Pondering, Space Trucking, One ship crew small MU?

[Lotherio]

@sixregrets said in IRL Space Trucking begins?:

The title of this thread made me want a small scale MUSH with players of the crew of a spacefaring freighter. But very much not Firefly.

I mentioned it a couple of times but Coriolis would be good for this, I’d be interested in collaborating with interested folks.

Pitch, pros for a small-scale Coriolis-like mush:

1. The game is intended for a group that operates one ship together. The mechanics for upgrading/making ships are easy to use, the combat is designed for more than piloting and gunnery. It seems complex but its easy once folks get the hang of it. Its balanced (not that every ship is equal in pure combat so much as the same amount of slots on the same class to make whatever players want).

2. Its set in a cluster of systems in a distant galaxy (more on this in cons). A few have some details, 6 or so, out of 36. There are rules to give a system some details, its intended to only develop as the group plays, so every campaign should be different. It’s a few pages to roll up some ideas and go from there.

3. Its full of shadowrun like corporations trying to dominate things, giving players sources to do various runs from/for/etc. From hauling and such to mercenary and rogue-like work.

4. Above the entities are 6-8 orgs trying to rule the entire cluster of systems, they’re interesting but in cons, this is where the game breaks down for me.

5. It uses a karma system, players use karma, GM gets bad karma to make stuff happen. It ties into the mystic parts of the game, there are minor ‘abilities’ that don’t affect the mechanics too much other than this balance. GM can do things that net the players karma in reverse. Its not bad so much as with a pool of karma, the DM can introduce a roadblock along the way; ship breaks down between two planets in a system, someone chasing the group catches up, an NPC that is owed money shows up at the market with armed thugs.

Cons, or what I’d remove or ignore:

1. The intended meta-campaign from the company itself involves high level save the world stuff. There are other systems, ones the people in this system came from, that were in a war, but portals between those systems and this are closed. But not really, there are natural space portals through the place between space in gas planets. One system found a mystical way to open one and are coming through there to control the campaign set system. Another system has kept a portal open and is amassing an armada to take over the campaign set system. – I’d lock out these other systems and just focus on the developing system the game is originally set in as there is tons to explore as a singular ship crew.

2. The setup of the largest ‘secret’ orgs is half and half with me. I like that they are there, its feels like dune (one controls corporations, one controls free traders, one controls conservative faithful, another controls liberal faithful). There is direct opposition between pairs of these, and then 4 and 4 are on a bigger scale alliance vs alliance. There is plenty to play with, but like the super meta of entire galactic systems, it’s a bet much meta for a small ship crew. I’d keep them for flavor as NPC entities and hurdles for PCs rather than have PCs get embroiled in direct conflict between these super orgs. It was good in Dune, but doesn’t sound appealing to me as a MU, I think most Dune Mu*s had a nice focus more on is the houses and their politics than say Ix vs Tleilaxu or something (because the books have it play out over 5K years or so, just in the originals, his son adds the pre5K+ years, books make the span better than a Mush).

3. Time scale: the system is like 400 years old at best. 1000 Years ago people are only on earth when they discover portals built by a lost civilization in space. They explore these and make the 1st Horizon, the original cluster of stars with earth at its center (this is the group staging the armada for takeover). They finally find another portal to a distance second cluster of systems, the 2nd Horizon (these are the mystics using gas giants to infiltrate other systems), and then 400 years ago this system is discovered (called the 3rd Horizon). They come to escape an ongoing war between 1st and 2nd Horizon, the portal wars destroy portals between worlds, then all the groups seeking freedom go to their own systems in 3rd Horizon and its sort of a dark ages for 300 years (population is low to begin, loss from conflict and folks just try to settle their planets mostly, but the big orgs are growing). The only thing that changes all this is that 80 years ago an ark ship arrives (cause just before earth found the portal they launched a bunch to help with overcrowding and destruction of earth). They somehow have industry and better tech than the current inhabitants of 3rd Horizon, so organize quickly (they form one side of the secret org alliance, the liberal ones, vs they current conservative ones), they start opening contact between all the systems.

