Traveller General

Okay new thread let's not have it die without a single comment so here's a short snippet from my last session.

My group is still relatively new, most of the player quirks are now known, but I'm still throwing in the occasional personal stuff at the PCs. The latest (and most amazing) end result of this was me throwing a former neighbor asks the ex-soldier to help get this son straight. I intended it to be a ministory involving gangs and stuff but the player delivered a pretty good speech to said kid about how he's going to get his shit together or else.

Since I was kindof thinking that that player was a bit of a murderhobo this result was pretty astonishing and amazing.

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>>51815875
Wow, quite a treat for a player to step up like that anon. You have a good crew.

>>51814763
By OTU rules, what happens if you try to spacewalk during a jump?
Is the envelope big enough to allow minor repairs/hull-patching?

>>51816171
If I remember correctly as soon as you exit the airlock you get dumped in normal-space somewhere.

Although Citation is needed for this since I can't find where exactly I read this...

>>51816171

There's interview or editorial or some such by Miller addressing similar issues. He writes that he's constantly been pestered by players at cons, by mail, etc. with "questions" regarding "loopholes" in the jump drive.

People ask what happens if a ship being carried through jump tries to jump itself, what happens if you deliberately exit/contact/shoot at the bubble. etc., etc., etc.

Simplifying Miller's answer in language he'd never use: Fuck with jump drive/bubble while in jump and you die. Period. End of story.

There's enough fluff text in SSOM, TNS items, and elsewhere to support the idea that proximity to the bubble/envelope equates death if you're lucky and a vague near terminal "jump sickness" no one knows how to treat if you're not.

In MT's Starship Operator's Manual (SSOM), the Old Timer tells of a minor problem with the jump drive resulting in a malformed bubble/envelope/field which penetrates the ship's hull in a crew stateroom. The occupant was gone and the people who merely opened the door to check on her became violently ill. (Everyone was sick on some level because the ship also misjumped.)

Tell the player who wants to cavort on the hull during jump that, at best, only they will die and, at worst, they'll destroy the ship.

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>>51814763
So the new vehicle handbook (no, no one has a good copy yet) is interesting thanks to some new rules. For instance, the towing rules allow Murderhobos to easily and cheaply build a gravity sled (that takes advantage of having no speed for the price reduction, since grav tech is expensive) to push their ill-gotten gains around on while pew-pewing (aka, D&D's Tensor's floating disk, which got super-nerfed in 5e specifically because that's what players used it for). TL8 and 35 grand for an extra 1,000 kg of carrying space that floats around and can go up vertical inclines? Sign me up please.

So, what are your opinions on the Pirates of Drinax Campaign? Any interesting stories?

Mongoose seems intent on reviving that for 2e, so I wonder just how many of us have actually gone through it in 1e.

Last thread I asked about handouts with equipment bits. I made them and decided to show it to You guys, check it out:

https://1drv.ms/b/s!AjaReAYBgF9SnzQS5o5-B0EyRmla

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>>51817528
looks quite nice.

>>51817528

Looks really good. Thanks!

>>51817119
That's cheap, but come on, everyone's used an air/raft as a technical once or twice, and grav-lifter thingies that you have to push have been in various flavours of the setting for quite a long time.

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>>51819324
I suppose that's true, and an air/raft isn't that much larger.

Mostly I'm glad that the new vehicle book makes the mechanical gap between people/vehicles and starships a bit less jarring; more heavily armored and armed vehicles can stand up to starship fire and you can build up with vehicles and down with starships to where there's appreciable overlap in price/performance.

For instance, a slightly smaller g/carrier (which would be a better fit on, say, a 200 or 300dton ship than the g/carrier in 2e core) with armor and weaponry that can nearly match a 10dton fighter craft, comes out with a price that is... almost that of a 10 dton fighter craft. Marvelous. It's smaller and can carry more people, but it's not really space-capable, so the trade-offs are at least in the ballpark where you can compare the two.

>>51817528

Neat, this is MGT2, right?

Any of the Classic Traveller adventure modules good for a green party that needs some direction? I'm thumbed through several of them and they see much more open ended than adventures, from say, early DnD.

>>51821081
Yeah, images pulled from Central Supply Catalogue. Will report in two weeks or so how it works in sessions.

>>51821079
That sounds pretty great. Can't wait to get my dirty hands on this book.

So far one of the most enjoyable things in traveller for me is making starships. And now I'll be able to make airplanes to go with those.

>>51821228
>Any of the Classic Traveller adventure modules good for a green party that needs some direction?

What do you mean? Do you have a group that's already playing but they're just wandering around? Or do you have a group that's getting ready to play?

Any of the Doubles are good places to start, the ATV Doubles (Mithril/Brightside) especially so. The Chamax Double is another good one.

The Freelance Traveller site has an entire section of starter adventures called "Getting off the Ground".

>>51821609
We're getting ready to play, but we've played DnD together and from DMing with them I know they need a very structured adventure. I'll check out those doubles and the website, thanks.

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Jump

>>51824309
Sticking a good portion of your fuel (or anything for that matter) at the end of a narrow bridge seems like a bad idea

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>>51826386

I didn't design it. I just bumped the thread with a pic.

>>51826539
He might not be criticizing you directly then. It was an observation.

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>>51826568

I didn't think he was. I was just stating why I couldn't explain the design. I think it's dopey too.

New here. Is getting the release date of Traveller wrong a meme?

>>51827107

Not that I'm aware of. What, was somebody saying Classic Traveller was released in 1952 or something?

>>51827107

It was a typo, asshole, not a meme.

>>51827862

There's a typo in the intro post, 1976 instead of 1977, so >>51827107 wants to "think" it was meme.

>>51814763
This is probaly an odd question. So I'm starting a game in a month or so and I want to get a hard copy of the Central Supply Catalog so that we can have a big book of gear on the table. We're going to use Mongoose 1st Edition but skimming through the PDFs it seems the 2nd Edition version is mostly the same but with more art which my players would appreciate when picking out their stuff, and it's only about ten bucks more on DrivethruRPG so I was thinking of getting the newer version.

Is there anything that stands out asglaringly incompatible between the two editions' catalogs that I missed flipping through the PDFs?

>>51821609
> Chamax Double
Would it be too obvious for my players if I played:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9egQyLpEyI

>>51828050
I would avoid the central supply catalog to start with, the list of gear in the core rulebook is plenty to start with. Things in the CSC can be game breaking and introduce a whole lot of complexity that a new campaign doesn't need.

Only use the CSC if a player specifically asks for a weapon or item that isn't covered by the core book, and then dont actually show them the CSC, just make them go to some underground weapons dealer, who offers them some items at an inflated price, and/or takes time to order in / acquire. Make finding that awesome weapon or armor a quest in itself, dont just hand it to them on the table. Dont even mention that the CSC exists, its there purely for you as a referee to see ideas on how to handle insane plasma flamers or armor piercing rounds.

Just my advice, I've run long Traveller campaigns and there's plenty in the core book to keep even the most tech-savvy players interested.

>>51828050
>Central Supply Catalog

Be careful with what you let them get, that thing's full of crazy broken nonsense.

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>>51826386
>>51824309

>>51828112

The Zeta Reticulan parasites are at least semi-intelligent while the Chamax are just mindless zerg-rush "bugs".

>>51828046

I might be an asshole, but I don't want it to be a meme.

>>51828050
>glaringly incompatible between the two editions' catalogs
1) The most "problematic" discrepancy is that armor values have been changed in 2e (to smooth out the transition between personal, vehicle, and starship damage values), so 2e armor is slightly more protective than in 1e. Prices are also a bit different. It's not a huge difference, but ~15-20% could be meaningful to some, I suppose.

2) the mechanics for computers (specifically, and electronics in general) has been somewhat changed (for the better) in 2e. I'd recommend just using the core 2e mechanics for computers. The pdf for it is upstairs in the master archive.

3) it probably won't come up, but a lot of the much heavier weapons in the CSC are meant to be mounted on vehicles, and 1e and 2e handle them somewhat differently.

Also, generally, I'm of the mind of other anons. I wouldn't let your players get their hands on the CSC until they've had at least their introductory adventure. You can get away with a lot of crazy stuff even if you just adhere to character creation limits on weapon/armor prices and TL.

>>51828050

Listen and heed >>51828139 and >>51828141

Mongoose had dreams of turning Traveller into a generic sci-fi rules set. While they don't have the skills or intelligence to do so, they're are too lazy to do the necessary work even if they had the ability. So their "attempt" failed.

After failing to make B5, Judge Dred, and Hammer's Slammer "fit" Traveller, Mongoose finally admitted their own inabilities and refocused their publications on the 3I/OTU. They hired writers who knew the setting and then shafted 3rd party publishers to "clear the deck" for further MgT products.

The fallout of their original "Traveller is generic sci-fi" flight of fancy is a lot of rules and equipment that are both poorly thought out and will break your game.

>>51828354

Give it a rest, fuckwit.

>>51828513
>>51828484
>>51828141
>>51828139


yeesh thanks for the warnings I think I'll hold off on either edition the book for a while.

>>51828644

Don't get me wrong. The core editions are good enough and they contain a lot of chargen options current players prefer. There's a lot you can plunder from MgT.

In the long run by shafting the 3rd party publishers producing 3I/OTU work AND releasing a Traveller SRD, Mongoose has only fucked themselves. The game is increasingly opening up to exciting and well crafted alternate TUs like Orbital and Clement Sector which Mongoose's products cannot match. Then, as T5 products begin to be released, Mongoose will lose their monopoly on the 3I/OTU.

Just as the Black Plague helped spark the Renaissance, the Plague of Mongoose could help Traveller in the end.

>>51828513
>Mongoose had dreams of turning Traveller into a generic sci-fi rules set
Threadly reminder that Traveller was originally intended to be a generic set of sci-fi rules. Also, jesus, the buttpain is great. What did Mongoose do to you to cause such hate?

>>51828913
It's New and Different and (((Casual)))

>>51828913
It might be the former playtester who has popped up a few times here over the years and he really, really, really hates Mongoose.

>>51828559

However, if you did want to make it a meme, make the date say 1973, so that Traveller is older than D&D.

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>>51828644
For what it's worth, the Mongoose 2e CSC is better balanced than 1e.

And despite, >>51828513, I will vouch for 2e. It's certainly got problems (though, more basic editing ones than most other systems), but, if you don't read the rules as dogma (which is usually a good idea anyway), then there's plenty of good ideas. You can always steal the good ones and go back to Classic if that's your thing.

For example, and I'll badger on about it for days, but making rules for computers that don't hearken back to the days of vacuum tubes and punch cards and mainframes taking up 3 city blocks is a good thing. By making the mechanics generic, it better fits various settings other than the zeitgeist of 1970s futurism.

>>51828913
>Threadly reminder that Traveller was originally intended to be a generic set of sci-fi rules.

No, it wasn't. This is the SECOND sentence in the FIRST book:

"The major problem, however, will be that communication, be it political, diplomatic, commercial, or private, will be reduced to the level of the 18th century, reduced to the speed of transportation."

Reducing communication to the speed of transportation precludes a host of sci-fi settings.

>>What did Mongoose do to you to cause such hate?

Mongoose did a lot of damage to a great game and a great setting. Miller has always said he considered Traveller to be the third sci-fi setting to come out of the 60s/70s with Trek and Star Wars. Each was unique, each flowed from different precepts. Mongoose in their half-assed attempt to recast Traveller as a generic sci-fi rules set, diluted it's uniqueness.

If Mongoose had been able to modify Traveller enough to produce even run-of-the-mill rules for B5, Dred, and the rest their changes would have been worth it. Instead their lack of ability and laziness damaged the game while producing nothing of merit in return.

Completely new. Mongoose Traveler 2e.

Are psionics worth anything whatsoever?

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>>51829166
>This is the SECOND sentence in the FIRST book:
No, no, that's the first sentence of the second paragraph of the introduction to Traveller.

