Traveller General--Interservice Rivalry Edition

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>>54889087
>which is the best branch and why?
Hunter 4 lyfe my friend

>>54889117
...is that guy laser cannoning a fucking T-rex? that is awesome!

>>54889087
Marine Noble Dilettante

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Post cool floorplans if you got 'em

>>54889667
No actually, he is not. Sorry anon.

>>54889087
>Navy, Army, Marines, or Scouts, which is the best branch and why?

The answer, of course, is: It Depends. I've had great fun playing PCs from each branch listed. It all depends on the game.

>>54889117

Now that is a picture to build a campaign around.

>>54889668
>Marine Noble Dilettante

Thank you Mongoose for inserting D&D's multi-class dipshittery into Traveller and killing it just a little more.

Silliness aside. Has anyone been using Solo and do they want to share their experiences with it? I'm thinking of buying but would like to read about a few test drives first. (Yes, I know I can get by other means. I'd rather give the author a few bucks.)

>>54890760
I tried it once, but it's not as fun as a group, IMO

>>54890760
Marine (any branch) 5+ terms, Noble (Dilettante) 1+ terms
Retire and enjoy it.

>>54891101

Thanks. I wouldn't expect it to be as good as the "real" thing, but did you find the solo experience "worth" the time you spent?

Then again, you said you played it once, so I guess you answered my question already!

>>54890760
And haven't career changes been part of the game since like, MT? Or was it later?

>>54891424
I don't know. I do know it was possible in T20,so predates MgT. It definitely wasn't something Mongoose added in.

>>54891424
>>54891519
After further looking, it appears to be TNE. I couldn't find a reference to it in MT. It was definitely in T4.

>>54891141
It was worth it, but I wouldn't do it again

>>54891424
>>54891519
>>54892433

Before you all sperg anymore on the subject, perhaps you should read this part of the post?

"Silliness aside"

It was a jest, a joke, something written tongue in cheek. Have the closest 'tard wrangler explain the concept to you.

>>54892518

Okay, I'll give it a pass for now. Thanks.

>>54892532
Humor doesn't translate well over a message board. "Silliness aside" could also imply the idea of multi-career characters was a silly notion.

>>54892532
>>54892605
Yeah, I did misunderstand it. But the answer from >>54892433 does tell us when they recognized the fact that people do swap careers over their lives.
>>54889776
I wish I had cool deckplans.
On the other hand, I should track that deckplan I made for the 50dton space rv I statted up.

>>54892605
>Humor doesn't translate well over a message board.

No. humor doesn't translate well for spergs.

Have the nearest human read the post in question and then ask them if they think it was a joke.

Remember the best way for you to fit in is to copy the behavior of normal people even when you don't understand it.

>>54892771
>On the other hand, I should track that deckplan I made for the 50dton space rv I statted up.

Please do. That kind of "down market yacht" is something the game doesn't have enough of.

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>>54893108
Sorry for crap quality. Also needs to track down the stats, but I think I posted them before.

>>54893717

Crap quality? Perish the thought. That looks just like the deck plans, maps, and other diagrams we use all the time.

Thanks!

>>54894172
Quick notes: built using MgT 2e, aquaponics reduces life support costs to just the staterooms (so 2k/month total), and removes the life support costs for four people (meaning the 1-2 person crew has surplus food to sell to belters). Actual math on the fuel supply gives it a 13 or 17 week ops time (I can't remember which, but pplant is 1.75 tons so do it yourself). M-Drive gives 1g. M-Drive, p-plant, and hull are budget models. Second airlock can be removed if desired. Cargo hatch on fore hull.
Anything else?

>>54893108
down market yatch?

>>54894891
>Anything else?

Wow, I can't think of any. That's a great, low cost, backwater, cargo hauler. It's built for a specific situation, but that's what makes it "fit" so well. Just the kind of in-system hauler/trader you'll see working a marginal belt in some remote system.

The "selling belters produce" angle is great too. How much would some rockhound whose been eating ration packs for months pay for a real tomato?

IIRC, there's a Classic adventure or AZ about smuggling food.

>>54895194

Like a McMansion, but on the water. Sold to folks who got a little bit of money and think they're rich people now.

>>54896257
thanks

>>54896257

Exactly. I wasn't going to bother answering because the question was so painfully stupid. Couldn't be arsed to google/bing "down market" or spell "yacht".

Anyway, it could either be a spaceship version of a McMansion. It could also be kit-bashed or re-purposed in some manner. For example, you see people in the States who buy old school buses and convert them into caravans in various ways. I saw a bloke who had one he converted into half-motor caravan and half-stake bed lorry. He drove between state and local fairs for a good part of the year, working as a smith, living in the caravan part, and lugging all his smithing equipment on the other.

>>54895214
Yeah, its great for grocery runs and retirement. I remember going super comfy with them several threads back - its the rv where the typical crew is a retired couple and the belters call them "grandparents"

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>>54896616
that's adorable! ...and also awesome, because Traveller is RED the RPG

>>54896395
Kitbash IMTU. My ships have a 75% discount for everything except the jump drive (which is 150%), so small craft are cheap as hell.

>>54896616

Yeah. Make one them a medic/dentist and the other Mr. Fixit and you've got either a great campaign or some really memorable NPCs.

A guy at COTI often mentions a retired IISS NPC he used in many campaigns. The NPC was a doctor (Medic-3 I think in Classic?) and had a detached duty scout/courier crewed by robots. Pilot, Nav, Eng, even "nursing" was all handled by the 'bots while the Doc worked at being a doctor.

IIRC, he had the guy flying around District 268 calling at backwater systems and the remote parts of other systems "fixing" and "curing" folks for little more than food, spare parts, and a handshake.

If you ever messed with him, you had an entire SECTOR of people looking for you to fuck you up.

>>54896950
you happen to have a link, this sounds like an idea I might steal--I mean, borrow

>>54897035

Sorry, it's just a memory of an old COTI thread. I'm pretty sure he didn't post stats, 'bot designs, deckplans, and the like because using attachments at COTI is pretty hit or miss.

It was more along on the lines of a "That reminds me..." or "I once did..." kind of thing.

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>>54889776
This one's the only one I got, Anon.

As a side note, I so wanna go to the taco truck here in town. Shit's awesome, dude.

>>54899050
Good taco trucks usually are.

Don't know if everyone has seen it yet and I suspect most of you have. Anyway, we all seem tn enjoy sci-fi pictures here as adventure and campaign "prompts" and some kind Anon had started a thread devoted to them.

It's here >>54899240

>>54899552

That looks suspiciously like the "MacArthur" from MiGE.

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>>54900833
Was it also used for that?

>>54905461

Yup. IIRC, that's the first iteration.

The story is something like this. AMF puts out the Ericson model in the mid or late 60s. The Space race is on with heavily publicized launches happening every month or so. Trek, Lost in Space, and others are on the tube. Kids actually built models rather than watching porn on their tablets.

Pournelle, Niven, or both get one and use it first as just as a thought exercise, i.e. If the ship is shaped like this, what can infer regarding tech, capabilities, etc? That game starts them spitballing ideas for a book and that book becomes MiGE in 1974.

In the meantime, AMF or whoever holds the molds rebrands the design a few times and fiddles with the included stickers to spark sales. Among others, it's renamed "UFO Raider" or something like that in the hopes someone who bought the Ericson model won't realize it's the same, will see it as "new", or just wants a variant. The model goes through a few iterations. All the versions as shaped the same, but have different stickers to apply, different stories included in the instructions, different names, and one which even included glow-in-the-dark parts. It's never sold as "MacArthur" from MiGE though, probably because they'd have to cut Pournelle & Niven in on whatever pittance they were making.

Again, IIRC, there's a fairly exhaustive site online detailing all this. The guy collects famous old models like we collect RPGs, got his hand on all or most of the variants, and discusses it all.

Here's one site discussing the model's history and providing various links, pictures, etc:

http://frank.bol.ucla.edu/le.html

It's interesting to read that AMT had also sold models of the 3 iconic ship designs from TOS: Enterprise, Bird of Prey, and Klingon Battle Cruiser. It seems the Ericson was an attempt to extend the line.

It's very interesting to read that Matt Jefferies, the man who designed the TOS ships, also designed the Ericson! The design never got into TOS, but made it into the storyboards for the Trek cartoon.

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am I the only one who uses Winchell Chung's Atomic Rockets to add some depth to MTU?

>>54906603

No.

>>54906603
Definitely not

>>54907756
>>54910780
how do you use it, anons?

Does anyone know of a good source for T4 starships & deckplans?

The one thing i really liked about that version of Traveller was the colorful Chris Foss designs.

http://astrona.blogspot.com/2007/08/chris-foss-illustrations-and-sci-fi-art.html

Though lately, I've been thinking of using either Cepheus or MgT2 for the character and starship rules and making quick n' dirty conversions of the old T4 designs.

>>54913950
>The one thing i really liked about that version of Traveller was the colorful Chris Foss designs.

You have to understand that the Chris Foss pictures used in T4 were only that; pictures.

They weren't actual ship designs for the T4. They were just fairly cheap because they're old, eye grabbing, fluff art. There were no T4 stats for Foss' famous "asymmetric lobster claw attached hand held vacuum cleaner belching diesel smoke" style of ships.

More's the pity though. I would have loved see someone try to stat some of Foss' weirder ships.

>>54915423
you could try it anon?

>>54915423
There were some designs in the T4 Starships book. But they were disappointing in how inaccurately they did when scaling the deckplans to the paintings.

>>54912939
>how do you use it, anons?

Winchell Chung's site? Mostly like a writing prompt except for adventures, encounters, and campaigns.

