This post has nothing to do with my worldbuilding project. This weekend, I played a solo session of 60 Years in Space, an incredibly crunchy and complex (but often poorly edited and laid out) RPG. This doesn’t fit in with the worldbuilding project I’m doing on this page, obviously, but I figured I’d post it here anyway. I considered creating a new, separate Substack for SoloRPG sessions, but decided against. I’ll probably just change the name of the Substack at some point to represent that it’s a bunch of different things, the worldbuilding project included.
First of all — I can’t really recommend 60 Years in Space to anyone. This is not because I dislike the game. In fact, I’ve been loving it, and have been drawn in to it more than any other SoloRPG I’ve tried. However, it has a lot of problems ranging from the mundane (poor editing means that some page references lead to the wrong page) to the difficult (there are just so many tables you need to reference and jump between to get where you’re going) to the fundamental (the RPG relies heavily on a boardgame, High Frontier, to the extent that many of the rules don’t make sense without access to the boardgame).
That being said, despite the difficulties and real flaws of the game, I’ve loved it. It scratches exactly the itch that I have for RPGs - it is really crunchy and is at least partly about figuring out puzzles and efficient ways to accomplish a mission, while also offering the expansive options available in an RPG. It also is about space exploration, something I am very interested in. Overall, I’ve not only enjoyed playing the game, but I’ve enjoyed reading and trying to figure out the rules.
The below is my playthrough, written as I played.
Starting the Game
I found out about the 60 Years in Space RPG from a post by Ethan Mollick about Gemini Pro LLM, which can ingest an incredibly complicated rule set and figure it out. Naturally, upon reading that 60 Years is an incredibly complicated ruleset, and it's a hard science-fiction game about space exploration, I had to try it out.
First of all, it is absolutely true that this is an incredibly complicated and fairly confusing set of rules. It's not laid out all that well, and it doesn't have an easy to follow path through the rules. It's also specifically and heavily based on the boardgame High Frontier, which is itself highly complicated. 60 Years often assumes a familiarity with the rules for the boardgame that continues to make it difficult to fully grok.
Based on my initial reading about 60 Years, and the free samples available on the Itch.io page, I bought the rules and all four supplements, which was absolutely the right move. Although the core rules are theoretically stand-alone, the first supplement, “This Space Intentionally," is definitely required to actually understand how to play the game.
I've spent the last week or so going through the rules to try and understand them. I've also been transcribing the rules into my note-taking app, Trilium, which allows me to easily link between sections and duplicate rules in the different places that cross-reference. I think this will make understanding the rules much easier, and the mere process of doing so has helped me work my way through a lot of the rules already.
That being said, I certainly have not yet grasped the entirety of the rules at this point. Between the core rules and the first supplement, which are the only two parts I've made my way through so far (and not even fully for them), there are nearly 700 pages of dense rules. This Space Intentionally has a few intro scenarios, however, which I'm going to work through to try and understand the game.
One other problem exists - the game uses the map of the boardgame, which is an energy map of the solar system. I don't own the boardgame at this moment, although I late-pledged for an all-in pledge for the latest expansion. One thing that I've got from reading these rules is how enthralled I am by the basic concept and the way the game works, and it is exactly up my alley. If only I could get people to be willing to play with me, which is far from certain. In any case, the point is I don't have the game, and therefore don't have the map. Luckily, there is a fully-functioning Tabletop Simulator version of High Frontier, which has the full map as well as the rules, and I've been wandering my way around the map to try and understand it.
The first ‘launch pad’ (short mission to help understand the game), is the “Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA)," mission.
The Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) is a proposed uncrewed mission to 65803 Didymos, a binary asteroid, to determine whether impacting a spacecraft into the asteroid can be successfully used to deflect an asteroid from a path intersecting the Earth. 65803 Didymos has been chosen because it is not an Earth crossing asteroid and so a successful deflection will not hit the Earth.
The AIDA mission will be carried out by the European Space Agency (ESA).
Basically, I need to design an uncrewed rocket to get from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to the asteroid Didymos.
The route to be used is as follows:
Step 1 The rocket moves from low Earth orbit (LEO) to a highly eccentric orbit (HEO), spending steps equal to its fuel consumption to enter the HEO space because this space is a burn.
Step 2 The rocket moves from HEO to the radiation space following the purple path. There is no need to spend fuel but a radiation roll needs to be made to see whether all the rocket components survive. Roll 1D6. Add 2 if the solar cycle is in the Red zone. Subtract the rocket net thrust. If this number exceeds the radiation hardness of any rocket components, they are decommissioned. If the thruster or its supports are decommissioned the rocket stops moving.
Step 3 The rocket moves from the radiation space to the pink L4 space, spending steps equal to its fuel consumption to enter the L4 space because this space is a burn. This space is the Earth-Luna L4 Lagrange. Lagranges are examples of spaces where you can freely change direction without having to spend additional fuel.
Step 4 The rocket moves from the Earth-Luna L4 Lagrange to the purple path Moon boost space. This performs a gravitational slingshot maneuver allows the rocket to get additional energy (delta-v) called a free burn which can be used elsewhere in the system, but not to get to the Moon itself or to enter any landing burn (pink spaces in the shape of a Lunar lander).
Step 5 The rocket moves from the purple path Moon boost space along the purple path passing through 4 pivots (intersections) without changing direction. A direction change at any of these locations would require the rocket ends its move or spend 2 burns worth of fuel.
Step 6 The rocket enters the pink burn to the right of the first purple path sound. This burn indicates the energy to move from the Earth heliocentric zone to the Mars heliocentric zone. Burns normally require energy to enter, but the gravitational assist from the Moon boost space gives one free burn so no fuel is consumed.
Step 7 The rocket moves from the pink burn at the edge of the Earth zone to the L4 space on the purple path. This space is not a burn and does not require any fuel be spent to enter. It is the Sol-Mars L4 Lagrange: a location where the gravity of the Sun and Mars cancel each other out.
Step 8 The rocket changes direction for free because it is on a Lagrange, and moves off the purple path to the barycentre of Didymos and Didymos moonlet. The barycentre is the centre of gravity at which these two bodies orbit each other.
