This cannon won't fire....

[Project_Sardonicus]

I was thinking of things in official supplements and magazine articles you didn't really agree with and maybe wanted to drop?

For me.

1 Replacement teams don't get a vehicle, supply, caches or many weapons.

Assuming you've gone to the trouble of training, hiding and freezing project members and who'll be waking up in a by definition dangerous situation (e.g. people dead or incapacitated). It always seemed odd that they might have to travel to meet up with the survivors unarmed, or if the survivors came to them they'd need to remember to bring all their fallen comrades gear with them.

2 The hodge podge of weapons in most of the rules sets.

Isn't it making it much harder to resupply when there is a whole mess of different calibres and even magazine sizes to pick between? Wouldn't the project have just gone with a few reliable systems and trained everyone on them?

3 The autonav

Wouldn't this have been more like a computer than whats basically a dumb map box? Or have some way of helping teams organise helpful reports to prime base. Also if each team only has knowledge of it's own caches what happens if they get sent to urgently deal with something somewhere else where another team had gone off line. Wouldn't they need access to their caches?

Just thinking any other niggles in whats basically a pretty cool 30 year old RPG?

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by Project_Sardonicus

1 Replacement teams don't get a vehicle, supply, caches or many weapons.

Assuming you've gone to the trouble of training, hiding and freezing project members and who'll be waking up in a by definition dangerous situation (e.g. people dead or incapacitated). It always seemed odd that they might have to travel to meet up with the survivors unarmed, or if the survivors came to them they'd need to remember to bring all their fallen comrades gear with them.

I agree with you here. Give them some kind of personal protection weapon and an older technology vehicle, say a civilian off-road with a hybrid drive that uses CNG. That should be able to get them to their destination where the vehicle can be abandoned or striped for parts.

2 The hodge podge of weapons in most of the rules sets.

Isn't it making it much harder to resupply when there is a whole mess of different calibres and even magazine sizes to pick between? Wouldn't the project have just gone with a few reliable systems and trained everyone on them?

My teams have only 5 calibers, which is not that many. You can't get away from having some significant number of calibers. 9x19mm rounds make really bad anti-materiel rifles and .50 handguns are difficult to handle.

3 The autonav

Wouldn't this have been more like a computer than whats basically a dumb map box? Or have some way of helping teams organise helpful reports to prime base. Also if each team only has knowledge of it's own caches what happens if they get sent to urgently deal with something somewhere else where another team had gone off line. Wouldn't they need access to their caches?

I don't know if this was an afterthought or not, but the blueprints/interior layout of all the V-150 variants, the Commando Scout, Commando Ranger and the "One"s all show a computer separate from the Autonav. Also the Autonav can already take track additional things from radar and the magnetic sensor. So it is likely if a team were sent off to an area where another team is off-line, the people sending them should have more complete knowledge of that team and be able to add the additional cache locations to it.

[tsofian]

How about the "one off" vehicles, especially in Operation Lone Star. Why not use SK-5s chassis, one as written and one stripped out and rebuilt as a Science platform. The Recon Albatros is totally useless, not just in the module, but in general. It can't fly high, it is open topped, has no weapons and the only sensors it has are eye balls. It is just silly.

Not in the modules but in the core book is The Blue Undead, which have never made any sense to me

[mmartin798]

The closest I have ever come to rationalizing the blue undead is to say it is a fungus that thrives on radiation that had taken over the brain and body functions of a live or recently dead host. There exists in nature fungus that live on radiation and fungus that take over the bodies of insects. Combine the two and you require a lot less handwavium to make the blue undead. But yeah, I don't use them either.

[Matt W]

I would alter the "Final Watch" module.

"The Land"
I suspect it was written soon after the Mount St Helens eruption. They didn't realise how quickly Nature recovers after a volcanic eruption. There SHOULD be a very healthy Temperate Rain Forest in and around the ruins of Seattle. Agriculture would be relatively easy

"The Secret Reload Base"
This is not even a plausible idea. Change this to some other Weapon of Mass Destruction for the players to worry about (Maybe Fort Lewis had a supply of VX warheads? Those might still be dangerous after 150 years)

Krell.
Why is Krell even in this module? It doesn't always have to be Krell. I've argued in favour of making the opposition "Breeders". Although the Inquisitors might be interesting...

[Project_Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by tsofian

How about the "one off" vehicles, especially in Operation Lone Star. Why not use SK-5s chassis, one as written and one stripped out and rebuilt as a Science platform. The Recon Albatros is totally useless, not just in the module, but in general. It can't fly high, it is open topped, has no weapons and the only sensors it has are eye balls. It is just silly.

Not in the modules but in the core book is The Blue Undead, which have never made any sense to me

Completely agree why build 3 ineffective top secret models when you've got a perfectly servicable 1960s model that does the job better? Would have made far more sense just to give the SK-5 a HUD etc. The one with a fixed 20mm canon seemed especially silly.

[Project_Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

The closest I have ever come to rationalizing the blue undead is to say it is a fungus that thrives on radiation that had taken over the brain and body functions of a live or recently dead host. There exists in nature fungus that live on radiation and fungus that take over the bodies of insects. Combine the two and you require a lot less handwavium to make the blue undead. But yeah, I don't use them either.

Good solution it would be a loss to lose the Blue Undead, they like the Owl Bear maybe a bit silly but they're also terrifying. I think they maybe the Morrow Project's contribution to the RPG Monster hall of fame.

[Project_Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by Matt W

I would alter the "Final Watch" module.

"The Land"
I suspect it was written soon after the Mount St Helens eruption. They didn't realise how quickly Nature recovers after a volcanic eruption. There SHOULD be a very healthy Temperate Rain Forest in and around the ruins of Seattle. Agriculture would be relatively easy

"The Secret Reload Base"
This is not even a plausible idea. Change this to some other Weapon of Mass Destruction for the players to worry about (Maybe Fort Lewis had a supply of VX warheads? Those might still be dangerous after 150 years)

Krell.
Why is Krell even in this module? It doesn't always have to be Krell. I've argued in favour of making the opposition "Breeders". Although the Inquisitors might be interesting...

Krell do seem to have that annoying vagueness that plagued a lot of 1980s scifi RPG villains. When we first meet them they've made a great big gatling gun for some reason and now they're on a boat.

It would be great for them to get a supplement with some more defined roles.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by Project_Sardonicus

Good solution it would be a loss to lose the Blue Undead, they like the Owl Bear maybe a bit silly but they're also terrifying. I think they maybe the Morrow Project's contribution to the RPG Monster hall of fame.

How do the Blue Undead remain highly radioactive after all this time? If they have long lived radionuclides they won't have the high specific activity. If they are short lived they will have gone through their ten half-lives and no longer be emitting.

Owlbears aren't any more silly in a fantasy setting then centaurs or griffons or other such chimeras (including chimeras btw). Blue undead just don't belong in a hard science setting. Save them for Gamma World