I am creating a scifi rpg where you upgrade shields and propulsion for your ship like you would upgrade your shields and boots in "elfie" rpg. I would like some suggestions about different types of weapons, armor/shields, engines, and other space ship type extras.

You don''t just want to have your cut and dry boring old weapons. You also don''t want to have just one way to kill your enemy.

Like Star Trek. They use a variety of ways to destroy foes, not just phasering them to death.

What I mean is have the ability to take down someone shields and transport and bomb into them. Or ejecting a secondary generator and blowing it up next to your enemy, which kills them. Things no one would expect.

Just my two cents

I''m with Spartan III on this one. Space shooters are fun, and space RPGs can be funner, but nobody wants a space RPG that''s just a space shooter that takes a long time to get into. Linear levelling, like making your shields get stronger or your lasers hit harder, necessitates a difficulty curve for the game that makes for linear story, unbelievable worlds, and lack of depth.

Track down Escape Velocity Nova from Amrosia Software (www.ambrosiasw.com should have a demo, but it might still be Mac-only). It''s got a lot of neat features, like different kind of weapon guidance systems and jammers, shield- and armor-destroying weapons, cloaking devices, warp engines, etc. However, it still wants for the free action that Spartan described in the above post.

"Beaming" people and things is a great Star Trek innovation that should be used more often. It''s tough to do sometimes, but a little effort should allow you to come up with a good, practical method to use. Disabling, boarding, and capturing ships is a good Escape Velocity aspect, one which kept me busy as a pirate when saving the galaxy got boring. Non-conventional weapons, like the generator technique described by Spartan, should be put in, but not as a weapon. Just give players the option to jettison objects and the option to target them, rather than a "jettison generator and shoot it to blow up that ship" button.

Really, space sci-fi owes a lot to nautical lore, so don''t forget boarding parties, pirates, smugglers, privateers, and small deserted islands.

But on the sci-fi end, you''ll need various detectors and scanners, encrypted frequencies, faster-than-light travel, and cosmic phenomena.

A good space RPG would really kick ass. Good luck.

Like Chef said, beaming and so forth is hard to do but well worth it. My suggestion is to have stellar law in place in different areas, so that in some areas, if you blow up a ship your getting hauled of to jail, so you have to use non-lethal means (self-defence is another matter!). Then theres the blank-rim, pirate galore, where nary a single copper is seen. Here its do or die.

As you can see, it would come down to how you play. If you hang around the big cities, you are only going to have defense weapons, letting the coppers take care of you, but if you want to play a big rough tough pirate, it comes with the danger of having to fend for youself. If you are a trader, who visits all these sectors, maybe a super fast ship is in order.

I know this dosnt exactly answer your post, but I hope it helps give you an idea of what type of weapons would exist in your world. I hate to mentiion it without sounding like a neardy fan boy, but look at starwars. It had amazing fight scenes, and it only used big zappy lasers!