COMPUTERS IN DRAGONSTAR

Computers are primarily technological devices, used to perform many routine and complex tasks in every day to day life, through their use tasks can be performed quicker, simpler, and more efficiently.
In Dragonstar computers vary a lot in design, size and purpose but their requirement is nevertheless important in a lot of peoples day to day lives from tracking the accounts of a billion credit megacorporation, to tracking satellites and their data, communicating over distances, making calculations, accessing databases of knowledge on a subject and a million other uses.

Computers are broken down into four integral components
1) Processor
2) Memory
3) Power Source
4) Programs and Peripherals

Each of these sections is discussed below in detail along with how it functions, it’s limitations and what it costs.

PROCESSORS:
(The Effective Brain and data processing power of the computer)

DRAGONSTAR COSMOLOGY

Since the SFHB doesn´t specifically say anything about the cosmology of the Dragonstar Universe, it may be a good idea to assume it uses the standard D&D cosmology of the Great Wheel. My thougts basically follow this assumption, though there are some major changes. These mainly regard the layout of the Material Plane, as well as the inclusion of a new Transitive Plane, the Plane of Void.
If you want to use this cosmology model, you should keep in mind that it radically changes the way space travell works in the Dragonstar Universe (See Star Travell rules below).
Also, this model assumes that since - unlike normal fantasy deieties - the gods are eternal and neigh omnipotent beings who actually created the universe, they have to reside outside of it. After all, how could they be part of what they themselves created?
But so far, only a small part required as a cosmological back up for the star travel rules is completed.

The Material Plane:

The Material Plane is broken up into miriads of spherical layers, imbedded in the Plane of void. Each of these spherical subplanes contains one solar system. Their average diameter is 10-20 billion km. Soft borders connect the Plane of Void and the layers of the material plane. Thus, objects can simply pass from one to the other without ever noticing the difference. Vision is also unhindered by these borders.
In fact, from a scientific point of view, there is no noticable difference at all between the Material Plane and the plane of void and no evidence that the latter even exists.
The layers of the Material Plane have no connection to each other. Travel from one subplane to the other is possible only through the Transitive Planes. Likewise, it is not possible to teleport from one layer to another, though you can freely teleport to any place within the same subplane
On the material plane, gravity is directional towards large masses. The gravitational pull at any given location in a subplane is determined by the distance to the plane´s bodies and their mass. This keeps the bodies spinning round each other. For a rellatively small object however, in most places the gravitational pull is so low, it can effectively treated as no gravity.

The Plane of Void (Transitive Plane):

The Plane of Void is the great emptieness between the stars. It´s infinate reaches span the galaxies, connecting the miriads of layers of the material plane, the solar systems of the universe.
In most respects, the Plane of Void is very similar to the Material Plane.
The Plane of Void consists of several hierarchical layers. Each of those is coterminous to the ones below and above it, and can only be accessed via Plane shift from one of the two layers adjactant to it. Only the lowest of these layers connects to the Material Plane, the Plane of Shadow and the Etherial Plane.
Since the Plane of void has no connection to the Astral Plane, teleportation and other magic depending on the Astral Plane is not possible there.
The Plane of Void consists of several hierarchical layers, each of which is coterminous to the ones below and above it, and can only be accessed via Plane shift from one of the two layers adjactant to it. On the higher Levels of the Plane of Void, space warps around it self, considerably shortening the distance between any two points in the universe. The higher up you get, the stronger this distortion gets, distances ever decreasing.

VARIANT STAR TRAVEL RULES V.1.0

The Basics of Star Travel

When the first civilisations of what is now known as the dragon empire took to the stars, they naturally sought of a way to deal with the problem of faster than light travel.. Since all scientific approches where doomed to fail, magic was - and still is today - the only option available.
The best science could do, was to improve conventional propulsion to achieve unimaginable speeds. With spacecraft travelling just below the speed of light you can actually cross the lenghth of a solar system in but a few hours. But the wall of light remaind ever unbreachable and travel to the far off planets of different solar systems was a matter of several years.
At first glance, Teleportation seemed a sensible way to deal with this problem. Other methods such as travel via the Plane of Shadows where also explored but proved unsuited for large scale solutions. Though magic users had long known that travel from one world to another was not possible by teleportation, this was always thought to be simply a problem of distance. Thus starcasters where developed. Their ability to home in on the target area using the coordinates provided by a navcomp, rather than the mental image of a spellcaster should make it possible to travel to a distant star system in several hops. But to the ultimae dismay of the engineers, it proved impossible to leave a solar system that way. This led to the discovery of the Plane of Void.
While exploring this new found Transitive Plane, Magic users found it had a very peculiar quality: on the higher levels of this multilayered plane, space warps in around itself. Thus the distances between two points decrease dramatically. Of course, this could be utilized for space travell. By plane shifting to a higher level of the Plane of Void, a space ship can use it as a shortcut to the desired location. And the higher up it goes, the shorter the distance gets. Needless to say, there is also a downside to this method. The space distortions make it increasingly difficult to navigate through the Plane of Void. While this is a mere inconvenience on the lower levels, travel on the highest levels of the Plane is downright suicidal.
To use this property of the Plane of Void, versions of planeshift had to be researched that specifically allowed to shift between the Void´s layers, made accurate navigation between those layers possible and could transport large masses. Using such spells, magical devices where developed that where able to planeshift entire ships. these are called Void Shifters.
Even so, Star Casters still exist, as they can be used to quickly travel within a star system. But since every ship already has to have two elaborate and costly drives, most simply cannot afford a third such system. Thus, only important military vesseles and the most luxurous of private ships posses Star Casters.

