Re: Mammoth -> Horseshoe Crab

Is there any
concern about stow-aways?
	No, not really. The captain could choose to prosecute or just make
them work off their passage. If they plan trouble [evil grin] the crew might
have a hard time of it, but captains are pretty tough customers even in my
sphere. And the escorts are just a comm call away. Teleport no error is such
a handy spell and when your warships have teleporters (beam me up Scotty!)
escorted merchies tend to feel pretty safe.


That sounds reasonable there. You might want to consider all the
poltics that went into that decision - maybe the PCs have made
some new political enemies! [grin]
	oh to be sure. Merchant guilds no longer exist in FeO, but the
Unions are no one to trifle with.

Then, there is maybe politicing within the FRN about who gets the
convoy duty - this may well not get the best naval captains.
	I actually was considering the FRNs position that a six month cruise
would be the ideal place to try out new captains and shake down the crews
and ships for an extended duty elsewhere in the system.

I wonder how upset the Arcane are at loosing all that (potential)
business! [grin]
	[evil grin] the Arcane, [evil grin] have been the root behind the
last six system invasions. They want back in soooo bad. [evil grin]

More than twenty miles to nearly thirty miles. That _is_
impressive!

I would be interested in anything more that you are prepared to
say about the magical 'technology' you are using for such good
sensors. Also the fire-and-forget weapons. Are merchant ships as
well equipped?
	The nuts and bolt of it is pretty complicated, but the gist of them
is based on crystal balls and every type of detect spell listed from the
various AD&D books and supplements. Next the old AD&D spell list included
three very useful spells that if interpreted generously can increase range,
area of effect and duration of any spell lower level than themselves. If
your players are enterprising enough to do the spell research, they can add
another spell that will adjust damage or alter a spell effect. Check out
Augmentation I,II,III; Extension I,II,III; and Expansion I,II,III for ideas.
If these spells are laid into the magical matrix of an item then you get
longer range, effects etc...(e.g. an augmented wand of magic missles will
produce MMs that fire 480 yds instead of 240 yds). A crystal screen (ball)
that has one augmentation, expansion, extension, alteration and the
applicable detect spells equals a MK 1a sensor that has a range out to about
500 yds.(actually 480, but enough magic goes into it I felt justified for
rounding it up.) Expensive? If you're working with a feudal economy, YES. Oh
God Yes. Hard to produce? If making magic items is done by some lone cottage
hedge wizard, impossible. It takes the full effort of a coordinated team of
mages of significant level in a laboratory "clean" room with unlimited
resources working round the clock shift work about 1 1/2 months to make a MK
1a., but Henry Ford would be proud, the same team can also work on more than
one at a time. Now to get military grade sensors you have to enchant
multiple augmentations (for further reference all the spell altering spells
will just be called "augmentations") per device. The funny thing is that one
augmentation doubles the spell effect, but two quadruples it, and three
multiplies by 8 and so on, sort of like a doubling cube. You may need to set
some kind of limit on this, I stopped the doubling when they got to about
50,000 yds. Just too expensive even for my economic base. We are talking
about military vessels that cost the gp value of its equivalent modern Navy
warship, Millions, even though the hulls cost only a few hundred thousand.
	The missiles my warships use are like torpedoes. If you can accept
magic batteries and over sized accelerators then they are doable within the
SJ context. Each one is made of a big steel tube with multiple small magic
batteries in series linked to a drive unit (pick your favorite, I use
gravity drives). The drive is controlled by the enchantments for the seekers
(ref the seeker ballista bolts and arrows of seeking). The missile is
stabilized by an arrow of direction keyed to the primary star of the system.
Add the warhead of your choice,(augmented fireball, lightning bolt,
prismatic spray, anti-magic shell, etc...) and you have a highly destructive
weapon ready to launch. I figured these missiles to have the thaco of a 5th
level fighter (you may wish to do your own calculations for thaco). The MC
on these is A and the SR varies by helm type, but I can't fit more than 128
spell levels of batteries in the tube. Hit damage is equivalent to 2 heavy
catapults plus the warhead damage. A near miss (within 240 yds) still gets
the warhead damage, but not the impact damage. These are less than one hull
point but have one hull point worth of hit points due to mass. AC/AR on
these missiles worked out under 2e rules to 2/4.  
	Merchies only get what they pay for. And most don't want to pay for
more than minimal comm. equipment and a MK1a sensor suite.

