These ideas are still under construction and so any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.
Right now, scientific skills vary in difficulty. Rather than trying to figure out whether Physics is harder than Chemistry or Linguistics or History, I would divide the skills up into general areas and then have subskills which are more specific. All the skills are M/H. Each skill defaults to the the next more general skill at some penalty (say -3), then to the next one up from there at another -3. Skills also default to other skills on the same level, though perhaps at -4 or -5. Skills that fall under more than one category default to both and can be used as a default to both. Therefore Biochemistry would give defaults to Biology and Chemistry.
|
Biology Biochemistry Botany Ecology Genetics Physiology Zoology |
Physics Astrophysics Nuclear Physics Newtonian Physics Electricity & Magneticsm |
Chemistry Biochemistry Physical Chemstry |
I've always had a problem with the way that the engineering skill is specialized. I've also always thought it would be helpful to be more explicit about the differences between skills involving theory, design, repair, and operation of technology. This page will hopefully clarify some of these issues. As always, please feel free to comment.
This page is still an early draft... I'm still mulling ideas over in my head.
These are the most theoretical divisions:
|
These are a little less abstract:
|
Curently there are three types of skills that deal with technology. There are operation skills, such as Gunner, Electronics Operation, Driving, etc... There are repair skills, such as Armory, Mechanic, etc... Finally, there are design skills, such as Engineer and Electronics.
This system makes the links between the three types of skills explicit with standard defaults. Examples would be:
| Design | Build/Repair | Operate |
|---|---|---|
| Build/Repair - 3 Operate - 7 | Design - 2 Operate - 5 | Design - 4 Build/Repair - 2 |
| Engineer(Communications)/TL (Mental/Hard) | Technician(Communications)/TL (Mental/Average) | Operator(Communications)/TL (Mental/Easy) |
| Engineer(Automobile)/TL (Mental/Hard) | Technician(Automobile)/TL (Mental/Average) | Operator(Car)/TL (Physical/Average) |
And so on, for any particular technology. The specific technologies will depend on your game world and the difficulties will often depend on the skill. I'll have to work up some 'standard' defaults and some lists of technologies.
Design skills will generally be Mental/Hard, though sophisticated expert systems will give large bonuses for relatively standard problems. Build and Repair are very similar with a low default -1 or no penalty for low-tech level skills but for high-tech equipment, building becomes trivial (mostly automated or parts assembly) while repair becomes more difficult, though often repair consists of replacement as systems become essentially unrepairable. TL7 computer parts are a good example of this. Alternately, the build skill could be interpreted to include the ability to build devices by hand while automation gives bonuses in a factory. This would preserve the relative difficulty of the two skills in even high-tech settings. The operation skill is the most different, varying in difficulty and in whether it is a physical or mental skill.
More to come... again, comments welcome.