space stations/orbital habitats etc
- Thread starter The Chef
- Start date
GURPS Traveller Starports and GURPS Traveller Starships both have a
lot more options useful for space stations and especially orbital habitats
than the currently published Mongoose Traveller material does, and the
conversion is not difficult at all since you do not have to recalculate the
drives. As far as I know these two GURPS Traveller supplements are
available as PDFs from Steve Jackson Games' e23 online store.
lot more options useful for space stations and especially orbital habitats
than the currently published Mongoose Traveller material does, and the
conversion is not difficult at all since you do not have to recalculate the
drives. As far as I know these two GURPS Traveller supplements are
available as PDFs from Steve Jackson Games' e23 online store.
lucasdigital
Mongoose
The Chef said:
I'd use High Guard if I thought the facility might see combat. Otherwise I tend not to bother with a build process, at least for big facilities. There was an early journal article that provided a modified system or building orbital facilities, mainly focused on O'Neil style structures.
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
I also use High Guard, especially if I want it to have weapons, although realistically, who cares how many 100-ton Meson Bays that 100,000,000 ton space station has. It has enough to vaporize your ship if you try to attack it.
I am lucky enough to have a paper copy of FASA's Starport supplement from back in the day, so I often use that.
I believe that the FASA stuff is available from FFE on their new CD.
Usually, I just fake it though.
I am lucky enough to have a paper copy of FASA's Starport supplement from back in the day, so I often use that.
I believe that the FASA stuff is available from FFE on their new CD.
Usually, I just fake it though.
Here you go:
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/index.html
With gravitics I assume folks can live on both the inside and outside surfaces of the colony. I presume a device that provides radiation and cosmic ray shielding for those outside. It operates using handwavium, and requires many skill rolls to repair if the handwavium gets out.
I have one colony that's a big disk, it turns like a flipped coin to get a night/day cycle.
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/index.html
With gravitics I assume folks can live on both the inside and outside surfaces of the colony. I presume a device that provides radiation and cosmic ray shielding for those outside. It operates using handwavium, and requires many skill rolls to repair if the handwavium gets out.
I have one colony that's a big disk, it turns like a flipped coin to get a night/day cycle.
Jeff Hopper
Mongoose
Colonies in Space by T. A. Heppenheimer was written in the 1970s and is still the best baseline overview of orbital habitats around, IMHO.
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
There is also the Babylon 5 Station Guide... available until the end of this month on DriveThruRPG (at a 25% discount).
Lots of good ideas and maps there. You would only have to tweak the defensive systems a bit, but the overall design and layout is pretty rules neutral.
Lots of good ideas and maps there. You would only have to tweak the defensive systems a bit, but the overall design and layout is pretty rules neutral.
Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
A bit OT, but I did not want to resurrect the old bab5 thread: The German SciFi Channel is re-airing Babylon 5 by now and I'm starting to be interested after not liking the show in the 90s.
The day before yesterday they aired "severed dreams", the episode in which four Minbari vessels help the station against three(?) earth force omega cruisers.
The episode was great, but that broke my suspension of disbelief. A five-mile-long station is outgunned by three (let it be ten^^) jump-capable ships tiny in comparison? WTH?
Does the book offer a rationale to this (except of "giving Delenn a reason to say some badass lines^)?
Babylon 5 is basically a civilian station built for diplomatic purposes, itwalkir said:
was not designed with the capability to defend against warships.
The various other races would hardly have considered an Earth Alliance
fortress as neutral enough to serve as a meeting place for their diplo-
mats. :wink:
Dave Chase
Mongoose
B5, was also upgraded but the weapons were mainly for defensive purposes.
Plus unlike most military ships, it had the issue/problem of being neutral territory so if EA had put to much weapons on it, the other races would have had some 'concerns'.
Sometimes a structure (or ship) is built with politicial reasons which out weigh the reality reasons for its purpose.
Dave Chase
Plus unlike most military ships, it had the issue/problem of being neutral territory so if EA had put to much weapons on it, the other races would have had some 'concerns'.
Sometimes a structure (or ship) is built with politicial reasons which out weigh the reality reasons for its purpose.
Dave Chase
B5's defence grid was upgraded in "GROPOS" by the visiting General Frankin. In it, it was claimed that these upgrades would allow B5 to defend itself from a warship.
The problem B5 has which hasn't already been mentioned above, is that it's a space station and cannot maneuver. Not that warships seem to do a lot of manervering in B5 anyway (except for the White Star
), but it's an important point to make: B5 is literally a sitting target. If you wanted to destroy the station it would be trivially easy. The EarthForce ships in "Severed Dreams" were there to capture it, however.
The problem B5 has which hasn't already been mentioned above, is that it's a space station and cannot maneuver. Not that warships seem to do a lot of manervering in B5 anyway (except for the White Star
), but it's an important point to make: B5 is literally a sitting target. If you wanted to destroy the station it would be trivially easy. The EarthForce ships in "Severed Dreams" were there to capture it, however.Jeff Hopper said:
The full online version of that book is linked at the link I gave. Or more directly, here:
Colonies in Space
Here are some nice pictures. I've used them as campaign handouts:
NASA images
Space Studies Institute art
Dave Chase said:
Yeah, of course politics. But even structure and radiation shielding-wise that should have been a lot different. Well, I don't have the books as my FLGS did not have them in stock yesterday. Perhaps the station is written as anything but a few-million-dTon block.
Jeff Hopper
Mongoose
saundby said:
I didn't know the text of Colonies in Space was available free online - it is missing a lot of illustrations that are in the book, unfortunately.
lucasdigital said:
For combat it wouldn't be hard to use or extend the HG stats - and unless players are planning on buying one (hint - take their credits away!) I wouldn't worry about cost.
I would see this as basically the same issue as designing downports, cities, bases, etc. Their scale and scope is way to big and diverse which would make it hard to come up with anything but general guidelines...
That said, these might help - Starports and system defenses.
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