Role-Playing not Roll Playing: Far-Reaching Examiner - Mindjammer Fate

Far-Reaching Examiner

The Far-Reaching Examiner is a reverse-engineered Botany Bay-class explorer ship (see Mindjammer core rulebook p. 231). The Venu captured the ship after invading Beltaris. Venu technicians stripped out the AI and replaced it with a brainjack suite. The rest of the ship was adapted for Venu use. The Tech Shield Curacy removed the original drive and took it away for closer study. The Far-Reaching Examiner is now propelled by a trademark Venu "dirt drive".

It is an old ship. Since taking ownership, the Venu have been less than efficient in its maintenance. The once sleek outline of the ship is gone, replaced with misshapen makeshift repairs.

The ship carries four shuttle craft, used for ferrying troops, technology harvesters (see below) and liberated material. Its laboratories are now used for examining stolen technology to extract its secrets and reverse-engineer them, if they are considered of value to the Empire. 

Crewmembers

Chancellor Gamaluk Vilor Harkon of the Tech Shield Curacy

Vilor Harkon is ambitious, aspiring to the highest ranks of the Tech Shield Curacy and for the favour and approval of the Emperor. As far as he is concerned, there are only two types of people in the Empire: those who can aid in his rise to power and obstacles to be dealt with accordingly.

Genotype: Venu Mutant

Physical Stress: 4

Mental Stress: 4

Consequences: 3 mild and 1 moderate

Aspects: Ruthless Psychopath with Limitless Ambition; Proud Family Lineage; Tech Shield Curacy Born and Bred

Skills: Bureaucracy (+4), Contacts (+4), Deceive (+3), Knowledge (+3), Melee Combat (+1), Resources (+2), Science (+5), Provoke (+2), Ranged Combat (+2),  Rapport (+1), Will (+2), Pilot (+1)

Stunts:

• Everyone Wants Something - Vilor is expert at giving people what they want to keep wheels in motion. He gains a +2 to rolls to discover how he can bribe, influence or corrupt another Venu and to rolls to avoid or mitigate the negative consequences of bribery.

Extras:

• Mutant Ability: Enhanced Stamina: Vilor keeps going when others drop and has an additional mild consequence for off-setting stamina related stress.

• Mutant Ability: Electromagnetic Sense: Vilor can sense electromagnetic fields, their general location and strength. This allows him to detect the presence of operating electronics. 
• Status Suit: Armour 1; Face Mask; Showy

 

Chaplain Harleen Zeil Agorrack of the Tech Shield Curacy

In reality, Zeil is a member of the Dark Radiance Executive spying on the Tech Shield Curacy. She believes that the Curacy’s time is passed and that it is the destiny of the Dark Radiance Executive to supplant it.

Chaplain Zeil is suspicious of Curate Kylin and his aptitude with enemy technology. Zeil has taken no overt action against Kylin but he is keeping a wary eye on him. His time will come.

Genotype: Venu Mutant

Physical Stress: 4

Mental Stress: 4

Consequences: 2 mild and 1 moderate

Aspects: Secret Devotee of the Dark Radiance; To Fail a Mission is to Fail Venu; Loathes Vilor Harkon; Touched by the Radiant Darkness; The Dark Radiance Executive is the future, the Tech Shield Curacy is the Past

Skills: Deceive (+4), Intrusion (+2), Rapport (+3), Science (+4), Technical (+3), Ranged Combat (+2),

Stunts

• Science Specialist (Biochemistry): +2 to all rolls related to biochemistry

 

Extras:

• Mutant Ability: Z-Absorption: absorb Z-radiation to gain the Charged with Z-Radiation aspect
• Mutant Ability: Z-Blast: after charging up with Z-radiation make a melee or ranged attack with weapon rating 2, range 0 with Concealable Weapon and Z-Radiation aspects. If Harleen has the Charged with Z-Radiation aspect, the blast gains the Full Auto aspect and the weapon rating increases to 3 with range 1.
• Radiance Power: Mindwhisper (Rapport) - Using mindwhisper, Zeil can communicate directly with the mind of another individual with the a Dark Radiance-type aspect.
• Armour +1 with mask with Intimidating aspect

 

Curate Trellor Kylin Gimor of the Tech Shield Curacy

Kylin grew up listening to anti-abomination propaganda. As such, he hates all abominations with a passion; he considers all who deviate from the "Pure ideal" to be inferior and worthy of nothing more than extermination. Kylin is not a naturally cruel person. He sees no value in inflicting suffering just for the sake of it.

He believes that knowledge is power. He knows that the Commonality is ahead of the Empire technologically and is of the opinion that the gap must be closed if the Venu are to survive.

The Curate usually acts as the go-between the Venu on the ship and the people they encounter.

