Its a good point if a little ungraciously delivered. The buzz should be tearing through warped gravity fields between jaggedy edged debris, eg skip to about 4:15 in that video and keep your eye on one spot, pick any one, and see how long it remains clear of superspeed debris. Try threading that needle for a few hours, and that's just with the fairly sparse satellite coverage we have today, never mind the kind of shrapnel that would exist a century from now.

I guess it depends on what sort of game you want to run, if its a pulpy weapons free kind of game you could just handwave everything, but for a somewhat more robust experience the equation comes into play - easier access to the stations means lower profits and the big hitters don't get involved because easier access to space removes the threat to their future power. Also there's less risk, so the edge is diminished somewhat - for me the excitement is heightened by bearding the lion just to get to the real problem. Not everyone feels similarly of course.

I'd be happy to get your riff on the idea if you're in the form, I'm really just writing stuff as it comes to me here.

Quote from: The Traveller;613054Its a good point if a little ungraciously delivered.

Never been one for finesse.

QuoteThe buzz should be tearing through warped gravity fields between jaggedy edged debris, eg skip to about 4:15 in that video and keep your eye on one spot, pick any one, and see how long it remains clear of superspeed debris. Try threading that needle for a few hours, and that's just with the fairly sparse satellite coverage we have today, never mind the kind of shrapnel that would exist a century from now.

Well, YES, that sounds fun, but that's not my problem. It's that, based on what I've been reading here so far, the party would need to spend 10 sessions of none of this buzz just to get to the good part where they actually get to perform the buzzy activities. It's like ten session of roleplaying going into Town and buying a week's iron rations, a rope, a sack of flour and a new sword for the fighter and negotiating new contractual terms for the henchmen before heading for a single session of dungeoncrawling. And I for one believe steadfastly that it should be the other way round.

QuoteI guess it depends on what sort of game you want to run, if its a pulpy weapons free kind of game you could just handwave everything, but for a somewhat more robust experience the equation comes into play - easier access to the stations means lower profits and the big hitters don't get involved because easier access to space removes the threat to their future power. Also there's less risk, so the edge is diminished somewhat - for me the excitement is heightened by bearding the lion just to get to the real problem. Not everyone feels similarly of course.

Again, sounds great, let them make meaningful decision about the risk/payoff scale they want to play with. Low orbit stations are safer but probably already picked clean. It's just that, at the risk of repeating myself, it's not what I'm getting from the previous posts (though maybe I'm just misreading them).

What doesn't sound very hot to me is the hard sci-fi equivalent of endless Shadowrun-style pre-mission planning, negotiating shares and licensing fees with contact people, tiptoeing around the issue of a bribe with a government official for three months of campaign time, and going through the real-life supply, equipment and pre-launch procedure checklist of the Space Shuttle - and all this getting stretched to fill 70-85% of the campaign. I wouldn't mind doing some of that - it would certainly add depth to the game - but I just personally feel that the implied amount of this sort of activity would be a major turnoff for most RPG players.

QuoteI'd be happy to get your riff on the idea if you're in the form, I'm really just writing stuff as it comes to me here.

I could probably right up a few bullet-point ideas, but they've just called to me, gotta go now.

Quote from: Premier;613166Again, sounds great, let them make meaningful decision about the risk/payoff scale they want to play with. Low orbit stations are safer but probably already picked clean. It's just that, at the risk of repeating myself, it's not what I'm getting from the previous posts (though maybe I'm just misreading them).

Right, yes, that's great.

Smaller lighter more maneuverable vessels stand a much higher chance (while still fairly low) of getting through the overhead meatgrinder BUT their cargo capacity is obviously far lower, so profits are lower too. So there might be more regular runs of converted ex military orbital bombers for example without imbalancing the setting, a couple of tons of seeds and spare parts isn't going to save much (the ISS with six crew needed about three tons of supplies, three times a year, some of these stations have thousands of personnel).

More regular small runs might also give S17 ample opportunity to get agents aboard the stations for the purposes of sabotage and sowing discord.

The idea is to trade with active stations by the way rather than loot abandoned ones, these are mining and industrial bases which are for the most part still actively pulling in material, and so have a large stockpile of precious metals and stones built up for trade, but they don't need ten tons of gold, they need ten tons of bread.

The Saturn V could put 41 tons on the moon, which is a little north of two billion in refined gold returning, and probably another couple of billion in more precious metals and gemstones, which will still net you a clean profit of about three billion, but that was a goliath which steered like a pig. It would be on the upper end of profitability and the lower end of survivability. Naturally launch costs would be far lower than today, it being the future and the fact that most orbit-capable vehicles would have been abandoned or sold as scrap... the problem is surviving.

Quote from: Premier;613166What doesn't sound very hot to me is the hard sci-fi equivalent of endless Shadowrun-style pre-mission planning, negotiating shares and licensing fees with contact people, tiptoeing around the issue of a bribe with a government official for three months of campaign time, and going through the real-life supply, equipment and pre-launch procedure checklist of the Space Shuttle - and all this getting stretched to fill 70-85% of the campaign. I wouldn't mind doing some of that - it would certainly add depth to the game - but I just personally feel that the implied amount of this sort of activity would be a major turnoff for most RPG players.

Well this will probably end up as a subsetting in a much much larger sci fi sandbox (Floodlands/Deep Blue which I posted about previously), so it could be something for the PCs to build towards as they do other things, like assembling a giant machine one piece at a time, or crossing levels to get to the big boss, or most accurately a quest.

