The violently shuddering electromagnetic bubble bursts on the edge of the 7563 Mensae system, a beautiful-ish blue dwarf star with just a pair of planets lazily circling it. The first planet is a fairly uninteresting rock, which the computer says was at one point the site of some research facility or other, that was eventually scrapped. The second planet, however, is a ridiculously large - from up close especially - blue planet, with a thick atmosphere of dense swirling clouds. For a moment you just stare at it, when you suddenly realize you're not actually orbiting it yet, and have the AI engage stationkeeping thrusters to keep you aloft. The scanner beeps steadily, indicating that a whale does exist here somewhere.
The AI speaks up.
"You have reached your destination. Based on observed experience level of its owners, this automated control unit would take it upon itself to suggest some reading material to increase the survival chances of the ship's crew."
A laser printer built into the console starts spewing out sheets of paper. On them is the text of a short handbook, titled "The Idiot's Guide To Space Whaling", that explains the various functions of the ship and some commonly known facts about hunting space whales. You spend a few minutes thoughtfully studying it.
Now, here I finally explain how the hell this whole thing happens and what you'll actually do.
- First step to hunting a whale is finding it - this requires using the Scanner with a Tech skill, and interpreting its output with Intelligence. You automatically go there, and either do or don't find the thing.
- Once you spot it, you generally want to kill or incapacitate it, and drag it into the grinder of your Processing unit - using reel harpoons and ship harpoon guns.
- All successful weapons fire will cause some damage, degrading the amount of whale you can actually process. Hand weapons usually aren't excessively powerful, but ship weapons usually tear or vaporize large chunks off the whale.
- Most whales come with secret abilities or vulnerabilities. Using Scanners and just Intelligence on them is a good way to find those, but trying to use good old reasoning works too.
- There may be goodies hidden in whales. Be careful about the shooting, and hope for a good Processing roll to gain them.
You all start in Standard Suits, that offer no protection except against space. You don't really have to worry about suffocation unless your helmet is broken, but being depressurized is no pleasant thing, and you'll need to return to the ship quickly. Standard Suits also have a sort of an RCS system for puttering around the ship in zero-G, so you don't need to worry about being thrown off the deck too much - though it does take Piloting checks to do anything beyond puttering around, and they don't work in atmosphere or in any meaningful amount of gravity.
Harpoons and Harpoon Rifles naturally come with cable as strong as their rating, allowing you to either reel the whale to the ship, or yourself to the whale. A Harpoon Rifle can be reloaded with Harpoons, should its own harpoon break off and be lost.
Once you take care of the whale one way or another - or lose it, or give up - you can either return to port and sell the meat off, or keep scanning for more whales until your hold is filled.
If you're bored on the ship while people do whatever, you can devise practice bouts or exercises - succeeding enough in these will raise your stats and skills, though slowly. Hand weapons have no ammo to waste, repairs take no materials, medicine... well, be creative.
Now, you're in your ship, sitting on the edge of a small star system, next to a huge blue gas giant, with a space whale somewhere in the system. What are you going to do?
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Topic: Space Whaling Adventure RTD - CQB: Cetacean Qabab Barrage (Read 16800 times)