Re: [HoE] The Junkman Cometh Errata(Hopler)(Ryan)

[PEGHopler@aol.com]

Hey guys,

This John Hopler at Pinnacle. I just wanted to let you all know that I'll be 
on this listserv from now on if you have any qusetions. Some of you may 
already know this, but Charles Ryan has moved out to California and he's now 
working for Last Unicorn Games. I'm taking over as the HOE Brand Manager. I'd 
be interested in any comments or suggestions as to things you'd like to see 
in upcoming books and the general direction of the line as a whole.

Now for some junker info:

In a message dated 5/24/99 1:08:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
regault@u.washington.edu writes:

<< When deciding which powers get the bonus, do we use the
 associated spirits listing for the power, or the associated powers table
 for the spirit? If the latter, why have associated spirits? The only use is
 to tell which spirits are gun spirits, and that would've been served better
 by a small grey box next to the table of construction times. This is
 important because the second'd make Building, Computer, and Tool much more
 powerful, encouraging people to pick them instead of Gun. All told, I'd
 much rather have Building helping to reduce the Drain on a shield than on a
 shelter. And with appliance, I'd be using Sensor a lot more often than
 Temperature.

Use the associated spirits listed with the power.


 The following powers were mislisted under the browsers.
 Car: flight (VTOL?)
 Appliance: Rotor
 Tool: Finish is a tool trick; Flow isn't in the book.(Reactor maybe?)

This was a fairly complex book to write and we were making changes to it 
right up until the UPS man pried it out of our fingers. A lot of powers were 
changed or cut. We thought we had caught all those, but obviously we didn't. 
Originally there was a flight power for making fixed-wing aircraft and a 
rotor power for making rotary-wing vehicles. There wasn't enough room to 
include even a rudimentary set of flyin' rules for these things so I cut them 
and replaced them with VTOL. Finish was originally a power and flow got cut.
 
 Another thing that was confusing was frame sizes. I got the feeling that
 frames were originally numbered from 1 to 19, than it was decided to use
 them to determine TN, and all the frame numbers were reduced by one.
 Unfortunately, several examples weren't adjusted afterward. 
 More importantly, the frame sizes need to be a little more clear on exactly
 how big they are, the examples being unclear and generally unhelpful if the
 device isn't a gun or a car. How small of a refrigerator? Is it a mini
 fridge or just a short normal fridge? What kind of large backpack? The kind
 my dad took on hikes was quite a bit larger than a dog or a rifle. Saying
 that something is as large as a cello case is only helpful if that person
 is in an orchestra.

The Frame sizes actually dropped by 2. A bunch of the smaller frames were 
condensed into Size 0 to do this. The main reason for this was to make humans 
fall at Size 6, so junkers would be operating on the same size scale as 
everyone else. As far as the size examples go, hopefully things will become 
clearer as more junker devices appear in other books. Space was really tight 
in this book, so I tried to include fairly common items or ones which were 
most likely to be constructed by junkers on the table. The exact Frame size 
an object needs is still somewhat of a judgement call for the Marshal. 
 
 Also, are Familiars supposed to be Frame size 4? It seems like an awkward
 size for something chiefly used as a scout or companion, and all of the
 Familiars pictured in the book are at most size 3.(A size 4 owl would break
 your arm if it tried to perch on it.) Do Familiars need the agility power
 in order to manipulate things?

Actually, most familiars are size 2, about the size of a cat or small dog. 
This was one we didn't catch when the Frame sizes were adjusted. Familiars 
don't need the agility power, just the sensor power to see, and locomotion 
power to move. Unlike most devices, the tech spirit in the device does the 
rest. As it mentions on page 45, familiars have all the stats of a regular 
character, but these don't require any extra powers from the junker.
 
 Device Traits: Vigor makes reference to the reinforce power, which isn't
 listed anywhere else in the book.

Again, this is something that was cut and we failed to remove all evidence 
of. There was a lot of material that didn't make it into this book for space 
reasons. A lot of it will appear in later books and in the Updates sections.
 
 Ammo: When you roll your instability check, are you checking for the whole
 batch, all the bullets in the gun, or for just that particular bullet?
 Having to roll for instability every shot would get pretty annoying. Also,
 for reasons listed under general comments, I think each die level should be
 1.5 times the cost of the previous level rather than twice the cost.
 
Since ammo is created in batches, it also makes instability checks in 
batches. Just roll for the batch the first time a bullet from it is fired 
each day. If it becomes unstable, the effect applies to the entire batch. I 
made the die level cost double  at each level for two reasons: One, to make 
the components costs higher for larger ammos. Ammo is scarce in the Wasted 
West, and we didn' t want junkers to be able to make it by the truckload. 
Two, to keep the ammo size balanced with powers like gunsmith and Flash 
Gordon. Reducing the cost reduces the size and lets a junker cram huge 
amounts of ammo into some weapons.


 Brains:If you make your own dataslugs do you have to check instability for
 them if they're used? What happens to data stored on them if they go
 unstable?

Junker built slugs do suffer instability. Unless the slug is destroyed, any 
data on them is fine once it recovers from its instability. 

 Commo: Does a signal type selection have to be made if the device is for
 displaying device output only and does not recieve outside radio
 signals?(I.E. A readout for a computer made with the brains power.)

Yes.
 
 Locomotion/VTOL: I thought that I'd point out that VTOL is much more
 powerful than locomotion and requires a lower number of slots even if the
 car's acceleration is only 5 mph.

