Supplement 14: Space Stations - Now on Drivethru!

[Tom Kalbfus]

Having only part of the space station spin is more useful for spaceships than stations that don't typically go anywhere. An O'Neill Cylinder has to stay pointed at the Sun, it orbits a planet and if it has thrusters, they are to maintain its orbit. It is not designed to be a spaceship so its perfectly fine that the whole thing rotates.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Although - How do I get the classic "Spinning Wheel" design for a non-Gravity space station ala 2001???????? Neither Hampster Cage nor Double Hull seems to fit that design.

There are little pgms online that'll tell you the minimum size for those. Other than that just spec the hull size and then cost. M-drives to be able to start and vary the spin rate. Should be easy to extrapolate as there is no other special equip.

But do I use the rules for Double Hulls or Hampster Cages? Those are the only two in this book that have stats (size and cost) available. I guess if the Outer/Spinning hull represents 90% of the total size, you could argue that it is a Double Hull with the other 10% representing the central hub...

What do the hampsters do?

 

[Condottiere]

I think hamster wheel might be more descriptive.

 

[sideranautae]

Having only part of the space station spin is more useful for spaceships than stations that don't typically go anywhere. An O'Neill Cylinder has to stay pointed at the Sun, it orbits a planet and if it has thrusters, they are to maintain its orbit. It is not designed to be a spaceship so its perfectly fine that the whole thing rotates.

Quite correct. No need for all that complexity for a station. The Hub, spoke & rim model is a good one for a station that receives ships as they can land on the inside of the rim easily.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

After a first look through - good that I bought the PDF! When I find spelling errors - they must be bad And some rules at least on first look seem to be wrong (M-Drives and Orbits)

But DTRPG tells me an update is available so after tomorrows visit to Ute in Koblenz I'll re-check.

Why shouldn't a space station have an m-drive? The Death Star was a space Station and it had both that and a hyper drive. A space station is in principle a lot like a spaceship, the main reason for having an m-drive is to maintain its orbit, or sometimes to change its orbit. Sometimes economies change and the space station has to re-position itself to remain economically competitive. The main difference, I would say is that while spaceships would have M-drives rated in multiple gs, a Space Station should have them at fractions of a G, as its main purpose is not to travel around but to act as a station.

 

[phavoc]

I noticed on Drivethru that there aren't any customer reviews, aside from a single 3-star rating.

How much did the update fix (for those that got it)?

 

[alex_greene]

Just got my copy of this supplement, and am backing up to my flash drives. Will review shortly.

 

[Reynard]

Just found Space Station at my game store which mean it must have arrived within last week. I like the book even with a few warts. I would appreciate a bit of errata for those few blemishes but otherwise it's good on the first pass.

Wow! Suddenly I see star (and non-star) systems in a new light! Those Red Zone worlds are now tempting and dangerous! High tech, high population worlds are busy everywhere, not just around the main world. Gas giants aren't just opportunities for a bit of free wilderness fueling when there may be a patrolled gas refinery orbiting. I can see adventures involving purely space based encounters for a myriad of reasons depending on the type of station the referee needs.

Must read more thoroughly

 

[Infojunky]

Wow! Suddenly I see star (and non-star) systems in a new light! Those Red Zone worlds are now tempting and dangerous! High tech, high population worlds are busy everywhere, not just around the main world. Gas giants aren't just opportunities for a bit of free wilderness fueling when there may be a patrolled gas refinery orbiting. I can see adventures involving purely space based encounters for a myriad of reasons depending on the type of station the referee needs.

I am so glad someone else feels this as well...

 

[MongooseMatt]

An update on mail order copies - the drop ship has been relocated (the crew decided to, ironically, have a quick stop at a local leisure-based space station), and is now en route. We are expecting the cargo to land next Tuesday, and it will be dispatched the same day. If you are in the UK, expect to see it a week Wednesday/Thursday, with other countries seeing theirs soon after.

 

[alex_greene]

Just found Space Station at my game store which mean it must have arrived within last week. I like the book even with a few warts. I would appreciate a bit of errata for those few blemishes but otherwise it's good on the first pass.

Wow! Suddenly I see star (and non-star) systems in a new light! Those Red Zone worlds are now tempting and dangerous! High tech, high population worlds are busy everywhere, not just around the main world. Gas giants aren't just opportunities for a bit of free wilderness fueling when there may be a patrolled gas refinery orbiting. I can see adventures involving purely space based encounters for a myriad of reasons depending on the type of station the referee needs.

Must read more thoroughly

Orbiting medical research stations where a disease has broken out and the characters have to find a cure in a hurry; or where they find that the disease was released deliberately to cover up the station's dark secret.

