Astro Cross: Flashback 1942 (was naming alien ships)

[classicdrogn]

Fair enough, I'd forgotten the "rich kid" aspects of her story to be honest, so what you say makes sense. The geographic location and basis of her family wealth will probably also have a significant bearing on her later character arcs for reasons already discussed, so best have them at least outlined for reference if/when it becomes a current concern.

Don't worry about being busy or whatever, quite aside from the fact that you're in no way obligated to respond to every jot and tittle I deign to post, I'm most likely going to be working my way through the 4C document for the next while, grinding edges and hammering to make things fit with the new core mechanic, which doesn't lend itself to sharing while in progress anyway.

If you (or anyone else) does have some free time and wants to help more directly, poking through the scanned public domain comic books (many from the era in question) at

http://digitalcomicmuseum.com for characters, equipment, or scenes suitable for use as illustrations is likely to be also fun in its own right, and 1/6th to 1/3 images to text makes for a much more interesting read than page after page of plain twin-columns rulebook. Of course, they ARE 40s and 50s comics, so female characters are apt to be thin on the ground and generally helpless without a handsome and well-coiffed man to deal with their problems, but a pilot in a bomber jacket, parachute harness and cap is pretty shapeless anyway, and they ARE public domain so there's nothing to say faces and outlines can't be modified a bit.

Edit: To clarify what I mean, high Resources because her father is a Wall Street baron will probably not do much more than give her a reason for angst in the long run. A midwest manufacturing, railway or oil mogul wouldn't be much better, though they'd be more likely to survive the events of the invasion. Owning a shipping line or trading company that did business all over the world until the war broke out, and appropriate Contacts scattered across the globe, would be very useful indeed. In any case, personal wealth is either not especially useful as such if the character is in the military and subject to standardization requirements, or absolutely necessary for a non-military character such as an inventor building his experimental mecha in a private lab to get anywhere close to comparably equipped, so it'll be cheap in terms of character creation.

One thing Resources are immediately good for is helping unit morale; a sufficiently good weekend on the town, "survival training" woods camp and cook out, or just a high quality bottle of contraband hooch on an evening when they're off the flight line rota the next day will grant an extra PSY + for a week or so, their mental resilience bolstered by shared good times.

Edit 2: In fact, on futher thought, I might make RES and REP things that are assigned by fiat, like CP, just because they're so mutable in the face of plot twists or actions in game. I'll have to think about it some more.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[classicdrogn]

Here's a character concept that could get one of the PCs into a Klogg, if an old and creaky one:

Daisy May Moses hadn't been directly impacted by the Great War, living in Limestone, Tennessee, but her fella had been called off to fight in it before he could make an honest woman of her and only a flag came home, leaving her with his folks and their swamp farm, and just enough of an Army pension not to lose it. It was a much bigger event when the giant space-ship came crashing down just as the government folks were saying it was over - because one of the space-aeroplanes came crashing down that night, and the pilot inside was bunged up real bad.

Now, Daisy didn't exactly hold with the notion of aeroplanes, but leaving the poor fella to die would be un-Christian - though of course turning him in to the gummint man who came by lookin' for anything related to the crash would be even worse. She showed that rascal the Wishin' Well and tossed a good sized rock onto it, then told him as how anything that fell in there was lost as the Devil's black soul while the rock sank straight into the muck as they watched. The space-aeroplane feller, well, they set his legs straight, poulticed his bunged up head, and trusted the rest to a spoonful of corn-squeezin's a day, a good soft goose down mattress, and the Good Lord God, and for'n too long he was up and about, and a right help he was around the farm seein' as how he could use his space-man powers to git things done that'd take a dozen hands or a new tractor.

The two of them got close after a time (the thrills of dodging revenuers while supplying thirsty folks with white lightning during Prohibition may have had some part in that, or it may not, but Daisy don't discuss such matters) and things follered their natural course, and by 1924 he'd given her her (boy/girl) (name), who turned out to have a heapin' helpin' of (pronoun) daddy's space-man powers *self, and a good dash of smarts, too.

* done fixed that broken down ol' tractor when * was just twelve, and decided to take on * daddy's space-aeroplane after that as a new challenge. (If Daisy let the gummint man think the space-aeroplane crashed into the Wishin' Well, well he never asked where it came down now did he?) Daisy still didn't hold with newfangled tomfoolery like aeroplanes, but as long as the chores got done first there weren't no reason not to allow * to learn about the innate cussed orneriness of complicated machines first hand.

