Took me a bit long, but I've gone through the Za'tachk chapters of the book now. As with the last time, I'll break down the feedback in different segments: overall typos/simple errors, the High Guard section, and finally Astronomical stuff.
As usual, if I'm not sure an entry is a mistake or not, it will have a
[?] beside it.
- Page 71, 1st paragraph: "highly beneficial train when the Z'tachk (...)" - a highly beneficial trait, not train.
- Page 77, 'Pacifism', 3rd paragraph: "(...) Za'tachk will use whatever means necessary to illuminate the source of danger (...)" - Eliminate, not illuminate.
- Page 77, 'Beliefs', 3rd paragraph: "To raise the ritual with Za'tachk is in poor taste but deeply offensive." - Surely 'and' instead of 'but', or perhaps it should say 'is not only in poor taste'?
- Page 78, 7th paragraph: "The are the Za'tachk that aliens most often interact with the most." - This sentence brought to you by the Redundancy Department of Redundancy
- Page 83, 'Language', 2nd paragraph: "Midinomen are comprised of two syllables of three letters each, such as Dyblos, Vaton and Toroce." - The name 'Vaton' does not obey the very rules it is meant to exemplify.
- Page 83, 'Language', 2nd paragraph: "The praenomen and the midinomen are always separated by a comma, (...)" - if you look at the actual names (E.g.: Col’Sanrut-Pahablan) you'll see the praenomen and midinomen are separated by an apostrophe, not a comma.
- [?] Page 84, 'Geography and Topography', 4th paragraph: "A large desert exists where the sun is directly overhead and is not survivable without consideration of protection." - Surely 'without considerable protection'...?
- Page 84, 'Geography and Topography', 4th paragraph: "The hot winds from the dayside cool and release their moister, filling rivers, streams and oceans, allowing free-flowing water." - surely 'moisture' and not 'moister'?
- [?] Page 85, 'Native Lifeforms', 2nd paragraph: "Offspring brought about through the mating of all three genders are longer lived and less resistant to disease than those resulting from only two parents." - Is this really correct? Less resistant, not more? The way this sentence is structured it seems like it would state so.
- Page 88, 1st paragraph: "Above the cone are two thick rings, one inside the other, attacked to the cone by a central cylinder and four heavy struts, where spaceship dock." - Attached, not 'attacked'.
- Page 88, 1st paragraph: "Each dock has linkage apparatus for passengers and crew to depart of alight on the ship." - Probably 'arrive'? I'm not certain, but certainly not 'alight on the ship', that's for sure.
- Page 92, 'Droosen', 3rd paragraph: "Their teeth are very small and produce a little bite." - This is in direct contradiction with the rest of the text, which states explicitly that 'Several anatomical developments have not occurred in the vertebrates on Loza’tch. Teeth have not developed; instead, bony plates resembling a beak are found in the mouth.' (Page 87).
- Page 96, 'The Great Plague', 3rd paragraph: "Unfortunately, the civilisation of Sazkchlarctck collapsed in -104100." - The timeline on page 99 gives this as -31900, which, considering the aforementioned plagued begun on -34100, seems to make a wee bit more sense.
- Page 96, 'First Contact', 2nd paragraph: "Further examinations of the natives revealed had no cities or other centres of civilisation." - bit of a weird phrase, 'revealed had no cities'.
- Page 100, 1st paragraph: "The majority of the population within the Alignment is Za'tachk, although people of all the major Hive Federations live and work there as well.' - this sentence should probably state something along the lines of 'all the major Hive Federation species live and work there as well', considering there is just the one Hiver Federation.
- Page 102, 'Army Organisation', 2nd paragraph: "Promotion and candidate exams can be sat as manyt times as an individual desires but no more frequently than once a term." - that 'many' seems to have an extraneous 't' in it.
- Page 106, 'Titles', 1st paragraph: "Za'tachk do not have a system of heredity nobility but certain honorifics exist (...)" - Hereditary nobility, not heredity nobility.
- Page 107, 'Za'tachk Life Events': "The life events of the Za'tachk are simar to those of humans." - Similar, not 'simar'.
- Page 113, 'Robots', 2nd paragraph: "Robots often have four limbs they can walk on or use to manipulate objects interchangeably, with sensors and vodars located collectively at the front." - Voders (from "Voice Encoder"), with an e, not 'vodar'.
- Page 114, 'Anaroth Heavy Infantry Drone': "The heavy infantry drone is named after another native animal form from Ilelish – a heavy, short-tempered herbivore." - woops, wrong planet guys; not Ilelish, but Loza'tch.
