Traveller General: Back from the Frontier edition

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A kind Anon in an earlier thread wrote and shared this pdf listing the major differences between MgT1e and 2e.

New stuff in the archives:

Spica Publishing "Outer Veil" has its own folder in MGT1's Other Settings now, and has most of the adventure, but is still missing parts 3 and 7, and nothing after 9.

There's now a character sheet for Cepheus Engine
We've also got Mindjammer for MGT2.
(I know there's some other new MGT2 scans out there, but I couldn't find any when I looked around this morning.)

Contributions are welcome as always.


Things I'm looking for include:

MegaTraveller:
Zhodani and Droyne (Aliens Volume 3)
K'kree and Hivers (Aliens Volume 4)

Mongoose 1e:
Traveller Robots (not Book 9)

Judges Guild books:
JG360 Laser Tank
JG520 Navigator's Starcharts

Challenge Magazine issues 33, 34
Space Gamer issues 9, 10, 11, 12, 80

Houserules PDFs that archive.org didn't have:
Factor career (Sigg Oddra)
Revised Psionics Rules (Omer Golan)

>>52001387

Oops, left out this stuff from IRC:

Cepheus Engine's SRD and Easy Settlements, a sourcebook for setting up and fleshing out cities and stuff.

The 400 ton Donosev Class Survey Scout for GURPS Traveller

And Wreck of the Tereshkova for MGT1's Outer Veil.

>>52001387
>MegaTraveller:
>Zhodani and Droyne (Aliens Volume 3)
>K'kree and Hivers (Aliens Volume 4)

They were announced by DGP but never completed. The only MT Alien books are "Vilani & Vargr" and "Solomani & Aslan".

FWIU, they exist only as outlines in the various materials Sanger bought from DGP.

>>52001669

Cool, that can be taken off the list then.

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Space Yachts a best

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Jump

See if we can stir up some posts:

How often do your players visit locations in a system which are NOT on the mainworld?

Where are those locations usually? Moons? Other planets? Planetoids? Someplace even weirder?

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>>52008896
In one of the earliest games I played in we had asteroid-type starports like the ones in Elite; they were like a mega-mall crossed with a casino and a seaport.

Asteroids themselves have proved a good plot device for me, they make great hiding places for villains.

>>52001308
Traveller bro is back.

Is it sacralege to use the GURPS rules for Traveller?

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>>52014041

Nah, they printed a whole set of GURPS books, and they're mostly pretty good, as you'd expect from GURPS. I've heard Behind the Claw gets some things wrong, and I don't care for how the Sword Worlds book turned them into East Germany for some reason, but otherwise they're excellent books for any Traveller referee to thumb through, and if you're one of them weirdos who likes GURPS, why wouldn't you?

2e Mongoose book says a pocket nuke does 6DD damage. Misprint or does it mean something different?

>>52015545

It's a Mongoose product and you have to ask if 6DD is an editing error? Really?

>>52017129
DD refers to destructive damage, meaning that it's 6D6*10. That's if it isn't a misprint, but it is a nuke.

>>52017352
So enough to kill a person 3 times over?
Is that accurate for a nuke?
Plus, isn't that 3 damage on vehicle scale?
And 0.3 on starship scale?

Desu, I don't think shit like nukes should have damage stats, or if they do, they should be in range bands
6DD Ground Zero, 4DD X Meters-from ground zero, that sort of thing

>>52017551
2e Mongoose has People and Vehicles at the same scale, and /10 for ship scale.

>>52014041
>Is it sacralege to use the GURPS rules for Traveller?

No. GURPS produced some of the best fluff books for Traveller. Mechanics is another question. Chargen, ship building, TL, trade, all start from different assumptions and thus are hard to translate. Sysgen is different too, but the subject means it's easy to translate.

That being said, there are some clunkers. "Behind the Claw" has been completely decanonized and chunks of "Star Mercs" has seen the same. That's saying something when you remember the efforts Miller takes to keep everything in. BtC and SM were so bad that SJGames never used that writing team again and canceled projects they were already working on.

"Bounty Hunters" was so bad that it aborted plans for an entire line of career booklets. Sword Worlds and Interstellar Wars were pet projects for a few writers that came out during the 3e to 4e switch. That, plus the fact they knew their license would sunset, meant SJGames didn't pay as much attention to either they should.

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>>52017990

That image raises a question.

Does anyone know of a good way to translate or convert the Chris Foss T4 starship designs over to Mongoose Traveller?

>>52021074

You can't even use T4 or any other Trav version to build Foss' laughably psychedelic monstrosities so, no, you can't convert them to MgT.

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I thought the punchline was supposed to be "That's not a psychedelic monstrosity, that's my Waifu..."

But if nobody has heard of a way to convert them, I guess I'll just have to try something unexpected.

>>52017551
MgT 2e got rid of the terrible 1e Mercenaries scale and uses a simple 10:1 ratio for personal scale versus starship scale, so 6DD is 60-360 damage to people or vehicles, and 6-36 damage to ships (from the inside, presumably, because nuclear warheads in space, blah, blah, you all know the drill). So it'd be fairly destructive on a small scale, but larger spacecraft and stations would presumably be able to survive.

>>52022003
You have to do it by hand, sad to say.

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Any word yet on the Traveller ROBOTS 13Mann Verlag PDF? Wanna see it for robot rules since I am making a major character/NPC that is a robot.

