[HoE] Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na- JunkMAN!

["Reuben McCallum" <bloopy40@hotmail.com>]

Hoi-HOI!
Well, this is the first access to one of these new-fangled computilators 
I've had access to in a while, and especially since I just got the new 
sourcebook "The Junkman Cometh" (it seems us here in melbourne have it 
better than some of you stateside). So I thought I'd give it my 2 widgets 
worth:
Okay. All in all, I liked it. However, the class has significantly changed 
from what Junkers were presented as in the basic book. Not just in terms of 
rules, also in background. I'm still of mixed feelings about this. The 
inclusion of Tech-Spirits (the spirits of dead technology), while very cute, 
is not quite the same as having to smack a manitou upside the head to beat 
information about tech out of it. But, that being said, it makes more sense 
this way. I'm also still in two minds about the whole "Techno-shaman" deal.
The background section was excellent. With "Children o' the atom", it wasn't 
very exciting. This gives you a contigious history to link it back to Wierd 
West game. Already I'm having wonderfyul thoughts about what's going to 
happen when my mad scientist player discovers that little nasty demons are 
given him ideas, and he joins the SOS (despite the fact that he's working 
for the Agency...).
Much needed work was done on the powers. As soon as the game came out I knew 
Junkers were the most in need of a serious overhaul. The system is more 
complex now, but that's okay, because let's face it, all this inventing 
stuff gets done in downtime anyway. It's not like halfway through a combat 
session you're gonna have to figure out how COMMO power needs to be worked 
anyway.
That being said, some of the powers are quite ambigious. I was trying to 
make a targeting system last night, and came up against the following 
problems:
In SENSOR, what would be the range of a passive infrared detecting power? 
One that works just by picking up infrared beams and amplifying them?
In COMMO, is the modifier for the transmitter applied by directly 
multiplying it against the slots? Or do you do this and then add it to the 
original score? If it's done the first way, then you have the situation that 
some limited transmitting devices are actually easier to make than reciever 
only devices. For example, with my HUD Display device I was working on, 
under the first system it would take up 4 slots and use three drain without 
a transmitter, but with a direct cable link only take 1 slot and use 1 
drain. See what I mean?
Anyway, these things will be made apparent in the future. I hope a 
clarification section will appear soon in thge HoE library, as there are 
several quite confusing things in there.
But I liked it all up. Good work, JH
Reuben "Chamber Initiate" McCallum (Don't think I missed that little 
reference!)


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