Ship Drives

Conventional Drives
A wide variety of conventional drives exists for all kinds of ships. The listed price in the SFHB should be considered to represent a ship with an average drive that has a speed of 0.8 billion km/h. This is the standard for most civilian ships. For every 0.1 billion km/h above or below that value, increase or decrease the ship´s price by 5%. The maximum speed any ship can reach is 1 billion km/h. Minimum speed is 0.5 billion km/h. While slower ships might theoretically exist, they would be so old that it is highly unlikely for them to have survived to this day. It is also possible to increase the speed of an existing drive. This is not an easy task however and costs 10% of the ship´s prize for every 0.1 billion km/h of speep increase. Still, in most cases it´s probably cheaper than a new drive.
The prices for new drives, including installation are given in the table below.

Drive Cost

Travel within Star Systems

Conventional travel is at a speed of up to 1 billion km/h, which is just below the speed of light. Since the average diameter of a solar system is between 10-20 billion km, crossing it´s full lenghth would take 10-20 hours. Of course you wouldn´t want to do that normally. typical travelling distances would be much shorter, depending on where you come from and where you wanna go.

Star System Size

Travel between Star Systems

Once you´ve passed the orbit of a system´s outmost planet, you cross an invisible border separating two planes of existence. With leaving that system you also leave the Material Plane behind and enter the endless space of the Plane of Void. Due to the lack of a connection to the Astral Plane, teleportation is no longer possible.
To navigate through the Plane of Void, a ship´s conventional drives are used. But, through the use of a Void Shifter, higher levels of the Plain of Void can be entered, where space wraps around itself and distances are significanly reduced.
Each subplane can only be accessed from the plane directly below or above it. So if you want to travel through the the 4th layer, you would need 3 Plane Shifts to get there and another 3 to shift back to normal space, once you´ve reached your goal. Every Plane Shift costs a number of charges dependant on the ship´s size.
The average distance between two neighboring star systems is between 5 and 10 lightyears. Thus, the journey from one part of the Dragon Empire to another may take you over hundreds of lightyears. On layer one of the Plane of Void this would take years upon years, even at the insane speed of 1 Billion km/h. On layer 10, this time is recuced to seconds.
However, the higher the subplane used, the more likely the distortet space leads to a navigational error. And the more deadly those errors get. Those mishapps have nothing to do with an error on the navigator´s side. They are due to the space distortions on the higher layers and can occure even with a seemingly perfect navigation. You still have to do a navigation check to see, if you plotted the right course.

Travelling Time on the Plane of Void

Manuvering Speed

At speeds of half a billion km/h and more, decent manuvering is no longer possible. The only thing you can do at these speeds is to accelerate and deccelerate, as well marginal direction changes to adjust your course. For anything else you have to considerably slow down to manuvering speed.
The top speed (Starship Scale) given in the stats of the SFHB represent a ship´s manuvering speed. This is the maximum speed at which a ship is still fully mauverable and can do combat.

CHARACTER PRE-LEVELS

Educational Levels

In a normal fantasy setting, a character´s profession is probably what he picked up during his youth, weather through an apprenticeship, the stuff he learned at home or somethin like that. In Dragonstar this would be true for people from the Outlands.
In a modern age/ Sci Fi setting however, people generally get some kind of education during their childhood and youth, before deciding on a career path. This would be true for people hailing from the Dragon Empire.
While this should raise a character´s starting age by a few years, it also means he already knew some things before he even began his education as whatever he is now. To represent this, a character gets 2 NPC levels before choosing a Character class. The first represents his childhood education (probably a school), the second a basic career education (learning a job/ a university pre-degree/ military service/ etc.). Only then it shows if the character is an average person or someone special. An ordinary man would continue to take NPC-levels at this point. Some people however take more specialized roles.
Some professions stand out above the norm in and of themselves. There is no such thing as an ordinary Wizard or Cleric or an ordinary Paladin. Others are kind of counterparts to normal walks of life but on adifferent level. Basically, a Mechanist is not so very different from an engineer (Expert), nor is a Fighter from a Warrior. Yet by talent, through extensive training or by other appropriate means, these people are out of the ordinary.

The following Table shows what each NPC class might mean on the appropriate level.

Educational Levels

ECL and Educational Levels

Of course, The Educational Levels can also be used to substitude the ECLs of powerful races. Thus a character with an ECL of 2 could start play as a normal level 1 character, without any Educational Levels, while a charactar with an ECL of 2 could start at first level and still gain one Educational Level. Everything above ECL 2 is handled as by the standard rules but counts as two ECL lower and doesn´t get any Educational Levels.