Quote from: HappyDaze;1120428You also have tech that allows copying and transferring of "ego" to allow serial immortality. That's not exactly hard science, and neither are the psi-powers of the setting. Oh, and biological whale-like organisms (that can be PC bodies) designed to fly through the corona of the sun... yeah, not hard sci-fi.

Just as a mental exercise, I'll rate each on my Hardness scale:

Uploading: hard. It's purely speculative, but entirely straightforward; we even have a complete working prototype for storage, the human brain.

Psionics: soft, as the term is usually meant, but I could easily see an Arthur Clarke version passing a Hardness test.

Whales flying through suns: pudding.

"Uploading" a human brain doesn't mean what many people think it would mean. People who think that makes sense as a way to duplicate even human thinking, let alone behavior or actual understanding or emotions, let alone consciousness, mostly don't understand those things, or are avoiding thinking about them.

Quote from: Morlock;1121427But really I'm looking for something that can do a lot of different tones and feels, within the framework of the hard sci-fi genre. A toolkit for making settings and campaigns.

Have you looked at GURPS, GURPS Space, and Attack Vector: Tactical?

Quote from: Morlock;1121427But really I'm looking for something that can do a lot of different tones and feels, within the framework of the hard sci-fi genre. A toolkit for making settings and campaigns.

From what you said, essentially what you need is,
- a certain feel in the game - that's the setting, which is conveyed by your words not by numbers on character sheets; so you want something lightish, on the RISUS-GURPS spectrum, closer to the left-hand side.
- attributes, whether random or point-buy, bound to a certain range
- a medium-sized (40-80) skill list; a short <40 skill list is effectively a character class, a longer >80 skill list leads to a lot of gaps in the party. Holden doesn't say, "so how does the drive work?" and Amos doesn't say, "look I'm skilled in the M-4350 rifle but not the M4350A."
- neither attributes nor skills improve quickly during play
- combat is dangerous and is best avoided, but if necessary it should be dominated by stealth, hiding in cover, favouring ambushes, etc

Classic Traveller, or some sort of percentile game like RuneQuest/Basic Roleplaying, will do that. But most of the feel of the game is going to be down to your words and any props - the setting.

It sounds like ORBITAL is a good choice. The author is Paul Elliott who is quite talented.

Here's the Book
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/193706/Orbital-2100

Here's a RPG.net review
https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/15/15778.phtml

Here's the homepage
https://www.paulelliottbooks.com/orbital.html

As for other hard(ish) sci-fi movies, I suggest Gattaca, Moon, Minority Report, Sunshine, and my favorite Outland.

Quote from: Morlock;1121428I mean, sure, I can use the Traveller tables, or the tables from Game X, or whatever, but I want something that actually reflects real science, hard-nosed futurism, and cutting edge science.

The only game I know of that does this is Stellar Wind. There is a free shipbuilder tool (excel). It has setting design tools as well (modern science compliant star system generation). You can use it to build an Orion or a Bussard ramjet (although mind there are some doubts about the feasibility of a ramjet).

Some other good options mentioned upthread, especially GURPS for realism. I think somebody mentioned the Cyberpunk 2020 supplement Deep Space. For example it has rules for things like radiation exposure and for health loss from prolonged exposure to micro gravity which are fairly simply in play.

I love 2300AD for the aliens and the Outland/Aliens feel and the wacky setting premise.

However... much as I love a bit of hard SF, the question for me is how do you make a game out of it without it turning into, "I made my Science roll" / "OK, you realise you can grow potatoes using your own poo"'; or having a table of actual PhD scientists responding to challenges set by another PhD scientist?

If it's just window dressing ("OK guys, think the Martian / the Expanse here, no artificial gravity so you have to be in a big spinning wheel if you want to stick to the floor, and you have to either be in a hab or have your space helmet on"), then to what extent does that need to be supported in the rules?

