I run hardish SF games a lot, and sometimes I'm tempted to do the old saw of an ancient derelict starship being found. You know, basically the SF version of a dungeon, right?
I usually stop as I have trouble with the idea of a ship remaining intact for vast perionds on time in space without power or maintenance. I mean, I think to myself if the ship gets near absolute zero then liquids will freeze, pipes burst, a lot of stuff will be shattered by the cold, the hull will weaken due to extreme cold, if you try to reheat the ship it's hull may shatter due to thermal expansion, etc.
So sometimes I pass on an idea simply because I can't technically justify it enough to fit the genre.
If you have what might be a neat idea but it has serious 'reality check' issues do you use it anyway or pass on it to preserve the game's level of realism? At times I wonder which is the right solution.
It depends.
If I'm playing a "hard" military SF (or just Military - see the T2k thread) game, I don't view it as "getting in the way" I think of it as part and parcel of the whole affair. But I mean, if I'm playing Star Wars, and the party happens upon an old derelict ship from the Clone Wars just floating around some forgotten outer rim world planet - heck no I don't bother with that sort of thing.
Just depends on the game, ultimately.
For me it would also vary, but typically I'd take my lead from my players. If we all get through that segment and nobody goes 'hey, wait a minute', then we're probably going to run with it.
I do, but not as much as you, I guess.
I mean I do think "that wont work", but if I really want it to work, I can usually think of a way that will satisfy me (which is usually 1 or 2 levels deeper than it takes to satisfy my players.)
Take your ship, for example. Sure, those things might happen, but if I wanted to run a derelict ship:
1) Perhaps all life forms on board died, but there is still enough heat being generated to keep the ship well above absolute zero. This might be automated systems. Of, if your tech includes fission, the reactor is likely to put out heat a long time after shut down.
2) Cold storage is common for some ships that are expected to have portions of them "de powered" for years for efficiency reasons, and thus have safety measures in place when bringing the ship back online. Fluid systems have relief valves, etc.
3) If it's high enough tech, large fluid systems might be antiquated tech.
4) The ship is in close enough proximity to a heat-radiating body (star, brown dwarf) that its black body temperature is well above absolute zero, if not Earth-norm comfy.
etc...
Just because you can't power up the derelict and fly it away doens't mean it's not interesting, or valuable. Leting the players figure out what the hazards are could be an interesting game by iself.
Good answers. I'd considered some. The idea that "it's been adrift for a long time, maybe thousands of years but some power source is still operating" could work in hard science.
I think adherence to scientific accuracy is interesting when it generates interesting stuff at the game table; e.g. Traveller's brutal portrayal of the hard vacuum, radiation and other dangers of space makes spacefaring seem so much more challenging and exciting than, say, in Star Wars.
I don't get hang up on scientific accuracy most of the time. But I enjoy reading up on hard science outside my field and thinking up answers to the obvious physics and engineering problems behind common SF assumptions.
For example, Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space books have Traveller-like interstellar merchants -- but adherence to relativistic time dilation and the lightspeed barrier means these guys and gals travel in huge near-c ("lighthugger") craft and have cybernetics and genemods galore to survive, and take hundreds of years (decades to them) between each visit. That's interesting stuff and I think I'd love to sit down and play a Traveller game built around these ideas. How different would it feel from good ol' Traveller!
Quote from: red lantern;592691I usually stop as I have trouble with the idea of a ship remaining intact for vast perionds on time in space without power or maintenance. I mean, I think to myself if the ship gets near absolute zero then liquids will freeze, pipes burst, a lot of stuff will be shattered by the cold, the hull will weaken due to extreme cold, if you try to reheat the ship it's hull may shatter due to thermal expansion, etc.
Actually, that sounds like pretty good fun.
Don't forget the micrometeorites, either!
Earth sends unmanned probes out beyond Pluto, and they seem to keep working just fine despite it being a bit chilly out there. The vacuum is a pretty kind environment to machinery, much moreso than being on Earth or another planet with weather.
But I would assume PCs exploring a derelict in a hard SF game will be doing it with spacesuits on. If you want it to look like a TV show then running it as hard SF will be tough.
Quote from: red lantern;592691I run hardish SF games a lot, and sometimes I'm tempted to do the old saw of an ancient derelict starship being found. You know, basically the SF version of a dungeon, right?
