New monster: Flying Saucer, Trader
A little seen saucer design during the invasion, but none-the-less present on the worldship. These vessels are built to carry materials both across the ship and through the interplanetary void of space. While lacking in the armaments of larger vessels they are capable of defending themselves.
Trader Flying Saucer (colossal machine)
The visitor trader is a saucer shaped airship with a command deck above the main disk. Like other saucers they can easily defeat more primitive beings but are primarily designed for commerce and trade. Inside the main deck is a spacious cargo bay with crew quarters surrounding the open space. Above is the command deck and recreation area with the turret pod central above and controlled from the command deck. Like other saucers they are fast and nimble vehicles constructed of a shining, silvery-gold metal. The advanced alien material renders them very difficult to damage. Technological weapons deal full damage to flying saucers, but flying saucers cannot be harmed by other man-sized weapons, nor by fire, by wood-throwing artillery, or by natural attacks from creatures of huge size or smaller. Stone-throwing artillery and gigantic creatures deal only 1/10th damage to flying saucers, while colossal creatures and magic deal only 1/5th damage. However, like other machines, flying saucers are vulnerable to lightning damage and take double damage from any electricity-based attack, such as the various lightning spells. Additionally, any saucer hit by an electricity attack must make a successful save vs. Paralysis or have its computers scrambled, rendering it unable to move except to hover in its current location, and unable to use its weapons and special abilities for the next combat round. Like other saucers they are vulnerable to mind-affecting spells (which actually target their Visitors pilots), but they are still immune to disease and poison as they have environmental seals against these attacks.
The trader saucer may land a party of Visitors using a gravity elevator projected from its bottom. A group of trader merchant marines consists of 2d4 regular Visitors as well as 1d2 scout drones and 1d4 workbots. The saucer carries loot as per the Visitor saucer loot table, p.108.
New item: Trader Saucer
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| From the cover of UFO's from Stellagama Publishing. Art by Gavin Dady. |
It flies in the air at a speed of up to 240' (80') and requires 15 energy crystals for each day of operation. It has three cylindrical reactors stored in a sub-deck that are of a similar design to those found in abductors, each carries five crystals. The Trader also has space for an additional 90 crystals in its fuel holds.
It requires a crew of three: one pilot (typically an arcane spellcaster); one navigator (must have the Navigation proficiency); and one engineer (must be familiar with Visitor energy sources).
An abductor may carry up to 10 passengers and 6 robots. The trader is fully sealed and contains onboard life support similar to an abductor, following the same rules from environments found on p.102 of BCK.
House Rules: Managing Flying Saucers
So first, I allow visitor saucers to go faster as previously published. The rule is as follows:
Power to engines: All flying saucers have this ability. The flying saucer can double its movement rate by diverting power from its weapon systems to its engines. When this is active, they double their movement but are unable to utilise weapon systems such as plasma weapons, tractor beams or bomb launchers.
Next, I have encountered some difficulty with is mechanical immunities. They are simply too weak! But it's a trick of the words that causes it.
The advanced alien material renders them very difficult to damage. Technological weapons deal full damage to flying saucers, but flying saucers cannot be harmed by other man-sized weapons, nor by fire, by wood-throwing artillery, or by natural attacks from creatures of huge size or smaller. Stone-throwing artillery and gigantic creatures deal only 1/10th damage to flying saucers, while colossal creatures and magic deal only 1/5th damage.
First the paradox: Technological weapons deal full damage to flying saucers, but flying saucers cannot be harmed by other man-sized weapons, nor by fire...
Plasma weapons are fire damage… So first I interpret it as natural environmental damage, eg fire or cold.
Next, a fighter with a plasma rifle on rapid fire can take one out in 2 actions. My average party cuts through these using the words “Technological weapons deal full damage to flying saucers” using personal scale technological weapons. It breaks our immersion.
So, in effect these immunities are supposed to mirror SHP. As such I use the following immunities:
The advanced alien material renders flying saucers very difficult to damage. Primitive personal weapons deal no damage, nor does environmental damage (eg natural fire), wood-thrown artillery or natural attacks from creatures of huge size or smaller. Stone-throwing artillery and gigantic creatures deal only 1/10th damage. Colossal creatures, personal scale technological weapons and magic deal only 1/5th damage. Technological artillery or technological vehicle mounted weapons and spells that do direct SHP damage do full damage.
Notes: Conversion and Prices
So, according to the source material the Trader is between the Abductor and the smaller scout. But is the ACKS Scout the Scout or is the ACKS Scout the Saucer? Made sense in my mind...
Key to this analysis is the monster training tables on page 92 of BCK. There are a lot of weird things on this table (the differences between trained and adult cost are stark). So to stabilise this let’s use the Automaton rules from Machinery to the Max. The weight is the critical element and the hit dice is locked in. Let’s convert.
Conversion benchmarks
So, the weights between Cepheus and ACKS are very different. But if we divide Cepheus stats by 6 the abductor comes out at 100, roughly matching the ACSs version. If we do the same to the Cepheus Saucer at 30 tons we get close to the ACKs scout, given the description the ACKS scout seems to better match the single deck saucer.
So, that means a 200 ton Trader in Cepheus needs to be mass 33.3 ton in ACKS or 4,757 stone.
As we are halfway between the two example vehicles I’m looking for a hit dice that achieves the target mass with three multipliers to weight. Eight hit dice achieves the closest match with base mass of 640 stone and 5,120 stone or 35.84 tons once multiplied three times.
By adding double capacity we achieve a cargo capacity of 35.8 tons. All things considered that’s a bit smaller than the target Cepheus version's 65 tons but it’s not so far off. It could be doubled again (as shown in the Rotorblade) but I think that a single doubling hits the sweet spot.
So now we have the mass. Let's do the full build.
Trader Flying Saucer:
- 8 hit dice
- Automaton immunities * +8
- Special immunities at *#### +12
- Optional operator- AI
- Protected compartment #### +4
- Passengers 16 ##### +5
- Increased weight x3 #### ## +6
- Double carry capacity #### +4
- Ranged attack #### +4
- Move - 6 increases (240’) * #### ### +15
- Requires fuel -#### -4
- Net +54
- 33,750 abilities + 16,000 hit dice = 49,750.
- Doubled for visitor tech = 99,500
- Round to nearest 5,000 = 100,000
Converting the scout and abductor likewise gives me prices as follows.
Scout Flying Saucer:
- 5 hit dice
- Automaton immunities * +8
- Special immunities at *#### +12
- Optional operator- AI
- Protected compartment #### +4
- Passengers 8 #### +4
- Increased weight x2 #### +4
- Ranged attack #### +4
- 8 increases to move (300’) ** ### +19
- Requires fuel -#### -4
- Net +51
- 31,875 abilities + 10,000 hit dice = 41,875.
- Doubled 83,750
- Round to nearest 5,000 = 85,000
Abductor Flying Saucer:
- 10 hit dice
- Automaton immunities * +8
- Special immunities at *#### +12
- Optional operator- AI
- Protected compartment #### +4
- Passengers 32 #### ## +6
- Increased weight x4 * +8
- Ranged attack #### +4 (38)
- two extra combat powers ** +16
- Five increases to move * #### # +13
- Requires fuel -#### -4
- Net +67
- 41,875 abilities + 20,000 hit dice = 61,875.
- Doubled 123,750
- Round to nearest 5,000 = 125,000
This gives us a full range of market prices for the most common visitors craft as follows:
Visitor saucer market prices
