 June 5, 2009 - 7:20am | As an admirer of Alexis Alverez's Frontier Historian project: http://www.alexisalvarez.org/RPG/fh/ I've often pondered ways and means of showing the seep of time and history during a campaign. 1. (not that I have any current ideas about running a first contact campaign) it occured to me that having the several races with histories favoring a particular style of weapon. a. Humans: semi and full automatic gun using bullets b. in light of vursk antennae I imagine them as having better insight into sonics so at first contact they have all sonic weapons 3. dralasites are a special case as I imagine them with a non canon history: they were aboard a colony pod in cryo sleep that had no intra system propulsion capabilities of its own but was presumably accelerated to 1% of light speed at the home system. everyone aboard awoke with no memories but in fully adult bodies. there was no log or library aboard so their past is a big mystery. Though vursk assumed that these revived drals were clones and immatture "children" who lacked the experience and maturity to behave as adults (drals love joking around) the vursk have learned to tollerate it and feel a sense of responsibility for them as a race. This also explains 1. the dralasite lack of religion- none was transmitted with them 2. their racial philosophical bent- having no idea of where they came as a race they invest much effort into debate and philosophical pursuits to try to answer the big questions. anyhoo- they quickly adapted vursk tech and in their intense scrutiny of the colony pod and its tech trying to learn clues of their past they ended up developing effective gyrojet weapon technology based off the chemical rocket engines on their craft. 4. Yazerians- long tradition of blades in combat (zamiras) I also favor gun powder/projectile weapons for them to compliment my piece in the library project called Charge of Clan Renegade. but in modern times, through the influence of the Family of One needler weapons were developed and lots of other stuff was outlawed, for everyone but the temple police. The church has heavy handedly tried to ban most lethal weapons but the use of bladed weapons is to ingrained into yazerian society and colonies away from the church capitol have a thriving black market in banned weapons- auto pistols and rifles, rocket launchers and such stuff. There will be certain weapons the should pretty much cross all racial lines: most grenades, rocket launchers, electric based stun weapons and most melee weapons after contact weapon technology will make its way around the frontier fairly fast if for no other reason than yazerian gun runners will see to it that that happens. As for the Zebulon revisted part of this site: putting top of the line laser pistols in survival packs seems a bit odd to me. I'm planning to change out all the laser pistols for the budget level weapons detailed in StarFrontiersman 1: light stun pistol, blast pistol, and semi automatic pistol (though not the gyro wrist rockets) its an emergency pack and these are just cheap throw away emergency weapons the the PCs will be hot to upgrade to captured pirate equipment anyway. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 5, 2009 - 7:42am | As for the Sathar- I'm leaning toward giving them the RAfflurs weapon tech from zebs guide for a number of reasons- it uses microdisk power clips and since only AD tech is the starting base for my campaign their will be no using sathar ammo in their weapon or vice versa. plus it adds and element of alienness to the sathar that they're using weapons that are not stopped by the PCs defenses. and I wont tell the what the weapon is-just describe its effects and wait for the PCs to attempt to study captured models. after the volturnus campaign Rafflur tech can become wide spread in a few years but the PC would have the option of hanging onto some sathar weapons for the advantaged of having a weapon without a known defense yet till they are reversed engineered in 1-5 years. in the mean time their only source of ammo would be yazerain gun runners or the black market weapons bazares on some of the yazerian colony planets. going this route in my campaign means that sathar fire will be very lethal in the encounters of SF2 but on the other hand will the sathar have effective defenses for Frontier tech? I also think that the sathar soldiers described in those encounters just had a weapon and little else. so maybe the defenses for the sathar is just moot for this campaign. the other side of the coin is the eorna have encountered the sathar before I might have a eorna quartermaster turn up half way through with a defense screen they cobbled together via some good old fashioned red neck engineering. it will be prone to shorting out and not as good as the Zebs defensive screen. I think I'll have to kick in one of the more exotic grenades from zebs list for the sathar as well. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
