Hi everyone, we've got a bit of an early release this month, as all of the updates I had ready to go are... ready to go. Plus, I'm shifting my work focus to another project as I'm starting to feel a little burned out from this 6 month Sabre sprint. So for now, let's take a look at the shiny things for this month!
Encounters templates finished
After a herculean effort from myself and an associate (thanks Aidan!), we got the Encounters templates completed. When it came to doing the psychic, inventor and vehicle templates, I had to do some customisation work on the layout, and revised the system as I went. There were a lot of errors and old informaton in there, but now it all looks great, and is current with the system. The fantasy bestiary was updated a couple of weeks ago, though there's an update now for a few errors with the melee npc templates.
Aleerata
Space rats! I've been wanting to do a tiny species for quite some time, but after some discussion (and recalling how vicious a tiny melee robot had been in the last campaign I ran) we resolved to keep it as a small species. Usually the smaller species are best used with magic or psi powers to make up for their lack of physical ability, but this one is different. They can carry a lot more than their small size would suggest, including the ability to use large weapons normally excluded for smaller species. This frees them up a lot more for other roles. They're also able to make mechanical and electronic inventions without the need for those exact skills, and although the resulting gadgets tend to be unreliable, it frees them from taking backgrounds with the right technical skill too. So they're very flexible, and downright adorable :)
Miniatures
I've added a section to the scifi manual in an appendix to show how to use miniatures with Sabre, primarily about the vehicle and starships. Lots of cool pictures to look at from my own collection :)
Pilot manoeuvres
With the revision of the aircraft templates, I felt the pilot manoevures had been neglected long enough. So, now they match up with the manoevures in the starships manual, and can be used for vehicles or starships as required. There's more of them, and work better with how the vehicle system now functions. Some of the driver manoeuvres have been tweaked too, as with the system settled into a nice boardgame style environment, some adjustments needed to be made.
Space vehicles vs starships
There's been a bit of a crossover between vehicles and starships, as with a plasma engine, some grav plates and a life support system, you could get a flying car into space. How it worked out there was never made clear. After some discussion, we've decided to remove this ability and keep vehicles primarily planet-bound. Now, shuttles and space fighter craft will be handled as class 0 hulls - half the size of a class 1 and with a few other limitations, but ideal for high speed dogfighting action (or carrying people and cargo). This is accompanied by a modification of the drone swarm rules, which allow a squadron of up to 6 identical fighters to operate as a single unit, perfect for larger hulls with multiple docking bays for launching fighters - carriers. We had a preliminary test this last week, and it seems to work well, but the system may evolve a little more in coming months.
Other bits
The siege warfare system has been always just over the horizon, with other things constantly getting in the way. Since I'm easing back on development for a while, I've handed the current pre-alpha build back to my crack beta team to revise and improve, and then we can have a test play at some point. So it's still bubbling away :)
My current campaign is an x-com style "modern era vs aliens" thing, with a heavy emphasis on vehicle combat, and it's going very well! But the next campaign I run (which was going to be a mad max style vehicle campaign) is being changed to a waterworld sort of scenario, but with more guns and ships. As such, something I had wanted to do from the start of the starship system is adapt it for larger sea-going vessels. So when the time comes, I'll add a section to the starships manual on how to do that (it'll probably be next year sometime).
There is actually another species in the pipeline for the scifi system, but the artwork is proving to be very challenging, so I'm giving myself more time to get a handle on it. Expect it probably next month. I plan on continuing the work on the bestiary too, as time allows. I do enjoy the artwork, though it can be demanding when I have too much going on at once. Otherwise, all the usual little updates, fixes and tweaks will continue as we delve further into the system in our local games, and find things that need work.
That's all for now. Peace :)
Scifi Core Rulebook v1.14
New Stuff!
* Added 'Aleerata' species.
* Added a Miniatures appendix showing the kinds of miniatures players can use with the system.
* Added Reinforced modular plate inserts. Non-Conductive plate inserts now grant +10 AP vs electrical. Move its plasma bonus over to Refractive plates.
* Added 'Grav Plate' high-tech upgrade for robots.
* Added 'Airborne' weapon trait for anti-aircraft specific weaponry.
* Added 'Stinger' and 'Skyshield' portable anti-aircraft missiles.
* Added 'Weapon Mount, External' vehicle upgrade.
* Added 'Cut Off' drive manoeuvre.
* Added 'Change Course' drive manoeuvre.
* Revised all Pilot skill manoeuvres and added a few. They are now matched with Pilot manoevures in the Starships manual.
General
* Student background now only has 1 Background event.
* Noted in the Contacts that when you lose one for any reason, you lose the benefit as well.
* The Psi Rank table now shows rank 1 (i.e. baseline) effects and requirements.