You've seen those lists or booklets, hundreds of single sentences you're supposed to flesh out into a full essay? And out of maybe 100 essays you get a short story or novela? That's a writing prompt. Writer's also used to use what were called "commonplace books". They'd carry around notebooks to jot down single sentence idea as they came to them. Across every hipster in every coffee shop in the the world is doing that now.

I like to scroll though Chung's site mostly looking at illustrations and occasionally reading the text until something catches my eye. Then I try to turn it into a hook or gimmick or something.

The tech at Chung's site doesn't mesh well with Traveller. Trav has magic gravitics, thrusters, jump drive, etc. I've cadged bits and pieces of infrastructure ideas from there, but the "real science" focus doesn't fit the game to well. While I have stole entire ships to give rarely visited, low tech systems some kind of indigenous space flight capacity, those systems are rare, rarely visited, and the Atomic Rocket stuff is even more rarely used.

>>54915590
asteroids, and...orbital kingdoms are the most use I've got out of it

>>54915463

No, you couldn't. T4 rules are meant to design Traveller spacecraft and not Foss' wonderfully whimsical designs.

>>54915491
>There were some designs in the T4 Starships book. But they were disappointing in how inaccurately they did when scaling the deckplans to the paintings.

Exactly, and the reason was that the rules were never intended to recreate Foss' illustrations. They messed around and something in the same area code, but the rules and Foss' illustrations were never meant to fit.

What you're still failing to understand was that Foss wasn't hired to produce illustrations for T4. Miller didn't go to him and say "My game's ships work like this, please draw some." Instead, Miller and IG bought the right to use PREVIOUS Foss work as illustrations for the T4 line.

Foss had ALREADY painted all those pictures, in some cases decades ago, and for completely different customers with completely different requirements. Miller and IG were simply using Foss' work secondhand because it looks cool and catches the eye and not because any of it had any relation to T4.

>>54915755

Apart from the "writing prompts" I bloviated about earlier, that's basically what I've got from the site too. A quick primer on how to make an asteroid or moon of comet come across as more realistic.

>>54915906
>What you're still failing to understand

Don't get too hipster on him now, anon. Nothing in his post indicated a failure to understand that.

>>54916051
>Nothing in his post indicated a failure to understand that.

He complained about how inaccurately the deckplans scaled to the paintings, anon. That indicates he thought they should scale which means he thinks he can recreate Foss' work with the T4 design system. He can't and he needs to know that.

Complaints about the "lack" Foss" vehicle and ship "designs" in the T4 books were part of the general grousing about T4 and IG from the start. People complained that Foss' work didn't fit Traveller. That's a matter of taste. People also complained, and rightfully IMHO, that if T4 was using that art then T4 better be able to recreate it in the design process. Miller and IG didn't think so.

They bought Foss' art as stock art. While decades old in some cases, it was still eye catching and the price was right. It's just a shame it gave some folks a false impression.

>>54906603
I try not to. Winch is good folks, but too much science in the wrong places puts a harsh on my Traveller buzz.

>>54915906
>Foss had ALREADY painted all those pictures, in some cases decades ago
Including the B/W pics that did get associated with Traveller ship classes?

>>54916192
>People complained that Foss' work didn't fit Traveller. That's a matter of taste.
Since T4 was covering a different era of the timeline, I had no problem wth most of the Foss art that got linked to actual ship classes.

>>54916249
>Including the B/W pics that did get associated with Traveller ship classes?

From what was shared on the TML at the time, Miller and IG chose pre-existing work. Foss produced nothing specifically new. It was all stuff from his stock art portfolio.

The problems arose when Miller and IG chose, for example, an existing piece to be the free trader illo for T4 only to have the T4 rules unable to duplicate it.

>>54916266
>Since T4 was covering a different era of the timeline, I had no problem wth most of the Foss art that got linked to actual ship classes.

Neither did I. It's set over a thousand years before Classic and at a lower TL too. Stuff should look different. The problems began when the design system couldn't keep the "promises" the art made and that happened because the design system and the art were never meant to work together.

Folks definitely got a false impression and you can't blame them.

>>54916235
>but too much science in the wrong places puts a harsh on my Traveller buzz.


Agreed.

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I ran a couple games, it's quite rare to see people get into it. I'm not a fan of the d6 system myself.
I've actually the rulebook and maps more for a D&D/Traveller hybrid game set in space, than actually playing Traveller.

I've been hankering for a space opera campaign, and Traveller seems like a fun system to toy around with. Is there a consensus on what edition is "best"? Which sourcebooks are considered to be the most useful for general purpose lore and info?

>>54918517
well when you look for something that's cheap, rule efficient and catches the ground idea behind traveller, download cepheus engine, it's free, and pretty much c100% compitable with the Mongoose traveller 1e material.

Also prepare for an incoming MgT1e vs MgT2e shitstorm.

>>54891519
First place I'm aware of it is in the Vargr write-up in The Traveller Adventure for CT (1983), removed in the Vargr Alien Module (1984)

>>54918517

While there's some consensus on the "worst" version, there's no real consensus on the best version. It will depend on the preferences of you and your group. That being said.

- MgT1e/2e are the latest. They contain more of what current players think RPGs should have and play more like current players think should do.
- Cepheus Engine is an open source, OGL version of MgT developed from MgT SRDs. It doesn't (yet) cover as many bases as MgT
- Classic was OSR decades before the term OSR had even been dreamed of. It's minimalist and is more about the referee making rulings than quoting rules.

As for "lore" (I hate the fact a term from WH40K has infected other RPGs) and info, GURPS has the best group of sourcebooks. While other versions have one or two examples which top the GURPS efforts, it the GURPS line which has the best overall quality. The trouble with the GURPS books is that they're for GURPS. When GURPS lore is translated into GURPS rules, everything goes "herp derp GURPSy".

Classic's "lore" cannot be overlooked, every other version is supposed to follow and build from it. The problem with Classic is that it's lore is scattered throughout all Classic products in bits and pieces as small as sentences. GDW published very few "lore-only" products and regularly wove "lore", info, and rules together in a such a way that 30-40 years on people still have troubled separating them.

MgT's "lore" was written by Mongoose. That means Mongoose mindset of "Change stuff for the lulz" and "We don't need no stinking editors" fucks it from the start. Overall, MgT "lore" is the worst. While there are worse versions of the RULES and while there are a few example of good MgT lore, Mongoose lore can be safely ignored.

TL;DR - Your needs will make your choice.

>>54891424
>>54892433
Having a prior career track that looked like the modern reality of job hopping started in TNE for everyone. Vargr were doing it earlier, as noted, because Vargr.

While Traveller was one of the first games to use the idea of the lifepath it would also eventually learn from later examples and grow out of the "one career and out" model it started as. CT and MT characters had, for most purposes, a class and level. Marine Lt., 5 terms. With TNE and most later editions that changed to become more of a narrative and resume'.

Nothing wrong with that unless you are one of those stingy "skill expansion BAD" types.

>>54920254
Good starts include the MGT1 version of Spinward Marches, and MegaTraveller's Imperial Encyclopedia (which doubles as one of the better equipment books).

>>54920191

Of course it would be Vargr who had carer changes first.

>>54920617
>"skill expansion BAD"
The argument seen most often is that a larger skill list encourages player thoughts of "This is what I can do", while a shorter more general list encourages more "this is what I do WELL".

The problem is that this is localized, subjective, and ultimately bullshit. Players are all different. Game designer overthink IS the cancer slowly strangling gaming.

>>54920711
>The argument seen most often is that a larger skill list encourages player thoughts of "This is what I can do", while a shorter more general list encourages more "this is what I do WELL".

While that's an excellent explanation, many will never understand it. It's like ruling versus rules. It's outside most experiences today.

You also correctly point out that neither is better or worse than the other, they're just different.

>>54920711

I'd advance the argument that larger skill lists make characters weaker. Splitting Engineer up into Engineer (M-Drive/J-Drive/Electronics/Life Support/Power) means now you need five points to match the old character's one. Characters become less capable and a skill point worth less than when skills were broad umbrellas for a variety of jobs.

Eventually this trend winds up with the GM saying "sorry, you can't tie the ship up because you don't have Rope Use(Naval:Dockworker), what you have is Rope Use(Naval:Ship Rigging)" and silliness like that.

>>54918932
What's the key differences between MgT1e and 2e?

>>54920254
Is MgT2e the more widely played edition of the game?

>>54921526
>I'd advance the argument that larger skill lists make characters weaker.

While I agree with that, I can also understand the desire to have more skills and skill points when you're playing a RULES games instead of a RULING game. The difference between rolling and "role-ing" is pretty much the same too.

Classic's Navigation, for example, meant you could plot a jump course AND perform celestial navigation in the surface of a planet - here's the kicker - providing you had the proper equipment on hand.

In an OSR/Rulings game a player and I can that plotting a detailed course across Bumfuck-III that would need a sextant and planetary starcharts which they don't have, so their course isn't going to be as precise as they would like.

In a "modern"/Rules game, the same player would immediately start looking for loopholes until I finally dug out other rules explaining that Navigation is only used for jumps now.

When you start emphasizing die rolling over roleplaying, people are going to want more skills and more skill points.

Anyway, all systems break down at their extremes, just as your Rope Use example showed.

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>>54921748
>What's the key differences between MgT1e and 2e?

PDF created by a kind anon here in this thread.

>>54921748
>Is MgT2e the more widely played edition of the game?

Hard to say. MGT2 is fairly new, MGT1 has a pretty big base by now, and all the third party publishers from MGT1 have jumped ship to Cepheus Engine over the MGT2 licensing changes.

>>54921748
>What's the key differences between MgT1e and 2e?

Many many threads ago, an anon put together a one page sheet listing most of the differences. Hopefully someone has a copy.

>Is MgT2e the more widely played edition of the game?