>>52021422
s/laughably/lovably/

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>>52014200
>>52017990
Interdastibg

Thanks. I was kind of interested in running a game from the Interstellar Wars period for GURPS.

Is there any references for how cities are built and used in traveller worlds? As in how they affect gameplay. Or do I just make my own cities for playing in?

I have some traveller books in pdf format, so I may be able yo check those too, if you guys reference them.

>>52028209
>Is there any references for how cities are built and used in traveller worlds?

Not in any rules set that I'm aware of which mean Classic, MT, TNE, T4, GURPS, and T20.

I've got a sizeable chunk of MgT too and have seen no rules in what I own. I don't have all of MgT however and can't say it isn't there.

One possibility though... if there's a GURPS product with a city builder in it you should be able to translate that into GURPS Traveller easily enough.

>>52028209
>Is there any references for how cities are built and used in traveller worlds?

Previously on Traveller General!

>>52001632
>Easy Settlements, a sourcebook for setting up and fleshing out cities and stuff.

>>52028594
>Previously on Traveller General!

Is that stuff you've added or is it stuff you're looking for?

>>52028721

Never mind. I'm a dope.

>>52025971

Nobody seems to have it, I've looked all over.

>>52025971
>>52031207

If it was part of 13Mann's "Liftoff" project, no one will ever have it as "Liftoff" was cancelled back in 2014.

>>52031290

Are you sure about that? It's got reviews on the net, and it's up for sale on drivethrurpg right now. If I wasn't currently out of work, I'd pay the $15 to buy a copy for the Archives right now.

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>>52024934
Yeah.
Which makes it much more likely to be an non-canon ATU after pouring in a few other interesting 'wacky' elements.
>>.52026432
I obviously lean more towards the lovably end of the scale.
Though there are some odd designs that give me a sincere WTF headache.

>>52031477
>Are you sure about that?

I said IF IT WAS PART OF LIFTOFF. Apparently it isn't.

>>52032711

Pardon me, anon, I missed the "if" in your post.

>>52032795

No problem. I had to check my post too!

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More a general astronomical question, but it's for a Traveller game.

Would extrasolar asteroid belts form at roughly the same distance as the Solar ones (Asteroid Belt and Kuiper Belt)?
I would guess that the more massive the star the further out the belts would form? Maybe?

Though that does beg the question, would a smaller/larger star effect belt formation in a way other than scale?
For example, would a red dwarf be less or more likely to have belts than a Sol-analogue?

I really have no clue here guys, so if it's not that simple, is there any literature you could point me toward, that's relatively accessible to a layperson?

>>52034656

Your questions can't be answered with any degree of certainty. The growing numbers of exoplanets detected over the last few decades as basically made a hash of every theory regarding stellar system development. Folks are scrambling to make sense of all the new data and new data have even been uncovered right here at home.

Look at Trappist-1 forex. EIGHT Earth-sized planets orbiting a red dwarf and all 8 are closer to that dwarf than Mercury is to Sol.

If you can find it, get a copy of Peterson's "Newton's Clock: Chaos in the Solar System". The orbits in our solar system are chaotic over astronomical times. The planets' aren't orbiting now where they were 100s of millions or even billions of years ago.

Jupiter is the 800lb gorilla and bully. Everyone pretty much orbits where Jupiter "tells" them to. Even Saturn orbits where it does because of Jupiter. In the very distant past Jupiter has been closer to Sol than it is now and further from Sol than it is now. The Asteroid Belt is located where it is because of Jupiter and the planetoids in it owe their existence to Jupiter.

No Jupiter, no Belt. Jupiter moves, the Belt moves. See the problem?

As for larger stars having planets further away, yes they will. Large means more gravity and that means they can capture/maintain bodies further away. More gravity also means that objects won't last long closer to the star either as orbits will decay faster - but "long" and "fast" are measure in astronomical time.

TL;DR - You can pretty much put your planets and belts anywhere you like because no one has yet come up with "sysgen" which explains all the systems we've detected.

>>52035214
>TL;DR - You can pretty much put your planets and belts anywhere you like because no one has yet come up with "sysgen" which explains all the systems we've detected.

Well that's helpful, thanks space cowboy.
This saved me having to bother my space-friend again

requesting
Spaceship Zero
Spaceship Zero: Slave Ship of Despair

>>52035496
Not sure if it's there but with questions like that always check Atomic Rockets website. It's like a wikipedia for sci-fi worldbuilding.

>>52035214
The hypothesis that Jupiter "jumped" from an inner orbit into its current outer orbit has been put into question.

At the moment I assume we don't know nothing.

For a game, make your own rules and stick to them, with the occasional exception.

>>52022498

That actually makes a lot of sense.

>>52040738
>At the moment I assume we don't know nothing.

Exactly. The entire field is has been thrown into chaos with each new discovery. No one has yet been able to come up with a framework to explain everything we're seeing.

So, as I already suggested: "You can pretty much put your planets and belts anywhere you like because no one has yet come up with "sysgen" which explains all the systems we've detected."

>>52040801

My understanding of Space is that in general it's a bunch of bullshit and we don't even know.

>>52040876
>My understanding of Space is that in general it's a bunch of bullshit and we don't even know.

That's a good way to put it.

>ran my first session last night
>only two players from the group were there due to real life stuff
>stlll a good game both players enjoyed and I felt true pride

Mostly improv as well, I like dis

>>52041177

Cool cool. Got any particular plans for where to take it?