* Reduced the damage on AA Missiles and Interceptor Missiles.
* Noted under Suffocation rules that these fatigue levels cannot be ignored or reduced like other fatigue levels.
* Life Support vehicle upgrade can no longer allow a vehicle to go into space.
* 'Repulsor' now gains +5% per extra charge used, and has 10 charges. Updated details for how it operates when mounted on a starship.
* Removed 'Extra Turret' vehicle upgrade. Extra standard turrets can be added at 3.0t weight, and 10m/11y length. Only 1 HD turret can be mounted per vehicle.
* 'Reckless Flying' Pilot manouvre is now called 'Danger Zone'.
* Offensive Flying is now called 'Aggresive Flying'.
* Corrected the body text for 'Psychic Leech'.
* Vehicle docking bays now correctly list using 5 slots.
* Corrected the Long Range Fuel Tanks and Lightweight Vanes turbine option data.
* Revised how materials are used with the vehicle system. Ground, Air and Sea vehicles now have their own table with available materials suitable to that vehicle type, with correct bonuses and penalties.
* Clarified that a Major Wound now happens at or below negative maximum Hit Points, and if damage is equal to or more than twice this number, death cannot be avoided with an Endurance check or Luck Point use.
* Arborean ranged and longreach unarmed attacks now let you take Chain Weapon or Heavy Weapon talents and manoevures.
* 'Furious Ram' drive manoeuvre now deals +5 damage instead of 1d10.
* Tactical Analyser invention now uses small batteries.
* Corrected missed instances of Healing (the skill) to Surgery.
* Suppression now applies a -5% skill penalty per level instead of -10%.
* 'Defy Gravity' psi discipline now grants +2% to starship agility instead of +5%.
* Added the mention of Expanded Fumbles to the criticals section, and mentioned that a 99 is still a fumble even if your skill is 99%.
* Second Skin now heals 1d4+2 HP, but works instantly.
* The Arborean Vine Limbs ranged penalty now states that this only affects hand-held ranged weapons.
* Canine Venator's Pack Hunter trait now grants +1 Damage instead of +1 Damage Modifier, so it affects all damage done, but is limited to +3.
* Genetics no longer requires a medical scanner to use.
* Vehicle 'Extra Turret' upgrade now allows a third turret on vehicles over 10m/11y in length.
* 'Fortify' vehicle upgrade gains +5 AP instead of +10, notes that it affects all sides.
Starship Manual v1.04 beta 4
* Expanded Cargo upgrade can now also convert cargo hold into precious, precious slots.
* Reduced the amount of default cargo space on all hulls.
* Sensor Upgrades only give +2% per level, but are no longer limited to 4 per ship.
* 'Empower PDS' manoeuvre now also gives the Impact trait.
* Added 'Fleet Command' talent.
* Added 'Manual Firing' talent.
* Added Class 0 starship hulls.
* Barrage Cannon PDS systems firing in Suppression mode can leave a small gap in their defences to allow drones, fighters and missiles to leave or enter from either the front or back of the ship. This compromises the system's ability to destroy incoming targets along that vector for the round.
* Added details in the combat section on using class 0 hulls in a squadron.
* Modified 'Docking Bay' upgrade details to suit class 0 hulls, and added 'Launching Tube' upgrade to complement large scale carrier vessels.
* Added 'Dominator' starship template and modified Falcon and Runabout templates.
* Primary starship weapons now incur the -40% skill penalty attempting to shoot targets of 10 metres of less instead of 20 metres or less.
* Added 'Rapid Launch System' and the 'Salvo' weapon trait.
* Suppression now applies a -5% skill penalty per level instead of -10%.
* Added a weapon traits table to the starship manual.
* HD weapon turret now provides +10 AP.
* Mentioned that at 0 Capacitor, no system, weapon or ability that requires capacitor to function works.
* Reduced the damage bonus from the Zacharial's 'Breathe Flame' manoeuvre from +2 to +1 per spirit point.
Encounters v1.14
* Completed all NPC templates.
Fantasy Premium & Basic Core Rulebooks v2.96 & v1.80
* Noted in the Contacts that when you lose one for any reason, you lose the benefit as well.
* The Spell Power table now shows rank 1 (i.e. baseline) effects and requirements.
* Noted under Suffocation rules that these fatigue levels cannot be ignored or reduced like other fatigue levels.
* Clarified that a Major Wound now happens at or below negative maximum Hit Points, and if damage is equal to or more than twice this number, death cannot be avoided with an Endurance check or Luck Point use.
* Corrected missed instances of Healing (the skill) to Surgery.
* Added the mention of Expanded Fumbles to the criticals section, and mentioned that a 99 is still a fumble even if your skill is 99%.