The actual second sentence of the first paragraph reads:

"...Traveller is set against a background drawn from adventure-oriented science fiction literature and the scope and breadth of the game are limited only by the imagination and skill of the players and referees." - page 8, Traveller

THAT, anon, is the stepping off point. Not the 3I/OTU itself. Just as SW and ST were influenced by serial comics, and those were influenced by post-modern impressionism, and so on and so forth, it's shaped by what came before.

>diluted it's uniqueness.
I can, however, agree with this. I will say that this is a good thing. Generic systems are, generally by definition, more flexible, and allow for greater variety of stories to be told. If someone wants to have subspace FTL communication in their setting, then a system that explicitly does not support it fails in that regard.

>>51829283
>Are psionics worth anything whatsoever?
Short answer: yes
Longer answer: not as much as you'd believe.

Psionics in Traveller typically has long recovery period and fairly difficult task difficulties. Teleportation is awesome, but also perilous. Telepathic suggestion is useful, but only if it doesn't fail. And of course, the character can always cascade fail at learning the powers in the first place.

>>51829166
It must be mentioned that Miller explicitly wrote in the Introduction to Traveller that:

"Almost any situation which occurs in any SF novel, movie, or short story can be recreated in Traveller with a little work on the part of the referee."

That's certainly not a preclusion of other sci-fi settings, only that they certainly could be modified to fit the player's vision.

>>51829301
>I will say that this is a good thing.
So, by your metric, GURPS Traveller is the best Traveller, because it's the most flexible?

>>51829301
>The actual second sentence of the first paragraph reads:

No. Page 8 is the beginning of the Characters section of both the 77 and 81 versions of Book 1.

The second sentence on page 5 in both versions is as I quoted it.

>>51829400
>No. Page 8 is the beginning of the Characters section of both the 77 and 81 versions of Book 1.
I have the 81 Book 0 pdf open right now. Page 8, Introduction to Traveller. I don't know what you're smoking.

>>51829415
>>Book 1.
>>Book 0

I'm quoting '77 Book 1. You're quoting '81 Book 0. See the problem?

>>51829415
>Page 8 is the beginning of the Characters section of both the 77 and 81 versions of Book 1.
>of Book 1
>I have the 81 Book 0 pdf open right now.
What did he mean by this?

>>51829415

Book 0 is from '81, so a later source than the '77 printing of Book 1.
That one does contain the bit about communication being no faster than transportation, but it also says:
>Using this three-book set, players are capable of playing single scenarios or entire campaigns set in virtually any science fiction theme.

No FTL comms is a rules assumption that made stuff like the trade system work, but you were free to toss it out if you didn't mind handwaving the resulting weird bits or tossing the trade system out.
CT77 was very light on setting and setting assumptions beyond those that make its intended style of gameplay function, and in that it's a general purpose SF system; it's just not a universal one.

>>51829399
Only if you extrapolated it to an extreme. As all things, it's a continuum, right? Some systems only really work within a particular setting because the mechanics so rigidly adhere to it that they don't really work anywhere else (say, Phoenix Command, or any of the various sailing-ships-and-iron-men scurvy simulators). Then you move towards the other end and you get systems whose mechanics are deeply colored in a particular setting because they reflect a core concept of the setting (say, class structure in OD&D). Then you get systems that could be fairly generic but have major or minor setting requirements but could substitute for similar settings fairly easily (say, nWoD). And then you get into the variety of generics (your GURPS, so on). So it depends on what you want, of course.

I just find that restricting the mechanics of Traveller to the OTU is a bit silly.

>>51829498
>>51829491
Sudoku, here I come. My demise aside, having flipped open to book 1 of CT77 and read:
"Using this three-book set, players are capable of playing single scenarios or entire campaigns set in virtually any science fiction theme."

Which is again repeated in the 81 and (awfully googly eyed) 82 rulebooks.

Same gist.

>>51829519
>I just find that restricting the mechanics of Traveller to the OTU is a bit silly.

Starting with Book 5, the mechanics and the setting are increasingly intertwined. Want big ships, advanced chargen, or detailed trade? The OTU is embedded to varying degrees in the package. It was perhaps the biggest mistake GDW made with the game.

What's being called Proto-Traveller dials back the mechanics to Books 1-3 (or sometimes 4). While that performs an "OTU-ectomy" of sorts, the basic technological assumptions within the game still constrain the range of setting UNLESS the referee puts in a lot of work.

I used Traveller to run pulp adventure games simply by capping TL because the rules had guns where D&D didn't. However saying "Hurr durr Trav can be Kirk & Vader herp derp" ignores the amount of work that needs to be done and major changes that need to be made.

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>>51829695
>"Hurr durr Trav can be Kirk & Vader herp derp"
Easily. Especially because both ST and SW are super-light on actual physics, we don't need to worry about, for instance, whether or not that 6g gravitic drive actually requires a proportionally greater amount of fuel than a less advanced drive acting on the same amount of mass. Just call it a Warp Drive capable of Warp Factor 6 and move on.

If we assume that economics as a concept exists (which, of course, you never know) then the same speculative trading in Traveller could apply to even post-scarcity settings (The Federation may not use money, but they do trade and latinum is a thing).

I can see where you're line of thought leads to though. I'd say that you don't have to push the rules to match the setting/ideal to the degree you're referring to in order for the game to work. Else you get pic related, and frankly, no one plays that.

>>51828293
So I should play this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIGHCoVzqtk

>>51828112
You play the Alien music in the session they pick up a distress call asking them to "liberate me."

>>51828913
https://talestoastound.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/traveller-book-4-mercenary/

>Book 4 Mercenary doesn’t refer to The Third Imperium, the house setting GDW eventually created for Traveller, anywhere in its text.

>This will come as a shock to people convinced Traveller is The Third Imperium, or people who conflate the game line into one unified product. (The Traveller Books were setting neutral until Book 6 Scouts, at which point the rules and setting became one.)

Traveller was originally pretty generic, in the sense that it was for playing on the frontier of a distant empire with plenty of freedom to do stuff.

The tech doesn't fit that well with a lot of existing settings, but you can make it work for a lot of them.

3I being the ultimate canon is disappointing.

>>51829033
I hate mongoose, more so because they occasionally come out with something legitimately good and I start to hope that maybe I can trust them again.

>>51831556
>>Book 4 Mercenary doesn’t refer to The Third Imperium, the house setting GDW eventually created for Traveller, anywhere in its text.

Not exactly. Page 1, paragraph 3, 1st sentence: "Traveller assumes a remote centralized government (referred to in this volume as the Imperium)...". In the Striker Ticket, Marastan is described as an "Imperial reservation". Yes, pedants, it doesn't say THIRD Imperium, but the official setting is beginning to poke through.

>>(The Traveller Books were setting neutral until Book 6 Scouts, at which point the rules and setting became one.)

Again, not exactly. Book 5 High Guard is crammed full of references to the Imperium and even repeats the sentence from Book 4 quoted above. Again, the phrase THIRD Imperium isn't used, but all the characteristics are there.

>Traveller was originally pretty generic, in the sense that it was for playing on the frontier of a distant empire with plenty of freedom to do stuff.

Generic in play style and/or campaign type.

>The tech doesn't fit that well with a lot of existing settings, but you can make it work for a lot of them.

Not generic in technology.

>3I being the ultimate canon is disappointing.

Yes. Wrapping the rules and the setting around each other was a mistake that only got worse as time went on.

>>51832067
>a mistake

I disagree, systems that try to be universal feel mushy to me. I like it when a game's mechanics fit the game world, especially when they work together in creating a universe that's fun to play in.

What's a good edition for first time Travellers?

>>51833271
Mong 2E, as it is easily available, easy to learn, forgiving and comfy. Also Computer rules make sense.

You can either buy it from mongoose's site or get it from the master archive.

And stick to the core rulebook at first.

>This usually takes place in a Traveller’s first term (in place of a career), though it can be delayed up until the third term if a term or two in a career is desired. From term four and onwards, pre-career education is no longer available.
wat
What do you even do for 3 terms if you aren't rolling for education?

You can for example go to the army, or pick any other career for your first two terms and go to university on your third term. Later that's not an option.

>>51833606
Drafted into army to pay for college?

Came to this thread looking to try and find a way to sell "Orbital" to my gaming group

Now I read that the makers of orbital have been fucked by Mongoose and are now selling the rules using the "Cepheus Engine"

So... whats the difference guys. Are the changes purely cosmetic because I have a battered old copy of both Mongoose and Orbital. Worth buying the new books?

>>51833606
You take other career terms. So, for instance, at 18 you take the Citizen career for 1 term, and then at 22 you roll to enter a university.

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>>51834549
>whats the difference guys
Every thread until OP makes it a sticky:
Changes from 1e to 2e Core (decide for yourself it is worth it):

- Streamlining of skills so that characters focusing on less commonly used specializations can still use the general skill. Notably, the Electronics skill is broader.
- Getting rid of the planet of hats and making background skills not explicitly dependent on the character's homeworld type
- Something I'm sure everyone's already done, but a wider array of background skills (read: you can be athletic without having to join the army)
- Integrated military academies from Mercenaries and university from Cosmopolite into core
- Explicit rules for changing assignments within a career
- integrated Prisoner career terms
- some changes to combat (melee dodging in particular), but it's mostly the same.
- Armor values are slightly increased in 2e compared to 1e (so that there's a slightly more linear path between personal armor, vehicle armor, and starship armor), but your FGMPs and PGMPs have higher damage ratings to compensate, which is relatively faithful to the 3I setting.
- Animal rules are streamlined. Not great, but it's better for Refs. And let's be honest, how many people actually purchased the Animals sourcebook?
- streamlined and more flexible/generic starship creation rules (though what was once in core 1e has been moved to a more expansive High Guard, and inexplicably a few key paragraphs have been lost in translation)
- significantly more streamlined vehicle rules, including mechanics for shipping size and speed/range bands rather and tossing out the original 1e vehicle handbook m^3 calculations.
- much better continuity of scale between personal, vehicle, and starship scales, considering that in 1e, it's a 50x multiplier (from Mercenaries), and that's problematic to say the least

All-in-all, it's pretty easy to bash together stuff from 1e and 2e, depending on what you like.

>>51834709
>One of us is mistaken, I'm hoping its me

Sorry not the difference between 1st and 2nd ed Mongoose

The difference between Mongoose and Cepheus. Is the later just the former with names changed for legal reasons?

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>>51834709
Also, lastly, and it's the straw that broke the autistic camel's back for many, is 2e's introduction of dogfighting rules. Now, very clearly, this isn't exactly in line with a bunch of preexisting material (mostly fluff, but even the mechanics in 1e HG). It's fairly easy to ignore if you want to, though doing so makes small craft even less useful than they already were in 1e.

I will say, however, that the accusation that dogfighting rules make the system too "casual" is, while logically understandable, a bit of an overreaction. Traveller is a niche RPG in a niche hobby. There's like, at most, 35, maybe 40 people in these slow, slow threads. And I'd wager that at least half, if not more, have designs for using Traveller in settings other than the 3I. I'm not convinced that 40 people makes a system too casual.

>>51834774
Oh, my mistake. Cepheus is more backwards compatible with CT. Essentially differences between Mongoose 1e and Cepehus:
- More basic careers (so Colonist is separate from other mundane careers like Belter and Barbarian is separate from Drifter)
- The skillset is similarly trimmed down as in 2e, but there's some differences (Liason is a skill as opposed to Steward, drive/flyer/pilot/seafarer is split off to more specific skills), most electronic related skills (comms and computers) are separate skills.

Otherwise it's basically MGT 1e with some CT dressings.

>Is the later just the former with names changed for legal reasons?
It was a necessity for 3rd party publishers; when Mongoose made 2e, the OGL they had for 1e essentially didn't carry over, unless the publishers paid half their profits to Mongoose.

>>51834775
It's not like Dogfighting is even necessarily Pearl Harbor-tier fighter plane juking. It's really just rules for determining who gets to point their fixed mount guns at who. Even with theoretical hard sci-fi zero atmosphere maneuvers you can only point a 90 degree cone in one direction at once. It also covers a bonus for getting "under the guns" of a big ship by getting right up against them and using its own hull as cover.