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>>52041177
Yeah tell your tales, stories here are most appreciated.

The books mention buying equipment at lower tech levels to save on costs, but I'm not finding any concrete rules on cheaply buying equipment with a lower tech level than the current market.

>>52041835
Which edition?

>>52041871
Mongoose 2E, but I imagine it's probably compatible with other versions, since "credits" are still "credits"

>>52041899
The Mongoose 1E Central Supply Catalog gives the option of buying an item one tech level above the local average for 125% the standard listed cost. With that in mind, I'd be willing to say you could go one tech level lower than average for 75% the standard listed cost, and then diminishing price reductions after that.

>>52041260
>>52041639

Well since I'd never done a long rpg before I decided to give the party a Yacht (One of the players was a Dilletente and we'd agreed to have him come from a noble family, the player doesn't own the yacht it belongs to the family) because it comes with a ships boat and atv so they have all the stuff they need for general adventuring (also the yacht will have an upgraded J-drive to J-2).

Placed the party in the Trojan Reach, Tobia subsector, planet Fist.

>okay so since half the party isn't here I'm just gonna say they're partying on the islet owned by the noble's family
>the guys who are here are at the downport

I spent a few minutes thinking and looking over a few random events and decided to stick to a crime spree.

>okay so as you leave the downport you hear the sounds of very loud jazz and screeching tires as a rickety-old car shoots past the gate, nearly hits an old woman, the hoots of the teenage occupants echoing through the music as they swing pistols in the air

The party check if the woman is okay, she is.

>"is that a normal occurance here?"
>no it started a week ago, that useless waste of skin Skag and his little gang have been causing trouble with their new toys

The party notes that the old woman is actually armed, a pitiful looking thing one of the PCs recognise as a 'P-12'. A cheap 3D-printed gun that has been making the rounds around the Reach.

The party decided to go to the Mayor's office on behalf of the woman, who was surprisingly un-fazed.

>as you walk down the street you notice everyone has a P-12. Again you're reminded this is literally the edge of Imperial territory (traveller wiki states Fist has a law level of 0)

I will continue from this point later as my work break has finished, hope this isn't boring anyone.

>>52042250
>I will continue from this point later as my work break has finished, hope this isn't boring anyone.

Boring? Hell no!

Please continue when you're able.

>>52042250
I do apologise I got home from work and starting playing games before remembering I was in the middle of a story! (I swear I'm not old)

But yes, continuing:

It occurs to me I never properly introduced the two people in the party

>first is a naval officer who'd gotten to the rank of Captain before mustering out, came from New Moscow, and had dragged herself up from the cornfields of obscurity to a place of recognition. Has the lovely fact she jumped from SOC 5 to SOC 12 from the start to end of chargen. Lost an eye before shipping out as well

>then we have the marine gunnery sergeant, tough as titanium nails and was part of the ground infantry they'd fire into combat zones from orbit. Comes from New Moscow as well and is the toughest person in the party

>also they're both married, the players asked if that was okay and I said of course

So yes those are the two of them that're here.

They arrive at the mayors hall and get into his office pretty quickly, it's a small port-side town and besides the people driving around there isn't anything happening.

>Mayor Hadle, a name that everyone gets wrong (Including myself). He recognises both of the players due to their high social standing and informs them of the situation when they inquire.
>somehow a bunch of kids got ahold of a shipment (read: 100 pieces) of P-12s, they've been joy-riding around town and the local forest for the last week shooting at stuff while drunk and high, basically they're teenagers with guns

The PCs are pointed towards the gun shop, ran by your run-of-the-mill asshole who only wants his guns back.

>literally just says to kill the kids and get his guns back, just to send the message that you don't steal from him

On their way back into the downport, to ask about the stolen gun shipment because no way did four teenagers steal those without issue, they ask the border guard about it

>what stolen shipment?

To be continued.

>>52047118
>guard gets on the phone and talks for a minute before telling the PCs to go to the Dock Masters office
>this isn't a request

The Dock Master is already pulling up general records on shipments when the PCs arrive, he's not panicked but takes the notion seriously.

>PCs inform him of what's been going on

The downport is not allowed to intervene outside Imperial territory, and seeing as the kids haven't shot at them they can't return fire. However they assumed they'd robbed someone for the guns, the notion they'd been taken from a shipment did not come up until now.

>he tells the PCs who was in charge of moving the shipment on the day and gives them temporary passes to indicate they are acting on high-authority

They check his apartment, flatmate tells them he's probably at the bar as usual.

He's at a bar called 'The Fishhead', sitting in a dirty corner on his own. The locals have given him a clear berth.

>he is completely drunk, and the Marine PC basically interrogates him with actual booze (the barkeep was cutting cheap beer with water and upselling to him, he's just a lightweight)
>out and out admits how he'd stolen the shipment
>literally did it to prove to his friends he could, because he wanted to show off to his friends
>"I mean, you bribe the guards to turn their eye.. [hiccup and burp] and the next thing you know you've made 100k and ten shipments.."
>"ten shipments"
>"ten"

From there the marine simply stuns him and carts him off to the downport and hands him off. The dockmaster thanks the PCs and requests they take care of the teenagers, since they can't officially do anything beyond medical aid.

>time to shoot some kids eh?

To be continued.

>>52047331
Not gonna lie, at this point I wasn't sure how they'd handle the kids. Though after listening to them discuss it between them it's clear they don't want to just shoot them.

