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[de5me7]

my RPG collection consists of;

Burning wheel

GURPS 4th Ed, not interesting in its self but some of the modules; GURPS Russia, and Vikings are, also have cyberpunk and transhuman space

Paranoia (1st edition)

Fiasco

Eclipse Phase (i highly recommend this)

Qin: Warring States

Diaspora

I don't own them but ive gm'd traveller 1st ed, and played a bit of the new Mongoose edition. I've also played alot of WHFRP 2nd edition one shots.

personally i always find space ship combat to a bit of a drag in rpgs. Mainly because the captain calls the shots and the rest of the players just roll hit or miss dice. If you all had separate ships it might work better. Also i perfer harder sci fi, but most players tend to have a poor grasp of how hard sci works (what do you mean hes firing at me from 50,000km away?).

[sluissa]

You just have to try to make things more interesting. The ship gets hit, give the engineer a puzzle they can work with. Let the weapons guy try to make some called shots. Science officer can scan for something nearby you can use to your advantage. Have people that are better at ground combat? give them a chance at it with a boarding party. Space combat can be fun, but it's not going to be if you're just going pew pew over and over until someone dies.

Also, if the captain is sucking at calling the shots and making things boring despite your attempts, encourage him/her to make things more fun. Suggest mutiny if you have to.

You don't even need combat to do a lot of this stuff. I had a pilot screw up a planetary entry so bad once the sensors guy had to pass a few checks to find a safe spot to set down, the comms guy had to convince the local military they weren't hostile and not to shoot them down all while the engineer tried to keep one engine working while trying to get the landing gear to actually lower completely. (Original pilot check was just routine, but he failed it bad, so I got creative.) They survived though. Should have been a couple of entry and landing checks that the pilot rolled and forgot about(or some might even skip them) but it turned out to be a very enjoyable experience for the players(if not the characters) to keep things together.

Hard sci-fi can be good, but don't be afraid to soften it just a bit to keep things interesting. Sometimes a good solid kick really is the best way to fix something, even if that doesn't fit in with your image of "hard sci-fi"

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I'd also like to point out that there are plenty of examples of novels in the style of hard SF that include aliens etc. Just be wary of making their technology magical, by including drawbacks and various difficulties (human brains as fuel!) that make using such tech a tradeoff. But I'd argue if it fit the genre style that lightspeed travel and such can be legit. Just need to handle it right.

[adwarf]

If anyone hosts a session for Eclipse Phase for B12 pre-in. Any who some of the specialist games from Games Workshop are free, Battlefleet Gothic is definitely a must try if you like space combat. Link - http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/landing.jsp?catId=cat440142a&rootCatGameStyle=specialist-games