Tl;dr I like the game system and mechanics with the basic flavor theme, some of the higher level meta theme seems to fall apart for me, but could be altered while still keeping a lot of the original flavor of space truckers dealing with corporations and large-scale multi-star system groups (missions between the groups, just regular space trucking and hauling while dealing with the various rules and groups and trying to avoid their politics, whatever).

No interest in doing this on my own, my days for trying are done. If folks are interested in collaborating on something for small-scale, I'd be open for discussions, I have ideas for possibilities of a joint effort (such as mutual involving for various storyteller-like folks to alternate running PrPs and such).

[friarzen]

@lotherio Hmm...sounds interesting, but I don't know much of anything about Coriolis, is there a simple game-mechanics example somewhere you could point me at?

[Lotherio]

@friarzen https://frialigan.se/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/CORIOLIS_QUICKSTART.pdf

Here is the quickstart from Fria Ligan (free legion). I've not looked through it much as I have the rulebook. They're big on the art so that's a fair amount of the content, the game is influenced in part by the Tales of Sherazade/1,001 Nights.

ETA: The dice seem funky and some reviewers don't seem to get the system. One success mean barely made it, not full mastery. One success isn't swinging over the chasm with Leia in one hand and a blaster in the other while dodging. One is jumping over and barely grabbing on enough to pull up. Then more successes can be used to buy up the skill/talent/feat - jump over landing on feet, adding things (sometimes it gives ideas in the skills and talents for extra dice).

[Ominous]

I own Coriolis, and I would have to agree that eyeing it made me go "Hmmmm, sounds like a neat base for a MU*." If you haven't seen it before, Starsector is the video game setting I think would mesh well with Coriolis for a MU*.

[Lotherio]

@ominous said in Pondering, Space Trucking, One ship crew small MU?:

I own Coriolis, and I would have to agree that eyeing it made me go "Hmmmm, sounds like a neat base for a MU*." If you haven't seen it before, Starsector is the video game setting I think would mesh well with Coriolis for a MU*.

I started the video and thought, no its not space heroin. But watched more and was like, yes, totally similar idea. Basically like the mother of all space trucking type games, the old Taipan.

***=Taipan synopsis***

click to show

Only for references, Taipan was a text based game made by TSR and ported onto the old apple II's that was about being a private captain in 1880s South China Seas - but space mining/trucking that followed use the same format. You trade the smallest thing and slowly work up, adding ships and such to your fleet, until you're selling the most illegal thing in the game cause it makes the most money. There were some side missions, get a certain pirate (you could do good things instead of bad, just the drug trade netted money quicker), protect the port, take someone to some other location (this might be in later incarnations of the genre).

The good thing about Coriolis that worked well with Player <> GM Karma/Luck pool to make stuff happen was the every player has a secret. The best resent space series that had this was Dark Matter for me. But it gives small group play interesting focus, making campaigns unique in conjunction with every planet will be different cause you generate as you play - this is also why I feel the published adventures should be avoided, cause they're all about the other Horizons invading either by lost portals or gas giant portals and the dark between the stars super save the universe stuff.

The dark secret would be good for a small mush, players can develop as they play versus set course of events and planned meta. Captian Tim has a secret 'stole tech from x corp and sold it to y organization, X is hunting' is all that is needed, x can develop on the fly. Oh, some bad karma, GM introduces two agents of X Corp while trading on some little market to carry out a cargo contract, muddies the waters, we learn X Corps found his long lost family so he has three months to get shit back from Y Org or Jimmy gets a bionic head transplant (loses his head).

^^ is better than players having ties to the big 8 factions and everyone is on the main space station ring and its all save the world stuff. This would be my concern for a mush, folks would want high level 'secret pasts' versus fun space trucking stuff that keeps the focus on one crew.

