State of the Blog Address

Howdy Savages.  Its 2012 and already I've let a month go by without posting.  My bad.  I have a number of projects nearly completed.  Chief among these is a little starship generation system I call FADS - Fast And Dirty Starships.

In the course of poking through the crunchy bits of Future Perfect, I decided that I needed to cut a lot of the complexity back out from my ship designs to get back to Savage Worlds' FFF design philosophy.  However, Future Perfect was itself build around adding complexity -- so I decided to focus on streamlining what I had and spinning it off into a simple addition that would be compatible with the rules in Savage Worlds Deluxe.  Instead of a toolkit system, FADS offers up a handful of basic templates which are then modified according to the results of a few die rolls. Of course, there is no reason why it has to be random, so a GM could just as easily choose an option or two from the tables and customize a design as they see fit.  Overall, it is a lot easier and a lot faster than the ground up approach that my Ship Design Guide in Future Perfect was providing.

Below are two "Small Warships" made using random rolls in FADS.  As you can see, the results are markedly different from one another, but still essentially the same overall class of ship.  Neither will be mistaken for a fighter, a freighter, or a true, heavy battleship.

Mantis-Class Light Cruiser, Pursuit and Extraction Frigate
Type: Small Warship
Acc: 100  Top: 600  Handling: -1  Climb: +1
FTL:  Beacon, Basic Hyperdrive
Crew: 10  Hull: 51 (26)  Maintenance: +0
Ship Systems:
Basic Ship Computer with Astrogation and Ship Recognition Libraries; Atmospheric; Basic Hyperdrive; Gateway Beacon; External Docking Clamps (2); Marines (20); Cargo Bay (2 Units); Security Brig (6 Cells)
Weapons:
(2) Heavy Mass Driver Arrays: 100/200/400; 6d12 AP8; RoF1; Doubletap; Turret Mounts
(2) Torpedo Launchers: 300/600/1200; 5d10 AP50; RoF1; 8 Shots, MBT, Tracking [Speed 1200; Range 4800*; Climb +1]; Forward Mount
(2) Medium Pulse Cannons: 100/200/400; 3d8 AP8; RoF3; Autofire, 3RB; Turret Mounts
Advanced AMCM System

Halberd Dropship, Heavy Troop Transport
Type: Small Warship
Acc: 100  Top: 600  Handling: -1  Climb: +1
FTL:  Beacon
Crew: 10  Hull: 49 (22)  Maintenance: +0
Ship Systems:
Basic Ship Computer with Astrogation and Ship Recognition Libraries; Atmospheric; Gateway Beacon; External Docking Clamps (2); Marines (30); Cargo Bay (2 Units); Stealth System
Weapons:
(1) Heavy Missile Ultra-Rack: 250/500/1000; 6d6 AP 12; RoF1-10; 10 Shots
(2) Heavy Beam Cannons: 100/200/400; 4d10 AP10; RoF1 (Fixed Forward)
(2) Scattercannons: 80/160/320; 4d6 AP4; RoF1; SBT (Turrets)
Advanced AMCM System

Now, Future Perfect and its starships arent going anywhere.  However, working on FADS has lead me to rethink how I approached much of what I wrote, and some of the rather interesting new settings and rules offer up a lot of new perspective to examine.  Why reinvent the wheel if I don't have to?  I figure the closer I can keep everything to the core rules and official rules options, the more likely I may be able to secure an official Savage Worlds license. That said, I am also hoping to formalize in greater detail some of the options I presented for the setting, such as Cultural Packages in addition to Racial ones, Contacts and Reputation, and a means of background generation using the turning points life-event system.

Finally, I have two more one-sheet adventures almost ready for editing.  One is for fantasy, presenting a tale in which a human town and an orc tribe both realize there is something sinister placing the existence of both communities in peril.  The second is a Science Fiction romp, intended for Future Perfect but adapted easily to other settings, in which a simple mission to salvage information from a derelict starship goes horribly awry.

I'm sure other things will trickle into the mix as well.  I just wanted to let folks know that despite a month of relative quiet, quite a few things are in progress.