>they'd totally beat them though, kids aren't even trained with the guns they're using

They drive up to the derelict warehouse they've been holed up in, place was abandoned years ago and the roof has partially collapsed.

>They can hear the jazz being blasted out from 1km away
>don't even need a stealth roll so long as they walk the last 500m

The kids are just doing what you'd expect drunk, high, testosterone-fueled teenage boys would be doing: shooting shit to prove how cool they are.

>sadly the officer fails the stealth roll to get close to them
>kids spot her and fan out, no cover though
>"oii.. The FUCK you doin' here?!"

Officer soundly intimidates three of them, she's wearing actual combat gear, has a laser pistol and a big cutlass. Also the eye-patch helps.

>the leader doesn't budge

During all this the marine has continued to sneak around behind and quietly gets one of the kids on the ground, little shit was so high he didn't complain

>officer is trying to talk the leader down, it's not working

>Okay guys, I'm rolling his INT to see if he's smart enough to not shoot at the death-machine in front of him
>he rolls a 3
>oh no

He goes to fire...

And this is the point where I will remind you all, the guns they have are cheap, 3D-printed pieces of crap.

>he rolls a nat 2
>the gun is so shit it comes with a custom crit-fail chart
>roll a 4 on it

>it explodes in his hands

To be wrapped up in the final post.

>>52047569
If the kid had rolled a second Nat 2, he would have likely lost his hands. He was 'lucky'.

>he's knocked to the ground in a drunken stupor, both the officer and marine quickly knockout/stun the other two before making sure the leader is taken care of

>the warehouse is a complete mess, the walls are pock-marked from them wildly firing off the guns

>the supply crate has 3 guns left inside. Each gun had 12 shots
>they'd gone through over 1000 shots in a week just wildly shooting

At this point nothing too incredible happens, they call the downport and medical vans show up and take the kids away, the shipping crate is kept as evidence.
They talk to the dockmaster to square away the details with him, and they'd asked to talk to the mayor to update him on the trouble.

>just to close this up

They arrive at Mayor Hadle's office, they show him the remains of the exploded gun and tell him the whole story; the stolen shipment, how it's happened ten times, the guy stealing stuff had basically fucked up by showing off to his friends.

>Mayor is silent for a bit, the players think I've run out of things to say for a moment
>I'm deciding whether to kick the meta-plot in
>roll a d6
>6
>fuck it, what the hell

The mayor leans down to the floor next to his desk and pulls a file from a hidden compartment and puts it in front of the players.

>they're legit confused
>"do you look at it?"
>it's a folder pertaining to the ISS, it requires classified access from permitted individuals
>the mayor presses his thumb to the lock
>"it clicks and opens"

>both the players aren't sure how to react, finally the marine speaks up
>"what is the meaning of this"

Mayor Hadle is ISS, undercover of course.

What follows is a steady explanation that across the Tobia subsector the ISS have been tracking similar incidents with missing shipments, all eventually leading to small-scale uprisings that are quelled.

>it's getting worse each month

Damn post limit, one more to go.

>>52047812
>"Each incident, each missing shipment, each uprising, everything we track concerning this set of events... Has one thing in common.."
>the ISS agent looks at the charred remains of the P-12 in front of the PCs
>"Cheap, quickly made, hard to track, and in numbers we can't keep up with. You're looking at the fuel of a rebellion."

>the players are actually a little stunned

>after a few more minutes of discussion the marine player states "if you ever need our help, just ask"
>I give both of the players the ISS agent as a contact

As the PCs get up to leave their computers beep, informing them they've both been paid 20k for their work.

The last line in the game, spoken by the officer:
"This was a really bad honeymoon.."

And that's that. My very first proper session of an RPG. The players loved it, and I'm still running off the high. I also feel confident that I can actually do this and that I enjoy it. It's a good feeling.

So, thoughts?

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>>52047957
Sounds like a great session, keep up the good work spacer

>>52047118
>>52047331
>>52047569
>>52047812
>>52047957

Great session. Thanks so much for sharing.

I love RPG AARs

>>52047957

That was a great story, thanks for sharing it. You seem to be doing great for a first time Traveller referee.

>>52049180
Both the players are GMs themselves and they noted that it was a 'smooth' game, they couldn't tell when I was doing improv.

I'm taking it as a good sign.

>>52049721
>I'm taking it as a good sign.

Damn straight. You all are off to a great start.

The fact that some players weren't able to show up for the 1st session can be easily made part of the campaign too. Now that the Cap'n & Sarge have their marching orders from the ISS agent, the players starting in the next session are characters the 1st two have recruited for the mission!

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>>52047957
Fine job, Anon. Might even try to use this campaign arc idea myself, someday.

>>52001387

I've also tacked on the Mongoose 2e Vehicles handbook, which was posted by a kind anon in the PDF share thread.

>>52047569
Where'd you get the stats for a 3d printed pistol?

>>52053720
I'm guessing he made them up.
Take the worst pistil available, make it worse, give it the capacity for 12 shots and a custom critical failure table.

>>52053720
>>52055000
P-12 Anon here, I actually found the P-12 whilst idly scrolling around for random items and stuff on the Traveller Downport website.

I changed the stats a little bit to make sure it was a horrid weapon and noted down the mishap table for it:

P-12, uses Gun Combat(Slug), damage 2D-4 (minimum 1 damage of course), ranges are similar to an auto pistol, magazine 12.

