Space Madness!

[Grek]

Possibly a small note on under Different Ways of Seeing calling back to Radiance and Infravision.

I also have some qualms about the Combat mechanics. Space Madness does not appear to be a game about fighting, be it mechanically or thematically. Fighting features, but it's not the core guts of the gameplay. The Space Ranger oath promises to explore, to police and to learn. The wand is a weapon, but it's also a tool. This says to me that a fight should start with the Space Rangers kicking in a door and end with a perp fleeing out a back door, OR start with the team getting ambushed and either turning the tables or running with their tails tucked between their legs. People want to duck behind cover, and that cover wants to explode when shot with a strong enough wand. You want the Space Rangers to yell "Drop your weapon!" before blasting people, and for doing so not to be a waste of AP.

This implies a laundry list of minor changes:

• Please Hold Me: Hold should be better than it is. In particular, Shoot should let you start a hold if you want, and maintaining a Hold should only cost 3 AP (Escape should still cost 4 AP). Also a human sized character Held by two other characters should generally be unable to attack - that way the party can actually restrain people. You might also consider rules for restraints.
• Cover Rules, Please. They don't need to be complicated - cover can just be a +1 or +2 modifier to the Combatives difficulty - but it does need to exist for genre emulation reasons. The cover bonus applies if you declare that you're moving into cover at all that turn - don't worry about if someone can get there 'in time' or not. For extra brownie points, some sort of guideline about destroying cover.
• Predictions and Distractions. Predict is a bad mechanic. It incentivizes you to spend an action and make and opposed roll to get a bonus every single round. Instead, it should be a 1AP action which lets you subtract your Computing hits from dicepools opposing you. There should also be a version called Distract which does the same thing [/i]for another character's[/i] opposed checks as a Deception roll.
• Rework Using Words. At a bare minimum, each character should get a free use of Talk immediately prior to each Combat Round, if they care to say something. Further, if you're Holding someone or in Melee with someone, you should be able to say whatever you want to them for free. For extra brownie points, there should be some reason - beyond cool factor - to want to spend actions to say things in a fight. Even a one die bonus on your next turn would be nice.

[Ancient History]

Hmm. Need to consider those. Some good ideas, though.

[Ancient History]

Artificial Gills (⊡⊡)
This series of augmentations is visible only as a series of of slim openings exposing membranes on the subject’s neck and between the ribs, but is actually fairly invasive, requiring modification of the subject’s entire pulmonary system, including filters in the trachea and specialized gas-sacks. The effect is to greatly expand the range of environments that the subject can effectively operate in; the artificial gills system allows the subject to pull oxygen from a number of gaseous and liquid atmospheres, as well as filter out harmful gases and operate for prolonged periods in anaerobic and hybrid metabolic modes. While still subject to extremes of temperature, pressure, gravity, etc., a human with artificial gills can breathe easily underwater in the oceans of Earth or on the surface of Mars without the need for clunky breathing apparatus or helmets. Characters with artificial gills are immune to poisons, parasites, and diseases spread by a gaseous vector, such as Venusian Spotted Fever.

And doing some of the reworking suggested above:

Escape (4)
A character who is defeated in a Melee or Shoot action may be held; the “hold” may be an actual arm-bar or other grapple, or the subject character may be “held” at sword-point or be staring down the barrel of a raygun. If a character wishes to escape a hold, they must succeed at a Combatives (vs.) Combatives contest; or if they are in restraints, a Combatives (X) Test where X is the rating of the restraints. Not trying to escape costs no action points (although the seized character can attempt any other action that doesn’t involve moving, such as talking or recording the scene with an eye camera).

Hold (3)
One possible result of a successful Melee or Shoot action is that a subject character is held and cannot move; the “hold” may be an actual arm-bar or other grapple, or the subject character may be “held” at sword-point or be staring down the barrel of a raygun. Maintaining that hold requires a Hold action, while escaping a hold requires an Escape action; releasing a hold costs no action points.

