 December 14, 2008 - 9:14pm | I'm running the Volturnus campaign using SF 2000 rules and have allow for (only 1 so far) spacer profession characters warning the player in question that with so much tied up in the prerequisite skills just to be able to pilot a hull size 3 or smaller ship that he'd be at a disadvantage (he started to figure that out in the forbidden caverns when a rastie pack attacked). Anyhow to cater to his character I let him fly the life boat down from the Serena Dawn with a pirate shuttle taking pot shots and the choices he made determined the type of landing and the chances of injury to passengers - though by GM fiat the lifeboat clipped a rock out crop just befor landing and crashed so the end result was still what was in the printed module. The big question is; I want to add a KH scenario using a captured pirate assault shuttle which shouldn't be a big problem if I just gave the players the relief fleet to run against the sathar but I know that party will want to run their characters in the battle. so I was thinking that just prior to the sathar showing up the PCs, inconjunction with the Eorna, fly some eorna techs to one of the moons to try get a defence installation there back on line (its at this time that the PCs will discover the lost egg ship with 10,000 eorna eggs in cyro- thereby giving the eorna hope to resurrect their civilization) so that when the sathar fleet passes closest to the moon its weapons get their one chance to gut the biggest sathar ships (it will be a suicide mission that one slightly insane eorna has volunteered to man the moon base) This takes some of the starch out of the sathar and makes it more believable that a quick scratch built fleet from Truane's star will be able to take on the remaining sathar. Assuming the PCs then succeed with the Battle of Volturnus plus the relief fleet showing up the Sathar begin pulling back their landed infantry and try to re-embark them onto the transports that are still in orbit while the sathar war ships have moved out system to engage the Frontier fleet. Its at this point that the eorna approach the PCs with a request that if they refuel the pirate shuttle would the PCs consent to fly it under the "flag of Volkos" As a vessel flagged to the eorna government participating in the battle will solidify the soverignty of the eorna over their planet despite any claim Pale or Streel could advance. and in exchange for help with rebuilding their infrastructure the eorna will generously give consessions to Pale and to various mega-corps concerning the other planets and asteroid belt as well as some mining concessions on Volturnus. The end result is Volturnus ends up an allied planet but with heavy involvement by Frontier races and organizations. So my problem is what to do with a puny HS 2-3 pirate "assualt shuttle" and the players for a KH battle and what should I pit against them? Transports dont usually carry much armament but I was thinking that 3-4 big transports ought to be enough to bring 60,000 troops to Volturnus and maybe some fighter escorts. I was also thinking that the mechanons could provide a crew for a second pirate shuttle and assist in this opporation. any suggestions? jedion I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 14, 2008 - 10:25pm | Man! That sounds like a blast!... It's been long enough that I've run any KH games to know how to give advice about what would be a challenge or not for an "assault shuttle". As for weaponry however, there was an article in one of the published mags (I think it was Polyhedron, or maybe Dragon - they're all posted at starfrontiers.com) about "laser pods' or something like that. Basically, I think of it as a non-capital ship weapon that's essentially four heavy lasers hooked up to the engine and set on max. Potentially give the PC's a chance to do that to go up against the fighter escorts. Kinda like in Space: Above and Beyond. I was thinking about trying to do the same thing for my home group's game - we left off midway through Starmist as an intro game, and I think it'd be neat to use the optional KH encounter listed at the end. -Andrew |
 December 15, 2008 - 5:08am | In my Space Pirates game I had a similar deal. My pirates game was the Volturnus adventure as seen by the Star Devils, rather than explorers...players portrayed recently recruited soldiers of the Star Devils who raided the Serena Dawn, and consequently tracked down a surviving party that managed to escape in one of the lifeboats during the ruckus, participating in Karubanda raids and support/supply missions between Outpost One and Slave City One, as well as tracking down the original expedition survivors (Louis V Jameson and company). Anyhow, once the Sathat artifact is discovered to be in operation (the pirate party is dispatched to trace an unknown subspace transmission, arriving shortly after the Serena Dawn party that has managed to dog their every move), the Star Devils begin to pack up and head out of dodge. The party is given yet another mission in the meantime, and soon find themselves marooned...eventually uncovering a damaged but repairable pirate shuttle, which they need to fix and fly out of Volturnus' atmosphere and rendevous with one of the final remaining pirate starships (a frigate that is covering the escape of the other pirate craft). The pirate frigate encounters a sathar advanced scout frigate and gets tangled up in a melee. So there's lots of possibilities in your game without limiting yourself to sathar craft...I'd say you could have as much fun having the players square off against a retreating Star Devil craft. |
 December 15, 2008 - 3:48pm | Yeah, I hear you on the Truane's Star "battle fleet" yapped about in the Volturnus series. 3 Assault Scouts and a Frigate? Please. They should have just said a "UPF force" or Strike Force Nova or something. Strike Force Nova - now THAT is a battle fleet! But hey, it is all abstracted out in the modules. However, since you want to get a KH scenario into the series, I would definitely go with ships from the UPF joining with the Truane's Star militia. I love the moon base idea! Reminds me a bit of the cannon episode of BattleStar Galactica. But why not have the PCs take it over and man it? Then they have to make a harrowing escape as they do great damage to the Sathar fleet, but eventually get bombed out. |
