 February 21, 2010 - 8:03pm | Check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1CeBOWm67A and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ_qR8zCLDc Also, a story here about development of a fuel cell that will last for days of use. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/22/hulc_protonex_fuel_cell/ Could lead to a redefinition of the SF Exoskeleton. I would have killed for one of these during my stint in the infantry. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
 February 27, 2010 - 5:23pm | HAHAHAHA !  I would make a robot wear the exo. lol Wouldn't that be a bit redundant? Though sending bots ahead to play canaries in the mineshaft, as well as non-biological cannon fodder, would be a perfectly valid tactic as well Anyone ever wonder about how smart it was to use a light saber in the pitch of battle... "I am a Jedi, Can't touch this, Da Na Na Na" You know the old saying,"never bring a knife to a gunfight...." Tho, in CQB(close-quarters battle, which is what you're dealing with when slicing and dicing with lightsabers, Kurgan's Zweihänder, or the McLeods' Japanese-pattern swords), stealth goes out the window anyway. If you're trying to sneak up on an enemy and ignite your light saber prematurely, you've just given away your position, and not even the Force is gonna help you now. (And, no, I never saw how lightsabers could deflect blaster bolts. Try that with a Ginsu knife....) "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 |
 February 27, 2010 - 5:40pm | Shortly after I got into SF, I got some of the Robotech models, and came up with the idea of a campaign set around Laco's War (the PGC vs. Streel conflict) using 'mechs. The characters would have started out working on a recovery vehicle and moving up to piloting the "mechs themselves. Never got past that point, unfortunately, but it seemed like a neat idea at the time. Transforming mechs are just awesome. Can you think of a name that fits in the Star Frontiers universe? MechaTech, Tvech (transformable vehicles) I'd love to see some rules to run in my games.
d10 MechaTech Malfunction Table
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 February 27, 2010 - 5:57pm | I would suggest if you can find Mekton Z, flip through it, they have a great system. I found it after I was playing Sf. and used alot of it's charts. Alot of my players did not want transformers ( we played Robotech and had our fill), they more wanted Exo suits and power armor. ( which by the way was left out of the Gamaworld remastered, it kinda left me crying hehehe) They had their ship, stocked it for adventures, got into to many corps buisnes and was hunted down. They lived but barely. Gold is for the mistress-silver for the maid-copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.But Iron-Cold Iron- is master of them all |
 February 27, 2010 - 6:19pm | Transforming mechs are just awesome. Can you think of a name that fits in the Star Frontiers universe? MechaTech, Tvech (transformable vehicles) Well, we had Alpha Dawn and Gamma Dawn. How about another Greek letter? Its been a while since I was in Calculus class, but doesn't theta have something to do with variables? How about Theta Dawn? "Rome didn't build an empire by having meetings. They did it by killing those who stood in their way." |
February 27, 2010 - 6:30pm | I would suggest Zeta Dawn:the rise of the Exo. to pay hommage to Mekton Z, which is a under rated system with a gurps approach to Mecha building. Yes.... Zeta Dawn, can you wear your future? Comming soon to a PDF near you. Gold is for the mistress-silver for the maid-copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.But Iron-Cold Iron- is master of them all |
 February 27, 2010 - 6:41pm | Well, we had Alpha Dawn and Gamma Dawn. How about another Greek letter? Its been a while since I was in Calculus class, but doesn't theta have something to do with variables? How about Theta Dawn? Well the pattern is to skip one greek letter- Alph, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon,..etc. Though Epsilon Dawn doen't flow off the tongue, Delta Dawn does and suggest speed but might be more appropriate for something to do with fighter craft. Theta Dawn is probably just as good as anything. it is the 8th letter BTW I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 27, 2010 - 7:14pm | Why was Beta Dawn skipped? and I'd nay say Delta Dawn...what's that flower you got on? could it...never mind. |
February 27, 2010 - 7:35pm | I thought they where just named after the originals, I never new they had a greek system pattern. I thought it was Alpha Dawn because thats what the basic rules for Star Frontiers was called. And Gamma dawn was because they took GammaWorld ( I was told they called it Gammaworld because of the Gamma radiation joke and mutants). I wonder why Knight Hawks is still Knight hawks and not one of the greek letters? No matter what its name it's sure gonna be fun writting it. Gold is for the mistress-silver for the maid-copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.But Iron-Cold Iron- is master of them all |