Group Holds
Multiple characters may participate in establishing and maintaining a hold on a subject character. This is a Group Contest; all characters involved must spend AP for the appropriate action (Melee or Shoot to establish the hold, and Hold to maintain it). A character may cease participating in a hold at any time, though this may increase the chance that the subject character may go free.

Holds and Restraints
Once a character is held, restraints may be applied (see: Equipment); this may be as simple as ropes or handcuffs or as complicated as a straitjacket or gravity harness. Once a character is restrained, they need no longer be subject to a Hold action: they are effectively held until they escape from or are removed from the restraints. Restraints may be applied during a Hold action, although the character takes a -2 dice penalty to all Combatives Test that round while trying to apply restraints.

Predict (1)
Characters with the Computing Skill can attempt to predict the actions and movement of another character in combat. The character makes a Computing vs. Deception Contest. For each hit scored on the Contest, the predicting character may subtract one hit from any Test or Contest the subject character scores during the round.

[Ancient History]

Little iffy about this, but as a first go, what do y'all think:

Cover
To shoot someone, you have to be able to perceive where they are. A character receives a -2 dice cumulative modifier for each 25% of their body that is obscured: for example, a character crouching behind a hovercar that covers half their body would have 50% cover, and those using a Shoot action against them would take a -4 dice penalty; and if a character was standing behind a wall (100% cover) the same shot would be made with a -8 dice penalty. Fog, smoke, heavy precipitation, and the like can likewise provide cover, depending on how thick it is—if a shootout is occurring in a raging blizzard where visibility is limited to only a few meters, any character farther away than that will have 100% cover, for example.

Collateral Damage
Beams vary in effect, but as a rule those that cause physical damage have the potential to destroy physical objects. When a Shoot action fails, the beam still hits something—and that is usually whatever object the character is hiding behind; just because an object provides cover does not mean the shooter necessarily misses, or that the individual being shot at is safe! The damage that would be dealt by the beam is instead inflicted on the cover. “Soft” cover (anything with a density less than hard stone or tempered steel, which includes human beings, trees, soft rock, piled earth, etc.) has three hit boxes per cubic meter. “Hard” cover (stone and metal buildings, concrete, hovercars, spaceships, rock ridges, etc.) have ten or more hit boxes per cubic meter (see Damage & Repair of Inanimate Objects). Smoke, fog, and other non-solid forms of cover are not subject to damage, although whatever is behind them in the line of the beam eventually will be. Cover therefore offers at best temporary protection, and a character that stays behind cover for too long will soon see their cover reduced to nothing.

[Grek]

Both look good to me. I really do think this will make combat play out more tactically (and thematically) in practice.

[virgil]

Sometime around the 7th, I may attempt to try a test battle with my regular gaming crew. I'd have to dig a bit to develop a scenario though

[Ancient History]

Headphone (⊡)
This implant is an entire low-power radio-receiver/transmitter—entirely within the Ranger’s head! Micro-engineered speakers are installed near the ear drums, and a microphone is wired along the jaw and larynx, to allow the the headphone user to communicate sub-audibly; the antenna is laid across the skull. While unable to reach far—the headphone has a maximum broadcasting range of about 1 kilometer, less in crowded environments—the wireless system is fully compatible with the Federation phone system, allowing access to regular telephony within Federation cities and colonies. Even without broadcasting, the headphone also allow the user to “tune in” to ambient radio broadcasts to catch the news, listen to music—or even watch a little television, if they have artificial eyes with the television upgrade.