Step 9 The rocket lands on Didymos (actually destructively impacts on it). Safe landings require a minimum net thrust one greater than the site size, although this mission’s parameters don’t require a safe landing.
The mission directs the players to divide into two teams, one team of researchers and one for the operations team at ESOC (European Space Operations Centre). As I'm playing this solo, I'll just do each part one after the other.
Research Team
The research team has to design the rocket. That requires a combination of thrusters and generators. In the full game of 60 Years, there are also decisions to make for radiators, robonauts (basically robotic tools), refineries, and crew or colonists to carry on board. For this limited mission, the AIDA team is going to make a simple rocket with a thruster and, if needed, a generator.
But first, before we can design the rocket, we need to create Mission Control Contacts. Basically, in the normal game with a crewed rocket, the mission control contacts are the folks back in mission control helping out the crew with tasks (think the JPL engineers in the Martian who tell Watney what to do). They can help the rocket crew perform tasks they would otherwise be unable to do, or help them perform a task they are good at even better. In this case, since we're playing with an uncrewed rocket, the mission control contacts are the primary characters for this one.
I can choose two of the following - Thruster Engineer, Thruster Researcher, Generator Engineer or Generator Researcher. Picking a researcher or engineer gives me a higher level in the base skills ‘Research’ and ‘Engineering.’ Picking Thruster or Generator gives me a ‘chrome’ for that piece of equipment which is essentially a bonus to using that equipment with your skill. I should definitely have both a researcher and an engineer, and I think I'll want to spread it out between thrusters and generators, although I think I could design a rocket that doesn't need a generator, allowing me to only pick thruster contacts.
That being said, I think at this point it's better if I spread things out. I also think that maintaining the thruster is probably the most important, so I'll pick the thruster engineer and the generator researcher.
Now, I'll generate these contacts. Confusingly, the description of how to generate a contact comes from the Skills chapter of the core rules, which then directs you to two sections of two different chapters (Call Signs in Demographics chapter and Outlook in Crew chapter). As I mentioned, the rules are a bit confusing and poorly organized.
First, Call Signs. Instead of using names, 60 Years has all characters, both player and non-player, named by a call sign instead of an actual name. The reasoning for this is that names are so complex and culturally based that making random tables for names from different cultures would be an incredibly difficult task and wouldn't work anyway. Instead, we'll roll on the call signs table to see what their call signs will be. The rules say roll three call signs and pick between them
First, for the Thruster Engineer:
2d6: 1, 4, 2d6: 3, 1, 1d6: 6 - Aphelion Conjunction
2d6: 4, 1, 2d6: 6, 3, 1d6: 1 - Kindness Unity
2d6: 1, 5, 2d6: 3, 3, 1d6: 4 - Delta Green
Then for the Generator Researcher
2d6: 1, 1, 2d6: 6, 2, 1d6: 5 - Albedo Terra
2d6: 5, 2, 2d6: 4, 1, 1d6: 1 - Quiet Kindness
2d6: 4, 3, 2d6: 6, 3, 1d6: 3 - Module Turbo
I'm not sure, I don't really like any of those names. I'm thinking I might not go with the Call Sign generators and go with my own names. However, since this is my first time playing, I want to play rules as written, so I'll stick with the call sign generator for now. I'll use Aphelion Conjunction for the thruster engineer and Module Turbo for the Generator Researcher.
Next, I'm supposed to determine gender and ethnicity. The rules have a whole section on pronouns (that is more likely to come into play in later eras). I'm not really interested in exploring that, so I'll just drop the entire pronoun discussion entirely. The gender determination is a bit complicated also, but for the ‘pre-colonization era,’ it's not too bad, so I'll follow the rules as written. Note: there's an attempt to meet gender statistics of various countries, such that if you roll an 11 and you're a Christian Indian you'd be female, but if Chinese you'd be male. Kind of interesting, but considering you're probably not going to generate more than 20 or so total people, such close-grained demographic statistics seems excessive1.
So, for Aphelion Conjunction, I roll 2d6: 6 + 4 = 10. Even numbers are female, so she's a woman.
For Module Turbo: 2d6: 2 + 1 = 3. Odd numbers are male, so he's a man
Next, ethnicity.
Crew and mission control contact nationalities will match the mission control nationality on a 2D6 roll less than or equal to the nationality mix number determined by the mission control or faction BSU. In the core rules, this will be 2 if the mission control or faction is Red, 3 if White, 4 if Green, 5 if Purple and 6 if Orange.
Since the ESA is a National Space Agency, the mission control is a White faction. That means I'll roll 2d6, and if it's a 2 or 3 I'll roll on a table to find nationality and then find roll on the table for ethnicity, otherwise I'll just roll on the ‘France’ table2.
Aphelion Conjunction: 2d6: 3 + 6 = 9.
Module Turbo: 2d6: 3 + 3 = 6
So for both of them, I'll roll on the France ethnicity table.
Aphelion Conjunction: 2d6: 6 + 3 = 9 - North African
Module Turbo: 2d6: 1 + 1 = 2 – Greek (1-3) or German (4-6) – 1d6: 4 – German
Then languages
French ≤5, Ancestral language ≥5 if non-European, Ancestral language = 6 if European. French as a second language on a second roll of 1-4 if not first language. If an Ancestral French language user, either: Alsatian (1-2), Occitan (3-4) or Oil language (5-6). North African ancestral language is Arabic.
That's pretty confusing, but I think I roll a 1d6 for each then interpret it.
Aphelion Conjunction: 1d6: 4, so she speaks French
Module Turbo: 1d6: 1, so he also speaks French
Now, I need to determine their outlooks. An outlook is essentially how you react and interact with the people around you.
For individuals belonging to a faction, and for Faction and Mission Control contact outlooks, their outlook will be determined by two cards, one drawn from a deck and one matching their BSU. The face value of the BSU card is determined by a 1D6 roll instead of a card, modified by +7 unless the BSU is Purple; and treating 1 as Ace, 11 as Jack, 12 as Queen and 13 as King. The card drawn will determine a second outlook – if the suit is the same as the BSU, the outlook will be Purple instead.
BSU is ‘Basal Social Unit’ - I think it's White because it's a National Space Agency3, so I add +7 to the 1d6 roll.
