This is partially directed at Frank, but everyone else as well.
Most of the science fiction I've run has had a Star Wars / Lensman level of realism - not very much at all. I've always been pretty heavily influenced by Star Trek, and a lot of my games run on the fact that you can't feel inertia in space and batteries never run out of power (in any meaningful way).
One of the reasons for this is my players love big science fiction while not caring about science (in 4 out of 6 cases anyway). They love powered armor, laser pistols, light swords, and all the stuff that goes with it.
I'm really interested in running a gritty cyberpunk game set in a future with limited resources, but if there are gas and batteries enough for shadow runners and mercs to fly, scarcity is kind of a joke.
The powersuit construction rules I use now equate the amount of weight dedicated to the engine to the number of energy points the suit can spend per round. For the most part, they never actually run out. The well is deep - you are just paying for the bucket.
How can I make this work for cyberpunk? Are flying suits diesel? Do they have an awesome battery they can fly on? Are they just too unlikely and I should write them out?
The limited energy scenario is that the total energy produced is less than the total needs. You could have any energy transmission system you cared to name, from super Star Trek Dilithium Crystals to Tesla Power Broadcast Towers and still be in a limited energy scenario.
To make it feel like resources are limited, you'll probably want to force the PCs to recharge their power suits at some point. Maybe they use hydrogen fuel cells and recharging them involves electrolysing water. Maybe they use metal ion exchange batteries and you have to run a current through them. The key is that you end up doing that thing in Akira where you have your super weapon hooked up to a motorcycle while you rev the engine in order to recharge it.
Because the most important thing about being in the energy poor future is that you have to improvise power and convert from one format to another at a painful loss in efficiency every time.
-Frank
Think about the old Battletech games. You can blast away until your heat gets too high. Then you're screwed.
Quote from: danbuter;468329Think about the old Battletech games. You can blast away until your heat gets too high. Then you're screwed.
That is basically what I have in my games, except instead of building heat you run out of juice. Here is an example:
4 point engine produces 15 points.
Full speed flight requires 7
Full power to energy weapons requires 7
Thermal / Optic Invisibility requires 3
Specialty systems 2
So to run everything you have to cut power to your gun or slow down, or put points into a bigger engine.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;468322The limited energy scenario is that the total energy produced is less than the total needs. You could have any energy transmission system you cared to name, from super Star Trek Dilithium Crystals to Tesla Power Broadcast Towers and still be in a limited energy scenario.
To make it feel like resources are limited, you'll probably want to force the PCs to recharge their power suits at some point. Maybe they use hydrogen fuel cells and recharging them involves electrolysing water. Maybe they use metal ion exchange batteries and you have to run a current through them. The key is that you end up doing that thing in Akira where you have your super weapon hooked up to a motorcycle while you rev the engine in order to recharge it.
Because the most important thing about being in the energy poor future is that you have to improvise power and convert from one format to another at a painful loss in efficiency every time.
-Frank
I got ya. Good stuff.
You could make the powersuits run on love, hope, and charity. That way in the GrimDark future they're just about the scarcest things imaginable. So you'd have to do noble deeds outside your suits to recharge your batteries. This in turn attracts hostility like a pariah, thus justifying your smash suit fun time.
Who said it had to be limited to our current understanding of physics?
Care Bears iiiin spaaaaaaaaaaace!
Battletech was a good example. Also, powersuits in Transhuman Space have a battery that lasts only 2 hours, and its the most realist/hard-scifi setting Ive ever seen.
QuoteYou could make the powersuits run on love, hope, and charity. That way in the GrimDark future they're just about the scarcest things imaginable. So you'd have to do noble deeds outside your suits to recharge your batteries. This in turn attracts hostility like a pariah, thus justifying your smash suit fun time.
Who said it had to be limited to our current understanding of physics?
Care Bears iiiin spaaaaaaaaaaace!
I think there is a rpg that does
exactly this. Cant remember the name, though.
With a flying suit, you'd probably expect the flying is going to be some sort of rocket propulsion, which would likely use a fuel tank of either e.g. jet fuel or liquid hydrogen (which you could get using electrolysis). I'd expect a fairly limited flying life, as the fuel tank gets depleted. Most of the other systems would probably be electrical and the limit on points of usage/turn for them is fairly well justifiable.
Flight could be powered by the electrics in some models of suit, but I'm not sure how you'd do that -rotors like a helicopter? Though this would look silly and perhaps not be as fast. Otherwise you'd need to basically be propelled by a sort of super vacuum cleaner effect that sucks up air and then blows it out behind.
That's just some thoughts in case they help. Feel free to ignore it as unfun, and I could have missed something.
Some ideas.
Frank mentioned the logistic angle of power scarcity, so while I won't touch his shadowrun hack with a ten foot pole, I'm not going to waste my time trying to restate a very good point about scarcity.
I'm not going to talk much about rules either, since I can't figure out how you are assembling these things as systems in a game. Instead I'll talk feasable futurist technologies.
If gas power is your thing, Heavy Gear just powered their oversized battle suits with power multifuel engines (the space, but apparently real V-engine, two turbines on a bent piece of metal for an axle, generating electricity). Basically you strap a v-6 to the back and draw current off the alternator.
Beyond that I want to get technical.