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1121138Re: Spaceship thrust/engines

If someone really wants HARD Sci-Fi first that someone needs to define the time of the setting, today Warp Drives and Teleporters are Theoretically possible the first and at least in particles possible the second. A 100 years from now? 500? 1000? More?

Now, even with said advances, you have a lot of work to do to keep it HARD :rolleyes:

Spaceships taking off from a planet can't use those systems, you'd need rockets still, probably a multitude of segments to get the ship away from the gravitational well of the solar/star system.

Do you want the equations on your setting/book? Or just a fictitious scientist whose work made it possible? Suspension of disbelief is a thing, and unless you're talking the next 50 years into the future you'll probably end up using some handwavium or unobtanium, the hardness;) of the Sci-Fi is measured by how much of it you need.

Also part of why I like Star Frontiers as it touches on alot of this in various ways. Ships past HS 5 (100m) cant land or take off from a planet for example. Chemical drives, standard rocket types, cant reach the speeds needed to hit that jump velocity due to the prohibitive amount of fuel needed. Im not happy with the fuel system in SF though for chem drives as it mostly glosses it over as you need X Creds in fuel per hull size per engine. For a trip. Unlike the other drives which are costs per fuel unit per ADF spent. The SF community has run various calculations on what the fuel factors are with varying results. Ion drives cant be used for takeoff or landing on planets and Atomic drives cant past HS 3 ships.

SF relies alot on the math of space travel and even combat. Heavy calculations are going on in the background. And sometimes the foreground depending on the players.

Quote from: Aglondir;1121160Interesting. How long do jumps take? Are they a fixed duration, like Traveller, or is the duration of the jump based on distance?
Are there two types of engines (like Traveller's jump and maneuver) or just one engine for both?
When a ship jumps, is it in "hyperspace" or realspace?

Looks like it takes about 10 hours per LY jumped to do the calculations. But taking into account the need for the astrogator to sleep, it takes a bit longer than that. And another day to accel and another to decel. So based on distance.

There are 3 types of drives. Chemical. Which cant accel to that jump speed but can land and take off from planets up to a hull size of 5. Ion, which cant be used for planet landings or takeoffs and are relatively slow. And Atomic drives which can land and take off on planets but only to a hull size of 3. But can provide alot more speed. Far as can tell the ships have maneuver jets but cant pin down what those are. Could be chem, could be by engine type. Probably engine type. Shuttles and landers are allmost allways chem drive. There was an article in some mgaming magazine I believe that added solar sails.

In SF its a bit weird. When a ship hits 1% the speed of light it enters "The Void". Some sort of dimension where distance and time seem to be very different. The ship drops out of the Void when it decelerates (and also probably if it accelerates). Gravity wells of stars seem to be the only thing that matters in the Void as jumps allways end near one. Even misjumps. It takes alot of precise calculations and timing to get where you want to go. Known routes are fairly safe. Unknown ones, or trying to speed up the process are increasingly not so safe and trying to jump without an astrogator doing the calculations is a guarantee not safe. A misjump seems to allways drop the ship out at a star system within the radius of the original planned jump.

But there are also system ships that just putter around a single star system. Usually using chem or ion drives. See comment in propr post on my slight irk with their chem drive ambiguity.

Quote from: Omega;1121990Also part of why I like Star Frontiers as it touches on alot of this in various ways. Ships past HS 5 (100m) cant land or take off from a planet for example. Chemical drives, standard rocket types, cant reach the speeds needed to hit that jump velocity due to the prohibitive amount of fuel needed. Im not happy with the fuel system in SF though for chem drives as it mostly glosses it over as you need X Creds in fuel per hull size per engine. For a trip. Unlike the other drives which are costs per fuel unit per ADF spent. The SF community has run various calculations on what the fuel factors are with varying results. May be wrong but believe Ion, and possibly Atomic, drives can not be used planet side.

SF relies alot on the math of space travel and even combat. Heavy calculations are going on in the background. And sometimes the foreground depending on the players.