Hard to say. Very hard in fact. I'd hazard a guess - guess mind you - that 1e is played more often than 2e because existing 1e players could just borrowed what they wanted from 2e and ignore the rest.

Whether MgT is most widely played is also hard to say. It's more visible certainly. Most new players will likely use it, although CE is eating into that. Then there are the "legacy" numbers for older versions.

Traveller is here is mostly MgT. Over at COTI, the biggest numbers are those who've been using their various homebrew versions of Classic for decades. They'll borrow from newr versions, but they aren't going to drop the rules they've been using since Carter or Reagan were president.

TNE has a hard core group too, especially for the wargame side of things. They hang out on their own sites, lists, and forums and could care less about new or old versions.

None of these groups are large in the way 3.5E, Pathfinder, and the like are. Most are dedicated though. Most of the MgT crowd won't stick around because most RPG players don't stick around. Hard core long term Trav groups had been playing something else well before MgT came out. Most borrowed bits and ignored the rest. You'll most likely see MgT slowly meld into the Classic - MegaTraveller - Homebrew mixture many groups use.

>>54889087
Whatever makes a nice character.
I like Support Marine into Merchant Marine or Free Trader.

My favorite character was a 66 Year old Journalist 6 Diplomat 5

Newbie to Traveller, probably gonna play MgT 2e. What are some sourcebooks (or anything else, really) to get my hands on to learn about Traveller lore?

>>54924144
>What are some sourcebooks (or anything else, really) to get my hands on to learn about Traveller lore?

Anon >>54920642 mentioned two good ones; MgT1e's Spinward Marches book and MegaTraveller's Imperial Encyclopedia. Classic has two Library Data books. All in in the Archive.

Now a caution about Traveller canon. (I'm not going to use "lore", I fucking hate the fact that a WarHamster term has infected RPGs.)

There is TOO MUCH Traveller canon. There is 40 years of materials from ~100 writers, several different publishers, several different versions, several magazines, several mileaus, and now several settings. Even the people who get paid to deal with it can barely keep track canon.

There's so much canon you can't use it all. There's so much canon that, if you try to use just a simple majority of it, you, you group, and your game will drown in it.

Read canon, don't memorize it. Get a feel for canon, don't study the trivia. Use only as much as you need and think before adding any more.

Make the game your game.

>>54924144

The other anon gave some good advice, I'd also recommend Agent of the Imperium, in the fiction section. It's mostly set in the core worlds rather than the more popular frontier, but it gives a nice star-hopping view of various parts of the setting and is a pretty great book, too.
Players will probably be more down-in-it than the book's view from on high, but it wouldn't hurt a referee to see the bigger picture like that.

Is there any material for Mongoose Traveller for alien races that aren't anthropomorphic animals? Specifically for K'kree

>>54925252

No. Mongoose hasn't touched the K'kree yet. Hopefully the never will. I don't know if the MgT Zho books touches on the Droyne/Chirpers but I'd guess not.

That being said, all the other resources are in the Archive. You've got all the Classic AMs, which introduce them all, and the GT ARs, which do a great job adding more details and further explaining others.

Unless you planning on K'Kree PCs - and that would be an astoundingly bad idea - you don't MgT rules from them. All you need is the canonical information and fluff.

>>54924144
>Probably going to play 2e
Don't.

>>54924507
What this anon said CAN NOT BE OVERSTATED!

>>54925477
Why not?

>>54926300
see
>>54921846
It's been """Modernized""" and it, aside from a few specific cases, is universally a bad thing.

>>54920254
Remember: classic was written for a particular style of game: on the frontiers of weak and dying empire. It pulls from the old pulps, and stuff like Norton's Star Rangers, and Stubb's (or who evers) Dumarest of Terra, and tons of other stuff where space travel and trade are hard.
That's why the old trade income made it hard to make a profit, let alone make your expenses. You were supposed to adventure to make the payments and maintenance, grab what cargo and passengers you could, maybe grab some widgets you could sell on the next planet, and hope like hell you didn't take a loss.
And in the 77 edition, if you made a run often enough, the slowly expanding shipping companies would take over your run with a trade route they controlled.

>if you made a run often enough, the slowly expanding shipping companies would take over your run with a trade route they controlled.

Cool, I didn't know that

>>54926933
>Remember: classic was written for a particular style of game

Let me fix that for you:

"Remember: classic was ORIGINALLY written for a particular style of game."

That original style of play - which you correctly explained and gave examples - was diagnosed with terminal cancer the day GDW when to see "Star Wars". The style play you're talking about essentially DIED in that movie theater. Not a single copy of the game had been printed yet, let alone sold, and GDW was already thinking about a new direction.

Now, the paste-up and proofs for the first three Little Black Books were already at the printers so no changes could be made. This back when all that stuff was done physically and not in computer files.

LBB 1, 2, and 3 were printed, went out in their Little Black Box, and sold well enough for the already planned army/merc supplement to be written. That sold well enough too, so LBB5: High Guard was green lit and, despite taking two tries to get it right, High Guard caused what is now called "Proto-Traveller' or "4-4-4" to kick the bucket.

Some concepts hung around for a while causing which persist right up to the present, but the Pulp-Norton-Dumerest Traveller was dead and gone conceptually for GDW in 1979.

Of course, that didn't keep folks like you and me from still playing Traveller that way ever since!

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>>54927640
Don't forget that initially Traveller was still pretending to be a lore-less, generic SFRPG. From 1977 to 1980, the game added nuggets of lore only to flesh out whatever Adventure they were selling, much of it created without any concern with how they all fell together. In the 80's, with the popularity & interest in RPGs ascending, GDW began to try to weave it all together into a cohesive whole. You also can't dismiss to contributions of FASA and Judges Guild to help with some of the heavy lifting on the world building. It's that milieu (lore) that is the legacy of the game as rule sets come and go.

>>54928084
>Don't forget that initially Traveller was still pretending to be a lore-less, generic SFRPG. From 1977 to 1980, the game added nuggets of lore only to flesh out whatever Adventure they were selling, much of it created without any concern with how they all fell together.

Pretending, not succeeding. And the word is CANON. Leave "lore" to fucking Warhamster.

While canon came together in almost a sedimentary process than a planned one, the bits GDW added after LBB5 were all big ship, big 3I, big budgets, big trade bits and not the Norton, Dumerest, etc. stuff of old.

>>You also can't dismiss to contributions of FASA and Judges Guild...

Yes you can because their stuff was thrown down the memory hole and decanonized.

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>>54928191
>Yes you can because their stuff was thrown down the memory hole and decanonized.

By the brain surgeon that gave us T4. For it's time, the FASA was both popular and fairly well done. The 4 sector packs that JG produced were VERY nice (covering the areas in between the Imperium and the Two Thousand Worlds) hold up well and let's be honest, GDW and FASA were joined at the hip pre-MegaTraveller.

>>54928327

Anything the Keith brothers wrote is canon, as far as I'm concerned.

>>54928327
>The 4 sector packs that JG produced were VERY nice
Eh. JG was cheap shlock back then, and a lot of it has not aged well. The writer of T20, Hunter Gordon, LOVED the JG Traveller stuff, but with a few exceptions it was merely voluminous.
The sectors JG did have only slightly more detail than the original Spinward Marches book, which is not much.

>GDW and FASA were joined at the hip pre-MegaTraveller.
And the best parts of FASA, the Keith brothers, remained so even after the rest of FASA decided to abandon their license for that oddly successful little game they did called Battletech.
FASA's fingerprints were still all over Traveller as late as TNE.

Cepheus System or The Traveller Book?

Those are the only options entertained, though if someone could pitch MegaTrav as a sensible option, I'd take it.

>>54928327
>By the brain surgeon that gave us T4.

I'm not saying it was right and I certainly don't agree with it. All I'm saying is that it was done.

Like Anon >>54928535 refers too, you're throwing out Keith Bros. stuff? That's insane. There was great 3rd stuff by more than just the Keiths too.

Sky Raiders, Lee's Guide, SORAG, Scouts & Assassins, you name it. All chucked for some stupid reason.

>>54928742
I think Marc Miller is on record stating that the map scramble of T4 was a mistake, but T4 also shifted backwards a thousand years, so the material for the 1100s was not erased.

>>54899552
Cool, a Traveller Lief Ericson. There any stats for it?

>>54928742
Not to mention a metric crap tonne of deck plans for the minis gaming crowd.

>>54928872
>Cool, a Traveller Lief Ericson. There any stats for it?

Sadly, no. Which means you can make some and share with us!

>>54928904
>Not to mention a metric crap tonne of deck plans for the minis gaming crowd.

Don't remind me.
>gnashes teeth and pulls hair.

>>54928738
>Cepheus System or The Traveller Book?

TTB. More familiar to the rules I already use and fewer setting "handcuffs" in the rules.

That being said, if the groups wanted CE I wouldn't even blink.

>>54927640
I'm working on a system hack and TU meant to be sorta like that. The primary difference is the main power exists solely to facilitate trade and is based emergent behaviour. They don't really rule anything, they just distribute their rulebook and have a couple of agencies that do things like run star ports and scout new systems.
They, of course, make a lot of money of off various fees, but they don't stop or fight any wars, or prevent you from building your own pocket empire. Their only military force is to stop people from interfering with TL0 aliens (but you can bilk and uplift the TL1 aliens all you want), and that's it.
The players, of course, have to deal with the scraps of trade the big boys leave behind.

>>54929578
That sounds cool

could you post it for us once it's done, anon?

>>54929966
I've posted a bit before here, the STU stuff, and if you're on TML then I'm the one that asked about adjusting the trade income numbers. Of course, those numbers might drop even more if I go through with almost completely removing the fuel requirements for jump. Not sure what I would replace them with though

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>>54930274
>almost completely removing the fuel requirements for jump. Not sure what I would replace them with though

How about a drive component cool-down period like 2300AD, or Renegade Legion's idea that the crews pick up doses of radiation exposure from traveling through the arcane geometries of jumpspace?

