OOC talk Volturnus

[corkman]

Ok, thank you

[rattraveller]

There are quite a few inconsistancies in the background material with the Volturnus module. These are not the module's fault since when they were written they should have been the basis but SF went in different directions. Since we are doing the module we just need to keep things constant within our setting.

Quick examples
1) the already pointed out misnamed Truane's Star government not Pale government
2) the deckplans being drawn for a horizontal layout not a vertical one
3) the mention of the police action on Cygnus Omicron IX which is never mentioned anywhere ever again
4) Of the first four expedition members two were listed as having only computer skills even though one is supposed to have been in the military for 22 years
5) supposedly the Truane's Star spaceships have set off the Sathar artifact. Which one the probe 20 years ago (very slow Sathar) or the two ships which never made it to the planet? Obviously it was the pirates but that's not what it says.
6)800PF The evolution of the Mechanon race begins on Volturnus. OK that is from Zeb's but it is all I had to work with. The Mechanons are supposed to be former servants of the Eorna. This is all fine but given the time line what happened to all the infrastructure? The Eorna had space travel. This means a good deal of technology and the infrasturcture to support it. So where did it all go? You would think if the Sathar destroyed it all there would be massive ecological damage.
7) Back to the ship the Serena Dawn was create before the hull size three rule was so it was supposed to land.
8) Just a personal note and I understand it was supposed to be so the party size was managable but does anyone think 4 or 6 beings is a large enough party to survey an entire planet? We should have been a few dozen in several teams and then most could have been killed or fate unknown after the attack. Could have used them for replacements or NPCs

[jedion357]

There are quite a few inconsistancies in the background material with the Volturnus module. These are not the module's fault since when they were written they should have been the basis but SF went in different directions. Since we are doing the module we just need to keep things constant within our setting.

Quick examples
1) the already pointed out misnamed Truane's Star government not Pale government
2) the deckplans being drawn for a horizontal layout not a vertical one
3) the mention of the police action on Cygnus Omicron IX which is never mentioned anywhere ever again
4) Of the first four expedition members two were listed as having only computer skills even though one is supposed to have been in the military for 22 years
5) supposedly the Truane's Star spaceships have set off the Sathar artifact. Which one the probe 20 years ago (very slow Sathar) or the two ships which never made it to the planet? Obviously it was the pirates but that's not what it says.
6)800PF The evolution of the Mechanon race begins on Volturnus. OK that is from Zeb's but it is all I had to work with. The Mechanons are supposed to be former servants of the Eorna. This is all fine but given the time line what happened to all the infrastructure? The Eorna had space travel. This means a good deal of technology and the infrasturcture to support it. So where did it all go? You would think if the Sathar destroyed it all there would be massive ecological damage.
7) Back to the ship the Serena Dawn was create before the hull size three rule was so it was supposed to land.
8) Just a personal note and I understand it was supposed to be so the party size was managable but does anyone think 4 or 6 beings is a large enough party to survey an entire planet? We should have been a few dozen in several teams and then most could have been killed or fate unknown after the attack. Could have used them for replacements or NPCs

