Exciting News for Miniatures!

Solar Echoes 3D-printed miniatures at Shapeways are now much more affordable! In the past, printing miniatures with high-detail in the “Frosted Ultra Detail” plastic was quite expensive: It was almost 3 times more expensive than the cost of printing in the lower detail, “White Strong and Flexible” material. For example, the low detail Omul figure costs $7.48 but the high-detail Omul used to cost $23! However, Shapeways has changed their printing process and upgraded their machines, so now the cost of printing a high detail Omul is only $11.86! That's just a little more than a $4 difference, which is really fantastic and much more approachable. Shapeways sets their prices by cubic volume and material, so the most expensive high-detail Solar Echoes miniatures are the Archaeloid and Chiraktis: $13.42 and $13.36 respectively. The cheapest high-detail Solar Echoes miniatures are the $9.70 Reln and the $10.24 Erwani. Still, the low-detail prints are great quality, too, with a price for the figures ranging from $6.07 (starship) to $8.11 (Chiraktis). I hope you enjoy the great figures sculpted by Jeremy Gosser (characters) and Charles Oines (starship), and that they help make your Solar Echoes games even more exciting!  

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/corefun-studios

 

A New Season of Solar Echoes (4/4)

Skirmishes! I already have the cover art for another project--remember a while ago I shared the development of the Archaeloid vs. Omul fight scene? I haven't shared the final art because I still have a lot to do on this product, but I am planning to put together a small rulebook for conducting competitive games with Solar Echoes characters. This will involve a lot of maps, so it will take quite a lot of time, but I'm hoping to make more progress on this product over the summer. Considering that I'll be attending the Shorehammer convention for Warhammer gamers in December, it will be interesting to get the feedback of seasoned competitive wargamers on this new product!

A New Season of Solar Echoes (3/4)

Speaking of more art, I'm hoping to involve artist John Fell in a bigger move to produce a lot more art work for Solar Echoes. If things work out, I have a number of plans that involve art pieces. One project I've been hoping to do is design a dossier of NPC's. This would provide information about a variety of characters that GM's can use in any game. The NPC's would each be illustrated and would include stat information, background stories, motivations, tactics, and possibly some mission seed ideas for GM's looking for a good way to fit them into a scenario. This archive of NPC's will include each character detailed on a full character sheet that can be printed out easily. The NPC's are also part of a larger story, too, and will give GM's a deeper glimpse into what is going on in the Solar Echoes universe. John Fell's civilian art already demonstrates his capacity to design a variety of NPC characters (see art below), so I can't wait to get started on this project with him soon!

A New Season of Solar Echoes (2/4)

Another plan I have for this summer is to revisit past mission releases and give them a graphical overhaul to match the new format I've been using. If you haven't yet downloaded the free demo, Operation: Flash Strike, you might want to do so just so you can see what I'm talking about; full-color art, borders and highlighted areas, with other minor improvements such as better headings, nicer tables, and overall, better organization. It will be a lot of work and time to improve everything, but I think it will give everyone more value for their money and make the game even easier to follow and more exciting. Who doesn't like more art work?

A New Season of Solar Echoes

Summer has arrived! Soon, classes will end and the summer will be underway. Sometimes summer is busier for me than the school year because my schedule is less consistent, but I'm looking forward to these three months with a bit more time available to invest towards Solar Echoes. I have a lot of plans, and I wanted to keep you updated about the future. One thing I plan to finish first is the new mission, Operation: Void Hunter. I tested it at the Balticon convention recently and the adventure was a success. There's something different about this particular mission, though: It's part of my plan for a larger, over-arcing story that will span several missions. I'm excited to continue the story, and my hope is to have part two of the series out before the end of the summer. Void Hunter should be available in a week or two--I'll let you know!

Balticon 51 Battle Report (part 3)

The mission I ran the most during the Balticon convention was Operation: Flash Strike, which you can download for free at RPGnow, or directly from my dropbox, here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rz093jqqf7f430i/AACAM64n8TPtFgzIzR9XI7C2a?dl=0

It was exciting to see how each group handled the situation differently. A few moments across all those games stick out in my mind, though—many times, people decided to use the overhead air ducts for recon before attacking the smugglers in the warehouse. This allowed them to get a view of part of the warehouse and help the rest of the team waiting outside to prepare for breach. However, once the signal was given and everyone attacked, the air-duct operatives all tried to open the air vent and jump down from the 15' drop. Only one out of the 5 people that tried this actually made the athletics check and landed safely. One dropped right in front of someone with an assault rifle, and three others fell and hurt themselves when they landed. One character was shot and immediately threw up a nanite wall to protect himself (see photo: the nanite hedge was represented by a red rubber-band). Another incident that sticks in memory is when two smugglers jumped into a car, preparing to speed away, but a female Reln character managed to run up to the car, open the door, and shoot the passenger. As he shot back at her, she dove for cover and avoided being hit while the passenger died from his wounds. There was some pretty amazing stuff that went on, including exciting car chases, aggressive interrogations of prisoners, and clever wordplay.

One of my very favorite moments was during an interrogation with the arms dealer: Each team member tried, using diplomacy, bluff, and intimidate, but the arms dealer managed to resist and shut down their attempts. After everyone had failed with him, the Omul character finally decided to try, and using his only Influence die, he actually rolled well each time! He managed to improve the dealer's posture enough that the group could extract the information they needed. The only failure of the Omul was near the end, when he failed his Discern Motive check and heartily agreed to the arms dealer's demands, promising him witness protection, a million credits, and his very own starship. 

Balticon 51 Battle Report (part 2)

Another memorable moment during Balticon was when a very large team (7 players!) was heading into the deadly forests of the Krissethi planet, Sa'mesh. They were soon surrounded by a pack of reptilian, dog-like creatures with whip-like tails called “Snapwhippers.” As they fought the dodgy lifeforms that ran around and wore them down with tail strikes, the Archaeloid on the team decided to get away from the pack of creatures and approached a nearby river. He succeeded at his Awareness check and noticed some very odd fish with tentacles sprouting from their mouths, but decided to swim the river anyway—he's an Archaeloid, after all! Unfortunately, that did not go well for him, because as soon as he entered the water, the fish-creatures attacked. One fastened itself to his neck with its tentacles and started draining his blood. When he emerged from the water on the other side of the river, he grabbed the creature to remove it, but discovered it had venomous spines in its fins. Though he successfully pulled it from his neck and threw it back into the river, he began to bleed profusely because of the anti-coagulant venom in the creature's saliva, not to mention his muscular convulsions from the venom spines. The poor Archaeloid was in bad shape—and separated by the dangerous river from his friends, who were still fighting the snapwhipper pack. When he sent a signal for help, he added, “DON'T GO IN THE WATER!”