60 Years: Return Part 2

I hope you like math, because today is ROCKET SCIENCE DAY

• Part 1: Crew & Mission Generation 
• Part 2: Rocket Science
• Part 3: Mission Year 1 
• Part 4: Mission Years 2-4 
• Part 5: Wrap-up 

Our story stars JAXA’s exploratory rocket Hayashida and her four-person crew:

• Noi Shimada, Pilot; Callsign DEADLIFT
• Shin Zaha, Mission Specialist; Callsign HAMMER
• En Hajime, Callsign TOADSTOOL
• Fujita Avakian, Astronaut; Callsign TENGU

Their mission is to pile themselves into a pressurized metal can called the Hayashida and launch themselves at extremely high velocity towards the outer-system centaur asteroid 5145 Pholus to build an automated factory there.

6. Housekeeping

A few bits and bobs were left over from last session, so I'm going to deal with those first.

 

6.1 Responses

Andrew had some responses to Part 1 on Bluesky

• The game timeline splits from ours in 2015, when the real-world project started.
• Afrispace is indeed a leftover from that period.
• The problems with tables come from LATEX formatting issues. (I know nothing about LATEX, but if anyone out there does / knows how to make tables behave better, drop a comment below)
• The BSU colors were inherited from the boardgame but were given a greater importance in 60 Years, which has led to some conceptual breakage.
• Political Trends will be removed in the next update.

 

6.2 Bonus Skill Points (CR 119)

In a nice change of pace, the book aligns with a choice I was going to houserule: being able to spend the bonus skill points from chargen whenever I want instead of before I know what I need (CR 119). This is good, we love to see flashback mechanics to cut down on analysis paralysis.

A bigger issue can be found in actually spending those points on skills, because the section on buying and upgrading skills is confusingly written and needs another pass.

Proofing Note: The skill list doesn’t mention what each skill’s associated ability is. While most of them can be sussed out without much issue, it’s odd that this is left out, even when the only time it seems to be relevant is when purchasing a new skill (since the first point buy gets you skill = ½ the associated ability score).

Just as a demo, I am going to buy Fujita’s bonus skills, because he actually has all 6 of his starting points accounted for; his athlete service history means that he needs to spend 3 points on the Strong Arm skill before I do anything else.

His physical ability is 4, so the first point spent gives me Strong Arm 2, then two more points brings him up to Strong Arm 4. Science Specialists need 5+ in Prospect and he starts with 0, and we are…not able to meet the requirements. 3 skill points, even with the boosted first purchase, will only be able to get him up to Prospect 4.

So I will be ditching athlete and rolling again on the service record table: 3 gets me criminal conviction with a choice of assault or possession / sale of drugs or DUI. I’ll go with drunk driving, because if I had chosen drugs I would have had to roll a new character again since my faction is White.

Proofing Note: It’s possible to generate non-viable Science Influencer crewmembers. And probably other archetypes as well. Since this isn't funny a la characters dying during chargen in classic Traveler, it's best removed. 

6.3 Contacts (CR 116)

Everyone gets a free Emergency Contact, and then can purchase other contacts with skill points. I’m going to focus on Mission Control Contacts for now, since they can help us out with skill rolls and, unfortunately, they are also necessary for a couple mission types. I can't find where it says that, so I am going to hold off for now. The mechanical importance

7. Mission Builder (SI 68)

This Space Intentionally has an itemized list for mission components (hooray!), as follows:

• Source of mission (Done; it’s from our faction, White)
• Type of mission (Done; it’s a Science mission)
• Payload location (Done; Low Earth Orbit is the only option)
• Required payload specialists (Done: Engineer & Scientist)
• Payload: (Done: Refinery)
• Goal (Done: Industry)
• Destination (Done: 5145 Pholus)

So we have basically everything we need already figured out, though the refinery requires a bit of explanation.