Besides, its a multifaceted challenge, social, political, technological, even combat-wise. There isn't a "skyrunner's manual" or blueprint on how to do a run, every individual runner is pitting their wits and foresight against what they think will be the dangers, like an open ended quest. Part of the fun is trying to work out how best to trade off various factors and give yourself that edge which will save your ass while dealing with people who are trying to kill/arrest/interview/cheat/subvert you. And its not really possible to learn much from successful runners, they don't talk about it.

Its the sort of game which would have something for every type of character and player no matter what their interests. Heck it could even turn into a love story if a character had a romantic interest trapped on one of the stations.

Quick back of the envelope calculations indicate that it would take ~100 successful smaller lighter runs per day just to keep all of the stations at a subsistence level, but surviving. There's nowhere near that amount of activity, so its not looking good for the stations, even without secret cabals plotting their doom...

Mission Impossible #53: One Last Run

Before the wars closed the door to the stars, mankind constructed a dozen Maglaunchers, enormous facilities which could catapult a half a million tons a year into orbit for very little cost. Afterwards these facilities were mothballed and shut down, the ones that hadn't been strategically bombed or scavenged, and now sit empty and windblown, surrounded by the ghost towns of the communities that had arisen around them, like the gold rush towns in the old west.

The challenge for an exceptionally daring and enterprising group of PCs is to sneak into and activate a Maglaunch facility, load it up with their modified cargo pod/skyrun ship, and give it one last run. The facilities are lightly guarded since a) nobody would be insane enough to actually try that, and b) the power stations which activated the launcher are decommissioned.

The challenges are steep, but it could work, and with a cargo capacity of at least forty tons, would probably be well worth the risk.

So what happens when a solution is found for all the smaller debris and they get cleaned up?

Quote from: jeff37923;613304So what happens when a solution is found for all the smaller debris and they get cleaned up?

Progress, taxes, wallpaper, regulations, elections, beaurocracy, all the glorious trappings of civilisation, and the skyrunners go the way of Robin Hood and Captain Sparrow.

Its not so easy though, the debris can't really be shot down, you'll just make more debris. Can't be lasered down, you only get superhot debris. Can't be absorbed or netted, this shit is moving at 18 kilometers a second, a fleck of paint has more energy than a 12 gauge slug. Its a poser for the forces of law and order alright.

Quote from: The Traveller;613312Progress, taxes, wallpaper, regulations, elections, beaurocracy, all the glorious trappings of civilisation, and the skyrunners go the way of Robin Hood and Captain Sparrow.

Its not so easy though, the debris can't really be shot down, you'll just make more debris. Can't be lasered down, you only get superhot debris. Can't be absorbed or netted, this shit is moving at 18 kilometers a second, a fleck of paint has more energy than a 12 gauge slug. Its a poser for the forces of law and order alright.

But the debris can be knocked down.

The Orbitals may have a vested interest in keeping Earth bottled up.

Quote from: jeff37923;613405But the debris can be knocked down.

The Orbitals may have a vested interest in keeping Earth bottled up.

Yeah that's the whole S17/superspooks angle there, the illuminati know that if the orbitals ever get themselves organised earth could be in a big heap of trouble.

Right now they're reeling, might not even survive, the stations certainly weren't designed to survive independently of earth, so its in S17's best interests to keep them off balance until they can be permanently dealt with. Sucks to be the scientists, technicians, engineers and workers accidentally trapped on the stations though.

Gamewise its great, bringing a new dimension of espionage and conspiracy to the setting while actually making sense, added depth is usually better.

The OP sounds like Rifts Earth, ala Mutants in Orbit.

Quote from: Blackhand;614261The OP sounds like Rifts Earth, ala Mutants in Orbit.

I guess, in the way that taking a photo of a bridge and bungee jumping off it are similar activities. Its not like world shields/walls are a particularly new concept, for example they are referenced briefly in Mass Effect and in "Under the Covenant Stars", a short story by John Barnes. The difference is in how its all stitched together, and I'm pretty happy with the way its shaken out I have to say.

What's the general tech level? As a player, my first idea would be to acquire a disposable carbon nanotube (or somesuch) armour sheath for my ship. Put it over the ship for protection against smaller debris. Jettison it shortly before atmospheric reentry so heatshields can do their job.

EDIT: Also, if there are maglaunchers, are there also space elevators?

Quote from: Premier;614486What's the general tech level?

To get a feel for the tech level, Bladerunner, Ghost in the Shell, and The Fifth Element are about right, so you could definetely find armour. There's nothing but money, law enforcement, and/or possibly luck stopping anyone building just about anything to launch to orbit. Most orbital vehicles were sold off, repurposed, or warehoused after the sky closed up, so there are lots of options if a little Grand Theft Aero sounds like fun. Someone handy with jury rigging vehicles would be a great asset of course.

Quote from: Premier;614486EDIT: Also, if there are maglaunchers, are there also space elevators?

I think that might be a couple of centuries off in the future yet, even if they were in place they would have been shredded by the Kessler zone.

What one ton of solid gold looks like, for reference:





A couple of those babies in the hold and you're good for beer and pizza for a few decades. Not in fact all that large, surprisingly.

The thing that struck me was that this whole situation would be a short-term thing.  A decade, maybe 2 at the outside. By then, those extra-terrestrial colonies would be dead or self-sufficient.  With their very survival on the line, they would concentrate like crazy on achieving self-sufficiency.

And in any case, without an extremely efficient drive system, it would have been much cheaper originally to build the colonies so that they supply themselves, either alone or via trade with each other.

Just as an example, if you have a colony on Mars, adding hydroponics facilities is trivial compared to the efforts in sending food from Earth periodically.