Pumpkin-suit's Manual Outline

She is so not kidding.

      

         Hope all of you Rocket Fans enjoyed the holidays as much as we have here in Alabama. As I've said before, I highly recommend the addition of kids as an enhancement to the Christmas experience.

          I wanted to thank you all for all of the positive comments I've received about the proposed Pumpkin-suit's Manual. Because of the great response, I've decided to move the P-SM up in the pipeline to February's slot. This means that the The Black Desert: Spacecraft supplement will be postponed until April at the earliest, and June most likely.

My reasons for the change aren't just about the response to the P-SM. I decided that I wanted the Spacecraft supplement to include the basic rules for space travel and combat along with the updated stats for our fleet. This way, all of the relevant info will be in a single volume, kinda like WotC's Star Wars Starships of the Galaxy book.

Another reason to do the Pumpkin-suit's Manual first is the original reason I came up with the concept; The Black Desert is a Hard SF game and comes from a very different paradigm than the WWII-aircraft-inspired spacec ships of conventional science fiction. The P-SM will give GMs and Players a resource full of ideas and suggestions for creating exciting scenarios I space – and surviving them.

With that in mind, I have worked up a first-draft outline of just what such a source book would include. As always, comments and questions are welcome.

Astronaut Candidate's Handbook

(The “Pumpkin-suit's” Manual)

1. Introduction
   1. Hard Science Fiction
   2. About the Format
2. Training
   1. Astronaut Specialities
      1. COMM/AST
      2. Engineering
      3. Life-Support
      4. Payload
3. Launch
   1. Chemical Rockets
   2. Catapult
   3. Laser Propulsion
   4. SSTO
4. Orbital Maneuvers
   1. Finite Burn Trajectories
   2. Impulsive Maneuvers
   3. Non-impulsive Maneuvers
      
      

5. 

   In space, parking is not a free action.

   Rendezvous and Docking
   1. Step-by-Step
   2. Approach Methods
      1. H-Bar
      2. R-Bar
      3. V-Bar
      4. Z-Bar
6. EVAs
   1. Spacewalks
      1. Tethered
      2. Untethered
   2. Body-walks
      1. In atmosphere
      2. In Vacuum
   3. Special Activities
      1. Combat
      2. Construction
      3. Rescue
      4. Survival
7. Damage Control
   1. Hazards
      1. Consumables Loss
      2. Decompression
      3. Electrical Failure
      4. Fire
      5. Navigational Failure
      6. Power Failure
8. The Human Factor
   1. Health Factors
      1. Biological Factors
         1. Bacterial and Viral
         2. Environmental
         3. Gravitational
      2. Radiation
         1. Cosmic Background Radiation
         2. Solar Flairs
         3. Artificial Sources
   2. Psychological Factors
      1. Attention Tunneling
      2. Isolation Syndrome
      3. Personality Conflict
9. Appendix: Templates and Prestige Classes
   1. By Personality
   2. By Specialty