February 27, 2010 - 7:49pm | Why was Beta Dawn skipped? and I'd nay say Delta Dawn...what's that flower you got on? could it...never mind. Actually my favorite use of Alpha dawn and Beta was the Frontier Historian project: 7 outlined adventures using d20 rules (I tried to play in it but d20 really bugs me) Anyway the first was the human colony ships arriveing at their new world in the frontier the expedition leaders came out in cryo in their original bodies- they were called Alphas and the bulk came as the downloaded memories and personalities and genetic sample who had new bodies cloned at destination and were called Beta's and they had to work off indentured servitude. nice play on Alpha Dawn IMO. saddly it seems the game stalled. I was hoping it would prosper because there were a lot of ideas to steal from floating around at that site including a whole adventure outlined for using mechs. http://www.alexisalvarez.org/RPG/fh/ I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 27, 2010 - 7:53pm | Why was Beta Dawn skipped? and I'd nay say Delta Dawn...what's that flower you got on? could it...never mind. Delta Dawn, What's the exo you have on? Could be a relic from a war gone by. And, did I hear you say, He was a-meetin' you here today, To do battle 'til one of you diiees? Montoya made me do it.... Beta Dawn was supposed to be the cybernetics supplement for the remastered books, but it never got off the ground. I guess Knight Hawks is still Knight Hawks,'cause a Greek letter and Dawn don't sell too many spaceship combat games. "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 |
February 27, 2010 - 8:54pm | Gamma Dawn is user contrib; not TSR. The rules appeard on rpg.net (I think) and were converted to PDF by Bill. Delta Dawn was CJ's name for a ground combat game - I have something similiar and used the name "Ground Hawks". Issue #14 has a complete cybernectis system which has been converted to Star Frontiers (thanks to our work in Frontier Space) - we call call it Beta Dawn if you want and start making archetypes and supplements. :-) Theta Dawn sounds really cool - Did I hear correctly? Art is working on converting Mekton Z for Star Frontiers? I think I did. I'm pretty sure. YES! There is a free introduction to Mekton Z, which I downloaded. Good stuff gentlebeings. |
February 27, 2010 - 9:22pm | Aye, Star Frontiers is so open that I call it the first plug and play system before d20!
I got all the books for mekton Z, shouldn't take me that long. I've already had a Mecha building system written up long before I heard of Mekton Z.
Gold is for the mistress-silver for the maid-copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.But Iron-Cold Iron- is master of them all |
February 28, 2010 - 6:39pm | I started the Theta Dawn Group, I had started to go back and read issue 9, pulled out my MektonZ books, and finnaly found my Folder with my notes. Art Gold is for the mistress-silver for the maid-copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.But Iron-Cold Iron- is master of them all |
 March 1, 2010 - 8:54am | The rules I came up with for battle suits is pretty solid in play. The idea is basically polyplate armored exoskeleton. I tried to use existing SF technology so it would make sense in the game. The reasoning was that the Sathar have armor like tanks. The Frontier races went in a slightly different direction with armored suits. More easily transportable. (ie: It is hard to shuttle a squad of tanks to and from a starship in a shuttle) Not that it isn't done. it is just easier to use a light suit bristling with weapons. That way it would balance a bit. For roleplay and just a tabletop skirmish battle. My son use a squad against some Sathar tanks and Sathar troops. A lotta fun. I didn't call them mechs. I suppose they could be sized up or made more minimal. For a larger mecha just make the STR/ STA higher and add more hard points. Like on the hips and legs, etc. If the ablative damage sheet isnt your cup o tea just use the raw STA score. At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
March 1, 2010 - 11:34am | Chris wrote an excellent article in #9-p16 "Powered Battle Suits". I re-read it and would suggest a followup article with a summary table that lists the information presented in textual form. @Chris - you did mention "mechs" in the article. :-) I envision mechs as large vehicles roughly humanoid in shape (two legs, torso, arms and a cockpit area). Exo - enhances/augments some or all character physical abilities except STA (DEX, STR, RS) in addition to improving walking, running and hourly movement rates. Battle suits/Powered armor - Like Exo's in addition to having armor, integrated tactical gear, weapons and defenses. Mech - Large humanoid military vehicles. ... my opinon of course. |
