The Gunbot Mark II

We started robots as spaceships with the gunbot, a simple robot intended to serve as the baseline for our exploration of building robots as spaceships. Now, I'm playing a game where I want a simple trackbot as the basic foe. Robots as Spaceships feels roughly complete at this point, and I present to you our new robot: 

A Fishing Boat using Spaceships

In one of my games it turns out I need a boat for crossing back and forth in the North Atlantic. I've done a lot of work in spaceships, so I figured I build the boat using spaceships and the alternate spaceships options from pyramid #3/34.

Vehicle	ST/HP	Hnd/SR	HT	Move	Lwt	Load	SM	Occ	DR	Range	Cost
Oceanic Fishing Boat	200	0/4	13	.5/14	30 tons	9 tons	SM+5	2+6	15 DR	3640	$183K

The ship is a 30-ton hull. Its systems are: 1 combustion engine, 1 screw propeller, 2 fuel tanks, 3 steel armor, 1 control system, 1 engine room, 3 systems that combine to make a single SM+6 habitat system with two bunk rooms lacking life support, 3 more combined habitat systems forming a freezer, and 6 cargo. 

I bumped up the DR from 10 to 15. If you look at the armor table for steel alloys, you'll see why: it follows the standard range table progression until it drops from 2 strait to 1. Since we are using DR instead of dDR, I figured 15 was appropriate. I don't foresee the boat being shot at too much... but then again, it probably will pick up at least one bullet hole somehow. If we are worried about this, we can justify raising the armor by 5 using deflection boost.

Double checking our boat against the Nordhavn 40, a few things stand out. Our price is a little cheaper, from the single boat I found for sale, but its within about 20%, which is a lot farther off than we could have been. The speed is way too high, which doesn't surprise me, as spaceships often gives generous performance numbers. In play I'll probably be using the 7 knot speed of the comparison boat. As for the other numbers... They're harder to find, which is why I used the spaceships design system rather than digging around for proper stats on trawlers. 

Its nice to have this tool available. There are surprisingly few ships statted out in gurps, so I'm posting this in hopes someone will find it useful.

Robots as Spaceships: Small Armor Table

I've been calculating armor values for small spaceships for a while now, and its quite doable, but its a bit tedious, and if an error is made it can be difficult to catch. So I've build a page of armor values for small spaceships. I'm looking forward to being able to reference it. The image below is for reference: if you text you can interact with, highlight, copy, and so on, click here.

 

The DR given is the amount of DR per system of armor. Each system of armor is 1/20th of the total weight.

The weights follow the size/range table, which gives us three divisions in each size modifier. For more stats on spaceships of that weight, see Between SM's. 

The TL number is given because its useful when working with the "Boost" numbers for adjusting armor, also explaining the example armors that go up to a theoretical TL 15. The numbers I find myself checking the most are 6, which is basic Steel and thus the cheapest option, and 13, which is "Awesome Future Armor" in TL 10, which seems to be a great spot for Battlesuits and general space opera. 

I hope you find this table useful, and I hope you enjoy your robots!

Robots as Spaceships: Paver-Guard Battlesuits

On the rim of civilized space, there are monsters. Alien beasts of every description imaginable. Some are hostile and irritable. Some are fearless and stealthy predators. Some are driven by strange hive-mind bent on destroying human habitation. Don't rely on exterminators to keep you safe. They will avenge you, but if you want to stay safe, you'll need Armor. Armor like PaverGaurd. 

I've talked about creating power suits and walkers in earlier posts, but I really only made one. Here I present a spectrum of TL 10 battlesuits of all sizes.

Robots as Spaceships: Battlesuits Revisited

Earlier, I wrote a simple method for making custom sized powered armor in Gurps:

After you build the armor with the right DR, add 50% more weight to the armor, and you have a suit of powered armor. Look up the strength based on its weight here

Basing the cost of the system on the additional weight is fine for most of the armors given in those pyramid articles. The "true" cost is $70 per pound of added weight with no leg or arm cost reductions.

The problem is... this system doesn't scale properly. Armor up to about 150 lbs worked out right, but once that was passed, the battlesuits got better and better for their weight class, and posted incredible DR's, like a half ton suit of armor giving almost 450 DR at TL10!

I noticed that this weight of 150 lbs was the point at which the weight of the armor began to be larger than the weight of the wearer, and calculated a new formula for battlesuits weighing 150 lbs or more (which to be fair, is most of them). 

DR = Weight^(1/3) x 3.5 x TL DR Factor

The TL DR Factor is 3 DR at TL 9, 5 DR at TL 10, and 7 DR at TL 11*. Cost per pound of the armor is $1 times its base cost. 