She would have some cause to regret that decision when * actually got the blasted contraption working after a few years of tinkering, and more when * firmly declared that * was going to go enlist for this new war after them slant-eyes attacked Pearl Harbor, and flew off in the cussed thing when she told * to stop listenin' to * daddy's cockamamie stories because she was forbiddin' * to leave the farm. Should've knowed better, she told herself as soon as she calmed down; there wasn't no Moses nor Clampett in a hunnert years but what followed his or her own head, but the damage was done by then, and they didn't hear back from * until * was done the first month of Army Air Corps trainin' and allowed to write letters home.

Turned out the gummint men almost took the space-aeroplane away anyway, but then their gummint science-ists couldn't understand the half of what her * had done to fix it up with just what * could get * hands on, and they gave it back so * could show 'em, and get the use of it since it was still better'n normal aero-planes somehow. Daisy wasn't too sure of why, though * had tried to explain it more'n once before ever gettin' it to make a peep let alone start up, but she figgered it was something to do with being made out of space-metal, or something like that - not having the right kind o' metal was * most common complaint while * was trying to fix it, anyhow.

--------

Yes, that's "Granny Clampett" up there as viewpoint character, at least sort of - on the show, she was Jed's dead wife's mother, not his, and Jed may have been a bit older. Of course, Grany can be a bit of an unreliable narrator, as her references to "President Andrew Jackson of the Confederate States of America" and "Sherman's Retreat to the Sea" in various episodes would illustrate, but I had the image of some tough little hillbilly woman suddenly appearing in a rowboat or something (don't examine this too closely) and making a row when the ship's security guys try to hold her, saying "Don't tell me what I cain't do, sonny boy, cause I'm here all'a way around the world ain't I? And don't go shakin' that parcel neither 'cause it's got the cake for my young'un's eighteenth inside and we're going to celebrate it together right an' proper, don't you think we won't," etc.

Now, this is just one example of how that kind of background could work grown out of that silly scene idea, and it would need a good investment in Mental Traits and scavenging/mechanical skills during character creation, but like I said it is a way to get a wing pack equipped Klogg


in the party (I've decided to use the more saucer like version

and Chulogg name as a new model that's replaced the Klogg by the time the invasion rolls around) - but only one. There was barely a hundred scattered across the entire globe, so while it's not impossible to turn up a few more as things progress the majority by far were snapped up by governments or manufacturing companies or, yes, discredited scientists with a lab/hangar on a remote island inhabited only by themselves and their beautiful daughter, to study and try to duplicate.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

Argh.

Hate laptops.

Anyway. We couldn't avoid having Mad Scientists' Beautiful Daughters even if we wanted to. Also. Did some research. Gillette was shipping internationally - about 30% of its business was foreign by the start of WW2 - but all of its production seemed to still be in the continental US. Albeit almost certainly at multiple sites, since some were turned into aircraft engine parts suppliers without impacting razor blade sales to the armed forces.

More troublesomely, King Camp Gillette, Razor's supposed grandfather, seems to have been both married and childless on his death in the early 30s.

I'm content to ignore that, but it makes things interesting...

Hmm. Did the introduction of alien technologies butterfly the Great Depression?
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[classicdrogn]

Well, I don't know that much about economics and as usual the Wikipedia page contains a great many details but little in the way of enlightenment if you don't already know what they're talking about. Even so, I'm going to have to say...

in the 1920s leave-it-alone liquidationism was a common position for economists to take.[23] Those liquidationists thought that a depression is good medicine. In their opinion the function of a depression was to liquidate failed investments and businesses that have been made obsolete by technological development in order to release factors of production (capital and labor) from unproductive uses so that these could be redeployed in other sectors of the technologically dynamic economy. They argued that even if self-adjustment of the economy took mass bankruptcies, then so be it

...probably not. At least the establishment of Je'lied colonies at fairly close intervals would probably have mitigated or prevented the Dust Bowl, since a mildly sticky but not harmful to plant life bio-goo (which would probably even help restore depleted soil as well as sticking it together) is a snap to the little guys. Je'lied techs might have been on the problem side as far as declining employment in manufacturing, though - they've been engineered for an intuitive understanding and affinity for machines and bioscience, but the racial average for Willpower is -1 to 0, so they'll pretty much obey anyone who gives orders as long as it's not directly self-destructive or damaging to the colony.

Wait, I don't think I've described the Je'lied yet. They're the most common type of alien that were aboard the ship, and being amorphous blobs of jelly who reproduce by mitosis with genetic memory even falling from a couple of miles up only means a lot of juvenile Je'lied sprang up from the impact sites. Basically, take one of your standard rainbow hued, translucent Dragon Quest style onion shaped Slimes and make it about two feet in diameter, pour (literally) its lower half into a set of four-legged trousers for heightened mobility, give it a tool belt and the ability to extrude prehensile tentacles from the upper half, which has big shiny eyes and most commonly an affable smile and a mild fruity odor, which varies between individuals as much as the color of the their gelatinous bodies. Je'lied are dry to the touch, having a zero-range form of telekinesis that lets them keep nigh-absolute control over their liquid body mass. They live in large colonies that could almost be termed hives if not for how little actual coordination there is between individuals, extruding collections of rather seashell shaped structures for housing and work spaces (and are probably in large part responsible for the pseudo-aquatic forms many Zzard ships come in.)