Frankly, if you're going to sperg out it should be over manned space fighters in the first place and not specific rules for resolving their combat once you have them.

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>>51834899
>it should be over manned space fighters in the first place
I agree, 100%.

I had a general question for anyone who has run a sci fi game like this before, it was reading SWN's rules that got me thinking: How do low populated low-tech worlds exist in a system or sector with future-tech worlds?
Wouldn't a middle ages society's science and technology be launched forward a few hundred years the moment first contact was made?

>>51834955
>I've been to South Sudan with work
>Once you walk out of the airport the TL rapidly decreases by the km

Same reasons as in real life; weaknesses in the bureaucracy and civil society, civil strife, corruption, cultural aspects which I won't go into on 4chan in case pol joins in...

The reasons for the low TL could be part of your plot

>>51834549
>So... whats the difference guys.

>>51834709 has kindly answered that. TL;DR Some improvements added and some errata cleaned up combined with Mongoose's normally shit editing and new errata. 2e hasn't been a years yet and there's already a multipage errata document for it.

>>Are the changes purely cosmetic...

There are improvements in 2e.

>> Worth buying the new books?

Why buy when 2e is available in the links above?

>>51834955
Information quarantines. It may not serve the future-tech world to divulge their secrets, for whatever reason, to the low-tech worlds. Maybe they're xenophobic, or want to keep hegemony over the other worlds, or even more convoluted altruistic reasons like protecting low-tech worlds from being undone by problems that arise by using high-technology.

Failing that, note that just because a nation/polity/corporation/entity may have knowledge of how to do something doesn't mean that they have the means to do it. If that Jump Drive requires producing a super-special material that can't be mined or acquired in your backwater planet, then that's a problem.

>>51834709
>Every thread until OP makes it a sticky

The /hwg/ group is process updating their mini sales list. Interested anons are putting links in a Word doc and uploading them as an attachment to the thread.

Perhaps if you put together a doc listing the 1e to 2e changes, the Archivist OP could add it to his usual thread starting link dump?

>>51835030
Hmm, not a terrible idea, though I'd have to be bit more thorough (and probably shouldn't use such an informal tone?).

>>51834986
As mentioned above, didn't make it clear enough, I was wanting to know if "Cepheus Orbital 2100" was worth buying when I already have "Mongoose Orbital 1e"

Can't imagine why its confusing

Anyway why; dunno I just like owning legit copies of the games I actually run. You can argue I'm a chump, but if I GM a game, I typically buy the corebook to asway my piracy guilt!

>>51834899
>Frankly, if you're going to sperg out it should be over manned space fighters in the first place

Traveller should have more drones and the classic warship designs should be retconned to include them.

That being said, the game's detection and weapon ranges are measured in multiple light-seconds. That comm lag puts a drone at a distinct "decision curve" disadvantage. Even semi-autonomous RPVs face this issue.

The comms a drone requires can also be jammed, spoofed, overridden, hacked, occluded, etc. Even lasers/masers can be interfered with Trav's tech.

I'd love to see a "MIRV" missile bus akin to the 2300AD missiles which carry multiple det-las warheads. I'd love to see drones which extend/enhance sensor ranges too. However, I'm also aware of the many comm issues involved. Sometimes a man has to be on the spot. Not all the time, sometimes.

>>you can only point a 90 degree cone in one direction at once.

20 minutes combat turns give you more than enough time to "aim" your ship.

>>It also covers a bonus for getting "under the guns" of a big ship by getting right up against them and using its own hull as cover.

With weapon/detection ranges measured in multiple light-seconds, you're going to be an expanding ball of gas & debris long before you can get "under the guns".

>>51834955
>How do low populated low-tech worlds exist in a system or sector with future-tech worlds?

Travel to 90% of this planet that isn't the West or tourist enclaves and you'll get your answer.

>>51835080
>Can't imagine why its confusing

Because I'm a dope!

>Anyway why; dunno I just like owning legit copies of the games I actually run. You can argue I'm a chump, but if I GM a game, I typically buy the corebook to asway my piracy guilt!

Me too and, if that makes me a chump, I'm guilty as charged. I use troves as a sneak peak of sorts, something which is still bad.

I like Orbital and I like Cepheus, so I can't imagine a combination of the two would be bad.

>>51835217
Not even the guy you're responding to, but it doesn't even have to be remotely operated drones. Fully autonomous AI drones cut out the need for our squishy bags of flesh, and depending on the trajectory of TL, could well be available before Jump 1 is developed (Again, it speaks to the greater problem that a lot of the extrapolation is predicated on current understanding, which is, of course, never actually current and should probably be updated when it becomes outdated).

Of course, by most Traveller rules, a 1 TB hard disk drive is apparently TL12 technology.

>>51835051
>Hmm, not a terrible idea, though I'd have to be bit more thorough (and probably shouldn't use such an informal tone?).

I know I've seen your 1e-to-2e posts in several generals now and they've always been very well received. Hell, I even saved one as txt file.

You've been able to succinctly and successfully explain the changes in something as character limited as a chan post, so I can't see how having more "room" would be a bad thing. A page or so would be enough to get the high points across, right?

As for tone, read what you've written aloud and you'll know whether or not any change is needed.

>>51817119
>aka, D&D's Tensor's floating disk, which got super-nerfed in 5e specifically because that's what players used it for
Perhaps that's because that IS what it was for when the spell was first published back in 1e.

>>51826811
Important note: This is a TNE deckplan with a 2m grid instead of a 1.5m grid. A dton is ONE square.

>>51835315
>Not even the guy you're responding to, but it doesn't even have to be remotely operated drones. Fully autonomous AI drones

First, Traveller already has fire & forget missiles which are one use AI drones.

Second, I specifically mentioned my desire to see something like 2300AD's reusable "MIRV' bus in Traveller.

My position isn't the all too usual false binary "choice" all too many gamers all too often default to. I'm not saying "huur no drones durr" or "herp no men derp". I am saying their are roles and reasons for both.

>>51828513
>and then shafted 3rd party publishers to "clear the deck"
>>51828913
>What did Mongoose do to you to cause such hate?
This same thing, over and over, with everything they've done in the past 20 years.

>>51835406
>This same thing, over and over, with everything they've done in the past 20 years.

Exactly. Mongoose is essentially GW's retarded kid brother. Not as smart and not as successful because they can't employ the same shady business practices with equal skill.

>>51832067
>Yes, pedants, it doesn't say THIRD Imperium, but the official setting is beginning to poke through.
"Take shape" is more accurate. Unlike the modern habit of creating a setting then (attempting to) write the rules to fit, Traveller started as rules. The setting was written from scratch because the setting bits published quickly became the most popular.

Mistake only in hindsight, and only for those whom a different Emperor would chide for lack of vision.

>>51834549
Note that the Cepheus Engine is mostly a trademark change, as it is derived directly from the Mongoose 1e SRD.

>>51835493
>Mistake only in hindsight,

Yes, but a mistake nonetheless.

I've written in the past that, IMHO, the reason Traveller never established a "chinese wall" between the rules and the official setting was that no one inside GDW was running a personal long term Traveller campaign.

Look at the group that became TSR and published D&D. Well before the rules were codified, Gygax had a which he not only carried forward into the D&D rules but also kept playing. Arneson's experience with D&D was the same. He too had a setting which predated the published rules and one he kept playing through all the iterations of the rules.

Because TSR was constantly and continually using D&D for different campaigns, they were more aware of the need to differentiate the rules from the settings.

Unlike Gygax and Arneson, Miller, Harshman, Wiseman, and the others weren't running a continuous Traveller campaign for years.

GDW averaged one new product every 20 days for 20 years. They had a wide number of product lines across several genres too; wargames, minis, several RPGs, you name it. They were BUSY. Not too busy to playtest or occasionally play for fun, but too busy to create and continually play in a Traveller version of Greyhawk and Blackmoor.

Now, 40 years later with the release of the SRD, CE, and the rest, the long delayed explosion of published Traveller settings is beginning.

File: Mongoose Traveller changes between 1st Edition and 2nd Edition ver0.1.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>51835323
Here we are, in pdf form, for any who are interested. I've inevitably missed some stuff, so feel free to rip it apart.

>>51835763

Superb. It's just what the doctor ordered. Thank you.

Hopefully the Archivist/OP will add it to his "Start a new thread" kit. If not, I've saved a copy and will make it my first post in any new threads.

Thank you again.

>>51835698
>Gygax
Gygax's campaign specific rules shaped D&D and AD&D in deleterious ways for 20+ years, though.

>>51834955
Don't have the local infrastructure (or population?) to tech up on a wide level. Even if your people are very smart and have access to wider markets, it's going to be a lot of effort to start, say, manufacturing reasonably advanced computers and electronics. You may not have the resources to support the industry necessary to support the facilities to build the chip fabs, and if you're importing the factories... and the resources... and the spare parts... and the skilled workers... then why the fuck would anyone bother when they can use a world that has that?

Even with high-tech it might take a long time before grav vehicles become common... or they might take over right away, letting you skip over internal combustion and other basic powered vehicles, going straight from horse-drawn carts to... horse-drawn grav-carts, because horses are still pretty good at what they do and you got a good deal on a bunch of grav-rafts.

>>51835315
But if you don't have crew, who's going to unload the old navigation tape and switch in a new one when you jump to a new system? You trust an "AI" to rewind the old tape properly?

>>51836069
It's weird, because he settled down and basically went back to playing OD&D in the end. He often started characters off at 3rd or 4th level, and had a few other tweaks, but he pretty much died playing the best game he ever wrote.

Not the best edition of D&D, Moldvay & Cook wrote that, but one of them, and definitely Gygax's best.

File: peter-sutherland-vehicle-finals2.jpg (320KB, 1500x728px) Image search: [Google]

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>>51836149
I don't know. Maybe we can make something like... a cassette tape, but like super huge, or double-sided!

It's probably TL13 tech though.

>>51836249
I've heard rumours of auto-rewinders, but they tend to jam and then you have to take the whole thing apart.

>>51836069
>Gygax's campaign specific rules shaped D&D and AD&D in deleterious ways for 20+ years, though.

True, but there were also Arneson's and Greenwood's campaigns shaping the game in different ways.

Now contrast that to Traveller where there was only the OTU and it's effect on the game - good, bad, or ugly - wasn't challenged or countered at all.

>>51836536
I think this is an underrated point. I mean, was the 3I's history actually from a campaign or anything, or just created to publish?

Not that TSR didn't create stuff just to publish - IIRC the early published Blackmoor & Greyhawk were full of that stuff, but at least campaigns and histories existed, shaped by play.

Going back to that Book 4 blog post, one of the things that I see as bad in Traveller is the megacorps. I mean, you were meant to be out on the frontier. That means you might have a megacorp looking your way, or worse/better, two competing ones, but you don't have the whole generic line-up poking their noses in and throwing their weight around.

>>51836692
>I mean, was the 3I's history actually from a campaign or anything, or just created to publish?

Nearly all of it was created just to publish and especially so at the beginning. In CT, later adventures and books routinely overwrote earlier adventures and books. Book 5 is the prime example of this. It buried the earlier "Small Ship" setting.

Getting out a new product trumped setting continuity nearly all the time and, IMHO, that was because no one in GDW had a "pet" setting to "protect".

Very little in the OTU setting was a result of actual RPG play. While the 5th FW was a pre-plotted STORY arc, it wasn't the result of a CAMPAIGN being played. (Unlike 2300AD's setting being the result of GDW playing a grand strategic game.)

MT's Rebellion/Civil War was the same. It's the result of a story arc and not a active campaign. Although it was a story, they didn't even have an ending when they began it.

DGP, the 3rd party publisher who acted as line editors for MT for a long period, were continually playing the game. You could tell by their introduction of a task system for the game, development of the nugget format, and other things. They had a long running campaign which became a long running series of magazine adventures and influenced the setting.as a result.

So, no products meant to "fit" Miller's Traveller "Greyhawk" or Harshman's Traveller "Blackmoor". Just products rubber stamped OTU with any concerns for continuity definitely secondary.

I've read that the OTU was the result of accretion more than planning.