 December 15, 2008 - 4:23pm | I love the moon base idea! Reminds me a bit of the cannon episode of BattleStar Galactica. But why not have the PCs take it over and man it? Then they have to make a harrowing escape as they do great damage to the Sathar fleet, but eventually get bombed out. Great ideas. You could always put some remote-piloted-fighters in the base. The pc's could use those in some small unit tactics. The pc with the KH skills could get a bonus to his rolls since he is gearing himself towards a Spacer profession. Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
 December 15, 2008 - 9:56pm | I once toyed with the idea of using the Gullwind from The Dramune Run in the Volturnus series. The pirates would capture the ship in the beginning, and there would be a sub-section involving flying a shuttle from Slave City One to a moon base to recover it. "Rome didn't build an empire by having meetings. They did it by killing those who stood in their way." |
December 24, 2008 - 7:02pm | Yeah, I hear you on the Truane's Star "battle fleet" yapped about in the Volturnus series. 3 Assault Scouts and a Frigate? Please. They should have just said a "UPF force" or Strike Force Nova or something. Strike Force Nova - now THAT is a battle fleet! Just remember, the Volturnus trilogy was penned about a year before the KH Campaign Book. The writers had nothing to go by at the time, be it a militia group or a full strike force as defined by the KH rules. And if you go by the Zeb Guide timeline (printed two years after the Volturnus adventure), the Volturnus trilogy is a pre-UPF adventure, where a "Truane's Star Battle Fleet" would be more appropriate of a title...although it probably would have been comprised mostly of armed civilian craft lead by a few military type craft that would pale by comparison to modern UPF warships (re: the "common muster" for the first sathar war). |
January 12, 2009 - 3:43am | After perusing the other related discussions I began to assemble a mock KH battle to compliment the Volturnus series. First thing I did was decide on exactly how the Sathar fleet would be organized. S-2 details "Over 30,000 Sathar troops plus vehicles and robots" so the first order of business was assault transports and freighters. With Assault Transports carrying 1K troops each, that's at least 30 of those. I didn't find anything official for stats beyond the description so I made them HS:10 w/60 hull points and armed them with one laser battery and a four salvo rocket battery. Freighters aren't too difficult to whip up stats for, but I would surmise they would use some larger ones so as not to be stopping for frequent overhauls (or like the assault transports they too would be ion drive equipped). Figure at least four in the HS:12-18 range. Warships would be minimal as they know of the primitive nature of Volturnus' inhabitants, they're not going to be expecting much of a deep space battle. Probably a light cruiser as a flagship accompanied by a trio of destroyers and a frigate. UPF would be something like a light cruiser and a destroyer from the UPF detached duty roster, accompanied by at least one of the Pale militia craft (I'd say the frigate, leaving the trio of scouts behind to patrol & protect Truane's shipping lanes). The rest would be Streel craft, such as gunned freighters and armed civilian scout craft all operating under a "corporate frigate" flagship such as a HS:5 craft boasting LC + LB + RB and some cargo capacity (perhaps a yacht or privateer). In my campaign I'd add a freighter/carrier conversion sporting a squadron of Streel designed prototype fighter craft (such as the S-1 Piranhas I posted in my Wiki section, albeit boasting slightly different armament). |
 January 12, 2009 - 5:58pm | Hmmm, so far, so good.... "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
January 12, 2009 - 7:01pm | Hmmm, so far, so good.... Yeow that is good stuff. I'd add to it this: My PCs stopped a red devil crew from a HS 2 Thruster Class priveteer (See Dragon mag article) from capturing the starliner that streel had given them a ride on after hiring them in port loren. I stage the pirate attack in Truane's Star and had the militia show up just as the PCs reached the pirate's bridge. One player was yelling< "No Way! I want my pirate ship." when I informed them that the admiralty court had ruled it a joint capture by the starliner crew and the militia ship even though the hired mercenaries (the PCs) had done all the work and as a sop to the PCs, PAC (Pale Aereospace Command) would buy the thruster class vessel into service as a courier/ scout vessel and would pay out 1% of the value to the starliners crew (standard policy form this from the British navy) The bridge officers got the most and the PCs the least though their shares were in the neighborhood of 700cr each.plus they got double pay for the combat pay. So I think I'll have that thruster class ship in the battle as well to watch the PCs grumble about "their" ship. In fact I think that ship would also get the "red shirt" designation from the classic TV series with it being the frigate's screen and hence closer to the sathar as the fleets close. I'm also considering, as a story reward, that the PCs should get to have a pirate ship after the battle. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 13, 2009 - 5:42pm | Would the Sathar bother with letting troops return to the orbiting ships? I would think they would run with whatever they could salvage and let the rest kill what they could manage before being desrowyedddddd. |
January 14, 2009 - 2:06pm | Sure, they're not totally suicidal. Take what you can, leave while you can...no reason for a fleet of undamaged ships to leave right away. I figure once a transport takes half damage, it's time to get out of dodge whether the shuttles have returned or not (ditched shuttles can always attempt to regroup with other remaining transports). I also found that I should either drop the number of transports a bit or drop their hull points to 50. 24 at 60 each was too much. The game where I nailed all but seven was with 50HP, the game where I dropped it to 18 transports w/60HP eight escaped. I might have to do a few more runs on this aspect to decide which is ultimately best for both sides...I ran one game with 24 craft at 60HP each, two games with 24 craft @ 50HP and one with 18 @ 60HP (best game was one of the 24 @ 50 runs). |
January 15, 2009 - 1:09pm | Which damage rules are you using for this scenario Shadow, basic or advanced? It sounds like basic as the advance is very variable in results. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 15, 2009 - 4:37pm | I went with Basic, too many craft to keep track of all the variable damage. Also permitted time for replays... |