Factories are used to extract resources from sites and build better ship parts. They require a refinery, a robonaut, a generator, and a reactor. You’re likely thinking “wait that’s four components why is the payload only one?” There is an answer, and while repeated several times in the text I don’t think it’s signposted nearly enough - the direct quote is on SI 70:

“...spacecraft are built using modular and re-usable components which means that the spacecraft will need to be rebuilt at a factory or turned into an outpost after it delivers its payload.”

Translated for layfolk: The intended gameplay loop is that you dismantle your ship when you arrive at your destination, then manufacture upgraded replacement parts (which you probably researched in transit).

In principle, I think this is cool. It’s one of those elements where realism adds a flavor that just doesn’t exist within the normal genre structures. But it is very clunky, and throws players directly into the deep end of the rocket components tables at the end of This Space Intentionally. But I think there's a potential ground that could smooth out this friction enough for everyone to leave happy. 

The premade rockets on CR 50 could be expanded into a flowchart; start with your basic rocket, then follow the line to 2-3 choices for each factory type you’re able to build, with those choices being functional differences ie “this one is solar powered” vs “this one is designed to deliver standalone modules” vs “this is an all-rounder”

The tables in the back of This Space Intentionally where all the rocket parts are located are already organized by premade rocket model, so the job is halfway done. Then all that analysis paralysis can be reduced down to “you need to spend x turns researching + y turns manufacturing, then you choose your new ship from the chart according to what factory you have.”

This would be a pretty happy medium, I think, between the crunch of the High Frontier system and something that would be more enjoyable for a general audience: you’re still making choices, but with more guidance and structure.

The starting rocket cards are halfway there: the Hayashida can be upgraded at an X class factory, which doesn’t help me at all with the mission I rolled since Pholus is a X-type site. Flowchart would help solve that.

If I decide to play more of this in the future, I will definitely be making something like this.

Anyway, back to the mission.

8. Plotting out the Mission 

Remember how I said there was a paragraph that took me 45 minutes to parse? It was this one on CR 206:

“Spacecraft movement consists of following a line on the High Frontier map and paying fuel steps to enter ”burns”, represented by pink shapes (circles or landers). You can stop on circles, zigzags (Hohmann intersections) or line intersections and change direction for free: a) on any circle including a burn; or b) by ending your move and choosing a new direction the following turn. You may also cross a zigzag or change direction at an intersection without a circle by paying for the equivalent of two burns mid-movement – you must stop on zigzags and intersections if you do not pay this two burn penalty. Each free pivot your thruster gives you allows you to ignore one of these two burn penalties and cross the intersection for free. A year passes when you stop moving.”

It also doesn’t contain the single-most important rule in the game, which is found in the middle of a paragraph in a premade tutorial mission in SI 27:

“You cannot enter more burns in a year than your net thrust.” 

To not belabor the point, that big confusing paragraph could be (and should be) cut down to:

• Your ship can burn fuel steps equal to its net thrust per year.
• You must burn 1 fuel step to enter a pink burn space.
• You may change your direction (pivot) for free on any intersection with a circle on it (if the circle is pink, you still need to pay 1 fuel step to enter.)
• Otherwise, you must burn 2 fuel steps to pivot at an intersection that doesn’t have a circle.
• You must burn 2 fuel steps to pass through a zigzag (Hohmann Transfer) on your route.
• You can bypass the cost of a pivot or transfer by ending your turn at that point on the map.
• Black circles are gravity assist flybys: they give you X free burns that must be used the turn they are received: only one flyby can be performed per year.
• A thruster’s afterburn stat gives you that much thrust for the year’s move for the cost of 1 fuel step.
• Some thrusters can provide you with additional free pivots.

 

Why do I suddenly hear Sburban Jungle when I look at this

I’ve highlighted the intended route on the map (the High Frontier mission planner is an absolute godsend and 100% the reason this is doable at all for me), and as you can see it’s a right bastard of a trip. 9 burns +  6 pivots + 3 transfers, but this will be cut down when I factor in my freebies. The Lunar and Jovian flybies will cancel out a total of 5 burns, and 4 of the pivots can be tossed because they have a circle on them, leaving me with (rough estimate) 4 burns, 2 pivots, and 3 transfers. We’ll shave off some more as we go, since we can’t do all of them at once.

