 August 22, 2015 - 4:17pm | This review of this product was posted at the Star Frontiers Goole community: http://followmeanddie.com/2015/08/21/the-graveyard-at-lus-review/ I'm rather taken with the idea. The product provides a method for random generation of a graveyard of destroyed ships (from a battle) as well as generating the time since the battle. I can just imagine a Firefly type crew attempting to salvage what they can before Space Fleet or other salvagers show up. One very salvagable item would be unexpended munitions like Torps, Seeker missiles and Assault rockets. salavaged Torps, being nucelar tipped would need to be moved at Dark World Station, Outer Reach though smart PCs just give the Malthar his cut without quibbling. Of course drift is a problem is the battle happened long ago. This is ok as evidence could be leading the PCs to the distant system in search for treasure on a cargo vessel that was lost in a battle there and drift would force the PCs to spend weeks and months in a search pattern locating debris and hulks and trying to pin point the original location of the battle and the fate of the treasure ship I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 August 23, 2015 - 2:27am | It depends on what's meant by 'graveyard'. Most ship to ship combat takes place over fairly big distances, so one wonders how they manage to end up being close enough to look like a graveyard... If the ships were close after the battle but the battle happpened a long time ago, there's also the issue of gravity moving them around over time... |
August 23, 2015 - 5:24am | One thought I had is a battle in and around the orbit of a Jupiter sized gas giant were the gravity well of the gas giant might hold things in place. The KHs battle mat is not all that big on the cosmic scale of things but the problem is things would have momentum and keep drifting out of the battle zone. In systems with medium to large colonies and lots of space activity (especially a militia) we can presume that some SAR & recovery does go on so that any graveyard under these circumstances is perhaps a lost derelict ship. If the battle happened in an uncharted system and 1-2 surviviors limped away then grave yard becomes the system as with time the wrecks will have drifted. I suppose the ideal "grave yard" would be where all wrecks are withing radar range and this would require some unique circumstances. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 August 25, 2015 - 6:26pm | With all the Pluto stuff and discoveries going on right now I felt that this grave yard would fit well is a Pluto like system of planetoids and moons. Pluto is turning out to be a ratherr rich system of objects all orbiting Pluto. Building on this, the wrecks could be in stable orbits around the major planetoid and have become rings of debris. The planetoid itself could have been the target of the battle as a little "Midway" island protecting the system. A large assault scout base was stationed there that served to protect the jump route in that area of the system. The attacker tried to gain control and occupy this planetoid. This would have encourage the attackers and defenders to orbit the planetoid during their fight and thus the debris is now in sta le orbits. The attackers would need to orbit and bombard and land troops. The defenders would use orbits to gain multiple attack runs on the orbiting attackers. This creates the situation desired for the adventure and overcomes the problem of the wrecks and debris dissipating as would happen in high speed deep space battles. -iggy |
August 26, 2015 - 5:16am | What if it was a corporate conflict that quietly went on in the outer system at a planetoid as Iggy suggests. You'd be able to use deckplans from SFman & FE for this and not need them for military and sathar ships. One on the dirty secrets of the corporate conflict was someone detonated a nuke(s) and both corps are trying to pretend this never happened. In fact one corp might feel motivated to send in a mercenary "clean up crew" to ensure that nothing ever links back. PCs are there for salvage and rival salvage crew shows up then the corporate cleaners show up. At some point someone is rolling for initiative. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 26, 2015 - 5:56am | The way it went down in the corp war was the leader of the aggressor privetees threatened to nuke to gain submission and there are surviving radio intercepts of this threat but the leader of the base used a nuke to prevent the resource they were fighting over from falling to the rival corp. Since it was a real bloodbath no one really know the truth about what happened -thus both sides trying to pretend it didn't happen.
One objective for the PCs be evidence one way or another as to what did happen and with out a doubt one or both corps would either pay a lot or try to kill for the evidence. 3 wrecks in std orbit one in an elyptical orbit and a map of the surviving base. Some automated defenses, possible survivors, and secret biolab that lost control ntainment on some of its samples and you got an adventure. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 26, 2015 - 6:05am | If things are in orbit but no longer under power they may fall onto the planet or into its atmopshere. If a nuke has been used, what would be the point of salvaging anything? After all, I can't imagine anyone wants irradiated stuff. The players would have to store it safely somewhere, even if they could find a buyer!  A graveyard might work if a bunch of ships were left in situ somewhere (i.e. stashed away on an asteroid) and whoever left them there didn't come back. That said, you'd have to have some way of tracking that asteroid if it's been quite a while since the ships were put there. Possibly they were stashed on a cometary body and that comes back through X solar system every X years... |
August 26, 2015 - 6:31am | Naw only the natural resource was nuked and an outer system planetoid isn't likely to have an atmosphere thus radiation is going to stay at mine site. Base will be explorable and even suitable for a dungeon crawl.
