 April 19, 2015 - 6:58am | I finally got a chance to actually look these games through with more detail. (I am super sick... was exposed to mold spores and now have a chest thing going on, so in bed coughing up my lungs resting up so I can survive the next work week) Now these games are very different from SF, they are strategic empire building games, with some very complex ideas/mechanics in SE. However there are some things I noted besides Tetrarchs being in the Background History (aka timeline) and races that could easily be the seed ideas for Dralasites & Vrusks. First the ships do jump, takes forever to calculate a jump (1 month). You can not jump through certain space hazards like clouds as you need a visual fix on destination & like 5 other fixed points. I need to study the ships more but the ships at least in SP are huge colonization/exploration, 2000 crew type huge. One big difference is distance a ship can jump... SF has it's safety cap, but SE has different tech that sets the max safe distance... one thing to keep in mind is these are early non streamlined games, and by the time we get SF or KH a lot of other games had been designed, so other ideas had been developed for R&D to draw from. In SE research has allowed for the discovery of different Hyper-Space dimensions: All of which opens up new tech options. The game is designed to reflect huge civilization building, maintenance, development and destruction... however this creates a need for specific resources, planetary & system classification based on species needs, government systems and more. In fact a lot of SE could be reworked as quick aides for refs in creating worlds and scenarios more randomly. Now based on TSRs naming scheme I am sure they went with SF over AW because they had planned to release a third Star game for RPGing individual PCs but had never got around to it, I doubt the few proto attempts in Blackmoor looked anything like SF though as different game designers where involved in those games than the creator of SF. I really like the layered Star Map the two games have and would like to convert that idea to SF. I am not sure how to convert that though: In SE you count number of hexes (squares) to the system and then add the number by the star, but you half which ever number is less. So lets say it is 3 LY to Star X and Star X is -5 then it is 1 1/2 + 5 = 6 1/2 LY. What do you guys think? Save or Junk it or Tweak the LY calculation? "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 April 19, 2015 - 11:27pm | I dont understand the reasoning or the why of the LY calculation. Is this indicated in the games? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 20, 2015 - 4:49am | Yes, and I can't see why either... the calc is in both games is the same: I am wondering on the math end if it is even close, my mind says no... it has been ages since I calculated angle distances but should not it be longer/farther? I think I need to go look up triangle math formulas. I should really read the space battle stuff closer, the section I browsed through sure reminded me of KH in some small respects. Basically SP is the simple version & SE the expanded version. The games include land & space tactics. SE is a lot to digest so I need to really think it through. I do like how it classes star systems 1 through 5, has a TLS for civilizations, and assigns minerals to technology, and a few other ideas. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
April 20, 2015 - 6:06am | Oh if its for computing the angle distance then I guess so.... but I dont remember geometry being that easy. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 20, 2015 - 10:58am | Wow my brain still remebered what theorem is used for this (Pythagorean)... maybe there is hope for me yet. It should be calculated A squared + B squared = The square root of X squared = X = Actual Light Year Distance. Where A & B are the two known light year figures and X is the unknown distance in light years So 3 squared = 9 & 5 squared = 25, so X squared = 34, the square root of 34 is 5.83095189485 so depending on which way you rounded 5 or 6 light years. I would round up, as you need to see if the ship can make the jump. (I like the idea of different tech levels effecting what a ship can do, not sure how to apply that yet... just toying with the idea) It's not to hard but you would need a calculator with square root function, I have got to find my old Texas Instrument Calculator: I know I have one. So first formula quirk fixed. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
April 20, 2015 - 11:59am | Okay taking a second look at the Map: it is 150 ly X 100 ly X 115 ly : 2000 star systems Each Square (hex) = 5 ly Versus SF 1 square (hex) = 1 ly I doubt the maps are connected. I also took another look at the various published SF maps: I am going to get the graph paper out and fiddle with the map. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 April 29, 2015 - 9:50am | Yes, I think the games lend themselves to "borrowing". They are both made by TSR, and you can clearly see that Star Probe/Empires had an influence on Star Frontiers. In fact, Star Frontiers seems to have been released INSTEAD of the 3rd chapter of Star Probe - draw your own conclusions there. I now own Star Probe & Star Empires (got them for Christmas this year), and one of the first things I noticed was that you couldn't fly through the nebulae, just like in Star Frontiers. The aliens also stood out. |