I usually stop as I have trouble with the idea of a ship remaining intact for vast perionds on time in space without power or maintenance. I mean, I think to myself if the ship gets near absolute zero then liquids will freeze, pipes burst...
Only if the pipes are full of frozen water. Most liquids don't expand when frozen, so no reason for pipes to burst.
To me this demonstrates how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and trying to be realistic can end up giving less realistic results than handwaving it. Games where you explode in vacuum, for instance.
The ships were over-engineered/overbuild to handle absolute zero just fine...
I too, prefer hard SF. I also like Star Wars, but Star Wars is space opera and more like playing tennis with the net down.
Thing that I found out was that while I have a background in applied nuclear engineering and like orbital mechanics, most Players consider New BSG to be hard SF. It gets a little easier if you have contact with Players who are anime fans since Planetes and Ghost in the Shell, for example, pay more attention to science than Star Trek.
Don't drop the old tropes of SF, try to make them technically accurate instead. I love the idea of an alien artifact causing the crew that finds it to go crazy, but until I researched what outside influences could cause insanity - I never ran the scenario because I could not justify the result. Then I ran across studies in which rats were exposed to different intensities, directions, and frequencies of magnetic fields which caused emotional reactions of various degrees (including one in which the rats became suddenly cannibalistic). While tenuous, it gave me enough to logically explain how an alien artifact could cause hallucinations and abberant behavior in humans through magnetic fields. I could then use the old trope.
Quote from: Ladybird;592732Actually, that sounds like pretty good fun.
My thought, exactly. That crystalline fog around the ruptured pipe might turn into a firestorm if you heat it up and shoot a laser gun into it. Turning the ship back on again might start a complicated time bomb as pipes burst one by one and flood the interior with various substances. Careless opening of bulkhead doors might expose you to vacuum in section that have suffered hull rupture. Electric systems might misfire and go haywire. Plenty of fun!
Realism never gets in the way in my games. Either it's a welcome boundary to build on, or it's something to selectively ignore in order to achieve proper genre emulation.
Quote from: S'mon;592744Only if the pipes are full of frozen water. Most liquids don't expand when frozen, so no reason for pipes to burst.
To me this demonstrates how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and trying to be realistic can end up giving less realistic results than handwaving it. Games where you explode in vacuum, for instance.
Yes, thank you, I do know people don't go "outland" in vacuum, actually. Now bulging eyes and bursting capillaries like the original 'total recall' is a bit more realistic.
Quote from: Premier;592778My thought, exactly. That crystalline fog around the ruptured pipe might turn into a firestorm if you heat it up and shoot a laser gun into it. Turning the ship back on again might start a complicated time bomb as pipes burst one by one and flood the interior with various substances. Careless opening of bulkhead doors might expose you to vacuum in section that have suffered hull rupture. Electric systems might misfire and go haywire. Plenty of fun!
Ah yes, we think along similar lines. I mean, in a hard sf game you are NOT going to find a derelict battlecruiser that's been adrift foe a long time, flip a few switches and have her combat ready in no time, that;s one thing I will not do.
Quote from: red lantern;592691I usually stop as I have trouble with the idea of a ship remaining intact for vast perionds on time in space without power or maintenance. I mean, I think to myself if the ship gets near absolute zero then liquids will freeze, pipes burst, a lot of stuff will be shattered by the cold, the hull will weaken due to extreme cold, if you try to reheat the ship it's hull may shatter due to thermal expansion, etc.
If a ship is designed in a vacuum environment then much of it will remain intact even over long periods of time. Beyond a few days it doesn't much matter how long a machine or material remains in contact with a vacuum.
For the stuff inside the pressure hull the damage will be largely done in the first few minutes of depressurization. Any liquid or gas will disperse to its maximum volume and slowly bleed out of the breach. Within a couple of years it will be effectively vacuum.
The only time a liquid will freeze into a solid if the pressure hull remains pressurized with air. Eventually the air in a pressurized hull will freeze solid if it not near a heat source like a star. Otherwise it will cool down until the amount of energy hitting the hull is equal to the loss of energy.
