Frontier Explorer Issue 24 Available

I’m going to assume that those reading this blog have heard this already from another source but just in case you haven’t, Issue 24 of the Frontier Explorer is now available for download from DriveThruRPG or on the magazine’s website. Here’s the announcement text:

Hello Explorers!

Welcome to issue 24 of the Frontier Explorer. Now that Spacefleet has cleared out the recent sathar incursion, we can start publishing again.

This issue picks up right where we left off including some articles that were ready to go but didn’t make it into issue 23. All of the usual articles (Jurak Hangna, comics, etc) are here along with articles about derlict spaceships, and some not so derelict ones along with an small mini adventure in our Warriors of White Light 2 series.

The biggest change is that we’ve moved to a new layout and design for the magazine’s cover, logo, and interior. Let us know what you think about the changes and any suggestions or ideas you might have to make it even better.

This issue continues and strengthens our support for the FrontierSpace RPG in addition to Star Frontiers. Issue 23 had a conversion of the Star Frontier races to FrontierSpace. This issue contains the details of a star system from the FrontierSpace frontier sector as well as stats in the Jurak Hangna creature article for use in that system.

The full article list for this issue is:

Frontier News
Dark Shadow’s Revenge
Duergan’s Star System
Of Lost Ships and Derelicts
Exploring a Deserted Spaceship
Meet the Crew of the SS Knight Owl
Titan Rising: 2299 #17
Kdikit Blue Biters
Ghostship of the Terran Queen
Escape Run #3

Grab your copy today and as always, keep exploring!

Pursale Colony Ship Sketches

It’s taken me a long time to get to this point but I finally have sketches of the ship embedded in the center of the Outpost Osiris asteroid. These are my initial roughs that I will fill in with details as I complete the write-ups.

The scale on the images is 5 meters to the square. This ship is quite large with a “wingspan” of nearly 200m and a length of over 300m. It consists of five decks each of various sizes. I’m going to try to do a 3D render of the shape of the ship at some point.

The bold outer outline in each of the following images represents the outer hull of the middle deck (deck 3). It is shown on each of the images to allow you to compare the other decks to the overall size of the ship.

Only parts of the ship are going to be physically accessible in the module. Other parts are fused with the rock of the asteroid or crystalline structures piercing through the body of the ship in the central cavity of the asteroid. I’ll be deciding exactly what is obstructed and what isn’t as I work on the module details. I know for sure that the engines are not accessible and that the phase shield room (deck 3) and power core (deck 4) are undamaged as is the starboard airlock. Some of the robot storage areas will be accessible as will at least one cryo bay (so the characters can find some desiccated Pursale remains) but beyond that, I haven’t decided what to make accessible. That will come at a future date.

So here are the five decks of the ship, from bottom to top.

Deck 1 – Shuttle bays

This deck primarily contains 8 shuttle bays, a storage area, and the ship’s two underbelly laser batteries. The large engines out on the wings also extend down to this part of the ship but are not accessible from here. The large storage area here contained colonization supplies.

Deck 2 – Robots and Tech

This deck has another large storage area for colonization supplies, as well as the robot storage areas and a tech shop. There are also two more shuttle bays on this level as well as the first of many cryo bays containing rows and rows of the (once) frozen colonists.

Deck 3 – Crew Deck

This is the largest deck of the ship. It contains the engineering section, access to the engines and the crew quarters for the active crew. There is a large garden area, dining an food storage, as well as several cryo chambers. There is also an aft observation deck, forward sensors, and the ships two forward facing laser batteries. The airlocks are also on this level as are some of the ship’s workpods. The phase shield generator is located on this deck in the very center of the ship.

Deck 4 – Cryo Bays and Power

This deck consists almost completely of cryo storage bays containing colonists in frozen storage. The only other ship system on this level is the ship’s power core, which amazingly wasn’t destroyed when the ship unphased into the asteroid.

Deck 5 – Bridge

This deck contains the ship’s bridge and medical facilities, a few more smaller cryo bays, as well as the ship’s launches and some more workpods. It also has the upper laser battery.

Next Steps

This is the ship as built when fleeing the Pursale homeworld and fully functional. By the time the PCs discover it, it has been embedded in the asteroid of millenia. Many of the parts of the ship are fused with either the rocks of the asteroid or crystalline structures in the central cavity. All of the crew and colonists are long dead however some of the robots, along with some parts of the ship’s machinery has survived.

The next step is to figure out which parts of the ship are still accessible and create the actual maps for the game along with the description of the various areas.

The intention of this part of the adventure is for the players to make their way onto the ship, overcoming the last of the ship’s defenses, and attempt to obtain the phase shield generator off the ship and install it on their own. They then need to feel the outpost as their tampering has caused the ship’s power core to enter a self-destruct mode that cannot be stopped.

The details of the ship are still fairly malleable so let me know if there are any major ship systems or details that you think I missed.

Osiris Under Siege

This is section 4 of the the Ghost Ship Osiris module. In this section of the module, the PCs dock at Outpost Osiris and have to liberate it from the alien robots that have taken control and are exterminating the outpost’s staff. I’ve posted the maps and room descriptions already, this post fills in the rest of this section of the adventure. At the end you can find a PDF of the full adventure section that you can download.

While this section is basically done, it is just a draft for the final module. If you find any issues, or have questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to let me know in the comments below.

Arrival

Approaching the outpost, there is no response to any attempt to contact or communicate with the miners at the outpost. Power appears to be on and there is nothing preventing the PCs from simply approaching and docking with the outpost.

As you approach the asteroid, you see that it is slowly rotating. It is about 1.4 km long and 1 km wide, one of the smaller asteroids in the Outer Belt. The stream of ejected tailings from the mining operation that you followed in ends several kilometers before reaching the base, as if the ore processing has stopped. The docking bay doors are wide open with light spilling out into the darkness of space. You also see some lights through a few small windows about 50m from the docking bay.

The docking bay is more than large enough to accommodate the Mirage and is located right on the rotation axis of the asteroid. Unless they try some strange maneuver, docking is straightforward. There is no gravity in the docking bay at the moment but it can be turned on by a control panel next to the airlock if desired. Gravity is present in the rest of the base.

