A Matter of Age

Summary:

Confused about expected lifespan...

A Matter of Age

John_Kahane 04 Jun 2008 15:08

Hullo, folks,

I've had my copy of Sufficiently Advanced now for a couple of days, and have been avidly reading the rulebook. I am slightly confused on the mechanics of determining the character's Age at the start of play. Well, actually determining the character's lifespan.

I guess I'm havuing a problem, at least when it comes to the process of relating Biotech to lifespan on page 79. The examples of determining how long the character will live in the second column (using the Stardweller characters) confuse me, because I don't see the way that the two characters' lifespans are being determined. So, can someone explain this process to me? Thanks. :)

Thank goodness the rest of the game system is straightforward, and the age of the character based on their Professions from page 83 are clear to me. :) I think. :)

Re: A Matter of Age

Tantavalist 04 Jun 2008 15:24

The total life expectancy is based both on the character's internal implants and genetic engineering, and on the quality of medical care that the Civilisation the character lives in gives people. The first row is the base life expectancy of a character, based on the character's Biotech capability. The second is added to this, and is based on the highest possible Biotech score of the cgaracter's native Civilisation.

So, witht he examples given in the rulebook- the Stardwellers have a Biotech of 10, which adds +200 to the maximum age of all Stardwellers. Look up the Natural Lifespan by Biotech rating and add 200 for Stardwellers. The 320 year lifespan for the first character is a misprint, btw, as by my calculations is should read 300.

Re: A Matter of Age

John_Kahane 04 Jun 2008 16:50

Hullo, Tantavalist,

Actually, I realized after reading your post and checking out the relevant tables again that the characters' Ages are right. It's just a matter of taking the Lifespan of a character at their actual BioTech, and adding the Medical Care value for the civilization's maximum Biotech. Didn't see this before, but such is life. ::) Assuming this is right, I have the strangest feeling that some of the age stuff for the sample characters is wrong. Perhaps Colin can clarify this for us.

Re: A Matter of Age

Colin_Fredericks 05 Jun 2008 14:56

It's possible that I calculated some ages wrong. If you find any errors, let me know and I'll put them into the errata page.

Re: A Matter of Age

John_Kahane 07 Jun 2008 15:06

Hullo, Colin,

Well, I did notice that there were glitches in terms of some of the page references were wrong in the book. I didn't keep track of them, simply because at that point I was reading the rulebook to try and absorb the material and the game mechanics and settings and all.

As for ther ages of characters, I had the feeling as I was reading some of the character stats that the ages were off, but again, I didn't concentrate on that aspect of stuff at all.

Might do some work on seeing if the numbers are right when I re-read the book again.