Kylin is a little naïve regarding the workings of Venu society. He hates abomination. He is aware of Venu mutants (how could he not be?) but he has yet to confront this contradiction in his mind. This is something the players could exploit if they were to discover it, possibly inflicting a mental consequence such as How Could I be so Blind? or My Life no Longer Makes Sense.

Genotype: Venu Pure

Physical Stress: 4

Mental Stress: 4

Consequences: 2 mild and 1 moderate

Aspects: Purge all Abominations!; If the Commonality has it, the Empire must have it too

Skills: Technical (+4), Science (+3), Investigate (+3), Bureaucracy (+2), Will (+2), Knowledge (+2), Intrusion (+1), Ranged Combat (+1), Deceive (+1), Notice (+1)

Stunts:

• Better than New!: If Kylin succeeds with style on an overcome action to repair an item, he can give a new situation aspect to it, with a free invoke, reflecting the improvements he has made, instead of just a boost.

• Shield of Science: Kylin can use Science for defend actions against Provoke provided he can use his ability to overcome his emotional response through scientific refutation.

 

Extras:

• Tech Index T8: Kylin’s obsessive study of captured Commonality technology has increased his technical knowledge and ability above the Venu norm. Treat Kylin’s tech index as T8 for the purposes of examining and reverse engineering captured Commonality technology.
  This extra has proved invaluable to Kylin in the course of his work for the Curacy but it has led to suspicion from fellow Venu who are more sceptical regarding high technology. This is especially the case with respect to Chaplain Zeil.
• Curacy Armour - Armour 1; Face Mask

 

 

Ground Troopers

 

5 Average +1 minor NPCs

 

Stress: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

 

Scale: Medium (0)

 

Aspects: Fanatical Venu Troopers; Leaking Z-Radiation

 

Skills: Ranged Combat (+1) (+4 Teamwork bonus)

 

Armour: +2

 

Disruptor Rifle: +2, Radioactive, Recoilless

 

 

Mutant Marines

 

5 good +3 minor NPCs

 

Stress: 3, 3, 3, 3, 3

 

Scale: Medium (0)

 

Aspects: Crack Trooper Squad; Mutants

 

Skills: Ranged Combat (+3), Athletics (+2), Provoke (+1) (+4 teamwork bonus)

 

Extras

 

Armour: +2

 

Disruptor Rifle: +2, Radioactive; Recoilless

 

Technology Harvesters

These men and women are technically adept individuals charged with plundering, assessing and reverse-engineering Commonality technology.

 

3 good +3 good NPCs

 

Stress: 3, 3, 3

 

Scale: Medium (0)

 

Aspects: Leaking Z-radiation; Curious Boffins; Under Pressure to Deliver

 

Skills: Technical (+3), Science (+2), Investigate (+1) (+2 teamwork bonus)

 

Stunt

 

• How Does this Work? - +2 bonus to figure out the purpose and general working principles of an unfamiliar piece of technology. This bestows no knowledge of its construction nor skill in its use.

 

Extra

 

• Tech Scanner - +2 to evaluating technology.

DaYan MF8 Crazy Cubes

Crazy Cube Series

There are eight cubes in the DaYan MF8 series of puzzles, named after the eight planets. At first glance, all of the puzzles look the same, but they differ in the number and configuration of rotating sections compared with stationary ones. All possible configurations are available, except for all fixed and all rotating, which would be pointless in either case.

Some puzzles that possess the "crazy centre" are named, confusingly, super. Super refers to cubes where the orientation of the centres matter, so re-using the term for this style of puzzle makes the word "super" ambiguous in the context of twisty puzzles.

 

There are fixed faces and turning faces.

A fixed face leaves leaves the nine centre pieces fixed in place.

 

Whereas a turning face rotates the nine centre pieces with the rest of the face.

The different combinations of fixed and turning faces gives each puzzle its own nuances that must be understood to solve it. Exploiting the different faces allows algorithms to be performed that move the centre pieces around in different ways.

Mercury

Mercury is the easiest puzzle to solve of the series. The white face turns and all of the others are fixed. Due to the configuration of the puzzle, the centre-edges on the layers adjacent to the white and yellow layers can be moved away from their respective layers, making the puzzle easier to solve.

 

Venus

The white and yellow faces turn and all the others are fixed. Due to the configuration of the puzzle, the centre-edges on the layers adjacent to the white and yellow layers can be moved away from their respective layers, making the puzzle easier to solve.

Earth

The white and green faces turn and all others are fixed. Having adjacent faces turning means that the puzzle can be fully scrambled. This makes the puzzle a step up in difficulty from Mercury and Venus.

Mars

The white, green and yellow faces turn and the other three are fixed.

Jupiter

We get a change of direction with Jupiter. On this puzzle, the white face is fixed and all others turn.