One solution is to have rockets going to the moon, from there an atomic drive takes you out of the gravity well of the solar system where you're free to engage the FTL drive.

Part of the math needed are time related, how long until you reach the moon? how long until exiting the gravity well of the system? The second one is a very long time currently, and to solve that you need high G engines, in order to not kill the crew/passengers acceleration/deceleration needs to be very slow and only to a certain G level.

Unless you're adding more unobtanium/handwavium and artificial gravity, stasis fields or other means for the crew/passengers to survive the acceleration needed to speed that trip are provided.

As for the calculations . . . Book keeping, I fucking hate book keeping, as such the simplest solution is my go to. Of course really HARD SF needs to take those into account.

Unless you have unobtanium in the form of a fuel source compact enough that doesn't run out in a very long time under heavy use, this necessitates some form of nuclear power plant based on some fictional radioactive material. Because hydrogen rams can't reach FTL because at those speeds an atom could destroy your ship, so you need hyperspace.

Quote from: Morlock;1121427Sorry for the belated reply. Got really busy with RL stuff.

K, first is 2001: A Space Odyssey. Well, that SETTING, if you removed the alien stuff; not looking to tell the kind of stories that movie told.

The Martian; not so much the story, as how hard Weir tried to get the science right. Only flub I can think of is Mars' atmosphere isn't dense enough for the storm that marooned Watney.

Sans the FTL, I guess Battlestar Galactica reboot wasn't too bad.

I mean, I'm not exactly spoiled for choice here. The Expanse isn't all that bad, considering what we have to work with; mass media SF is really, really, really fuckin squishy.

But really I'm looking for something that can do a lot of different tones and feels, within the framework of the hard sci-fi genre. A toolkit for making settings and campaigns.

Quite a few space RPGs can handle some or all of the above to one degree or another.

As noted Star Frontiers has both 2001 and 2010 modules and everything from Gurps to Traveller can handle it too.

For doing something like The Martian I'd use the aforementioned End Times setting for Call of Cthulhu. Covers the harsh realities of Mars fairly well and if you leave out the alien aspects that pop up later its fine as a survival setting.

Lots of systems can handle nuBSG. Though the setting for me drifts a bit too far into the soft SF for my liking. That and I just did not like the "plain clothes in space" theme. Traveller or SF:KH though can handle the space battles to one degree or another. Though possibly SPI's Delta Vee game that plugged into Universe might fit better. Or even yanking out WEGs Star Wars ship combat.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1122006One solution is to have rockets going to the moon, from there an atomic drive takes you out of the gravity well of the solar system where you're free to engage the FTL drive.

Unless you're adding more unobtanium/handwavium and artificial gravity, stasis fields or other means for the crew/passengers to survive the acceleration needed to speed that trip are provided.

As for the calculations . . . Book keeping, I fucking hate book keeping, as such the simplest solution is my go to. Of course really HARD SF needs to take those into account.

Unless you have unobtanium in the form of a fuel source compact enough that doesn't run out in a very long time under heavy use, this necessitates some form of nuclear power plant based on some fictional radioactive material. Because hydrogen rams can't reach FTL because at those speeds an atom could destroy your ship, so you need hyperspace.

1: Pretty sure in SF you can build hybrid ships. Though still the size limit and theres that fuel problem of it being way too being ambiguous. Usually though ships just have a shuttle for getting down and back from a planet.

2: In SF you need to be strapped in during combat as the high G maneuvers will otherwise likely smash people around. Same with liftoff from planet. 2d10 on liftoff. And 1d10/ ADF/MR during hard maneuvers every turn they arent secured. Otherwise SF assumes the ships when accelerating to jump keep it to 1g due to the various factors. You can speed it up. But that increases the risk.

Unrelated, but Universe had an option for characters to be surgically fitted with a network of reinforcement filaments to allow them to handle higher G maneuvers to some degree.