These are the Zzard Imperium's most common technician caste species, who maintain and fix whatever needs either, and are capable of light manufacturing (which essentially all of Earth's industries would fall into by their terms) as well if given competent oversight to keep them motivated and focused. They're not in any danger of displacing humans wholesale, but they can consume nearly anything biological but don't need a tenth as much of anything but water as a human, produce most of the things we make with petroleum and many silicates inside their bodies if given a sample or formula and time to work out the necessary processes, and expect to do whatever work they can in the area as long as they're regularly fed and provided with the necessary parts and supplies, so they alone could have had a significant economic impact. The Soviets would probably love them, except only the light blue kind don't freeze solid during the winters in most of the USSR and there's still the problem of displacing human workers.

Given the ship's long aerobraking de-orbit and their general nigh-industructibility, you can find a Je'lied colony of thirty to a hundred individuals every one to two hundred miles across much of the Temperate Zone and Tropics, and yes this does include floating and submerged ocean colonies as well. Most of them started from a single refugee or fragment of one, and grew to the standard population size for their colonies in the intervening time. They're a major factor of why it's possible at all to keep the variable carrier and its mecha operational with zero access to the normal supply chains after the Bombardment, while trying to take an overland route from China to Europe.

I'd have said they were a major cause of this timeline's Great Depression for the above reasons, but it was well underway by the time the colonies had significant numbers of adults again, so their added manufacturing capacity and willingness to pass on technical details to anyone willing to keep company and talk about it while they work was probably more instrumental in finally pulling things out of the hole rather than digging it, in the final analysis.

Edit:
You need about about a gallon to form a new individual, minimum, any less and the bits just try to pull back together or die and fall apart into what amounts to LCL, only not necessarily orange and with a strong chemical tang rather than smelling of blood. That still allows one adult to split about 20 ways, but once a colony has reached a comfortable population undersized parts that get detached through accident or whatever just reconnect into a single whole, and despite their mostly undifferentiated physiology (the eyespots are the only real macro-structure they have) they still take about a tear to reach full growth under absolutely ideal conditions, which the rarity of certain trace elements needed to catalyse their metabolism on Earth are far from - the precise balance of those is what makes their myriad hues, which can change as a juvenile develops and reflects an affinity for certain chemical reaction chains. The the main reason for adults to divide after they reach a colony size around 120 is if more of a certain color are needed for their specialty. The Jolly Rancher smell is just one more thing engineered into them because you don't want stinking things in the enclosed atmosphere of a starship. Je'lied did not evolve, they were created intentionally from barely sapient stone-age primitives encountered very early in the Zzard's expansion.

Very, very rarely you'll find a throwback with a Human/Bluo standard Willpower score, these are generally referred to as "Barbarian Slimes of the Noth" or "Nothern" and if there's even one on Earth, it'll be becasue someone wants a Je'lied PC, since part of the mainline modifications is to consider them manufacturing errors and shun them. Je'lied need a close social group to survive, and Nothern Je'lied are resilient enough in their thinking to hold out solo for a year or two and to adopt a social circle outside their own species to satisfy that need. They are least uncommon in the blue phenotype but can occur in any of them.

The species name is pronounced "sjeh-LEED" btw, or sjeh-lee-doh for those with strict consonant-vowel linguistic accents, like jelly donuts w/o nuts.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

Hmmm.

So, Bluo, Je'lied, and Zzard? Obviously these come out to 'Blue', 'Jelly' and something uncomplimentary in common slang.

I do wonder if Je'lied mecha pilots might 'wear' their rides like giant suits of power armor, the way the Paranoid did in Gall Force, though. And they're obviously designed to recur in 'new' shops in each zone of the world map.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[classicdrogn]

Oops, you posted just as I edited in some more data on them. Je'lied touch-TK wasn't intended to be strong enough to operate a mecha, the general idea I had was that one could flow itself into the structure of a mecha and basically act like an R2 unit in a Star Wars game, but now that you bring it up, a Nothern, PC Je'lied could totally do that.

Zzards are probably just called "Lizards" since they're sort of snakey-dragon-critters, with a prehensile tail, six legs, four arms, and four wings, but Lizard is the overriding theme as far as body/head/limb proportions and skin. The Toggel mecha I posted a 3d sketch transformation for was created as an attempt at making a really alien alien that could still transform into something at least vaguely plausible as a space-fighter.

