Well, I am, it came the other day.  Call it a guilty pleasure but I love GURPS 4e, sure I've bitched a great deal about the fact that the current handling of Super Strength makes Phoenix Command look clean and elegant, but all in all it's an astonishingly improved game.

Usually I loathe, no, I whatever is way worse than loathe new editions with major rule changes and no cross compatability.  But with as badly broken as third edition was, I'll make an exception.

Still, it's a fat book, fan bitching got some stuff taken out to put a few vehicles in and I'm good with that.  There still should have been as many pages of sample spacecraft in Space, but at least they're learning.

All the guns from Ultra Tech and Ultra Tech 2 are back, and there are some new toys like laser blinding weapons and vortex gas projectors.  The armour is good, with five different types of battle suit getting covered.  There's even a rule for adjusting the weight of armour for different sized characters.  It should have been in the basic set, but it's hardly alone in that.

The art is all decent and I didn't feel cheated by the expensive format like I did with Magic.

There's even some medical gear, so I owe the folks at SJG an apology for accusing them of putting the medical gear all in Bio Tech so us poor plebes would be forced to buy both books.

It's nice that nanomorphs and robots can all be statted out with point values these days and there's a nice selection of robots scattered through the book.  So, all in all, I'm a pretty happy camper.

I haven't gone and cross checked everything heavily or played any games using it yet.  GURPS is a hard sell around here because third edition built up a certain reputation.  Never the less, GURPS fourth edition finally has some decent sf support (no Interstellar Wars and Space don't count in my book).  Now we just need vehicle design and High Tech and GURPS will once more be a passable system for something other than fantasy.

Still, I do appreciate the degree of care SJG takes with their products.  If it was like the original, first edition Ultra Tech or Space, you'd be reading a very different mini-review.

But in the end, all I can say is I LIKE IT!

Thanks for the mini review, David!

I'm even more tempted to pick this one up now

Alright, I don't play GURPS and I hate to threadjack, but when I loaded the front page of the forums this is what I saw...



:aaa:

It's a good idea, but I'll wait until I pass the bar

Like I said, I'll have to wait till I find a used copy at an auction or huckster.

If jackson wants to print his books in asia, he can sell them there, assuming most asian workers made enough per year to buy them.

Don't be silly, those "asians" pick up the bootleg copy their friend at the printing place is selling.

However, I think SJG is doing what they have to to improve their bottom line.  I might disagree with their methods and some of the results.  I don't think the bindings on the first printing of Characters would have been such a fiasco if they hadn't been trying to save a buck.  I don't know if Characters was printed in Asia, I don't recall when they changed.  But the choice of that particular binding method certainly was price oriented and it bit them in the ass.  I think in a year or two they'll start to see "it's on the boat" is losing them market share to games that come out on time.

But SJ's convinced that paper and pencil games are on their way out and he's running his business to eek out what he can from it.

Quote from: David JohansenHowever, I think SJG is doing what they have to to improve their bottom line.  I might disagree with their methods and some of the results.  I don't think the bindings on the first printing of Characters would have been such a fiasco if they hadn't been trying to save a buck.  I don't know if Characters was printed in Asia, I don't recall when they changed.  But the choice of that particular binding method certainly was price oriented and it bit them in the ass.

Characters was printed in the US. The binding was a case of:

SJG: "So, we had to increase the number of pages in this book. Do we need to change the binding?"
Printer: "Nope, we print books that size with that binding all the time, no problem."

Maybe the printer misunderstood the size of the book, but it wasn't a cost issue. We knew that the Basic Set would be reprinted many times, so cutting into the profit margin a little for a better binding wouldn't have raised a single eyebrow.

Quote from: David JohansenI think in a year or two they'll start to see "it's on the boat" is losing them market share to games that come out on time.

Considering the number of other publishers that use non-US printers, I'm not certain that'll be an issue. Plus, we're fully capable of injecting our own delays in our release schedule:)

Quote from: David JohansenBut SJ's convinced that paper and pencil games are on their way out and he's running his business to eek out what he can from it.

I don't think I'd characterize SJ's opinion in that way. In fact, I believe he's pointed out that GURPS sales are strong, despite the industry-wide decreases. He's making a big push for e23 releases, to get more GURPS goodness out there.

However, Munchkin sales are stronger by an order of magnitude, We've got to go with the cash cow today, so the good stuff can get printed tomorrow.

Fair enough.  I stand well corrected.

Thanks

Still pissed that there's no way to liscence GURPS for "among the beautiful creatures".  But I'll have to give the Nanomorph template from Ultra Tech for convincing me it could work without being a painful mess.

I got mine a couple of weeks ago and it is gorgeous.

Of course, I still miss the 'by tech level layout' of the old old Ultratech, but I knew they weren't going to do that again anyway.

Bastards.

I checked amazon and found a used copy.

Quote from: SpikeI got mine a couple of weeks ago and it is gorgeous.

Of course, I still miss the 'by tech level layout' of the old old Ultratech, but I knew they weren't going to do that again anyway.

Bastards.

Hey ...I still haven't read all the way through my copy yet.
Bought it at work 2 weeks ago with my store discount. My next GURPS:TRAVELLER session was the saturday night that followed that purchase (March 10th). My player whose character is named Angel got engrossed in my copy of ULTRA-TECH like it was a SEARS Christmas catalog wishbook. She even started writing down stuff that the group should purchase for their ship's locker.  Which was "okay" it was very in-character based on her history in the game.

 - E.W.C.

Quote from: Christmas ApeAlright, I don't play GURPS and I hate to threadjack, but when I loaded the front page of the forums this is what I saw...



:aaa:

Well as I wasn't wearing pants at the time...

I didn't get it, I'm not so much interested in technostuff, and besides I'm saving myself to get GURPS Martial Arts, and especially GURPS Thaumatology , but now I'm starting to feel jealous, so tell me, how good or bad is it?

I'm not complaining, and as I'm sure SJG could tell you that's a rare occurance.

To be fair to Steve Jackson and SJ Games  - they replaced a LOT of those faulty CHARACTERS books ...free of charge.
  They didn't ask for the bad ones to be sent back to them.

 Not many companies have that kind of customer service.

 Both myself and one of the players in my campaign had to get replacement copies - they arrived in less than 2 weeks.  (This happened 2 years ago)

 Right now, I love the new ULTRA-TECH and I'm trying to gradually work it into my game.  One of my players doesn't know it yet - but she is getting a copy of it as a late Birthday present during our next game session. As I said before, she got engrossed in my copy during our last game session.

- E.W.C.