ROBOT SECTION
I decided to try and double-check to see if the Robot designs are valid/legal, but given I've only recently acquired the
Robot Handbook, I don't feel like I have enough familiarity with the procedure to try and do it myself.
If some other member of the community more familiarised with those rules than I could double-check them instead, I would be grateful.
HIGH GUARD
This section suffer from the same basic issues as the Suerrat section; Mr. Bulmer seems to still be using the old High Guard rules when making ships. I strongly recommend Mongoose give the man at least a PDF copy of the High Guard 2022 Update going into the future - or really, give a copy of the PDF to anyone who's supposed to be writing a sourcebook with a High Guard section in it.
With that out of the way, I need to talk about the small craft designs in the
High Guard of the Za'tachk chapter.
I like to believe the I am thoroughly familiarised with the ship construction rules, but even then it took me a fair amount of effort to figure out what was going on with these designs, in particular their usage of an 'Advanced Control Interface' and 'Actuation System'. I searched HG2022 up and down for it and failed to find any mention of it. I searched the old High Guard, and failed to find any mention of it.
I then decided to check the
Robot Handbook (thank Strephon I'd bought it recently) and
finally found a mention of the Advanced Control Interface - which, I feel the need to add, is mis-priced in Aliens Vol.4, it should cost MCr0.004 (
Robot Handbook, Pg. 79), not 0.05 - and even then, I'm not sure how applicable they are here because, quoth the
Robot Handbook: "
Vehicle-sized drones do not require a drone interface but in addition to a transceiver, the vehicle requires an actuation system as described on pages 67–68 of the Vehicle Handbook. The actuation system requires one Space for every 20 Spaces of the vehicle (but none for vehicles smaller than 20 Spaces) and costs Cr1000 per Space of the system."
So by having an Actuation System, then it probably doesn't need to have the Advanced Control Interface in the first place.
Furthermore, while the application of a Vehicle component to a starship is...
unorthodox, but creative and commendable usage of the rules, I find it less commendable that at no point in the preceding text section of
High Guard of the Za'tachk is there an explanation of what the Actuation System even
is or why it is there or how it works, which, considering someone who is as familiar with the ship rules is was thrown for a loop...
I'm not sure if the page can have its layout changed by now, but at least a brief text box saying "you can find more about the Actuation System on the
Vehicle Handbook" would already go a long way to addressing this oversight.
Now, big rambly text wall aside (I don't like writing them because they come across as a bit negative, and I don't like doing that
), onto the rest of
High Guard; I have only as of yet revised the non-drone designs that did not have the Actuation System funkiness, because I was unsure of what that was or how it worked at the time:
- Uft Lifeboat:
- Hull: Radiation shielding should cost MCr0.125, not MCr0.13.
- Armour: The armour in this design should take up 0.3 tons, not 0.4; Crystaliron takes up 1.25% of the ship's tonnage per point, which due to being an Aerodynamic hull, is multiplied by 1.2. As a 5 ton design, the lifeboat has a further x4 armour tonnage multiplier (HG2022 Pg.13), for a total of
5 * 0.0125 1.2 * 4 = 0.3 tons. The price of MCr0.06 is correct.
- M-Drive: The manoeuvre drive should take up 0.05 tons, not 0.1. A Manoeuvre 1 drive takes up 1% of total hull volume;
5* 0.01 = 0.05 tons. The price of MCr0.1 is correct.
- Computer: The computer should cost MCr0.045, not MCr0.05.
- Cargo: Due to the above corrections, cargo should be 0.3 tons.
- Total: Due to the above corrections, total price should be MCr1.76; Consequently, Purchase Cost is also MCr1.76 and maintenance cost is now Cr146.666... (round up to Cr146.7/month).
- Nootrook Mechant:
- Hull: The hull reinforcement should cost MCr30, not 90.
- Armour: Armour should take up 180 tons, not 150, and cost MCr36, not 150.
- Weapons: The 2 double turrets (beam lasers) should cost MCr3, not 2.
- Craft: The Docking Space should take up 6 tons, not 5.5, and cost MCr1.5; The Lifeboat, assuming it is an Uft Lifeboat, should cost MCr1.76, as seen above.
- Systems:
- The Medical Bay should have a tonnage of 4 tons, not 1, and cost MCr2, not 4.
- The Cargo Crane should have a tonnage of 3.5 tons, not 6, and cost MCr3.5, not 6.
- Cargo:Due to the above corrections, cargo should be 320.5 tons.