Memory Implant (⊡)
Space madness is a danger that every human who leaves the bounds of Earth is aware of, and the Federation and Union-Republika have come up with a number of ways to deal with the psychological stresses. The memory implant is the cutting-edge of biotechnology—an artificial network which overlays the frontal cortex of the brain and can, to an extant, control the process of memory and recollection. There are three main modes, which are engaged through certain specific command sequences, typically a combination of a series of flashing lights and verbal commands:
Read/Write: Typically used for therapy, in Read/Write mode the Controller who activated the memory implant can selectively remove short term memories (within the last 12 hours), or implant a specific piece of information—recollection is artificially perfect, as the data is actually stored on micro-data crystals accessed through the memory implant, though the character may not comprehend the data. A Therapy (4) Test is required to successfully access and use Read/Write mode.
Standby: The default mode of operation for a memory implant, the network responsively works to ease stress—characters take twice as long between making Stress Tests (see Stress, Space Madness, & Therapy); i.e. two weeks in isolation, 90 minutes in the presence of an alien telepathic entity, etc.
Switch: At any time, the character may activate Switch mode by staring at a bright light (such as the sun, or a close light bulb) and speaking or hearing a command sequence—in this mode, their short-term memories are recorded to an isolated area of long-term memory which is inaccessible in Standby mode. Thus, these memories that are only accessible in Switch mode; perfect for intelligence operations where the user might be interrogated. These memories may only be edited in Read/Write mode with a Therapy (8) Test. Particularly traumatic memories (torture, rape, severe physical injury, alien telepathic contact) may cause 1 stress when transitioning from Standby to Switch mode, at the gamemaster’s discretion. This stress does not disappear when transitioning from Switch to Standby; even if the user forgets why they are stressed, the body knows.

More advanced versions of the memory implant include a fourth mode called Alt which contains an artificial personality—the memories of this personality are normally available only in Alt and Switch modes, but unlike Switch, normal Standby mode memories are not available in Alt mode. The artificial personality is like an entirely different person in the same body, with the same skills but entirely different motivation. Of course, it is almost impossible to say whether a character with a memory implant has an Alt mode; requiring a Therapy (10) Test.

[virgil]

I don't know if this would be cheap or not, but I can imagine a specialized ray gun for bandits on the Martian frontier - something like a Mark I Orgone ray gun with Charge Boost or Focused Emitter.

[Ancient History]

I'm planning on having a sampling of different wands/ray guns. As with a lot, I just haven't gotten there yet.

[Ancient History]

Socket (⊡ per level)
Usually located at the base of the skull, a socket is a receptacle for a data crystal, as well as the micromachinery required to successfully read it. The Level 1 (⊡) socket only provides access to the raw data however—users still need a headphone to hear audio recordings, or an artificial eye with the television upgrade to view print materials; a Level 2 (⊡⊡) socket comes with an internal “third eye” complete with screen, and speaker implants, so the user can read, watch, or listen to anything in a data crystal. Users may also “plug in” to the Federation’s terminal network through a socket, accessing the data directly from a terminal. Some human computers have multiple sockets (or “feeds” as they like to call them), but this is considered unusual.

The Terminal Network
The public terminal network in Space Madness! is not the internet. There are no computers, and everything is essentially analog. Channels exist for music and television, but it isn’t streaming content that you can pause or rewind—everything plays in realtime. The terminal network is less like Google or Wikipedia, and closer to a library with a card catalog system where you can order whatever bok you want onto the screen. Email and instant messaging analogues haven’t been invented yet—after all, if you can connect via terminal, you can just make a phone call—but some wily few have “hacked” the network by uploading obscure books, and communicating through annotations in the text. The Ministry of the Mind polices the terminal network and removes these annotations when they find them.

There are parts of the network that normal people don’t go to—usually the dry, boring records kept by the Federation bureaucracy—and there are private networks, usually kept by corporations and private citizens that want to keep certain information private (or, on the other hand, by dissidents that want to be able to share information freely). Some private networks require a physical adapter for sockets to interface with them successfully, as an added layer of physical security.