Requires Mechanic 8+ check to reload as you'd need to open the gun up since the magazine is sealed inside, crit fails will result in rolling on the mishap table.

Cost: 100Cr

Crit failure (nat2) table
Roll 2D, mishap is as follows:
8+, just a missed shot
7, the rifling in the barrel is damaged, all subsequent shots suffer a -1DM
6, the bullet is jammed in the firing mechanism, a mechanic check is needed (8+) to remove the bullet without breaking the gun
3-5, the gun explodes without harming the user, the gun cannot be used anymore
2, the gun explodes as all remaining bullets cook off at once, user takes 2D damage and the gun cannot be used anymore

>>52056615
Cont.

Additionally I want to stress that this guns entire existence is shady.

>gun is sold in a plastic sleeve with the warranty information on it
>due to how the warranty is worded, warranty is void upon guns exposure to air
>the gun itself is very light, around the weight of a cola can, if a little lighter
>bullets essentially .22
>the gun safety is a plastic tab you rip off and cannot be re-added
>heavily marketed towards low-income populations

Gangs love the thing, they give it to anyone who needs a piece. Since its introduction into the Trojan Reach about five years ago it accounts for 20+% of gun wounds in imperial cities.

>>52056615
Also I wish to correct the source of the P-12.

Its from Freelance Traveller under s section known as the Gun Shop.

My mistake sorry.

>>52056615
>>52056739
>>52056898

What a great find. It's basically a zip gun; use it once, drop it, and go. The knuckleheads buying it think they're get a cheap 12-round pistol when they're really running a 1 in 36 chance every time they pull the triggers of the damn breaking in various ways.

Guess there's a reason it's so cheap, right? ;)

There's a lot of good stuff at Freelance. You've slipped the nasty things neatly into your campaign too.

>>52052489
Much appreciated. Will certainly be going through it to see what wacky things we can do with it.

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quick notes on Mongoose 2e Vehicle Handbook:

>holy shit, they've used an awful circa-2005 3d image that was essentially lifted from the 1e handbook. Thankfully the rest of the 3d images aren't that bad.
>Range/towing/maintenance rules all in one place are good
>sidebar reminding readers not to take the information as dogma is a bit of a get-out-of-jail card, but it's good advice nonetheless
>Using default Chassis types and choices instead of starting with m^3 calculations makes vehicle construction much easier and with not a huge loss in flexibility. Given how complicated (though fun!) 1e's vehicle handbook is, this is a good change
>removing the non-nuclear fuel sources does prevent some min-maxing (i.e. in 1e, turbines were the go-to power source for everything because of their power-to-weight ratio). There's even a handy sidebar referring to it later in the book.
>Walkers are your Battlemech type of giant robots, which is understandable.
>Heavy Walkers literally refer to AT-ATs (substituting just one word in the acronym for another). Light Walkers refer to AT-STs by function. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
>2e got rid of slope facing total versus effective m^3. Good
>No more min-maxing armor by pushing armor points around at 1:1. It's 2:1 now.
>TL18+ armor! And vehicle armor essentially uses starship-armor rules
>Nuclear damper rules (removed from 2e core, I believe), are back in.
>The weapon pictures are much, much nicer than the random assortment we got in CSC.
>That being said, early machineguns weighed 14 tons? hmmm
>weapons happily aren't all retreads and they compliment the ones in CSC. Bombs need on-use trait though
>Bio-vehicle rules!
>Drone rules!

tl;dr: seems pretty solid. Now off to make some terrible decisions and see what monstrosities we can come up with.

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>>52058081
There is one fairly important downside to the new vehicle handbook in terms of flexibility compared with 1e: As a result of having Chassis templates, you can no longer combine drive systems. I don't know how much this was exploited (it probably wasn't very much, to be honest), but in 1e Vehicles, a good way of building more mobile walkers or powered armor-type vehicles was to literally strap a jet engine to it, using hybrid drive system rules. This can't be done anymore.

The authors seemed to have anticipated this by including the Ground Drive customization option for Aerial vehicles. It's not perfect, but I suppose it will have to do.

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So this is interesting for all those who are trying to make small craft in MgT 2e but find that they have too few fixed points. (Though that is appropriate and by design, because Traveller starship weapons are quite beefy)

In the new 2e Vehicle Handbook we receive an important conversion. 1 dton of weaponry is 4 spaces (p.44). In this manner we can extrapolate (possibly outside the design envelope of the game) to go the other way, in putting vehicle weapons onto spacecraft (there were vague rules in HG 1e, but they didn't work very well, what with Mercenaries 1e's silly personal scale vs. starship scale rules)

For instance, a hardpoints for a one-use missile or bomb do not consume space on a vehicle but may only mount a maximum of 1/4 of its spaces. A 10dton ship (40 spaces) can thus mount 10 spaces worth of hardpoints, or 5 anti-ship missiles, for just some credits (but no space/dton, which is the important consideration).

This rule actually works fairly well. That anti-ship missile has a 8km range and deals 8D personal scale damage, which is 8-48 damage, which can be quite a bit in personal scale, but is pretty weeny for starship combat (a basic 2D pulse laser deals 20-120 personal scale and is accurate up to 25,000km). So these vehicle weapons may be of interest to small craft but are essentially a non-issue against larger ships.