- Total: Due to the above corrections, total price should be MCr415.7933; Consequently, Purchase Cost is also MCr415.7933 and maintenance cost is now Cr34649/month.
- Crew: Due to a total of 168 tons of drive+powerplant, the design need four Engineers, not three. Similarly, due to totalling 1000 tons, the design needs one Mechanic, for a total crew complement of:
Pilot, Astrogator, Engineers x4, Maintenance, Gunners x2.
- Blodra Patrol Corvette:
- Armour: Armour should take up 180 tons, not 150, and cost MCr36, not 150.
- J-Drive: Jump Drive should cost MCr82.5, not 82.
- Backup Power Plant: The plant should cost MCr32, not 30.
- Fuel Tanks: The fuel tanks for the power plant should take up 16 tons, not 15, for a total tankage of (J2 + Power Plant) 216 tons.
- Computer: A TL12 vessel cannot have a Computer/30 (a TL14 component). Considering the Backup is a /15, the main Computer should probably be a Computer/20fib for a price of MCr7.5
- Weapons: The type of Point Defence (laser vs gauss) is not specified. Furthermore, Type III point defence is only available for TL14 or above; Therefore this should be
Point Defence Laser Batteries (Type II) x5, for 100 tons and MCr50. The ship's description on Page 133 will also require altering to reflect the change from Type III to Type II.
- Craft: The entries in the sections should be as follows:
| Docking Spaces (5 tons) x3 | 18 tons | MCr4.5 |
| Uft Lifeboats x3 | | MCr5.28 |
| Docking Space (40 tons) | 44 tons | MCr11 |
| Agupon Pinnace Drone | | MCr20.808* |
- *(Obs.: Because I haven't double-checked the design of the Drones, this might need further alteration down the line)
- Cargo: Due to the above changes, cargo should be 20.5 tons.
- Total: Due to the above corrections, total price should be MCr642.5299; Consequently, Purchase Cost is also MCr642.5299 and maintenance cost is now Cr53544/month.
- Crew: Taking into account the Za'tachk unique requirement for three Captains and the complement of 6 STOG drone jockeys, the crew complement should be
Captains x3, Pilots x3, Astrogator, Engineers x7, Maintenance x2, Gunners x10, Administrator, Sensops x3, Officers x2, STOG x6 for a total crew of 38.
- Power Requirements:
- Manoeuvre Drive requires 500 power (Thrust 5, not 3)
- Weapons require 105 power, not 155 (5 from the missile racks, 100 from the Type II PD)
- Blarwir-Class Destroyer:
- Armour: Armour should take up 672 tons, not 560, and cost MCr336, not 560.
- M-Drive: M-Drive should take up 250 tons, not 200, and cost MCr500, not 400.
- Fuel Tanks: The Power Plant would require 38 tons of fuel per 4 week period, so 76 for 8 weeks; total fuel tankage should be 1578 tons.
- Weapons: The Triple Turrets (beam lasers, high yield, intense focus) should total to MCr32.5, not 32.
- Ammunition: Neither of the entries should have an associated cost; Torpedo Storage (60 torpedoes) should take up 20 tons, not 19.8.
- Craft:
- Docking Space (5.5 tons) should be
Docking Space (5 tons) x13 78 tons MCr19.5
- Life Boats should be Uft Lifeboats x13 for a total cost of MCr22.88
- Accomodation: The price for 66 Staterooms should be MCr33, not 330.
- Cargo: Due to the above corrections, cargo should be -13.66666666666... tons, therefore making this design as it currently is illegal.
- Loza'tch-Class Carrier:
- This design, too, has issues, but due to relying heavily on the parasite drone-craft that I didn't check, I decided not to go through the design in order to expedite this post going out.
ASTRONOMICAL STUFF:
From Page 84, where both the orbital radius and orbital period of Loza'tch are given, we can calculate the mass of its primary... which comes to nearly
7 Solar Masses. This is patently, incongruently wrong; a K2V star has a mass of no more than 0.9 Solar Masses.
The orbitral radius of 0.55 AU is congruent for a star of that class (about 0.3 solar luminosities), therefore the orbital period requires changing. Using generic numbers (star mass of 0.82 Solar Masses), we find an Orbital Period of about 164.5 days, but given this might be influenced by authorial intent, the best course of action would probably be to ask Darren Bulmer for their input on this.
Finally, but not least, I want to apologise for A) how long this took and B) if I sounded too negative with this post, I wrote most of it yesterday night while I was tired and cranky.
Despite all the recurrent High Guard issues with the book, my previous statement about it overall quality holds! It's an excellent book and I can't wait to finish it.
