Talk:Future Imperfect - Starship Operations

--Melonberg (talk) 19:38, 7 August 2016 (CDT)Just had a thought for a "weapon" as I was reading about FTL piloting. Some kind of Gravitational Anomaly Launcher...Like a Nova Gun, but it seeds short-lived anomalies (almost like a black hole launcher!) That could either mess with an astrogator's last-minute calculations before sending the plotted course to the FTL pilot, or disrupt the pilot's ability to make the jump (by adding penalties to his check). The weapon could also be used "direct fire" to try to slow down the target (maybe each hit disrupts the TISA anomaly field and slows it down by 10-20 LS, like attaching a drag chute to an airplane for a moment or...if the rounds are targeted to the fore of the vessel, they might even speed it up and cause an unintended run up to FTL! Just a thought. If these things existed, I can imagine that they'd be at least TL 9, possibly even 10 or 11. Or we could keep things in the manual more vanilla with the loadout of Novaguns, Startorps and Megabolt torpedoes. Until we get to the Mutara Sector, that is...

--Melonberg (talk) 19:49, 7 August 2016 (CDT)Just to make sure I'm following this correctly...

In the section on masking the jump signature, the "example" lists a jump with a TN of 6 and the pilot is attempting to put 2 levels of masking on the jump. In the next part, it talks about failing the mask portion of the check turning the attempt at stealth into a beacon (which I think is a cool idea and a good consequence for failure, sorta like peeling out and leaving space-skid marks all the way to your destination!). So, in the cited example, if the pilot rolled a 6 or 7 (which would suffice for his piloting roll, but not for the masking), the bonus for a pursuer to follow their FTL signature would be +4 or +2, respectively, correct?

--Jason (talk) 21:40, 7 August 2016 (CDT)Yes

--Melonberg (talk) 19:58, 7 August 2016 (CDT)Also, for tailing, scanning the FTL jump signature doesn't tell where the target is going, correct? It is pretty much just jumping blind, only knowing that you'll be following your quarry (and hoping that they are not jumping somewhere really dangerous for you to be), correct?

--Jason (talk) 21:40, 7 August 2016 (CDT)Yes

--Melonberg (talk) 20:11, 7 August 2016 (CDT)Unless I'm misreading what you've got here, a failure when it comes to plotting a course or a FTL piloting check will only put the ship "off course" by a relatively insignificant number of light-seconds. In the skill section, I had the margin for error at "light-years" off course, and more error for longer jumps, which would necessitate an additional astrogation check and FTL piloting check to get to the target. If the margin of error is just in light-seconds, the ship would just need a slightly longer burn-in to reach the target. My thought process was that since the astrogators and pilots are dealing with some high-level math and this whole tachyon-universe thing, any calculation or piloting errors might bring about considerable variation when it comes to the end result. We should probably decide which route we want to take with this.

--Jason (talk) 21:40, 7 August 2016 (CDT)There should be a multiplier based on jump distance and other factors. That can go in version 1.1.