March 1, 2010 - 1:26pm | I was reading it last night ( and liked it and will use some of it, kinda gonna take it to the next level, )while typing up the exo-frames. The smallest technical Mecha is the Madox-o1 unit.(along with the Garland (megazones transforming motorcycle) So I figured anything thats 1 story and up would be classified as large scale Mecha, What I uploaded last night is a definition and a generic model. I am going to intergrate the issue info into the 3rd category:Hard suits (1:Exoframes, 2:Exosuits,3:Hardsuits, and then actual mecha) , I have a rough draft of the build/creation rules drafted up. I would like to divide the mecha up into 3 types: Roadstriker types or mini mecha then Standard Mecha and the Heavy Mecha You'll see in the end that the build charts will allow any sort of frame to transformering to planet size suits and mecha can be made. Gold is for the mistress-silver for the maid-copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.But Iron-Cold Iron- is master of them all |
 April 23, 2011 - 8:59am | I see the Sathar already being far ahead of everyone in this field by SW-I, especially the avatar-mech. Military suits built by anyone, would have shielding and resist EMP, and be on secured wireless-link that can only be attacked at the end-points... so no hacking the 'combat-buddy' or excessive risk of or 'scrambled circuit shut-downs' in critical moments. Exploration units wouldn't need to be as resistant to such effects, and would be more common. Most common would be the weekend-hiker with a 'travel-buddy' AI, avaliable at any 'Frontier Sportsman' outlet, or ordered from the local 'Compleate Frontier Warehouse'... designer colors, persona packages, and extra equipment upgrades avaliable. with a techie skilled in comp' and 'bot user interfaces, or some with a real good cy-tech skill, could rig up the suits motor control to run an entire vehicle, or plug into the controls directly if the vehical is already equiped with vr-suit interface much easier. ...and one and a half steps further, the avatar-bot/remote mech.... which I would hold back on personaly (Sathar-tech perhaps, but done using the Sathar incompatable xeno-tech so it remains artifact-tech, have to keep the Sathar in their place, 'mysterious-super-campy-high-tech-xeno-villans') Further reflection on the HAL suit (which is the realm i'd rather stick to)... $20,000/4,000cr seems a reasonable cost exchange... even the HAl would require a special piloting skill to keep from hurting the wearer, don't 'telegraph movments' too loudly when 'flight or fight' kicks in!!, the risk of a sensitive interface attempting to 'run away' before the wearer is ready and ripping up tendons and muscels is very real.... the suit might not get very far, but even a small unbalanced movment could cause severe damage. This is what I take from the 'aliens' suit/vehical also, it is a bit of a hybrid between the Hal and a Forklift which explains the hand control panels. But when she starts using it for combat, the scene shows the suit frequently over-extends movment, and the pilot delaying commands, as she trys to figure out how to telegraph the extremes to fight the queen, without hurting herself. Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
 February 1, 2017 - 5:35pm | if its robot tech what level of bot? 1 or 2 certianly not 3 since 3 has verbal communication.
I'd go 1 and much like air craft in WW1 I'd expect this to under go fast development where the machine goes drawing board to deployment in months to meet changing conditions exoskeleton adds incredible ammounts of fire power to the infantry man but the man is the weak link so we need to protect him so you get an arms race ending with power armor and then robotic avatars that a soldier would "jack" into via an non jammable subspace carrier wave and control much like a video game in VR- game over? NP just reboot into another suit. Adventure Idea- the 3rd sathar war and the worms are swarming an industrial planet. and the causalties are mounting and the local army/militia is strapped to replace trained troops. but the latest generation of combat armor is about to come of the line of one of the few remaining robotic factories so they'll have combat armor in job lots but not operators. The thing is this armor is not worn but jacked into in VR. the answer: gamers. They draft gamers with neural implants to leverage their gamins skills and throw them into the front lines so to speak. a PC could be even in a wheel chair (yes like the movie Avatar) but each gamer runs a squad and just reboots to a new member of the squad when his "ride" is KOed. Armor is mass produced and is thrown into the fight whole sale. Can the gaming geeks save the world? I don't think a magazine article ever came out of this discussion, did it? I've been looking at Laco with its 1.4 gravity and all the negative effects and wondered how that would have effected combat in Laco's War. The normal SF rules for an exoskeleton -- which seemingly would be ideal for Laco -- are: Exoskeleton* Cost: 2,000 Wt: 