>>54928872
Looks like someone on CotI did that image, along with a key and T4 stats.

Nautilus Blueprint Key
1) Computers, Sensors , Avionics
2) Lab
3) Sickbay
4) Mechanical Shop
5) Electronics Shop
6) Airlock
7) Ships Locker
8) Heavy Laser Turret
9) Cargo Bay
10) Hangar
11) Fuel Purification
12) Engineering
a: Jump
b: Maneuver
c: Power
13) Medium Stateroom
14) Large Stateroom
15) Captains Cabin
16) Gym
17) Bar
18) Lounge
19) Galley/ Food Storage
20) Light Laser Battery
21) Sandcaster Battery
22) Auxiliary Bridge
23) Main Bridge
24) Briefing Room
25) Liquid Hydrogen Fuel
Note: Not all the fuel and electronics are visible in this diagram.
Space above and below the two illustrated decks account for the remainder.

>>54930560
Exploration Cruiser Nautilus
Hull Displacement: 1,500 tonne
Volume: 21,000 m3
Cost: 6262.6 Megacredits
Loaded Weight: 188497 Tonnes
Maximum Acceleration by Structure: 4G
Length: 106.2 M , Width: 25.8 M , Height: 12.7 M
Armour: 20
Power Plant: 2002 MW
Jump 3 (2100 M3 Fuel per parsec)
Maneuver: 2 G Reactionless Thrusters , 2 G Contra-Grav , 1 G HEPLaR
Fuel: 262.5 M3 LHyd (HEPLaR) 2 hour burn
6,300 M3 LHyd (Jump) 1 Jump 3
300.3 M3 LHyd (Power plant) 1 year operation at full output
Fuel Purification : 6862.8 M3 in 29 hours , 24 min. , 43.2 seconds
Has 4 computers: 2 Standard , And 2 Fiber-Optic
Has 6 Large Staterooms , and 12 Standard
Has Gym large enough for 8 , Lounge , Bar , “Playroom” , Briefing Room
Has full Galley, and food storage for 18
Has 5 labs : Biology , Chemistry , Physics , Geology , Archeology & Anthropology
Has a Sickbay
Has a hangar bay for a 100 tonne scout
Has 119 tonnes (displacement) of cargo space, and enough winches and pulleys to handle it.
Has 2 Light Laser Batteries of 3 Turrets each
Has 2 Sandcaster Batteries of 3 Launchers each
Has 2 Heavy Laser Turrets

>>54929966
>That sounds cool

It sure does! It sounds a bit like Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League stories.

>>54930274

Unobtanium. One fairly costly purchase which lasts a fairly long time but which can only be purchased in systems above a certain tech level OR at bases run by you main power.

Imagine getting what you need for a ~year's worth of jumps at all once with the cost being something like a quarter or less of the costs of canonical fuel requirements for all those jumps.

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Re: Using Foss starship designs for an ATU campaign

Would MgT2 or FF&S be a good option for using non-traditional Traveller tech?

Or if I have to make most of it up from scratch, anyway - why not just swipe interesting bits from unexpected places/systems. Has anyone 'lifted' technology material from some of the many OSR space games out there?

>>54930499
>Renegade Legion

Now there's one I've never heard of, unless...is that the SWN related setting thing?

>>54930274
What's TML?

>>54930704
Renegade Legion was a series of boardgames produced by FASA after they did Battletech. The actual rpg was called Legionaire.

>>54930812

I think he means the Traveller Mailing List.

>>54930812

Traveller Mailing List.

It's an email-based discussion group for Traveller. People email the "List" and that mail is sent to all subscribers. Following threads can be hard at first, but various webmail tools help. You can get individual emails as they're sent or sing up for "digests" which combine large numbers of emails.

I don't know how active the TML is now, but it used to be THE place for Traveller on the internet.

The mailing list format was HUGE in the 90s and into the early 00s before forum software became better and most online discussion groups migrated to that format.

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>>54931194

>tfw mailing lists and forums are like shitty versions of usenet

>tfw usenet's never coming back

>>54931229
shame, but the internet has gone mainstream now...

>>54931497
>My question is this, is Mongoose 2e a good one to start with?

That question has been asked and answered in this thread already. In fact, that question is asked and answered in every /tg/ thread.

Just scroll back up and get your answers.

>>54931497
2E is worse than 1, but the best edition of traveller is the one you hack together yourself

>>54931229
>>tfw usenet's never coming back

>>consideirng what usenet was used for, that is a GOOD thing.

>>54931579
but anon, we've still got porn and ERP

>>54931497
Speaking as someone who recently got into Traveller, you're likely going to want to go with a base of primarily MGT1e, but import some bits from MGT2e. +Str to Melee damage, up Anagathics cost SLIGHTLY(I'm talking like, maybe 4000CR per dose or 1d6x5000CR for a term of it), streamlining the skills used, and whatever else you guys find appropriate for your game.

>>54931579
>consideirng what usenet was used for, that is a GOOD thing.

Nah, it all depends on what part of usenet you mean. I guess if you're opposed to piracy, then the binary groups were the devil.
But a lot of great discussion groups existed and are no more. I used to hang in the interactive fiction newsgroup, and the community decision to move to forums split everyone up into different groups and pretty much killed the community that existed off. Only scattered pieces remain.

Plus no forum has ever been as nice and featureful as my old usenet software.

>>54931764
I remember watching rec.games.frp change from lively discussion on a hundred topics at the same time to something akin to the most toxic parts of the chans. That took maybe two years...

>>54932651
>>54931764
But no matter our position, we can all agree to blame AOL.

>>54889087
>>y, Army, Marines, or Scouts, which is the best branch and why?

Well, given how chargen works, it's all a bit of a crapshoot. In classic Traveller, I felt Scout was the best option since it granted you a good mix of space and planet-side skills. However, I had a lot of luck with Army. Unfortunately, you had to deal with a nasty re-enlistment problem.

>>54893717
Nothing wrong with this at all. Saved.

>>54905461
Wow -- I had that model when I was a kid!

>>54939147
I meant from a lore perspective, we all know that lorewise it goes, from best to worst Marines>Scout=Navy>>>>>Army

>>54939147
>Unfortunately, you had to deal with a nasty re-enlistment problem.

Failed or mandatory?

Like you, I rolled up LBB:1 scouts more often than the other careers. Army and Marines came in behind Navy because we rarely played merc games or ran those which emphasized combat.

I did have an Army PC who did very well in Classics' Bright Face DA and others.

>>54944932
But the one on the left looks like cat people? The ears, the nose, the general facial structure, it's got the fur and whisker-like beard, it even has fucking cat claws.

>>54944995

It's the difference between cat-like and just-cats.

>>54944995
Left: alien that vaguely looks like a cat
Right: THUNDERCATS! IN! SPAAACE!

>>54945024
But it's a catlike human in the right and the left?

>>54945182
Are you blind, mate? They look nearly the same.

>>54945264

No, the left is vaguely cat-like, the right just has a cat's head stuck right on a human body. Look at the skull shape, the ears, the structure of the hand. The Aslan on the left has four digits, and a retractable claw that comes out of the base of his palm.
He has some traits that are cat-like, enough that a human looking at him will see it clearly, but there are plenty of differences that show this thing didn't evolve on Earth, and the similarities are coincidental.
(Well technically they're due to convergent evolution -- the Aslan evolved from a large ambush predator that lived on a grassy plains environment somewhat similar to terrestrial savannah.)

>>54945340
>X evolved from
No, anon. Grandfather created everything in the universe because the second-worst race produced the Bug Emperor: No Morals Edition, and he just went on a giant spree of SCIENCE before killing all his children and retreating to a pocket dimension filled with robot waifus to fuck forever.

>>54945539

>implying Grandfather is not a huge liar.

>>54945539
the second-worst race?

what was the first?

>>54945582
K'kree

Other than the music in the OP, does anyone have any good recommendations for Traveller and general sci-fi themed music?

>>54945729

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVVtMViu8f8

>>54945729
For a classical approach to the Third Imperium, look towards ancient Imperial Rome.

Ben Hur - 1959
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dApIMjrn2Vg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzig0qI7SFg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH2X5ThSMlI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax7wcShvrus
Quo Vadis - 1951
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgF_VrdUXJs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmdBcrYeQ9g
King of Kings - 1961
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBXGafftiX8
The Ten Commandments -1956
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EilEV7lZRZ0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjCo-Fsbknw
Spartacus - 1960
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjhlJJukj1E
Cleopatra - 1963
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2BOkin4t_Y

>>54945573
>John Lovits in ill-fitting Doyne costume

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAH, I created everything. Yeah, that's the ticket..."

>>54945650
Space Hipsters

>>54944932
Take your furry art to >>/trash/

>>54947859
It was there already, what with being published by Mongoose.

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>>54948044

>>54947825

The jump drive? Yeah, that was my idea! I let the major races think they'd invented it independently, just to be nice! It's not like I needed the money, because uh... I invented money!

>>54889087
Scouts. stay in take anti-aging drugs. Live forever - until you die.

does Traveller have any kind of...gravity weapons, for lack of a better term? If not, would they be easy to stat?

Man portable I mean, like graviton guns from 40k, as an example

>>54949265
Not really. Small bits of metal going really fast (and sometimes loaded down with explosives) tends to be a better tactical and strategic decision.
The closest you get is the Jumpbreaker missile, which just makes it harder for people to run away.

Would Traveller tech be able to build a gravitic version of Gauss weapons?

>>54949656
Probably, but it'd be hellishly inefficient, so they wouldn't

>>54950288
>>54949656
At some level, that's a Maneuver Drive.