Note anytime a Khs ship fires a Torpedo its firing a nuke so perhaps one wreck might have been irradiTed and require the anti radiation equipment and meds from KHs & Zebs. Alternately the nuke could have been relatively close to the base such that a portion of the upper level received some radiation and will trigger the toxyrad gauge and require the insuit or neutrarad med. There are however 2-3 more level which were well shielded by rock. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 26, 2015 - 5:44pm | Having looked over the disambiguation for Pluto and since this is shaping up to be an outer system planetoid I think the name should be Cerebus (Hades' 3 headed dog). As a nod to Cerebus' 3 heads I think this adventure should have 3 primary threats. 1.) Rivals in space: rival salvagers but bent on more smash and grab and mercenary clean up crew 2.) Dangers from radiation- one wreck irradiated from a Torpedo hit but there is highrler potential reward ( evidence that implicates one corporation over the other. As well as a small portion of the base is irradiated. 3.) Native threats: automated security bots and assets under computer controlled, survivors, and bio-lab containment escapees I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 26, 2015 - 10:05pm | I kind of like the idea of a series of derelict ships that the PCs can use work pods to hop between and dungeon crawl in each. Small attack robots make good wandering monsters for while out in space, ala' Star Wars buz droids but bigger and more Black Hole like. Inside there could be some security bots. The hull scraper could be pulled from SFman. There could be some cyborgs that are in stasys and get awoken. Then after a bit of this have the other salvage ship show up. They could attack if the PCs are too visible and use comms unwisely. Or, the PCs could hide and end up spying, sneaking, working to get a prize first, or ambush them. -iggy |
August 27, 2015 - 1:39am | So why doesn't whatever corp involved go and clean up the salvage themselves, especially if it's the result of some secret conflict? Seems a bit strange to leave all that evidence around - let alone various bits of expensive stuff. |
August 27, 2015 - 5:14am | Corporates don't always clean up their stuff. Easier to write equipment than go to the trouble and expense of shipping it back somewhere. Need to refine the set up for this to make it just plausible so that it works. If the conflict was recent and the two corporations involved were embarrassed by the outcome then there could be window of time where there are board meetings to decide what to do about the Cerebus situation. Plus if Star Law (or other authority- militia or Space Fleet) caught wind and an investigation was in the offing then "destruction of evidence" could be bad for the company's image. Wander monster list for grave yard: 1, rival salvagers, 2, corporate cleaners 3, investigation team, 4, reporter I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 27, 2015 - 5:22am | But, given your list of NPCs, it seems like quite a lot of people know about this 'secret' ;) Maybe corporations aren't a good base for this sort of adventure. I say this only as it throws up too many problematic 'what ifs'. I know my players would be saying 'Huh?' a lot trying to figure out the logic of the back story. How about the ships being pirate vessels? Maybe they're lost in some border area between two rival pirate groups. Or maybe they became lost after an epic battle, have drifted and can't be found by the parties originally involved? This might provide a bit more scope - exotic customised ships, various booty, etc. Maybe they're from some earlier part of Frontier history and are the stuff of a certain amount of legend and rumour. |
August 27, 2015 - 7:18am | I'd expect the secret to leak as the surviving mercs from both sides are bound to grumble and talk about the cluster screw up and someone will over hear. The list of Npcs showing up is just brainstorming for anything imaginable that could show simply because you need some stuff to happen. However, the site of a lost pirate battle decades old is she interesting as well. (Though the corporate scenario had me envisioning a base map inspired by Moon Base Alpha which base a lot of appeal to me) A pirate base would be more rudimentary. Battle could have been between pirates and Space Fleet patrol group that stumbled into them by accident. Patrol group ( frigate and 2 assault scouts) decorated into orbit to investigate energy sensor readings coming from outer system planetoid. Pirate based on planet allowed pirate Fleet to hide behind planet ambush the space Fleet vessels. Battle resulted in mutual assured destruction and use of WNBprevented radio calls. Slaves/ prisoners on the base managed to jump and take out their captors in the chaos but lacked a means of getting off the rock. They died or survived as per the referee's inclination. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 27, 2015 - 1:23pm | I see it as a bit older than that, perhaps from some earlier point in the Frontier's history. Inter-pirate fighting interests me more than pirates vs Space Fleet. An old base on or inside a nearby asteroid would also be rather cool. Things could perhaps be given some added spice with the inclusion of old dormant robots. Maybe something the players do reactivates them. |
August 27, 2015 - 6:58pm | I think we need a gravity well to hold the grave yard together as has been suggested. Perhaps pirate on pirate where Hatzk Naar eliminated a competitor early in the time line. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 27, 2015 - 7:23pm | Yes we need a gravity well to hold the graveyard together. However, I do like the hollowed out asteroid idea as well. What if the asteroid was a base for the attackers (pirate or secret corp mercenaries) and they took off to fight the outer system planetoid. They fight it out and destroy each other. When the PCs crawl the graveyard they find clues to the secret base in the asteroid and that becomes the follow on adventure. The asteroid could be a real dungeon but in 3D with little to no gravity in the center where the spin of the rock doesn't generate gravity to walk on the walls. My guess is the platetoid first infiltrated the asteroid and sabotaged the place. The asteroid crew finds out about the plan but does not know that it has already been set in motion so they plan a preemptive strike. The spy warns the planetoid and this allows them to prepare. The battle stars and then the asteroid radios in their demise causing the surviving asteroid attack force to fight to the death. The result is mutual destruction. -iggy |