I then go to a table and use the card values to read what their outlook is. This is pretty confusing. I also hate using cards, since I generally play SoloRPGs on my computer, I'd prefer using dice instead4.
In any case, the first one is easy, I just use White and then roll 1d6 + 7: 1 + 7 (mod) = 8. – Therefore, Aphelion Conjunction is a ‘Team Player’ -
You work well in a high performance team environment, bringing out the best in your peers while identifying what skills you can bring to the group and constructively contributing towards the team’s goals.
Now, for the second one. I just used an online card drawer, and got a King of Hearts. Following the table, a King of Hearts means that Aphelion Conjunction is also Selfless:
You are obsessed with the people or things you love and will put them ahead of your own happiness and well being, even as you criticize their failings.
So Aphelion Conjunction is an ethnically North African Frenchwoman who is a selfless team player, who is an important member of the engineering team with a focus on thrusters.
Outlooks for Module Turbo:
First outlook: 1d6+7 = 6+7 = 13 – King of Spades, so ‘Dogmatic’:
You have committed to the belief there is only one right way of doing things, and one set of principles which are undeniably true. Everyone around you is either with you or against you, based on their demonstration of their belief in these principles.
Second outlook, draw a random card: 2 of Spades. Since Spades is the same as the suit for white, this becomes purple instead. A 2 purple is “prescriptive” -
Rules are put in place for good reasons, and a consistent application of well-stated rules is the fairest and safest way for everyone to achieve the best possible outcomes.
So Module Turbo is a Frenchman who is ethnically German. He is Dogmatic and Prescriptive, and is a researcher with a focus on generators.
Operations Team
Now, I'll generate my Operations Team. I should generate one Devops contact, responsible for software maintenance and navigation, and one Medical contact, responsible for the medical team for the mission control staff (if the rocket was crewed the crew would face medical issues, but as it is not, instead the mission control team will.
I will again generate a contact by making Call Signs and Demographics, then Outlooks for each contact.
First, the Devops.
Gender: 2d6: 5+5 = 10 - Female
Ethnicity: Figure out if she's a local: 2d6: 4, 1 - 5, so she's from France
2d6: 1+3 = 4 - Portuguese or Polish - :1d6: 5 - Polish
Language: 1d6: 5 - Speaks French and Polish
Call Sign possibilities:
2d6: 3, 4, 2d6: 2, 6, 1d6: 1 - Inspired Giving
2d6: 5, 3, 2d6: 5, 4, 1d6: 3 - Printer Rail
2d6: 3, 3, 2d6: 1, 4, 1d6: 2 - Look-up Cycle
I'll pick her call sign as ‘Printer Rail’
Outlooks
1d6 + 7: 2 + 7 (mod) = 9, so Team Player
You work well in a high performance team environment, bringing out the best in your peers while identifying what skills you can bring to the group and constructively contributing towards the team’s goals.
Drew a 9 of hearts, Social
You are an outgoing, socially confident person with a large network of peers, mentors and experts to draw upon. Your approach to solving issues is often knowing exactly who the right person to talk to is.
So, Printer Rail is an ethnically Polish Frenchwoman who is Social and a Team Player. She's the primary DevOps for the AIDA mission.
Now, the medical
Gender: 2d6: 5+3 = 8 - Female
Ethnicity: Figure out if she's a local: 2d6: 2+6 = 8 - she's from France
2d6: 3+5 = 8 - she's ethnically French
Language: 1d6: 4 - she speaks French
Call Sign possibilities:
2d6: 2, 4, 2d6: 3, 5, 1d6: 5 -Corona Lacuna
2d6: 6, 4, 2d6: 3, 3, 1d6: 5 - Uranus Geyser
2d6: 4, 3, 2d6: 2, 6, 1d6: 2 - Operator Input
I'll pick her call sign as Operator Input
Outlooks
1d6 + 7: 4 + 7 (mod) = 11 - Faithful
You have an overwhelming feeling of responsibility to those close to you, and will ignore their faults and highlight their strengths when interacting with them.
Draw a card: 2 of hearts - Cynical
You’ve seen and see the worst of people which leaves with you an inherent distrust of others and a cynical view of humanity as a whole.
That's an interesting set of contradictions – I think it's that she feels responsible for those she's close to and responsible for, but is cynical about everyone else. Basically, she sees the ESA and the space program as a small oasis of sanity, intelligence and competence in the world.
Operations Constraints
Alright, we now have our research and engineering team - actually, there are plenty of other ESA engineers and researchers, but those two are the ones who will be most visible and important in the discussions. And we also have our operations team.
The next step is to pick a rocket design, research the components, and boost them all into Low Earth Orbit. To research the components, I will need to perform a Research Operation, while to build and boost the components I need to perform a Boost Operation. Each operation takes one year, so assuming no issues it'll be at least two years before I can launch my rocket, three if I decide to research a generator as well as a thruster5.
I've had to go into the boardgame rules for High Frontier to figure out a few other things I was confused by. As I read the boardgame rules I realize more and more how much of the RPG rules are based on, and assume knowledge of, the boardgame. In particular, the description of how ship components work together didn't make any sense until I read through the equivalent section of the boardgame, and now I think I get it.
So, we'll do the research operation first, see how many technologies I can research, and pick thrusters and possibly other components based on that.
Steps for doing an operation:
Determine which operation you wish to perform
Make an accident check. If it fails, roll on the accident table for the operation. You should normally avoid the accident by choosing another outcome. However defects can cause accidents which you cannot avoid.
If you took on a complication as a part of succeeding or failing at the skill roll, roll for the complications.
So, I've decided to do the research operation. Next I need to make an accident check. Now, here I run into another problem, that the Operations chapter doesn't actually explain what accident checks are or where to go to figure that out. I search ‘accident check’ in the rules, and find in a sub-section of the Mission chapter that I should make a skill check against the indicated skill to figure out if there's an accident.
I now go to the Skills chapter to figure out how using a skill works. Basically, to use a skill, I roll 2D6 and try to get equal or less than the relevant skill. Since Module Turbo is a ‘Researcher’ mission controller, I have a skill of 5 in the Research skill. That isn't super great odds. The dice roll would be reduced to 1D6 if I had ‘Chrome’ in the equipment being used or researched. The Research Operation description says
“Because research is original, you typically don’t have the relevant chrome in order to perform research operations. The exception is if the component you wish to research is at the top of the patent deck, or you are researching a technology on the reverse side of a patent card that you already have a license for. In both these instances, you are considered to have the chrome for the research operation.”