For solid certain materials that is in the pressure hull (plastics, etc) will evaporate part of their mass into gas. Eventually collapsing into dust or become very fragile. It is unlikely there will be much of that onboard due to the fact that it is a closed environment in normal operation.
Largely the physical structure of the ship will remain intact because a spacefaring civilization will have designed their crafts to operate in vacuum.
Quote from: Ladybird;592732Don't forget the micrometeorites, either!
In deep space that not much of an issue. Radiation flux could be an issue depending on how intense it is. The radiation would directly attack the atomic structure of materials. On a planetary bodies that lack atmospheres, micrometeorites would be a bigger issue as there is a constant "rain" of small particles that would erode away artifacts. But we are talking millenia here even longer.
Quote from: red lantern;593013A that's been adrift foe a long time, flip a few switches and have her combat ready in no time, that;s one thing I will not do.
The electronics will be likely vacuum welded. Adjoining materials evaporate into each other forming connections and short circuits. The difficulty of repair depends on the design. Remember that the ship is going to have a hull and then inside of that actual pressure hull. Not everything is going to be shoved inside of that and will be designed to operate in vacuum for long periods of time.
Quote from: red lantern;593011Yes, thank you, I do know people don't go "outland" in vacuum, actually. Now bulging eyes and bursting capillaries like the original 'total recall' is a bit more realistic.
Apparently not, no. Victims (well, the monkeys NASA tried it with) just void their bowels then die from asphyxiation. It's not very dramatic, no eyes popping out.
Its impossible to do "realism" in an RPG. What you can do is "emulation", so the question has to be "what do you want to emulate"?
RPGPundit
Quote from: red lantern;592691I usually stop as I have trouble with the idea of a ship remaining intact for vast perionds on time in space without power or maintenance. I mean, I think to myself if the ship gets near absolute zero then liquids will freeze, pipes burst, a lot of stuff will be shattered by the cold, the hull will weaken due to extreme cold, if you try to reheat the ship it's hull may shatter due to thermal expansion, etc.
It's fairly standard in genre for such ships to have at least some power to keep life support going. And if the technology is magical enough to support materials that can survive reentry and interstellar travel while preventing the crew from being fried by the hard radiation or heat and space travel and the power systems are magical enough to make routine interplanetary travel or even routine interstellar travel possible, the leap of faith needed to believe that such a ship could survive as a derelict, perhaps with some power still keeping things working at a minimal level to prevent decay, seems a very small leap to me.
We haven't really got any data on the long term effects of exposure to deep space vacuum on technological artifacts, but a lot would seem to rely where the artifact is located. If its in orbit around a planet it will either plunge into the gravity well after a few hundred thousand years or go spiralling off into space, unless powered.
And don't forget space is both really big and really old, so I'd think nothing of adding half billion year old hulks that have migrated over time from another galaxy, studded, strained and pocked with the detritus of millions of suns and nebulae it was moving too fast to be captured by. Asteroids are typically dated at between 4 and 5 billion years in the solar system, so there's plenty of leeway.
There's a good article on wiki here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrosion_in_space), basically atomic oxygen and solar radiation are the two biggest problems, which can be protected against with a thin coating of gold. I'd assume bizarre alien alloys would have advanced beyond that a bit. Volatiles like silicon and plastics tend to outgas over the course of mere decades and either form a cloud or deposit themselves on nearby surfaces, again though that's assuming they are exposed to some vestiges of atmosphere and radation.
If a ship had spent all or most of its time away from radiation sources, in interstellar or intergalactic zones, I would guess it could reasonably be expected to be intact. Even latent energy sources might not degrade too much if there was nothing to degrade them, nothing to interact with. There will be some erosion of harder materials but that happens on scales longer than the lifespan of the universe, so probably not an issue.
Quote from: The Traveller;593635We haven't really got any data on the long term effects of exposure to deep space vacuum on technological artifacts, but a lot would seem to rely where the artifact is located. If its in orbit around a planet it will either plunge into the gravity well after a few hundred thousand years or go spiralling off into space, unless powered.
And don't forget space is both really big and really old, so I'd think nothing of adding half billion year old hulks that have migrated over time from another galaxy, studded, strained and pocked with the detritus of millions of suns and nebulae it was moving too fast to be captured by. Asteroids are typically dated at between 4 and 5 billion years in the solar system, so there's plenty of leeway.
