--- On Fri, 2/25/11, Onno Meyer <[email protected]> wrote: > I would expect some game mechanics differences between > bioships > and dead steel technology: > > * A living, fundamentally healthy bioship should be able to > > regenerate minor damage or wear and tear. > * On the other hand, a bioship should be less resistant to > > gross physical damage (bone is weaker than steel), > and damage > may snowball until it dies if major organs are hurt. > A steel > hull might be salvaged and fitted with new power > plants or > computer systems. > * A bioship cannot shut down completely and go into > mothballs.
I'm rewatching Farscape right now, which includes the leviathan bioships (biomechanical, actually). Some additional considerations: * Leviathans can feel pain. * Leviathans can feel fear (only one leviathan was ever known to be armed). * Leviathans can be poisoned (there are a handful of cargoes a leviathan can't carry because of their effects on the ship shoul shipping containment be broken). > Of course the maintenance man-hours have to come from > somewhere, > so perhaps there are lots and lots of cyberswarm hives to > get > "ship-sized blood cells" for self-repair. Leviathans rely on small oval robots about the size of rhoombas (DRD, Diagnostic Repair Drone) for repairs. A grown leviathan can carry hundreds. http://farscape.wikia.com/wiki/Diagnostic_Repair_Drone > Increasing force screen DR means increasing FSR, so as a > side > effect it becomes less necessary to have a box or sphere > hull, > instead I can afford wings, pods, spines, etc. In the 90's, I assumed the treefolk used bioships, unlike other races. I no longer have the write-ups or spreadsheets, but IIRC they had minimal hull armor and good energy shields (I think I had treefolk energy shields the best of all the starfaring races). Brandon _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
