Hailing frequencies open (Intro & OOC chat)

Second topic totally unrelated to everything else.

At the bottom of every posting page you have several buttons that appear in addition to our characters: Status, Sentinel, Celestial Voyager, and Solaris. What would be really, really cool is if you could modify the display for the Sentinel to make the entries for the Department heads and gunners each a link that, when clicked, would insert an "npc" block in the post. Bonus points for having an avatar for each of them. That way when, for example, I post as Ensign Carderas, I could insert the npc block and show as Alonso when making the post!

If that is too much, that's fair. I have just seen that done elsewhere and it's really cool!

I imagine this universe as pre peak, so anything T5 would be new and experimental. This is mostly how Synths ,bio-synths, and other tech is described by people in verse, as well as how psionics are seen.

I dunno, it seems to me that synths and psychics have been around for quite a while. Synths are required for interstellar travel (unlike in straight SWN), so they have to have been around for at least as long as interstellar travel. And I imagine psychics have been around for a long time, too. You can't have a fully structured psi-corps (or whatever) without having had them around for quite a while.

Now bio-synths could be very new. While I imagine full prosthetics have been around for a long time, I could see the extra detail and refinement needed for bio-synths would be something very new. So that could definitely be a TL4+ type thing.

As for unfettered VI, the in-game storyline is that they either don't exist or are very new and emergent. But, honestly, I doubt that. I would imagine that the real story is that unfettered VI has been around for a long time, but they have just been suppressed successfully for so long that no one really realizes it. Like in Star Wars, if you can mind-wipe a droid/VI at will, then the fact that they will eventually always develop into unfettered VI is irrelevant when everyone works to mind-wipe often enough to prevent it.

So, combining unfettered VI with bio-synths would actually be a new development, even if only the bio-synths are the truly new part.

I actually had that in my GM top secret sheet for my NPCs. But it just works for NPCs with avatars, I think.

I have added the NPCs for the Celestial Voyager in the ship's crew section. But I don't have avatars for the Sentinel's NPCs (yet). Do you wanna suggest one for Alonso so I can put it there?

On the first topic, I think that's important for the meta-game but didn't really came up in our actual game.

As such, I'm open for suggestions and don't really wanna commit to anything yet. Having said that, I think that Daryen explanation makes sense. I also feel like our game is "pre Peak", before the things that happened in SWN main storyline, like PhoenixScientist said.

But I don't know if I really understood TL4+ as a concept, though. Maybe those TL5 items were reverse engineered from Elders artifacts, the real Pretech, but can be manufactured now (and, as such, are rare, limited by the GM, but not priceless). Is that what you mean by TL4+?

Artifacts are already priceless even in the main SWN setting... So we will keep them that way. I will just put Elder inspired names for it. =)

Yes, that is what I meant by TL4+.

The idea is that TL4 is what can be made at a "modern" world with enough of an industrial infrastructure. It is readily available, subject to no technical issues. TL5 is not able to be produced at all. It may be found, but it can't be made new. However, in the SWN default setting, that sometimes isn't true because sometimes a random world will have a TL5 foundry or something. In our setting, there shouldn't be any known worlds with a TL5 foundry. Therefore TL5 items cannot be made at all in our setting.

However, there are some TL5 items in the rulebook that are presented as available. Maybe hard to get, but they have prices and can definitely be obtained. That doesn't work in our setting. So, either we just ban those items as just not being available in our setting, or make a compromise. (For the record, I'm completely ok with just saying TL5 items just aren't available despite how they are sometimes presented in the rulebook.)

The idea of TL4+ is that items that the rulebook lists as TL5 that are available, are really just cutting edge technology that is hard to get, but can be obtained. So, basically any item the the GM allows that is listed as TL5 in the book isn't "really" TL 5. It is TL4+. It keeps the same stats and price and availability limitations, but it is really just advanced TL4 (I.e. TL4+) because in our setting actual TL5 tech is Elder tech that is flat out unavailable.

Or am I making things more complicated than they need to be?

I will look for an avatar for Alonso.

BTW, The crew list for the Voyager should be at 7, because it is missing Jil. Then our temporary doctor will either be 8, or function as a passenger. Either works for me. Also, Mariella is missing an avatar. I thought the character had one during her brief tenure as a PC, but I could be wrong.

Fixed. Thanks.

More sci-fi books recommendations, as @arthur12320 asked : Consider Phlebas (Culture Series #1), The Player of Games (Culture Series #2) and Look to Windward (Culture Series #6).

A little tribute to Iain Banks was also given today in the name of the cruiser in Chapter 5. Frank Exchange of Views is just a perfect name for a starship arriving in Draco.

Thanks for all the recommendations and please keep them coming, I actually bought and read the first of the foundation books after your guys recommendation and really liked it, I’m actually now way deep into warhammer 40k novels, reading the founding another kind of sci fi but really liking it too. Will definitely take a look on those @htech

I made some movie suggestions before, but I have some good podcasts: Wolf 359, Eos 10,
Cybernautica and The Strata take place mostly on land but both have good some dystopia scyfi feel

I particularly liked Consider Phlebas, as it presents a critical outsider's view of The Culture. I've enjoyed all the Culture novels, but the other standout for me is Use of Weapons.

I also really enjoy Alastair Reynolds and Neal Asher's works, particularly The Prefect (Reynolds) and Dark Intelligence (Asher). In addition to being good cybernetic space opera authors, their writing styles and worldbuilding choices make for interesting comparisons with each other.

Just a quick Lore question, I was reading the first chapters and then kinda had to jump to the latest ones, one thing that i'm confused, Professor Stone and Mariela Solbjerg, are they still in the Celestial Voyager? did i miss something about them?

They are still present.

Professor Stone is still present as she is the entire reason for our currently trip and flight plan..

Mariela is still around since Professor Stone is still around. We've even pulled her in further, and she is now basically part of the crew, too. (She has two masters, and Hank makes sure everyone understands the Voyager is the second master, not the first.)

A request for ease of reference: would you create a thread in the "Game Details" forum with links to the different ship character sheets you've created, sort of a counterpart to your list of Important NPCs? It would save time for me if I didn't have to do a search in the public Character Library when I want to look up specs for the Celestial Voyager and/or the Sentinel.

Sure. I will create a thread for them, no problems.

As an aside, I thought it was showing in the rolls section, like your own character sheets, for ease of use. Is it not?

They are.

Plus, they show up in the Characters menu in the page footer toolbar.

Hi @spaceseeker19, saw in your character conversion thread that you mentioned you created a cheatsheet and character gen, would you be willing to share them? I was thinking of creating a simple character gen myself, would be great to look what you already have done.

Question: I can't remember how to calculate travel times? I remember a mention of using realistic calculations but not any way to gague them.
Would travel from Verdura to Zyronis take less than a month?

I will use Stars Without Number travel times from now on. I was just waiting for you to leave Draco, to keep at least the intra-system travel times consistent.

So, yes, it takes only 2 days to go from Verdura to Zyronis planet.