Merchanters And Stationers Take #6

In the "Compact Space" books, there is a history there that comes through the present - This species does not trust that species, that other species can do things others cannot with spacecraft, or yet another species has several disputed stations with some other species entirely. These things color the setting deeply, and to do justice to the concepts, I need to create that same coloring, but varying for the differences between the inspiration and the game.

To do this, once the new setting is mapped out, one uses the background cards. These are a set of 27 cards with a single sentence on each. The say things like "Piracy Flourishes in This Space" or "This Species is Barred from That Space", or "This Species Runs the Central Station." Some of them are in gray letters on a white background and are meant for Oxygen breathing species. The rest are in white letters on a cray background and meant for Methane breathers.

The cards are shuffled, and four are dealt out to each species territory. The players and GM go around the table four times, laying out a card and determining what species is meant, and everything is recorded, so instead of saying "This Species is Barred from That Space", they would say "The Kantuan are Barred from Stoshi Space!"

There are three cards that probably should always be in the number dealt out, but actually, it really doesn't matter all that much. Things can be worked around. In any case, this gives a setting with odd places, prohibitions, and quirks.

Merchanters And Stationers Illo #2

A quick sketch illustration of a merchanter docked at a space station. This is the only way Ms. Cherryh's statements can work out properly.



Spaceships of the Merchanters and Stationers Universe #2

Spaceships of the Merchanters And Stationers universe use spin gravity or thrust gravity, depending on their function.

Riders

Riders are ships designed to be carried on larger ships. They use thrust gravity while in space - their decks are laid out perpendicular to the direction of thrust - but land on their sides. Cabins are designed to rotate on landing, with the entrances engaging different corridors than in flight configuaration.

Landers and Shuttles

Landers and shuttles are designed for short flights in space, and do not need to worry about internal gravity. Consequently, they are laid out parallel to the direction of thrust, like airplanes. Many cargo landers carry inflatable seats in the decking to carry a variable number of passengers.

Asteroid Mining Craft

Asteroid mining craft spend all of their time in space, and use thrust gravity if any. Miners spend considerable time in zero-G, and must spend equivalent long periods exercising at higher G on station to repair damage to their bones. Thus most asteroid mining craft have two or three sets of crew who alternate using the craft.

Starships

Starships - Jump capable craft - operate from station to station, never landing for long periods. Thus they use spin gravity while in flight. Each ship has a rotating cylinder which houses all habitable areas, and spins on it’s long axis, giving a moderate gravity outward while inertial - that is, while coasting between boosts. While boosting, crew remain in their crash couches or beds, moving only during brief inertial periods to change shifts.

Starships are constructed with a ventral keel running the length of the craft, and usually side and dorsal keels as well. All turrets and airlocks are built into these keels for strength. An armored shell is built around the rotating cylinder - all ships are at least Armor factor 1 to deflect dust and debris, and protect from near misses - and over the cargo hold(s). The main engines and Jump Vanes are built near the end of the ship. At the nose are the docking equipment - probe, cargo doors, and personnel tubes and locks into the habitable areas.

When in station, starships lie nose into the rim, dorsal keel out, parallel to the inside of the rim. They lock into the immensely strong side walls of the station rim and support structures, with the personnel tube leading down to the station floor, while the cargo doors mate up above, and the station’s docking gantries load the ship.

In dock, the rotating section is locked down, and the ship uses the station’s rotation for spin gravity, so most of the ring is sideways or upside down, and mostly unusable. The ship’s crew thus must stay on station in hotels called “sleep-overs”, and while not helping with the loading, are off duty.

Merchanters And Stationers Starships

I've spent the last two days creating ships for Merchanters And Stationers, my Cherryh-verse love letter. They range from a tiny 30 ton cutter to a 50,000 ton Great Merchanter (like Cherryh's Finity's End or Dublin Again) and a carrier of the same size (like her Norway or Africa).

The disparity is size of the ships is remarkable. The smallest jump-capable ship is 300 tons, which is almost 200 times smaller than the largest. Compact Space ships are smaller than those in Union/Allinace Space, and I will need to mention that in the text.

I've decided not to put a ship creation section in the supplement, probably going to release it as a spreadsheet later on. Here's a look at one of the ships:

1500 Ton Medium Merchanter

This ship has 1 G of thrust in space on mains and standard jump vanes. This is a popular jump-capable ship. Its tank holds 135 tons of deuterium fuel, for 200 hours of thrust. Twelve cabins and a large lounge are available for the 5-15 person crew, as well as passengers for long flights, and the ship can hold 1000 tons of cargo.

Cost: 290

New Review of Lowell Was Right! - Finally!

Here is the first review of what I think is one of my best games: http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=836322#post836322

Merchanters and Stationers - Take #5

OK, I have a functional Alien creation system, and a setting creation system. Now I have started work on spaceships.

Luckily, Alert and I have worked out a new fusion-based drive system for The Necklace, and that can be dropped into this pretty much intact. The Jump Drive from StarCluster 3 can be adapted into the hyperspace drive used in the Alliance/Union/Compact Space setting fairly easily too, but how spaceships behave in M&S is pretty much going to be diametrically opposite from how they behave in SC3!

In SC3, Jump Drives use a wormhole network to go from star to star, so ships jump into a system at the outer limits - and in the system ecliptic, with a relative speed of zero, so they are effectively defenseless until they can build up some reasonable speed. Albert and I designed it this way to really limit offensive movement into a star system, making for a mosaic of independent worlds.

The Cherryh-verse ships in M&S will be riding the hyperspace interface, dropping into real space at relativistic velocities well out of the ecliptic, which the ships need to bleed off with skips along the hyper-interface to bleed off speed as they come in. And the depth into the system they arrive at depends on the skill of the navigator. All the initiative in these situations rests with the incoming ships, who can blast into a system just behind their own wavefront, and possibly carrying relativistic debris or even munitions.

Also, there are three types of jump route available - normal routes for freighters, longer jumps for freighters carrying no/light cargo or overpowered jump vanes on a normal mass ship, or else one only the overpowered vane ships can make if they strip down to a no cargo condition.

So how people use jump travel will be very different indeed!

Example Merchanters and Stationers Alien #1

i did this Alien up as a test of the Alien Generation system

Own Name: Mashtusad
Familiar Name: Mashies
Prejudicial Name: Jackals

Diet Package: Scavenger
Body Type Package Male: Slender and Supple
Body Type Package Female: Tall and Rangy
Social Package: Mediator
Body Covering Package: Soft Skin

Attributes - Male: STR 7, COOR 9, AGY 8, END 7, CHAR 9, INT 9, LUCK 2
Attributes - Female: STR 7, COOR 10, AGY 8, END 9, CHAR 7, INT 9, LUCK 2

Jump Reaction: Paralyzed
Extras: Savage Bite (+10), Sexual Dimorphism
Quirks: eat Anything, Disgusting Habits, Pack Mentality
Edges: Searching, Negotiations, Flexing
Negative Edges: Alien Social, Violence, Cold

Skills - Male: Survival+2, Engrace+2, Linguistics+2
Skills - Female: Survival+2, Overdo+2, Linguistics+2

Traits: Fluid 2, Willowy 2, Quiet 3

Senses: Smell 3, Vision 3, Hearing 2

Bailey-Wolfe Index:
Neotropism: 0
Sociability: +6
Instinct: -1
Logic: +2
Foresight: +2
Pattern Recognition: +3