These two cases refer to concepts from the boardgame, where the patent deck is the deck of thruster technologies on the board, and each card has two sides representing different technologies. Again, this doesn't really make sense with the ‘1D6’ technology number. The first bit, about the technology at the top of the patent deck, doesn't make a ton of sense either if we get to choose what technology to research. Actually, no, I think I can make that make sense. As I mentioned before, I'm using the High Frontier Tabletop Simulator module, so I have the cards. I'll just reshuffle any technology deck I research from. I'll say that the card at the top of the patent deck is the one whose research is easiest, but I can still try for a different one if I'd like.
I'm supposed to actually do the operation in the ‘execution phase,’ so I'll save that for later.
Meanwhile, the Boost Operation will build and move my components into space. Normally, the Boost operation moves 1 mass into LEO, or more in exchange for the crew taking on debt. Since I'm playing as Mission Control in this one, though, I instead get 10 Water Tanks (WT) of currency, and can spend 1WT for every mass I move into space (including fuel). I can take an extra year to earn 2WT by doing an ‘Income’ Operation as well, but I'll try to avoid that.6
In other words, in designing the rocket, the research team has the constraint that the total rocket, between thruster, generator, mission module and fuel, can only be 10 mass.
The Operations team also lets the research team know that they have the constraint of needing 2 burns to get to Didymos.
Design Rocket
Now, I need to design my rocket. I've decided that a research operation can research exactly one technology, and it takes a full year. Therefore, if I pick a thruster that requires a generator, I'll need at least two years to research and another year to get it into space. If I pick just a thruster, it'll only take 1 year to research and 1 year to get into space.
There are two major constraints and one minor constraint on the rocket design. The major constraints are that it cannot weigh more than 10 mass total and must have enough fuel for two burns. The minor constraint is the need to pass through the Van Allen belts around the Earth, in which I'll need to make a 1D6 roll and subtract thrust, decommissioning any component with a radiation hardness less than the result. Thus, I also need to consider the combination of thrust and rad-hardness, with one making up for the other. Another consideration is that it should have a thrust of at least 2 (if it has a thrust of only 1, the journey will take 2 full years instead of only 1).
The thruster and generator technologies at the top of the patent stack are the “DUMBO” thruster and the Rankine Magnetohyrodynamic (MHD) Generator. The DUMBO isn't allowed because it's nuclear, and the mission does not allow for nuclear powered rockets, and the Rankine MHD outputs heat, and we aren't putting a radiator on this mission. Therefore, I'll need to pick different components, and won't get the ‘chrome’ from using the top of the stack.
There's three basic options –
Option one is to use a solar sail (The Phoyon Heliogyro, probably). Note: I spent like twenty minutes puzzling my brain on how a 0 thrust solar sail could possibly get the two burns needed to get to Didymos. I entirely forgot that there's also a weight modifier to thrust – if my total mass is 1, I get a bonus of +2, if it's 2-4, I get a bonus of +1 thrust. Since both of the sails have 0 mass, I can use them to get 2 thrust and cost no fuel for burns. However, the downside is that they have basically no rad-hardness (1 and 0), which means that there's a pretty high chance they get taken out in the Van Allen belts. I could do something crazy like using the Mission Module thruster to get past the Van Allen belts (risk is reduced based on thrust), then the solar sail the rest of the way, but that requires an extra year, since you can only use the thrust from one thruster in any given year.
Option two is to go minimum components, using the Mirror Steamer (3 thrust, 4 fuel consumption) and 8 fuel. That makes a rocket of 9 mass total (Mission Module is 1 mass, Mirror Steamer is 0 mass, and 8 mass of fuel), which can get to Didymos in one year7.
The other option is to go a bit more advanced, get a better thruster and generator. For example, I could use the Hall Effect (3 thrust, only 2 fuel consumption) with the Photon Tether Rectenna Generator (-1 thrust, 2 mass), to allow me to have two more advanced thrusters available for future use. That would be a total mass of 8 (Hall Effect is 1, Mission Module is 1, Rectenna is 2 and 4 fuel).
A fourth option that breaks one of my constraints is to make a rocket bigger than 10 mass. I could use the Tungsten Resistojet thruster (5 thrust, 4 fuel consumption), with the Radioisotope Stirling (-2 thrust, 2 mass, requires 1 thermal output which I can use afterburns for) or the H2-02 Fuel Cell (no effect on thrust, 4 mass and 4 rad-hardness). The first option would be a total mass of 12 (1 from Mission Module, 0 from thruster, 2 from generator and 9 from fuel (2 burns plus 1 after burn to cool the generator)). The second option would be a total mass of 13 (0 from thruster, 1 from Mission Module, 4 from generator and 8 from fuel). Either of these would take additional years to research the modules and build up the income to pay for the boost – so really they're ruled out. I don't have a time limit, but at the same time I don't want to take five years to complete the mission.
After looking at the options, I believe that Option two is the way to go. It takes the minimum time and still researches a piece of equipment useful for later missions.
So, the final rocket design will be:
Mission Module
Mirror Steamer Thruster8
8 fuel
Trends and Impacts
Now, I need to roll for trends and impacts in the interstellar arena. I should also roll for other factions, but I'll forego that for the sake of simplicity. I'll either restart the game with a new crew and do that then, or just roll after this mission is completed. However, I will do the risks, faction event and trends.
I'll start with Service Risks. I'm supposed to roll 1d6 on the service risks table for each of the contacts (normally would be for each of the crew). However, there will only be an impact if I roll a 3 (Lifespan), 4 (Maintenance) or 6 (Psychological) for each one.
First, Aphelion Conjunction: 1d6 = 2 - no effect.
Module Turbo: 1d6 = 5 - No effect
Printer Rail: 1d6 = 2 - no effect
Operator Input: 1d6 = 1 - no effect.
So, none of the major mission control team suffer any issues this year.
Next, I need to roll for a faction event.
I roll 1d6 to see what the faction is, then another 1d6 to see what faction color it is9.
