2300AD, a few questions

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Recently bought a copy of the 2300AD core book, and think I have got my head around most of the rules, however, can someone help me with a few points?

1. is a "roton" the same as a SSTO?
2. What happens if you fail your Planetary Adaptation Syndrome? p38 talks about "-1 penalty being permanent while the character remains on the world", but -1 from what? Endurance? all rolls? the paragraph below seems to suggest that -1 reductions in End can carry on until End reaches 0, but what happens then?
3. In powered landing some skill checks are "Pilot vs DC12", I guess this is a reference to a previous edition, is that the same as "Average Pilot + DEX"?
4. Powered landings, successful re-entry is a difficult astrogation + EDU + computer number, which is actually quite a big ask, even with astrogation 2, education 12 and a computer number 2, the odds are still not consistently survivable, i.e. +4 on these (optimistic) modifiers, would still see a failure about 9% of the time, risky for one off visits, but a commercial space plane pilot might be doing this regularly, well, up until his eleventh re-entry, by which time he, statistically, will be dead. I have got some ideas about how to amend this, but want to check that my understanding of the rule is correct before I start changing them?

Thanks

Egil

 

[GJD]

1. It's a rocket equipped with a secondary rotor drive system, like a rocket and a helicopter had a love child: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_Rocket

2. All rolls (my interpretation). This represents the sniffles, rashes, coughs and upset stomach from the alien bioshere.

3. Yeah, that's a hold-over from the D20 version, 2320AD. Average (+0) Pilot, Dex should do it.

4. Failure should not mean fiery death unless it was a significant failure, and even then I'd go with a task chain to determine if the pilot/navigator notice they are off course and can correct it. A normal failure might mean an aborted descent, an out of-position entry requiring an extended period of in-atmosphere flying or perhaps some minor damage to the external fixtures due to excessive heating or buffeting.

G.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

1. It's a rocket equipped with a secondary rotor drive system, like a rocket and a helicopter had a love child: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_Rocket

2. All rolls (my interpretation). This represents the sniffles, rashes, coughs and upset stomach from the alien bioshere.

3. Yeah, that's a hold-over from the D20 version, 2320AD. Average (+0) Pilot, Dex should do it.

4. Failure should not mean fiery death unless it was a significant failure, and even then I'd go with a task chain to determine if the pilot/navigator notice they are off course and can correct it. A normal failure might mean an aborted descent, an out of-position entry requiring an extended period of in-atmosphere flying or perhaps some minor damage to the external fixtures due to excessive heating or buffeting.

G.

Thanks, that clears up a number of points.

For re-entry I am going to amend the rolls, when entering the atmosphere on a planet with a working orbital control system (most inhabited planets), and assuming working comms, the ship attempting re-entry will receive data from orbital control, which will normally be set up on the auto-pilot, allowing a roll at Astrogation 3, EDU 3. After adding the ship's computer model as a DM, and perhaps waiting to gain another positive modifier, under normal circumstances re-entry should be straight-forward and successful.

Egil

 

[Epicenter]

4. Powered landings, successful re-entry is a difficult astrogation + EDU + computer number, which is actually quite a big ask, even with astrogation 2, education 12 and a computer number 2, the odds are still not consistently survivable, i.e. +4 on these (optimistic) modifiers, would still see a failure about 9% of the time, risky for one off visits, but a commercial space plane pilot might be doing this regularly, well, up until his eleventh re-entry, by which time he, statistically, will be dead. I have got some ideas about how to amend this, but want to check that my understanding of the rule is correct before I start changing them?

This one is well-worth challenging. Pen and Paper RPGs are infamous for strangely high difficulties for tasks, that in reality, are relatively trivial (they're also infamous for really low difficulties for tasks that would really be pretty difficult).

In all honesty, unless the craft is damaged or under attack, this shouldn't even require a roll (really even adverse weather shouldn't require a roll). By 2300, humanity and human starships have been doing this hundreds of thousands of times since humans in 2300 have been flying in reasonably numerous spaceships for at least 100 years. Normally, it would be as routine as landing an airliner at an airport; yes, airliners do crash every year, but number that crash compared to the number of flights is so low that a tabletop task system should just default it to zero chance of failure normally (using 2d6 mechanics to model something with a 1:10,000 or whatever chance is questionable to me). Particularly Traveller with its 2d6 mechanic needs to be very careful in what things actually are tasks; things with a high risk of failure should require rolls, not stuff where failure has disastrous consequences, however slim the chance.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

4. Powered landings, successful re-entry is a difficult astrogation + EDU + computer number, which is actually quite a big ask, even with astrogation 2, education 12 and a computer number 2, the odds are still not consistently survivable, i.e. +4 on these (optimistic) modifiers, would still see a failure about 9% of the time, risky for one off visits, but a commercial space plane pilot might be doing this regularly, well, up until his eleventh re-entry, by which time he, statistically, will be dead. I have got some ideas about how to amend this, but want to check that my understanding of the rule is correct before I start changing them?

This one is well-worth challenging. Pen and Paper RPGs are infamous for strangely high difficulties for tasks, that in reality, are relatively trivial (they're also infamous for really low difficulties for tasks that would really be pretty difficult).

In all honesty, unless the craft is damaged or under attack, this shouldn't even require a roll (really even adverse weather shouldn't require a roll). By 2300, humanity and human starships have been doing this hundreds of thousands of times since humans in 2300 have been flying in reasonably numerous spaceships for at least 100 years. Normally, it would be as routine as landing an airliner at an airport; yes, airliners do crash every year, but number that crash compared to the number of flights is so low that a tabletop task system should just default it to zero chance of failure normally (using 2d6 mechanics to model something with a 1:10,000 or whatever chance is questionable to me). Particularly Traveller with its 2d6 mechanic needs to be very careful in what things actually are tasks; things with a high risk of failure should require rolls, not stuff where failure has disastrous consequences, however slim the chance.

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.

Egil