Two-Part Traveller Tuesday: More on Missiles

Since I didn't write anything yesterday, I give you two entries today. Both are for Traveller, as it's what has been occupying my mind lately. Part 2 will show up later tonight.

So, back to missiles.  Last year I fixed the issue with thrust and time to target (link to handy spreadsheet here), and now I find myself thinking about their potential additive properties.

Allow me to explain.  In the core book of Mongoose Traveller, we are given three types of missiles for starships:

• Basic. TL 6, does 1d6 damage, costs 15,000 for 12. 
• Smart. TL 7, does 1d6 damage, costs 30,000 for 12. 
• Nuclear. TL 6, does 2d6 + crew hit damage, costs 45,000 for 12. 

My question is, quite simply, Why can't a nuclear missile also be smart?  We've already established that if you can built a smart missile you can build a nuke, and we can clearly see that the price difference for smart-izing a missile is 15,000.  So why not make Smart Nukes that are TL 7, do 2g6 damage, and cost 60,000 for 12?  It only makes sense. 

And that line of thinking naturally led me to consider all the other missiles from High Guard et al (again, found at the spreadsheet link) and wonder "What's keeping me from making a smart, long-range, multi-warhead nuke?"

The answer, naturally, is "Not much."  So here are some quick and dirty rules for getting the most out of missiles in Traveller, assuming you don't mind spending gobs of money on one-use items. 

1)  We start with the assumption that all missiles are Basic (Tl 7, 1d6 damage, 15,000) and build from there. 

2)  We add whatever improvements we want. All additions and subtractions are cumulative. 

• Making a missile Smart costs 15,000 and doesn't affect payload, range, or endurance. Requires TL 8 and may only be shot from a TL 8+ launcher. 
• Making a missile Nuclear costs 30,000, adds 1d6 + crew hit to damage. Endurance and thrust unaffected.
• Making a missile Long Range costs 10,000, subtracts 1 from all damage rolled, and missile now uses thrust and endurance of baseline long range missiles. 
• Making a missile Multi-warhead costs 25,000, adds "x 1d6" to all damage to represent multiple warhead strikes. It uses thrust and endurance of baseline multi-warhead missiles (unless this is improved with the Long Range addition). 
• Making a missile Decoy costs 20,000, subtracts 1 from damage, and uses thrust and endurance per baseline decoy missiles. Requires TL 9. 

So if I really wanted to, and had enough money (like the military), I could indeed have a TL 8 Long Range, Multi-Warhead, Smart Decoy Nuke that moves at thrust 5 for 7 turns, has a -2 to be shot down by point defense, and does (2d6-2 + crew hit) x 1d6 damage, and costs a whopping 115,000 per group of 12. 

3) Now let's look at some of the specialty missiles and how they could be upgraded. 

• Fragmentation missiles may utilize all upgrades, although some of them (such as decoy and nuclear) may be of questionable benefit, while others are pure overkill.
• Jumpbreaker missiles may be made smart, long range, and decoy, but do not benefit from further upgrades as this missile isn't intended to cause damage in the first place. 
• Shockwave missiles, because they attack sand clouds, only benefit from being smart, long range, and decoy. 

With me so far?  Okay, now it's time to get mean. Look at the rules for Advanced Technology in High Guard and notice how weapons systems can have benefits like "accurate" or "high yield". 

On the one hand, it seems patently silly that by upgrading the missile launcher one is able to make the missiles go further or do more damage, especially when we already have long range missiles that can be loaded into any launcher of any tech level. (I'm okay with "accurate" as I assume that the launcher is painting the target with a laser or otherwise using advanced avionics to steer the missile to the target.)

However... there's nothing to stop one from upgrading the missiles directly, is there? Well, other than money, of course. 

• Both missiles and their launchers may be upgraded to Accurate. I imagine the to-hit modifiers would be cumulative. 
• Easy to Repair  is just silly and should not be allowed. 
• Both High Yield and Very High Yield* are possible. Yes, you can have VHY nukes. Be afraid.
• Long Range  and Variable Range both make no sense as I don't see how a launcher could make a missile go further. Besides, we already have a missile add-on for just that thing. 
• Resilient seems silly until you realize that it creates a missile that must be hit twice before point defense kills it. Combine this with my evil idea from last week and you've got one hell of a party. (Special thanks to one my players for thinking this up.)

