 December 12, 2016 - 10:32pm | Since the dawn of role-playing games, RPGs are built around a melee and ranged combat wargame of some sort. Newer games have experimented with a mechanic known as "social combat" which extends the concepts of the melee or ranged combat mechanic to social interaction. So, I am going to think out loud on how to fit the social combat mechanic into Star Frontiers... WHAT IS SOCIAL COMBAT Social combat is basically a mechanism of opposed ability checks until a mental resistance is broken down. |
December 11, 2016 - 1:51pm | The most Star Frontiers-like movie I could come up with is ENEMY MINE. I think there's a good chunk of the Volturnus series here, with a dash of Knight Hawks. Agree? Disagree? Other suggestions? EDIT: I did look at the forums and saw a bunch of mentions of various movies including this one. However, most of that seemed to be movie lists, or how to use this movie as a scenario. My post here are more toward trying to define a single, most quintessentially SF-esque movie. |
December 10, 2016 - 9:54pm | Spent a little time this evening calculating how long it takes for a Knight Hawks ship to accelerate to Void jump speed and back. Using Wolfram Alpha, I put in: "speed under constant acceleration to 0.01c at 9.8m/s^2" which gave me roughly 3.5 days to accelerate from 0km/h to 0.01c. The works quite nicely with the deceleration boxes for Sathar in the Knight Hawks campaign map for Second Sathar War. |
December 10, 2016 - 7:16pm | It seems pretty universal that people consider the "Starship Bridge Area Map" deckplan from the "Serena Dawn" in SF0 Crash on Volturnus, and the "Starship Upper Deck Map" from the "Omicron" in the Assault on Starship Omicron minimodule to be parallel, rather than perpendicular, to the axis of thrust. I've been puzzling over it myself for a while today. But I think I've come up with a way where I can explain (badly) how the Serena Dawn and Omicron work within the KH design aesthetic. |
December 10, 2016 - 2:48pm | In Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn Basic and Expanded Rules, players are given the choice of which of the four spacefaring races to play: Dralasite, Human, Vrusk, and Yazirian. But where did they come from in the Frontier? On the Alpha Dawn map and Frontier Worlds table, each of the worlds of the Frontier has an indicator of the racial makeup iand population size of that world. With the racial and population data, you can generate Character Birth World Table for your player character races based on the demographics of the Frontier. |
 November 26, 2016 - 4:51pm | I'm a huge fan of HBO's Rome. Its an A/B story with the lives of historical figures Julius Ceasar, Marc Anthony and Cleopatra intertwined with fictional characters Titus Pulo and Lucius Vorenus. Absolutely love this story. Actually watching an episode now and wondering how I might do the A/B story in the Frontier. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 26, 2016 - 8:10am | Listenning to the radio in my new State of Maine is so much fun. The radio stations here lean toward rock while the ones in Boston lean toward pop. I am happy to announce that I have not heard one Justin Beeber song since moving back to Maine! Of course i regularly listen to the classic rock station so this skews the opportunity for me to hear the Beebs but too bad. At any rate as I drive around Maine I keep thinking this song that is playing is an awesome inspiration for a SF adventure. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 26, 2016 - 5:10am | The original Star Trek is periodically on in reruns- not a huge surprise. I was channel surfing last night and could see in the cable guide that it was on. Curiousity compelled me to find out which. The cable guide provied an episode title and brief description and i was stunned a little. Episode "Friday's Child" involved the crew visiting Capella IV and negotiating with a somewhat primitive though sophisticated culture to keep the klingons out and get the mineral rights for the Federation. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 November 24, 2016 - 12:53pm | Of all the human celebrations and customs, the harvest and thanksgiving feasts are most appreciated by the vrusk. Only the vrusk have another annual harvest thanksgiving feast. The yazirians are known for their feast celebrations yet they are culturally based upon hunting. Yazirians developed agriculture to support the wildlife of their clan game preserves. Their feasts celebrate one hunt after another year around, all developed around managing animal populations in the preserves. Dralasites do not have a history of feast gatherings. The debate gathering is the center of their cult -iggy |
