RE: Space Urchins (New Race)

Schoon wrote:
> Crystal "Sea Urchin" Race

> Ships for this race are built from a variety of spines, which have
multiple uses
> but face a specific direction.

Interesting design method.  Add all the spines you want and then the
core is
based on the total spine mass.	The orders would be similar to power
point
allocation but instead you are allocating a spine to each usage,
unfortunately this could still take a while each turn.

Any rules on spine placement?  I see by the examples that multiple
spines
can face the same direction, but I think there should be a limit that no
more than 1/3rd of the total spine mass can face the same direction. 
This
way you don't have ships overloaded on one side so they stay more
balanced
and crystalline.

They do lack a heavy weapon (though you do mention specialized spines);
how
about another basic spine ability of shooting out a portion of each
spine as
a penetrating missile? To-hit roll similar to a Pulse Torp, only fire in
the
60 degree arc of the spine, requires a dedicated fire con, ignores
screens,
2d6 damage with the 1st 2 points applying to armor (if any) and the rest
penetrating to structure points. A spine may shoot only 1 'quill
missile'
every other turn(?) and it reduces the spine class by 1 (class 3 spine
shoots a quill, next turn that spine is a class 2).  With damage control
(growth energy) the spine could re-grow to its original level but if a
spine
is reduced to class 0 by a quill fire or a threshold, that spine is
'dead'
for the rest of that game (must return to the crystal lattice base for
regeneration). I assume from your original post that each spine must
roll
for every threshold.

Dean