The Hayashida can produce 4 thrust, plus 1 if we afterburn, at a fuel cost of 1 step per burn. This means we max out at 5 burns per year, though as you’ll see the actual number is going to be lower. With the refinery and crew module included, the Hayashida has a dry mass of 13, which puts us at a -1 thrust penalty and a 1 fuel tank / burn ratio at our absolute fastest.

The tyranny of the rocket equation is that you have to lug around all your fuel with you; as it turns out rocket fuel is real fucking heavy and so a huge chunk of your fuel budget is wasted hauling the rest of your fuel around. In-game, this is factored into your ship’s thrust and fuel efficiency: if your ship is above a certain wet mass (ship + fuel), you’ll take a penalty to your net thrust (can make fewer burns per year) and be able to make fewer burns per fuel tank.

From this I now have to work backwards to figure out how much fuel I need to get to Pholus.

Commentary: Incidentally, this section is an excellent illustration of why it was extremely silly to add a crucial fuel-based plot point to The Last Jedi. Star Wars ships run on “spaceship go vroom”, the moment you try and treat it like actual space travel even a tiny bit you bring in a thousand new and complex questions.

8. It is, in Fact, Literal Rocket Science

So the book doesn’t include much guidance on how to actually calculate how much fuel you’ll need. It gives you the table to figure out your thrust and fuel efficiency at a given point and over time, and the game says you start with enough fuel to get to your destination, but to actually figure out the numbers I had to longhand it.

But in longhanding it, I did manage to cook up a decent, if basic, way of visualizing and conceptualizing fuel: It’s spell slots.

This is just the table on CR 208, the only difference being the addition of the tracking column.

I start with a dry mass of 13, which means I get a maximum (we won't need all of it) of:

• 3 burns at 1 burn/tank, 3+1 burns/year.
• 8 burns at 1 burn/tank, 2+1 burns/year
• 4 burns at 2 tanks/burn, 2+1 burns/year.

We’re going to need to stop somewhere along the line so we can use the flybies, so one more pivot can be tossed. At maximum (if we don’t make any other layovers), we would need enough fuel for 12 burns, which would put us right at Wet Mass 24. That’s enough to pencil in, and I can make a draft plan.

8.1 Year 1

Relatively simple, as far as rocket science goes: Low Earth Orbit into a Lunar slingshot and onward to the Sol-Mars L4, where we make a free pivot towards the Green Line (LEO > Enceladus)We end the turn merging on the Green Line, which will make that pivot free and allow us to use the Jovian flyby next turn.

• Starting Net Thrust: 2+1AB
• Total Movement: 2 burns, 1 free burn, 1 free pivot (end turn).
• Year-End Wet Mass: 22

8.2 Year 2

We stick to the Green Line for two more burns until we reach the Jupiter flyby, which gives us a whopping +4 gravity assist. We slingshot north, pivot left at the T (2 burn, cancelled out) pivot right for free at the next burn (1 burn, free), pivot left at the Sol-Saturn L5, coast until we hit the next burn (our last freebie). We afterburn this year, getting us to the next burn (1 burn) and call it a turn.

• Starting Net Thrust: 2+1AB
• Total Movement: 3 burns, 3 free pivots
• Year-End Wet Mass: 19

8.3 Year 3 

Now we enter a SuperEyepatchWolf-certified TERROR ZONE: three back to back Hohmann transfers. (Well, not that much of a terror zone, I originally thought it was six transfers because of the way the map parses pivots)

That’s six burns worth of transfers, and there’s one more burn before we reach Pholus. I’m still stuck at 2+1 burns per turn, so I’m going to have to split this up.

I can pass through the first Hohmann Transfer, but have to end my turn on the second.

