So, retro sci-fi or even near future sci-fi.

The games I'm curious about are not about flying the Starship Enterprise, or the Millennium Falcon.

I'm talking spam in a can, as the Mercury 7 astronauts called it.  Just getting around the solar system using rocket engines is enough.

I do have a couple of these already.

The first one is a Rifts spinoff called Mutants in Orbit, which is also a book for the After the Bomb setting as well.  Space colonies around Earth orbit and the moon give up ever returning to the surface, and build an an economy mining the asteroid belt for metal and water.  Mars is overrun by mutated bugs the size of people, so that's dangerous to visit, but if your desperate, who knows?  Asteroids are easier. But, there are pirates and breakdowns.

DTRPG Mutants in Orbit

Another one is called X-polers.  This one is 1950's single stage V2 looking rockets with bubble helmets and ray guns.  It's probably on nobody's play list because it's so obscure.

DTRPG X-Plorers

Any other ones I should know about?

FGU has Year of the Phoenix about elite astronauts catapulted into a future where the communists won.

Columbia Games has High Colonies which is near future solar system stuff.  I've heard the new edition isn't great.

GURPS Third Edition from Steve Jackson Games is set in the early Mars and belt colonization period.  GURPS Transhuman Space is fairly hard sf a little farther down the time line.  GURPS Spaceships covers lower tech stuff that would be fairly realistic.

XXVc. by TSR is set in the solar system five hundred years into the future with terraformed inner planets.  It's almost hard science fiction with a Buck Rogers aesthetic though the terraforming time lines are ridiculously optimistic and there are telepathic cats on Mercury.

TSR actually did Starfrontiers modules for 2001 and 2010. 

For ship to ship stuff there's Steve Jackson Games edition of GDW's Triplanetary on the light end and Attack Vector Tactical on the Star Fleet Battles is for glue eating kindergarten kids end.

There's an Expanse rpg out there.  Really there ought to be an Expanse edition of Triplanetary.

Both Traveller and Spacemaster (hah! you knew I'd get there sooner or later) have some support for modern space craft in supplements.

2300 AD originally from GDW now from Mongoose is a nearer future sf setting with more realistic technology than Traveller.

Cyberpunk 2020 from R Talsorian had a space supplement of some sort.

Well that's all I can think of.  I haven't really tried to duplicate modern space craft in Galaxies In Shadow.  The design system's pretty forgiving and flexible but perhaps too much so at the lower end of things.  I just got sick of not being able to make the things I wanted to make in GURPS Vehicles, I suppose.

Here's the best two I've ever tried:
You cannot view this attachment.
You cannot view this attachment.

I'd second the recommendation of Deep Space for Cyberpunk. There's also a Kickstarter now for the Terraforming Mars RPG.



https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/shadowlands-games/terraforming-mars-ttrpg

Obviously, I can't recommend the Kickstarter, but it's interesting. (I never do Kickstarters as a rule.)

Of others, I would say that none of Traveller, Traveller 2300, or Space Master are going around in plausible rockets. I have the 2010 module for Star Frontiers, and it is about rockets, but I don't think it's a good basis for a game. Not sure about most of the others.

Quote from: BadApple on March 08, 2025, 12:04:04 AMHere's the best two I've ever tried:
You cannot view this attachment.
You cannot view this attachment.

These are both excellent.

I'd also include Near Orbit (the Cyberpunk precursor to Deep Space and a good appendix for it), Mekton II and Zeta with a houserule add-on which brings propellant use into the game based on the burns of Cyberpunk (attached), Classic Traveller using Megatraveller and The New Era to build realistic rockets, Cepheus Engine and their Starship Design Guide for realistic rocket design.

Now for the actual math involved for orbital mechanics and realistic rocket usage, I strongly recommend are the textbooks Spaceflight Dynamics by William Wiesel and Space Vehicle Design by Michael Griffin and James French. Now these textbooks are math heavy and will put most of you asleep. A more easily digested website for this information, Atomic Rockets by Winchell Chung (also a gamer and Traveller contributor).

https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/

Now while there are several really good build systems to create realistic rockets out there, there aren't that many systems for the realistic orbital mechanics that will be used by those rockets. There are good approximations, but nothing that allows for spacecraft orbital mechanics "like God and Heinlein intended". This may be a good thing because my experience with using orbital mechanics in game is that your Players will hate the extra math and thinking involved (I've even gotten pushback over the simple algebra involved with standard Traveller "Flip-n-Burn" trajectories).

Only thing I have to add is that I believe Mutants In Orbit has a Rifts version if I remember correctly. Specific compatibility for TMNT/After The Bomb/ *and* Rifts.

I would say Buck Rogers XXVc from TSR

a highly underrated game

A pretty good video talking about "Flip-n-Burn" style of constant acceleration rocket drive.

On the one hand, I can see the excitement because this day is finally dawning.

On the other hand, it's not really a job for a plucky handful of adventurers. SpaceX has over 13,000 employees. Even a smaller player like Sierra Nevada has 5,000 employees. Even a "tiny" barnstorming outfit like Virgin Galactic has over 700 employees.

What you want is for spaceflight to work more like operating a commercial aircraft, and that probably requires "30 years later" kind of handwave.

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 08, 2025, 02:06:00 AMNow while there are several really good build systems to create realistic rockets out there, there aren't that many systems for the realistic orbital mechanics that will be used by those rockets. There are good approximations, but nothing that allows for spacecraft orbital mechanics "like God and Heinlein intended". This may be a good thing because my experience with using orbital mechanics in game is that your Players will hate the extra math and thinking involved (I've even gotten pushback over the simple algebra involved with standard Traveller "Flip-n-Burn" trajectories).

I'm definitely autistic enough to enjoy this type of thing but I find most players aren't.  When I GM something complex, like semi realistic space travel, I remove the players from the equation by giving them a technical follower or followers like a pilot and a navigator.  In those rare cases where a player wants to have the role, I make sure he's up for what it actually entails and then hand things off to him.

Quote from: BadApple on March 09, 2025, 12:09:07 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 08, 2025, 02:06:00 AMNow while there are several really good build systems to create realistic rockets out there, there aren't that many systems for the realistic orbital mechanics that will be used by those rockets. There are good approximations, but nothing that allows for spacecraft orbital mechanics "like God and Heinlein intended". This may be a good thing because my experience with using orbital mechanics in game is that your Players will hate the extra math and thinking involved (I've even gotten pushback over the simple algebra involved with standard Traveller "Flip-n-Burn" trajectories).

I'm definitely autistic enough to enjoy this type of thing but I find most players aren't.  When I GM something complex, like semi realistic space travel, I remove the players from the equation by giving them a technical follower or followers like a pilot and a navigator.  In those rare cases where a player wants to have the role, I make sure he's up for what it actually entails and then hand things off to him.

Every session, I thank God that my current game group doesn't shy away from math, science, and engineering. I can unload every high concept thing I've been saving for the past 40 years at them. It is what I've always wanted.