>>54930499
>those high heels

Have any Traveller Anons looked at StarFinder yet? Opinions? I know class/level is already considered dodgy for SF...

>>54958235
>Have any Traveller Anons looked at StarFinder yet? Opinions?

I've yet to read anything about it other than the usual "Pathfinder sucks so it will suck..." That attitude alone makes me want to read a REAL review of it!

>>I know class/level is already considered dodgy for SF...

Yes and no.I'd say. Something pulpy sci-fantasy like Star Wars or Vance's Planet of Adventure almost requires class and levels.

>>54958235
It's from Paizo, anon.

Given that it is, literally, a minimally reskinned version of Pathfinder, a system widely known for it's complete and utter lack of quality, no, it's not worth looking at. It's a D&D, and a modern D&D version at that, derivative, which pretty much automatically means that it's trash at this point.

>>54960708
>Given that it is, literally, a minimally reskinned version of Pathfinder, a system widely known for it's complete and utter lack of quality, no, it's not worth looking at. It's a D&D, and a modern D&D version at that, derivative, which pretty much automatically means that it's trash at this point.

So you've never actually seen it.

>>54960800

It's only just been released, few people have seen it yet. But they've not been exactly coy about what it is, either. They know their fanbase, and so do we. It'd built on 3E D&D, and if you wanted to bet that this 528 page rulebook would be a lightweight game that's fast and easy to play, I would put money against you in a heartbeat.

>>54960923
>they've not been exactly coy

They beig Paizo, to be precise.

>>54960923
>if you wanted to bet

I'm not betting anything. I simply prefer to actually see something before I condemn it.

And ,yes, Paizo, Pathfinder, and the rest have a piss poor track record.

>>54961377
Anon, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result.

Saying that StarFinder will be good is like opening a bag that you've opened every day for the entirety of your life, and every day, it's been filled with shit. Except this time, you think it will be filled with chocolate.

>>54954186
Maybe it's a mecha fashion statement?

>>54958235
It's available now on other chan request threads. Maybe you can find something interesting.

m3g@<dot>nz

STARFINDER CORE RULEBOOK
/#!fN0CwSTJ!wGaVfD3AvBvaEOVg1WymGJyasSCHbiDrnZuhaisk3ps
STARFINDER AP #1 - DEAD SUNS 1
/#!LZdn3Apb!MRPyNtC04BzC99NzKOL3-X7rSc7ozYD8tfoMaBHV-zA

>>54961443
>Anon, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result.

And yet one day the horse may sing.

>Saying that StarFinder will be good

I never said that because I have never seen it. I also never said something I have never seen is bad.

I find it funny that people in the thread which regularly defends Mongoose products despite Mongoose's woeful track record turn around and automatically discount Paizo's products on the basis of Paizo's woeful track record.

Putting it another way: Go to bed, Matthew.

Let's actually SEE Starfinder before we trash it. I'm not expecting anything. All I want to do is see it.

>>54961616

Thanks Anon. The odds aren't good that it will be worthwhile, but it's always better to see.

>>54961661
Buddy, I don't defend Mongoose either. They've fucked shit up good and hard.

But I have ten years of experience with Pathfinder and Paizo. I've participated in their playtests. I've talked directly with their developers. I've been in the community for it across 4chan, GitP, the official forums, Roll20, social media, and other sites. They are, without any doubt, a cancer upon the community, and incapable of producing anything of quality.

>>54961705
>But I have ten years of experience with Pathfinder and Paizo. I've participated in their playtests.

>They are, without any doubt, a cancer upon the community, and incapable of producing anything of quality.

And you were part of that cancerous process for a decade. Good job, Anon. The worlds sucks just a little more thanks to your efforts.

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>>54961661
>the thread which regularly defends Mongoose products

What thread is this, now? 'Cause it ain't these threads. We have this one angry Mongoose fan who's comes in now and then to be mad that folks here are always pickin' on poor ol' Mongoose who never did nuthin' to nobody, but that's about it.

>>54961810

Hey, now, I assumed he tried to make it better, and just had to give up because it's too much for one guy to roll that boulder uphill when everyone else is pushing it down.

>>54961810
No, I actually tried to help unfuck some of the ridiculous bullshit that they've caused.

>>54961860
This, more or less. It literally doesn't matter what point you try to make about it, the entire community for Pathfinder is just astoundingly retarded. The /pfg/ threads are worse than the fucking Quest threads of /sc2g/ on /vg/, and the Paizo boards make Mongoose Apologists look like reasonable people.

Look at this shit: >>54919908

What did mongoose fuck up? I've only recently gotten into Playing Traveller and started with Mongoose and I don't see that many problems with it apart from ship combat

>>54962238

The core rule books are generally fine, but it's when you get to their supplements that it all falls apart. Here, this is entertaining:
http://wanderinggamist.blogspot.com/2012/03/mongoose-traveller-campaign-guide.html

>>54962238
The layout and editing of the books is often extremely sub-par.

There's very often issues with gear being weaker or more powerful than it should be.

Systems for ship creation/vehicle creation are far more confusing than they really need to be.

There will be references to mechanics from other books, without actually referencing the book itself, so if you don't have encyclopedic knowledge of everything, you'll sometimes have no idea where the hell something is from.

a couple indy Traveller conversions you may find interesting

twerveller
http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/lHZGSBbj/file.html
Two-Page Space RPG
http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/Mh46Yh3x/file.html
Character Traits
http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/7lHUukTy/file.html
TFT-Traveller
http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/7JlQ9aIu/file.html
TFT Basic Starships Ver2.1.1.1
http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/ZyXrwIFA/file.html

Does anyone have any ships that include floorplans, preferably for Mongoose 1e? My GM needs some help with that, but I'm not quite sure where to search for it. I'll start combing archives, but help would be appreciated, please.

>>54964875
Mongoose 1e has two books full of smaller ships with plans.

>>54965172
Yes, and I'm talking about more outside of that. I've already found a decent bit and I'll be compiling lists for people here.

>>54912939
First off, unless you're doing some serious houseruling to get away from any semblance of the Third Imperium setting, don't bother using the science from Atomic Rockets. It's interesting, but this isn't the game for it. Go get Jovian Chronicles if you want to do that.

There's sections in there all about trade, piracy, empire, history, colonization, and other such topics. Somewhere in there is shit you haven't thought of, so steal that.

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>>54965645
>this isn't the game for it

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

>>54966061
That's not the Third Imperium, either...

does a traveller 5 pdf with bookmarks exist?

>>54889776
What system is this designed for?

>>54962349
Anon is right, most supllements just don't hold any standarts.

Central supply catalouge and high guard are your best bets for something that adds to your game.

i can also reccomend the 3rd party robot book, it's a little rough around the corners but works.

>>54961661
My fucking gods. The setting assumptions are straight up baked in, with the names and everything... At least Traveller gave us a brief talk of the setting before getting into the rules.
And you don't see any explanation of what the hell the setting is until almost the end of the book, and even there it feels a bit poorly explained.
In fact, it is the second to last chapter, and the last is just conversion notes.
I'm... It feels like they stripped the dangers from 40k's warp, then removed all the cool stuff from dragonstar, and mixed the two together with the stereotypes of bad pulp.
And added magic, because caster supremacy.

>>54961843
It's just that people have become aware of mongoose practices and came to the conclusion that they do not like it.

>>54967091
Mongoose Traveller 2e.

>>54968802
That's good because all I have are Core rule book, High guard, and Central supply catalogue

I'm really not trying to start an edition war here, and I'm only asking this because it seems like a few different editions of the game are popular, much like other systems. As a newbie to Traveller, what edition is recommended? Part of me wants to learn Mongoose 2e due to it being more recent, but I'm open to suggestions.

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>>54971162
Play Classic, mon
It'll put hairs on your chest
Seriously though it couldn't be simpler for newbies to pick up, there's a mass of published material for it, and you can avoid all this Mongoose grief in the first place

>>54971162

No problem. Traveller is surprisingly resistant to edition wars, it's certainly nothing like the frothing rage you get with D&D.

The most popular editions are Classic and Mongoose 1e/2e. There's also the Cepheus Engine, a MGT1e clone that's swiping all of Mongoose's third party publishers -- Mongoose's licensing terms were changed in 2e to basically screw third party folks, and they're all dumping Mongoose as a result.

The best edition, though, is the one you assemble yourself by stealing the bits you like from all the other editions. It's been a Traveller referee tradition since they released Megatraveller and most of the fanbase hated the setting changes and the new ship combat.

>>54971232
>>54971260
I'll look into Classic and maybe run a short campaign to get the feel for the system, and maybe look into the more recent editions afterwards. Thanks, anons.

I also skimmed through the thread and noticed people recommended the Imperial Encyclopedia and Library Data (but it looks like the latter are included in the former), so I grabbed those. Any other recommendations for sourcebooks with interesting or nigh mandatory bits of fluff to read up on?

>>54971162

Your "question" has already been asked and answered in this thread. In fact, it was asked twice and the 2nd Anon who asked was so embarrassed for repeating the question they deleted their question.

Scroll back up to >>54918517 read the 1st your "question" along with all the answers. You'll even find a pdf listing the major changes between MgT1e and 2e which should answer your next "question".

Your "question" is asked in every /tg/ and it should be asked. Whether it should be asked multiple times in the same thread is another issue.

>>54971355

This site collects quotes and things about the Third Imperium from all over and assembles them nicely:

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


The rest of the site has some neat stuff too:
https://www.prismnet.com/~thrash/

>>54971406

No need to be salty, anon. It's not like he was interrupting a heated conversation or anything. What do you prefer, a redundant question now and then, or to have the thread roll off the board again because nobody's posting? I know which one I find preferable.

Besides, asking a second time is liable to get different responders, with their own opinions. Never the same river twice and all that.

