Recent content by locarno24

At the edge of medium range (10,000km), you're 0.03 light seconds from the target, so you're looking at a 0.03s old image and your speed of light shot takes 0.03s to arrive, meaning about 0.65m unobservable evasion per G of acceleration. On a big, fat freighter it means nothing but stopping you...

Lets slightly clarify: they're not firing a beam that hits the reflector as a targeted point. By the time the beam they're using reaches the Moon's surface it's about six and a half kilometres across. That's the same issue with laser-fire in space combat. Hitting a starship at 25,000 km with a...

The first major bit of work done to the Harrier last time we played it was replacing the remains of the missile rack with an accurate triple beam laser - partly for point defence and partly for called shots that don't blow the target to rapidly expanding fragments.

Another Harrier (in whatever state of repair) is an interesting match to face generally. Firstly it helps explain why the PCs aren't infamous and instantly recognised everywhere - unless they're going for the atrocity approach and blowing away every witness, a general description of the Harrier...

Can absolutely confirm that the Rogue Trader tabletop RPG pretty much *expects* the players to act that way. Bribing the crap out of hired mooks instead of fighting them is right there as an option in the core rule book. I would put out there that given this is supposed to be modern day...

They do also mention (but do not describe) the Wyvern, which was a heavier combat version. The author was asked about this here and suggested it would be a sub 2,000 dTon hull with pretty much the same design logic.

Every 40k RPG post Dark Heresy 2nd Edition has used some variation on this (Profit, Influence, Infamy and Logistics respectively). I don't mind them but the big issue is how it translates to actually buying stuff (or influencing people). the basic rule seems reasonable. If I have WEL X I can...

Yes; modelling any 'marksmen' as an effect-based musket volley was what I probably had in mind. If you want to capture or wound the captain you're into boarding actions.

It was a very good narrative idea and beats 'half hour exposition dump' into a cocked hat.

Honestly my absolute favourite bit of the Mongoose Traveller 1e Secrets of the Ancients was chapter 6: The Secret. It's intended as a kind of interactive monologue/exposition dump but I love the adventure so much. Playing as full on ancient-era agents of Grandfather and co, with missions...

To be fair, the 'darker side' of the imperium still pops up in things like secrets of the ancients with the totally unofficial prison hulk and imperial agents like Galen.

We're running a game of "How The Communists Stole [Classified]" for our Christmas game night tomorrow. Looking forward to playing the game again after ages. We'll be using Paranoia XP since I don't have the new rule set, but who knows: this might trigger a demand for more games of Paranoia...

But is it possible to suffer a critical hit to the jacuzzi deck?

Had a look - looks rather interesting, though I'm not sure I want to grab a brand new system. The idea that the ships are AI is quite workable in Traveller, too, with sufficient automation, though, making crew a nice-to-have rather than something mandatory.

Thanks for input! I'll have a look. That sounds quite interesting - makes me think of various Ian M Banks books, which is always a good start. Kind of. I wasn't wanting a huge roster of crew, so I was probably going to work with the way hired crew is modelled in Pirates of Drinax - that you...