April 29, 2015 - 11:07am | Yes, I noticed that too. I have not had time to fiddle with it past that, but I will... after I get my RL Jungle hacked back I need at least 1 more weekend (probably 2 as the jungle keeps over heating the power tools). "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
October 11, 2015 - 9:06pm | Well finally able to take another look at this game... I think KH may be based on the early battle mechanics in this game there are similiar concepts. One intereting note is the Hyper-space jumping is hard to calculate jump distances (takes a month) are related to tech level and also there are different layers of space the ship enters, also how close the ship can come out of jump or enter jump to a sun is effected... I am toying with trying to convert one of the SP/SE ships to KH, these are huge ships, just becuase. There are several map scales too... so will muse on this. Just to hurt the head will fiddle with it more. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
October 13, 2015 - 9:21am | Okay I just checked the jump Interstellar Distance Table in KH against the formula in SP & SE it is a match! Greater Number + Lesser Number/2 with fractions ignored and if both numbers are the same one is still halved = actual distance between stars... I checked this math against the mathametically correct: A squared + B squared = The square root of X squared = X = Actual Light Year Distance across C, I did several test crunches and though numbers are close the rounding follows no set pattern. So KH is using the SE/SP jump calculation system. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
October 22, 2015 - 10:24am | I have been thinking about how big one of the exploration/survey ships must be... 1000 Naval personal and up to 1500 other personel necessary for exploration activities 2500 crew intotal and room for specimen collecting... that equals one heck of a big ship. When I finally remembered there is a SP/SE space ship in one of the Blackmoor adventures I went and looked the FSS Beagle is 2 miles long & 3/4th a mile wide comprised of 3 decks... I am figuring it had/has AG. So 3218.688 meters by 1207.008 meters. The space humans in this scenerio look basically the same as normal humans but with a green shine to their skin. They have a wide range of technology including tech and names of tech we also find in GW and MA1. Reading the module I must say it could be deadly for D&D or SF PCs... when I get home I will try and figure out what this ship's hull size would be for giggles in KH. Temple of the Frog also has info... so I will see what I can figure out between them as to the "space humans", they speak Galactica. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
October 23, 2015 - 4:45am | I am posting ship details as I work my way through the descriptions & tech in the modules in http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/8823#comment-40331 "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
November 7, 2015 - 2:20pm | I noted that the smaller ships that can be launched from the larger ships are described as "egg" shaped... which reminded me of an old sci-fi novel... but also the Egg of Coot. The Egg is sometimes speculated to be a ship. Today I am pretty tired so it is old movie day and low and behold Beast with a Million Eyes has a said Egg type space ship. I found the aliens ship to be a fair representative of what is described in the "egg" style of ships.  "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
November 10, 2015 - 5:43am | I am pretty sure Hyperspace in these games is Void Space, the game says there are 28 kinds. types or frequencies of Hyperspace one btw which causes magic to actually work and science to fail... I don't think these Hyperspace frequencies can be seen as dimensions but I am not done analyzing the concept of alternate realities or space in old TSR games... I need to find an article in the old Dragon next. The oldest D&D PDFs I have make no mention of planes & D&D setting is way different than SF on this stuff. I surmise though from SE's Hyperspace list The D&D universe is being bombarded with a specific frequency of Hyperspace... just saying it is like right there. Explains Blackmoor big time. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 November 10, 2015 - 6:44pm | The whole idea of hyperspace, subspace, void space, space warp, worm holes, space between your toes; is that by our current understanding of the laws of physics we can't get from planet to planet in a convient time for lazy writers to write a meaningful story so they invented the make believe world of "An easy and convient way to get from safe planet of pretty women to very dangerous planet of half naked women" and pretty much everyone has stolen it ever since. Since these are RPGs and the first rule is have fun so just have fun with crazy alternate dimension hyperspace and don't worry about hard and fast rules about hyperspace like they do in Star Wars. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
November 11, 2015 - 7:37am | It was mostely interesting to see as a weapon a planet or system could be sent into D&D land in this game by someone turning on a generator for a specific generation of HS and plunging the society into chaos. Though honestly D&D and thus Blackmoor was probably around first before this weird idea. Some of the other tech is however very nice for sci-fi, but would need reworking. I agree with why HS is around in RPG and Sci-fi "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