1.) i missed the misnamed government- I'll have to look at that. its a minor consideration though
2.) I've posted the deck plans Sam said we would be using- they are incomplete but there is a Serena Dawn 2 thread for you to view them here. I cannot open the original Dunjini files and bang out the missing decks as they became corrupted otherwise I would have done this long ago. these are in the Khs vertical layout. though climbing up a ladder to storm a defended airlock is not going to be pretty for the first guy up the ladder thats for sure.
3.) yes Cygnus Omicron is an enigma and its been debated much in the forums I've taken the position that CO9 is New Pale (ninth moon of a gas giant) I like shadows solution in his posts in this game that its a small fuel processing station at a gas giant where the workers are rioting against their corporate masters- that is probably a better solution than mine. I've heard no other solution that makes sense or would be viable other than to make CO9 one of the plague planets and the Blue Plague a future event not a past event.
4.) NPCs dont have to have all their skills listed, we can assume they are more skilled then whats represented.
5.) this is a tricky issue: 1 automated probe, two ships from Truane's star and countless numbers of visits by what we must assume are multiple pirate vessels, that doesn't include the Dragon mag article "Volturnus Connection" with Captain Zebulon who misjumps his freighter to find the system and names it. Logically he must chart the route in both directions to sell it to the government so that means two trips to Zebulon by him. I take the stand that when the sathar, as a general strategy, wipe out a civilization instead of enslaving it like some other examples, and leave the obelisk device that this device is an alarm system to warn them if that wiped out civilization is rebuilding Terl Obar's numbers of actual troops in a sathar task force suggest they tend to just occupy one city and nuke the rest because they just dont have the on hand assets to control a whole planetary population. The obelisk acts like a motion sensor that wont trigger for every little critter (like a mouse or sparrow) but looks for larger things moving. I its not about one ship in particular triggering it but rather a level of space activity.
6.) yes bits and pieces of eorna tech and infrastructure still exist and the pcs get to explore some in the course of the adventure. Ruins of Volkos which is a capitol city not the eorna cape canaveral as well as a defense installation at the mechanon mounds. We can presume more is out there off the supplied map which is only a small area of the planet's surface. However, nothing last forever and 900 years is a long time so that whats out there that has not been maintained is scrap unless preserved in some way- stasis field technology?
7. ) Serena Dawns hull size is not supplied if we go with the SD2 deck plans and the sketchy 5 decks then its not that big and could land though I'd nix the tail boom that I envisioned. I think making it an ion powered ship like the other KHs freighters with a tail boom and hvy lift atomic powered HS 2 shuttle on loan from the Pale government riding piggy back at one of the tail boom cargo connectors then i think its all good. If Sam goes with it landing and having atomic drives than I dont think thats a big deal either.
8.) I quite agree and actually had Kahn addresses that point in character with Kriss. I think what you have here is too small of a team with too large of a mandate thus making it impossible for us to properly complete the mission even without the presence of pirates. So even if we survive the pirates and the sathar we may still be rated failures for not accomplishing our mission.I think would can chalk this inconsistency up to bureaucratic bean counters deciding policy limiting expenses (paring down the actual team numbers) without actually changing the mission parameters. OR we can say that our primary mission is to locate and rescue (or recover) the first team with secondary goals of survey and establishing a semi permanent base of operation (we have to presume we brought shelter and i tend to rule that the small pirate outpost was our pre fab buildings and that after the pirates took them off of the Serena Dawn they set up a satellite outpost to be near the kurabunga and Ul-mor for the purpose of expanding their program of control that they have pioneered with the edestakai.

[Samlangdon]

As to the Serena Dawn, I think we will go with the following from Jedion's post.

OOC: I wont contradict the referee's assumptions on the SD but I will state what I had intended for the SD 2 deckplans:



3.) I envisioned SD2 as a freighter too large to land that piggy backed a shuttle to help land the team and its vehicles, drop buildings were the first outpost that the PCs encounter before they storm the pirate city which I felt made storming the outpost personal- "Hey, those are our buildings!" Drop buildings have a robotic attachment that guides them down and the PCs would then jockey them into place with the jet copter (also found at the pirate outpost- "hey, thats our helicopter") again the large cargo hold and piggy backed shuttle are down ship and I hand waved the "no access" to them. Deck 4 was the galley and common areas Deck 5 was engineering and Deck 6,7, 8 ish were effectively the big cargo hold.

So in addition to the lifeboats there is a large planetary shuttle piggybacking.

[Samlangdon]

Ok, the mono blades were the 2d10 variety.
Additionally, could someone assist me administratively and post all the equipment gathered, including the stats of a mid level slug thrower.

