Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
There has been discussion about whether Thrust 1 ships can lift off from larger worlds. That should be clarified as it does impact a lot of player ships.
"For solar coatings, units indicate the percentage of the hull covered, limited to a maximum of 40% of the hull."
This would mean that a 100,000 ton ship would produce the same amount of power as a 100 ton ship. Luckily, the example says "a 200 ton ship can have a maximum of 80 units" which would indicate that the rule should actually be...
"For solar coatings, units indicate the percentage of the hull covered multiplied by the hulls total tonnage, limited to a maximum of 40% of the hull."
Radiation hardening raises a ship's protection to 1,000, making it impervious to the radiation trait, which have a max output of 720 rads (2Dx60). The sidebar describing Radiation Damage on Large Ships mentions "To keep things simple, without glossing over the effects of accumulating radiation damage on the crew of large vessels, simply apply a cumulative DM-1 to all actions a ship performs for every 10% of Hull it loses to Radiation weapons. If the ship has radiation shielding, increase this to DM-1 every time it loses 40% of its Hull to Radiation weapons." This implies that that the intention of rad shielding is that some rads still gets through. Perhaps instead of raising the ships rad protection to 1,000, radiation shielding should reduce incoming rads in excess of the 500 rads by half? That puts the max radiation damage at 110, which is in the '1D damage and nauseous' range.
While on the topic of radiation, the sidebar on page 31 says "When a spacecraft weapon with the Radiation trait is fired, it inflicts 2D x 60 rads on everyone within 10 metres of the point of attack. It should be noted that radiation weapons have shielding and other safeguards that prevent them from affecting the gunners who fire the weapon and other crew in the vicinity." I've always found that unclear as 'point of attack' can refer to the attack's point of origin, especially given the next sentence talks about how the crew is shielded from the effects. Perhaps 'it inflicts 2D x 60 rads on everyone within10 metres of where the attack impacts." works better?
It then goes on to say "Radiation is simple to apply to low-tonnage ships." but I don't know if that's the case. I've taken that to mean the Referee determines rad strength, then hit location, then which crew members are within 30meters of that location, consults the radiation table in the core book, rolls damage for the crew, then determines how the irradiated crew member's penalties might effect the operation of the ship. At least, that's what I assume is how it's supposed to work, the book doesn't go into detail. I suppose it would be nice to know the intended handling, especially for novice Refs who might not be familiar with all the different systems involved.
It would also be nice have a line right after the 2D x 60 damage is quoted, reminding the referee that most ship hulls reduce rad damage by 500.
Logistically speaking, a lot of the information on the Radiation Effects on Large Ships sidebar on page 15 is repeated on the Radiation sidebar on page 31. It seems like room could be made to clarify radiation rules by referring players to page 15 for that and taking full advantage of the sidebar on page 31.
On page 180 there's a small syntactical error. There should be a full line break before "Force a maintenance hatch open..." as well as before "Breach the ship with personal weaponry...". While on that page, grammatically I think the line "Following are ways to get through a locked airlock door..." would read better as "The following are ways" or "What follows are ways" but I suppose it isn't technically wrong.
For the sake of consistency, this is addressed in the High Gravity Worlds sidebar in the Starship Operators Manual, page 79. Though it would be nice to have it clarified in High Guard if there's room.There has been discussion about whether Thrust 1 ships can lift off from larger worlds. That should be clarified as it does impact a lot of player ships.
It’s good that SOM clarifies things about how to get off a planet, but High Guard doesn’t even mention lifters. What are they? How do they work? Exactly what do they do? How much do they cost or are they included with the maneuver drives? Things like that.There are a few points brought up in the High Guard 2022 clarifications thread which may be relevant to the conversation here.
For convenience, I'll cross-post mine here...
Solar Coatings...
Radiation...
And a small one I just noticed today...
For the sake of consistency, this is addressed in the High Gravity Worlds sidebar in the Starship Operators Manual, page 79. Though it would be nice to have it clarified in High Guard if there's room.
While on the topic of thust, I wouldn't mind some additional details on what exactly Thrust 0 represents. How much of a gravity well can they take off from?