If the faction doesn't exist (i.e., unless I roll a 2 for white, which is my faction), I'll have to create a new faction.
1d6 = 5 - Faction Impact - this would ordinarily mean that the faction gives some kind of upgrade or change to the crew. Since I don't have a crew (the mission is uncrewed), this doesn't mean anything, and I'll just skip it. I could roll to see what faction it would be and generate the faction if it doesn't exist, but I won't for now. The rules to generate new factions, like everything else, are long and crunchy, and I want to get through this mission before I get to that.
Next, I would roll to apply impacts from any existing trends, as well as additional faction upgrades. However, there are no existing trends, and I don't have a crew to apply faction upgrades to, so these also don't apply.
So, that concludes the planning phase of the year 2040.
2040 Execution
Now, it's time for the execution phase. I'll start with my operation for the year.
I am conducting a research operation. I'm using Module Turbo as my primary researcher. His research skill is 5, so I have to roll 2d6 and get below or equal to a 5 to succeed fully. As I'm not researching any technologies on the top of the patent deck, I also don't have chrome for this.
2d6: 3+3 = 6
However, I can use a ‘bump’ to change the face of a die by one up or down. In the rules, each player gets one bump every hour of a session, and it's lost at the end of the hour. In addition, if I have already used my bump, I can go into debt to use another. I think that it can only change one die in a die roll, and only once (i.e., I can't change a die roll by six by using six bumps).
That changes the die roll from a 6 to a 5, making it a success with complications. I'll roll on the complications chart for the Research operation10.
2d6: 2+1 = 3 - “Replicate Results” - I need to perform a research income operation to keep the rights to the research. Long story short, this just delayed my launch by another year.
Next, I roll for an encounter (supposed to do that every operation, as well as every 30 minutes of real world time. The real world time is obviously way too often, but I'll keep with every operation).
Prompt:
2d6: 1+4 = 5, 1d6 = 2 - “Praise for Unrest11” -
The crew overhears praise from the encountered group. If at a colony or Bernal, these will be about the current location; otherwise they will be about an aspect of the faction.
Location: Earth
Encountered group (roll 1d6 if Baseline, 2d6 if Upported - this is the beginning of the Upported era, so 2d6):
2d6: 1+4 = 5
Orange Major Faction – well, I guess I create another faction after all12. Orange means the faction is a libertarian or capitalist faction, focused on personal and business freedom.
The rules in the core book for faction generation are kind of weak. In fact, there really isn't much of anything at all besides rolling between generic doctrines (Purist, Orthodox, Revisionist, Reformist, Radical and Extremist). However, This Space Intentionally has a bunch of tables to roll between for the major BSUs (colors). I also could just create one myself, but for now I'll roll on the tables given.
2d6: 4+1 = 5 - Earthside Megacorporation
Name: 3d6: 1, 4, 6 Total Mega-Industries
Doctrines (Majority and Minority): 2d6: 2, 6 ‘Managerial Moral Hazard’ is the majority doctrine, and ‘Incomplete contracting paradigm’ is the minority
Managerial moral hazard The managerial moral hazard theory of the firm is that the firm’s managers’ interests are not aligned to that of the shareholders which places investor money at risk for the manager’s personal gain or ambitions. Managerial moral hazard corporations are prone to upper management empire building where individual C levels and board members expect personal loyalty from their staff well beyond their employment contracts.
Incomplete contracting paradigm The Incomplete contracting paradigm is that in practice contracts between a buyer and seller cannot specify every possible contingency and so firms which own their own assets are more efficient than a pure contract-based marketplace. An incomplete contracting paradigm megacorporation prefers to supply everything itself and avoid negotiations or deals with outside suppliers: when it does it relies on predictive AI rather than humans to out think the competition.
Origin: 1d6 = 4 - High Tech sector, 2d6: 1+2 = 3 - Telecommunications (Based on that, I'm going to rename the corporation to Total Communications
I could continue generating the encounter, including who specifically they run into, but it doesn't really make sense to do so. In addition, the idea that there's a 'Praise for Unrest" makes sense, given the fact that the ESA needs to replicate their results to use the technology. Basically, Total Communications, a major megacorp based in 1d6 = 2 – the United States13, filed suit or otherwise interfered with the ESA to prevent them from developing and using the thruster as planned. Aphelion Conjunction and Module Turbo, the two members of the research team, were attending a conference when an employee of TC dropped a snide hint in their ears.
Now, the next things I'm supposed to resolve for the year are interceptions (none, and not applicable anyway), and crew members gaining skills and upgrades, which is also not applicable as I don't have a crew. So that completes 2040.
2041 - Planning
Now, it's the second year of the mission, and the ESA needs to prove that the Mirror Steamer Thruster technology can replicate. Again it'll be planning phase then execution phase.
Plan Operation
First, I pick the operation for the year. I need to do the Income (Research) operation this year if I want to be able to deploy the Mirror Steamer Thruster on my rocket. I could change my mind and just research a different component, but I'm not going to do that.
So, the operation for the year will be Income, with the research skill.
Service Risks
I'll roll risks for each of my mission control specialists
AC - 1d6 = 1 - no effect
MT - 1d6 = 6 - Psychological. Now, I roll 1d6 again, adding era number (1) and 2 since Earthside. I compare that to age, and if it is less than age in decades, then he gets an aging penalty. His age is 38 + 2d6: 2+3 = 5 - 43. Therefore, he can't suffer an aging penalty, since a roll of 1 +3 is 4, so even a 1 wouldn't count. That's specifically not intended, as the AIDA scenario mentions that aging should occur on a 1, and I think it's because they're not counting the era as Upported yet, it's still baseline. Therefore, I'll remove the era number, so if he rolls a 1 he'll suffer an aging penalty. 1d6 = 4 - no aging penalty.
PR - 1d6 = 6 - Psychological. Her age is 38 + 2d6: 5+1 = 6 - 44. 1d6 + 2: 2 + 2 (mod) = 4 - therefore, does not suffer an aging penalty
OI - 1d6 = 2 - No effect
Faction Event
Now, time to roll for faction event.