I believe that these rules nicely highlight the difference between civilian-grade (what the market can bear) and military-grade (goverments can throw tons of money at something and not blink) weapons systems.

Want a Resilient, High Yield, Long Range, Multi-Warhead, Smart Decoy Nuke?  Sure thing, just fork over 230,000 per dozen. Be sure to listen for that cash register "ka-ching" sound every time you shoot one!

* I can't think of a reason why Sandcaster barrels can't be made High Yield or VHY either. Make the launcher Accurate and you have a very potent, if very expensive, anti-laser system. 

An Experiment in Patronage

Last night I had a really nifty and really evil idea for a weapons system in Traveller that I could potentially loose upon my players.  So I investigated it, statted it up, and then realized it might be too evil, even for me.

Of course, this left me with a distressing dilemma that I think all Game Masters will understand: If I don't use it, then no one will appreciate my evil brilliance and tell me what a creative and disturbed individual I am. And if no one appreciates it and I don't use it, then it's a wasted idea. And since I still might tell my players about it, I don't want to just give the idea away because then the element of surprise is lost.

That's when it occurred to me:  Patreon is all about rewarding my Patrons.

I had initially resisted the idea of Patreon because 1) I wasn't sure how I could create patron-only content when my time was already limited, and 2) the idea of holding my ideas for ransom, after doing it for free for so long, seemed distasteful.

But I think that this is a solution I can be happy with. I've already done the work, and I can let people see it without just giving it away to my players -- and if they truly want to know what it is, they can become a patron as well. It is visible to any level patron of mine, and hopefully this will attract more patronage.

And so if you are a patron of mine (and if you're not, I encourage you to become one!), you can head over to Patreon and look at the weapon system for Traveller (Mongoose Edition) that was too evil for even my own use.

Probably.

I really ought to confess...

... that at this point, I'm doing this to troll the purists as much as any other reason.

What's Russian for "My Mosin goes up to 10"? 

I'll review it after I take it out to the range. Oh, the horror that is my life...

Bow down before the one you serve...

... you're going to get what you deserve. You wanted me to read smut? You get smut read to you. Smutty, smutty smut.


TRIGGER WARNING for those who have sexual hangups. Or for anyone who has good taste, basically.

Here is the dramatic reading I promised.  Kindly recall that I also promised you an epic revenge. 


Muahahahahahahah.  Happy Halloween....

Something special is coming...

Remember how I pledged that if you hit a stretch goal I'd do a dramatic reading?  And how you guys voted for 50 Shades of Grey ?

Well, tonight you get what's coming to you.

Revenge is a dish best served pastel

There is a family -- mother, father, son & daughter) that comes visit us every Saturday because we adopted their dog when they moved into no-pets-allowed housing. For several months they have been teasing me about my love for My Little Pony. It's mostly been the mother (41) giving me grief, but to a lesser extent her son (12) and daughter (9) as well.

I've mostly shrugged and laughed it off, because screw them, ponies are awesome.

Last week, however, I asked the little girl if she'd like to borrow my DVD of The Friendship Express just so she could "give it a try and see why I like it." She reluctantly said yes, more to humor me than out of any real desire to see it.

A few days later I got a call from her mother saying that the girl loved the DVD and would not stop watching it. It was playing in the car even as she spoke.

Success! I told this to my mother, who laughed and said "You've converted another one."

Yesterday, as it turned out, was the daughter's birthday. When my mom went shopping last week, she picked up some pony dolls for her. When we met today, we presented her with Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Lyra (because those are what the store had).

The little girl shrieked with delight at her presents and became  a blur of motion, alternately playing with the toys and telling her mother about this pony or that pony. Her mother was clearly exasperated and at her wits' end and sick of being subjected to so much pony.

Naturally, I encouraged this and chimed in with my own pony thoughts and observations, quoted lines back at her, sang along, etc. Even the little boy admitted that some of the jokes were funny, and outed himself as knowing who the characters were by naming Pinkie Pie, Applejack, etc.

The best part is, never even intended for this to be payback. But oh, how I did laugh when it turned out that way!

Mine is an evil yet adorable laugh.

Revenge is a dish best served pastel, motherbuckers.