One crew is good and its not hard to support a larger ship with hanger bays and have smaller ships for sub plots and side missions too.

[Ominous]

I have asked before whether sailing ships around an ocean would scratch the same itch as space truckin'. Before I fell asleep last night, I had the sudden idea and question, would a land-based game centered around caravans moving between cities like in Vagrus or the Dark Sun setting scratch a similar itch? You load up your wagon, hire some mercenaries (or maybe you were one of the mercenaries hired), and head out. For a more MUDish experience, you could move room by room across the world to the next city. For a more MUSHish experience, one to three waypoint rooms, depending on the distance, are used and the group automatically gets moved to the next waypoint after a set amount of time. Most of the time, these waypoints are places where the caravan set camp or maybe a midday oasis stop. Now and then it's some sort of encounter, whether it's combat or maybe some strange occurrence. Anyone coming the other direction on the trade route, could run into your group in one of the waypoint rooms and you spend the night camping together. Ares would allow for the waypoint rooms to be scened out over time, except for the encounters, since waiting a day to take your turn again at smacking a giant scorpion with your axe would be a bit annoying.

Scratch the same itch any?

[friarzen]

@ominous Only to some degree... I think some of the appeal in space-trucking is the complexity inherent in space travel and spaceships. The "wagons" would have to be steam/clockwork-punk contraptions travelling lethal/poisonous wastelands with lots of bells and whistles to get the same kind of feel of having say, shields, hydroponics, atmo recyclers, etc, that could all breakdown and require sudden-death hijinks to fix. There is drama in how much refits/upgrades cost, that you just dont really get with "some wagons and critters to pull em". The ship itself is a character that is missing in that scenario.

[Ominous]

@friarzen

I was wondering about that. You get a little bit of the same feel of outfitting a spaceship from outfitting yourself. It's a bit like the game Battle Brothers, where you're constantly looking for new weapons, armor, etc. to gear up your guys. This of course would require some item degradation and repair.

But, yes, I agree it's not quite the same feel as Han Solo keeping the Falcon running through carbonite duct tape and midiclorian laced WD40.

[Jennkryst]

Speaking for myself, about 60% of the reason I want space trucking is so I can have mindless game fun when I am too tired to actually RP, but not SO tired I am falling asleep. Space Trucking does that, and I can still be in-window to chat and stuff, as opposed to being in a full-window, chat-less instance of Squadrons or Elite Dangerous. The other 40% is split up between CREW RP SHENANIGANS (as this does not require trucking to do) and SUPER CUSTOM SPACE FUN TIMES.

... which is not to say I am opposed to a different game happening. I just want to be clear that when I talk about Space Trucking on here, I mean a ship simulator, not 'make a temp room that is a ship and pretend'.

[Lotherio]

I think its a little more than numerous systems on a ship to fix that makes the space element. Its having enough space to add variety during runs/breakdowns.

Its the

oh we lost control of the astrostabilizer, we can't fix that in space, we can push through to our destination and take the risk of losing it completely, but Sobo corp knows we're heading and may have a blockade set up to get their money back, or we try this back water mining colony, but they're mining asteroids for subspace crystals for TerraSphere Propulsion and unbeknownst to most people, the ship medic worked in subspace medical engineering for TerraSphere to pay off student loans but never finished their contract and they're on the run, we could try this high end resort, but ...

Its the space to draw from lots of different things versus what could be limited in a smaller setting?

That said, a spice road sort of setting could be just as interesting I think. I'm am 100 percent certain the Taipan style trade could be done on land ships. Just a different feel? Darksun and running between citystates and emperor lich kings and immortal dragons and such could be interesting too.

[Lotherio]

@jennkryst said in Pondering, Space Trucking, One ship crew small MU?:

I just want to be clear that when I talk about Space Trucking on here, I mean a ship simulator, not 'make a temp room that is a ship and pretend'.