5kg * This item must be plugged into a power pack to operate. It uses 1 SEU per minute while in operation. Exoskeleton. An exoskeleton is a mechanical, metal frame that is worn on the outside of a character's body. It follows the body's movements and increases the strength of its wearer. Each joint has its own miniature motor. An exoskeleton must be specially fitted to the character that will wear it, and can not be worn by anyone else. Getting into or out of an exoskeleton takes 1d10+10 minutes. A character in an exoskeleton can move twice as fast as normal, can jump 5 meters straight up (in 1g), gains a bonus of +20 to hit in melee and does +10 points of damage in melee. An exoskeleton provides no protection to the wearer. It can be worn along with a powerscreen and defensive suit. Joe Cabadas |
February 1, 2017 - 5:46pm | I think the paramilitary forces fielded by Pan Galactic and Streel would have worked to mass produce a cheaper and easier to use combat exoskeleton. (Or, at least, they would work on reducing the cost.) First, they would scrap the idea that it had to be "specially fitted to the character that will wear it." They would make something that would adjust to a character's racial body type automatically. (Kind of like the Transformers idea mentioned earlier in this old discussion, but without radically changing shape. Sorry, no going from a car into a humanoid shape.) That change would make the exoskeleton more costly, but it should trim the time it takes to mount up and use one of these things to a couple turns. Maybe 1d10+5 turns. Power consumption is a big problem here too, but that's what replacement batteries are for. The Lacosian combat exoskeleton would need to be powered by a beltpack but preferably by its own dedicated backpack. The effects of the exoskeleton mostly overcome Laco's heavy gravity which would normally reduce carrying capacity by 8 kilograms, trim leaping distance by 2 meeters and cut the safe jumping distance by 4 meters. (You'd still get hit with the +8 points of damage per meter fallen... that's actually 9 points of damage 1+8=9). Merco and GTF soldiers would probably still be outfitted with military skeinsuits or maybe a modified version of the desert survival suits I have on a different discussion thread. Let's say the Laco Universal Combat Exoskeleton (LUCE) would cost... 3,000 credits? 3,500 credits? Joe Cabadas |
February 1, 2017 - 6:12pm | 1 SEU per minute seems like a limited operational life IMO. Always seemed that way to me. I think that sould be SW1 era stats. Especially when its cannon that a robot can travel 1 km on one SEU. age of adventure ie the published modules 1 SEU/ 10 minutes or 6 per hour. 100 FY a little bit better than that maybe 1 per 20 minutes. Heavy Duty Polyplate armor- designed to be worn over an exoskeleton and only fits with an exo as it attaches to it as well as the wearer in different spots. Better stats than full polyplate armor unless of course Han Solo is shooting at it then the wear goes down in one shot ;) It also seems to me that full polyplate should have the option for an intergral gas mask or filter mask that activates at a touch - meaning a character could activate the gas mask and still shoot in a combat round with no penalty. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 1, 2017 - 6:26pm | Yes, I think the idea of 1 SEU/10 minutes is a lot more reasonable. It would at least allow the wearer to possible have a defense screen available for combat. I suppose the forces of Laco's War would start without exoskeltons but find they were needed, work on universal fit models (universal for a specific race that is. A Dral is not going to wear a Vrusk exo, for example.) Then they might modify them further with the polyplate and full polyplate features. Would the exoskeleton negate the negative initiative modifiers of these armors? Joe Cabadas |
February 1, 2017 - 8:19pm | Yes, I think the idea of 1 SEU/10 minutes is a lot more reasonable. It would at least allow the wearer to possible have a defense screen available for combat. I suppose the forces of Laco's War would start without exoskeltons but find they were needed, work on universal fit models (universal for a specific race that is. A Dral is not going to wear a Vrusk exo, for example.) Then they might modify them further with the polyplate and full polyplate features. Would the exoskeleton negate the negative initiative modifiers of these armors? I need to open the digitally remastered AD rules and review the polyplate armor. perhaps HD partial and full polyplate for use with exoskeleton not usable without the exo automatic 1/2 movement without power for exo while using the HD poly I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 5, 2017 - 12:45pm | Star Frontiersman magazine, issue 12, features some powered armor and articulated suits that might have been an outgrowth of this exoskeleton article. But, this topic still could use a little more fleshing out. Joe Cabadas |