1d6 = 1 - New Factory
1d6 = 3 - Green. The Green faction does not exist. I will not create a faction for it (again, trying to maintain simplicity for now)
Solar System Event
1d6 = 5 - Since it's a blue cycle, it means disruption.
Disruption A regional disaster occurs which may have an impact on mission control personnel and launch operations. Resolve this as outlined in the Crisis, Disruptions and Disasters section on page 36.
2d6: 6+1 = 7 - Pacific Rim Volcano
A disruption prevents Mission Control providing assistance or boosting for 1D6 years if the mission control launch site falls within the region affected by the disruption
Luckily, the ESA launch site is in French Guiana, not in the Pacific Rim, or this would delay our mission by even longer.
2041 - Execution
Operation
This year, I am doing an Income Operation to try and prove the viability of my new thruster design. I'll use Module Turbo's research skill again. This time, though, I do have chrome - Aphelion Conjunction has expertise in thrusters, and at this point we have successfully researched the thruster, we're just trying to demonstrate its viability. Therefore, I only have to roll 1d6, not 2d6 – massively increasing my odds of success. Still need to be equal or less than 5.
1d6 = 6
Dang it. I'll use one debt14 to change the die by one to 5 instead of 6. So it's a success with complications.
2d6: 2+5 = 7 Rapid operation – this operation takes half as long as usual.
That's very good. However, I do have a question on how that actually works in the rules. If it takes half as long as expected, that's only six months, which is great. But I can't do a second operation in that time, or that one will be done halfway through the next year, and it won't actually save any time.
I think there are two options – one, I just try the next operation, and if I get rapid operation again that's great, if not, I just did the operation for next year early and can't do another one until the year after that.
The other option is that I take the “Rapid Operation” to mean that I can do two operations this year.
I'm going to go with the second option – it just involves less bookkeeping and makes more sense in context, though it may be really powerful. This'll possibly make up for the lost time from last year.
I also gain two income from the operation. One goes to pay off the debt I just took to change the die, and the other adds to my total, bringing WT to 11.
Operation 2
Since I got a rapid operation last time, I'll do a second operation in 2041. The second operation will be a boost operation, to move my thruster, mission module and fuel into Low Earth Orbit.
I use the Engineer skill for this. I again don't have chrome (I can't quite justify using thruster chrome to make it easier to move fuel or the mission module to orbit.
So, I roll 2d6, hoping to get below a 5
2d6: 2+1 = 3 - heck yeah, my luck is looking up, finally!
I successfully boost stuff to orbit. I boost the Thruster, the Mission Module and 8 fuel to orbit. I still have 3 WT left to play with after that.
Even better, I can have the rocket move in the same year that the components are boosted into orbit, so I can move this year.
Encounter
Next, I'll do an encounter. Note: Another case of poor editing – the Mission chapter in the ‘This Space Intentionally’ supplement gives a description of the process for every year. In it, it says the following:
The execution phase must be performed in order:
Perform either the move then the operation; or the operation then the move.
Roll for and resolve an encounter prompt before you perform the operation for the year. See the Encounter Prompts section on page 150 of the Encounters chapter for details.
The problem is that it says the phase must be performed in order, then immediately afterwards says “perform the operation” then “before the operation do an encounter.” Now, I get the issue – the author is trying to say you can do the move or the operation first, and either way you need to do the encounter first (i.e., if you move then do an operation, it's move, encounter, operation, while if you do the operation first, it's encounter, operation, move). But it's confusing and there are several different ways you could phrase it to make it more obvious.
In my house rules, I've rewritten it as follows:
Perform your move. You may hold the move until after you perform the operation for the year.
Roll for and resolve an encounter prompt. See the Encounter Prompts section for details.
Perform the operation for the year.
If you held your move, perform it now.
Encounter Prompt:
2d6: 3+4 = 7, 1d6 = 2 - “Scanned or Stared at”
If in transit, the crew is actively scanned, usually from a RADAR or LIDAR ping. If the crew is being intercepted it will be from an intercepting party; otherwise generate a random interception except don’t limit the location of the interception of where the crew is travelling to. Otherwise the crew is made to feel uncomfortable because of the length of time or the way one or more individuals from the encountered group observe them.
Location: Earth
Group Encountered: 2d6: 5+3 = 8 - Earthside Colonist
Next I go to the colonist type table, and roll again: 2d6: 1+3 = 4 - First Generation Family. The idea is that this is a family that is starting an off-Earth colony. This doesn't make all that much sense in the context of a new space program, in which I'm taking years to send a mission to Didymos. I think that I'll say any time the era is relevant from now on that the era isn't ‘Upported,’ in which there is space infrastructure to travel around, but rather ‘Baseline,’ where things are like today. So, from now going forward in this session, if I have to roll something based on era, I'll set it as ‘Baseline,’ rather than ‘Upported.’
However, in the interest of playing around with the systems of generation, I'll continue generating the colonists, just to see what that will get me.
First, I'll figure out the name. 1d6 = 4 - English. 2d6: 5+4 = 9 - Price, 2d6: 1+5 = 6 - Hunt
Price-Hunt Family
Origin Story: 1d6 = 3 - Mom and Pop Space Program
A small family run space program, with limited resources run by an experienced but aging astronaut couple.
Doctrines:
Majority Doctrine: 1d6 = 1 - Puritan
Puritan parenting is also known as authoritarian parenting where the parents (especially father) acts as the role model and with a strict reward and punishment system based on the child’s behavior (operant conditioning).
Minority Doctrine: 1d6 = 5 - Permissive Parenting
Children have no limits set on their behavior and instead have their demands and whims met as they make them.
These two doctrines are not just contradictory but basically completely opposite of one another, but that’s fine. Basically, the idea is that the majority and minority doctrines are ideas held by some percentage or faction of overall organization. In this case, since it's a mom and pop space program run by an astronaut couple, the obvious answer is that one parent has one idea of parenting, and the other other has the opposite. Alternatively, they're the grandparents, and one or more of their children have a laissez-faire idea of childrearing.
1d2 = 2 - okay, so it's the second one. How many children? 1d4 + 1: 1 + 1 (mod) = 2 - 2 children, one follows their parents strict parenting techniques, the other has much more loose and permissive parenting. The entire family intends to found one of the first space colonies.