What sort of size are you envisioning? Space Marines? Cyberpunk 2020 Heavy Metal? heavy Gear mini-mechs? that has a lot to do with what sort of power requirements you have, and your power requirements, in turn, drive your 'engine' needs.
A Space Marine style 'powered armor' can realistically be run off of a motorcycle battery. Its not going to lift cars of small children, but it will carry its own weight and then some, and by the near future, probably for a long time.
A Glitter Boy, on the other hand will require something with a bit more umph, as will its big brothers.
The next question is what level of sophistication do you want? Ripley in Aliens power loader? You can build it today with hydraulics, and with the right leverage, you will lift cars. And hydraulics are low power systems.
You want it to do ballet, on the other hand, you need more sophisticated, and energy intensive motors. They may even be based on hydraulic and pneumatic systems, but their increased responsive time, and the large numbers of smaller ones will draw commenserately more power.
On the other hand, the big problem with batteries is that they are heavy, and if your power suit is lifting cars, carrying around heavy ass battery systems isn't that big of a problem. At a high enough tech level you can seriously go 'supertech' and suggest swapping out the batteries for superconductive capacitance loops, which have the advantage of being much more efficient in energy storage and discharge almost by definition.
Slightly more mundane is the suggestion of ye olde comic books and to simply posit a small atomic reactor. This provides great amounts of mayhem fun when you suggest the reactor is breached, and more fun when the realize their exotic fuel rods/heavy water pellets/mcguffin power elements have run out, and thats not something you can buy from ye olde gas station.
hell, portable fusion reactors have been in the public eye since Ghostbusters in, what, 1984? Don't cross the streams, baby!
Eh. I'm bored, moving on.
Well if you posit a really efficient thermocouple, the power source could be an RTG (radio-thermal generator). This is in the region of Extremely Unlikely But Not Impossible technology and would give you a power source good for dozens of years. You wouldn't want a rocket for flight because then you also need reaction mass, and there's just no way to make that all that efficient. Might be good for an emergency escape hop or two.
You could use ducted fans, though.
As to the flying thing, I dunno.
But you could make it power assist, to wit: an articulated frame that supports armor, but it's well balanced enough that the action of moving (walking, moving arms) is enough to get it going. For heavy lifting, combat running, leaping over obstacles, etc. there's a power-cell (LiH, gas, whatever) that kicks in on command of the wearer.
Not unlike the HULC which is supposed to see trials soon:
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/news/press_releases/2009/MFC_022609_LockheedMartinUnveilsExoskeleton.html
...but with a layer of armor over the top of it.
Ringworld the RPG handled this pretty good. It had a system of powerpacks/batteries and all equipment had a rating of Power/Impulse. An impulse was the time keeping mechanic/term. 1 imp = 1 second. In fact the power plants/batteries were the very first section of the Tech book.
All the current exoskeleton models and prototypes I know of run on batteries, electric power. Anything else would be heavier than the frame could realistically compensate for, and be way too hot for a person to have strapped on their back.
However, this is all land stuff, walking around and shit. For flight, well, I don't see a portable battery pack every getting powerful enough to generate enough juice to fly, so at that point you're pretty much in lala land anyway and more or less welcome to do whatever the hell you want.
I think the best phony-baloney explanation for a set up like that is probably just ripping off Iron Man. You've got some kind of "arc reactor" or microfusion cells or something, and the propulsion system is just directed bursts of energy overcoming what would normally be a complete lack of any kind of aerodynamics.
To keep it on the grittier side, just make it clear that doing this is a massive dumping of power (you're essentially venting pure energy out the back of the thing), and so doing the Superman takes a lot more juice than just running around on the ground. A suit might run for days or weeks on foot, but high flying takes more juice and will mean needing new batteries/a wall plug within just a few hours flight.
Well, that depends on the tech level of your SciFi. If your tech level is high enough to have small anti-grav devices, then you don't need as much thrust. You only need enough to accelerate and decelerate...
Quote from: greylond;468398Well, that depends on the tech level of your SciFi. If your tech level is high enough to have small anti-grav devices, then you don't need as much thrust. You only need enough to accelerate and decelerate...
Hope floats, Love compels: anti-grav, arc-reactor. Potayto: potahto. see, it all works out since it's magical fun time anyway. Just gotta get players that can unclench...
Power cells, or a generator with fuel, pretty much. It is going to be electric as J. Arcane states due to the needs of a powersuit.
Of course I really want to say "The Blood and Souls of your enemy!"
Gas Turbine Generators.
If you have the technology to build servomotors small and fast enough to make an effective powersuit, then you have the technology to make a gas powered turbine generator small enough to be used to power them. Incorporate some high-efficiency thermocouples and you could have them run on liquified methane and air, with the liquid methane being pre-heated by the thermocouples that run from the pre-heater to the exhaust manifold.
Want thrusters? Make the tech level a bit higher and the gas turbines become MHD turbines, more efficient and can be throttled to either vent the exhaust gasses or pass them through a convergent-divergent nozzle for thrust.
According to my supercomputer, what drives a powersuit is... LOVE?! Ok, who's been messing with the machine?!!
RPGPundit
I always thought greed drove a power suit.
(http://www.ndsmcobserver.com/polopoly_fs/1.1645414%21/image/2565488970.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_240/2565488970.jpg)