[Ancient History]

Xenostomach (⊡⊡)
Something of a misnomer, the xenostomach is a series of specialized organs which completely replace and supplant the human digestive and urinary systems, including the esophagus, stomach, upper and lower intestines, appendix, kidneys, liver, and colon. The primary purpose of the Xenostomach augmentation is to allow a human to subsist indefinitely on the native foodstuffs on non-Earth worlds—while the user cannot safely digest everything, they can usually safely metabolise or pass many biochemical substances (poisons, toxins, etc.) and elements (arsenic, cyanide, etc.) which would normally be harmful. This essentially renders them immune to digested poisons, toxins, and related conditions—including alcohol and ingested recreational drugs, although those that are inhaled or injected usually work.


Survival and the Xenostomach
While humans can survive on worlds with active biospheres (Earth, Mars, Venus, and Saturn, basically) knowing what not to eat (like certain radioactive plants) is essential, and will likely suffer vitamin deficiency if certain micronutrients are not being included in their diet. Every week of living “off the land,” each character must make a Survival (X) Test, where X is the number of weeks they have been living off the land. If they fail, they have contracted a nutritional deficiency known as the Wasting.

4
The Wasting
Malnutrition
1 Week
Prolonged period living on alien food without vitamin supplements.
Skin lesions, headaches, sensitivity to heat, light, and cold, hair loss, lack of energy, diarrhea, lethargy; health circles and mental health circles do not heal as normal while this state persists.

Characters with the Xenostomach augmentation are immune to the Wasting and do not have to make this Survival Test.

I'm debating moving the Survival box/The Wasting up by the Survival skill, rather than having it buried here.

[Ancient History]

Simplified "The Wasting" and moved it up to the Survival Skill. Added the Zero Seal:

Zero Seal (⊡⊡⊡)
Humans evolved under pressure: the mass of the atmosphere pressing down on Terrans is factored in how their bodies design and function. When exposed to vacuum, humans lose consciousness within ~10 seconds and die within ~90 seconds. Given the dangers of decompression in space, Belters came up with the Zero Seal augmentation: an elastic, myoelectric layer beneath the skin which can act as an emergency pressure suit. Triggered at will (or reflexively in response to a sudden dangerous drop in pressure), the Zero Seal deploys a clear membrane (the Caul) over the face and constructs the body to maintain internal pressurization to protect the body from the worst effects of vacuum exposure, a process that only takes 2-5 seconds. Once “sealed” the character has only a limited oxygen supply, able to operate for about five minutes, unless they have a portable oxygen supply with them. The Zero Seal can also offer protection from toxic gasses and non-breathable atomospheres, within the time constraints and limitations noted above.

Not quite a portable space-suit, so on the fence with this one. That's almost it for the augmentations...

[Grek]

Not sure that Zero Seal is quite worth three boxes.

[Ancient History]

Alternate Zero Seal:

Zero Seal (⊡⊡)
The Zero Seal is a thin, highly advanced space suit that is integrated into the user’s anatomy—flexible membranes are hidden beneath the skin, ready to deploy instantaneously, so that in an inactive state, the Zero Seal appears only as a metallic disc set into the flesh of the user’s chest, which contains the suit’s power supply. When the Zero Seal is activated, the suit deploys, completely covering the user’s skin. When deployed, the Zero Seal provides complete protection against exposure to vacuum, poisonous gas, or toxic atmospheres (although a character will still need an oxygen supply for extended operation). Besides this protection, the Zero Seal contains magnetic implants in hand and foot, for walking on the surface of space craft.

[virgil]

That feels more appropriate for an implant that takes up one of your three equipment slots

[Grek]

I like the revised description and virgil's costing.

[Ancient History]

NPC Augmentations
Extraterrestrials, the Union-Republika, Space Pirates, and even civilian members of the Federation have far different restrictions on personal equipment than the Space Rangers, and consequently those NPCs may have far more and stranger augmentations than the average Ranger. Indeed, some of them indulge in risky, experimental, and extreme augmentations which are not available for Space Rangers to purchase at character generation, and indeed may be beyond the Federation’s current technological abilities to replicate! It is not inconceivable that these augmentations may be obtained during play—if the player character is captured and experimented on by the Yuggothian Empire, for example, or goes undercover among the Space Pirates—so their stats are covered here. If a player character obtains these implants and wishes to keep them past the end of the current adventure, they must pay the CLP cost. These augmentations occupy an equipment slot as normal.
All Yuggothian augmentations contain the technovirus, but it is dormant and does not provide any benefit until the character takes the Technovirus cert.