>>54971505
>What do you prefer, a redundant question now and then

Now and then? It happens in every thread. Multiple times in every thread.

Asking once a thread is fine. Asking again because you can't be arsed to quickly scroll through a thread of only ~200 posts is something else. At least the first Anon who repeated the question in this thread had the decency to be embarrassed and deleted his post.

As for your weak "different responders" excuse, has anyone even recommended T4? Or TNE, T20, or GT? It's always MgT1e & 2e, Classic, CE, or some mixture of them. The question is the same, the responses are the same, the recommendations are the same.

So why repeat them 2, 3, or 4 times each thread?

>>54971645

Why not? We're not running out of space. When was the last time the thread actually hit bump limit anyway?
And the edition recommendations may be the same, but the recommendations on what to read and where to steal stuff from changes every time.

If it's so easy for other people to scroll up, why is it so hard for you to scroll down?

>>54971645

Hey, if it irritates you so much, why don't you write up a FAQ and put it on pastebin. Then we can just direct people to that.

>>54971232
About those hairs on my chest, mind to tell me which document in the classic folder is the crb ?

>>54971260
>Traveller is surprisingly resistant to edition wars
Quite a lot of the older online community for Traveller had their knock-down-drag-out when TNE came out in the early 90s, and are not interested in seeing a repeat. TNE still gets a lot of venom for being the edition that "killed the setting" (even though MT did that) and had wonky tech that no "expert" could accept (which is now increasingly possible), but the TNE folks generally have their own enclaves and let the frothing CT apologists take the heat for hating on other editions in much the same way a WWII vet still hates Japs and Eye-Ties.

>>54971910

Classic has a couple of different editions. CT77 is the original pre-Star Wars small ship universe one. A little rough around the edges, but very cool.
CT81 is a later release that has some fixes and changes. The Traveller Book is CT81 collected, more or less.
Starter Traveller was intended as a lightweight introductory version, like Basic D&D. It strips things down in places to reduce complexity. The ship combat is worth stealing, since it makes that work a lot like man-to-man combat does.

In general, The Traveller Book is probably the best go-to for core rule book.

Also grab Rule 68A, which beautifully explains how to run skill checks, or alternately one of the other available skill systems. DGP's Universal Task Profile was so popular back in the day that it became part of core in Megatraveller. The UGP is a modern take that has some fans, too.

Other good stuff to grab: Traders and Gunboats for the ships you're most likely to run into, Citizens of the Imperium (extra careers, yay!), Library Data if you're keen on using any of the official universe stuff, and 76 Patrons (drop-in plot hooks).

If you like minis and grids, get Snapshot from the games modules. It basically converts CT's combat system to work on a grid instead of range bands.

>>54971989
>Quite a lot of the older online community for Traveller had their knock-down-drag-out when TNE came out in the early 90s, and are not interested in seeing a repeat.

That was absolutely horrible. The TML was almost unreadable until the subscribers running TNE split off into their own list The Dark Tower. It was the internet at it's worst.

>>TNE still gets a lot of venom for being the edition that "killed the setting" (even though MT did that)

MT killed the setting, but TNE killed the SYSTEM. It just wasn't Virus wiping out Charted Space. It was that AND the GDW House System wiping the Classic/MT system everyone had been using for so long.

You could mix & max, borrow this, and ignore that across all the CT versions and MT. TNE flushed that all away. There was no way to integrate TNE with what had come before. You either had to drop the one you'd been using for years or ignore the one which GDW would now be supporting and publishing. Definitely a Lose-Lose situation and one which helped GDW die.

>>54972126
>CT77 is the original pre-Star Wars small ship universe one.

The weird thing is that CT77 was essentially dead before it was even printed. GDW has sent the final galley proofs to the printer, went to see Star Wars, and immediately began thinking about how they wanted to change the sci-fi RPG they'd just written! The booklet hadn't even been printed yet and they were already obsolete in GDW's mind. It took a couple of years but by '79 and HG2, the CT77 universe was gone.

>Also grab Rule 68A, which beautifully explains how to run skill checks

Excellent advice.

>>54971762
>Hey, if it irritates you so much, why don't you write up a FAQ and put it on pastebin. Then we can just direct people to that.

Because lazy shits will still ask instead of using the pastebin link in the OP. Look at the latest scut for example.

He admits skimming the thread when he asks for more canon sources than MT's IE and Classic's LD booklets. Yet he still asked a question which had been asked twice before.

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>>54973064

So you're just raging against what you see as the inevitable? Sounds like a recipe for pointlessly stressing yourself out, anon. Let it go, it's not actually important, you know.

>>54973628
>So you're just raging against what you see as the inevitable?

While it's inevitable that they'll ask, it's not inevitable that we answer.

When one of them asks for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or whatnot time in a thread, you tell them to scroll up for the answers. There's no need to coddle these lazy shits under some pretense of politeness because the more we do that the lazier they become.

>>54973819
>the more we do that the lazier they become.

That's a slippery slope, though, anon. There's no reason to believe that being nice to this newbie will somehow cause future newbies to be more new than the previous ones. Would it be nice if they checked the earlier part of the thread? Sure. But 218 posts is a lot to skim, and I'm still not seeing what the problem is supposed to be other than you have a pet peeve and want to gripe about it.
If you're really so worried about it, just make a FAQ already, it'd be way more productive than the pointless bitching you're doing now.

>>54973975
>But 218 posts is a lot to skim

No it isn't because he skimmed them before he asked.

Quit defending fuckwits. All it does is create more fuckwits.

>>54974564

>Quit defending fuckwits. All it does is create more fuckwits.

How does that work? I mean, you're here, yet you're obviously not reproducing.

But seriously, what is the darkest timeline here? That people keep asking questions over and over, and other people keep answering them? So what? That's what the thread's for.

>>54974815
>How does that work?

When you reward a behavior, you get more of that behavior. Sort of like how all those special uncles your single mother brought home taught you how to suck cock with the help of Kit-Kat bars. Remember?

Write a pastebin and they won't read it. Answer the question once, twice, ten times and they'll ignore it. They will never read and they will continue to ignore UNLESS we stop playing the sap and answering their questions.

Posting "Scroll up. Already answered" or "Read the pastebin" is better in the long run.

>>54974988
>When you reward a behavior, you get more of that behavior.

Only on single persons. New people can't learn the lessons taught to previous visitors, because they're new. Trying to get newbies to stop asking questions that have previously been asked is a waste of time.

I'm sorry the thread isn't operating in a cold, orderly, unfriendly but efficient manner, and that causes your autism to flare up. Perhaps you'd like to try a different forum, where your pet peeves will be given the respect they don't deserve.

>>54975060
>Trying to get newbies to stop asking questions that have previously been asked is a waste of time.

It works in the PDF Share Thread. When they ask, new people are directed to an explanation of the "scrambled" links in the OP.

>I'm sorry the thread isn't operating in a cold, orderly, unfriendly but efficient manner, and that causes your autism to flare up.

Would you like a Kit-Kat bar?

>>54975933

>It works in the PDF Share Thread. When they ask, new people are directed to an explanation of the "scrambled" links in the OP.


So like I said, write a FAQ, and we'll put it in the OP. Do something constructive instead of just bitching.

>Would you like a Kit-Kat bar?

I'm not the one flipping his shit because a couple of posts were kinda repeated in this thread..

>>54975933
>It works in the PDF Share Thread

Waaaait, are you also the obnoxious guy who was bitching in the PDF share thread a while back that newbies are always asking for stuff without looking in the archive first? The one who got ridiculed for being a dick, and everyone decided to ignore you and just keep helping people because that's what the share thread is for?
If so, then wow, you're a drag in two threads.

>>54976137
>Waaaait, are you also the obnoxious guy who was bitching in the PDF share thread

Not me. I just saw what everyone being on the same page could achieve.

>>54975985
>I'm not the one flipping his shit because a couple of posts were kinda repeated in this thread..

So, you don't want a Kit-Kat?

Interservice Rivalry edition indeed...
Now, let's see what somebody gets from this: E866872-3 no bases
Trade route, 1 parsec, to a Class A port.

So I've never played traveller before, vie got a lot of the books, even rolled up a few characters, but haven't convinced my group to try it. Anyone got any cool campaign stories for inspiration?

>>54976336
>So, you don't want a Kit-Kat?
I'd kinda like one.

>>54976772
huh?

>>54976772
>Now, let's see what somebody gets from this: E866872-3 no bases
>Trade route, 1 parsec, to a Class A port.

Ooooh... interesting... What's the nearby world with the Class A port like?

At first glance I'm seeing a colony-in-all-but-name. Standard size, standard atmo, 60% ocean, hundreds of millions, balkanized so lots of givernments, and local TL for flintlocks, sailing ships, waterwheels, clocks, etc.

I see the world with the class A port keeping the place divided and squabbling while the loot the place with lop-sided trade agreements. They may even control certain local nations indirectly like the UK did in India with the Princely States under the Raj; i.e. to local head bozo gets to live in the laps of luxury while a civil service headed by foreigners runs everything from tax collections to roads/railways to monopolies on staples like salt.

How about this one?

B330525-8 No bases, no gas giants.

Closest worlds, four of them, are two parsecs off and none have Class A ports.

Closest trade routes, two of them, are three parsecs off and both have Class A ports.

>>54979117
Small mining outpost, possibly asteroid mining. Local shipyard to build and maintain the mining craft. Class B ports have refined fuel, which (if locally produced) would come from ice deposits (polar ice caps, comets, etc).

>>54980245
Possibly a relatively new settlement, with hopes to improve in the future. Getting more settlers/miners, improving the local tech level, etc.

