Quote from: AnthrobotHard SF is a literary thing. Introducing it into an rpg to any large degree turns it from being fun into being a lecture on the predictions of scientists of a conservative type.

Q F Mutha-Truckin' T.

Any time I've come across any RPG stuff that's claimed to be Hard Science, I'm left looking at it and asking aloud "How's that supposed to be fun?"  

The thing is, most SF roleplay games claiming to be "Hard" usually end up as pissing contests between authors and players over which delta-V is calculated correctly vs. which thermodynamically aligned ratio is proper.    It's why I'd rather play Mekton Zeta than Jovian Chronicles- I'd rather be blasting fighters out of the Black than calculating whether or not I've got enough reaction mass to properly correct my flight path (while simultaneously maintaining a firing solution) so that i'll be able to rondezvous with where my  carrier will be in thirty minutes time.

THe whole "My setting is Harder than your setting!" thing pisses me off because it's silly in extremis, and this is coming from an actual Discordian.  

Quote from: John MorrowThat's certainly true.  But I think the odds of that being true are lower now than they were when the Victorians were making predictions, unless you think our understanding of physics is likely to go a similarly radical reworking in the next century or millennium.

It could undergo a radical rethinking, possibly. When some scientists are arrogant enough to assume that we know all the major physics about the universe they usually get shot down by new discoveries.
If we are talking fictional futures we can actually have that radical new theory emerge, so that we can indulge ourselves with fun stuff like hyperspace and blasters, etc.

Quote from: John Morrowyou have some handy, I'll be happy to look at them.  But that's really not necessary if just bother to do some mat, if you are really interested in the science.  How many joules of energy, for example, are required to accelerate 100 metric tons of mass at 1g?

ADDED:  This isn't even touching on the cosmic radiation and solar radiation problem, which is starting to look like a fairly formidable problem for long distance space travel, too.

If you haven't already seen these sites you might want to check them out

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html
I believe that you will find the answers to your questions on the projectrho site.
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
The site above is hard SF at its best.

Quote from: ScoundrelTHe whole "My setting is Harder than your setting!" thing pisses me off because it's silly in extremis, and this is coming from an actual Discordian.  

I'm in full agreement with you my brother.
Hail Eris!:D

Quote from: John MorrowWhether the energy goes into moving the starship or magnetic containment, the same conversion and waste energy concerns apply.  And the amounts of energy discussed in that article were based on (from memory) the amount of hydrogen that Traveller says that their starships consume and the amount of of mass the drives move at 1g to 6g of acceleration over long periods.

I hope that your memory of this article is good.
Assuming that the Traveller starships are based on 1970/80s tech they probably will blow up. So I accept the articles limited reasoning in that sense. However if we are to say that this fictional example is supposed to be in the future, where there have been advances in science and they have such things as gravity generators on their ships. Then I'd think it plausible that they could have technology capable of highly efficient conversion and/ or radiation of waste heat, for the purposes of a roleplaying game. Anything else smacks of nitpicking and isn't fun in a game.

I'd personally kick any player of mine in the face if they started to come out with hard sf criticism of any space opera game that I ran. Thats after I'd distracted them with a rationalization or two first!:)

Quote from: John MorrowIt can radiate.  It can't be removed from convection or conduction.  "Fins" suggest the latter two, and air or water.  Again, I believe that I've mentioned all of this already earlier in the thread.

Fins can radiate heat in a vacuum. They wouldn't be as efficient as large radiating panels though. And so fins would be used only with stuff that generates relatively small amounts of waste heat. I suppose you could build huge fins on a spacecraft and they could be called radiator panels but all this arguing over such descriptions leads to the land of nitpick.

Essentially, sf rpgs tend not to work for me these days as the type of sf fiction I enjoy (ultra hard sf) is tremendously non-gameable.

To be honest, any projections of the future I find at all credible tend to be not so gameable, which is why increasingly I don't game sf.

Sad, but true.

SF which is fantasy with sf trimmings though, a la Star Wars, I can enjoy that plenty.  But to me that's fantasy with some added crossdressing, fun and all and definitely a form of sf (I'm not pulling a definitional purism thing here) but it doesn't contain what really excites me about literary sf if that makes any sense and I don't consider it any more credible than dragons and what not.

i've been pondering the CT/MT tech level charts recently.  where should i throw nanoassemblers, like in robinson's "mars trilogy"?  or the ship tech from reynolds' "revelation space"?

i wonder if RTT will have updated the TLs, or if they'll stay in their historical bubble.  i'm kind of mixed on the idea.  

back to thinking up space warbot stats for tomorrow night's traveller game. . . :raise:

Quote from: AnthrobotI'd personally kick any player of mine in the face if they started to come out with hard sf criticism of any space opera game that I ran. Thats after I'd distracted them with a rationalization or two first!:)

My problem isn't with soft SF or Space Opera.  The point I'm making is that a lot of it is more fantasy than science.  I'm not recommending that people play hard science fiction games.  In fact, I don't personally think one would be all that fun.

Quote from: BalbinusEssentially, sf rpgs tend not to work for me these days as the type of sf fiction I enjoy (ultra hard sf) is tremendously non-gameable.

To be honest, any projections of the future I find at all credible tend to be not so gameable, which is why increasingly I don't game sf.

Sad, but true.

Yeah, I think that's pretty much how I feel, too, though I don't mind reading softer SF.

While the fins are radiating heat into space, would someone please make an init roll for this poor young lady?



I'm worried about her.

Not a thought for the medic or the...erm, guy on the floor, i notice. You want them out of the way don't you! Cad!

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!While the fins are radiating heat into space, would someone please make an init roll for this poor young lady?



I'm worried about her.

First off, that is sweet! I am totally stealing that pic for my Start Frontiers game.
Secondly, I roll an 8. That plus my intiative modifier of +6 is 14. Which beats the monsters intiative of 9. I go first. I fire my Laser Pistol. My ranged to hit is 30%, +2 (+20%) skill levels. For a total of 50%. Point blank shot, so no modifiers. I roll a 48%. Just barely make it. I had the laser pistol set at 8 SEU's. So thats 8D10. Lets see 8,1,3,5,4,6,9,2. 38 points of damage. Did I kill it?

Crisping the tentacled horror, you make it easier for the medic to tend to his wounded comrade.  Now, about that incoming frigate...

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!While the fins are radiating heat into space, would someone please make an init roll for this poor young lady?



I'm worried about her.

Is that from that wargame type rpg, where everyone has one character but it's basically a space based tactical game?