Least in SF the calculations are covered with a skill roll and you dont have to do the actual math. That would be Other Suns. :eek:

x: SF doesnt use any fictional fuels interestingly enough. Just more efficient uses of. Ion drive uses condensed hydrogen units and Atomic drives use 10cm spheres of  plutoniom or uranium as fuel. States a single unit is enough for one interstellar trip to another system. (Though think they meant per engine) The engines are on struts due to the radiation and fighter pilots wear shielded suits as the drives right behind them. According to the rules a single unit can power a ship that is coasting for 1d5x20 days. Seems kind of short and a bit to variable to me. Maybee it gets used up more if you use the coffee machine alot? :rolleyes:

Does the system have some flaws and failures? Sure does. But its still leaning further into the Hard side of SF than many other RPGs. And it gives enough material to run a straight up single system centric harder SF campaign.

Quote from: Omega;11220171: Pretty sure in SF you can build hybrid ships. Though still the size limit and theres that fuel problem of it being way too being ambiguous. Usually though ships just have a shuttle for getting down and back from a planet.

2: In SF you need to be strapped in during combat as the high G maneuvers will otherwise likely smash people around. Same with liftoff from planet. 2d10 on liftoff. And 1d10/ ADF/MR during hard maneuvers every turn they arent secured. Otherwise SF assumes the ships when accelerating to jump keep it to 1g due to the various factors. You can speed it up. But that increases the risk.

Unrelated, but Universe had an option for characters to be surgically fitted with a network of reinforcement filaments to allow them to handle higher G maneuvers to some degree.

Least in SF the calculations are covered with a skill roll and you dont have to do the actual math. That would be Other Suns. :eek:

x: SF doesnt use any fictional fuels interestingly enough. Just more efficient uses of. Ion drive uses condensed hydrogen units and Atomic drives use 10cm spheres of  plutoniom or uranium as fuel. States a single unit is enough for one interstellar trip to another system. (Though think they meant per engine) The engines are on struts due to the radiation and fighter pilots wear shielded suits as the drives right behind them. According to the rules a single unit can power a ship that is coasting for 1d5x20 days. Seems kind of short and a bit to variable to me. Maybee it gets used up more if you use the coffee machine alot? :rolleyes:

Does the system have some flaws and failures? Sure does. But its still leaning further into the Hard side of SF than many other RPGs. And it gives enough material to run a straight up single system centric harder SF campaign.

Wait, when you write SF you mean Star Frontiers? I thought we we're talking in general terms about Sci-Fi and that SF = Sci-Fi:confused:

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1122032Wait, when you write SF you mean Star Frontiers? I thought we we're talking in general terms about Sci-Fi and that SF = Sci-Fi:confused:

SF Star Frontiers since I did say Star Frontiers at the start. If I meant Sci-fi I try to say sci-fi to prevent (more) confusion.

Still cant find that article for solar sails for Star Frontiers.

Quote from: Omega;1122017Does the system have some flaws and failures? Sure does. But its still leaning further into the Hard side of SF than many other RPGs. And it gives enough material to run a straight up single system centric harder SF campaign.

Dude, you are the only one in this thread perpetuating the delusion that Star Frontiers is Hard Sci-Fi. It may be harder than Gamma World, but that's about it.

Quote from: jeff37923;1122110Dude, you are the only one in this thread perpetuating the delusion that Star Frontiers is Hard Sci-Fi. It may be harder than Gamma World, but that's about it.

To be fair, Sci-Fi hardness is a spectrum, and placing something on one point or another might spark debate against or in favor since we're subjective beings not perfectly rational ones.

As for building the perfectly hard Sci-Fi system/setting I think it's a pipe dream, each has to pick and choose how squishy you can tolerate it. And to achieve that you would do good to take whatever you can find of your subjective liking from whatever system/setting/game and put it on a blender (or better yet stitch it together very carefully).

Truth be told I think it's more a matter of suspension of disbelief, how squishy it can be before you're yanked out of the fiction? And this is different for each.