VIII. (F)AQ

[ourspace]

(F)AQ? So far everything on this page is just “things we thought you might ask” and no one has asked any questions yet, so there can’t be any frequently asked questions right now. Where’s the network comm? There isn’t one, and there aren’t any super-communicators. Characters will receive civilian-grade space-laptops and space-cellphones shortly after arrival, with which they can set up space-Gmail and space-Skype and and space-text messages and space-Netflix as they choose. If they formally enlist with either the Earth or Colonial militaries, they’ll get military-grade space-laptops and space-cellphones. The giant robots also have communications systems, though god bless you if you want to go on space-Tumblr during a sortie. If you want to RP electronic communications, please just do so on the main comm. Private inboxes on a character’s journal are fine, but aren’t required, and will not count toward activity. Is there time compression? Yes. The compression ratio is 1 IC day to every 3 OOC days. Time compression is slightly harder to keep track of, but tends to encourage playing things out rather than just planning them in OOC posts. See the Calendar if you get confused about what IC day it is. The game starts on the IC date of January 1, 2516. Can I switch factions. Yes, although not until the fourth OOC week. See the Faction Switching page. Can I app a non-human? Yes. They’ll appear without modifications unless they’re bigger than 20 meters, in which case, they can’t be bigger than 20 meters. However, there will be IC consequences. There are no sentient non-humans native to this world. Commander Hayes and Captain Tanaka will be open-minded about non-humans, but a visible non-human or talking dog in public at a non-military facility will get strange looks or possibly cause panic. Also, if you app a character who’s bigger than 4 meters, they’ll probably be stuck in the hangar until they trade in quartz for some sort of size-changing ability. Depending on how non-human the character is, they may also have trouble using those space-phones and space-laptops. Why doesn’t the test drive have anything to do with the main game? Why can’t my character remember what happened during the test drive? Secret metaplot reasons which will be revealed halfway through the game. Isn’t this a ripoff of [canon name, probably a Gundam series]? It definitely is. What happened to the thing where you could bring your giant robot with you when you arrived? On 11/22, after feedback and discussions with the people who provided support while this game was setting up, a decision was made to nix that mechanism in favor of placing more emphasis on this universe's grunt robots. This change was made for ease of gameplay, to reduce confusion, and because the game is really meant to have more of a space opera vibe than a hard mecha vibe. Apologies to anyone who has already sunk time into an application based on the old mechanism. There are not currently plans to make robots or fighters from home available.  Got something else? Leave your question below. If it seems like it will be frequently asked, it will get copy-pasted up here! Questions will not be screened, so that other people can learn from them. If you want to ask a question privately, please email openspacemods[at]gmail.

 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

If my character canonically has a space ship andor space vehicle of some kind, can they bring that with them?

[ourspace]

Fighters like Vipers or X-Wings will come with characters on arrival.

Larger ships will not come with characters on arrival -- characters will need to bring them later by trading Quartz/Macguffins to the Clamshell/magic box to get the ship later. This is basically for size issues: ships don't scale down as easily as robots, and the Morning Star and Pericles have limited carrying/towing capacity. The cost of the trade-in will depend on the size of the ship, which can be set before you start saving Quartz by emailing the mod account.

As a rule of thumb for other types of space vehicles, if there's a bed or enough free space for a bed, it probably falls into the ship category rather than the fighter category.

[(Anonymous)]

what if the ship is also a mech, however, in the case of various sentai and power rangers teams?

[ourspace]

Sorry to say, my only sentai knowledge is MMPR and Samurai Flamenco. Can you elaborate a little further? I want to say "the Pterodactyl would come with Kimberly" but I feel like you're actually asking about something else.

[(Anonymous)]

In Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, the core of their super robot, the Gokai Galleon, is also their home and base of operations. The other components store inside it like a Matroyshka doll. Meanwhile in Power Rangers in Space the Astro Megaship is both the team's home and primary means of transportation, but also their megazord.

[ourspace]

In the first one, the components would come on arrival. The ship would have to come later, because it's a home and it sounds big. In the second one, it would have to come later, because it's a home and it sounds big. (This goes for Macross-class ships that turn into giant-giant mecha, too.)

The current rule definitely does give ship-people a small disadvantage at the beginning -- people with fighters get the morale boost of "hey my robot came with me!" when they arrive, and people with ships don't. But remember that the fighters don't function until the pilot has saved up five quartz for them, at which point the fighter regains basic functionality. With ships, it will cost more to save up for them (tentatively it'll be size proportional -- a 20 meter fighter takes five quartz to power, so a 100 meter ship takes twenty-five quartz to pull through the Clamshell), but they'll come through the Clamshell already having basic functionality. Now that I think about it, the "when your ship gets here, it will be working" isn't on the page about trade-ins and I should add it. So the disadvantage ends at the time of trade-in.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, thank you. That was very informative.