One problem, however, is the system can only produce its own reaction drives. The TL isn't good enough to produce a TL9 1-G maneuver drive. Using 2e MgT it can, however, produce one at 500% the normal cost with 1 disadvantage. There isn't much call for their shipyard services (yet) and they can't mine a whole lot (much of the material may go into improving the local infrastructure, trying to build it up). So they haven't made it onto the local trade routes yet.

>>54980245
>>54980509
Apparently, I messed up something. They have more people than I though. They wouldn't need more people, but are probably still focusing on improving the local TL in order to get their newly upgraded starport to full functionality.

>>54980245
>>54980509
>>54980568

It's Gramecy/Ultima/Spinward Marches.

Here's one "wiggle" I've used for decades now regarding starports: CAN build doesn't equate MUST build. Once that "Build Build Build, Yards Yards Yards" tunnel vision is addressed, you open your descriptions up lots of additional opportunities.

Gramercy is a "truck stop". It's Lodi, CA or Miles City, MT. It's a backwater system handling what little crossing trade is produced by two separate trade routes/groups which produce little direct trade for each other. Look at:

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/images/3/33/Solomani_Rim_Sector.pdf

The Ultima subsector is the upper left one and Gramercy sits smack dab in the center. It's just a refueling stop for servicing what little trade passes directly between Thamber and Basil.

No new settlement as the Rim has been settled for thousands of years. No improving the local TL as its a fucking truckstop on a desert world. No need to BUILD mining craft (It can but in both Classic and MgT but at a steep price increase.) Plenty of reasons to REPAIR the mining craft keeping the raw fuel reaching the port's refinery. Most of 500K were born to people who were sent to work there and decided for whatever reason to stay. The feed themselves, have some light TL8 industry, and most everything else is shipped in to service the ships passing through.

When you remember that CAN doesn't equate MUST, you create a lot of options.

>>54979055
A3359D8-D, Scout, TAS, Consultate
Trade routes (Clockwise)
1 - 4 (ED-B-C (3 no world 5 B)
2 - 3 (?)
3 - 2 (?)
4 - 1 (?A)
Don't want to map out the rest of the trade routes.

>>54981686

Hmmm... Hi-pop, Hi-tech, and quite nasty.

Billions on a planet the size of Mars rules by a religious dictatorship? It's the 800lb gorilla of the region too, both militarily and economically.

I'd make it home of the "Nasties" in my campaigns or settings. They swing a big stick, push other systems around, control some outright, control others by deniable means, and generally stick their noses in wherever they want. They'd make a great faction in SWN's faction system.

Is it an OTU world?

>>54986144
>Skirts in Space

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

how big are traveller ships? like, the big capital ships? hundreds of crew? thousands? millions? I ask because 'ship big enough to qualify as a stellar nation/a planet in it's own right' is a really cool theme

>>54984700

Battle for the Planet of the Apes. The Alpha-Omega ICBM in the background is a cobalt salted warhead the mutant humans worship. One of those "So bad it's good" bits of sci-fi.

>>54986144

Not a skirt per se. A belted tunic with leggings instead. Still, it's fan service.

>>54988058

Good old pulp.

>>54989970

They get up to tens of thousands of crew for the big ones, maybe a hundred thousand or so, by the time Megatraveller rolled around.

>>54989970
Depends on the type and size. The 200000 ton Kokirrak battleships have 4330. The 500,000 ton Tigress class dreadnoughts, while not the largest ships in the Imperial navy, have almost 9000.

However, no Travellership would hve enough crew to qualify as a nation or planet in its own right. A decent size small city, maybe, for the largest ones.

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>>54989970
>how big are traveller ships?

Here's a size comparison chart for some of Traveller's more iconic designs and other ships you may be familiar with.

There are other larger ships in canon, ships which are mentioned rather than statted out. For example, a "million dTon" fleet tender once carried a planetoid monitor between two systems in the Marches.

The largest ship I can think of off hand is the Sky Raider's/Leoskalth's asteroid generation ship. It was capable of jump1, but crossed the Great Rift at STL speeds to avoid detection and capture by the Vilani. That ship carried a nation aboard, whose succeeding generations chose to raid lower TLs cultures instead of producing what it need (hence the name), and which eventually slipped into civil war and barbarism.

The ship itself is in deep space in the Far Frontiers sector slowly moving along a vector while the various populations aboard live as peasants in the agriculture spheres without even knowing they're on a ship.

>>54990352

Just as a follow up, I dug out my copy of the Sky Raiders trilogy. First, I misspelled the HMR's name. It's Loeskalth, not Leoskalth.

The asteroid is 10km x 8 km x 7.5km and displaces "just under 50 billion tons standard". It had enough fuel for three successive one parsec jumps, mostly in the form of ice. It also had a M-drive for the STL trip to cross the Great Rift. The M-drive was powered for "just under a year" and turned off. The ship traveled for 300 years until the M-drive was used to decelerate. With the M-drive off, fuel use was "about 1%" of normal consumption. There was enough fuel onboard for the M-drive to run for "just under fiver years".

The asteoid isn't the spinning hollow cylinder type with people living on the inner surface. Instead the ship has thousands of interconnected modules of a simple repetitive design. The speed at which the ship had to be constructed is said to be the reason for that. There are control, industrial, agricultural, power, docking, and surface module honeycombed through the asteroid connected by access tubes and shafts.

The access tubes and shafts are in vacuum and zero-gee which limits the Loesklath survivors' abilities to explore their "world".

There are large open faceted chambers several km across. Each of those chamber's inner "facets" is a large pentagonal shaped field several km across with an ag module "beneath" it. Each facet has it's own gravity so at the boundaries you can carefully step from one to the other.

Most of those chambers hosts it's own society and sometimes more than one. Just how advanced those societies are and just how much they know about the ship or even if they're on a ship varies.

Anyway, you find this in the Archive in the CT/FASA folder.

>>54981836
nope. I just pulled everything out of my ass.

>>54991258

Be that as it may, it's still interesting.

>>54991177
Holy shit that sounds cool...

>>54991466
It often is - I'm usually tempted to fudge the dice a bit.
Hey, if you got the MT World Builder's Handbook, then religious profile 845535B for that Class A theocracy.

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>>54981686
StarBase is a bit weird. But here's a trade map, on a J4 map, and we only have two UWPs.
Center port: A3359D8D-D S T C
Suppressed Port E866872-3

>>54992520

For everyone who hasn't looke at WHB in the Archive's MT folder, here's what the numbers mean for that religion:

God View - (8) Remote monotheism
Spiritual Aim - (4) - Reincarnation by personal choice
Devotion Required - (5) - Several days per week
Organization - (5) - Loose hierarchy w/central authority
Liturgical Formality - (3) - Services conducted by rote in holy tongue few understand
Missionary Fervor - (5) - Active but intolerant of other sophont races
Number of Adherents - (B) - 100 billion, so everyone on the world and other worlds besides.

>>54992870

Great work, Anon. It looks like you've the start of a nasty pocket empire with which to bedevil the players. Among other things, look at how most of the trade in that cluster is arranged to flow through Center.

We want enough independent worlds to make the setting fun, so what's kept Center from simply invading, occupying, or otherwise controlling every world on the map? Let's take a page from the OTU for that.

The religion on Center is about reincarnation, right? Let's make it so you can't reincarnate if you don't die on Center. (Dulinor & Dlan in the OTU have something similar going on.) That limits the number of troops, spacers, bureaucrats, etc Center can dispatch off-world to whatever non-believers can be hired/conscripted. So, while numbers alone make Center the local 800lb gorilla, the worlds around it are relatively free because the Centerites are literally homebodies.

Because it's low tech and balkanized, Suppressed can be controlled by Center with relatively little manpower much like the UK in India during the Raj. Most of the other worlds are somewhat tougher thanks to higher TLs, fewer governments/rulers to bribe, etc. Of course, there are exceptions because exceptions are fun!

>>54889087
Is there a discord invite that works? Never heard of this but it sounds awesome

>>54994551
https://discord.gg/znUPWT

>>54993142
This is great.
I'll pop up a better map tomorrow. Might as well make it a 4-subsector map, get some great context for everything.

>>55000270

Excellent news and thanks for all your work so far. I saved that 1st map and hand rolled some UWPs during the ballgame just for shits & giggles.

Four subsectors is kinda big, don't you think? What do we always suggest to new Traveller groups? Keep things small, right? Why not start with "just" a 8x10 subsector or, better yet, a "big" hex centered on Center with a 4 or 5 hex radius? Plenty of worlds and adventure in that amount of space.

Let's also hold off on marking any trade routes until we know the ports in each system. Then we can roll them up using the table in CT77. That table produces some nice results that can really get your imagination perking!

What sysgen do you want to use? CT81? TTB? MT? I like to start simple with "straight' UWPs and then add belts, GGs, bases, and whatnot later.

is it wrong to Travellerise a SWN sector and use that?

>>55002293

Why yes, anon, the RPG police will kick down your door and drag you away to the cross-rpg gulag!

But really, it's your game, do what works for you.

>>55000515
AH, it's a little trick I do: I roll only for the presence of the Star, GG, and port. (since port doesn't really need any world data). Then I pick an interesting looking cluster, or something, and then start doing the trade routes with the 77 table. Then I pick the center world for the J4 to J6 map, and roll the UWPs for those worlds.
Having trade routes that go off the map edge really helps with the sense of smallness, doesn't it?

>>55006194

I like that system. It's pretty close to what I do.

Because I like non-OTU or "OTU is way over there" settings, I usually roll up UWPs to get TLs and then cap trade route lengths with the max TL for the region. (The TLs for LBB:2 letter drives are list in the TLs charts of LBB:3)

If the setting is meant to be "somewhere in/near the OTU" I'll hand fit a J4 megacorp route or three while still capping loical routes to local TL.