Observatories with a crew of a thousand lying abandoned, their crews having vanished, fortnight-old food mouldering on their plates, and all the records and stored data wiped and replaced by what sounds like noise, but which is actually an electronically-distorted continuous human scream; a thousand voices.

A gambling station operating in system, out of the jurisdiction of the prudish homeworld, run by the local Mob, home to all sorts of sin, data havens for shadow data - blackmail evidence, illegal data - and a moderately secure bank to hold the physical and electronic proceeds of crimes of all sorts from all around the system. The perfect venue for a major heist.

A cult of psions taking refuge in an abandoned mining station, extracting air and fuel from comets and ice from a nearby ring system, and the characters have to go in and extract the local Noble's daughter before they *cough* "convert" her. "And we will all come together in a better place, A better place than this ..."

Oh, the potential story hooks ...

 

[Reynard]

I can see stations purpose built over gas giants and other interesting bodies offering spectacular views as a tourist destination. Such places could also be 'off shore entertainment' stops for activities illegal planetside. Good place for patrons and adventurers to meet.

The space station explains those very unusual UWP characteristic combinations such as A starports over a tiny dead ball with almost no population or worst yet, huge populations.

And stations allow the referee to control an adventure's size and location as if an purpose built enclosed town or city and a system can have more than one theme station.

 

[phavoc]

I am looking forward to seeing the dead-tree version in my local hobby store. Since they are members of bits-and-mortar, I get both hard and soft copies of the books.

I HIGHLY suggest getting your local game store to sign up for the program. It's FREE to them and GREAT for you!

 

[alex_greene]

Naturally, the size of the station does not have any limit - so it is entirely possible for a TL 15 space station to be built entirely circling its homeworld, even encasing it in a cage with the planet visibly spinning away inside it and vast regions to explore - the stationary polar command area, for instance, being a region the size of Wales, and the equatorial spaceport area with berths for literally thousands of ships of all sizes.

 

[IanBruntlett]

I am looking forward to seeing the dead-tree version in my local hobby store. Since they are members of bits-and-mortar, I get both hard and soft copies of the books.

I HIGHLY suggest getting your local game store to sign up for the program. It's FREE to them and GREAT for you!

I recommend Bits and Mortar as well. I usually prefer the dead tree edition but, on occasion, I've used the PDF. Having the Spinward Marches PDF to hand has been very useful when I've been preparing to run adventures. I've been able to print subsector maps without messing around with photocopiers.

 

[sideranautae]

Wow! Suddenly I see star (and non-star) systems in a new light! Those Red Zone worlds are now tempting and dangerous! High tech, high population worlds are busy everywhere, not just around the main world. Gas giants aren't just opportunities for a bit of free wilderness fueling when there may be a patrolled gas refinery orbiting. I can see adventures involving purely space based encounters for a myriad of reasons depending on the type of station the referee needs.

I am so glad someone else feels this as well...

Ditto.

 

[sideranautae]

So, did the PDF get updated? Anyone ready to review it?

 

[Reynard]

Having purchased the hard copy, is there an errata for the book or do I have to buy the PDF too? I think we're owed that much as we waited for the costlier HB and enough time went by that errors found in the PDF should have been corrected before the printing. Right now I most importantly want to know what the missing cost for is for the Page 24 Construction Time On-site build is (listed as 1 week at MC .0 now).

Speaking of which, there's a new ship type, Construction Dreadnaughts! There would be a sight for adventurers seeing a half built station surrounded by massive construction vessels, hundreds of smaller work craft and huge Jump haulers unloading prefab sections and modules. Again your group might be there on assignment in association with the construction.

 

[phavoc]

Got my hard copy today (it's not available via Bits and Mortar... :x). I wrote up my own review, but put it in a separate thread.

Yeah, I'm waiting to see if the pdf version fixes some things, too.

 

[SMetze]

Yeah I gotta say I was overall a little disappointed with this book.

For example, HG says 100,000 tons might be a very modest Space Station, and yet, the be all end all of space station books maxes out at 10,000 tons in the examples.

I was hoping to get a feel for how to do combat against something with say 60,000-70,000 hull points, and the weird System Damage rules seem to treat all levels of damage the same.

I was also hoping to get more of a feel for life on a station, what might differentiate a class A from a class B other than the obvious, and personalities, if you will, of stations.

I did like the descriptions of some of the stations, and the ideas of different types of Naval and Civilian and Scout etc. bases were nice, and the idea of so many multiple stations in one system had (duh) never actually occurred to me, so that was some help there too, but end the end I wasn't sure how the value of this book compared with HG, which in contrast was an awesome book, obviously.