Okay, under “Security and Sensors,” the Resource Obs listed for radio scanners (Ob 4 or 8) and Signals die enhancements (Ob 3, 5 or 7) seem to directly correspond to the tech points those things require in the Tech Burner. Given you get a variable # of tech points per Resource point according to your Tech Index, can I safely assume the Obs in Security and Sensors are incorrect, and in fact refer instead to tech points? Or did I misread something again?
Thanks!
p.
As I understand it, tech points = resource obsticle. Tech points only come into play during chargen. Any other time, you roll the obsticle.
Yep, see the heading on p. 382 “Technology Trait Points = Tech Resources Obstacle” (seriously, that’s the heading).
Here’s my understanding: at Zero Index, I get 3 tech trait points per Resource Point. To buy a radio with +3d Signals, I’d have to muster up 11 tech trait points total (4 for the base Signals tool, 7 for +3 advantage dice). In the tech burner, at zero index, that means a total Resources test of 4 (with one tech trait point left…maybe a shiny brushed steel case? Spinny hubcaps?). It’d only be Ob3 at Low and High index (4 or 5 tech points per RP), but Ob6 at sub-index.
p.
OOOOOHHH!
See, I knew I had to have been reading something wrong. Awesome. The tech trait point thing is only used during character burning! Got it.
Thanks everyone!
p.
The book says tech resources obstacle n (where n = some number). If you are on a hi tech world that n would become n/5 irrespective of whether the tech was purchased during or after character burning no?
No, I don’t believe so.
No disrespect intended Mike but I’d feel better if somebody else could also confirm or refute your statement.
Steve
Mike’s right – the local Tech Index isn’t figured into your Resources test once the game starts. It only matters at character burning. A 7 tech trait point item is an Ob7 Resources test no matter what the tech index is once the game has started.
p.
Again, it’s on page 382 of the book. Technology trait points set the base obstacle for the Resources test. You do not divide by anything.
Ok. P378 Character Burning Technology (guess the CB part confirms Mikes statement as well) goes on to itemize tech worlds with resource points and tech trait points.
Sub: 1 RP = 2 TTP
Zero: 1 RP = 3 TTP
Low: 1 RP = 4 TTP
High: 1 RP = 5 TTP
Under that assumption we now flip to page 382 where it says in large bold print.
Technology Trait Points = Tech Resources Obstacle
TTP = TRO
If you build a high index world that means to me you divide the TTP or TRO by 5 to get the resource cost based on the tech table above.
How can it be otherwise???
I’m just trying to get this straight in my head here. Thanks for bearing with me.
Steve
Page 378 covers what you do when making a character, page 382 covers what you do in play. The only commonality is they both start with the trait point cost.
There is a very large difference mechanically between perminantly spending a resource point and tacking a +1Ob to an action. Based on your interpretation of the rules, a car would be an Ob 1 test at Low index. A flying car would be an Ob 2 test. A military hammer cruiser would be an Ob 5 test. That’s WAY too low; according to the list on page 360, an ob5 test is required to pay for PASSAGE on an interstellar voyage, let alone buying an interstellar warship. And those costs CERTAINLY shouldn’t be divided by 4. I can easily burn a 5 lifepath freeman that could pay the 8/4Ob for his very own factory, ot the 14/4 Ob for his very own forged lord.
Mike, I hear what your saying about the obstacles but then again, they did put it in for character burning. To take your counter point, my Forged Lord with 15 RP’s could buy 3 Hammer Cruisers at 4 RP’s a pop during character burning for a high tech world but none afterwards even if he didn’t spend a single RP. (Hammer Cruiser=obstacle 20). That just seems a bit odd to me.
With a x5 tech point advantage (for high tech worlds) to buy tech stuff during burning, my view is now shifting back to stocking up during burning again. I dunno, either that or work the fund exploit. I need more game time to really figure out which method will work better overall.