You are correct. I'm not sure exactly what the "official" fix for that is, 
but for now, I'd change the locomotion power plant costs to 5%, 10%, 15%
 
 Reactor: Anyone else notice that even the smallest reactor is about 12,500
 times more efficient processing energy from IGR than an Atomic Collector,
 and outputs energy 11 times more quickly? Sure there's more chance of
 irradiation, but I think it'd be worth the risk.

Yup, reactors are much more efficient than Atomic Collectors. Besides the 
increased risk of G-ray exposure from instability (which Atomic Collectors 
don't have to worry about), reactors must be fully-fueled to before they will 
fire up. This got garbled a bit in editing.The line which reads "Ghost-rock 
reactors require a number of pounds of IGR equal to twice the reactor's Frame 
size," should have the words "to activate" tacked on. This is the critical 
mass that a particular size reactor needs to jump start the reaction.That 
means a junker has to come up with 8 pounds ($8000) worth of IGR just to flip 
the switch. And once the reactor's been running, if the junker switches it 
off for some reason, he must replace any depleted fuel before he can restart 
it.

 Sensor: First, what'd be the difference between a passive and active spirit
 sight sensor? Would a passive only detect ghosts and manitous? Could you
 use an active in conjunction with some seismic sensor to detect ghost rock?
 Second, what'd be the game mechanism behind using a natural sense ECM? For
 example, would a cloaking field add the dice roll to my character's sneak
 roll, or would it be used instead of sneak? I also noticed that it's a lot
 cheaper to hide a device from natural sight than it is to hide it from
 radar.

Passive spirit sensors are an enhancement to normal vision, they don't 
entirely replace it. This means that they can only see spiritual objects 
which are in plain sight. A manitou behind a door is just as invisible to a 
passive spirit sensor as it is to the un-aided eye. Active spirit sensors 
beam out powerful rays of spiritual energy which, like spirit weapons, can 
penetrate objects in the physical world. This gives these sensors a kind of 
x-ray vision which can see spiritual objects unblocked by physical ones.
Use the sensor's ECM rating or the character's sneak, whichever is higher. 
This means that unless you build a sophisticated sensor with a high rating, 
most heroes are better off without it--at least against natural senses.  
 
 General Comments:
 Ghost rock: I've always had a problem with the Gr output of collectors
 being a bit too low. Now that there are so many devices with huge drains
 despite being relatively innocuous (7 drain/hour for the joystick for a
 remote droid?) available, I've decided that in my campaign, at least, ghost
 rock will release 5 Gr and ounce, or 80 Gr a pound. This'll make the math
 earlier, let people burn ghost rock scraps, and just make life easier for
 everybody.

Both Drain and component costs have gone up under the new system. I 
considered upping the GR per pound, but I left it the same to keep things 
expensive. Unlike all the other special character types, junkers are the only 
ones who can create permanent objects, we didn't want the posse to turn into 
a walking swap meet. 5 Gr an ounce does make the math a lot easier though, 
and it's not a huge jump in power. I'll have to give this one some thought 
and see what kind of feedback we get, but more than likely, that'll become 
the new rule. 
 
 Armor: This is a problem I've had ever since the new armor rules came out.
 Under the current rules, there is no advantage to having high die types for
 your attacks. With the current junker rules, 4d4 costs just as much as 2d6,
 does more damage, and resists armor better. The die type used to represent
 shot penetration, so I'm suggesting that after the dice reach d4s, each
 armor level subtracts two dice rather than one, or reduces damage by half.
 This'd make it a lot more representative of penetrative power, and prevent
 all those enterprising players with 20d4 bullets for the same price as 5d8.

I like the old armor rules myself, but I did try to prevent people from 
abusing the new ones with the ammo power. At the bottom of page 65, under 
Ammo Size, it says, "No ammo may have more dice than its due type. Four dice 
is the maximum number for a d4 ammo, for example." 
 
 Yeah, finally no adventure! I'm sorry to say this, but the included
 adventures in HOE sourcebooks haven't been nearly as good as the ones in
 Deadlands sourcebooks. Probably because Goff didn't write any of them. The
 only HOE sourcebook adventure thats seemed useable so far was the one in
 Road Warriors. All the others were "Go somewhere, find something out, kill
 a tough undead version of whatever the sourcebook's about."

We've gone to a "no-adventure-all-of-the-time" policy with sourcebooks. Both 
Junkman Cometh and Cyborgs had way too much material to cram into the book to 
fit one, and as it is a lot didn't fit. We decided to scrap the adventures 
altogether so we could fit more reusable game and source material in.
 
 I really could have gone without the Deadlands Dispatch. It just seemed
 kind of useless and filled with stuff I already knew. Those four pages
 would have been better filled with more example devices. >>

As the author, I have to admit that I was pretty grumpy about giving up those 
four pages. I was already having a hard time cramming everything into the 
book as it was. However, even with those four pages I wouldn't have been able 
to fit everything, and the Dispatch gives me a place to put the stuff that 
got cut so it will eventually make it out there. Also, once all of the main 
character books are done (which will be as soon as Cyborgs hits the stores) 
the HOE story line will come out of the holding pattern it's been in and 
things will start to happen. The Dispatch is one of the places that players 
will hear about these things, since many of them may have no relation to the 
topic of the book they appear in.

Sincerely,

John Hopler
Pinnacle