As the PCs open the airlock’s inner door, they are greeted by a member of the mine staff, covered in blood, running down the corridor toward them. Rounding the corner at the far end, is a Pursale combat robot exactly like the one encountered on the Dawn’s Luck. (see this post) It takes aim at the mine staff member and fires, hitting her squarely in the back. She collapses to the floor at the PCs’ feet, wounded but not dead. The robot shifts its attention to the PCs still standing.

The robot has orders to eliminate the alien lifeforms and will fight until it is destroyed or has killed all the PCs.

After defeating the robot, the PCs can stabilize the miner. They learn that she is Kella Rezal, one of the scientists at the outpost. A few hours after the scavengers left, a number of alien robots emerged from the deeper mine area and began attacking the staff. She and another staff member had been holed up in the sensor and communications office and when they saw the PCs’ ship approaching, decided to try to reach them. Unfortunately, they were detected by one of the robots roaming the halls. Her companion was killed as they tried to escape.

She can lead them back to the sensor and communications nexus where they can begin the process of clearing the outpost of the robots.

Clearing the Complex

Pursale Combat Coordinator Warbot

STR:    100        BP:    500
AGL:    60       INIT:    3
CRD:    70       Move:    13, Walking
PER:    65         Frame:    Huge
INT:    65         Docking: 15CU

Programming: Warrior +0, Marksman +0, Commander +10 (Violent Plan)

Equipment: A/V, IR, motion, vocal, & lifeform scanners, communicator, military grade reflec & ballistic screens, heavy laser rifle, devastator, grenade rifle, comm jammer, 800 EU powerpack, military grade armor, computer link, 4 EMP grenades, 4 tangler grenades, 8 smoke grenades, & 8 frag grenades.

Styled similarly to the combat robot, the coordinator warbot is about the same size as a full grown Pursale. It has a short squat body with six legs and two arms extending from the sides of the body near the front. Extending up from the front of the body are two long slender stalks, about 1.2 m in length that end in sensor clusters.

The arms end in manipulator hands that have three fingers and a thumb. The left arm has a built in heavy laser while the right one is sporting a devastator and grenade rifle. The powerpack is built into the body as is the magazine that feeds the grenades to the grenade launcher.

These robots are designed for both front line combat and controlling and coordinating squads of combat robots in independent actions while communicating with a central command if necessary.

The Pursale robots have effectively taken control of the mine complex and are attempting to eliminate the mine staff. There are a total of 16 combat robots all controlled by a single Combat Coordinator Warbot (see sidebar for stats). The arrival of the PCs and elimination of the combat robot at the airlock has alerted the warbot to the PCs’ presence and it will begin marshalling its forces to oppose the PCs.

Complete maps of Outpost Osiris can be found in the room descriptions post. The following sections describe the complex, the initial location of the robots and mining staff, and tactics that they will use to capture and eliminate the PCs.

The PCs should quickly realize that the robots they encounter are not just working at random but are being directed. A successful skill check (Technician or Scientist) with a -20 modifier for working with alien technology should allow them to identify the communication channel being used by the robots to communicate and track it back to the warbot. If the PCs attempt to jam the communications, see the section Jamming the Robots’ Communications near the end of this section for details on that process.

Initial Locations of Robots and Mine Staff

Mine Staff

When the PCs arrive, the surviving mine staff are scattered throughout the complex attempting to hide from the robots that are trying to eliminate them. Of the original 16 staff members only 12 are still alive. Three were killed in the initial foray of the combat robots into the complex and the fourth was killed as she and Kella attempted to reach the Docking Bay and the PCs. The staff members (both surviving and dead) are in the following locations.

Dr. Jamis Grandt (Hm) – Overwhelmed by the situation, Dr. Grandt has hidden himself in the hydroponics lab where he has so far been undetected. If rescued, he will be able to provide lots of information about the staff and operations but will not have any suggestions as to solutions for the current situation.
Kella Rezal (Hf) – Kella is with the PCs and will either accompany them as they move through the complex or will stay on the Mirage. She doesn’t want to stay anywhere else until she knows that the robots have been eliminated.
F’Vothee (Yf) – F’Vothee is hiding out inside the nuclear reactor on the power level figuring that would be one of the last places the robots would search for her. Unbeknownst to her, in her haste to get into the reactor, she tore a very small hole in her radiation suit and is taking radiation damage (1D/hour – currently has 12 BP left). If she is not found and treated within a couple of hours she will succumb to radiation poisoning.
Hiloo (Nm) – Hiloo is hiding out in the Mineral Processing Plant (Docking Level). He has backed himself up into one of the little side maintenance passages and wedged himself under some of the machinery. The robots are a little too big to enter the maintenance passages directly but are starting to dismantle and destroy the machinery in an attempt to get to him.
Reid Esperon (Hm) – Reid had ventured down to the alien ship after Thrawl’s crew left to investigate and was caught by the robots leaving the vessel. His body is about 2/3rds of the way from the mine airlock on the docking level to the alien ship. He was able to get a warning back to the staff allowing them to attempt to defend themselves or hide.
Clese Whayeson (Hm) & Vothi (E) – These two were killed in the Ore Loading Area (Docking Level) trying to defend the airlock connecting the mines to the outpost against the advancing robots. They managed to destroy one of the robots whose body is in that area with them before they were overwhelmed by the other robots.
Petoph Baker (Hm) – Petoph is hiding in one of the robot storage room. He’s working on trying to activate and reprogram the spare mining robot in that room to use it to attack the invading robots. If he is not found, he will have the robot ready to go in 2d10+10 minutes after the PCs dock at the outpost.
Donio Welley (Hm) – Donio grabbed the blankets off of his bed and is hiding out in the Freezer. He’s been there for a while though and is starting to succumb to the cold.
K’Yuuxan (Yf)- K’Yuuxan is hiding in the gym. She has turned the lights out and set the area to zero gravity. She has hidden himself in one of the upper corners of the room. She has a laser rifle and a 50 EU power pack and will fire on any robot that discovers her.
Melni (Nf), G’Vorta (Ym), & Taxu (E) – These three are attempting to hid out in the mine shafts. They have managed to evade the robots searching the shafts for now but are slowly being herded toward capture.
Yo’Viltri (Yf) – Her body is in the stairwell between the Crew and Docking levels. She and Kella were attempting to reach the PCs’ ship when they were caught by one of the combat robots (the one destroyed by the PCs) she was killed as they made their way through the stairwell buying Kella time to escape.
Chofa (Nf) – Chofa is hiding in the largest of the mineral storage bays. She has squeezed herself into one of the shipping containers by removing some of the refined material that was originally in there which is spilled out on the floor.
Yuror (E)- Yuror is hiding out in one of the currently unused housing units. They has barricaded themself into the bathroom with the lights out.