NCsoft's stocks nosedive like lemmings off a cliff

Oh, look, their stocks are auguring into the ground:

At this rate, how long before they've lost so much they will need to start selling off IP in order to staunch the hemorrhaging? Or the stockholders call for a vote of No Confidence in the CEO?

Oh NCsoft, it couldn't have happened to a nicer company.

NCSoft's Continuing Slide Into Irrelevance and Bankruptcy

Speaking of bullshit moves, NCSoft continues its corporate doublespeak and is reaping the whirlwind for their efforts.  To whit:

The Save City of Heroes Campaign Reveals NCsoft’s Firewall of Silence | EGMNOW

Quoting the juicy bits (and you really should go read the whole article),

However, it was all in vain as on October 2 the publisher issued a statement saying that it had “exhausted all options including the selling of the studio and the rights to the City of Heroes intellectual property, but in the end, efforts to do so were not successful.”

Of course this is where the twist occurs, the Save City of Heroes community claim to know of at least two investment groups who wished to purchase the license, but NCsoft never replied to their offers. This led the group to contact NCsoft regarding these offers, [asking certain questions].

After around two weeks of no response Lincoln Davis, director of corporate communications at NCsoft’s Seattle Office, offered this reply, “I wanted to let you know that we will be declining your interview request as it relates to the sun setting of City of Heroes.”

So they've lied about not having any buyers and/or exhausting all options. It really does boil down to "We don't want to operate it, but we don't want anyone else to make money from it either."

But it gets better. Fans of City of Heroes have been leaving messages on NCSoft's Facebook page, and I am hearing reports that not only are those messages being deleted, but NCSoft has reverted their page to Korean to prevent non-Korean speakers from leaving comments.

What's more, they are engaging in more futile corporate BS in an attempt to staunch the bleeding.  Patrick Osbourne, a member of "Save City of Heroes," reported the following:

I just got this reply after posting on ther page:

[∵] Dear NCSOFT Facebook Fan,

We feel immense gratitude towards your love and enthusiasm of 'City of Heroes'. It has been quite the privilege and we would like to thank you all. 'City of Heroes' is the world's first and best Super Heroes MMORPG. It has received unconditional love for more than 8 years and it is like a family member of this company.

However, to provide a better game and service in the future, we have made the tough decision to discontinue the game. It was very hard on all of us here at NCSOFT.

NCSOFT will strive for a better game and superior service and anticipates the day that we will meet again. We are confident that we will not look back towards today's choice with regret.

Lastly, for the users who enjoy other games of NCSOFT, we would greatly appreciate it if you can hold back the negative and hurtful comments.

Thank you very much.

Now this is normally where I'd translate this as "Please stop poking me with the truth, it hurts and we want you to go away," but another member of this group, Logan Darklighter, has a much better take on it:

TRANSLATION OF NCSOFT BULLSHIT SPEAK:

"We feel really bad for setting that puppy on fire. We want you to know that we loved the puppy too. But once we doused in in gasoline and lit it on fire, we just couldn't put it out."

"We even tried waving a fan at it to put the flames out and everything, but sadly all options are exhausted. Now let's please stop trying to put the puppy out, and instead hug and share happy memories of the puppy while it burns to death."

And also please stop mentioning to everyone how we set puppies on fire."

Oh NCSoft, I'm trying hard to see things from your perspective, but try as I might I just can't get my head lodged that far up my ass.

But wait, it gets better.  Take a look at this graph right here:

See where it peaked? September 7th.  Know what happened on September 8th?

Why, that would be the massive Unity Rally held within the game.

We are heroes. This is who we are. This is what we do. 

Huh. Who would have thought that excluding Europe and North America from your market would have resulted in fiscal backlash?

Oh, right: We did.

I am very, very eager to see what happens in the coming months.

An update on City of Heroes

A brief summary thus far:

After announcing that City of Heroes would be shut down at the end of November, many fans have decided that their game -- the #1 superhero MMO in the world, thank you very much -- will not go quietly into that good night. As such, that have organized online vigils, sent capes and masks to NCsoft headquarters, bought dinners for the Dev team as a means of saying "Thank you," tried to get the game sold to other companies, and generally sticking it to The Man.

The Man noticed. The Man blinked. The Man is scared, now, because someone at NCsoft corporate has realized that they've pissed off a significant chunk of their market, and they are scurrying to do damage control.