>>51821228
Death Station. "Creepy derelict ship is being creepy and derelict. Go check it out." It's basically a dungeon crawl in space. Simple, short, easy to run. A good GM can make it VERY spooky and exciting. Benefits greatly from a big table map.

Sell me on MgT 2e. please.

>>No.51817069

You could always take a page from David Drakes's latest series with his hyperspace "Matrix" where you had a bubble you could move around in outside the hull but you might not be able do some things (unshielded welding, static buildup,, radio use) but could effect manual repairs. ( doing one of the prohibited things might pull you out of Jump with your fuel spent) But even looking at the bubble and it's proximity might have physical or psychological effects. Here's a D6 Sanity example. http://www.ruleofthedice.com/2011/05/how-i-put-crazy-in-my-game-sanity.html

File: Drone Fighter.png (48KB, 1195x364px) Image search: [Google]

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Speaking of drone fighters, here's a design I've been working on. Tried missiles instead of the Laser Drill but they added a few extra million to the cost of what's supposed to be a cheap tool. Plus they took up one ton of fuel. Still not positive about the Basic sensors. More advanced sensors just take up so much weight and power and I think the stealth coating does a good job of countering the downsides. They're at an effective +3 versus being jammed (with the Virtual Crew's 1 skill level in Electronics) and they're supposed to be autonomous instead of remote controlled anyway, though skilled operators could make a pretty big difference in effectiveness.

I've been thinking about what role they could fill. At the very least it's 10.7 million and 11 tons to effectively add another turret to a mid-size ship that's run out of hardpoints. That's a pretty steep price tag though. In terms of combat doctrine, aircraft carriers mostly fill the role of over-the-horizon attacks. In space that's mostly filled by Traveller's Battle Tender size ships. With 25 thrust, though, these things could conceivably launch from the far side of a moon or something and reach Adjacent range in just 4 rounds.

>>51839683

Interesting. Have you used it in a battle yet?

>>51839810
Nah, just making stuff up right now. Don't really get much of a chance to actually game.

>>51839683
I think you still need the cockpit in there. Fluffing it with computers is OK, but I don't think you can get rid of it altogether.

But that's an interesting sip to say the least.

>>51840036
Cockpits are mostly life support and empty space for the pilot, right? The actual control inputs can be handled by the computer, which is stated to have no effective volume.

>>51840138
From high guard:
>All ships must have a bridge containing basic controls, communications equipment, avionics, scanners, detectors, sensors, and other equipment for proper operation of the ship.

I'd say you need a cockpit.

>>51829858
God, I wish people would stop using that picture, it's meaningless. It combines optional, advanced and basic rules altogether and means nothing. It's a meme. If you can roll a dice and add up, you can play Phoenix Command, you just need time to add up the modifiers and consult the tables - that picture doesn't even use the good tables if you want to confuse people.

Sorry for the rant, it's rubbish like this that p*sses me off.

>>51840236
Ah, well fair enough, though I'd figure
>communications equipment, avionics, scanners, detectors, sensors
is included in the "sensors" section.

>>51814763
Am starting a quest for some newbs in Traveller, what do I do?

>>51840402
Depends. Do any of the books you're using have any adventures, even if they're just small plot hooks? If not, you could just roll up a random encounter and see what happens from there.

>>51840036
The description of the Virtual Crew program (High Guard 2e, page 64) implies yo can get rid of a bridge. It stands to reason you could also get rid of a cockpit as well.

>>51841079
I take that back. It outright says you can choose not to include a bridge.

>>51838496
The hardcover is nice and solid.

>>51841118
Is that it?

>>51840999
That's what I do, mostly. They seem to have gotten the hang of charecter creation, we have:
A former space prostitute
Some A.I. veteran who got sentience and proved his case to the courts and is free
A drunkard who saved his entire squad, but at a price
A being who is in a capsule and is gasseous and is depressed
A german soldier from WW1 who was cryogenically frozen by xenos
Also a trigger-happy bounty hunter who studied engineering
and a doctor who probably might not be legally allowed to operate

>>51841104
Yeah, I stand corrected. That makes drones much more useful, to be honest. Back to the drawing board!

>>51841147
This party is fucking awesome. Post synopsis of sessions if you can. You're in for a treat.

>>51841202
We first bought our ship, but realized that it was a corvette! We decided to do our first cargo after getting eceryone on that ship, which was... some interspecies intimate toys.

What's one thing (or multiple things) you wish you knew when you started playing?

>>51834709
>Exteel

That brings back memories. Not good ones, but memories.

If you're building a subsector that was settled by earth-humans, pop-culture references aren't that cheesy, are they?

I've got a habitable moon called Nausicaä, orbiting a gas giant called Arete, which orbits a star called Alcinous.

I guess that's acceptable cause it's classics, but what if I have the planet Miller orbiting the star Byron? Especially if Miller is home to post-apocalyptic car-tribes outside the colonial mining settlements especially if the colonial capital is called Rockatansky

Also the government have an AI research outpost in the same system called Ada Station.

Basically, at what point is it too on the nose?
I was thinking of justifying it Watsonianly by having this subsector's culture being pretty fixated on anything "Old Earth"

>>51844468

Scouts (way back to the Second Imperium expansion days) are perennially naming things based on old Terran myths and legends, (including what we would call modern fiction) so you should be in the clear there depending on what you do with it. I mean, I'd buy it.
(Making a Nausicaa reference would probably get you some serious points among the Scouts.)
And I always thought Old Earth revivalists are a great trope, especially if they get things wrong now and then in entertaining ways.

>>51844468
>pop-culture references aren't that cheesy, are they?
YOU will need to read these place names out loud to your group, keep a straight face, and not have your players groan every time you mention a place. That is the only cheese metric you need to follow.

>>51844468
>If you're building a subsector that was settled by earth-humans, pop-culture references aren't that cheesy, are they?

Human survey crews and human cultures named all those systems, planets, and moons so you're going "cheesy" references used all the time. That being said...

>>but what if I have the planet Miller orbiting the star Byron? Especially if Miller is home to post-apocalyptic car-tribes outside the colonial mining settlements

... there's a point is where it crosses the line between a twee/odd/obscure name picked by a bored crew member and forced in-joke by you.

By all means, have that AI research outpost called Ada Station, just don't make the chief scientist the only daughter of a drunken, poetry writing, noble.

I once had a planet named Stooge with four moons Moe, Larry, Curly, and Shemp. My players fell all over themselves rushing to get there but the world wasn't populated with strange little men hitting each with pies, poking each other in the eyes, and attacking each other with hand tools.

>>51836948
>I've read that the OTU was the result of accretion more than planning.
And this is a bad thing?
Quite a few other games have gone to great lengths to provide preliminary settings in their core books, only to bait and switch in the supplements, or completely lose the early potential in dross. Treating this like a "mistake" unique to Traveller is ignoring a lot of other examples.

>>51844949
>And this is a bad thing?

No. It just needs to be remembered when trying to make canon "work".

>>51839683
I also whipped up a 40 ton Torpedo Bomber but the more I look at how easy it is to stack EW bonuses and Sensor Stations on a ship the less enthused I am about missile salvoes smaller than those from a Missile Bay. It's too easy to stack a +10 bonus on top of Broad Spectrum EW and auto-kill any single torpedo launch within Long range.

This also breaks the rules a bit. You're not supposed to be able to have a dual turret for ground scale weapons unless the ship is at least 50 tons or the weapon is between .25 and 1 ton. But dual turrets look much cooler than single and I don't think it's going to make a serious difference. I was also really trying to figure out a way to spend that .3 ton left over but I guess it could just be a bit of cargo space. It's not much in space terms but that's still 4.2 cubic meters.

>>51845608
Huh, well 4chan is not letting me upload the image so have the spreadsheet. Feel free to play around with the numbers too.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LTKgfOr3IjenfXpBbgP5mnbHh1wz5X1_0HORHcr_BKI/edit?usp=sharing

Huh. upload is not working for me, either.

Any news on getting Vehicle Handbook for MgT 2e into the Mega? Doesn't look like it's there.

>>51846681

Has it been posted yet? I haven't seen it.

>>51846681
>>51846749

In a certain thread at a certain chan three doors up from this one, a certain anon says it's in his cleaning queue.

Patience, Travellers, patience.

>>51838634
Which series is that?

>>51844468
The sword worlds are a) ripped off from an sf novel b) include a whole bunch of nerd names.

>>51847074

It's from the RCN/Lt. Leary series.

While FTL, normal space drives, and ships are very different, the setting is pure Traveller.

>>51847085
and I mean then you have the precedent of Niven's Known Space worlds.

Jinx.

Wunderland.

We Made It.

Plateau, which is settled only on the plateau atop Mt Lookatthat, as the rest of the world is covered in fog.

>>51829103
>coffins
Why, when you could easily dispose of corpses out the airlock?

>>51847131

That's a "coffin hotel," that's part of a series of images some guy made reimagining Neuromancer.

>>51844468
>If you're building a subsector that was settled by earth-humans, pop-culture references aren't that cheesy, are they?
Not at all, that's pretty much my whole jam when it comes to naming planets. Can't be any worse than Smade's Planet (Solomani Rim 2433) which was named by the guy who settled there and has always bothered me for some silly reason.

Check out some of the worlds in the rimward-and-beyond section of the Solomani Confederation, they include such names as Gandalf, Carcosa, New Utah, and...Tim.

>>51847131

Good God... did you actually think they're storing corpses there? Didn't the words hotel and Neuromancer suggest anything to you?

You know, the stupidity of people shouldn't still be able to surprise me, but somehow it still does.

>>51847206

Hey, now, it's late and people make mistakes. Let's not get all angry and nasty over people being human.

>>51847088
Ya, The setting is REALLY the Greek City States - but it's Traveller. The ships use a High Drive system and "sails" to travel their version of hyperspace. The period , despite technology has a very Hornblower (or earlier ) feel.

>>51847197

The Marx Bros would make great system names.
In Zelazny's Isle of the Dead the moons orbiting the planet the main character are Flopsus, Mopsus and Cottontallus.

>>51847494
>Ya, The setting is REALLY the Greek City States - but it's Traveller.

I get perhaps a Diadochi feeling with a few powerful states slapping around lots of small fry. That may be because Drake's historical notes often refer to events from that era. I also get a definite Rome-Carthage-1&2 Punic Wars feeling what with there being two superpowers: Alliance & Cinnabar.

>>The ships use a High Drive system and "sails" to travel their version of hyperspace. The period , despite technology has a very Hornblower (or earlier ) feel.

There should be a Hornblower feel because Drake has specifically stated he's riffing on the Aubrey & Maturin series.

>>51828484
How is damage scale handled in Mongoose 2e?
I've read conflicting interpretations, and unlike my hope, the vehicle handbook has not cleared it up.

Are there 3 scales (Spacecraft, Vehicle, Personal/Traveller)
Or are there 2? (Spacecraft, Ground)

And if it's the former, what is the conversion between Vehicle and Personal?

>>51848766
Only 2 scales. Ground (which covers both people and vehicles), and Space.

I think originally, they were going to have 3, but then decided against it.

>>51847197
The is a star named Tim.

And stars named Derf(reverse of Fred), Bob and Bob (reverse of Bob).

First person who finds it gets to name it.

>>51847494
I just absolutely can't get into Leary. It's a shame - I love Drake's other stuff, and Aubrey/Maturin.

I get that ships are expensive, and I'm totally okay with that.

That said, are Streamlined hulls supposed to be capable of atmospheric reentry, or do you need the heat shielding from High Guard for it? It's not mentioned in the core book anywhere that I've seen. If it's not, I'd really like to know before we buy this ship for 15MCr more than it would otherwise be.

MgT 2e.

>>51850898
You need heat shielding if you don't have gravitic drives. With normal manoeuvre drives you don't need it.

>>51850938
Got it, thanks. Is there a justification fluff-wise for gravitic drives making reentry safe? I'm new to Traveller so I'm not intimately familiar.

>>51851020
With a gravic drive you can float down softly. With a reaction drive you're doing an aerobrake maneuver.

