The GM Section
Explanations And Such

As with any RPG, you the GM are god. You have the ultimate and final say as to what goes and what doesn't. At your whim, a player can be attacked and killed in a split second. You can also go the other way and fudge rolls and allow the player to survive even the bleakest situations. It is the same way here. Most of the techniques described here are fairly easy to accomplish (with the exception of SkyHook) and unless you are in a particularly nasty mood the character should be allowed to succeed with little to no damage.

Parachuting

The skills:

DEX: SKYDIVING - Covers all aerial maneuvers performed before chute 
deployment. Basic difficulty: Easy.

MECH: PARACHUTE (Dome, Ram-Air, etc) - This is the skill used to pack, rig,
deploy and maneuver parachutes.  It does not cover pre-deployment maneuvers
(Skydiving) or landing (Climbing/Jumping).

Difficulty determined by type of jump:

Tandem Jump (as passenger)              Very Easy
Tandem Jump (as master)			Moderate
Static-line jump			Easy
Normal Altitude free jump		Moderate
HAHO or HALO jump			Difficult

Note: (HALO and HAHO jumps) for every 10,000 ft (3000 m) above 30,000 ft 
(9100 m) that you exit the delivery vehicle, the difficulty goes up one 
level.

Modifiers:
Light Winds (1-15 mph / 1-25kph)	+1 difficulty
Moderate Winds (15-25 mph / 25-40kph)	+3 difficulty
Heavy Winds (25+ mph / 40+ kph) 	+5 difficulty

+5 difficulty for every 6 feet (2m) that the LZ is smaller than 30 feet (10m)
+1 difficulty for every 50 feet (15m) below 1000 ft (300m) that chute is deployed

Forward speed of chute is determined by the Move/Speed of Chute (X) plus 
(or minus) the strength of the tail (head) wind in Kph (y).
Rate of Descent may not decrease below one fourth the listed value, and
increase more than 2.5 times the listed value.

Note: The preceding rules were based on those of Kevin Dole and were modified to be more accurate. They are used without permission. You can view his webpage here.

Feel free to throw in some random hazards for the player to cope with, a few that come to mind are:

  • parachute not opening properly - making the player deploy his reserve.
  • the reserve opening incorrectly, turning the player into a master puppeteer as he plays with the risers (strings).
  • the chute developing a huge rip in it.
  • during a HAHO jump, when he pays out the line with his equipment, the line rips and his equipment fall to the ground, making him search for it after landing.
  • Landing in a tree always sucks.

    Or make everything go as planned, whatever you feel the PC deserves.

  • Fast Roping

    Fast roping is not very difficult to achieve. A Moderate Strength Roll is all thats necessary to keep a firm grip on the rope. If the character *does* lose his grip, and falls to the ground, apply the appropriate damage as you see fit.

    Note that the character can not carry his gear with him during the fast rope. It must be dropped into the LZ before by the character, or after by a crewman.

    SPIE

    Person Being Extracted:
    SPIE, for the extractee, is a very easy task. All he has to do is roll a Very Easy DEX roll to hook himself up to the rope. This is done by attaching the carabiner on the back of his harness to a ring spliced into the rope. The person then simply waits to be lifted.

    The extractee gets at -2 DEX penalty while attached to the SPIE rope. This is valid while being lifted through the air, or while still on the ground. There are no other penalties. The person can return fire at enemies, work datapads, and anything else he would like to do - other than walk off. Once attached to the SPIE rope, the person has a movement radius of 2 meters in any direction. Once in the air, the person is at the mercy of the rope's twisting. If the rope turns, he turns. He can not affect how the rope turns.

    Pilot/Person Operating Extraction Vehicle:
    Its a whole other story for the person flying the extracting vehicle. He must be careful to raise the people slowly, so as not to cause the rope to swing. This is a moderate PER roll and a moderate MECH: Starship Piloting roll. After raising the rope, with people attached, the pilot must be careful to not fly very quickly, otherwise the people will begin to turn and could very well tangle themselves up in the rope. A top speed for the plane should be 200kph maximum (120mph). Beyond that the people start spinning.

    Getting the people back onto the ground is the hardest thing to do. The pilot must be careful to lower the rope very slowly, even more slowly than he raised it. If he comes in too quickly, the people on the rope could land all in one big pile, cauing many injuries, even death. The pilot must come in slowly enough so that the person at the bottom of the rope can touch ground before the next person up has done so. This gives him time to get out of the next man's way, reducing the chances of injury. The pilot must be at a near hover to safely land the rope. If he is moving forward at anything greater than a human's walking speed, the people on the rope could be dragged across the ground. Again, not very good for their health. The entire landing process is generally a Moderate to Difficult PER roll & MECH: Starship Piloting roll.

    Modifiers:

    Light Winds (1-15 mph / 1-25kph)	+1 difficulty
    Moderate Winds (15-25 mph / 25-40kph)	+3 difficulty
    Heavy Winds (25+ mph / 40+ kph) 	+5 difficulty
    
    +5 difficulty for every 6 feet (2m) that the LZ is smaller than 30 feet (10m)
    +2 level difficulty if pilot can not directly see landing zone and is not
       being guided by someone who can.
    +1 level difficulty is pilot can not directly see landing zone, but is
       being guided by someone who can.
    
    SkyHook

    Although fairly easy to execute, SkyHook is very risky. The pilot of the pickup plane has just to fly straight into a nylon tether, either with little red flags tied the length of the tether during the day, or a string of flashing lights by night. The difficulty for this is an Easy to Moderate MECH: Starship Piloting roll. Once the tether has be locked into place, the pilot then must fly in a straight direction until the passenger is picked up.

    Modifiers:
    Light Winds (1-15 mph / 1-25kph)        +1 difficulty
    Moderate Winds (15-25 mph / 25-40kph)   +3 difficulty
    Heavy Winds (25+ mph / 40+ kph)         +5 difficulty
    

    For the person being picked up (the "passenger") SkyHook is a ride. All he has to do is get into the suit, fill the baloon with helium, tie everything together and wait. Once he has been yanked off the ground, the passenger has the option of keeping his body limp and going along with the ride, or doing some aerial body surfing. Much like during freefall, how the passenger positions his arms and legs can cause him to move in practically any direction. But in order to "body surf" the passenger must first get on his stomach (stomach pointed at the ground). This takes a moderate DEX roll to achieve. From that position he can "body surf" to his heart's delight. But be warned: body surfing makes it much harder for the crew reeling the passenger in to get a grip on the rope.

    The crew reeling the passenger in has arguably the hardest job. They wait until the pickup craft has made contact with the rope, at which point the rope trails very close to the underside of the aircraft. The crew they lowers a hook to snatch the rope. If the passenger is "body surfing" it makes it so much harder for this to be accomplished. Once the crew has the hook attached to the rope, they pull in the hook and attach the rope to a winch. From there they wait until the winch reels in the passenger. Once the passenger is reeled in within grasp of the crew, a crewman tethered to the aircraft walks out onto the ramp and grabs a hold of the passenger. The passenger is then ushered inside and gets to remove his harness. He has been safely extracted.
    The only task which requires a roll is the attaching of the hook to the rope. This requires a moderate DEX roll. If the roll is failed, the crew can try again. They can keep trying until they get a hold of the rope.

    Modifiers:
    Light Cross Winds (1-15 mph / 1-25kph)        +1 difficulty
    Moderate Cross Winds (15-25 mph / 25-40kph)   +3 difficulty
    Heavy Cross Winds (25+ mph / 40+ kph)         +5 difficulty
    The Passenger is "Body Surfing"               +5 difficulty
    
    
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    This is an original work by Ross Hedvicek