Robots

There are 16 robots currently active and moving throughout the outpost. They are initially in the following locations but will start converging on the PC’s location as directed by the Combat Coordinator Warbot. These are the positions of the robots when the PCs dock at the outpost.

Mine shafts – there are 6 robots here working in three pairs to search the shafts for the miners hiding there.
Stairwell – There are two robots in the stairwell. One is sitting in the area between the crew and power level. It is currently just on station watching for anyone to traverse this area. The second is descending the stairwell between the docking deck and crew deck and is enroute to start searching the recreational areas of the crew deck.
Life Support and Hydroponics – A robot has just entered this area to start searching it.
Central housing corridor – There is a robot in the central corridor between the housing units. It is at the end of the corridor and will break down the door to and enter each room in turn working it’s way up the corridor. It has already searched the units off the left corridor.
Raw Ore Intake – There is one robot in this area that has started to smash and dismantle its way down the maintenance access corridors searching for crew members.
Processing Control Center – There are two robots here attempting to dismantle and work their way into the maintenance passages looking for Hiloo whom they know is in the area somewhere.
Mineral Storage Corridor – There is a robot about to enter the leftmost Mineral storage area.
Robot Repair Shop and Storage Rooms – A single robot is in this area looking for Petoph Baker.
Airlock to Mines – A single robot is stationed in this location to prevent any of the staff moving between the outpost and the mine shafts.
Alien ship access tunnel – About half way down this tunnel from the airlock to the ship is where the Combat Coordinator Warbot has stationed itself allowing it to communicate with all of its robots and the ship.

Robot Tactics & Timeline

Tactics

The destruction of the combat robot at the airlock has alerted the Combat Coordinator Warbot to the presence of a potential threat. 1d5 turns after the robot is destroyed, it will begin marshalling its other combat robots to identify and eliminate the threat.

The warbot does not have access to the outpost’s camera and security system so it only knows where the PCs are when they encounter one of the combat robots. It will start by sending the combat robot from the Mineral Storage area to the airlock to investigate the destruction of the combat robot there.

If the PCs are still at the airlock when the combat robot arrives, or it sees them in the corridor, it will engage them immediately. Otherwise it has a 60% chance per turn to pick up their trail and pursue them.

If a robot encounters the PCs and is destroyed, the warbot will retask the closest robot to that position to resume the pursuit. If the PCs are making short work of the robots, feel free to direct two or more robots to their location.

It should become quickly obvious to the PCs that the actions of the robots are coordinated and being controls from somewhere. If they can jam the communications, then the robots will just go about their last assigned task.

If the communications are jammed, the warbot will come out of the access tunnel to deal with the threat directly. If needed the warbot can summon up to eight additional combat robots from the ship embedded in the heart of the asteroid (provided communications haven’t been jammed). This gives the referee some flexibility to provide the necessary challenge for the PCs.

Timeline

The PCs can’t afford to take their time once they enter the outpost. The robots are looking for them and for the mining staff. The longer the PCs take to eliminate the threat, the more of the mining staff will be killed by the robots. The referee should convey this sense of urgency through the actions of the robots and any NPCs encountered.

The following timeline assumes the PCs do nothing to intervene or are ineffective. Adjust events appropriately based on the PCs’ actions. All times are given in minutes after the initial encounter at the airlock with the combat robot.

Time (min)	Event
3	Chofa found in Mineral Storage Bay and killed.
5	Petoph Baker found in robot repair shop.
8	Yuror found in housing unit and killed.
13	Dr. Jamis Grandt will be discovered in the Hydroponics lab and killed.
18	Donio Welley will be found in the freezer by the robot that killed Dr. Grandt.
22	K’Yuuxan will be discovered in the gym by the robot originally traversing the stairwell. A short fight will ensue before he is killed.
26	The robots will have smashed their way through enough of the mineral processing machinery to capture and kill Hiloo.
35	Donio Welley will exit the freezer due to the cold if not previously discovered and start looking for survivors or a new place to hide.
60	Melni, G’Vorta, & Taxu finally cornered and killed in the mines.
74	F’Vothee will succumb to radiation induced damage if not found and treated.

Jamming the Robots’ Communications

One option the PCs have for dealing with the coordinated assault of the combat robots is to jam the communications between them and the warbot. To do this, a successful skill check with a -40 modifier would allow them to jam the communications. However, this check would have to be performed either using the equipment on the Mirage or in the Sensors and Communications room. PCs with the relevant skills would know where they would have to be to jam the communications. Setting this up takes 1d10 minutes.

If the PCs jam the communications, the warbot no longer has input from the combat robots as to the PCs’ location and can no longer task robots to intercept and pursue the PCs allowing them to move around more freely.

The combat robots themselves will pursue their last assigned task, i.e. searching whatever set of rooms they were in, and then go idle and assume a defensive posture. They will attack anyone that approaches them them will not actively patrol or seek out engagements.

Even with communications jammed, the warbot will still be broadcasting attempting to contact its combat robots and the PCs can still follow this signal to the warbot if they have thought to do so.

Destroying the Warbot

The warbot is actively controlling the combat robots as an extension of itself during this encounter. If it is destroyed or deactivated, all robots without a specific target (e.g. the combat robots pursuing s3 and m3 or engaging the PCs) will immediately stop all action. They will defend themselves if attacked but will not initiate an attack or pursue anyone. Those robots who are already pursuing someone or engaged in a fight will continue their current task and then stop when it is completed.

This deactivation only occurs if communications between the robots are not jammed. If the warbot is destroyed or deactivated while the communications are being jammed, the robots will not stand down until the communications jamming stops.

Aftermath

Once the PCs have secured the outpost and defeated the warbot, the surviving mine staff can fill them in on the events that occured before they arrived. The PCs can also send a message back to Nova Vista appraising them of the situation and outcome. If they have not already decided to do so, NVC will direct them to explore the ship embedded in the asteroid (Section 5) and secure it for future study.