>>52061276
It'd probably be handy for dropships or multirole space/atmo fighters

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>>52061370
It is indeed. The fixed mount entry is also super interesting, in that a vehicle may freely have externally mounted drones up to 1/4 of its total spaces. So if we allow ships to also do so, a 10 dton fighter can carry 10 spaces worth of funnels- I mean, grav-equipped drones. They'd still take up dtonnage to store away (on a mothership or somesuch), but all these options is wonderful.

As someone new to sci-fi systems, how's Traveller? Is it ease of use to get into?

>>52061742
The mechanics are pretty simple, 2d6+mod+skill for most things. Though vehicle and ship creation can get a bit maths-ey, but that's the way we like it.

>>52061845

I see. I've been in a sci-fi mood as of late. I LOVE Sci-fi and I've been itching to get some /tg/-esque into it but at the same time, my friends are rather on the rules-light side for games like this. It's a miracle I got them to play DnD 5e which is rules light in itself. Still willing to push them to this one if it's on the crunch side.

>>52061866
Most of the crunch in traveller is DM-facing, so all your players need to know is what >>52061845 said, plus maybe some details about the capabilities of any vehicle or ship they end up using. Most stuff only needs to come up when it's needed.

>>52061866

For players it's pretty light. I mean if one of them's into it, they might design and commission their own ship, or go all spreadsheet on breaking the trade system, but it's not a requirement.
Overall I'd call it rules light for players, rules medium, but tools heavy for GMs.

>>52061934
>>52061925

Ah, that's good to hear. I'm usually the GM in my group and I don't mind the crunch behind the screen so I'm relieved to know this.

After reading the 1d4chan entry, I'm still unsure what edition to pick up. Any suggestions for newbies? If applicable, for a group where the GM (me) doesn't mind the crunch and wouldn't want his players to worry much of the crunch and just have good old sci-fi fun.

>>52061976
Mongoose 2e isn't bad for a first-timer, though the thing about Traveller is that it's modular and you can steal bits you like from other editions.
That means you should really read as much as you can be bothered to to find something you like.

That said, Mongoose 2e works pretty decently out of the box, and is the most modern

>>52061976

Classic or Mongoose are the best editions. But most refs steal bits from other editions, too.

>>52062117
>>52062136

Hmm, there is a bit of a purist in me that want to check out Classic but with how one of you say about how modular the game is, 2e should be worth a gander as well. Will check these two out. Thanks, anons!

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>>52001308
What's a better mascot for a crew of Travellers, a dog or a cat?
or something different entirely, but give where it stands on the dog-cat spectrum

>>52064285

Probably a cat, dogs like to run and being cooped up in a spaceship all the time would suck for a lot of dogs.

>>52064304
Dogs do well enough on cruises don't they? But I guess an entirely enclosed environment is different.
But, from a Referee point-of-view, the travellers having to take their dog for a walk when they're in port gives a lot of room for bumping into plot hooks.

>>52064285

Beaker monkey, anola, etc. There are plenty of good choices apart from cats and dogs.

>>52064373
>aliens
Okay but are they alien cats, alien dogs, or alien cat-dogs?
Or alien cat-by-cat-dogs or else somewhere between. I'm mostly talking behaviourally here

>>52062701

I love Classic, but I've been running it for 30+ years. Classic puts the old in OSR so it may not be what your players are used to.

MgT2e has more of what current players think an RPG should have, so the hurdle for them will be much lower.

MgT also has a core book. While you can buy all of Classic on CD for about the price of one Mongoose splat, Classic's "core" is spread across several small books. Yes, the very basics are in the first 3 books, but if you want more ship combat, it's in another book, more trade, it's in another book, more careers in another book, etc.

MgT has more details in one place and I say that as someone who loathes Mongoose as a company.

>>52064477
>Classic's "core" is spread across several small books

Unless you use The Traveller Book, or Starter Traveller.

>>52064500
>Unless you use The Traveller Book, or Starter Traveller.

True, but are there physical reprints of them?

>>52064921

No, but I picked up a copy of TTB off ebay for $30 a while back, and there's always print-on-demand. You can get like 150 pages printed and bound for $12 at printme1.com.

bamp

Umm, I'm looking at some info from the Interstellar War period, and it basically says that during this time Terra is a Rep democracy, but with a control rating of 6 (total control basically). Is this right...?

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Looking at Cepheus Engine, do drive/plant letters not have a tech level?
Looking briefly at Classic, the LBBs don't seem to list a tech level for drives either?

Is this per design? I'm just designing a universe where Jump-3 is a very new thing, so it wouldn't make much sense for it to have been possible for any small enough ship.

Just figured I'd check here to make sure I wasn't missing something before house-ruling

>>52067961
Also, would it be hard to convert the rating system over to MgT2?
I'm a fan of small-ship verses, and I dig the idea of bigger ships being slower than small ships

>>52067961
>Looking briefly at Classic, the LBBs don't seem to list a tech level for drives either?

You're looking in the wrong place, although GDW should have put the info in the drive tables too. Check out the TL tables on page 15 of LBB:3 Worlds and Adventures.

>>52067955
>Umm, I'm looking at some info from the Interstellar War period, and it basically says that during this time Terra is a Rep democracy, but with a control rating of 6 (total control basically). Is this right...?

Yeah, because a unified planetary democratic republic on a total war footing for centuries fighting a higher tech enemy over thousand times it's size should be a libertarian paradise, right? Sheesh...

While Traveller's technology is in some ways fantasy, sociologically Traveller is stone cold realpolitik. The GDW staff were wargame designers first and kept designing wargames even after entering the RPG market. As wargamers they were historians, by both training and inclination. Jump drive might as well be magic, but Traveller's history follows the broad sweep of actual history and even echoes actual events.