>>51851020
Well, Traveller M drives are all kinds of bullshit and you don't have to actually perform a high speed reentry, you can just sort of land, because it's running on pixie dust and has the power of ten men.

Rocketry and other Kerbal/hard SF stuff is usually massively obsolete in Traveller, and has always interacted a bit weirdly with the default ship assumptions, which include "your shitty tramp freighter can sustain 1G of acceleration basically forever if you fill up on power plant fuel."

>>51851073
>>51851076
Neat. I'm not sure I'm a fan of the setting's default assumptions in the realm of technology (and their gameplay effects, like this), but it looks like our GM is going to hew to the letter of the book and just write his own fluff. Time to learn to love the phlebotinum.

>>51851076
basically this. M-drives don't consume fuel, that means no reaction mass, that means running on magic. Unless EM drive is real, but that's debatable to say the least.

And if fuel isn't a problem you can take your sweet time and glide down easily. As long as your drive can pull 1g for infinite amount of time, you can float no problem with no velocity relative to the planet.

Fun fact: with only 1g you can't fly up and escape grav well. The upwards force cancels out with gravity (assuming earth and 1g grav)

But noone gives a shit about that obviously.

>>51851160
Yeah, it's generally assumed that you can escape a 1G world with a 1G drive because it goes a bit harder for lift-off, or you get some minor lifting body stuff, or um grav plate, or you tweak things to get a minor repulsor effect relative to the mass of the planet, or it just works.

>>51851202
On a related note, reminder that standard grav belts ARE NOT FUNCTIONAL against rotational pseudogravity, as we know from the story of that one merc asshole in Consider Phlebas who couldn't be bothered to listen to the briefing and jumped off the side of a giant ocean liner on an orbital.

Gotta remember to pack the scrith-repelling grav gear from Ringworld.

(ree halo covenant fliers)

>>51851202
The fun starts with heavier planets: Escaping 1g world with 1g drive is theoretically possible, escaping 1,5g planet with 1g drive is total shenanigans. But I've never seen anyone think about that, sadly.

>>51851259
Well, high-g worlds you stop off at the highport or use your own landers, but if you can escape 1G with M1, 1.5G is probably just about within tolerances for a slow ride, and 2G if you're extremely desperate and make some good rolls and don't mind shit breaking soon after.

I take M1 to mean you can accelerate at 1G when that matters, and can operate on a 1G world when that matters.

>>51851318
I strongly disagree. The "slow ride" is irrelevant really. 1g acceleration upwards makes you hover. I can assume 1M drives can squeeze a little bit more power for launch and get (painfully slowly) up and in an orbit. But 1g drive launching from 1,5g planet is just nuts. Even if you could squeeze 50% more thrust from your engines (and if you can, why won't you do it in battle anyway?) you still CAN'T lift off the planet. So anyone stupid enough to lang 1g far trader on a 1,5g world should be stranded untill he straps some thrusters to the ship or get a help from a tug. Really there's no way around it if you want to even remotely agree with physics.

>>51851259
>But I've never seen anyone think about that, sadly.

I guess you haven't been around very long. ;)

Various work-arounds like gravitics and aerodynamic lift were implied in various CT materials while in MT's SSOM and others it's explicitly shown that m-drives can be overpowered for relatively short periods.

>>51851434
>Even if you could squeeze 50% more thrust from your engines (and if you can, why won't you do it in battle anyway?)
Works better closer to the planet's mass. Like grav vehicles in traveller, which tend to only work near worlds - you can get an air/raft to orbit, but it's not going to doing as much in deep space.

Depends on edition, but in CT IIRC there's definitely the feeling that basic grav tech is fairly simple if you're near a planet. Just give the ship some of that.

>>51851445
Sure I'm not a seasoned traveller player, but as I said- I can agree with 1g drive escaping 1g world, But 1g drive escaping 1,5g world? no fucking way. And if I can get 50% more power from my drives for a short period of time, why won't I use it in an emergency like, dunno, running from fucking pirates? So I don't buy it.

lol if you think half the scout service haven't accidentally landed a type 3 on a 3g world, probably after lithobraking on the world's moon in an attempt to do something extremely stupid.

>>51841138
My friends are scum and have more inertia than the average neutron star. I haven't had chance to do too much with it.

>>51851640
Fair enough. I'm just looking for a break from Pathfinder and Only War every game for the past 5 years. Rather get the best Traveller has to offer.

>>51851502
>Sure I'm not a seasoned traveller player, but as I said- I can agree with 1g drive escaping 1g world, But 1g drive escaping 1,5g world? no fucking way.

How's a short term 400% overdrive sound?

>>And if I can get 50% more power from my drives for a short period of time, why won't I use it in an emergency like, dunno, running from fucking pirates?

First, it can't be maintained long enough to effect normal space travel times. Pushing 1.5g for 15 minutes isn't really going to change a 30 hour journey at 1g that much.

Second, what is HG2's agility rating if not temporarily overpowering your drives in an emergency to escape/avoid weapons fire in battle?

>>So I don't buy it.

Whether you buy it or not doesn't matter. The question was asked and answered over 35 years ago: Traveller ships use gravitics, lifting bodies, overpowered drives, or some mixture of the three to escape worlds whose gravity exceeds their drive rating.

Sadly, your "opinion" is of no consequence because you're very very VERY late to the party,

>>51851659
> only war
Jealous.

>>51851753

Steady play for five years? I'm jealous too.

>>51851913
"Steady" in the sense of three months of prep, then two actual sessions of nothing but continuous combat with no roleplay allowed, then eight or nine months off where no one wants to play, then someone promises to do better and doesn't. In five years I've had 11 sessions.

>>51848766
>How is damage scale handled in Mongoose 2e?
There are two scales, just as in 1e:
Personal, and Starship.

Personal scale weapons do 1/10 damage to spacecraft hull and armor, and spacecraft deal 10x damage to personal-scale stuff. It's in core.

Unlike in 1e, the way in which the numbers work out is a bit better: in 1e Mercenaries there was a 50x difference between the two. This was reduced to 10x, AND vehicle/personal scale armor was increased so that there's overlap at the high end of vehicle armor and low end of spacecraft armor, which makes the transition a bit more seamless.

>>51852143

Now I'm more sad for you than jealous of you.

Hopefully, you'll find a better group this year. Good luck.

>>51850791


I can understand. it's got a different style than say, Hammers Slammers.

>>51852461
Fingers crossed. It's my turn at the GM table, and from the sound of it things are looking up. Just a matter of what happens when my material runs out and we move on to Traveller.

This should get everyone's imagination flowing

Trappist-1, an "ultracool" dwarf star 1/12th the size of Sol, has SEVEN Earth-sized planets orbiting it, three of which orbit in the "liquid water" zone.

Edit: Can't seem to format the link so it isn't seen as spam. Just search for Trappist-1.

>>51834955
Thanks for the replies, it was very helpful.
I have another question regarding the faction system from SWM (I was looking at stealing it for a Traveller game): How much about the factions do you reveal to your players? At their Force Value and HP public information? What about their assets?

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>>51852875
Just saw that too; the press art is pretty neat!

>>51853198


Not him, but I'd keep ALL that stuff behind the curtain. Slapping numbers on things can rob them of magic, and there's no reason they need to know that stuff, because they don't interact with it directly.
Filter the info through as news reports and stuff instead.

I need some get rich quick schemes for my part of low violence, high ethical flexibility space bums. Any ideas?

>>51853232
>>51853261
I have to admit NASA knows their shit when it comes to art. Great stuff

>>51853198
>>51853275
My players know there are some facctions- mainly the ones they come in contact with/ want to reveal themselves to them.

I have a rule that says- you won't know anything you can't google. So if they are a corp, they might know what they mainly do and how powerful they are. If they are some rebels? Probably nothing. No info without working for it and poking around.

And it's great seeing their shock when this guy they thought was small fry comes with several bodyguards in battle-dresses.

>>51853304
speculative trading. Best is sell essential equipment (like medicine or air purificators) to rimworlds with low tech and no supply lines. They'll pay whatever just to live, if you want to exploit them.

Great for making some powerful enemies to use later as well.

>>51853275
>>51853361
Thanks again.
I heard some advice about not going overboard with making factions for every little thing, so what's a good number of major/minor factions for a campaign?

>>51853422
Whatever floats your boat. I try to have at least 1-2 factions on every major planet, but most of them are not really fleshed out/ If your players get involved with a faction, only then work on it in between sessions. At least for me it works pretty well.

Realistically I don't think you need more than 2-4 factions fleshed out and working from behind the curtains ever.

>>51853198

When I first starting using the faction system, I made the mistake of creating too many factions. I began pruning my faction list by removing factions which hadn't done anything or hadn't been attacked by any other faction in 3 faction turns. That culled the herd drastically.


Eventually I decided that, while every world in a subsector should not have a "local" faction, every world could be associated with faction. A regional shipping line, for example, could be the faction on a number of backwater worlds.

Whether factions is know and how much is known depends in the faction in question. The players should know that a government, business, religion, etc. exist. They should also know that the government has fleet/troops, a business has security/factories, etc. suspecting that the government has intel agents, the business hired thugs, etc.

With a criminal gang or rebel group, the players should only suspect they exist while having only vague ideas about their assets. That level of knowledge can and should change when the players become involved with those factions.

Finally, factions like terror cells and cults along with their assets shouldn't even be suspected until the players again are involved.

Most of the interplay between factions should take place out of sight of the players. It's there for you, the referee, to create an active setting which changes as time goes on. The players should be aware of a faction's plans and activities when those things effect or involve the players.

>>51841202
Alright, our session was done. I'll tell you about it:
>Meet up in a catina
>Talk about shit
>Then, A.I. gets into a drunk insult match with some K'ree
>They pull out a "pistol" (which is secretly a 20-guage sawed off shotgun in our standards) and start shooting at us
>It goes into a fight which makes the Mos Eisely bar scene look like a small childs playground in comparison
>We run off, with the WW1 german soldiers guy in it, and a random space prostitute decides to join us
> Go to "Pablos Ole Ship Purchases"
>He was a human who looks like an ancient Mexican, hailing from the colony world of Los Angeles
>Go to the ship, and our Bounty hunter engineer gives 'em the finger
>We rise up to the athmosphere, and head out
>I check the diagrams
>Holy shit we accidentally bought a corvette
>mfw it has torpedoes
>mfw it has drones
Part two will be posted later.

>>51856138
>A.I. gets into a drunk insult match with some K'ree

That's a really bad idea. Any K'kree who doesn't have like twenty of his buddies nearby is technically insane by K'kree standards, so it's a not good to insult him either way!

>>51856138
Well, that's exactly in the ballpark that I was expecting. Sounds great!

Also buying a military vessel can be great with such an... interesting team.

>>51856365
Yeah. Not to mention they thought that their pistols when in reality were 20 gauge shotguns. So yeah, there was a lot of tungsten shrapenel all over the bar.
>>51856588
We accidentally bought it. It's good, but, if you do something terrible we are screwed.
Alright, part two
>There was a moon in that system so we got a cargo
>It was a shipment of... intimate toys to the system of Dirildo Alpha.
>So we mostly had it and jumped to warp for the time being.
>When, our reactor fails
>We see a note in some ancient earth language called "Spahnis?" which the A.I. translates as Sorry buddies but dilithium piping is faulty realy sorry.
>Shit, and make plans of giving him a 2/5 on SpaceReviews.
>Then, pirates appear. They hail us! It's the... Kree which we insulted by him. He says "You fucking human faggot. You insulted my herd and we will make you pay!"
>He fires a torpedo, and there is a hull breach!
>Our main guns are destroyed!
>But, the spess prostitute was masturbating with a vibrator and her... ummm..... part touched the button which launches the torpedoes
>Its a direct hit
>A small shuttle escapes, and the ship is kill
>interspeciescelebration.jpeg
>So we fix our warp and head to the system, which the pirates were wanted criminals in
>We have a... 50,000 bountry which we gained, and 5,000 payoff for the toys.
>Mfw our cocky bounty hunter proceeds to pay 2,000 for prostitutes.
>while he had one lol.