Implanted Wand (wand Rating)
Alien scientists have discovered how to install a wand directly into a user’s body, and wire it into their nervous system—giving an unprecedented level of connection and control with the cosmics forces (the Target for all Wand Functions is reduced by 1). The wand can no longer receive upgrades and modifications once installed, it must be removed, rebuilt, and re-installed.

Brain Canister (⊡⊡⊡⊡⊡⊡⊡⊡⊡)
The Mi-Go are known to completely remove a living creature’s brain and transfer it to an armored support tank known colloquially as a “brain canister.” Once in the canister, the individual completely lacks any physical sensorium or ability to move or communicate, although telepathy and other psychic abilities are unaffected. Sockets on the brain canister can attach to prosthetic devices allowing the user to see, hear, speak, interact with terminal networks, read data crystals, and/or operate vehicles. The cost of these sockets is factored into the cost of the Brain Canister augmentation.

Xeno Limb (no cost)
While the Yuggothian Empire had very advanced artificial limbs, they are also known for their skill and penchant with transplant surgery—even between species. Corpses have been recovered with legs replaced with strange tentacles, or with a pair of armored claws frome some unknown crustacean jutting out of their torso below their normal arms. Such Xeno Limbs are organic and, functionally, a part of the user’s body, so that they can feel and operate them as if born with them.

[Ancient History]

Exotics
The Space Ranger Corps draws members and equipment from all the colonies of the Federation, and also has access to many rare and obscure pieces of specialized equipment. Space Ranger quartermasters are authorized to issue whatever a Ranger might need from stores for a mission—yet some Rangers feel the need to have access to certain pieces of gear no matter where they are, or become attached to some particular item picked up on their journeys. Such equipment is covered under the catch-all of “Exotics.”
The listed Exotic equipment all have nominal CLP costs, which must be paid for the equipment to be taken, but this is not the limit of such equipment available—if a player wants their character to carry a Venusian war flute or a captured U-R personal cloaking field or any other piece of equipment picked up on the adventure, they may pay 1 CLP to designate it an Exotic item and carry it in one of their open equipment slots (or discard something else to free up a slot).

Reasonable Limits on Exotics
The nature of the Exotic equipment slot is to provide a catch-all for gear that the player characters might want to take with them from adventure to adventure. As such, it generally doesn’t cover consumable items (food pills, water, vitamins, oxygen tanks, currency, etc.) or regular gear that Rangers might expect to be issued or draw on station (uniforms, ropes, vehicles, draft or riding animals, basic tools, etc.) Size is limited to something the character can have on their person; no space-ships or five-ton alien monuments carved out of a single massive ruby. If the item is damaged or destroyed, it is repaired or replaced (as well as possible) by the quartermaster at the start of the next adventure. Truly unique items cannot be replaced, but should be given a functional equivalent if feasible (i.e. if the character takes a family heirloom claymore as an exotic item, and the blade is destroyed, it might be reforged, or the blade replaced). Exotic items should always exist to expand the capabilities of the Ranger, not to provide any bonus dice.


Cat Familiar
The character is partnered with a trained, well-bred feline companion. Most common among Rangers with the Catbound perk, the cat familiar (which may accept a human name or designation, although he or she will also respond to “cat”) is selected for physical and mental fitness, sensitivity to moonbeasts and other threats, and hunting instinct (all cat familiars are mousers par excellence). They are trained to respond to basic verbal instructions (“Sit,” “stay,” “hunt,” “attack”), but like all cats, tend to be independent, although they can form close emotional bonds with their caretakers. A cat familiar has the typical stats for a Cat from Earth.