There's a good article on wiki here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrosion_in_space), basically atomic oxygen and solar radiation are the two biggest problems, which can be protected against with a thin coating of gold. I'd assume bizarre alien alloys would have advanced beyond that a bit. Volatiles like silicon and plastics tend to outgas over the course of mere decades and either form a cloud or deposit themselves on nearby surfaces, again though that's assuming they are exposed to some vestiges of atmosphere and radation.
If a ship had spent all or most of its time away from radiation sources, in interstellar or intergalactic zones, I would guess it could reasonably be expected to be intact. Even latent energy sources might not degrade too much if there was nothing to degrade them, nothing to interact with. There will be some erosion of harder materials but that happens on scales longer than the lifespan of the universe, so probably not an issue.
Interesting.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;593428Its impossible to do "realism" in an RPG. What you can do is "emulation", so the question has to be "what do you want to emulate"?
RPGPundit
You'll have to make sure that everybody in the group is emulating the same thing, though. How would you make sure of this? Referring to inspirational sources?
Quote from: The Traveller;593635We haven't really got any data on the long term effects of exposure to deep space vacuum on technological artifacts, but a lot would seem to rely where the artifact is located. If its in orbit around a planet it will either plunge into the gravity well after a few hundred thousand years or go spiralling off into space, unless powered.
And don't forget space is both really big and really old, so I'd think nothing of adding half billion year old hulks that have migrated over time from another galaxy, studded, strained and pocked with the detritus of millions of suns and nebulae it was moving too fast to be captured by. Asteroids are typically dated at between 4 and 5 billion years in the solar system, so there's plenty of leeway.
There's a good article on wiki here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrosion_in_space), basically atomic oxygen and solar radiation are the two biggest problems, which can be protected against with a thin coating of gold. I'd assume bizarre alien alloys would have advanced beyond that a bit. Volatiles like silicon and plastics tend to outgas over the course of mere decades and either form a cloud or deposit themselves on nearby surfaces, again though that's assuming they are exposed to some vestiges of atmosphere and radation.
If a ship had spent all or most of its time away from radiation sources, in interstellar or intergalactic zones, I would guess it could reasonably be expected to be intact. Even latent energy sources might not degrade too much if there was nothing to degrade them, nothing to interact with. There will be some erosion of harder materials but that happens on scales longer than the lifespan of the universe, so probably not an issue.
Another source of info on exposure of a wide variety of different materials to vacuum is the archives of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (http://setas-www.larc.nasa.gov/LDEF/index.html) experiment, which was supposed to last for a year, but went six years due to delays in recovery from orbit. The question is, how technical do you want to get?
If it were my campaign, I'd give the "ancients" ship some sort of nano-tech repair system so that it
appeared to be brand new when the PCs found it, but what they wouldn't immediately realize is that the
repair system itself was faulty... and that it identified their equipment, including their pressure suits and other survival gear, as "raw materials" to be collected for future repairs, shortly after they came on board. Then the fun begins....
I'm always amused by the smug stupidity of gamers when it comes to "realism" for two main reasons:
1) The number of gamers with the tiniest clue of what the fuck they're talking about in regards to science and history is miniscule.
2) What's really going on is people trying to pass off their own limited imaginations as the result of knowing oh-so-much about science. Someone can imagine a spaceship that can travel many times faster than the speed of light, but can't imagine such a ship containing automated maintenance and repair systems to keep a derelict ship functioning in one piece? Oy vey!
Apparently some people didn't get what I was saying. If a ship had functioning systems then it's not a dead wreck/derelict.
If a ship has functional systems then they must be producing some sort of heat which the players could likely detect especially if the ship was adrift way out in the deep black.
I was talking about a dead, or apparently dead, wreck. I wondered if once a lot of material had frozen to near absolute zero if it would be ruined by the cold beyond repair.
At a minimum it could take months to very slowly heat up the ship evenly, which could be very hard to do if it were very large. Uneven heating could result in fracturing of the hull, etc.
Quote from: Elfdart;594114I'm always amused by the smug stupidity of gamers when it comes to "realism" for two main reasons:
1) The number of gamers with the tiniest clue of what the fuck they're talking about in regards to science and history is miniscule.
