With the Gurps Traveller deal on Bundle of Holding, it might be a timely topic to discuss. Is Gurps Space any good? How does it compare to Star Hero?

Quote from: Aglondir;995304With the Gurps Traveller deal on Bundle of Holding, it might be a timely topic to discuss. Is Gurps Space any good? How does it compare to Star Hero?

As a generic overview of space as an environment for RPGs, GURPS Space is outstanding. It can help any other game you may run that has a space component to it.

I have GURPS Space and find it full of neat ideas and information. I've never actually used it in conjunction with GURPS. I can't compare it to Star Hero as I've never read the latter. However, if it's like other Hero sourcebooks, I'd expect Star Hero to be rather inferior and full of game stats and writeups instead, and if Steve Long wrote it you could probably have squeezed the same information into a book half its length as the man seems to fetishize word count over content.

Well, GURPS Space first edition was late, expensive, and disappointing.  Well it was.  The weapons were weak relative to the armor.  Star System and world generation turned out an awful lot of uninhabitable worlds.  Starship creation was a bit on the dull side if pretty realistic.  The high tech levels being linked to antigravity and reactionless drives made it hard to duplicate what you saw in fiction and film.  Starship combat was abstract and boring.  No, really, I've always hated that system.  It was introduced in GURPS Humanx where it was forgivable as it wasn't a major facet of the setting but Space needed something more, or less, the Space Opera Combat System from GURPS Lensman is awesome.

So anyhow there was eventually a cleaned up GURPS Space for third edition and Ultra Tech somewhat resolved the damage to armor relationship issues with the introduction of penetration by armor divisor and specialized rounds.  GURPS Aliens gave us more detail on race creation and a range of races that would make a decent Saturday morning cartoon.  "Somewhere out there a big rock is thinking bad thoughts about me very slowly."  We got four space atlases detailing sectors and worlds and a few adventures.  I always thought it was sad that the first GURPS Space adventure was set on a TL7 world.

Fourth edition GURPS Space is a pretty good guide for setting building, world creation, and alien creation.  Lots of good science and research in there though the book is around 12 years old at this point and lots of neat astronomical discoveries have been made in that time.  It doesn't cover equipment, vehicles, or space craft in anything more than the abstract as setting details.  Ultra-Tech covers weapons, equipment, and vehicles (not nearly enough of these and it took a lot of bitching and whining to get them included).  Space Ships covers ships and has been expanded to cover some other vehicles.  The absence of a proper GURPS Vehicle Design system or even just a decent vehicle catalogue is telling and crippling.  I respect the difficulties involved and the lack of demand for complex design systems these days but substructure is important.  Without it you get Rifts with its ever increasing power creep

To clarify, I have 3rd edition. I didn't know there was one for 1st edition.

Quote from: Dumarest;995327I have GURPS Space and find it full of neat ideas and information. I've never actually used it in conjunction with GURPS. I can't compare it to Star Hero as I've never read the latter. However, if it's like other Hero sourcebooks, I'd expect Star Hero to be rather inferior and full of game stats and writeups instead, and if Steve Long wrote it you could probably have squeezed the same information into a book half its length as the man seems to fetishize word count over content.

Thanks, I'll see if I can snag a used copy. Unfortunately both new and used are around $30, which is a tough call for a book that's nice to have but probably won't be used. PDF is $25, which is a non-starter.

Quote from: David Johansen;995342Fourth edition GURPS Space is a pretty good guide for setting building, world creation, and alien creation.  Lots of good science and research in there though the book is around 12 years old at this point and lots of neat astronomical discoveries have been made in that time.  It doesn't cover equipment, vehicles, or space craft in anything more than the abstract as setting details.  Ultra-Tech covers weapons, equipment, and vehicles (not nearly enough of these and it took a lot of bitching and whining to get them included).  Space Ships covers ships and has been expanded to cover some other vehicles.  The absence of a proper GURPS Vehicle Design system or even just a decent vehicle catalogue is telling and crippling.  I respect the difficulties involved and the lack of demand for complex design systems these days but substructure is important.  Without it you get Rifts with its ever increasing power creep

Hmmm... that's starting to diminish its value. Sounds like half a book. It would be great if SJG made a new version, combining the original Space with Ultratech and Spaceships, and refreshing the science to 2017. Probably not gonna happen.

So, if Dungeon Fantasy is successful by whatever standard SJG measures that there will be a Space Opera box in the due course of time.

In the meantime there is GURPS Vorkosigian which is a complete sfrpg in one book with weapons, equipment, vehicles, space ships, rules and setting in a single book.  It's a modern, transhumanist, space opera based on Lois McMaster Bujold's novels.

Quote from: Aglondir;995470Thanks, I'll see if I can snag a used copy. Unfortunately both new and used are around $30, which is a tough call for a book that's nice to have but probably won't be used. PDF is $25, which is a non-starter.

$30 seems like a lot...I've seen it used for $5 and under so you might want to check more places if you are just curious to read it.