Hostile Space

[Giraldo Allain]

Microbescan change characteristics in space, and micro-organisms that naturally live on the human body are transferred more easily from person to person in closed habitats, such as the space station. Stress hormone levels can elevate and the immune system can alter, which could lead to increased susceptibility to allergies or other illnesses. More research is needed into whether these changes pose serious risks to astronauts.

Beyond the effects of the environment on the immune system, every inch and detail of living and working quarters must be carefully considered and designed. No one wants their house to be too hot, too cold, cramped, crowded, loud, or poorly lit, and no one would enjoy working and living in such a habitat in space either.

Well, this is a bit of an unexpected surprise. I have been working on this title for a long time. Those that have been following the blog for a while probably recall my efforts to build the Mecha, and play some test games over the years. Looks like the first battle was from May, 2021, with the big follow-up later that month. I finally got my first Mecha done in October. Now, three years later I finally decided to complete the rules for distribution. Of course, I made a name change from Glittering Void to Hostile Space along the way too.

I was very close on giving up on these rules in post-production. Why? Instead of making a miniature game, I started work developing it into an RPG. There is more to come in that space, but I figured I might as well get this out into the world too.

Those of you who are my Patrons on Patreon have had access to these rules for a year or so. With their help I have been able to make some adjustments to altitude, modify some cards, and clarify some wording. There help focused on finish off these rules. As thanks, they got access to the finished product months prior to everyone else. In addition, the Patrons have also had access to the RPG rules of Space Mecha Theatre, In Strife and Conflict Beta rules, a G.I. Joe RPG module, as well as various other work in progress games. They also get access to my first forays into Mecha combat; JUGS: A Game of Big Stompy Robots.

Hostile Space game came about thanks to my pet bearded dragon. Of course, my games come from a lot of different places. They come to me in dreams, they come to me playing other games, and they come to me when I am working on business projects. Even by those standards, this is a weird place to start. My lizard likes to watch genre fiction, especially Kaiji movies. As a result, auto-play eventually brought up various samurai flicks, yakuza movies, and then eventually Mecha shows and clips. As I went about my business, these clips started to sink into my psyche. I wondered how to translate the action I was seeing on screen to the tabletop?

An argument was made that because an air elemental is made out of air, they should be able to enter a hostile's space, and move through it if they wish to too. However, despite the text saying "it can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing" it does not suggest that they can move through a hostile's space such as a ghost's incorporeal movement which reads as follows:

Having entered the space, it is presumably able to leave it again to whatever space it wishes. The rules don't bother specifying that it can also leave (to effectively allow it to move through), though if it can't entering another creature's space would leave it trapped on it which is (at least to me) quite a counter-intuitive result.

In order for a creature to be able to move into another creature's space, it must enter it. The two are different ways of stating the same thing. As long as a creature is not grappled, incapacitated, etc., there is no rule preventing them from leaving a space occupied by another creature.

The main difference between these, and one possible reason that the same wording was not used, is that the air elemental doesn't take damage for staying and sharing the space, unlike the ghost. It can stay or move on at its leisure. This is also important for its Whirlwind, which begins with:

Having an ability which requires them to be sharing a space with their intended target gives credence to their ability to share the same space with another creature, as it would have to be a different target if this was not the intended use.

Every now and then, I will receive the "Hostiles Detected" notification when I am nearby a planet and I will turn around, land, and wait for the hostiles to pass by. This situation is no big trouble at all when attempting to avoid a battle, but there are also times I will receive the notification when I have been warping into space and I am nowhere near a space station or planet.

When I am in the middle of nowhere - aside from reloading the last save or destroying the enemy ships - there is not much I can do to avoid the fight as I am unable to active my pulse engines when hostiles are near by.

Once you get the warning for hostile scans detected, you can warp to a different system before the pirates arrive and avoid battle that way. Granted you will need fuel in your hyperdrive ready and if there was something of interest in that system you can always warp back.

There is no apparent way to leave a dog fight mid battle, but if you are fighting in a wave because (for example) you attacked a ships cargo then the only way to get out of it is to fight the first wave and to then warp to another solar system or try pulsing to a nearby planet or space station. To help win the first wave you should always carry titainium with you so that you can have your deflector shield at all times during the fight. If you are just in an ordinary dog fight with no waves then there is no way to flee the scene unless you either die or destroy them. Another TIP if you don't want to end up in as many dog fights is to not carry valuable cargo not your ships inventory, this also means that there won't be as many pirates coming to attack you in the actual dog fight itself too if you have your valuable cargo in your suits inventory.

Unfortunately, as the game currently stands, kind of? There really isn't a way to get away from pirates, unless you are very lucky and happen to warp in close to the system's Space Station or close to a planet. You may be able to warp to another system before the pirates spawn in, but you will need a warp cell in your drive to do so. (Thanks to VanBuzzKill for this, it totally slipped my mind).

Unless the developers decide to add different ways for us to escape (which is just speculation, nothing confirmed) then unfortunately the only thing to do is fight. The enemy ships always seem to be faster than you, and can easily catch up.

When hostile ships are detected, you have an option to intercept communications. This window is only a few seconds, but if accepted, you given the option to pay for safe passage from the hostile ships.

Beyond the risk of colliding with other objects in space, there are four main dangers for such electronic devices: the empty vacuum, extreme temperature variability, small meteorite impacts and radiation damage.

Small meteorite impacts are hard to predict but remain rare. What causes the most damage is the the constant flux of radiation in the form of high energy particles. These particles cause permanent damage to electronics, which causes them to become unreliable over time and eventually fail.

The damages can alter values stored in the memory and processors of digital devices, which can make them stop functioning at the most basic level. One way to deal with such damage is to use many memory cells to hold the same value, and compare values constantly to ensure that information only changes when an update is made to all memory cells at the same time.

The gradual accumulation of damage from high-energy particles on Charge-Coupled Devices (CCDs) (also found in digital cameras) are of more serious concern to scientists. The accuracy of the measurements needed to perform science is so great that any slight damage to these cameras can alter the data received from them.

You can see effects of this damage in a lot of the videos by astronaut Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station. In full screen and streaming at highest quality, you will find white spots in the darker areas of the picture. These are caused by radiation damage to the sensor, which allows signal to be created by the temperature of the device, rather than the meaningful light particles which form the image.

Although shielding the components can give some effective prevention of radiation damaging the electronics, camera sensors always need an open path in order to take images. Shielding can also create secondary radiation when a damaging particle hits the shield, setting another particle loose.

Although we can heat the sensors in orbit to heal the damage, it is never completely repaired. New methods to deal with the damage are finally coming up with workable solutions. One involves a new type of sensor that captures images using the holes left behind by electrons to capture the image, instead of the electrons themselves. Another involves better processing of the images to counter the damage caused by radiation.

Just like the Euclid mission, JUICE, another ESA mission due to launch 15 years from now, will spend seven years travelling to Jupiter, resulting in already heavily damaged sensors before science is even able to start. What makes matters worse is that Jupiter has trapped radiation belts of high energy electrons, creating an extremely harsh environment to perform science in. As we continue to develop deeper understanding of effects in sensors, we can extend the useful lifetime of space missions and perform more accurate science.

I recently signed my first commercial lease and moved into my first solid office space. It is exciting to finally be able to create an environment that would mitigate barriers that made work process difficult for me in the past, (and inspired me to start consulting on intersectional disability justice).

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