The encounter itself is basically that Printer Rail and Operator Input, the two members of the operations team, are at a restaurant at their lunch break. They see a group of people staring at them, for so long that it makes them uncomfortable. Afterwards, they realize that it is several of the members of the Price-Hunt family, a famous family in the space community for the parents' feats on early space missions, and for their stated intent to create a space colony with their children and grand-children. No doubt they were scouting out the competition.
If I was playing as a crew I might do more, but again this is an uncrewed mission so I just narrate a quick encounter with the mission control team and this family. Over time, presumably, I'd encounter members of this family and their descendants out in space.
Movement
Okay, I've boosted the thruster, the mission module, and 8 tons of fuel up into LEO. It's now time for me to move to Didymos.
I have three things in orbit - the mission module (technically a crew module, but it's uncrewed for this mission), the Mirror Steamer Thruster (0 mass, 3 thrust, 4 fuel consumption), and 8 tons of fuel.
At this point, I realize I made a mistake in my design – I didn't actually need this much fuel. I need 8 steps of fuel, not 8 tons. Fuel takes longer to deplete on a smaller rocket, so all my calculations on total mass I made when designing the rocket were wrong, and I could have done a different design. Oh well, that's why I decided to do this easy example mission, to help understand the rules.
I can actually accomplish the mission with only 1 ton of fuel, since it takes 9 steps to use up the fuel when the total mass is 2. I'll therefore load up the rocket with only 1 ton of fuel, so the total dry mass is 1 and wet mass is 215.
That means I'm in the ‘probe’ category, and I have a +1 net thrust, which means a net thrust overall of 4.
Now, for the move. I'll start off by using a burn to get into a Highly Eccentric Orbit (HEO) around Earth (this is notated as the ‘cycler’ on the 4th edition map. This takes 4 steps of fuel, and at this size of probe it takes 1/9 of a tank per step, so I now have 5/9ths of a tank left total.
From there, I go through the Van Allen Belt. This doesn't take a boost, because it doesn't have the magenta color.
As I go through the Van Allen belt, I need to roll for hazard. I roll 1d6-thrust. 1d6 - 4: 1 - 4 (mod) = -3. If that number was above the rad-hardness of any of my components, the component would be taken out of service. Luckily, the two mission components, the thruster and mission module, have a rad-hardness of 5 and 4 respectively, so really no matter what I rolled they would have been safe.
I then boost to the Earth-Luna Lagrange L4. This takes a boost, so I use 4 more steps of fuel. I know have 1/9 of a tank of fuel, so I don't have enough fuel left to do any more boosts. There is one more boost between my rocket's current position and Didymos. However, as I do a Luna flyby, I can use the mass of Luna to accelerate my rocket and get a free boost, which let's me accelerate to meet Didymos without using fuel. The probe then continues on it's path, changes course at the Sol-mars L4 Lagrange (changing direction at an intersection requires 2 boosts, while changing at a Lagrange is free), and makes it to Didymos.
The ESA's rocket then successfully causes a deflection of Didymos, proving the proof of concept correct, and showing a success in their mission! Hooray!
Next Steps
I have a couple of options for where to go from here. The two that I think make the most sense are:
Continue playing with this game. There is a follow-up sample mission to start a Lunar Base with a joint ESA and People's Republic of China crew, which I could use to continue figuring out the game.
Advantages: Use the work I've already put in, continue playing with a more prescribed scope, and figure more things out before I start my ‘real’ campaign.
Disadvantages: I was a bit annoyed by the AIDA mission, which in my opinion does a bit of a disservice to a new player in figuring things out by introducing mechanics from the boardgame and then saying ‘oh, these don’t actually apply to the RPG normally." In addition, I want to generate mission control contacts with real names, not call signs this time, and do a couple of other house rules that I noticed as I played.
Start a new game from scratch. Basically, start as a NASA mission team, generate everything anew, and start from the beginning. As I mentioned, there are somethings I want to change in gameplay that I've figured out as I've played a bit. And I want to try to explore and try out different things rather than be stuck with an assigned mission.
As I read through the descriptions of the other two ‘launch pad’ missions, I think I've decided to go with option 2. The Luna Base mission is definitely intended for a group of multiple players, since it has intrigue between different sides (ESA and PRC). The HOPE (Human Outer Planet Exploration) mission just seems a bit too constrained.
So, I'll start a new game. I also think I'll start with a ‘First Wave’ crew, and start in 2030 rather than 2040, in the ‘Baseline’ era rather than the ‘Upported’ one. I'll hold off on rolling for politics or mission control trends until then, also.
Overall Thoughts on the Session (in no particular order or organization)
The rules are very confusing, and could use a good editor. There are so many tables, so many things to jump between, and they're not always well signposted. In addition, relying so heavily on the boardgame, not only the map but also how basic gameplay works, is a huge barrier. That being said, as I worked through the rules I was figuring it out, and to be honest I enjoyed figuring out how everything works.
Replicating the rules in my note-taking app helped a ton — it let me cross-link things, edit confusing sections, and write summary sections to help streamline play. Trilium, the app I use for note-taking, also lets me have the same entry in multiple places, and editing one edits the other, which helps as well.
I like the idea of referring to everyone by callsigns, but it doesn't really work. The call-signs aren't evocative, and they keep me from really identifying with the characters. In addition, there are pages of tables to determine ethnicity for the characters, and then it's hard to even remember who the characters are and where they're from since their name doesn't have anything to do with it. Having some kind of process for getting callsigns from doing cool things would be cool and might work, but as it is I think I'll just go to some kind of online name generator from now on.
The rules suffer somewhat for having rules for far-future post-singularity ships and crews side-by-side with rules for basically the modern era. I think a better organization for the game would be to have the core rules be just about the ‘Baseline’ and ‘Upported’ eras, with supplements for later eras added on.
I strongly believe the This Space Intentionally supplement is mandatory to play this game. It has so many things that show how to play the game, and I don't think that you can get any enjoyment out of it without it. Because of that, it should be part of the base package – if I were the designer, I'd combine the core rules and the supplement into one book (maybe splitting out some stuff like the Encounter, Colony and Map Designers), and make that the base purchase, possibly increasing the price.