Codex Dagonensis
The Codex is a kind of summa of ancient Earth religious knowledge regarding the Precursors, extraterrestrial life, and the history of the solar system, as understood by the Ordo Dagon, which considers it a holy text. Whether or not one believes the work is Holy Writ, the bulk of the text is a terse, practical and often surprisingly accurate guide to extraterrestrial religions and arcane science. Even if users ignore the Revelations and the Prophecies, the back of the book contains useful basic guide to the R’lyehian, Tsatha, Senzar, and M’azatha languages, at least equivalent to any tourist guidebook, allowing for halting and limited communication in those languages for anyone that lacks an appropriate language tag. These palm-sized books are always constructed of durable materials, typically dense ceramic covers and plastic pages, and have been translated into many languages, although Standard is most common. Some rare editions contain addition sections not included in travel editions issued by the Ordo Dagon.

[Grek]

Looks good, especially the handling of Exotics.

[Ancient History]

External Power Supply
Typically a heavy dome the size of a dinner plate, and warn strapped to the back, External Power Supplies contains a dense matrix of power crystals and rectifier circuits. Because of the stability of the power crystals and the solid construction, the power supply can survive harsh environmental conditions for potentially thousands of years without losing charge. An External Power Supply has a Full Charge of 100 Sagans, if a wand or wandtech device is connected to the External Power Supply, the wand user can transfer any or all sagans from wand or wandtech device to the External Power Supply, and vice versa. External Power Supplies may also be recharged at a Recharge Point or by connecting to an Azathoth rector, as a wand (see: Charge, Recharging, and Power Crystals.)

Lawkeeper
This palm-sized device is like a portable terminal—and contains every law and legal code within the Federation, along with many outdated historical legal works, treaties with the Union-Republika and various extraterrestrial polities, folk law among the colonies, and the Space Pirate Codes. Aside from being a compact legal reference, a character with a lawkeeper may initiate a Judicial Duel in place of a standard contest.

Judicial Duel
Relying on the authority of the Lawkeeper, the judicial duel is a format to simplify and expedite Law vs. Law contests. Each participant converts their dice pool to automatic hits (normally 4 dice to 1 hit, 3:1 if they have the Experienced (Law) cert); unconverted dice are discarded. Whomever has the most hits wins. As with the Confident cert, this is an exception to the rule that automatic hits can normally only be used with tests.

Personal Cloaking Device
This device is the size of a large belt buckle; when activated it creates a cloaking field (as the Level 2 wand function) one meter in diameter—sufficient to cover any normal human. It has a maximum charge of 30 sagans, and consumes 2 sagans per round when active. Use the device’s Rating in place of the user’s Deception Skill for any contests related to piercing the cloaking field it generates.

Personal Shield Generator
This device is the size of a large belt buckle; when activated it creates a warp shield (as the Level 3 wand function) around a space one meter in diameter—sufficient to cover any normal human. It has a maximum charge of 30 sagans, and consumes (Rating + 1) sagans per round when active. Use the device’s Rating in place of X to determine the Target modifier of the shield.


Other Wandtech
The Personal Cloaking Device and Personal Shield Generator are examples of adopting wand functions as separate devices, and can serve as general guidelines for other devices in your own game. In most cases, wandtech is much less versatile than a wand, covering only a single function, with fixed effect (field size, etc.), set power consumption, a Maximum Charge, and a device Rating used in place of the wand user’s skills. Characters may construct wandtech devices in the same way as building a wand (see Building Your Own Wand), but the total cost is divided by 4 (rounded up). Wandtech devices never need to be attuned.

Recharging
Unlike wands, wandtech devices do not recharge themselves. They may by recharged by being connected to an Azathoth reactor or Recharge Point as discussed in Charge, Recharging, and Power Crystals.

Upgrading Wandtech
Wandtech devices can receive any of the same upgrades and modifications as wands, although all of them come with the Focused Emitter mod (already factored in). These mods take up no additional equipment slots, and require no tests to modify them: the character simply pays the CLP cost for the mod.