Here’s a PDF of the full adventure section including the room descriptions:

GhostShipOsiris-section4 Download

Outpost Osiris Room Descriptions

I thought I’d have these done back in November but better late than never.

What follows are the basic descriptions for the rooms on the Outpost Osiris maps that I presented back in the Outpost Osiris post back in October (which I’m reposting here so you don’t have to jump back and forth). So without further ado…

Docking Level

Docking Bay – This is the docking bay for the base. It is capable of holding up to a large size freighter. The outer doors can be opened or closed from either inside the bay itself or from the Sensors and Communications room on the crew level. There are separate large pressure doors going to the airlock, the various storage bays, and the refined ore extraction area to allow for direct loading and unloading of ships dock here without having to move everything through the airlock.
Airlock – This is the main airlock for the base connecting the docking bay to the rest of the complex. Primarily designed for personnel, it is also the route for getting large equipment (such as the mining robots) into the base. Because of its size, it takes 30 seconds to cycle.
Mineral Storage Bays – These rooms are designed to hold the processed minerals extracted from the asteroid. Their primary access is through the large pressure doors in the docking bay although they can be accessed via smaller doors from the main hallway. Each of these rooms acts like an airlock and both doors cannot be opened at the same time.
Food Storage – This large room stores excess food stuffs for the life support system after it arrives until it is needed on the crew level.
Equipment Storage – This room contains a variety of equipment and machinery that can be used to repair and maintain the systems on the bases, especially the life support system and mineral processing center.
Tech Repair – This room is used for repair and maintenance of the equipment on Outpost Osiris. It counts as an Engineering Facility (RHB p29) for equipment repairs.
Robot Repair – Similar to the tech repair room, the equipment in this area focuses on the upkeep of the outpost’s robot workforce. There is always one or more robots in this facility for maintenance and repair. Like the tech repair room, this area also counts as an Engineering Facility for robot repair.
Robot Storage – These rooms house storage and charging facilities for the robots working the mines and maintenance at the Outpost.
Mineral Processing Center – This area is loud and full of machinery that processes the raw ore (taken in at area C) and refines it into the raw materials ready for shipment (deposited at area A). There are various narrow walkways and passages through the machinery to allow for maintenance and repairs. Tailings of unusable ore are ejected out into space from the upper left corner through a series of airlocks built into the system.
Refined Ore Extraction – This is where the refined materials are deposited once the refining process is complete. They are then moved from this area to the various mineral storage bays to await shipment.
Processing Control Center – This is the control center for the mineral processing center. It allows the operators to oversee the refining process and monitor the state of both the material being processed and the machinery itself.
Raw Ore Intake – This is the area were the mining robots deposit the raw ore mined from the asteroid to be processed. It contains a number of large bins and hoppers that move the raw material into the processing center. It is connected to the ore loading area (area H) via a series of airlock chambers.
Airlocks to Mines – This airlock provides access to the mine shafts. The shafts are not pressurized so a vac suit is needed beyond this point.
Ore Loading Area – This is the unpressurized area where the mining robots bring raw ore to be fed into the mineral processing center.
Stairwell – This is a stairwell that descends down to the crew and then power levels of outpost Osiris. It is very rarely used as there are about 50 meters between the docking and crew deck and another 100 meters between the crew and power decks. It is present primarily for evacuation in case the main elevator fails.
Elevator – This large main elevator connects the three inhabited levels of the outpost and allows for the movement of large machinery between the levels as needed. It takes one minute to travel between the docking and crew levels and two minutes to travel between the crew and power levels.
Storage Room – This small storage room is used to hold various spare parts for the robots.

Crew Level

Sensors and Communications – This room contains several consoles that control the various internal and external communications and sensors. There are also a number of windows allowing the occupants to see out into space. From this room all of the security cameras, radios, and other sensors can be accessed and monitored.
Offices – These offices are used to conduct the day to day administration of the outpost. Each contains a desk, some chairs, and a computer terminal.
Life Support and Hydroponics – This area contains the life support machinery for the outpost and a large hydroponics lab that produces both fresh fruits and vegetables but also some of the oxygen used throughout the complex. All of the water and air circulation pumps and filters are located in this area.
Dining – This the main dining hall filled with a number of tables and chairs and a large video screen along the left wall.
Galley – This is the kitchen where the outpost’s food is prepared.
Food Storage – This is a giant pantry containing the unprepared food. There are a number of shelves and refrigerator units in this area. When supplies here are low, they are replenished from the food storage bay on the docking level.
Freezer – A large walk-in freezer for holding perishable foods long term.
Main Computer – This room houses the main computer for the outpost and has, in addition to the computer itself, three terminals for accessessing the software on the computer. The computer contains all of records on the mining and ore processing activities at the outpost as well as any information collected on the alien spacecraft. With access to the computer, an operator has access to all the security cameras and locks, the life support system, and can control the mineral processing center and robots. The computer has a level ?? security system.
Housing – These apartment are approximately 100 sq meters (1000 sq ft) in size and each have the same floor plan (or mirrors of their neighbors). The four units closest to the main hall are slightly larger (120 sq meters) and are designed for double occupancy.
Theater – This is a large theater and holovid room where the crew and staff can go to watch movies shows. It is also used for teleconferences with Nova Vista headquarters and meetings of the entire outpost staff.
Pool – This room contains a large swimming pool that the staff uses to relax and stay in shape.
Sauna – This room contains a sauna that the crew can use on their off hours.
Changing Rooms – This area contains a number of changing rooms and showers as well as toilet facilities for use when using the pool, gym, sauna, and steam room.
Steam Room – For those that prefer a wet heat to a dry heat, this room provides a steam room for use by the staff.
Gym & Track – This large room contains a gym floor that can be used for any number of recreational activities. The artificial gravity in this area can be adjusted to allow for a variety of different games and sports to be played if desired. Unlike the rest of the complex, which has a 3m high ceiling, the gym has a 10m ceiling. Around the outside of the gym floor area, there is a running track that is not affected by the changing gravity.
Stairwell – This stairwell connects the three levels and can be used in case of emergency or failure of the elevator.
Elevator – This is the access to the large elevator that connects the three levels of the outpost.