And yes, while the character design of them is something I've been developing since high school, the Je'lied as expressed above were specifically designed to justify finding a stuff-shop every third or fourth area under the video game paradigm.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[classicdrogn]

Just to show I haven't completely gotten distracted from this, here's the section on Traits as it currently stands in my working files. Note, "XX" is just a symbol to make it easy to find things that still need more work done, appearing at the beginning and sometimes the end of sections that are incomplete or will need tweaking as the system develops further. Exactly what the cost multipliers will end up meaning is one of those things; either a straight "multiply desired Mp value by this" for Origin Point/Experience Point cost, or else "multiply next MP value by this to increase by 1 (or 1/3 or 2/3 for + or 1-.)"

------------------------

Traits

Astro Cross characters are defined by a set of distinct Traits. Each character has two types of Traits: Primary and Secondary. Primary Traits are fundamental aspects of the character, while Secondary Traits are derived from one or more Primary Traits, or else an external factor like the character's wealth and reputation XX which may change due to plot twists or actions in the game. XX

Agility (AGI)

This Primary Trait is the measure of a character's physical proficiency. When punching, kicking, shooting, throwing, dodging, balancing, or otherwise employing physical nimbleness, this Trait determines the success or failure of the action. AGI Metapoints cost x7.

Strength (STR)

This Primary Trait is the measure of a character's physical power. When lifting heavy objects, determining damage with melee or thrown attacks, throwing an object a certain distance, or otherwise engaged in activities relying on physical power, this Trait determines the success or failure of the action. STR Metapoints cost x7.

Endurance (END)

This Primary Trait is the measure of a character's physical stamina and robustness. When attempting to hold breath, resist damage or sickness, overcome toxins, keep from dying, or otherwise engaged in physically strenuous tasks, this Trait determines the success or failure of the action. END Metapoints cost x6.

Study (STU)

This Primary Trait is a measure of the character's ability to gather and retain information. When they need to remember a fact, memorize a radio frequency, research in a library, build a device from plans, or salvage useable parts from a wreck, this Trait determines the success or failure of the action. STU Metapoints cost x7.

Reason (RSN)

This Primary Trait is a measure of the character's create or derive new information. When attempting to invent a gadget, crack a code, calculate an arithmetic problem, solve a puzzle, or otherwise use smarts, this Trait determines the success or failure of the action. RSN Metapoints cost x7.

Willpower (WLP)

This Primary Trait is a measure of the character's intellectual staying power. When trying to resist arguments or coercion, ignore fatigue, or stay focused in spite of distractions, this Trait determines the success or failure of the action. WLP Metapoints cost x6.

Intuition (NTU)

This Primary Trait is a measure of the character's awareness. When attempting to sense danger, spot something, recognize a hunch, or otherwise work on instinct rather than analyzing a situation, this Trait determines the success or failure of the action. (INT) Metapoints cost x7.

Heart (HRT)

This Primary Trait is a measure of the character's ability to express emotion. When trying to move an audience, intimidate an enemy, or seduce a date, this Trait determines the success or failure of the action. HRT Metapoints cost x7.

Psyche (PSC)

This Primary Trait is a measure of the character's mental resilience. When trying to resist empathic powers, emotional trauma and stress, or otherwise dealing with trials of the spirit, this Trait determines the success or failure of the action. PSC Metapoints cost x6.

If you examine the purpose of the traits they fall into easily understandable groupings, with one each defining skill, power, or resistance in the physical, intellectual, or psychological realm. There are also several Secondary Traits, which are still important but not so widely applicable as the Primary Traits.

Reputation (REP)

Reputation represents how well-known and respected (or feared) the character is in their own person as a celebrity or scoundrel. Membership in a group or holding a position of authority will often modify this Trait, via the appropriate form of Contacts. REP Metapoints cost x3.

Resources (RES)

The Resources Trait represents the amount of money a character can expect to have in their pocket at any given time - they couldn't spend that much on a whim every day, but they could spend it any one day.

Because Astro Cross players will either be in the military and get little benefit since their equipment and expenses are taken care of, or will need to be privately equipped on par with it, RES Metapoints only cost x1. For more general games or normal folk, RES is nearly as expensive as a major power or Primary Trait at x5.

Initiative (NIT)

The total of the character's Skill Traits is their base Initiative. When an Initiative check is called for, usually at the beginning of combat or at the beginning of each Page, roll 1d10 and add it to this base value to determine the character's current Initiative. Panel order proceeds in order of highest to lowest Initiative. Any character can delay their Panel if they choose, letting lower-Initiative characters act before them. As a simple sum, compact stat blocks such as the ones used for NPCs will usually omit Initiative. Note that this is one of the few cases where the numerical Mp score is added directly rather than taking the higher of two scores and adding +1MP to it.