2) What's really going on is people trying to pass off their own limited imaginations as the result of knowing oh-so-much about science. Someone can imagine a spaceship that can travel many times faster than the speed of light, but can't imagine such a ship containing automated maintenance and repair systems to keep a derelict ship functioning in one piece? Oy vey!
If you have such a low opinion of gamers why hang around them?
Quote from: red lantern;594133If you have such a low opinion of gamers why hang around them?
I don't know if Elfdart's comment applies to all gamers - just the ones who try too hard to impress with bogus ideas about making RPGs "realistic." I'm inclined to agree with him, as a gamer who used to over-do that sort of thing until I wised up and focused on running games that were
entertaining, and put
realism in a strictly supporting role.
Quote from: Elfdart;594114I'm always amused by the smug stupidity of gamers when it comes to "realism" for two main reasons:
1) The number of gamers with the tiniest clue of what the fuck they're talking about in regards to science and history is miniscule.
2) What's really going on is people trying to pass off their own limited imaginations as the result of knowing oh-so-much about science. Someone can imagine a spaceship that can travel many times faster than the speed of light, but can't imagine such a ship containing automated maintenance and repair systems to keep a derelict ship functioning in one piece? Oy vey!
Suspension of disbelief is a weird thing. If someone is seriously having trouble with the automated spaceship then it is an issue for them but I don't think it makes them a bad person or anything.
Personally I can take almost anything as long as it isn't one of those "settings built around game mechanics" things or anything historical by White Wolf.
Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;594090If it were my campaign, I'd give the "ancients" ship some sort of nano-tech repair system so that it appeared to be brand new when the PCs found it, but what they wouldn't immediately realize is that the repair system itself was faulty... and that it identified their equipment, including their pressure suits and other survival gear, as "raw materials" to be collected for future repairs, shortly after they came on board. Then the fun begins....
Nice twist, and stolen! I like my hulks to have some scars from the countless millennia usually.
Quote from: red lantern;594132If a ship has functional systems then they must be producing some sort of heat which the players could likely detect especially if the ship was adrift way out in the deep black.
I was talking about a dead, or apparently dead, wreck. I wondered if once a lot of material had frozen to near absolute zero if it would be ruined by the cold beyond repair.
Potentially you could maintain some kinds of energy sources almost permanently in extreme conditions. Some kinds of batteries, internal combustion engines, etc could be left hanging until they heat up, in fact the stresses produced by heating could themselves act as an energy source for kickstarting larger engines, a stirling engine might help there. So the ship might be reactivated almost completely while being utterly dead to start with.
As mentioned, we just don't have the data to answer the question really. Spaceships like bridges would probably be constructed to withstand thermal expansion and cooling as well as the many other stresses they could be expected to face in space, so perhaps some minor damage to internal systems (which weren't designed for extremes) but the superstructure and main systems should be intact. Its not even really that hard to engineer complex components able to handle temperature extremes, we do it today.
Hauling it in front of a sun to thaw out wouldn't do it any good, but your footsteps won't be leaving cracks in the hull, I would say.
I prefer to think in of believability over realism. I don't need things to model reality, the sheer amount of rules you would need to model simple things just doesn't seem practical and I doubt it would add that much to the game. I do want stuff that happens in the game to be be believable enough that I can buy it. So a game where the mechanics establish that a character has been skewered on a pike through the belly, but within the next hour he is fully healed, would present a problem for me (unless it was fitting to the genre or setting somehow). On the other hand i dont need involved mechanics for healing and infection coupled with fully realistic heal times (if the guy that got skewered is back on his feet in a week, that is somehow enough time for me to buy it in game een if I know he would need much longer to recuperate).
Quote from: HombreLoboDomesticado;594010You'll have to make sure that everybody in the group is emulating the same thing, though. How would you make sure of this? Referring to inspirational sources?
That's one good way to do this, yes. Another is to clarify the "physics" of the setting as you go along, don't let people make mistaken assumptions their PC wouldn't make, particularly because the player is making logical assumptions based on "real science".
This has come up a lot in my superhero games, where some player wants to try to do something he thinks is clever, and I have to remind them "this world uses Comics Physics, not real life physics".
RPGPundit