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>>52014041
The Alien Races suppliments published for GURPS are top-fuckin-notch. Buy them even if you intend to never play GURPS ever. I got more out of the Droyne/Hiver book than I did out of the originals published in the '80s.

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What's the consensus these days, MgT 1e or MgT 2e? Should I start upgrading or is MgT 2e not that good enough?

>>52068887

There's a pdf at the beginning of the thread laying out the major differences between the two.

While more stuff has been published for 1e, 2e is supposed to be backwards compatible for the most part.

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I found some music that might fit Traveller, it's called "filk". It's folk music about sci-fi things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud6LiVJkwyA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w34fSnJNP-4

Enjoy guys.

>>52017990
>That, plus the fact they knew their license would sunset, meant SJGames didn't pay as much attention to either they should.
Not so much. The SJG license was good for as long as Loren and Steve wanted it. It only sunset at the end of 2015, many years after the last books.

>>52021074
T4 assumed a certain amount of internal structure for ships that Mongoose does not, but volumes are volumes, and all of the T4 published designs have enough data to reverse engineer them into other editions. A few tons of fuel or cargo here and there is not a big deal, really.

>>52068964
>Not so much. The SJG license was good for as long as Loren and Steve wanted it.

There's a difference between "in theory" and "in practice".

>>It only sunset at the end of 2015, many years after the last books.

"Many years after the last books" meaning SJG decided to drop Traveller well before their license would have forced them to do so.

So, did their license sunset in theory or in practice?

>>52069044
>did their license sunset in theory or in practice?
They continued to run the online JTAS long after the books stopped.
Your semantics attempts are not useful. Not using a license is not the same thing as a license sunsetting, which means it *ends*. Most Traveller licenses were specifically ended by the sunset clause in the first Mongoose license. SJG's license was specifically exempt, as was the BITS more generic "for use with" license and the extant miniatures licenses, minor as they were. The Mongoose Sunset clause killed Traveller Hero just as it was seeing publication, was the final nail in T20's long-a-buildin coffin, and implicitly ended any of the other loose ends.

But as long as Loren Wiseman, a friend of Marc's since the 70s and an important writer for/of Classic Traveller, wanted to try making money from Traveller, he and/or the company he worked with would have a license.

>>52069169
>They continued to run the online JTAS long after the books stopped.

Online JTAS was a zombie which couldn't even publish regularly during it's last years.

>Your semantics attempts are not useful. Not using a license is not the same thing as a license sunsetting,

It's the still same thing in practice. SJG could have published more GT books yet CHOSE NOT TO. Sniffing about whether the license had legally lapsed or not ignores the reality of the situation. SJG shut down GT well before it had to and SJG's final two GT products were not up to it's usual standards.

>>52069248
Sure. Just stop mixing terms and we can agree. Sunsetting a license is a specific thing, and that DID NOT HAPPEN until 2015.

>>52069323
>Sunsetting a license is a specific thing

From a pedantic pissant point of view, yes.

The reality of the situation was that SJG chose to sunset themselves and did so years before LKW's health issues forced his withdrawal from daily work. JTAS withered away, GT wasn't carried forward into 4e in any real sense, the last two GT products didn't receive SJG's usual care, and projects previously picked up were shut down.

>>52068937
Check the OP. It already contains links to a least one of those.

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>>52068989
Thanks, that sounds pretty reasonable.

>>52069481
You obviously don't know any lawyers, or anyone in technical fields.

And you are obviously butthurt about the death of GURPS Traveller.

Get over it. You shorten your own life by being mad about things like this.

GURPS Traveller spun down because they hit the same wall that most prior editions had, and Mongoose definitely did before doing their usual edition thing. There is only so much easy retread to be done before brand new stuff, which is much harder to write and get approved for most licenses, never mind this one, has to be written. The most prolific new Traveller author, Dougherty, is a delicate and special snowflake when it comes to being edited, and BtC was decanonized because of a manuscript version shellgame that ended up with the wrong one being published. He snowflaked out, and everyone else that might have wanted to write for SJG was just not up to their bruising standards. The author of Ground Forces recounted a lot of the internal process after finishing that book, and he ended with "never again".

SJG's approach to freelancers led to fast production, quick topic saturation, and nowhere else to go or writers to go there. It is a lesson they should have learned with GURPS 2 and 3, but didn't.

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Found a few small cover images of the Japanese version of Traveller. Makes me curious about the interior art.

Does anyone know how to search for Japanese game pdfs?

I'm writing up a scenario for my players based around pirates trying to hijack a large fishing trawler. The only thing I'm a bit confused about though is if there are any specific rules concerning melee fights; are there rules for dodging and parrying?

I do plan to write up the events once the session is done, since people liked my first story.

>>52073961
A Traveller who is about to be attacked can react, either dodging a shot or parrying a blow.

This is called a Reaction, and a Traveller can perform an unlimited amount of Reactions in every combat round. However, every time a Traveller performs a Reaction, he will suffer DM-1 on his next set of actions.

Mongoose 2e Core Rulebook, pg73

What's a good way to make starmaps, is Campaign Cartographer's space add-on any good?

>>52076137

Beat me to it! Also, check out "At Close Quarters" in the Archive. It's in the BITS folder.