Lastly, I am assuming all you area gathering your gear as Dalmar did in his post. Please double check your wikis and make sure your character's gear is accurate. Be sure to include any and all of the gear Dalmar requisitioned just after star fall.

Now, most of us know the general direction of things to come. I am envisioning that you are just hitting life boat range of Volturnus, and Serena Dawn is still decelerating.

After Gekka gets a chance to post, I will move the action forward with the next post. This next round should end this thread. Experience can be spent after that.

[Samlangdon]

Got some items of equipment up under Equipment Found On Serena Dawn in characters section.. If we could please try to use this OOC room instead of the game room for put of character stuff, unless of course the OOC segment applies directly to your game post. No hard fast rule, just judgment call.

[jedion357]

Ok everyone, review your last posts and be ready for a new game post tonight.

I'll be pitch hitting for an inning and the rain delay is over.

[Shadow Shack]

I have a Q, our blade weapons were in the locker so we don't have them, correct? I recall Kahn was having one made in the machine shops but just for clarification Gideon's pair of swords are no longer in his possession. I ask as that will make the difference in encumbered movement for him (not counting dragging the polyplate armor that is).

[jedion357]

blades were with your gear in the cargo containers. weapons locker was for fire arms. you have you blades and there are two of the mono molecular blades floating around in the group. as well taken from the armored guys.

[corkman]

Kriss has one (1) of the Tanto style blades along with an axe. Still pretty sure that he has an auto-rifle from the guy in the bar as well.

I just got a new laptop and I'm not home to look up the information so, can someone tell me where to find the XP and skills where we built our PC's so I can save it and ad it to my favorites on my new computer, please.

[corkman]

Kriss has one (1) of the Tanto style blades along with an axe. Still pretty sure that he has an auto-rifle from the guy in the bar as well.

I just got a new laptop and I'm not home to look up the information so, can someone tell me where to find the XP and skills where we built our PC's so I can save it and ad it to my favorites on my new computer, please.

[corkman]

Kriss has one (1) of the Tanto style blades along with an axe. Still pretty sure that he has an auto-rifle from the guy in the bar as well.

I just got a new laptop and I'm not home to look up the information so, can someone tell me where to find the XP and skills where we built our PC's so I can save it and ad it to my favorites on my new computer, please.

[jedion357]

I just added to the House rules folder under Skills to post EXP costs and the lists of Skills Areas and their skills, just in case you are making a post from a smart phone and dont have a copy of SFMan #9 on hand.

Also I want to introduce a new player: Anthony Gibbs, a big Star Frontiers fan, not sure how he found me but then I use the same avatar on all sites. Thus other fans should spot me for what I am and of course the initiated will wonder what kind of a dork I must be.

[jedion357]

Curiosity compels me to ask this:

The cut scene from Outpost One in the "Crashed on volturnus" thread where the PCs are ignorant of those events but the players are not. I'm curious about feed back on that.
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=329&starthttp://starfrontiers.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=329&start=20

To be honest its a bit of story telling technique borrowed from TV and film and less obviously from stuff in the 4.0 edition Dungeon Master's Guide 2 of D&D. I thought it might work well with PBP gaming and I'd like your evaluation.

1. did you like it?

2. did it raise tension?

3. Other comments?

[corkman]

Still can't figure out how to put pictures up.

[jedion357]

Still can't figure out how to put pictures up.

email it to me, I'll add it to my photobucket account and then edit your wiki character sheet.

[corkman]

I have a question about how much ammo was with the Automatic rifle we took off the pirate goon from the bar on the Serena Dawn. I had Kriss take a rank in Projectile Weapons so he can use it.

[Terl Obar]

It's in one of the posts in the adventure thread but I think you have 6 rounds loaded and a spare clip.

[corkman]

Bump?

[corkman]

Just a heads up, I will more than likely be without access to computer/internet from July 31st thru August 5th. I will be on vacation and might be in deep shit if I try. Please NPC me as needed.

John