Saturn

The white and yellow faces are fixed and all the others turn.

Uranus

The white and green faces are fixed and all the others turn.

Neptune

The white, green and red faces are fixed and the the other three turn.

Solving the Crazy Cubes

The basic technique is the same for each puzzle. The details vary, making each puzzle a challenge in its own right with its own challenges. Mercury and Venus are the easiest, due to the limitations to the way that the centre edges can be scrambled.

The scrambled puzzle looks daunting...

I worked out that each puzzle can be solved by following three main stages.

Stage 1 - Solve the Edges and the Centre-Edges

This stage is broken down into three steps. I use sunes to cycle three edges. Using different combinations of turning and fixed faces affects which combinations edges and centre-edges are cycled. At this stage, it does not matter about sune algorithms affecting the corners.

Step 1 - Cross First Layer

I start off by solving a cross. This can be done intuitively. The choice of colour is directed, to a certain extent, by the configuration of the puzzle. A mixture of turning and fixed faces are needed away from the cross to be able to manipulate the edges and centre-edges relative to each other.

 

Step 2 - E-Layer

Next, I turn the cube over and work on the E-layer. I try to do as much of the next step at the same time as I can, but it does not always work out.

Step 3 - Cross Final Layer

On the Mercury and Venus cubes, this is straight forward. It is more difficult on the other six. It may be necessary to use the E-layer to complete this step. 

Stage 2 - Solve the Corners

This is the most straight forward step. I find the easiest way to do this is to permute the corners first and then to orientate them. Where possible, I do both simultaneously. Do not use sune algorithms to rotate the corners, they mess up the edges. Beginner methods work just fine.

It is possible that a parity odd case may be encountered at this stage caused by a quarter turn of one of the faces.

Stage 3 - Solve the Centre-Corners

It is possible to work out algorithm to move the centre corners around. They exploit various combinations of fixed and turning faces. Which centre corners are moved where depends on the positions of these faces relative to each other.  Each puzzle has a different configuration, therefore, something that works well on one puzzle might not be possible on another.

Hellraiser Cube

The Hellraiser cube is an evil puzzle. At first glance, it looks like opposite faces look the same but there are subtle differences.

I took the precaution of photographing each face, so that I could ensure that I solved to look exactly as it looked when I first removed it from the packaging.

When solving this puzzle, I use the layer method. I solve the pieces as normal, check them against the photographs and swap the ones that are not exactly correct to ensure I return the puzzle to the exact same configuration as when I first removed from the packaging, the lament configuration.

Not I puzzle I play with a lot, but it is a nice one to have in the collection.

Katsuhiko Okamoto's Latch Cube

Latch Cube

The Latch Cube, invented by Katsuhiko Okamoto, is a variant of a normal 3x3x3 cube where some pieces can only be turned in one direction. Edges with black arrows can only be turned anticlockwise and edges with white arrows can only be turned clockwise. A face that has both black and white arrows is locked, thus bandaging that face.

Turning, unsurprisingly, was not the best but this was improved with some lubrication.

The colour scheme is non-standard. I suspect it was altered to facilitate the contrast of the black and white arrows against the colours. This may upset some people, but it is not a speed solve puzzle, so it should not be an issue.

The mechanism that hinders the cube is simple. The catches can be seen in the photo below and affect the F- and B-faces.

Solution

This is not an easy puzzle to solve. The latching prevents some algorithms from working while others must be adapted such that, say, R' might have to replaced with R3.

Scrambling the cube is not trivial: it is all too easy to lock up a face. 

Step 1: Cross

I think it is slightly easier to solve the arrowed pieces first, but I am not sure. Even so, it is not straight forward. Getting this far feels like a minor achievement.

 

Step 2: E-Layer Edges

Getting these four edge pieces into place is far from trivial. Black and white arrows cause bandaging everywhere and edge pieces will have to be moved out of the way to free up faces. If possible, I try to rotate the edges on the final layer but this is not always feasible.

Step 3: Final Layer Edges

If the pieces are rotated correctly, then this is relatively straight forward. If not, it is trickier, especially if there are black and white arrows on the final layer face.

Once the puzzle is in this state, while still not straightforward, it does become a bit easier. The direction of the arrows on each face are solved. While the puzzle is still not trivial, at least there is now some order. Figuring out modified algorithms for the corners is not as difficult as the edges. 

Step 5: Permutate the Corners

This is not as difficult as it looks, provided you can consistently perform a three-quarter turn instead of a quarter turn against the direction of the arrows without getting confused.

Step 6: Orientate the Corners

Like the previous step, this is not as difficult as it appears. Using the beginner method algorithm works if you can substitute three-quarter turns where needed.

This is a challenging, at times frustrating but satisfying puzzle to solve.