Movement (MOV)

Because it requires both reflex speed and raw muscle, a character's running running speed is equal to the lower of the Agility and Strength Traits, +1Mp. Swimming speed is 2Mp lower than running speed, though either may be increased by an appropriate Power or Skill. They may also be subject to penalties for difficult circumstances or terrain, discussed in more detail in the Game Master's section. Though not quite as simple as Initiative, Movement is still easily enough derived from the Primary Stats that compact stat blocks will usually omit it.

Exhaustion

A character can move for

XX
their Endurance before they run the risk of suffering from exhaustion. The character must then roll on the Opposed Action Table using their Endurance as the Opposed Value and Movement as the Active Value. Powers or Skill Bonuses related to the form of movement being used or resisting fatigue may be added to the OV.

Result Effect
Epic Fail Blackout. You fall unconscious for 3d10 Panels, and must rest for 1d10 more.
Crit Fail Total collapse. You must rest without acting for 3d10 Panels.

Fail Collapse. You must rest without acting for 2d10 Panels.
Cyan Winded. You must rest without moving for 1d10 Panels.

Magenta No effect.

Yellow No effect.
Black Second wind. You don't need to check Exhaustion again for ½ XX interval XX

The character must continue rolling once each Page XX at a -10 penalty to his Fortitude Rank Value XX as long as they keep exerting themselves until they rest for 10 panels.

-----------------

I've also considered moving to quarters instead of thirds for the modifiers, as +, ++, and -, but it would require a whole lot of recalculating at this point, as well as redesigning the Opposed Action and Results tables for a wider spread, so that one is probably not going to happen.

Edit 5 to add: Musical selectionhttp://www.youtube.com/v/VDoWyqaxf00&version=3 ... tube_gdata
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

Whee, back from the trip.

It's surprisingly hard to find pictures showing the specific uniforms our characters probably would be issued.

In general, the mechanics look good to me, although I'm not sure of the purpose of the Exhaustion mechanic. It seems a bit more complicated than called for to handle standard-and-pushing-it movement when you can just go, 'OK, roll at difficulty X to go faster than your standard move' and scale X as appropriate. Unless it's meant to tie into power usage and so on?

Also, it occurred to me to wonder if you had any interest in showing the system to other people for them to use, because I have an original setting I've been poking at for a while that would probably be nearly as idea as ACF1942 and having multiple setting options may interest readers.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[classicdrogn]

The Exhaustion bit is converted as straight as can be from 4C, actually. I may well eliminate it as unneeded when it's time for the editing stage, but for now I'm concentrating on just getting everything adapted to the change in core mechanic and stats. The "Epic Fail" result may vanish, too, depending on whether I keep the particularly experimental version of Probability Control as a power that I thought up, or just leave that to Cinematic Points.

As for making it generally available, my current plan if/when it reaches a stage that can be called final is to put it into a single PDF and find a host for it somewhere, but a second setting option wouldn't be any kind of obstacle to that. It just means cutting the title back to "4C² Exponential Edition" from having "Astro Cross" in there. When I put it that way, having two setting options fits better than one, actually.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

OK, that makes sense.

Quick summary of Astro Cross: Star Pioneer Koronis, then, lemme know if it interests you:

The Confederation of Stars is a multi-species interstellar polity. It has FTL, but only between two pre-established generators - the 'Stargate' model. The supplementary equipment and operating conditions of a Gate are large and sensitive enough that they have to be in space if they're to operate even remotely regularly, and setting up a Gate takes the resources of a major colony world. Microgates, capable of sending messages, can be made rather smaller - they can run off of terawatt fusion reactors rather than megascale orbital solar arrays, and structurally capable of supporting their own weight under a planetary gravity field - but are still much too large for a mobile construct massing less than a million tons to support unless that was absolutely all it was doing.

In the current day, the Confederation's members include all five species it has ever encountered, although there are some individual systems that have declined to join. The first two species to meet each other were the Sangrilani (who invented the Gates) and the Mtoket (who were in their Neolithic period when the Sangrilani expedition to their home system arrived). As the Mtoket's uplift was reaching its final stages, the two species ran into Humans, who had been in space for considerably longer than the Sangrilani but hadn't found a way to get their own take on the Gate concept working at the Mat-Trans level yet, instead resorting to massive coldsleep colonization ships with onboard terraforming capability. The Succubi are called that because their Bronze-age civilizations couldn't agree on one of the local ones and they found the comparison the Human xenoethnologists were making flattering, and the Kalima were in their equivalent of Earth's 1950s, with attendant risks.