It’s a bit clearer now why you’d want to drop SOME RPs into burned stuff before play, isn’t it? I don’t see stocking up on everything, because you need to be flexible in play. I thing 6-8 Resources in play is pretty healthy; enough to loan out as needed, or a good base from which you’ll build BIG stuff and not suffer too much tax if/when you screw up the roll.
p.
It is true that heavy-duty military hardware, e.g. vehicles, is painfully expensive to acquire in play – e.g. that Hammer Cruiser, but also even an armored grav vehicle. I’ve been trying to think up ways to boost a character’s chances of making a crucial Resources roll:
+1 to 2 dice from appropriate Wises, e.g. Anvil-wise, Hammer-wise (p. 363)
-1 to Obstacle from Bargaining (whee…) (p. 368)
+1 to 10 dice from big honkin’ piles of cash, e.g. inheritance, looting, and piracy, if the GM lets you have them (p. 370)
+1 to 5 dice (realistically) from other loans’ (p. 371)
-1 to 4 dice from Obstacle from splitting off that part of the test into a Fabrication roll (p. 395-396).
and above all, Artha:
+1-3 dice (realistically) from from spending 1 Fate to make sixes open-ended (p. 339)
+1-3 dice from spending 1 Persona per die (expensive!) (p. 339)
+doubling your Resources exponent, OR rerolling all failures, from 1 Deeds point, if you have one to spare (p. 340)
All these in judicious combination make it possible for wealthy characters – e.g. Anvil Lords with Resources in the 10+ range – to buy military vehicles.
Now, there must be other workarounds I’m missing. Suggestions?
+1d for a linked test
+1d for naming the vessel
I believe you can only use one Wise on any given test, but you could use a non-Wise to get the other +1d (bureaucracy, administration, logistics – any one of which could have been one of those linked tests?).
p.
Yeah ‘funds’. You can keep increasing a fund size, a chunk at a time, until it reaches whatever size you need it to. The downside is that it takes time. The phase or even game could be over before you have any real chance of purchasing that expensive item. This tactic would work extremely well in a campaign setting where the characters continue to play after the 1st planet is ‘saved’.
Personally, I think you should just be able to pick an item you want that fits in with your lifepaths. For every 2 lifepaths (round down) you get to pick an item. You can only pick 1 item from a category (vehicles, armor, weapons, equipment, etc) except weapons and where you can choose as many picks as you like from the picks you are allotted.
And cruiser? Where’s destroyers, battleships, dreadnaughts, etc? It seems paultry for a forged lord to be seen flying around in a mere cruiser. The ship granularity could be greater but that’s a topic for another post.
Yes, you can’t easily buy one in play, but you can ‘aquire’ several of them in the 50 odd years before you play. The game is taking place over at most a timespan of a few years… you have DECADES before that to build up your fleet. And if you REALLY want a fleet, buy the Hammer Lord trait… it gives you a fleet without having to spend a single rp.
And if you want a battleship, burn it =)
Does it, though? The Hammer Lord (p. 261) and Anvil Lord (p. 249) traits give you automatic access to flunkies, plus a bonus to Circles rolls for getting specialists – specifically they automatically have their relevant skill at a certain exponent, without you having to beat the normal obstacles for Circling up someone with that skill (see table, p. 348).
But it’s not clear whether the technology of your force is Color tech or hard tech. Pg. 350 says only
Contacts generated via Circles come with the technology appropriate to their station and index. The GM assigns the technology as he sees fit. Contacts will not freely give their tech to player characters.
I presume all this taken together means that
(a) if you’re a Hammer Lord who plowed 3D into your affiliation with your fleet, so that you have “system patrol craft and hammer cruisers with well-trained crew with exponent 5 abilities” (p. 261),
(b) you can make a Circles roll for a Lord-Pilot at Ob 3 (uncommon occupation, +2 Ob; lower rank, +1 Ob; exponent 5 skill, free from Hammer Lord trait) and
(c) have the Lord-Pilot show up with “appropriate equipment” in the form of a freakin’ Hammer Cruiser.
But I’d like someone more knowledgeable than me to confirm that.