>>51856850
50,000 bounty for several criminals may seem a lot, but wait until you get the mortgage bill on that corvette... Also that pirate engagement and prostitute "accident" is plain stupid. It's OK if you go for fun and giggles, but I like my campaigns a bit more serious.

On the other hand with such a team, you really can't expect anything else.

And it's hart to imagine a hull breached corvette being repaired and made warp-worthy by some amateurs in the middle of space. But I suppose you could've rolled high.

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>>51856138
>>51856850
>>random space prostitute
>>shipment of... intimate toys
>>jumped to warp
>>reactor fails
>>dilithium piping
>>spess prostitute was masturbating
>>fix our warp
>>pay 2,000 for prostitutes

It's childishly cinematic, insanely plotted, and wholly ignorant of Traveller canon with cliched grammar school level "naughty bits" but your group seems to be having fun and that's all that really matters.

I wouldn't play in it, but that doesn't matter at all.

might be off topic but can you guys post some more spaceship illustrations with plans/interiors? that shit is my jam

>>51856970
>So basically we were meeting there
>the party is untied
>less.jpeg
>We were warping to the next system
>and we also were there
>Except we were hit with a emp ray and escorted to a spess staion
>We go in, gasseous being is depressed and is crying
>Tape his vocabulator
>The duke says "Ahh... I want you friend to start a war. Against my neighboring confederation. I'll give you the guns. Pay will be 150,000 in advance. Just do it"
>We were held by gunpoint, and offered a lot of money, so yeah, we said yes.
>We set off, with our main guns repaired.
>There is a stupid Pre-FTL civ called the Yim-Chim near us which isn't given FTL travel because they are fucking mental
>They are savages and do a lot of dangerous shit
>So we land there, and the A.I. is our official ambassador
>He says "Hello, how are you? We would like to talk"
>Rocks are thrown
>The Doctor takes pity
>Fuck it i'm violating the hippocratic oath but I don't give a shit
>Shoots them all down with Machine Guns
>Then for a second time, they listen and we talk
>The ruling council was the Intelligenista Ruling council.
>Stupid enough to follow us, and smart enoguht to rule
>So we tell them of our thing and promise them "glory and honour"
>So they wnat to join, but we need to marry their daughters
>Convince the people that he A.I. will marry them
>marrigeandsex.jpeg
>So, we have our army. Our first target, the Silver Nebula spaceport.
>>51841147
Also, my party.

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>>51857267

>Goofball space shenanigans

Not what I would do, but still, pic related. Thanks for the storytime.

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>>51857267

Now I'm sure.

>>51857267
It's really a downhill ride into madness at this point. But if you have fun, there's nothing wrong with that. Just... Not what most people expect from Traveller.

>>51857340
yeah you're probably right.

>>51857340
troll? This is my first time doing a party. I understand that I am making mistakes. So, I;m also using this as a learning experiance.

>>51857453
It's just so overboard that either you're a troll, your party trolls, or you just enjoy playing satire. Either way, I don't think Traveller is the best system for that kind of play. But hey, I don't judge!

But the GM either does not give a single fuck or passionately hates your party at this point.

>>51857537
Okay. This was our station. I was heavily influenced by Douglas Adams and so I thought it would be fun do do a quest like this.

>>51857537
I'm the GM

>>51857574
>>51857605
Ooooh, that makes sense. Still, I think most people here prefer the gritty "realistic" believable campaigns with shades of grey and morally questionable choices everywhere. That doesn't mean you can't have your party flying around in a corvette smashing opponents with a big dildo Saint Row style. It's just now how most of us play, at least I don't think so.

Anyway, as long as you have fun, nothing else reallymatters.

>>51857672
Okay. We do a lot of quests which are pretty grimdark imo. We just wanted a break. Also, I did a rogue trader Tau quest.

>>51857605
You should tape that shit and throw it on YouTube. I'd love to see more Traveller playsessions out there.

>>51857822
No thanks. The party is uncomftrable with us being recorded.

>>51857869
Ah, oh well. Best to respect that. Thanks for sharing the summary with us, though!

>>51857706
>We just wanted a break.

I get it. You needed a break from grimdark and wanted something insanely silly.

While there are better systems than Traveller for that, you had fun and that's all that matters.

There was a guy many years ago posting at a Yahoo Traveller group about his campaign involving PCs that were hugely powerful psionic cyborgs who could teleport through jump space and killed ripping people's organs out via telekinesis. His posts were as over-the-top insane as his campaign.

I wouldn't play in that campaign just as I wouldn't play in the hot mess you posted. What I wouldn't do doesn't matter however.

He had fun with his campaign, you had fun with your adventure, and that is all that truly matters.

>>51857706
nothing wrong with that. Also Tau are pussy, you have to know that.

>>51857939
Yeah I wouldn't enjoy playing or GMing this game, but reading about it is pretty enjoyable.

>>51858015
do you happen to have any screengrabs of those posts? That sounds funny as hell.

>>51857706
We are all glad you are having fun, even if its not the sort of fun the majority of us would expect to have with the system. Good on you, Anon.

>>51857672
I'd kill for a campaign that was serious in the sense that we cared about the consequences of our actions but lighthearted in that we aren't gunning down rape survivors or what have you.

>>51858054
>do you happen to have any screengrabs of those posts? That sounds funny as hell.

Sorry no. It was back in 1999 or 2000. I was on dial-up using a 286 machine. Stone Age stuff.

Yahoo Groups were about the only thing in town instead of a forgotten joke. No chans, lots of mailing lists, a few message boards, BBSes still limping along, that was it.

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>>51858308

That's the stone age? Son, let me tell you about our Commodore 64's 300 baud modem!

>>51858385
>Son, let me tell you about our Commodore 64's 300 baud modem!

Bah. How does a KayPro II with a CP/M OS grab you?

>>51858443

Luxurious! CP/M was neat. I was expecting sometime to start in on how they used teletype or punch cards

>>51858385
Learned on 8 bit PETs.
worked my way up from a C64 with 300, 1200 and 2400 baud modem.
Then 386 dx 40. with 5megs RAM (what a fucking weird number) and an ADLIB sound board.
Which I guess would be the standard Traveller computer (well if it weighed 2 tons. )

>>51858552
Learned (sort of) to use punch cards when we went to the computer science dept at U of Waterloo (home of Waterloo BASIC) and we shuffled them - just to see what would happen.
- just a bunch of error messages.

How easy is it to modify the space side of Traveller? Whether it's just changing travel times for warp drives or more radical changes.

Basically, how far can I go before I need to just go play GURPS instead?

>>51860747
If you wanna be that way there's already a GURPS Traveller with a whole stack of books.

>>51860793
Yeah, and it's likely helpful. I have a group that likes Traveller and isn't collectively fans of GURPS is my main concern.

>>51860747

Not hard at all, provided you're not looking at the trade system too closely while you do it. In other words, it might break some assumptions concerning trade, or assumptions in the OTU setting fluff, but the latter is not a problem if you're not using it, and the former is only a problem if you care a lot about how trade works and would be annoyed if it didn't "make sense" when you were done.

>>51860747
>How easy is it to modify the space side of Traveller?

Depends on what you want to change.

>Whether it's just changing travel times for warp drives or more radical changes.

I'm going to assume you meant jump drive. Change jump drive - speed, time, whatever - and the entire setting is gone, big chunks of the rules no longer work, and all the materials written for both are effected. The more you change, the less you'll be able to beg, borrow, or steal from 40 years of published materials available.

Traveller is predicated on interstellar communications being limited to speed of shipping. Change that and everything falls apart.

That being said, MgT offers a spotty assortment of alternate technologies. TNE and T4 both have books called "Fire, Fusion & Steel" which contain rules for various alternate technologies and how to use them.

Modifications can be made. Just how easily depends on which mods you want.

>>51861003
Jump drive, yes. Sorry, just finished a 12 hour shift, games' naming choices are bleeding together.

Sounds like any change is a mess, basically.

>>51861042

If you're not using the OTU, it's not such a big deal.

>>51861042
>Jump drive, yes.

No need to apologize. I just wanted to make sure you meant jump drive, that's all.

>>Sounds like any change is a mess, basically.

You can toss out the 3I/OTU setting fluff easily enough, but the rules and the assumptions behind them are another question. The trade system, among other things, relies on there being no FLT comms apart from ships.

I've run campaigns with alternate FTL drives, but I've had to create everything from scratch. It's easy to say some sort of future "feudalism" is needed to keep a multiworld government working when it takes two weeks to send a message and get a reply from the world next door, but if it happens as quickly as using a cell phone there should be changes.

Sometimes changes can be simple, but the ramifications are always tricky.

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>>51860747
>>51861042
Well, if you're not using the OTU/I3 setting, changing it isn't difficult at all since the mechanics simply need to be refluffed to fit whatever setting you're building.

For instance, Jump Drive transit times are set to 1 week, with the distance in parsecs equal to the Jump Drive rating. This works for the sector system in OT, but if you're not going to use it, you can easily change the words after the numbers to whatever you want.

The latest version of Mongoose Traveller, 2nd edition, has explicit rules on using non-OTU technologies, such as ST or SW-flavored warp or hyperspace drives. Of course, doing so in conjunction with Traveller drives absolutely destroys the setting, so it's probably a good idea to tailor the fiction of your setting first.

What are PC's meant to do in this game?

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>>51861416
Be like the crew in Firefly, essentially.

Sort of inversely to (most?) other RPGs, characters only very, very slowly improve their skills with experience (if at all), and character progression is primarily driven by making enough money to pay off the debt on their ship and to get shiny new toys.

Has mongoose ever released any expanded melee conbat rules?

>>51816171
I was once told you pick up all the dice at the table and roll them for damage. Repeat if the GM feels the number is too low.

>>51861416

It's like the man says
Adventures in midlife crisis in the far future.

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>>51814763
So after playing a fair bit of homeworld I'm keen to do some roleplaying in the setting, but since there are 5 different editions of Traveler I was wondering if I should go for the latest one and just keep it at that? What's the general consensus anons?

>>51863411

Classic or Mongoose, the others are best for stealing the good bits and ignoring the rest.

>>51863437
Ta mate. I'll grab mongoose and give it a read. :)

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>join the Scout Service, they said
>discover interesting life forms, they said

>>51863411
More than 5.

Classic Traveller
MegaTraveller
Traveller: The New Era
T4/Marc Miller's Traveller
GURPS Traveller/GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars
Traveller 20
Traveller Hero
Mongoose Traveller 1e/2e
T5

Friends and I are going to start a new campaign in a few weeks time, and one of our players are dead set on playing a robot and another wants to be a psychic. You guys have any tips for them? (We're using mongoose 1e, and I have no clue where the robot pc creation rules are.)

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>>51867191
>mongoose 1e
While Mongoose 1e does indeed have a Robot supplement (called, you guessed it, Robot. It's Book 9 and up in the archive in OP), it's, as most things regarding tech these days, a bit dated. If you decide to use the supplement, you'll probably want to ignore everything regarding harddrive space and RAM and the like, since it's... bad. Mongoose 2e had the good sense of making all this stuff intentionally vague so you don't run into weird situations where a 1 TB hard disk drive is apparently higher technology than FTL Jump drives.

As for Psions, there's a supplement for that too. It's not as wacky as Robot, though there's some fairly broken combinations in there that should definitely have an OR usage requirement (example: K-interfaces for starships should probably not stack with the Ship Integration psionic power)

>>51858552
Punched the Spinward Marches data onto cards and wrote a Pascal program to find inconsistencies. Most inconsistencies were data input errors.

The program ran on a computer with real core memory.

>>51867191
>You guys have any tips for them?

The robot PC angle is tough. MgT tried and, sadly, failed, to come up with rules for them. If faced with your dilemma, I'd avoid normal chargen altogether and work with the player to "build" the robot instead. Along with MgT's robot splat, look for Classic's Book 8 in the Archive. It has robot rules too and you two can hopefully blend something together.