>>52076415
travellermap DOT com has a couple mapping functions. You upload a sec file and have a map created. That site's blog has all the details.

>>52076137
>>52076546
Awesome cheers guys!

>players buy 1dt of advanced weapons
>instead of using it for trade they open it up

My initial impulse was "it's 90% ammo", but that feels cheap. But at the same time a full dt is 14 cubic meters, and since it's a trade good it's likely way below market price.

Is this something with a fluff "solution" or are they just playing a kind of "equipment lottery"?

>>52078605

There was a JTAS or Challenge article for Classic which touched upon this. 1st, big part of the 14m^3 is going to be taken up by packing materials because the guns aren't going to be poured into the shipping container like cornflakes. Each gun is going to be in it's own case smeared in some future version of cosmoline, for example.

Next, the contents aren't going to be some fire sale grab bag (unless it was a fire sale grab bag!) The container is going to be all one type of gun or a limited selection of guns meant to arm members a certain occupation or military unit. So it will be all AK74s + ammo or the AK74s, pistols, SAWs, and ammo a platoon needs.

Ammo isn't going to be 90%, but it is going to account for a lot. There will also be things like cleaning/maintenance kits for each gun, carrying cases, slings, holsters, spare barrels, spare parts, etc.

TL;DR - There will be quite a few guns, just not a shit ton. There won't be one each of dozens of types either; no body pistol, RPG-7, FGMP etc, mixture.

>>52085670

That's some H. Beam Piper looking shit right there.

Could the new vehicle handbook be used to design one of those water-jet hoverboard things you occasionally see? Has a tube connected that provides all the water which is then jetted downwards to provide lift.

Because I want to give some to pirates for drug-addled, adrenaline-fueled, madmen with harpoons and SMGs flying around killing shit.

>>52087236

Flipping through the book, I'd say no. You can make a jet-ski easily enough, but not those "ski boots attached to a fire hose" things. I'm afraid you'll just have to make a couple WAGs so your pirates can swoosh around.

>>52087236
Those water jet fliers are just a power source, a turbine and tubes. Should be easy enough to make. Would not be a standard vehicle, however.

>>52087656
>Those water jet fliers are just a power source, a turbine and tubes.

True and, with the hoses connecting to a pump, you're on a rather short leash. It should be enough for >>52087236 to just describe them instead of needing to design them.

>>Should be easy enough to make.

Vehicles is VERY modular. Apart from fission and fusion plants, there are no detailed power sources. You told to assume that power source X is used between these TLs, power source Y is used between those TLs, etc. You can finagle vehicle speeds and the like by tweaking the number of hull spaces set aside for a power source, but you're not designing a 2.4L inline-six, a gas turbine, triple expansion steam engines, or the like.

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>>52087236
>water-jet hoverboard things
Let's find out:
- Vehicles with people on them have a minimum space of 1, and if we don't attach any weapons on it, 1 space is fine.
- Luckily for us, there is a Light Hovercraft chassis:
TL 5, +1 agility, 10KCr./space, 1 hull/3 spaces, 0.5dton/space shipping. We'll build at TL 8 because why not? That gives it a max speed band of High and a range of 500km (!). It's clearly open topped, so giving it the Open Frame option gives it agility +1+1, 12500Cr./space, and changes the speed band to Fast.

Now, Fast speed is 300-500 kph, which may be too fast? If we reduce its speed by just 2 bands and also reduce its range by 25% we can reduce the price to 8,750 cr.

So our hoverboard:
- carries 1 operator
- TL 8
- Agility +2
- 1 Hull
- Speed Band 4 (200kph) up to 375 kilometers
- Cruising speed 3 (100kph) up to 562.5 kilometers
- 8,750 cr.
Now this hoverboard actually works on all surfaces, so there's that. Pic unrelated

>>52089616
Oh that's awesome, I guess all I'd need to do is add a special rule that tethers it to the tube origin (the water has to come from somewhere!)

I'm also tempted to include a special rule that states using ranged weapons incurrs a -2DM for the fact its not a stable platform and you can't fully focus on firing. Additionally maybe Athletics(Dex) negates the negative DM with each level, so someone with Athletics(Dex) 2 can use weapons on it easily while their enemies suffer negative DMs for a moving target.

>>52089885
Do note that (if I'm reading correctly), the "moving target" rule refers to relative movement.

So if you're flying parallel to a speeding jeep and shot at the occupants, the rule gives nether party penalties.

But if you're moving super fast and aiming at someone that isn't, both of you get a large penalty.

Doesn't really account for the angle of the movement, but that's probably going too deep.

>>52095514
>Doesn't really account for the angle of the movement, but that's probably going too deep.
Does any game account for angle of movement? Always struck me as odd that in battletech a target moving 12 hexes in a zig zag perpendicular to the shooter was as difficult as one going in a straight line towards/away the shooter.

>>52102955

In CT that's all covered under the Evasion program. As long as you've got the program up, your pilot can pick a target vector, and the computer will get you there via a crazed serpentine pattern that makes you hard to track.

I imagine it might be accounted for in Intercept, that complex MGT1 homebrew combat system currently in the Third Party folder, it was crunchy as fuck.

>>52103090

They were discussing personal/vehicle combat and not ship combat, Anon.

>>52095514
Oh yes I understand that, but I intent for the pirates using them to deliberately be zipping around wildly because they're mad (and prone to blow up because shoddy guns).

I'm aiming for crazy awesome.

bunp for Mangoodse Drabbgler

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D