How rugged is this equipment - does it need regular magical
'maintenance'? Or, a skilled magic-user to run it? Maybe with a
specialised NWP/skill?
	The sensors and comms aren't very rugged, you wouldn't want to take
it off the console and try to carry it around, it would shatter. Leave it in
the console and as long as your sensor room doesn't take a direct hit your
OK. Ship shaken criticals don't require a save nor does hull holed unless
the hit is in the sensor room. I mean after all, for the kind of cash you
shell out for one of these, they will shock mount it for you. Anybody can
use them. A mage will get better results. A low level mage can take care of
all the fine tuning or tweaking required, but anyone can keep them clean.
Semi annual maintenance is included in the price, but amounts to inspections
mostly. 

The souped-up wands of enemy detection would be of interest as
well - is all this automatic, or does this mean that there needs
to be a crewman on sensor duty?
	Yes, there needs to be a sensor watch, but this does not require the
total concentration that is normally required when using a crystal ball.

A standard Wand of Enemy Detection uses charges - this sounds
like a permanent enchantment. Expensive!
	Like everything else in my game, but then again I'm not crippled by
a feudal economy. Just for info, you can siphon off spell power from your
engines to recharge shipboard charged items, provided they are permanent
fixtures. That's how I keep my 20mm magicguns (like the one the Hummingbird
has) charged up. 

Someone who could subvert this sensor and detection scheme might
be able to do a lot of damage to unprepared captains who depended
on it. 
	This is true. Woe be unto the unprepared captain. That's why
captains have brains, they are supposed to use 'em once in a while.

Or, evade the 'fire and forget' tracking system, maybe by
subverting the IFF - think about the UK problem with Exocet
missiles in the Falklands War - sinking HMS Sheffield and the
Atlantic Conveyor.
	This is how most combats go in my sphere. That's why we have 20mm
magicguns for last ditch ship defense against missiles and such.

I suppose it depends on the mechanism that the enemy detection
works by - if it detects 'hostile intent' then some sort of mind
shield might work, or something without a mind or that just
(re)acts without hostility... Or some sort of long ranged monster
summoning... Or, implanting a suggestion in a crew member to
disable the defences when they get a special signal or at a
certain time...
	Undead and automatons are the one real weak point in the FRN. They
lend a whole new meaning to "VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE! Bearing 070! Z -30', Range
1200 yds and closing fast!" The FRN usually only carries one midlevel priest
and one acolyte aboard each warship. So yes, undead and mindless things do
have an advantage there. Besides the enemy detection is usually concentrated
strictly on the ship itself to identify hostile boarders and terrorists that
try to sneak aboard it covers the whole ship (that's the souped up part).
The only other use of it is a single shot spell set as a proximity fuse for
the long range missiles (where its detection range is actually reduced so it
will fire the warhead closer to the enemy vessel).

If I wanted to crack those sorts of defences then I would set an
illusionist to work out ways around them, or a mage specialising
in detection. Boarding parties of automata or maybe undead that
travel without a ship from outside the detection range might be
considered - the standard SJ sensor systems ignore things below a
minimum size, and would you want scavers to keep setting off
alarms? 
	Where there is a will there is a way. If someone wanted in bad
enough they could do it. but that doesn't mean it has to be easy for them.
Yes the standard SJ sensors work that way and we set ours to work just like
them, with one exception, scavers do show up on the close in sensors, but
don't set off any alarms and are identified by the sensor screen that
detects them. A bad guy with a blank mind willing to swim with the scavers
could easily sneak up to the ship and probably board her. If he was carrying
a bomb he could even damage the ship. I did that 5 or 6 sessions ago with a
self hypnotized terrorist from Harpers world. The other ships in the group
killed him. The damaged ship was repaired. And the dead sailors were buried
with honors. The Council whined about me cheating until I said "USS Cole."

I'm sure you can work out all sorts of scenarios to make things
interesting for the PCs! [grin]
	[evil grin back]

It sounds as though they are very well defended against almost
all conventional attackers - but with all that magical automation
I wonder how much of a mess a beholder anti-magic ray would
cause? Or, a few well-placed Dispel Magics, or even the odd use
of a Rod of Cancellation.
	Devastating, ain't it great!
With those sorts of defences it sounds as though the FRN is
setting itself up for some really serious enemies, like those who
make use of skrying, instant travel, or even things like demons.
	Beholders in thousand ship fleets. The alien from Aliens. The Vodoni
with stolen technology (from us). The Kzinti who are berserker
Ragshashas(you know, the tiger mage guys). And worst of all...Politicians!

Jim Riley "Sailorguns" FC2 USN.