As to how the player should play his robot PC, check out the Traveller Digest magazines in the Archive. There's an adventure from DGP's long running 4 Knights campaign in each and one of the PCs is an android. Later issues contain roleplaying advice for each of the four PCs including the android.

Regarding the player who wants to be psychic, Trav's psionics are "weaker" than most systems with limited abilities and long recovery times. Have your player read the psionics section in Classic's Book 3 and see if that's what he has in mind.

If he's okay with Trav's version, just have him roll for his abilities and then put the PC thru a limited chargen rather than whole "find an institute" angle. Alternatively, you could have him use the Zhodani chargen found in Classic's AM4 and then "translate" to results MgT1e.

Good luck and have fun!

>>51863411
>there are 5 different editions of Traveler
There are currently eleven different editions of Traveller. It's easy to remember this, as 11 looks like the ll in Traveller!

But yeah, you really ought to avoid Traveller5 - stick to Mongoose corebooks or Classic Traveller for now, or GURPS if you're already into that.

Generally, don't add supplemental material just because it's there, especially if it's Mongoose.

>>51867993
>Along with MgT's robot splat, look for Classic's Book 8 in the Archive.

Better yet, the JTAS Robots system doesn't require all the Striker crunch, and so is simple and easy to use.
There's also a third party supplement for MGT1 called "Traveller Robots" that's supposed to be good, but I've not seen it anywhere.

>>51868174
>you really ought to avoid Traveller5

Very much so. In it's current condition, T5 is a construction kit. While a players handbook, referees guide, and the like are in the works, it would be very hard to pick up T5 and start playing.

>Generally, don't add supplemental material just because it's there, especially if it's Mongoose.

Again, very good advice. stick with whatever core you choose be it Classic, MgT2e, Cepheus Engine, etc. Trav has FOUR DECADES of supplemental materials for a horde of writers and publishers. You can DROWN your game before you know it.

Quality is also problem. There are great bits, good bits, mediocre bits, and absolutely horrible bits with a simple majority of it on the mediocre/horrible end of the spectrum.

Overall, the GURPS version as the best collection of fluff/supplements, but you've got to translate it from GURPS underlying assumptions. Classic/Mega is a close second, but quality is extremely variable especially with 3rd party material. T4/MgT are at the bottom with MgT edging out T4 simply because there is more of it. Despite being nearly all shit tier, there are still some good bits to plunder in both.

TL:DR - Stick with whatever core you choose. Add supplemental materials only when necessary.

>>51833326
As someone who's still on MGT 1E what's changed with computers in 2e? I haven't seen much reason to upgrade yet but better computer rules might do it.

>>51870060

See >>51835763

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>>51870060
see >>51835763 for most of the changes.

The major change is that while "computers" in 2e have the same basic mechanic as in 1e Core, a few basic assumptions about how computers work have been changed. Firstly, a number of the TL of the lower-tier software and hardware have been lowered. Secondly, the distinction between laptops and other 'portable' computers is done away with (which is also reflected in some lowered computer masses) and similar distinctions are made in core (such as with regard to storage space or battery life, which is generally considered to be a non-factor in 2e).

Actually, I wouldn't upgrade just for the electronics rules in Core. Getting rid of the hardware mechanics in Book 9: Robot is good, but really, it's the general streamlining of rules (particularly for vehicles/spacecraft) that's more salient, at least to me.

>>51870386
>>51870224
Thanks.

We tend to spend more time pounding pavement then anything else, so spaceship and vehicles rules aren't a huge deal for us, though better vehicle rules could be nice. Our last campaign lasted over a year and we had I think 3 or 4 spaceship battles. We had more vehicle battles - or, more accurately, several sequences where our flying car got shot up, and several other sequences where our combat droid shot up infantry.

>>51814763
I'm planning on attempting to do my first proper GMing, I've had a bit of experience with one-shot games in more basic systems but I really enjoy traveller and nobody GMs it where I am.

Specifically I'm gonna do a game based around time-travel since one of the players mentioned a preference to it and, honestly, I like time travel.

Do you have any concepts/ideas/suggestions for places/time periods/stuff for them to see when going around time and space? I plan to simply inform them the time machine is faulty and randomly jumping to places or that they simply don't know how to use it properly.

>>51870744
Interestingly, there are actual rules for time travel in Traveller. Which, you know, is take it or leave it, frankly. Anyway, in Mongoose 1e Psion has a chapter about time travel, and in Mongoose 2e High Guard has a brief mention of time travel jump drives as components for spaceships.

>>51870744
>Do you have any concepts/ideas/suggestions for places/time periods/stuff for them to see when going around time and space? I plan to simply inform them the time machine is faulty and randomly jumping to places or that they simply don't know how to use it properly.

The Archive should have a link to the Integrated Traveller Timeline. That will give you all the "wheres" and "whens" you need.

There are various bits of fluff describing misjumps have resulted in time warping effects. There's a scout with a dead crew from the future which appears in the Marches. GURPS mentions a Terran warship from the IW Era showing up on the Rim in the 1120s. Another story involves an IN warship which appears at it's destination in the scheduled ~168 hours while ~250K years have passed inside the ship. There was also a product proposal for MT where the PCs would travel forward in time for centuries using low berths and "defrosting" every so often.

I've found time travel takes a LOT of plotting and planning so good luck.

>>51870840
>>51870977
Yeah I have a few books from Mongoose 2e on hand that I've bought, as well as all the 1e pdfs I found on a pdf thread ages ago that I've been casually browsing through.

I don't intend for anything seriously gritty or rules heavy since most people I know have never played Traveller, with only one person having any experience beyond what I know.

I have had a couple fun ideas for locales they could come across, whats your thoughts? (Again I'm super new as a GM so please don't get too mad if this doesn't suit your idea of Traveller)

>arrive on a city planet covered in neon lights and a general 80's vibe. Biggest threat to peoples safety being a gang of punks that stole police jetpacks and have been causing trouble ever since

>time machine tells them they've gone a thousand years into the future, but the world seems primitive with people running around swinging swords and... Is that magic? Turns out they've arrived on a highly advanced planet with a massive Augmented Reality Theme Park

>>51870977
>I've found time travel takes a LOT of plotting and planning so good luck.

Time Travel works best if it happens between sessions, and there are both "important" actions that change the timeline and "unimportant" ones that don't.
That way the GM has time to figure out the repercussions of what happened last session, and can sort "things I remember they did" into "important" and "things I forgot" into "unimportant" and go from there. Plus a week away from the game at a time can help your player's brains paper over any plotholes you might create along the way.

>>51871724
I like that idea, means I can give players time to train towards skills as well.

>>51816171
>>51817069

Huh. This had never come up in my games, but if it had my first instinct would have been 'Yeah, you can go outside. There's not really anything to see out there but the ship.'

I just assumed the spacetime bubble would be larger than the ship by a healthy margin (too big is definitely better than too small in this case), and that it wouldn't have a 'boundary' a three dimensional being would be able to perceive, so it'd just curve back on itself. If you floated off from the ship, you'd just bump into it again coming from the other direction, and if the ship has external lights on you'd see some dim, heavily distorted view of the other side of your ship when you looked out.

Eh, I'll still go with that. Jumping within a Jump does sound stupid and fatal, but aside from that I don't see why the crew can't get the EVA suits on, magnetize themselves to the hull, and play some four-dimensional football to pass time in a Jump.

>>51874031

Traveller General, help me come up with rules for Jumpball.

I want my players to wake up to the sound of clanging on the outer hull of the ship they bought passage in one night in a Jump. Confused, bleary eyed, and increasingly anxious, as soon as they stick their heads out of their staterooms they see the Captain running full tilt towards the airlock, cursing and muttering 'Not again you bastards!' Play it as a horror situation, right until the ship's crew comes shuffling through the airlock shamefaced, and the Captain yells at them for a half hour that they aren't allowed to play Jumpball since the time they broke a window.

Is there a character generator for 2e Mongoose anywhere?

>>51874736
An automated one? No.
Why would you want one? Rolling up characters is fun!
You know you don't need to generate NPC's the same as PC's, right?

>>51878169
There are automated ones for 1e, Classic, MegaTraveller and GURPS that I know of, if you insist on doing it.

>>51878169
>>51878268
I'm just used to more streamlined systems, it just feels like too much work to make a character in my opinion.

>>51878309
If you're running the game, you're going to be in for a rough ride.
Also, character creation is easier to do with your group around the table.

You anons got any pics of guys in armour?

>>51880297
Old-school or contemporary?

>>51880313
Old school, of course.

File: zho_commandoes_by_sabakakrazny-d6m3n5h.jpg (356KB, 1024x1027px) Image search: [Google]

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>>51880297
Always liked the old school Zhodani Commando design

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>>51880455
Looks like it could fit in star wars, I might keep it for a rodian merc or something.

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>>51880486
If you search for "Traveller Battle Dress" you'll find some good stuff
Posting a couple of classics

>>51868507
Know which JTAS has the robot system?

>>51881148
Best of, Volume 1, or Issues 1-4

>>51881148

It's spread across four issues; #2 "Victoria", #3 "Asteroid Mining", #4 "Gazelle", and #5 "Imperium".

Don't get confused by the table of contents for each as the robot stuff appears as part of "Ref's Notes".

>>51882814
It is all in the first Best Of, though.

>>51882912

True. I don;t know if the Archive has "Best Of #1" but I do know it has a JTAS #1-24 collection in a single pdf.

Ugh, the worst part of GM-ing for me is coming up with stats for disposable NPC-s that players will probably fight with. I need to flesh out only 1 or 2 from the group if they decide to talk instead of fight, but need to figure out stats for all of them. Any tricks for doing it faster/easier?

(And on the other hand I try to mix it up a bit regarding weapons armour etc... That's not that exciting to do.)

>>51884572
Make up a bunch of generics on cards, pick a few at random. They don't need much detail, just a highlight trait or something.

>>51884572
There's a "1001 NPCs" supplement for MgT1e in the library, sorted roughly by profession. I'd just pull the stats from a couple of those when appropriate, and only stick with things like names and backstories if it comes up.

I'm aware that the best way to play Traveler is to cobble together all my favorite parts of each edition.

I am also aware that if my group is less experienced with RPGs it's a better idea to go with the most recent edition.

BUT, what should I do if me and my group are all pretty experienced at RPGs but I don't want to have to comb through 5 books to construct a perfect ruleset?

>>51884831
Mongoose or Classic, pick the core of your choice.

Another session went by... And I'm 100% sure my players are psychopatic murderhobos.

They were supposed to blow up a police station to gain trust of the resistance. They shot some civilians on the streets to lure out the policemen, then got in, killed everyone inside (in cold blood, noone was fighting them, one civil servant raised his hands and begged for mercy- a girl shot his head off.

God, where did I went wrong?
(yeah, it's a lot of fun playing with them, and there will be repercussions. But they have no morals when they jump into game, damn it...)

>>51888056
In my experience, how the party deals with violence depends strongly on how they handle the first violent encounter in a campaign. If they go full murderhobo, they can at best later contain their murderboner. If they react like, well, people would, then the campaign is likely to take a more peaceful direction.

>>51888056
Sounds like it's time to start having the world react as it realistically would: the army starts getting involved.

Is there any setting book that does a sort of general overview of the Third Imperium. or is the setting just so "big" that it'd be pointless and as thus they just have the various sector books?

Specificaly I'm curious about how war works between Imperium controled worlds. I think I've heard mentioned here that the Imperium has a sort of hands-off policy and just let's Planet A and B duke it out as long as no one starts carpet nuking the other planet or something like that.

I assume there's more nuance to that though to keep Duke von Warmonger from just constantly invading other lower tech Imperium worlds and claiming them as his own or whatever?

>>51888689
>Is there any setting book that does a sort of general overview of the Third Imperium. or is the setting just so "big" that it'd be pointless and as thus they just have the various sector books?

It's kind of the latter, but here's a handy page that collects quotes about the Imperium:

https://www.prismnet.com/~thrash/imperium.html

>Specificaly I'm curious about how war works between Imperium controled worlds. I think I've heard mentioned here that the Imperium has a sort of hands-off policy and just let's Planet A and B duke it out as long as no one starts carpet nuking the other planet or something like that.