This level may be beyond most mushes these days. But that new other galaxy SW spin-off by the folks that spent some time on SW1 may have a more full on economy similar to SW1's numerous economic systems that supported more space trucking?

[Derp]

@jennkryst said in Pondering, Space Trucking, One ship crew small MU?:

ship simulator

A what now?

How is that different from 'make a temp room and pretend'?

Like -- how 'simulator' are you talking here?

[Jennkryst]

@derp HSpace! The code they used on SerenityMU, for instance. They use TSpace on AoA, which is inferior and we hates it, precious!

[TiredEwok]

I always felt that the space code they used on Serenity Mush was overly complicated. I really liked the space code they used on SW1 was nice. Simple, easy to remember how to use, nothing complicated like having to get into orbit before landing and all that. I even wrote a help file thingy for it on SW1's wiki, if anyone's curious... of course, my love of this is probably going to mark me as a dinosaur with newer players, but oh well.!

elmo shrug

[friarzen]

So, after reading through that linked Coriolis document, I'll say that the system seems to be reasonable, if a bit high on the fiddly special cases. There is definitely a high GM-involvement angle to the situational modifiers and determining results. @Lothario, if you are willing to GM the actual game, I can donate an Evennia server and some coding for it.

[Lotherio]

@friarzen Exactly right, the fiddly bits are aimed at the holistic story telling approach as a group event. What does 2+ successes mean on a jump in low gravity while being chased by space pirates?

Here is where I am after initial interest. I'm opening a discord server to discuss (https://discord.gg/TWxX4kuK).

I can be the GM or head admin and make the tough calls as needed.

With my time limit some buy in from player STs to alternate running of plots and events is a must (not saying scheduled events, just direction and help so the burden is not one one or two people). I'm more a fan of group PrP runners taking turns, with someone outside to advocate NPCs -- player A has a stole from the Syndicate secret, someone to NPC a representative of the Syndicate for player A would help so they can make decisions as a player instead of a plot runner - player A can NPC Free League merchants for player B who's secret is the sabotaged a free league merchants operation to save the small foresting colony on random planet Z, etc.

I'd like some discussion on include/strike to establish Coriolis fitting for Mush verses one TTG's save the world campaign. I can easily say strike Emissaries (as they're really powerful mystics from 2nd Horizon coming to take over 3rd Horizon). Maybe someone has a case for their use that doesn't end with save the world plot to destroy the portals in the gas giants throughout all 36 systems).

It needs to be a group effort though, not me being little red hen, it'll just burn me out before getting somewhere near complete and running.

If the offer stands @friarzen , give us some time to discuss on discord to see what we can get going and assure its reasonable, especially working within Evennia and what code can be helped with.

[Ominous]

So my understanding with your idea, @Lotherio, is that all of the players are in one ship. What if Bob gets tired of where Alice is going and wants to hop on a different ship at the next spaceport?

This has always been my hesitancy with spending time working on a space truckin' MU* - the likelihood of the playerbase fragmenting and scattering among the many planets, so that there is no interaction. This would be perfectly fine in a MUD environment, where people tend to do their own thing with the automated systems and only occasionally run into one another. But then again, I don't see much difference between a space-truckin' MUD and Eve Online or Elite Dangerous, except Eve Online and Elite Dangerous have better graphics.

Whereas the spice road idea or the island world idea with airships I brought up a while back have a much smaller scale and it's easier to concentrate the playerbase into space where interactions are more likely to happen.

[Lotherio]

@ominous said in Pondering, Space Trucking, One ship crew small MU?:

So my understanding with your idea, @Lotherio, is that all of the players are in one ship. What if Bob gets tired of where Alice is going and wants to hop on a different ship at the next spaceport?

