Good morning, fellow Travellers!
A hot bit of news for you all. As I sat down at my desk this morning, what do I see in my Inbox but what is almost the complete manuscript for High Guard Update 2022! We are now just waiting for one chapter to roll in (should be next month), but we are diving into the editing right now.
Things are always subject to change, but author Chris Griffen gave us this summary of the differences and changes...
• Big ships (of 5,000 tons and greater) can now pack on some serious armour provided they specify a military hull. Also, we scaled limitations that make it tough for little ships (think fighters) to have heavy armour, but exceedingly easy for big ones. Adventure-class ships remain the same; didn't want to rock the boat on that one with so many extant designs out there. Pretty proud of this pair of rules. Having redesigned dozens of ships with them now, I think they work as intended.
• Weapons: We introduce a game-changing concept that we spreadsheeted and playtested for validation. It's called Damage Multiples. Most ship weapons do not have the Destructive trait anymore. We expunged it... except for missiles and torpedoes, which got to keep it. Barbettes are now a real threat, and bay weapons scale properly. I noticed a striking lack of medium and large bays in previous designs. That shall change. The sacrifices are now worth it to get bigger bays.
• Options: Tons of new ones. You'll find the Spacecraft Options section significantly altered and supplemented!
• Customising Ships: I combined a variation of the Trillion Credit Squadron ship modification rules with slight updates to the 'Primitive and Advanced Technology' section into one cohesive chapter.
• Computers: Not much here, but a cool new software package was added per Geir's suggestion, based on his review of my new Sensors chapter.
• Space Stations: I'm leaning heavily on the graphics crew for this one. I didn't like all the repetition in the previous version, so I'm asking for a graphical flowchart of sorts that walks the designer through the rules, flipping back to the ship design section, and then adds updated rules for space-station-specific options at the end.
• Sensors: Brand new chapter that tries to clear up some of the ambiguity and adds some interesting new things.
• Crew Roles! Nuff said. I fleshed out all the crew roles in ways I think players will find interesting and compel them to play their characters with more specificity, depending on the role they serve on a ship.
• Fighters I barely touched other than cosmetic changes, but they will get some love in the Fleet Combat section.
• Boarding Actions: Per our discussion, I took Martin's approach in Mercenary and genericized and enhanced it for more general boarding encounters, not just those involving mercenary soldiers.
• And at last! The Spacecraft of the Third Imperium section. Almost every ship was modified. Don't worry. They are still recognisable, but modified for the better. All of the capital ships were heavily revamped, using the new armour and weapons rules. Obeisance was paid to the previous designs, which obviously paid backward to CT, but the ships are different and capital ships are truly CAPITAL now. They're something to behold. Wait til you see the battle rider and torpedo bomber that I snuck in there!
Don't know about you, but I cannot wait to dive into this one!
A hot bit of news for you all. As I sat down at my desk this morning, what do I see in my Inbox but what is almost the complete manuscript for High Guard Update 2022! We are now just waiting for one chapter to roll in (should be next month), but we are diving into the editing right now.
Things are always subject to change, but author Chris Griffen gave us this summary of the differences and changes...
• Big ships (of 5,000 tons and greater) can now pack on some serious armour provided they specify a military hull. Also, we scaled limitations that make it tough for little ships (think fighters) to have heavy armour, but exceedingly easy for big ones. Adventure-class ships remain the same; didn't want to rock the boat on that one with so many extant designs out there. Pretty proud of this pair of rules. Having redesigned dozens of ships with them now, I think they work as intended.
• Weapons: We introduce a game-changing concept that we spreadsheeted and playtested for validation. It's called Damage Multiples. Most ship weapons do not have the Destructive trait anymore. We expunged it... except for missiles and torpedoes, which got to keep it. Barbettes are now a real threat, and bay weapons scale properly. I noticed a striking lack of medium and large bays in previous designs. That shall change. The sacrifices are now worth it to get bigger bays.
• Options: Tons of new ones. You'll find the Spacecraft Options section significantly altered and supplemented!
• Customising Ships: I combined a variation of the Trillion Credit Squadron ship modification rules with slight updates to the 'Primitive and Advanced Technology' section into one cohesive chapter.
• Computers: Not much here, but a cool new software package was added per Geir's suggestion, based on his review of my new Sensors chapter.
• Space Stations: I'm leaning heavily on the graphics crew for this one. I didn't like all the repetition in the previous version, so I'm asking for a graphical flowchart of sorts that walks the designer through the rules, flipping back to the ship design section, and then adds updated rules for space-station-specific options at the end.
• Sensors: Brand new chapter that tries to clear up some of the ambiguity and adds some interesting new things.
• Crew Roles! Nuff said. I fleshed out all the crew roles in ways I think players will find interesting and compel them to play their characters with more specificity, depending on the role they serve on a ship.
• Fighters I barely touched other than cosmetic changes, but they will get some love in the Fleet Combat section.
• Boarding Actions: Per our discussion, I took Martin's approach in Mercenary and genericized and enhanced it for more general boarding encounters, not just those involving mercenary soldiers.
• And at last! The Spacecraft of the Third Imperium section. Almost every ship was modified. Don't worry. They are still recognisable, but modified for the better. All of the capital ships were heavily revamped, using the new armour and weapons rules. Obeisance was paid to the previous designs, which obviously paid backward to CT, but the ships are different and capital ships are truly CAPITAL now. They're something to behold. Wait til you see the battle rider and torpedo bomber that I snuck in there!
Don't know about you, but I cannot wait to dive into this one!