Power Level

Stairwell – This is the stairwell access on the Power Level.
Elevator – This is the elevator access on the Power Level.
Control Room – This is the control room for the nuclear reactor that powers the outpost. The room is secured by a level ? lock that only grants access to the technicians that operate the reactor. It is usually empty as the system is fully automated and only requires checks once or twice a day.
Maintenance Access – This is an decontamination airlock that allows access to the reactor itself for any maintenance tasks. The room contains several radiation suits that allow the technicians to work on the reactor without sustaining radiation damage. Both doors cannot be opened at the same time and it takes 10 minutes to cycle the system once the inner door has been opened to clear out the irradiated air. Both doors have a level ? security lock that only opens for the technicians that operate and service the reactor
Fuel Loading Access – This door is used to add new or remove spent fuel from the reactor. It accepts only specially designed fuel canisters that are designed to hold the atomic fuel for the reactor and keep it contained and safe. It is not large enough for any of the races to enter the reactor.
Nuclear Reactor – This is the nuclear reactor proper that powers the outpost and contains the fuel cells, turbines, piping, and heat exchangers that keep the reactor running and the energy flowing.

Coming Next

The next thing up for this adventure is the completion of the section involving the outpost. This includes bios of the staff, their location when the PCs arrive, and where the robots terrorizing the outpost are located and their tactics. I made some progress on that over the weekend and will continue working on it and get it posted as soon as I can. In the meantime, you can expect another post from my starship construction system if I don’t get it finished this week.

It’s also been requested that I do a post on how I actually created the Duergan’s Star system map so that might show up before I finish writing out the rest of this section of the Ghost Ship Osiris adventure.

As always, let me know if you have any questions or thoughts in the comment section below.

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

Pursale [Work in Progress]

I was working on the one of the sections of the Ghost Ship Osiris module and it includes an alien robot. I realized that to do the alien robot justice, I needed to know the race that created it. So I busted out the Alien Species rules from the FrontierSpace Referee’s Handbook (p. 98) to give me some ideas. I didn’t need a completely functional race as they are all dead (at least the ones you encounter in this adventure) but only a rough physical description. The write-up below is what I came up with.

The following is the Referee’s write-up on the race to be included in the module. It’s a working draft, hence the work in progress flag in the title. It will probably go through some revisions as we flesh the module out a bit more and Bill chimes in. I’ll also probably add more to the physical description as we go.

Pursale

Physical Description

The Pursale are a large omvinorous species. They are quite massive, over 3 meters in length (front to back) with six legs, two arms, and a short squat “head”. Their main body is typically 3-3.5 meters in length, 1-1.5m in width and about a meter in height. They weigh in at about 2-3 tons.

The Pursale’s head, which sits at the front of the body, contains its mouth, another set of olfactory organs, and is where the sensory stalks are attached. The mouth sits low on the head which can be bent downward to touch the ground. It has no upward range of motion beyond the horizontal.

Rising up from their head are two slender, long (about 1.2m) appendages that end in their sensory clusters. Each cluster contains an eye as well as olfactory and auditory organs. The sensory stalks are also flexible and can be positioned as high or as low as they can reach. Typically held high and wide, the Pursale have excellent depth perception and directional hearing.

Their legs are relatively short (about 0.7m long) keeping the body low to the ground but each one ends in a four-toed foot.

The Pursale’s brain is not located in its head but rather further back in the body just behind the creature’s arms. The arms themselves are attached just behind the neck. The arms look like longer skinnier legs, 1.2m in length each ending in a hand with three fingers and an opposable thumb. The Pursale’s shoulder joints have a full 360 degree range of motion.

History

The Pursale are descended from large plains-grazing animals on their homeworld. For millennia, their technology developed slowly and was primarily focused on food-production and medicine. Over time they slowly developed spaceflight and colonized the other semi-habitable planet in their star system which they terraformed into a food production world.

They had just recently discovered FTL travel capabilities when one of their outposts was discovered by the Thazzar, a war-like race bent on conquering known space. Luckily for the Pursale, a ship managed to escape the Thazzar attack and warn the home world of the pending danger.

While not a war-like race, they learned quickly. However, with only a single industrial star system, they were no match for the much larger Thazzar forces. In the last years of the war, Pursale scientists developed a new technology, the phase shield, that allowed material affected by the shield to pass through normal matter and remain unaffected.

Unfortunately for the Pursale, this discovery came too late to turn the tide of war. However, it did provide a way for some ships to escape damage from the Thazzar weapons. In an effort to save their race from destruction, a number of colony ships were built and equipped with this new, although unperfected, technology. These ships were launched in many directions in the hope that some would escape and be able to rebuild the Pursale society.

Relation to the Module

The ship embedded in the Osiris asteroid is one of these colony ships. Unfortunately, the second system it arrived in, now known as Duergan’s Star in the frontier, was occupied at the time by a Thazzar battle cruiser that detected the ship and pursued it. Using its phase shield, the Pursale vessel attempted to hid inside the Osiris asteroid which they discovered to be partially hollow.

That was when the final tragedy struck. While hiding, the phase shield temporarily failed, fusing the ship with the rock and permanently disabling it, dooming the crew and colonists. Not all of the ship was destroyed and there are portions that are not fused with the surrounding rock. The ship lay dormant and entombed for millennia until it was discovered by the miners on Outpost Osiris.

When the ship was entered, some of its security systems were activated prompting the call for help. The scavengers’ activities on the ship have also activated more of the defenses that are now threatening the lives of the outpost’s crew.

Robots

Once I had the physical description of the Pursale, I was ready to create the robots. There are actually two different robots (at least) that the PCs will encounter as part of the adventure. The first is the basic combat robot. The scavengers took one (or more depending on play balance) of these and activate them in an attempt to drive the PCs off their ship. The second is a command and control warbot that is coordinating the efforts of several combat robots within the confines of Outpost Osiris itself.

Pursale Combat Robot

Frame: Medium
STR: 50
AGL: 45
CRD: 60
PER: 45
INT: 50
BP: 100
INIT: 2
Move: 12, Walking
Docking: 4CU

Skills: Marksman +5, Warrior +0

Equipment: Audio/Visual, IR, motion, & lifeform scanners, communicator, military grade reflec & sonic screens, laser rifle, distruptor, 2x 100 EU backpack.

Weapons: Laser Rifle, Distruptor

Description: This robot is like no other you have ever seen in the Frontier. It has a short squat body with six legs and two arms extending from the sides of the body near the front. Extending up from the front of the body are two long slender stalks, about 1.2 m in length that end in sensor clusters. Attached to the back, are what appear to be power packs. The arms end in manipulator hands that have three fingers and a thumb. Each arm has some sort of weapon built into it.

