surface is covered with large impact craters – witness to regular bombardment by strays from the inner belt.

Hawthorne

Hawthorne was the first planet settled by humanity in the frontier. Despite its long history and large urban sprawls, Hawthorne is a remarkably clean planet. Founded by scientists who understood the need to be careful with their new world, the people have maintained that tradition over the centuries.

Hawthorne is a higher than average density world, Although it has a diameter of 11,097.9 km (0.87 standard), it has a surface gravity of 1.1g. It orbits 0.85 AU from the primary and has a warm pleasant climate with a day lasting 26.5 standard hours. It has four small moons.

Parnell

Parnell was settled much later after the Hawthorne colony was well established. Parnell is an ocean world with only a few very small island continents. These islands are completely covered with cities and overpopulated. The climate is very mild but not cold. The large oceans result in a bit more greenhouse warming and the planet is warmer than a typical terrestrial planet at this distance from its primary.

Parnell orbits 1.12 AU from Duergan’s Star and has a diameter of 8164 km. Its surface gravity is 0.9g and it rotates once every 21.3 hours. It has two moons. The mild climate, low gravity, and abundant beaches make tourism a major industry on the planet.

Outer Belt

The outer asteroid belt is not as dense and the inner belt (rating only a moderate density) but the individual objects in this belt are individually very large, often bordering on being minor planets themselves. Outpost Osiris is located on a medium sized asteroid in this belt. The belt is fairly wide with objects in this belt having orbits ranging from 1.6 to 2.8 AU from the star. Like the inner belt, there are considerable resources here and many mining operations are scattered throughout the belt.

Dungannon

Orbiting at a distance of 5.24 AU from Duergan’s Star, Dungannon is a dwarf planetoid 6250.5 km in diameter. It has a surface gravity of 0.53g and spins on its axis once every 75.5 hours. Dunganon has single large moon that is tidally locked to the planet (orbiting and also rotating once every 75.5 hours). This moon has a surface gravity of just under 0.1g. It has a diameter of 1722.2 km.

Coombs

Coombs is the system’s only Jovian planet and is classified as an Ice Jovian being composed of more methane and ammonia than pure hydrogen gas. It orbits 12.12 AU from the star, and has a diameter of 44646.7 km. It rotates once every 18 hours and has 37 moons ranging in size from small asteroids to o jects that are small worlds in their own right.

Winterbourne

The final, distant object in the system to be classified as a planet is the small dwarf planetoid Winterbourne. This cold, frigid planet orbits 78.83 AU from the star. It has a diameter of 3954.4 km and a surface gravity of only 0.21g. Like Dungannon, it rotates very slowly completing one rotation every 76.2 hours. Winterbourne is a solitary object with no moons. Lost in the clutter of small objects in the outer system, Winterbourne has only been considered a full plant for the past 43 years.

The following table summarizes the planetary data for the primary objects in the Duergan’s Star system.

Name	Type	Distance (AU)	Diameter	Gravity (g)	Moons	Period (hrs)	Description
Inner Belt	Asteroids	0.2-0.4					small, very dense asteroid field
Wescott	Terrestrial Planet	0.50	1.34	1.60	6	44.1
Hawthorne	Terrestrial Planet	0.85	0.87	1.10	4	26.5	Walled, urban sprawls. Clean
Parnell	Terrestrial Planet	1.12	0.64	0.90	2	21.3	Vast Oceans. Overpopulated island cities
Outer Belt	Asteroids	1.6-2.8					Huge, moderate density
Dungannon	Dwarf Planetoid	5.24	0.49	0.53	1	75.5
Coombs	Jovian:Ice	12.12	3.50	4.60	37	18.0
Winterbourne	Dwarf Planetoid	78.83	0.31	0.21	0	76.2