All of the species bear fairly significant physical resemblances, within same the 'anime pretty blur zone' the Bluo occupy, although none of them are actually quite that close.

Humans are basically as we know ourselves, although generally fitter and prettier thanks to medical tinkering. As the other species are slighter in build, less enduring, and adapted to lighter gravity fields, Humans are the 'Big Guy' of the Standard Five Man Band, a la Elcor or Krogan.

Sangrilani top out at around 5' 7", and can be summed up as cold-blooded aquatic egg-laying space elves. They're stereotyped as 'The Hero', and have tended to use the environmental sex determination of their eggs to favor female births.

Mtoket can be up to 5' 10", and would be biologically closest to humans if not for the fact that they see through compound eyes placed around their torso and use sophisticated echolocation from dedicated 'directional ears' in their face for fine resolutions. Cliche presentations will cast them as 'The Smart Guy'.

Succubi over 5' 1" are unheard of, and look much as the name suggests - Vulcan-pointed ears, slight fangs, reddish cast skin, a prehensile tail, with spade, about as long as the individual's standing height (it's not just a tail), and very large, completely functional wings. Like Asari, they only have one sex but tend to read as female to other species, and are 'The Chick' pretty universally.

Kalima are up to 5' 9", and they have four arms. They also undergo lifestyle-related sex changes, like terrestrial wrasse, which were originally only female-to-male but have become reversible thanks to medical improvements. Their standard role is 'The Lancer'.

Although campaigns set elsewhere in the Confederation, against terrorist groups, Take-Over-The-World supervillains, or invasions by Non-Confederated Worlds would of course be possible, the default game would cast the players as members of the defensive forces of the Human-built colony ship Koronis. Forty-five miles long and seven and a half in diameter, the Koronis has founded dozens of colony worlds in its centuries-long voyage, supports a born-on-board population of about two hundred thousand, and still has billions of sleepers in its cryo-holds as it brakes from interstellar velocity into the outer reaches of the star system its crew has named Merope.

Merope is not uninhabited; the locals, the enigmatic Bugs, swarm in vast numbers, wielding metal-rending claws, powerful acids and venoms, railgun 'teeth' and blasts of light, electricity, and psychic energy. Their reasons and history are mysterious, at least to players going into the game, but it's quite obvious that intruders are Not Welcome.

To protect their home, player characters don the OPA-4 Pioneer 'battle armor', a transforming mecha-suit, modularly designed to allow use by all of the Confederation's member species and equipped with powerful psi-amplifiers, and must somehow beat back the waves of attackers long enough for their home and its precious cargo to escape.

And meanwhile, the ancient protein-computers of the PlanetMinds watch and wonder how this new element will change their long games against each other.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[classicdrogn]

Sounds nifty, though not really compatible with the Astro Cross universe per se - the system should work fine with it, though. I do have some vague ideas for a second encounter with the Zzard ca. mid to late 50s, Astro Cross: Misspent Cold War Youth, and a title for a 60s expansion, Astro Cross: Black and Blue, but nothing like as detailed as FB42. Of course, the course of history will be very different than OTL with North America still under control of the landing force that put down there and west coast/central Africa home to the major human space infrastructure, but if anything I think those factors would only make the Cold War when both sides are trying to recover/build up their capacity again and the issue of racial equality even more intense. I'd be changing most of the references to Astro Cross in the rules excerpts to 4C-squared, unless they are specific to the setting proper; the same accommodation can be made for Star Pioneer specific information (or whatever you want to call it) if needed.

ETA: For the benefit of discussion, the Probability Control power (or possibly Talent since it's a binary effect rather than something with Mps) would give you a third die to roll, which can give doubles or triples with either of the others, making the average roll 5.5 higher, doubling the chance of a DARA, and giving the possibility of triples that also add and roll again, but also doubling the chance of two ones (a crit fail) and opening the possibility of triple ones, an Epic Fail. Definitely a double edged sword, so I keep waffling between using it or just sticking with Cinematic Points...
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

Yeah, I was thinking of the system rather than the setting as being compatible. I'd initially thought of SPK as having a more complex breakdown of weapon types than you indicated a couple of pages back - Melee/Ballistic/Energy/Missile rather than Light/Heavy - but that's easily adapted, and the transforming-mecha-because-psionic-amplification aspect is both rather more significant and highly congruent.
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[classicdrogn]

I don't remember saying anything specific about weapons, aside from energy weapons not being available at first and the bit in the example of using the tables - I guess I'll have to read the thread again . IIRC 4C divides melee into Slashing/Piercing (one group) and Blunt, and ranged into Energy, Kinetic, and Piercing, with missiles either being put into whichever category their warhead fits best or there being another group I've forgotten for explosions. That's the results, though, I think targeting is just handled by AGI for direct fire or wire-guided missiles just like guns, and Telekinesis or... probably RSN for calculating the ballistics of bombs or long-range missiles/artillery. A more high-tech system would be STU because it's a matter of learning and remembering how to operate the targeting computer rather than figuring out the shot yourself.