That's more or less true out on the frontier. As long as they don't interfere with shipping, the local Sector Duke is liable to ignore small dustups between worlds, if they're really set on it. If a member world requests assistance with a rebellion or a nasty militaristic neighbor, they're liable to get it though. Two worlds on the fringe fighting over who has the rights to this rich asteroid belt that was just noticed, though? That's probably not going to see Imperial troops show up.
In the Core Worlds it'd be different.

>I assume there's more nuance to that though to keep Duke von Warmonger from just constantly invading other lower tech Imperium worlds and claiming them as his own or whatever?

Yes, if you can't come to an agreement, and keep being a problem, the local authorities will see to "solving" you sooner or later.

>>51888438
Well, not this time. They were nice and caring at first, taking care of some miners, trying to negotiate... And then somewhere along the line they started murdering more and more people.

>>51888617
Well they technically are forced to work for the Corp that runs the country. They were told to double-cross the resistance (which is financed by the alien church that runs the other country on the planet). Then they decided to triple cross the corp (BAD idea) and help the resistance. They are in some big, big trouble in a session or two.

And to be honest, it was police station in the worker's district in a city controlled by corporations. So it's a shithole noone cares about, really. So it will take some time for the corp to react, realistically.

>>51888805
If somebody shoots up your police station and gets away with it people get the idea that anyone can shoot up your people and stuff without consequence. If I was the manager, I would direct adequate resources to making an example of the assailants to contain the damage to company's image.

>>51888689
>Is there any setting book that does a sort of general overview of the Third Imperium...

In Classic, there's a bunch of stuff scattered through rules books, adventures, library data, etc. but nothing that presents it all at once.

Mega provides an overview, but it's an overview of the Imperium falling apart.

>>or is the setting just so "big" that it'd be pointless and as thus they just have the various sector books?

A few of MgT's sector books provide an overview, especially the newer ones because Mongoose finally started hiring writers who knew the setting. I'd recommend the Deneb book as one volume. While Deneb is notoriously fractious, the book contrast that with more "normal" parts of the 3I thus giving you some idea on how other regions work.

>Specificaly I'm curious about how war works between Imperium controled worlds.

Such wars do not occur or, more accurately, don't occur officially. The 3I strongly dislikes multi-system polities within it's borders because it wants no internal threats to it's power. There are cases where World A owns or controls Worlds B, but that usually as a result of World A originally colonizing World B.

Orbital bombardments and divisions of jump troops don't occur. What can and does happen is World A gaining varying degrees of political, economic, and/or social influence over World B.

When you read the MgT Deneb book you'll get a better idea of what I'm trying to explain. (cont.)

>>51889022
>>I think I've heard mentioned here that the Imperium has a sort of hands-off policy and just let's Planet A and B duke it out as long as no one starts carpet nuking the other planet or something like that.

Sort of. As long as neither side completely slags/conquers the other and as long as collateral damage is limited, planet can tussle with each other.

>I assume there's more nuance to that though to keep Duke von Warmonger from just constantly invading other lower tech Imperium worlds and claiming them as his own or whatever?

There's a line which the 3I will not allow to be crossed. That line is kept deliberately vague however to allow the 3I flexibility in how/why/when to intervene.

What keeps the Duke of the Warmonger Duchy from conquering other planets is the fact that those worlds are already part of another duchy and are part of that duchy by proclamation of the Emperor.

What folks have trouble grasping is that very few 3I nobles own/control entire planets outright and almost none own/control multiple planets. Nobles will own/control fiefs on planets, just not the entire planet. What 3I nobles control are demesnes - a planet or collection of planets where the noble in question is responsible for all Imperial activities.

While powerful, Duke Warmonger most likely isn't the government of Planet Warmonger. He can't simply order the Warmonger planetary navy and army to invade some nearby planet. Even if he were able, the duke whose demesne includes that planet would say WTF? and call in the 3I.

In the Deneb book, you'll read about how dukes and others use far more subtle tactics to expand their unofficial influence and, eventually, their official authority.

What all this political stuff does is give you and your players a LOT of grey area to play in.

>>51888056

It's far past time for you as the referee to stuff a HUGE Reality Sandwich(tm) down your players' cock holsters.

I don't care who hired who, who is running things, what the plot is, who the bad guys are, or any of that shit. Killing civilians in the street as a distraction and killing secretaries trying to surrender means you've lost control as a referee.

Your group is playing like murderhobos because you've allowed it.

I'd kill all the PCs and have the players start again. If you're feeling more charitable, both Classic and MgT have a Prison Planet adventure. Whatever you decide, you need to regain control sooner than later.

>>51889518
I disagree with the whole deliberate killing of the players. If they want to be totally evil and kill innocents to simply get the job done then they have the freedom to act as such.

However they do not have freedom from the consequences of said actions. The world needs to react proportionally to their acts, but it needs to be 'fair'. Send hit squads, force the players to either stealth their way around the planet or end up brute-forcing everything which will escalate the situation even more.

If the players survive, react to it. Killing the players off because you've lost control isn't a smart answer. It's the bad-GMs way of pressing the off-switch because they can't handle it.

>>51889518
>>51889723
Well in the system they are now, there's nowhere they can hide. Theoretically they have a ship in orbit, but they have to get there first. And I'm not going to make it easy for them. I don't want to kill them all, as that would be probably the end of campaign, but getting them in prison sounds really good.

Anyway, I'm telling them that their actions are going to bite them in the ass. And they already got cornered and almost killed by the corp (A cruiser 10x their ship popped up and boarded them). So I'm going to unleash hell upon them. But I was hoping I won't have to, and thought to myself: "these are reasonable people". Well, not really.

They met a psychic chick in the resistance- sociopathic sadist obsessed with pain. Along with it some graphic depictions, in hope they will see how wrong it is and how wretched this whole situation seems. Her subordinates are scared of her. And my players start to compete with her for the title of "most fucked up being on the planet".

When they left some pirates that tried to kill them stranded, I could understand. But today was way too much for me as a GM, really.

>>51889723
>It's the bad-GMs way of pressing the off-switch because they can't handle it.

The sessions he's described already point to him being a bad GM, so what's the difference?

He's lost control of the game, the players have lost control of their actions, and there have been no consequences from the start. Imposing consequences now after repeatedly and blatantly failing to impose them is just as "ran-dumb" as simply killing the PCs off.

>>it needs to be 'fair'

I'm not suggesting he blithely announce there's a thermonuclear warhead in their morning omelet and they're now all dead. I am suggesting that the authorities are going to put these asshole PCs down and will do it sooner than later.

There's no walking this kind of play back. You cannot allow anything to happen without penalty and then suddenly start imposing penalties without the players asking WTF? and feeling you're being unfair.

It's best to flush the campaign and begin again.

>>51889854
>Anyway, I'm telling them that their actions are going to bite them in the ass.

Yeah, but never bit them, did you?

>>But today was way too much for me as a GM, really.

That's obvious.

>>51889982
They lost a small fortune after fucking with the corp and almost died. The only reason they're alive is because they were supposed to help take down the resistance on the planet. And then this.

I admit I've made mistakes, but they have been robbed, imprisoned and on the verge of death directly from their actions. I even remind them every time what has gotten them in this situation. And then today happens.

On the other hand there was a monthly break before today, and maybe that played it's part as well.

FFS, on half the sessions they even didin't drew their guns.

I know I've done something wrong when it happened, but I don't really know what should I do (except dropping a squad in battle armour on them, but that's too deus ex machina for me. Maybe wrongly so.)

>>51890095

the problem I'm seeing right now is, although they were imprisoned a couple of times, they always got away with some clever tactics, reasonable lies and lucky rolls (Diff 14 persuation? Passed!)

Eh, I need to git gud obviously.

Also, I think I'm confiscating that beloved ship of theirs. With all their precious cargo.

On a funnier note: last session they lost an extremely valuable scuplture that they were to deliver to a very rich trader. Money lost, problem gained.

Also I almost always try to delay the consequences a session or two, and I don't think it's working as I intended.

>>51888964
PC's need a bounty on their heads.
And if the rebellion needs a negotiating chip delivering the PC's on a platter might be it.

Also that sort of level of violence is good for bringing in conflict later.
That Secretary? She was leaking info to the rebellion.
She has a brother.

>>51888689
>I assume there's more nuance to that though to keep Duke von Warmonger from just constantly invading other lower tech Imperium worlds and claiming them as his own or whatever?

If he's an Imperial Duke he's breaking the terms under which he holds his title, and will be hunted down.

If he's some local who uses the title of Duke he falls under the Imperial rules of war: No nukes, don't interfere with trade, and don't attempt to leave or defy the Imperium. If the Imperial Navy shows up, playtime is over.

>>51888689
>Is there any setting book that does a sort of general overview of the Third Imperium.
The wiki over at the Citizens site, the sidebars in the GURPS version's core book, the first chapters of the Mongoose Spinward Marches book, and a few other places. The big picture is eleven thousand years long and thousands of worlds wide.

>>51890184
The players came back from a month long break and you always delay consequences of actions? No wonder the session went off the rails. Don't take long breaks breaks if breaks if you brraksifyoucn help it, and if you can't then don't dive back in
They need together back in the swing of things.
Also, clnswquwnces should be felt in the session and aftwrwards. Otherwise there is no connection made.

>>51895265
I wonder if every shipyard has been producing the same Beowulf class freetrader for the past few hundred years, or if every Beowulf has some minor differences from year to year and star system to star system but fundamentally all built using the same commodity TL12 hardware.

>>51896175
I'd imagine it's like aircraft design in the modern day; there is only so much refinement you can do design-wise beyond simply improving individual components.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

>>51895522
Normally we play weekly, but past month was end of semester and exams, so noone had the time. I may have been too eager to jumpstart the campaign, but the problem was the last session ended rather abruptly with a IRL medical emergency (nothing serious, but we had to stop midway) so the players were in the thick of things from the beginning. Usually they end a quest in a session and start next one in another.

I lean towards the notion that it was worst session I've ever GM'd. Now I have a week to come up with a contingency plan.

>>51896175
I assume some places build them the same way for over a century, other places tweak them every time someone publishes a new paper on jumpspace field dynamics or m-drive geometry, other places just slap together whatever parts they have handy.

They're all... roughly compatible, and fit the definition, but sometimes you get a bit johnny cash. You may have to do some patching or cutting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWHniL8MyMM

But then, I like the Battletech sort of thing where tech is old and clunky and solid and some engineer can down their pint and grab their toolbox and fix some old clunker.

Your ship doesn't vanish after you pay off the 40 year mortgage, run it for a decade longer, and die - it just gets sold on down the chain to the poorer frontiers, and right out on the rim a petty noble is impressive if they have ships with only double-digit ages. Old ships get more expensive to run, but there are ways around that if you're tech-poor but have people. An engineer who served in the 3I navy, a couple of apprentices, and the whole passenger space replaced with workshop space and additional techs who went to what can be grudgingly called a school and grew up on ancient repair manuals.

Or, you know, whatever. Go for a more ancient med feel, where your ship literally can't handle being in void for a month and you need to put down somewhere with a basic atmosphere and gravity to make repairs and let the systems rest.

It's not canon, but I like it.

>>51896660
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWHniL8MyMM
This reminds me that I have never run a campaign based on it, and that makes me sad.

The campaign would obviously start just after final assembly, with a crew of retired starport engineers and their families setting out to see the stars and getting into way too much trouble.

Has anyone played a session (Or campaign) where the party is mostly/all outfitted in battle dress? I've always wondered about it since all the time I've spent roleplaying Traveller has been spent with HEV being the heaviest gear I've ever used.

Also, slight side-question; what are your opinions on Mongoose 2e making the rule change to have Battle Dress only require Vacc Suit training instead of a dedicated skill?

>>51897470
Closest would be facing imperial marines in battledress doing a ship inspection.

I can't imagine a proper enemy for a party in all battledress and carrying fusion guns. That's space marine level threat; enemies in power armor, giant aliens, grav tanks and way above the paygrade of the typical party.