So they wrote this press release:

City of Heroes® Players and Fans,

We wanted to let you know that your voices have been heard and your concerns have been taken into serious consideration. We appreciate the overwhelmingly constructive and positive messages in the emails, notes, and packages you've sent in support of the game. It has not been an easy decision for us to close Paragon Studios® and prepare to shut down City of Heroes. We've exhausted all options including the selling of the studio and the rights to the City of Heroes intellectual property, but in the end, efforts to do so were not successful. City of Heroes has a special place in all of our hearts, and we want to ensure its reputation and the memories we share for the game end on a high note. 

Once again, we will be holding events throughout the process of preparing for the game's end, and we encourage players and fans of the franchise to join forces and enjoy their time in a game that we've enjoyed supporting for more than eight years. 

The NCSOFT® Team

If you are well-versed in corporate speak, this means fuck-all. It's essentially "Stop writing to us, we really want this to go away now."

Hey, don't take my word for it. Listen to the sage wisdom of Larry Dixon, husband of Mercedes Lackey (who is a bigtime COH player):

It's as "real" as anything else NCsoft says or does. That'll flip if they want it to. What it *is* is an admission that they've noticed enough to respond to it "on company letterhead." Its face value is meaningless.

The REAL takeaway from this is "Hey this is starting to hurt, stop it guys!" If the revival efforts meant nothing, NCsoft would not post what amounts to "Elvis has left the building." And that is all that is. They want the negative attention to stop. That is an official attempt at deflection. Or, in political terms, an "Un-Answer."

It appears to be a response but actually accomplishes nothing except silence those who weren't very into it. Like I say, what it says is irrelevant; the thing to take notice of is that it was put there at all. And that means time to step it up because the other fighter just staggered.

If the "Save CoH/We love Paragon" etc. efforts were ineffective, we'd never have seen such a statement. The hidden meaning of that note is that it has dawned on somebody that this is developing into "anti-NCsoft," not "Save-CoH," so they issued a mollifying statement with a lot of buttonpushing feel-warm cozy buttons about how special what they just murdered was to them.

Now they reap the mistrust they sowed, they can see the coverage increase, the caution against them and the players taking their money away in droves, and we can look them steely in the eyes and reply "Too bad. It's just business. Isn't it."

The "exhausted all options" is bizspeak for "We didn't get what we wanted, so we stopped bothering to find solutions." Businesspeople who truly WANT a result ALWAYS find a way, they never "exhaust all options." So right there is an admission from NCsoft that they're very bad businesspeople. Most certainly unimaginative and inflexible.

Shortest form: As a strategist, the hits are being felt by NCsoft, and they've barely begun.

Second message: This is the murderer issuing an official statement that they "really tried hard" not kill what they had a choice about murdering, and hoping that "Oh they loved it like I did, they're really sorry!" should be your takeaway from that and that should make EVERYTHING just fine, right?

I don't take "We loved it too!" as anything but an insult to our intelligence.
Nah, this is a "There, that'll shut'em up" attempt, as if talking to six-year-olds.

People are noticing. This is turning into a public relations debacle, which translates into loss of revenue -- and that's the one thing no company wants.

You see, they don't want to admit it, but they are in the process of closing down all offices outside of Korea.  Go ahead and look at that Glassdoor rating: 2.3 stars out of 5, and falling. Read those reviews and see if you don't discover a recurring theme.

Frankly, I'd respect NCsoft more if they just said "Look, we don't want American/Canadian/European money any more. We're just going to focus on the lucrative Asian market," because at least then they'd be honest about it.

I don't know if it's a case of dwindling market share, and they're just going to consolidate closer to home while making games for demographics they understand, or if it really is a case of cultural racism and disdain for every western-style game (i.e. not focused on the stereotypical Korean MMO grind), but either way, it's looking pretty obvious that they don't care about anything outside their personal sphere of influence.

But what's important is this:  we've caught them in that, and it doesn't look good. And they're slowly starting to realize that fact. If they ever want to expand back into North American and Europe, they have to stop the bleeding.

They're begging us to stop asking questions. To stop making them look bad. To sit down, shut up, and go away. To that I say:

We are heroes. This is who we are. This is what we do.