I have been heavily house-ruling as I go along, just to be able to even play the game. I can think of several more house rules that I'd like to implement, but I decided to only implement the ones necessary to make the game work for now. I'll probably start a new session from scratch after this one is done, and I'll try out some of the changes that I'm thinking I'll make.
Removing the crew requirements from the AIDA mission makes sense to help describe how the game works in basic terms before adding in a real crew. However, the mission introduces terms and ideas from the boardgame (particularly WT as currency used to boost things to orbit) that have been specifically noted as being not applicable for normal gameplay. Doing an introductory scenario where you have to learn mechanics that are then discarded for the regular game is just bad practice. In addition, it's not totally clear how impacts, trends and encounters fit in – if I were designing the scenario I'd specifically tell the player to ignore those until the next scenario.
Considering how many tables there are, I'm surprised that the ‘doctrines’ for each faction don't have more options. I guess it's because there's a lot of options to pick between for factions, and then doctrines are just another option within that faction, but it's interesting. If I play this a ton, I might add some more ideas to the doctrines for different factions to make them more distinct and interesting.
The game is too wedded to the boardgame in many ways. In particular, it makes technologies far less interesting than they could be. There are a number of advantages of doing an RPG where there's no needed physical components, and this RPG could take advantage of that by having a much larger variety of technologies available. I understand that the designer probably (almost certainly) designed this game while playing the boardgame and directly using the pieces of the boardgame, but there are places in which it could be left behind and result in far more interesting results. I keep on thinking there'll be a list of technologies somewhere, but there isn't – because it's in the boardgame. It also suffers from being based on the previous edition of the boardgame, so some of the references don't make sense because it refers to something that's been changed. Admittedly, I could have solved that by using the High Frontier 3 Vassal module, but 4 is clearly an improvement in a ton of ways.
Fundamentally, despite all of the issues and struggles with this game, I am still drawn into it. This game has pulled me in, to the extent that I've been constantly thinking about it when I'm not actively playing it. Somehow it's perfectly suited to my personality and game-style – it's a cross between engineering challenges, the humanities struggle of interpreting some book (Foucault, anyone?), and the procedural history and interaction generation of my worldbuilding project. Despite it's (many, many) faults, I'm loving it. I have not found any other game that draws me in to this extent.
In my follow-up game to this one, I’ve already generated more than 10 in the first three years of the mission, so I may have been a bit off on that. I still think my point stands, though.
Looking back, I’m not actually sure why I decided that the entire team must be from France. I don’t see it in the AIDA rules, and obviously the ESA includes all the countries in the EU. Definitely got that one wrong — probably should have just rolled between all EU countries, or maybe done some kind of weighting first, but I did neither.
There’s a sentence in the AIDA mission that implies it might be Green — it says that the space politics is Green, and therefore the crew would roll twice for faction upgrades instead of a political impact. In the Politics chapter, it says that if the MCSU matches Space Politics, then you roll twice for faction upgrades. This implies that the MCSU must be Green as well, but it never actually says that, and ESA is a National Space Agency (White), in the core rules. Just another example of the designer having something in mind but never actually writing it down.
Actually, as I go back and look at this, I realize I am wrong again. The ESA isn’t actually a “National Space Agency,” it’s a “Regional Organization,” which is Green. So I misinterpreted that.
Using a software called Espanso, I have my laptop and desktop set up such that if I type :r1d6:, it automatically rolls a 1d6 and gives me the result, no matter what software I’m typing in. I’ve coded it such that I distinguish between adding multiple dice and just rolling multiple dice, as well. It makes playing games requiring die rolls much easier to do on my computer.
This is another case of confusion in the rules. The Research Operation says “Completing a Research operation gives the crew patents and licenses for 1D6 ET produced components and grants each crew member the same number of patents and licenses for other ET Produced technologies, or Advanced technologies.” That implies you can research 1D6 technologies, but in the AIDA mission description, it says “Components which require generators and possibly radiators will need more research operations, and delay the mission. You need to decide which is more important: short term success with the mission or longer term progress for the ESA space program.” Those two descriptions slightly contradict, or at least imply a contradiction. In addition, there's the problem that the Research Operation refers specifically to Extra-terrestrial produced or Advanced technologies, while all of the technologies I might try to research for this mission are earth-side produced. I decided to change it to just “Research 1 component.”
This one really annoyed me — the 60 Years RPG has different rules than the boardgame, which is totally fair. But for this introductory scenario, the RPG has the boardgame rules apply, while saying that when you play normally they won’t. Just seems like bad practice to have an introductory scenario have rules that only apply for the one scenario.
As I realize later, this is not right. I misinterpreted the rules — the required 8 fuel is 8 steps of fuel, not 8 tons of fuel. Fuel lasts longer when the rocket is smaller, so I actually need far less fuel than that.
One thing I noticed as I was using Vassal (I switched from Tabletop Simulator to Vassal to make it easier to preserve the state of the game after closing the app) to show the boardgame, is that the cards are named differently than in the 60 Years rulebook, presumably because the RPG is based on the 3rd edition and I have the 4th edition module. I'll stick with the names from the RPG for now, but on my next playthrough or next mission I'll use the names and statistics from the boardgame directly – I don't think the basic rules and how they worked changed, just the specific names and possibly numbers of the technology.
As I've been figuring this out, I realize the game uses colors to match the colors in the boardgame, which is why it uses “Red” or whatever so often. It makes sense, but can be a bit confusing.
In another case of poor editing, the AIDA chapter says that complications for boost and research operations are in the core rules, when in fact they are in the appendix of the This Space Intentionally supplement. Presumably the author moved them around at some point and didn't update the discussion.
Another mistake - I later realized that the table says that if there is no Unrest, use the minority doctrine instead. So the prompt should have been that there was praise for the minority doctrine of the faction I created.
Yet another mistake - I’m supposed to treat it as ‘No Event’ if I roll a faction that doesn’t exist. But that’s fine, I am glad I did to figure out the faction generation rules.
I rolled on the ‘Crew Nationalities’ table to determine what country it was from.
Since I used my free bump earlier, I need to go into debt to use another. However, since I’m playing without a crew, it’s just spending a WT instead of going into debt.
Dry mass represents the mass of the rocket when unfuelled, while wet mass is the current mass of the rocket including fuel.