This has always been my hesitancy with spending time working on a space truckin' MU* - the likelihood of the playerbase fragmenting and scattering among the many planets, so that there is no interaction. This would be perfectly fine in a MU environment, where people tend to do their own thing with the automated systems and only occasionally run into one another. But then again, I don't see much difference between a space-truckin' MU* and Eve Online or Elite Dangerous, except Eve Online and Elite Dangerous have better graphics.

Whereas the spice road idea or the island world idea with airships I brought up a while back have a much smaller scale and it's easier to concentrate the playerbase into space where interactions are more likely to happen.

For me, I have zero interest in making H-Space + Space Econ mini games. I completely agree. If I want to space mine/haul/simulation I can find plenty of other outlets to do some number crunching space running to get my fix on a much more crunchy scale then I'd expect on mush or mud.

I'm willing to contribute on a small-scale Mu; 10 players maybe, 20 is past my limit. This is dependent on other contributors willing to join on or not. If there is zero interest in others running PrPs, being active ST's, helping each other out, my interest is zero as well.

If folks don't want on the one ship, the small scale one ship crew is probably not the place for them. I should have been more forward in what I'm willing to consider. I figured one ship crew, small MU sort of gave a little picture. Numerous coded systems and space economy wasn't up there. If Bob and Alice get tired and want to fly off, the PCs are out of play as far as I'm concerned on a small scale Mu. SW1 is still open as far as I know/recall, Bob and Alice can get a ship there and space econ it up.

Quick ETA: That's where I'm coming from, but open to discuss, hence the discord.

[Wizz]

@lotherio

Just an honest suggestion, but looking for a playgroup of only about ten people who you expect to pull double duty as storytellers on a single-crew ship is probably a call I'd put out among friends, rather than opening to the public and complete strangers.

That kinda seems like a recipe for some bizarre dynamics at least and disaster at worst.

If this were a truly public game, IMO you'd be better off coordinating multiple ships so that at least people could have some space to find a group that suits their timezone, playstyle, personalities, etc.

Maybe mandate that each new ship is obligated to have at least one primary storyteller and one backup, if they can't manage/don't want to Round Robin it.

[Lotherio]

@wizz said in Pondering, Space Trucking, One ship crew small MU?:

If this were a truly public game, IMO you'd be better off coordinating multiple ships so that at least people could have some space to find a group that suits their timezone, playstyle, personalities, etc.
Maybe mandate that each new ship is obligated to have at least one primary storyteller and one backup, if they can't manage/don't want to Round Robin it.

This would be a great idea and I concur with it.

This inversely shovels the mountain of work from three sentence idea to having something opening and functional onto my lap. The last large project I worked on that had 100+ unique log-ins on at the same time was built up by a group of collaborative creative strangers. Is it a long shot, yes. Is it possible to succeed, yes. The last time was over a decade ago, but each individual took over a section and put in enough interest and creativity to create something that garnered all that interest.

I'm not opposed to multiple ships, if there is enough interest to warrant it or those willing to discuss and collaborate think that's the route to go. I'm offering my perspective and what I can contribute, if a group is interested things can definitely be openly discussed like this. Am I going to do the bulk of work to make a space trucking game for others to run off and do their own plots while I sit around and approve apps, settle disputes, occasionally boot and block IPs, and sometimes run an event while I get no return satisfaction on my investment - no, not ever again, its no fun for me in this hobby of mine to do that.

I am saying I've been seeing a few wants for space type games oriented towards space trucking (hauling/mining/mercenary/whatever). If folks are interested enough to contribute, something might be made.

I don't have the time to do so myself, I was being honest up front about that. Also, sadly enough, I don't have too many friends to put such a call out too. Maybe its a sign I need to step back. I have no expectation for random person A to just offer up double duty, but really, if folks are wanting something like this its going to take a group effort.

Right now its a thread of less than 10 posts with me saying I'm willing to contribute a slice of the pie, are their other folks willing to add a slice to see if we can make a whole? That's the singular question. People know if they can or not, they are adults. If not enough interest, I'm not going to be upset or sad about it.