Brainstorming Space-Opera skills

[MilitiaJim]

No, I have not. If you'd care to elaborate, perhaps you can convince me. What about the way FTL works in those settings makes it easier for a human to navigate distances the brain can barely comprehend better than a computer?

In the Lt. Leary Republic of Cinnabar [RCN] series computers simply cannot detect the energies that can speed or slow your passage through "sidereal space."  Not even every person can.  But navigating hyperspace in that universe is like sailing a tall ship, sails included.  Something about Casmir radiation and electrical charges flipping you over the edge, and your realspace velocity matters when you flip sidereal, along with how well you manage your sails.  And the crewmen adjusting the sails need to watch semaphore signals because using radios well send  you god only knows where.

(Here is a sample of David Drake's work, all legit.)

Edit to add this small descriptive block from Mr. Drake's work With the Lightnings:
    Around him shimmered a golden light that only spacers saw: the wobbling glow of Casimir energy, visible only at the margins of reality. What looked like stars beyond the veil were not that nor even galaxies: each separate point was a universe in itself, as complete as the sidereal universe from which the Princess Cecile was even now edging.

    A hydraulic semaphore spread its arms. A rating in the bow cluster made a manual adjustment, and the tip of a mast near Daniel cocked forward thirty degrees from the topmost joint.

    The Princess Cecile, driven by the greater pressure of Casimir energy on one aspect of the ship than on the other, slid fully into the gap between universes. Her captain, Lieutenant Daniel Leary, reveled in his first command.

[Krensky]

The first three books (With the Lightnings, Lt. Leasry Commanding, and The Far Side of the Stars) are in the Free Library.

As Jim stated, in the RCN series (which is sort of Aubery-Maturin in space) computers can't perceive the hyperspace, largely because electromagnetic fields or signals on the hell will send you... somewhere else. If you're impossibly lucky that somewhere will be in our universe.

In Traveller, it's important for the archetypal game because how far you emerge from the jump limit determines how long it takes to make planet fall and the economics of your trip. Jump too close, you don't have enough time for your agent to prep the market so you have dead time on the ground paying dock fees. Jump way to close, inside the limit, bad things happen. Jump too far out, you're wasting time and fuel heading in system. Jump way to far out, you may not have enough fuel or life support and will need to call for a tow or underway replenishment.

http://traveller.wikia.com/wiki/Jump_Drive_History

[Agent 333]

Well, both of those to me seem like they could be covered with a Ride/Pilot check instead of having a whole new skill.
Note that I still find it hard to believe there's a type of energy that the human eye can detect that the people in the setting haven't developed a machine that can also detect it. Maybe if this Casimir energy was discovered very recently (IE, less than a decade), but then they wouldn't have the tech to harness it for FTL travel. Perhaps I'm getting to much Science in your Fiction.

That pretty much sums up a lot of my problems with Astrogation as a skill: If humans understand how to do it, humans can program a computer to do it. The only settings where a skill check should be required for navigating the depths of space are ones where the people operating their FTL ships don't really understand how they work (stolen from more advanced aliens, or forgotten tech from a previous golden age). Even then, I'd rather fold it into Pilot than make it a whole new skill.

[Krensky]

Because the camera on the hull screws up the drive system because of it's electromagnetic fields. Also, navigating the matrix is an art. Computers, even if they could be used to record the matrix, can't reliably interpret the data because of it's visual complexity, and in the setting high end astrogation involves interpreting non visual cues of the matrix. Read the first book (remembering that the later ones are more naval action focused) then complain the hand-waving isn't internally consistent.

The problem I have is that folding it in somewhere works for some settings, but not for others.

[Agent 333]

Not wanting to have to read a whole novel to attempt to debate this, I will instead offer this compromise: New campaign quality!

Skilled Astrogation (Permanent): The myriad problems with Faster Than Light travel make it impossible for computers to handle it properly. Characters may now acquire a new skill called Astrogation:

Astrogation (Int)
BLAH.

[Krensky]

But it's a good novel! 

[Morgenstern]

At least where Farthest Star is concerned, Astrogation is NOT a skill. It's a Pilot check, and a check with excruciatingly high DCs and equally large bonuses for using a nav-program/good sensor package. Doing a bridgehead shoot in your head should be infrequent but possible for a total badass on his best day (aka max skill, matching interests, possible feat support, and likely some action dice being pitched unless the raw roll was very, very good). If you gotta do it by mk. I eyeball, it's best to not be putting time presure on top of all the other factors - allow for several tries.

Given that brigeheads are strict point-to-point 'flip' oportunities, there is no FTL navigation as such, just finding spots where you can flip. Most populated systems have very, very detailed map-models of the bridgeheads in the area. Seat of the pant nav is more for fun out on the fringes.

In-system nav is also a pilot check, but the DCs have a much wider range, depending on what you're up to. A program and sensors are still very helpful, but some routine stuff being done in your head is pretty much a normal exercise for professional pilot/navigators, checking against the comp only after it's worked out.

[Agent 333]

But it's a good novel! 

Yes, I'm quite sure it is. But I have a reading queue a mile long that I'm already making little enough progress on...

[Morgenstern]

Morg, what are your plans for artificial lifeforms in FS ?

Kill it? Kill it with (atomic) fire?

The humans of Farthest Star have an EXTREMELY dim view of creating rival species, even species of 1.

Combined with a strong ethical stance on the treatment of sapients (creating a sapient intelligence to do a particular task is slavery, even if you construct the intelligence so it likes it), and there's really not much reason to work towards their development. Basicaly there's no payoff, and its understood it's hideously dangerous to the greater society. Non-sapient expert systems abound for those tasks that are facitilated by such tools, and people basically grow their own customized expert systems as they mature that are generally considered a legal extension of and part of the owning person.

I'm planning to stat up a Machine Intelligence species as an example of how it can be done (complete with some interchangable bodies for the core modules to 'wear'), but I haven't decided if they'll be part of the setting or a historical footnoot - a race the Human Expanse long since wiped out.

[MilitiaJim]

But it's a good novel! 

Yes, I'm quite sure it is. But I have a reading queue a mile long that I'm already making little enough progress on...

Tack these onto the end, you shan't regret it.  And the campaign quality is a good answer.  Not many classes will have it as a class skill, imo.

Kill it? Kill it with (atomic) fire?

From orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

Elves and orcs and such could well be gene modified humans, and I remain confident that someone built a sentient robot and/or ship.  Whether those can be built anymore, that's a different story.

Are you familiar with John Ringo's "Council War" series?  The prologue to the second book sums up so much of the tech they have running around the solar system.

[Krensky]

Are you familiar with John Ringo's "Council War" series?  The prologue to the second book sums up so much of the tech they have running around the solar system.

Yeah, but that's a setting with Bun-bun as a moderately important character in one book.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Our group has replaced Haggle with Streetwise, since Streetwise and its uses disappeared [or became sample knowledge for Haggle], and it used to contain Haggle checks.  Makes it a little less thin.

Sounds like a good idea.  I wish I had those rules.

Why on Earth do people want to abstract the skill system out of meaningful existance?

It's a difference of "meaningful existence": you see meaning in having two different numbers for two different sources of influence on two different activities, whereas I see those same activities as simply points in the flow of the story and do not get hung up on the relative effect two different sources of influence would have if the activity is similar enough.

[Mister Andersen]

[MilitiaJim]

There you go, you can have your sci-fi be rock solid and still have FTL comms.

[Nepenthe]

There you go, you can have your sci-fi be rock solid and still have FTL comms.

I prefer this explanation over the one Mass Effect 2 provided for the same idea. Even if it was voiced by the delectable Tricia Helfer.