Few more items of exotic equipment left, then I need to do the Equipment Packages and Wand mods/upgrades.

[virgil]

Unless Space Rangers are children or little people, I take it the personal cloaking/shield wandtech devices are intended to be used while crouching or something?

If you have multiple Warp Shields blocking a target (or one Warp Shield shaped to have multiple air-gaped layers), do you just apply the strongest one for any effects?

[Axebird]

I glossed over them and read "one meter radius" instead. Yeah, that's a little weird.

[Ancient History]

Radius, right. Overlapping warp shields, need to address.

[Iduno]

Alternate Zero Seal:

Zero Seal (⊡⊡)
The Zero Seal is a thin, highly advanced space suit that is integrated into the user’s anatomy—flexible membranes are hidden beneath the skin, ready to deploy instantaneously, so that in an inactive state, the Zero Seal appears only as a metallic disc set into the flesh of the user’s chest, which contains the suit’s power supply. When the Zero Seal is activated, the suit deploys, completely covering the user’s skin. When deployed, the Zero Seal provides complete protection against exposure to vacuum, poisonous gas, or toxic atmospheres (although a character will still need an oxygen supply for extended operation). Besides this protection, the Zero Seal contains magnetic implants in hand and foot, for walking on the surface of space craft.

The only problem I see with this revision, is that the rule changed from "about 5 minutes" to "will need an oxygen supply for extended operation." Having a basis for what "extended" means is nice. And having the normal amount of time people survive (10 seconds to pass out, 90 seconds to die) helped back that up.

[Ancient History]

Overlapping fields taken care of, Zero Seal periods taken care of, new exotic items:

Polarized Cape
Liquid crystal cloth is a miracle of contemporary technology, able to polarize from completely transparent to completely opaque by the application of small cavoritic currents. Normally this property is used for cosmetic purposes: a dress might go from conservative to risque with the press of a button, or a hood may be drawn over the face with a zipper, and rendered dark except for a strip around the eyes, providing an effective disguise. The Polarized Cape that is the characteristic garment of the Solar Patrol can do all of these things—discrete controls allow a trained wearer to make some or all of the cloak as opaque as they like, even allowing the creation of camouflage patterns—but the real power of the cloak is as a defense: when the cloak is at 100% opacity, it absorbs all incoming and outgoing radiation. This protection is sufficient to provide cover from a single beam attack (see: Combat: Cover), although the cape will be destroyed if it is hit—or it can be wrapped around an individual or object to create a small, personalized Faraday cage that is likewise invisible to radar. 100% opacity does cause issues with heat buildup, and so cannot be used for more than 10 minutes at a time—less if exposed to particularly high temperatures—and requires an equal amount of time at 0% opacity to “cool down” afterwards. If the suit is kept at 100% capacity for more than 10 minutes, or is not allowed time to cool down, it will be damaged and become nonfunctional.

Rocket Pack
Ubiquitous among the Belt, but scarce elsewhere in the Federation, the “rocket pack” is more technically a compact, back-mounted flying wing, with thrust provided by an efficient electric propulsion ion drive with a high specific impulse, providing up two 2 g (19.6 m/s^2) of acceleration in space, through most atmospheres, and even underwater. Rocket packs have 6 kilogram fuel tanks, and consume 0.1 kilogram of reaction mass per g of acceleration per minute of use (i.e. 60 minutes at 1 g, 30 minutes at 2 g, etc.) Maneuvering and speed are typically controlled by a specialized bracer or glove, along with body movements for aerial maneuvers such as rotating, flips, and dives; flying a rocket pack uses the Pilot Skill. The exhaust from the rocket pack is sufficient to cause damage to anything exposed (1 point of damage per round), including the legs of unprotected users; Space Rangers issued rocket packs are also issued a heat-resistant uniform (which does not occupy an equipment slot).