I haven't rewritten the Skills section yet, but there's three possibilities for the general way they'll work: The first is that the Mp of the skill itself is most important for determining what you can do without rolling, while the Skill Mp and the base Trait Mp take the higher of the two +1Mp to determine what you actually roll with. Another option is to have them directly modify the dice roll, but again that means adjusting the color tables to account for it. Simplest and closest to base 4C (meaning the least rewriting) is just to have them ranked +1 to +3 and add directly to the Mp of the base Trait, shifting the row you check on the table by raising the Acting or Opposing Value. As you might expect, my thinking tends toward simpler being better.

Edit: Oh, okay, on p4. That was from the notes for the video game, based more heavily on the Artdink Macross games than anything else. Your four groups seem like a reasonable division, though, I still think dividing it into direct fire weapons and ballistic artillery makes more sense than energy/physical; even if "direct fire" with physical bullets does have to account for some degree of drop and/or windage while beams do not, it's nothing like the difference between those and indirect fire.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[classicdrogn]

A reference to rmemeber:

http://nnm.me/blogs/manstr/blue_oyster_ ... 1974_2001/
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[classicdrogn]

Population of Germany according to the 1933 census: 65,362,115 (incl. ~500k Jewish & ~1 million Romani)
Number of variable fighter capable pilots (~90% recruitment): 1,879 (one per 34,786) out of about 2000 - the Luftwaffe has about 1700 of these with most of the rest snapped up by the SS, though that does include the "untermensch" Kreigerakete pilots, 43 from Germany plus however many from later conquered territories.
other 80% of psis: 7,516/~9000 (one per 8696)

Population of the US in 1940: 133,402,471
Assuming similar 1/30k VF pilot candidates: ~4,500 + 18,000 ground pilots
I'm not sure what recruitment rates might look like, but given these numbers perhaps it's a little more clear why I figure that the role of mecha would have been initially dismissed and there's not a wide diversity of units types in production.

Population of Japan according to 1935 census: 69,254,148
I'm figuring on the strong bias against outsiders would have greatly reduced Blue intermarriage in Imperial Japan, by a factor of about five - also, most of the ship's crew had already evacuated before it reached the far east, so they got less refugees in the first place. Call it it 1/150,000 capable of being VF pilots, but about 98% recruitment for much the same reasons once the nature and value of esper powers became more clear. (There was probably a strong movement to rectify the initial exclusion and integrate this new gift from Amaterasu's sky into the population, but the children of that second wave would only be 6-8 and not physically capable of piloting units designed for adults or withstanding the g-forces involved.)
The resulting number of VF pilots Japan could field is around 450, and 1800 who could operate a ground unit; though the very low industrial infrastructure available means they probably still have more pilots than mecha to put them in.

The Soviet Union... I didn't bother checking for census data, because the social/political issues are more apt to be the pressing question there. The communists are certain to absolutely loathe the fact that one esper infantryman is worth 25 or more normal soldiers (being all but bulletproof against small arms and super-strong will do that,) and no number of infantry can achieve meaningful results against a single mecha aside from preparing fortifications or minefields. The fact that some espers can perform empathic attacks to boost themselves or allies and demoralize or outright bring others to their side and are difficult for normals to resist at all, makes even those numbers only the tip of the iceberg... which flies directly in the face of their ideals of any one man being equal to any another, but it's basically built into the setting that way. Maybe they'd just have instituted a eugenics program in reverse, to spread such benefits as widely as possible into the population?

Population of Britain in 1933: 46,250,00
potential 1542 VF, 6167 ground

Austria 1933: 6,746,000; 225 VF + 900 ground
Italy 1933: 41,928,000; 1398 + 5591
Finland 1933: 3,526,000; 118 + 470
France 1933: 41,520,000; 1384 + 5536
Spain 1935: 24,583,100; 820 + 3278
Sweden 1933: 6,201,000; 207 + 827
Switzerland 1933: 4,122,000; 138 + 550

... Meh. Estimated world population 1935: 2,209,040,289; 73635 potential VF pilots + 294,539 ground pilots - by comparison, the RL US armed forces had over 8 million members by 1945, and 450k even in 1940. Africa, South America, and the middle east don't get much mention in WW2 era history, either, mostly due to a lack of industrialization I suppose, so there's a significant portion of that that can't possibly be recruited, probably over 2/3 when you add China and Siberia, and 3/4 or more after the invasion fleet takes North America. It also explains why Macross style musical psy-ops are so important, if you can shake or turn a single enemy mecha pilot it's a significant fraction of their fighting force, and against millions of Imperial units it's the only real hope.