Referee Notes: The left arm has a built in laser rifle while the right one is sporting a distrutpor. These robots look like miniature, metallic versions of the Pursale and are designed for front line combat.

Pursale Combat Coordinator Warbot

Frame: Huge
STR: 100
AGL: 60
CRD: 70
PER: 65
INT: 65
BP: 500
INIT: 3
Move: 13, Walking
Docking: 15CU

Skills: Commander +10 (Violent Plan), Marksman +0, Warrior +0

Equipment: Audio/Visual, IR, motion,, vocal & lifeform scanners, communicator, computer link, military grade reflec & ballistic screens, 800EU power source, military grade armor, comm jammer

Weapons: Heavy Laser, Devastator, Grenade rifle with 4 EMP, 4 tangler, 8 smoke, & 8 frag grenades

Description: At first glance, this robot is basically a larger version of the combat robot, roughly the size of the Pursale themselves. It is heavily armored and has a number of large weapons mounted on (and into) its “arms”.

Referee Notes: The left arm has a built in heavy laser while the right one is sporting the devastator and grenade rifle. It has a computer link to allow coordination with a central control point but can operate independently. It can coordinate the operations of up to 64 Combat robots at any given time.

When directing the robots it controls, it has the equivalent of the Commander skill benefit Violent plan (+5 to hit, +2 damage) and uses it effectively during its operations.

It uses its grenades to attempt to disable or pin enemies and reduce visibility for its opponents. The robots can see right through the smoke from the smoke grenades and both the Combat Coordinator Warbot and the Combat Robot are shielded against the EMP blasts from the grenades the Combat Coordinator Warbot carries.

Images

The jury is still out on the final look for the Pursale. I handed off the physical description above to my resident biology artist (aka my daughter) and she came back with a few possible sketches of what these things might look like based on the description I gave her. Here are some possible options:

Insectoid:

Puffy:

Leafy:

(she actually called this one Butterfly)

The interesting thing is that I didn’t give her any direction at all. I was actually thinking more of a leathery, rough body like an elephant or rhino or a smoother leathery body like a seal or hippo.

In any case, work is progressing. I’ve basically finished section 3 of the module and have sent it out to my Patreon supporters. If you’d like to get the early releases, consider supporting me on Patreon.

What do you think about the race and robots? What physical description came to mind when you read the write-up above? Let me know in the comments below and it might get incorporated into the final version.

Scavenger Transport 3D Model – part 3 – Final Details and 3D Printing

In part 2, we ended with the final version of the hull model for the Scavenger Transport and all that was left was to add in some of the details, most notably the doors and other bits that extended through the hull. After that, it is just “decorations” to add a little character.

Finishing the Physical Model

Adding in the bay doors was straightforward. They are just basically rectangles after all. For the smaller shuttle and workpod bay doors toward the back on the lower level, I added a split vertically down the middle for the doors to open and swing outward on the sides. For the larger cargo and runabout bay doors, I decided that they would open top and bottom so the seam detail runs horizontally. In the case of the cargo bay doors, the lower portion of the door can double as a loading ramp if necessary.

Next I wanted to break up the hull a bit so it wasn’t so plain and I created a little triangular design that I placed on the lower and middle decks for and aft of the ion cannon as well as on the wings. I then added a cylindrical structure on either side of the second level. Next, I added a bit of a domed structure on top of the runabout bay. Finally I created some large (2m diameter) portholes and placed them on the back of the ship on deck two between the cargo bay and runabout bay. These are positions to be in the rec room at the back of that level and the two cabins back there as well.

back view of the ship with the added details — Back of the ship with the bay doors and portholes. You can also see some of the other details mentioned earlier.

At this point I was looking at the model and thinking it was looking pretty good and then I realized: I forgot to add in all the bits and pieces that stick out through the hull! Again these were fairly straightforward as they are fairly simple shapes. I tweaked the block that was the sensor array extension as it was sticking too far out. The rocket launcher (deck 1, starboard side) may get some tubes added to it for the missiles to launch out of in the future, but for now, I just left it as a solid block. I also rounded the edges of the airlock a bit.

Speaking of the airlock, after adding it in, I realized it was really poorly placed. It’s right up against the wing and behind the front part of the engine. Luckily the wing didn’t overlap it at all. I didn’t even consider it’s placement when I made the wing so I was lucky I didn’t have to go back and tweak that. It probably would have been better to put it on the lower level toward the front of the ship. I guess the engineers weren’t thinking too hard about how the engines were going to be placed when they designed the fuselage :-). However, its poor placement gives a bit of flavor and something to hassle the crew with (and for them to grumble about). It truth, it’s more of a backup measure anyway since the ship isn’t designed to actually dock at stations but rather pull up next to them and transfer via the shuttles and open cargo bay doors. So in practice it’s only a minor annoyance.

Once I had these last structures added, the ship was all done.

3D Printing

With the physical model done, it was time to start testing out 3D prints. I started with a simple small, low resolution print. This was done at 0.2mm/layer and at the native scale of the model (1/1000 scale). It only took about 50 minutes.

You can definitely see the print layers on the model. There are also hints of the details on the body, wings and engines although the size of the features are such that they just don’t show up at at this scale. This particular print was done with the bottom of the ship on the build plate. That may not be the best way to print as we’ll see in a minute.

Since it look good enough small, it was time to scale it up. The next print was a 1/500th scale print, double the size of this one. Again I printed at 0.2mm/layer and with the bottom of the ship on the build plate. Although this time I switched to white plastic. Here’s a picture of that print, together with the smaller black print, our trusty quarter, and a Star Frontiers Assault Scout model at the same scale as the larger print. This print took about 5 and a half hours

If you look closely at the larger print, you can still see the layer lines although since the print is bigger, they are not as pronounced. You can also see the turrets on the laser battery print at this scale. They were just too tiny to print on the smaller scale. You’ll also notice that the assault scout model in the back looks super smooth. That is because it was printed at 0.1mm/layer and was printed standing up.

So that’s the next thing to try. My 7-year-old son really liked the ship and wanted an orange one (that’s his favorite color). Since I have a spool of orange filament for my printer just to print things for him, I swapped out the white for orange, flipped the model on it’s back, and started a 0.1mm/layer print. Here is the result, five and quarter hours later:

The surface on this one is much cleaner. That is partially due to the smaller print layers and partially due to the orientation of the layers relative to the model, but more of the latter. A 0.2mm print in this orientation would look pretty good too. The bigger difference, however, is the backs and undersides of the models. Let’s take a look at those. Here are the undersides:

The lighting could be better but you’ll notice that the bottoms of the wings and engines on the white model are really rough. That is partially due to the fact that I didn’t completely clean them up but also due to the nature of 3D printing. Since each layer has to be placed on the layer below, if you have a floating bit of your model with nothing under it, the printer prints support material to get up to that that point where it can start printing the model. So in the white model, a bunch of support material had to be printed to support the engines and wings. Most of that will clean off with some effort using an sharp knife and sandpaper (and my Dremel) but it’s not completely clean. On the orange model, we don’t have that problem and the engines and wings look really good and there was nothing to remove. However …

the back of the orange print has some issues. Granted the back of the white one isn’t the best, as you can see some issues with the layers of the print being slightly misaligned (I need to re-tighten the belts that drive the print head or slow down the print). However, you can see the detail of the bay doors and the portholes (barely, they should probably have been a bit thicker for printing).

On the orange print, this was the side toward the build plate and so had to have supports to the parts of the model that were suspended. In this case that is the back of the engine and wing as well as parts of the back of the ship. The bits on the engine and wings again are not completely cleaned up but they are flat surfaces in is orientation and much smaller surfaces as well. They will be much easier to clean up than the rough sections on the white print.

The back of the ship is a different matter. The surfaces of the cargo and runabout bay doors were the only parts actually touching the build plate. The rest of the back of the ship and the portholes were raised slightly. Because of that the printer had to lay down support material. However, because they were only slightly raised (like one or two 0.1mm layers), there really wasn’t that much room to print support material and it is all fused together. It could probably be cleaned up with some work but it would be pretty tough.

Finally I did a last print at the higher 0.1mm/layer resolution with the ship on it’s bottom (same orientation as the white print) just so see how that higher resolution affected the look.

As you can see, the to surfaces are much cleaner in this print. In fact, I would be very satisfied with that print surface on the model. Here’s the bottoms and backs:

Those bottom surfaces are still fairly rough although I think they are better on the higher resolution print. The back of the higher resolution print is definitely cleaner.

I think the print with the ship on it’s back is still the better way to go, but barely. It’s a tough call and I could be convinced otherwise. To address the problem with the support material on the back of the ship, I have a couple of options. One is to just remove all the surface features on the back of the ship completely. That would give a flat surface to print and would eliminate the problem but you would lose the details on that part of the unpainted model (you could always paint them back on). Another option would be to just eliminate the portholes. There is enough relief to the doors that you could trim the support material from around them. The rest of the back of the ship might be a bit rough but it is an easily accessible area to sand and clean up. The final option would be to increase the relief on everything, both the doors and the portholes, so that there is a bit more space there making the support material easier to clean off. I haven’t decided which route I’ll take yet but I’ll probably do some experimenting to try out the different options.

Going Forward

My Patreon supporters have already received a copy of the model file as it currently exists (that’s one of the perks of being a supporter). At some point I’ll put the model up for purchase for those that would like to get a copy (That will be on DrivethruRPG and either here or my New Frontier Games website). I’ll also make 3D printed models available. That will come once I’m comfortable with the way the prints are coming out.

The next step for the model is to back to the digital model and paint it so it can be used in 3D renders. I need to add textures and materials to the model to give it color and life. However, I’m going to put that bit on hold for bit as it’s not really needed for the module (and I want to go over the Blender tutorial on how to do all of that stuff. I have some experience from the assault scout but it was very trial and error). So this project will probably go on hold for a few weeks while I work on some other bits and pieces.

Bill is also working on the final versions of the deck plans and I’ll post a copy of those once they are available.

Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions below.

Scavenger Transport 3D Model – part 2 – The Basic Hull

More progress on the ship model. If you haven’t read part one of this series, that describes how I laid out a model of the interior of the ship as a skeleton to build the hull around. In this post, I’ll actually start building the ship out. Let’s dive right in.

Try 1

I started by pulling the skeleton model I exported from OpenSCAD into Blender. The first thing I noticed is that Blender likes to work on really small scales. The model isn’t that big, only about 50mm long, half that wide and tall but it was was huge in the default view port. I had to zoom way back.

(If the text on that image looks a little small, that’s because its a screen capture of my entire 4k monitor’s screen. It’s a 43″ screen so I work at full resolution for maximum screen space.)

With that loaded, I can start forming the hull around it. It all starts with a cube. I created a cube the height of the cargo bay and then stretched, extruded, and molded it to fit around all the rooms and sections of the lowest level. Once that was done, I extruded part of the top of that level up to form the basis of the hull around the middle deck and then stretched and molded it to properly fit. Finally I did the same thing for the uppermost layer.

In modeling the hull, I had it extending out beyond the bay doors on the sides and back so that they were inset from the hull slightly. The circular bridge area on the upper deck was modeled as a separate piece.

With the hull done, I created a model for the ion cannon and the laser battery and placed them in their appropriate positions on the model. When I was done, it looked like this.

It looks pretty good. But for some reason, I just didn’t like it. I think a big part of it was that it felt too smooth. I could have turned that down a bit but I still didn’t like the shape. There were bits of the hull that just looked weird up close and had somewhat strange geometries. One was the the bit of hull on the left and right side of the bridge “window” area. If you look closely at the image, you can see that it dips back down between the outer edge of the hull and the bridge proper. There were some other areas like that on the back of the ship and around the hanger bay doors as well.

So like all good prototypes, I threw it out and started over. The only thing I kept was the bridge, the laser battery, and the ion cannon.

Try 2

With a little more experience under my belt, I decided to start over and try again. I kept the original version around in case try 2 was worse but I didn’t expect it to be. This time around I decided that instead of trying to do the hull as a single piece of geometry, that I would break it up in to connecting pieces. While I had originally planed to do five pieces (one for each deck and two for the spaces between decks), I ended up only doing two overlapping pieces as you’ll see below.

This time around I decided to make the outer hull on the back and side be flush with the cargo, shuttle, workpod, and runabout bay doors. I’ll probably add a bit of overhang to those but that detail will be added to the exterior instead of built into the basic hull shape.

Again I started with the bottom of the ship. The process was the same but I made some different design decisions. I also was much more careful about coordinates when pushing, squeezing, extruding, and scaling parts of the hull. There were a number of times that I realized I had done something wrong and destroyed my symmetry. Each time that happened, I went back and fixed it. This is something that I didn’t do on the first attempt. I probably should have worked on just half the ship and mirrored it but it seemed to make more sense at the time to do it the way I did. (I also should have taken more screenshots as I was working on the model to show the stages but I didn’t. I’ll try to be better next time.)

Regardless, I created a lower deck model that I was much happier with than the first one. Once that was done, I started a second section of the hull and modeled everything on the second level except raising it to the full four meter height of the room containing the machinery for the ion cannon or the area that would connect the engineering spaces to the engines proper. The former would be done as part of the connection between deck 2 and 3 and the latter when I actually modeled the engines.

Once I was happy with the second deck it was time to connect the two. My original plan had been to created a completely separate piece of geometry to make the connection but sitting here with the two pieces in front of me, I decided to just extend the top of the lower deck and form it into the shape I wanted. So I extruded the bits under the second deck up and got to shaping the hull. In the end I didn’t just stop this modeling at the bottom of deck 2 but because of some of the feature that I wanted to continue extending, parts were modeled all the way up to the top of the second deck. Satisfied with that, it was time to move on to deck 3.

Again, the original plan was a separate piece of geometry but since this level was fairly simple, I decided to just extend the top of level 2 upward. I was several hours into the project at this point and feeling comfortable with the tools so it went fairly quickly.

Since the bridge area, laser battery, and ion cannon were already done, I just had to turn them on. Doing so made me realize that the area where the cannon was attached felt a little two boxy so I tweaked the design a bit there. I also needed to tweak the geometry around the bridge to expose a bit more of it. With that done, I ended up with this model for my second attempt.

You’ll notice that this one is much blockier than that first one. In that first attempt I had already applied some smoothing filters before exporting the image. I had not yet done so on this one and had first planned on leaving this one as is. I thought this looked pretty good so I even exported this as a 3D model and did a small test print.

I was quite happy how the print turned out. The barrels on the laser battery were too small to print at this scale (1/1000) but otherwise it looked pretty good.

However, looking at the actual model some more I decided I didn’t like it so faceted. Plus if you look at the back of the ship, there is that little bit of contouring that is pushing in a bit. That section fills the space between the doors for the shuttle and workpod bays. I decided that I wanted that to be a feature that ran all the way up the ship.

So I went back into the model and started tweaking. First I modified bottom part of the upper deck geometry to continue running that feature all the way up the aft portion of the ship. This was actually fairly easy as at this point in the ship, the outer edge of the hull is well beyond the interior walls. After that was added, I started smoothing out the surface and adding edges and features in where I wanted the model to have sharp edges. I ended up with the following model.

The one thing that adding the smoothing did was somewhat highlight the fact that it is two different pieces of geometry. You can see a slight seam between the two pieces in the area under the ion cannon. It runs around the front of the ship and back to the point just in front of the bulge mid-ship on the lower deck (that bulge is the location of the reflec screen on this side of the ship) where it turns upward to the top of the second deck.

This seam is not visible in the unsmoothed version as it is an artifact of the extra facets added to the geometry to make it smooth. It’s something I’ll need to clean up. I haven’t decided exactly how I’m going to do it but I have two options. One is to go in and tweak the geometry so that the two pieces (with the smoothing) line up better. That is actually what I did on the back half of the ship. You can’t see the seam back there. The other is to put surface details, such as pipes, equipment, etc. that run over that area of the ship to mask the region affected. It will probably end up being a combination of those options in the end but that is for later.

The other thing you can’t see in this image is that there is a bit of hull under the lower deck. It actually extends about a half a meter below the deck but it is beveled inward so it doesn’t really show up in the angle of this view. And the bit that is visible (just below the front of the bow and below the parts jutting out a little on the side) are in shadow from the lighting. This extension allows for some machinery and piping beneath the hull and the addition of landing pads as well.

Now that the outer hull is done, it’s time to add the engines.

The Engines

I didn’t really have any ideas for a design on the engines, I just knew they needed to be big and were going to be outboard on either side of the ship. So what I decided to do was use the engines depicted on that map at the end of the last post as a model. I imported that image into Blender to use as a reference and got to work. Here it is again.

I’m going to match the silhouette of those engines at the top and bottom. In this case, I am only going to model one engine and then mirror it to the other side of the ship.

The engine design is fairly simple. It’s mainly a cylinder with a spherical cap at the front and an exhaust cone at the back. Plus some decorations along the side. I made a couple of variations on this image for the model. First, the exhaust cone at the back is symmetrical on my model I might go back and add that curve to it later but for now I left it alone. I also added some tori around the exhaust cone section of the ship reminiscent of the ribbing on current day rocket engines.

I also added one around the connection point between the cylinder and the sphere at the front of the engine (to mask the seam that shows up there when I applied the smoothing 🙂 ).

For those bits of geometry sticking out on the sides, I modeled them as extensions that ran a little more than half way around the engine instead of all the way around.

To connect the engines to the ship, I created some simple swept forward “wings”. All of these pieces were then smoothed and added to the model. With that done, I had the final model of the base hull ready to go.

What’s Next

Now that the base hull is done, it’s time to add the details. That will be the subject of the next post. First up will be those bits of the interior rooms that actually extend beyond the hull. On the side face in these images, the grapple launcher extends a bit out of the bow of the ship. On the other side we have the rocket battery launcher on deck 1 and the sensor array and airlock on deck two.

After that, I need to add in all the bay doors on decks one and three. That will complete the full basic structure of the ship. At this point I’m going to do another 3D print. At the small scale that I used for the first test print, that is all the detail that might show up. Any other smaller details would only show up on a larger print.

Once those final necessary features are added on, I’ll go through and add some other details and features to break up the completely smooth surfaces just a little as well as some recessed landing gear on the bottom of the ship. While the ship doesn’t normally dock or land on planets, it is capable of landing on smaller, very low gravity objects so I need to add that feature in.

So what do you think about the design? Any additional features you think should be included? Let me know in the comments below.