• Starting Net Thrust: 2+1AB
• Total Movement: 2 burns (1 Hohmann transfer) + 2 free burns (turn end)
• Year-End Wet Mass: 17

8.4 Year 4

We spend 3 burn to push us through the last transfer and the last burn

• Starting Net Thrust: 2+1AB
• Total Movement: 2 burns (1 Hohmann transfer) + 1 burn
• Year-End Wet Mass: 15

We have some excess fuel, but that’s actually a good thing: the Hayashida can’t actually land on Pholus: landing requires net thrust greater than the site size, and Pholus is size 4.

BUT! We have our handy-dandy detachable crew module! Mass 1, Thrust 8, 8 steps per burn / Afterburn 2. I move one of our spare fuel tanks to the module, which gives us a Wet Mass of 2 and a net thrust of 9, which is more than enough to land on Pholus. Since landing on Pholus doesn’t cost me a burn, I don't have to worry about fuel steps.

We’ve done it (the planning stage, at least)! The Hayashida can reach Pholus in four years and her crew can safely land and build a factory!

FUCK YOU PHYSICS YOU CAN’T STOP ME. I’LL FIGHT GOD AND WIN.

I will leave things here and start the actual gameplay segment in the next post, but to wrap it up I’ve got some chunky additional commentary

  

9. Further Thoughts about all that the Rocket Science

I won't lie; it was satisfying to see it all come together. But there has got to be a better way of calculating this. A graph, a table, an equation, something.  Maybe there isn't and this actually is the most efficient way to do it - I doubt that's the case, but maybe. Aft the very least it needs to be way more streamlined and player-focused than it is, because it's the central mechanic of the game. 

9.1 The Alternative in the Book

The rules do provide an alternative, where the shipbuilding and mission calculations are elided entirely and replaced with a single roll of 1d6+1 years (CR 40). If I was going to play more than one mission, I’d take this option, but I don’t think it’s a satisfying solution: it doesn’t scale with distance (which is weird, considering that range bands are a recurring mechanical component of the game), which means you can end up with missions to Mercury and Neptune running the same amount of time and likely being far too long or far too short. 

I’m violating my “no homebrew” rule to introduce a minor palliative to this mechanic. The roll now varies slightly depending on launch point and destination; the “inner system” is not strictly defined in the book (at least not that I could find), so here I'm using the most reasonable option of “everything from Mercury through Ceres”.

• Inner > Inner: 1d3 years (1d3-1, minimum 1, if adjacent bands)

• Inner > Outer: 1d3, +1 for every Outer System range band you pass through, inclusive of destination. Back of the napkin calculations
• Earth > Jupiter 2-4 years
• Earth > Saturn: 3-5 years
• Earth > Uranus: 4-6 years
• Earth > Neptune: 5-7 years

• Outer > Inner: As above, but the Inner System counts as one zone if you're starting from Outer.

• Outer > Outer: 2d3+1

• Traveling between moons of a single planet is just 1 year.

9.2 Alternative 2

Ignore fuel entirely and just use net thrust and dry mass to determine how far you can go in one year. We have a wizard opening up a portal to the outer corona of Azathoth or something.

9.3 Alternative 3

Calculate wet mass as an abstracted +X fuel tanks per range band you’ll be traveling through. Burns are then used only as a way of calculating time, since you can still only travel equal to your net thrust. We only track fuel expenditure on a per-range band basis instead of per burn; -2 fuel tanks per band, every band. You’d have to break the total burns into both # of burns per band and each individual year, which is less than ideal

EX. Earth > Uranus band is 5 bands, if I say it’s 2 tanks / band the Hayashida would be starting at 23 mass, which is in the same range as my in-depth calculations. 

** 

So yeah, there we go; a shit-ton of number crunching and a plan to get from Point A to Point B. This was significantly less frustrating than Part 1, likely as a combination of getting used to the books, the method paying off, and this section being mostly pulled from board game rules that have had four editions worth of refinement.

Tune in next time to see it actually get played! If I don't get perma-distracted by Hades 2.