I know, I know, writers have no sense of scale, and I'm definitely including myself in that... even doubling or tripling those pilot numbers would still be pretty skint in terms of armies. Heck, five or ten times over, for that matter... I'll think about it. The number of German pilots was pulled out of the air and the rest worked out from there, so it's not like there's a super solid basis for any of it.

And yes, this does mean working on Astro Cross is filtering back up to the front of my queue, but there's still a lot to be done on the game system since I drifted off without getting much further than was mentioned previously aside from a pretty firm decision to scrap the Exhaustion mechanic and leave Probability Manipulation to Cinematic Points rather than having a second perk that introduces special rules of its own, or at most make it a "reroll X dice per Issue" thing (where Issues = tabletop gaming sessions, in keeping with the pulp comics theme where Panels are turns and Pages are rounds) rather than rolling three at once.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

Another way to calculate potential VF numbers might be to determine how many non-VF enemies you want a 'typical' mission to include...

...and then apply that ratio to the OTL army numbers and let the result that gives you serve as a 'backtrack'.
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[classicdrogn]

WRT the Kreigerraketes - there is actually a point to the whole "torture-machine cyborg" thing - the process makes the pilot/subject more willing to spread their sense of self into the mecha frame due to the only real places they have sensation being at he extremities, away from the constant pain at the center, so even the ones who could barely use a ground unit normally are capable of operating the (relatively high-performance) variable rocket, but can also be adjusted so the more powerful top-enders are too distracted or too damaged to be dangerous to their handlers. It's sick and twisted but also highly effective and has a kind of genius that would be amazing if not for the part where it's morally, ethically, and viscerally abhorrent, much like the OTL medical experimentation that was performed.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[classicdrogn]

Hey, remember this? I have still been working on the game system, but ran headfirst into a problem with one of the starting assumptions, namely with the Endurance trait serving as your health points.

I had been figuring it would go something like your standard tabletop game where 0 equals unconsciousness and -X where X is your full-health total is dead, but what about the ladybug perching on my finger, perfectly happy at -15 or so END? What about Coleoptera Man, who realized it was actually a Neo-Nazi mini-robot (the swastikas replacing spots on its wing cases gave it away) and shrinks down to attack it with his now -13- STR, when it comes time to apply the damage?

Game design is hard.

P.S. Yes, that is a request for ideas, if anyone has something to suggest.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

Obviously, the ladybug has 1/15th of a HP.
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[classicdrogn]

-15 would be about 3/10000ths actually, I was pulling numbers out of my (ahem) for dramatic effect rather than having done the math properly. Even so, the problem is, when your scale goes down to -119 (Plank length) or -198 (Plank time) (maybe the pother way around, can't recall exactly) depending on which is close enough to zero for the universe not to know the difference, how do you set health levels, and how do you deal with doing damage when they and/or the pawer value infliciting it may be negative numbers? Even if you go with the "fraction of a hit point" explanation, how small does the fraction of a hit point need to be further reduced before the critter is disabled or dead?
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

Move the decimal point in the 'HP total' until you have a number that looks sane, then apply the usual ratios, would be what I was thinking.

...This could lead to a system with the amusing property of modeling antibiotics as straight-out toxic damage... in quantities appropriate to bacterial scale.
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[classicdrogn]

I think the cleanest way ot handle it is to build things that are very small as if they werte the size of a human, then assign them levels of Permanent Effect Shrinking, so they have a "default" positive END and HP total.

I've also determined that the point costs I've been trying to assign to 4C's randomly-assigned powers are a huge muddled ball of crap, and I'd be better off tossing it for the OGL versions of BESM d20 or Mutants & Masterminds 3e. This amounts to scrapping the "4C" parts entirely, though, which makes me sad. You can even apply the rank names (Feeble, Poor, Typical, Good, Exceptional, Remarkable, Incredible, Amazing, Monstrous, Unearthly) to 0-9 metapoints and have them fit pretty well, even with Remarkable being the normal limit of human ability, and very close in terms of the linear measurement (32 vs. stock 4C's 30.) On the other hand, attaching one of those decent-to-amazing powers systems to a better core engine has an appeal all its own. Given that Anime d20 Attributes are basically no different from the Tri-Stat originals, the physical/intellectual/emotional split isn't even that far a stretch.

I know better than to make such decisions while feeling tired and frustrated, though.

Edit: Which means yes, antibiotics would in fact be modeled as straight Poison damage, with a Shrink modifier to the power of their effect :lol:
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows