In whole. The art was other people. So was the editing, but most of that was replacing stuff that was Metagaming that Freelancers don't know about, and cutting out a whole lot of references I had made intentionally/unintentionally. Luckily, the one I really liked was left in, and even pointed out in detail by the character that would know that most. Depends on the company. Some are like that, others take a different view and use a freshly slaughtered chicken.

But that's mostly computer tech voodoo, I think.

I'll go into some more detail on the space parts, then:

The chapter on space is 30 pages long. There's 6 pages of fiction and 4 pages of history on space, and 6 pieces of half-page art. That leaves 17 pages of info on space operations of the 2070s.

One section talks about where in space stuff happens; low-earth orbit, geosynchronous orbit, Lagrange points, the moon, and deep space. It only talks briefly on what each place is and what is accomplished there (the info from T:W is more in-depth, but not up to date - a good complement).

Then there's a page and a half discussion space survival - Orbital DK's 12 rule 'guide for not becoming dead in space' are nice. It's an in-game document you can hand your players (conveniently located alone on a page along with a piece of art, almost perfect for a hand-out!).

There's a page worth of discussion on the difficulties of getting into space, and last 15 pages talk about space operations: launch locations, bases and locations in all five categories mentioned above (LEO, GEO, Lagrange points, the Moon and deep space: it mentions several bases for each point, who runs them and what they do), the Space Rescue Service (what it is and it's history), and laws and regulations of space operations.

Most of this info is useful and/or interesting, but remember that all of the above info is in the in-game JackPoint post format.

Now, on to game information. There's about 2 pages worth of game info on running in space: There's a short note on the difficulties of getting into space--including suggestions for fines/sentencing for weapon violations; rules for long-term effects of zero-G, cramped quarters of space stations (penalty for trolls), decompression, hull breaches, standard weapons fire aboard space stations, radiation and solar flares, and space movement.

Finally, there's a chart with space travel times, and some gear:
- A balance augmentor made for zero-G enviroments.
- A Grenade Launcher made for space stations (firing non-lethal, or magnetic flechette grenades, and having a three-targets-at-once BF option)
- Catastrophic Rescue and Salvage Hardware space rescue drone.
- Golem III and Golem IV Space Combat Drones
- St. Bernard Space Recon Drone
- Vehicle mod package for turning a semiballistic or suborbital into a Space Rescue Service patrol/rescue craft.
- Vigilance-class Space Rescue Cutter (a 21-man space ship with solar sails, weapons, drone racks)
- Armadillo Space Suit (armored, strength-enhanced space suit, first used on Mars)

There are no written-out plot hooks, though I'm sure a number of ideas can be taken from the shadow talk.


How did you lose money? Taking time off from another source of income to write it?

It is Echo Chernik on the cover.

I wish...

Don't ask.

Cost has little to do with price.
Price is determined based on supply and demand.
The supply is e-copies on a hard-drive, so it’s almost unlimited.
The demand is the estimated willingness to pay for the product, as well as the number of customers wanting to acquire the product.
Once the price is determined, the profit margin is calculated based on cost:
Profit Margin = (Price – Cost)/(Price) x100%

Obviously, the “cost” is just the initial upfront cost to create the book and there is no additional cost to create e-copies once a PDF is sold. However, the profit margin increases with each new sale of the book.

Thus, the price of this book is ~30% more than the previous similar books, not because of the cost to create it increased, instead it is because the number of PDFs they predict to sell is ~30% less than the previous similar books. Their intent is to maintain a profit margin!

How?

I believe you entirely, but... jeepers.

Oddly enough, I can't seem to find anything I said that suggested my reasons for not stealing were anything but my own. I will posit that decency, morality, and honesty are all entirely subjective terms however, which make the philosophy of such topics worthless.

Philosophy is never worthless.

"I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law." -- Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

So you've said in this thread already. Not only would history disagree with you, your comment leaves me with the opinion that you've been graced with a lack of attending community college.

Children...focus.

Indeed. This very same debate have popped up on every pdf announcement lately.

More about content, less about pricing.

And on that note, there are two pieces of art that got my attention.

one is what appears to be a female troll exec in a underwater office.

The other is a troll in arctic gear (you can tell it's a troll by the horns sticking out between the hood and face mask).

Bumping into the latter after nightfall may well have made me think the devil was out for a walk.

The Ork metavariant, Oni, can have horns too.

A reminder that personal attacks are against the Terms Of Service.

It is actually the first rule mentioned.

Me not happy. Once I opened the file, it took me a ten minutes skimming to notice this, in the same chapter :

Perhaps Station House and Dyson 3 aren't considered 'permanent'?

Note that Proteus keep their station out on L1, while the other two are orbitals.

Dyson 3 is in lower earth orbit (and even that claim is contested).

Pinnacle, or Station House if you will, is in geosync orbit.

Going by the big wiki, L1 is some 1.5 M km from earth. In comparison a geosync orbit puts things about 42 000 km from earth.

Btw, i got some lols out of the travel time table. It may take 12 hours to get to GEO, but getting back takes only 2

On a different note, how the hell do Proteus scrape together the materials, manhours and such needed to build their arcoblocks?!

Proteus was/is a leech corporation. They got agents in other corps and "acquired" materials and data from them. Kinda simplified but that's what happened.

I believe when they talk about Lagrangian points, they're actually talking about the Earth/Moon points and not Earth/Sun points. That makes L1 "only" ~320,000km away. The exception to this is the Helios Solar Space which is explicitly at Earth/Sun L3.

Well that figures. Tho the text being a bit more explicit may have helped.

As for Proteus, seems there is some big brass ones on their board.