*This is the same number as for 7.5 lbs of armor talked about in the article being updated.

With this new system, the battlesuits outperform the walkers in terms of DR until about the 1.5 ton mark... which is perhaps a bit higher than we wanted, but isn't a bad number.

Overgrown Secrets: Tribal Lands Map

Here is the map of the overgrown secrets setting:

• Each color of Green is its own Tribe.
• Each shape is the territory of a single clan
  
• Each circle is a village. Its name is in white text. The names are rather literal: frog bend is known for having a lot of frogs.
  
• Each Square is a ruin
  
• Tribes with Red borders and villages colored grey are controlled by shapeshifters
  
• There are ruins and villages you can't see away from the river
• The "Central" Clan in the campaign was the one touching both Frog Bend and Four Rocks
  

This is my GM map, with the extra villages and ruins marked

• Yellow Squares are ruins with Pyramid Provosts
• Red Squares each have a single Crypt Spirit
• Grey Squares are just empty ruins
• The white text marks the five crypt spirits that work together, labeled by their personality. "Relic Tomb" marks the tomb of the crypt spirit who taught the other four how to become crypt spirits.
  

this is pretty much for people who want the run the adventure, which is coming soon, or people wanting a bit more insight on how the clans, tribes, villages, and ruins were set up. The map was consulted fairly often by the players, and I think it really helped run the adventure.

Overgrown Secrets: Magic

I've mentioned the magic system from Overgrown Secrets before. This is what I gave my players:

Everyday practical magic is tied to magical artifacts made of precious metals and inscribed with the inscrutable designs of the ancients. The artifact usually takes the form of a ring, bracelet, necklace, or other piece of jewelry fitting around the body. Only one item can be used at a time.

Effects consist of motion, light, body, or mind. Each item produces an effect worth from [1] to [10] points. It is not known how to reproduce many effects, but a few, such as the soul protection circuit and the simple light ring, can be produced by modern smiths. Those that aren’t must be bought as signature gear. The cost of the item is $100 per point. Some complex effects require a magic operation skill to use.

Here are some examples of magic items:

• Soul Protection Circuit: $350, Worn around the neck: gives +3 to will saves against mental attacks and attempts to consume one’s soul. Can be manufactured. 
• Candle Ring: $60, provides the light of a single candle. Can be manufactured
• Motion Bracers: $1000, provide [10] points of Telekinesis. Requires Magical Operation (Telekinesis)
• Running Ring: $500, provides +1 move
• Weapons Circuit: $500, provides +1 striking ST.
• Necklace of Disguise: $1000, allows changing how you look. Changing is only a few seconds, but matching a look requires at least a minute to get right. Requires Magical Operation (Illusion) and Disguise.

Skills for Magic: 

The ability to work with the metals is the jeweler skill. 

Knowing how to construct or analyze the constructions is Hidden Lore (Metalcraft)

Individual items may require the Magical Operation Skill. Generally this is only needed to perform complex tasks.

Fine Workings of Magic:

The Magic items are made out of 10 strands of bronze, sliver, or gold, connected in a complex pattern. They must be looped around the user's body. Bronze is connected to mind effects, silver to motion and light effects, and gold to body effects.  

Effects that can be reproduced by local smiths are 30% to 40% cheaper than the expected price of $100 per character point.

The non-reproducible magic the crypt spirits and pyramid provosts have access to is essentially a tool to observe the flows of the effect. At the GM's option, they might also have powers worth more than 10 points, but that feed off of the soul of the user, which will effect the user's mind. I didn't have to work that out in the campaign.

Magic in the Campaign:

My players almost universally chose to wear the soul protection circuits and to forgo other magic items. This is because it served as armor against both the default foe of shapeshifters and was even more effective against the crypt spirits. 

The Crypt spirits had access to the ability to make some of the currently non-reproduceable magic items, though they didn't have access to any at first. This could have been an incentive to the Players, and some of their NPC allies were anxious to get it, but the players weren't that tempted by the secrets, finding that as they needed their amulets, the rest of the magic was less interesting. 

The magic system was created as an afterthought to the campaign: I wanted magical monsters but heroes with limited access to magic. I think it filled its role very well. The players with Lore (metalcraft) were constantly rolling against it analyzing what their enemies were doing, but they mostly just used the amulets to prevent the monsters from killing them with a single will roll. 

The cost of the items is quite cheap. I have a few more thoughts about that here.

I liked this magic system, and I may use it again. I hope you find it useful!