Proteus has been an odd corp for, like, ever. I have no idea what the original plan was, but the old books made it seem like they were up to something big. They focused on space stuff, transhumanism adaptations, and self-contained mobile arcologies. It *sounds* like they were planning on going to other planets and starting colonies, but who knows?

Most of the good detail on them is in German-only product, which, sadly, I can't read.

If anyone knows more, or official info from wayback, I'd love to hear it.

Explains a lot that they originate from the German material. Btw, their station is actually on Earth/Sun L1 according to Corporate guide.

That might be the case. Maybe they moved, what's a million km between friends? Honestly the Earth/Moon thing was the best I could figure out especially looking at the transit times. It takes about the same amount of time to go to L4/L5 as it does to go to the moon which makes sense for Earth/Moon but much less for Earth/Sun.

Lucky for you some of the most important stuff has been translated: http://old.shadowrun4.com/resources/downlo..._shockwaves.pdf This will probably tell you more about Proteus than you want to know.

Sigh, do they write that? It's incorrect. The Proteus station sits at L1 of the Earth/Moon system. It's established in Target:Wastelands for example.

Here is a graphic from the Shadowhelix:

Huh, when did the forum allow images?

Anyways, this makes Ares Helios stand out even more, as it is supposedly on the other side of the sun

Thats just the writer of that piece not having a clue what their talking about, nothing more.

Meaning that it would help greatly if Hazard Pay had clearly stated that the points were earth/moon, not Earth/sun.

No idea. But I would like to know, whether you can set a smaller image size. I can see Russia from my seat.

I zoomed in and was able to see my house from here!

It's quite obvious the stations listed in the Lagrange Point Stations section are earth/moon, as the next section is Extraterrestrial Space Stations and Facilities.

That's the kind of "obvious" that starts double digit threads on this forum and elsewhere

Well, Corp Guide...together with 6WA it held the distinction of being the most sloppy SR book ever until the release of The Non-Named Book...

Which is silly BTW. Orbit is defined by both altitude and speed. If there wasn't all those pesky trees, hills and buildings, you could orbit the Earth two meters above the ground if you can achieve a speed high enough. The problem is maintaining such speed (if speed decreases, altitude decreases, and thus the speed required to stabilize altitude increases), against atmospheric drag, collisions, tidal effects and so on. For instance, the ISS, well into lower earth orbit at 400 kilometers, is loosing altitude at an average speed of 2 or 3 meters a month, requiring regular engine firings to climb.

Engineers consider a lower limit to Low Earth Orbit around 100 miles or 200 kilometers, depending on their favored system, only because the atmosphere becomes too dense at some point to reasonably hope designing a satellite that could maintain sufficient orbital velocity. If they managed to have the Dyson-3 station (one large enough to contain 1.25 acres) to orbit or just fly below the aforementioned limit, the people at Starfield corp should stop bothering about growing wheat and trying to claim the Draco Foundation prize and whining, and just become the new world leader in the aerospace industry.

*Sigh*
Can anyone show me that statue of Lenin mentioned in the text in any of Vostok station's photos? There's quite large sign made of relatively light materials, yeah, but a statue? It's just not practical to haul it there, and for all I know it was never done.
Also, "Mikkial Metdev".

Statue is made from finest re-enforced Russian Papier-Mâché. Can withstand reentry, save for heat problem. We are working on issue, perhaps by plating with used AK Metal.

I find it interesting that in Conspiracy Theories, while discussing the Watergat Incident, it is mentioned in passing an SK fleet was making hasty trip south, from Baltimore to Lake Vostok in Antarctica. Now with a A Clutch of Dragons right around the corner, we get a supplement on running in subzero environments. My Conspiracy Theory Senses are tingling...

Also note the fiction about Kane and some apparent magical artifact.

Unless it changes his personality and makes him a decent human being, he'll probably just pawn it at the first chance.

Well he did not take it with him, just photograph it. But it was in some corp research base (run by an asian with accent free english), embedded under the ice.

Well, in the free part of the intro fiction he seemed genuinely concerned that the guard he knocked out did not freeze to death...

It's not Kane. A pale forgery.

I always held the hope that some day we'd get more on the Mars storyline, with dragon skeletons and Evo's terraforming. Instead we get a massive history fail/retcon:



On the upper hand, the chapter on Toxics and other "Despoilers" delivers some nicely scary astral threats.

Not being as well-versed in SR lore as I'd like, can you tell me what exactly was retconned there, please?

Though that could just mean Kane lit him on fire.

I would have to look up the the axact date, but first official Mars landing was definitely before the Crash 2.0 (which happened in 64) and the astronauts did come back, however on the journey back ground control temporarily lost contact with the craft, which strangely enough none of the crew seemed to remember.


"Official" landing because the USA did a top secret lading in December 2011, after one of their probes had shot pictures of pyramid-like structures and something that looked like a dragon skeleton on Mars. On December 24th (aka Awakening Day), the mission suffered a catastrophic failure and only a few astronauts made it back by the skin of their teeth.

Thanks, that helps a lot! So, would the entry in Hazard Pay be a retcon or just another example of the New-And-Improved-Catalyst™ penchant for not cross-checking/verifying new entries against established SR lore?

Good question, but my money is on the latter

Please do, i can only find a mention in Target Wastelands that says that a manned mission to mars is planned to be launched somewhere around middle of 2063, but cant find any follow up for this(can't figure out the right book to check that would cover that point in time and checking every single book is way too time consuming)

Give a man a fire, he'll be warm for awhile. Light a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

My group found that out when they hired the Halloweeners to distract some Lone Star officers.