And, yes, having routes that leave the map gives a sense of the cluster being "connected" to something bigger. Smallness is relative. GDW wrote how a subsector or two could provide years of play and they were absolutely right. Big maps tend to have the players zipping around doing nothing while the game turns into a long boring road trip; i.e. "We refuel, we refuel, we refuel and buy snacks..."

Give me a small cluster and a half dozen worlds to lovingly detail and the players won't want to leave.

>>55002293

Like >>55005318 said, Traveller and SWN blend very well. I began using SWN's Faction system the minute I saw it to create "living" backgrounds for my players' campaigns.

Use what works for you. Use whatever works for you. Make the game your game.

>>55007961
I still do the J4 routes, but I always run my routes through the systems on the route - I usually get the J4 routes down to no more than J2, and usually they just need J1s to get there.
I'm trying something new too: once I get my first cluster connected, I'll build the J4 maps of every Class A port in there. Then I'll drop it back to the first cluster, but with government borders and incoming trade routes.
>>55008719
I'll have to look into that too, I also heard some good things about their cultural tags system.

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>>54988726
>dissing on skirts in space

>>55009109
>I still do the J4 routes

I dial them back in much the same way you do, I just don't refer to them as J4 routes anymore. Looking at your great map, Center to 507:503 would be a J3 route - one jump at jump3. Center to 500:504 could be J4 despite there being smaller routes in it.

>>I'll build the J4 maps of every Class A port in there.

Agreed. Given Center's TL, J4 must be in general use.

>I'll have to look into that too, I also heard some good things about their cultural tags system.

The Faction system operates on a longer turn than actual play, monthly or quarterly. Factions can range from local hegemons to trading corps to criminal gangs to religions to whatever. They all have goals, ratings, and assets. They all then can compete, ignore, react, attack, etc. each other in various ways. SWN presents the system as a way to create encounters and adventures. While I use it that way too, most of what it produces becomes "news" the players hear rather than opportunities and/or threats.

It provides a nice continuity: i.e. The stuff happening now is because of the stuff which happened earlier.

SWN's cultural tags are like WBH's cultural quirks, just more broadly applied. They make a great starting point for describing a system; detailed enough to give you direction while vague enough to allow you wiggle room.

>>55009399
Probably could've cut the J4 map down to a J1 or J2, considering I just wanted some trade routes going off the map, but now I know the entire cluster is served by one or two J2 chains. Off the beaten path indeed.

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Ah, here we go. Cropped and erased down to just the original J4 map. Note the three J3 routes - those are probably run by a few ships each.
Hexlein, our center world, is the theocracy.
I'll post a map key pretty soon, I have a numbering system I use for these maps.

>>55009635
>Probably could've cut the J4 map down to a J1 or J2, considering I just wanted some trade routes going off the map, but now I know the entire cluster is served by one or two J2 chains. Off the beaten path indeed.

I ran a multi-year campaign much like that back around 2008. The cluster was called the "Clot", first as an insult than as a badge of pride. It was roughly 2 subsectors in size but not shaped like subsectors. It was shaped like a pork chop; "thin" on one end growing into a "bulge" on the other and surrounded by a "moat' of empty hexes 8 or 9 parsecs thick. It was basically the OTU Islands re-imagined.

The 3I had an important military/commercial J4 route passing through the edge of thin end and touching on 2 systems there. The 3I only wanted that route safe and didn't give a fuck about the rest of the Clot. They had a client state the route passed through they backed (up to a point).

The client state thought they were the kings of the Clot while everyone else loathed them. There was a small former pocket empire which had been slapped down by the 3I at the client state's insistence. It had fractured into several factions based in various systems. One, the original capital, was gunning for the client state anyway it could and another would sell anything to anyone.

Way at the other end of the Clot was a "hermit kingdom" of psions. No one knew they were psions and they wanted to keep it that way. There was an alien race no one knew too much about which caused problems sometimes. There was a hi-pop balkanized world which had originally been a flash point between the pocket empire and client state. The nations and companies there were buying J1/J2 ships to start exploring/exploiting the systems around them. Finally most of the Clot was made up of the Scatters; lots of systems haphazardly explored, never settled, and hosting various short term resource and research outposts. The saying went "No peace in the Scatters".

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>>55009925
Here's the map key for hex numbers, starting with 0/0 for the center hex, format as Jump/number, numbers start at coreward tip and go clockwise.

>>55009954
Nice, I might steal some of that for the STU.
ALthough, funny thing, with the way that the most recent long night locked everyone out of jump space for a couple of centuries and physically rearranged the galaxy in the span of a week, it didn't stop psions after the great shuffling (which might or might not have pulled worlds from both the past and the numerous possible futures) from using any space-folding talents. One area stayed connected because a church that trained psions discovered this and took advantage of the 50 or so psions who had the talent.

>>55009925

Really busy. We got to cut down those routes.

>>55010069

Nice ideas. I'm going to stea^^^^ - ahem - "borrow" some of that.

That Clot setting wasn't invented out of whole cloth. I started with the players on the hi-pop balkanized world being hired for a trade/exploration mission and maybe two "shells" of hexes surrounding. All the rest just developed as the campaign progressed.

>>55010094
Alright, let's kick around some ideas for that.
>cut the J3's
TL's can be cut down to allow just the J2 drives, or they can be restricted enough to not be relevant to trade.
>cut routes to class E's down to just one
A single trade route will dominate almost all of the exports that can flow through an E.
>Reroll basically all of those Class B ports
They can build a lot of trade routes by themselves.
>Cut some trade routes out for political reasons
Probably the most reasonable - if you really hate your neighbor, you don't want anybody building a path through your fence into his yard, no matter how much money either will give you. You just know that smarmy bastard is up to something...

>>55010200
>Alright, let's kick around some ideas for that.

CT77's table. Roll the UWPs, get the ports, roll for routes. Easy peasy. If anything looks too screwy, you either add one or come for reasons (politics) why not.

>>55010297

Forgot to say this; the CT77 table produces SCHEDULED routes. You can go to the port and buy passage along that route like booking an ocean trip in 1900.

Systems without scheduled routes or systems not linked by scheduled routes are serviced haphazardly by tramps, charters, etc. Cue the players.

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>>55010297
Guess what I did. I prefer rolling for ports first, since those effect TL, and they aren't based on anything else in the UWP.
I just had a lot of trade routes because I rolled a lot of class B ports.
Anyways, here's me cutting down on the routes. It actually forces a lot more trade through Hexlein, making them quite the economic powerhouse - no matter how much their neighbors are trying to bypass their position.

>>55010381

Looks very good. Very good indeed. It also explains why our Hexleinites hold so much power despite being afraid to leave their planet for religious reasons.

We need to address why, if jump4 is available, worlds like 1208 and 1606 aren't trading directly with each other. At jump4, for example, 2008, could trade with 1208 via 1606 and leave Hexlein out of the picture.

Should we dial back the TL?

>>55010462
>>Should we dial back the TL?

Or should only Hexlein have jump4 (and maybe even jump3) tech? A technology they won't sell?

>>55010462
>>55010502
Well, since I cut all J3 routes (that was a J4 route made up of a J1 and a J3 before I cut it), we can dial back the overall TL to allow J2, with Hexlein keeping the J3 tech for themselves and nobody having J4.

I'm also throwing a bit into the Hexlein religion: a few sects allow reincarnation off the holy world for true believers (such liberals have moved off planet), others allow you to reincarnate if you carry a blessed vial of the holy world's dirt that is taken back after you die (typical for those who trade), some allow it if you leave a finger buried at home (typical for soldiers), and still others have built last rites that allow you to reincarnate, but your soul attaches to a friend and they have to transport you back home (the oldest sect that allows it, back when the religion stated that you only reincarnate within a certain distance from our place of birth).

>>55010670
So this means the highest is TL12 at Hexlein, with all the other class A's being TL11/10.

>>55010670

Excellent, simply excellent. So the religion isn't monolithic but has orthodox, liberal, reformed, and other sects within it. Orthodox predominates, but the others are large enough to give Hexlein some off-world "muscle".

Don't forget too that the religion's "size" is larger than Hexlein's population so there believers on other world(s).

1/04 Yano Alpha - B310322-B
1/05 Borda Alpha - B779A98-B

There's a plot point: Borda versus Yano.
See, when Hexlein turned into a theocracy, they did something to piss Borda off. Borda responded by canceling all trade routes to them. Hexlein responded with an embargo, and sent off long term agents to Lala. Their goal: take over a shipping corporation and turn the then uninhabited world of Yano Alpha into a suitable port (as New Geheris was also looking at withdrawing from their trade agreements). The plan worked, even if the 3450 employee-citizens of the port have since voted themselves into a single union and cast off the shackles of corporate slavery - those port fees and income belong to Yano!
With no traceable ties of origin to Hexlein, (other than slightly higher port fees, which does not seem like a kickback) Borda is okay with them - despite William Alpha's (C000925-9) saber rattling over being next door to an apparent communist/socialist regime (they don't care about any of the differences).
Currently, Borda is involved in a covert war with Hexlein - their attempts to upgrade their port into a Class A by including the capacity to natively build and install Jump Drives keep getting sabotaged. Some of the timing leads many to suspect that Hexlain has developed J3 drives, and is keeping them a state resource.

>>55012118
Changing William Alpha to C000915-9: it's a corporate world, like shadowrun in space.

The priests of Hexlein have their own odd customs: here's six from the WBH, if you get any ideas for what the details are, speak up.
>special privileges prohibited for low rank priests
Does this mean that high ranking ones get special privileges? What ranks do they have?
>Hidden tattooing
Oh nice, I can work with that. An open secret on how the upper rank priests identify themselves?
>Eat only certain ways
Not sure what to do with this one either, but a particular order to the meal, as a spiritual exercise? Possible
>Minimal quarters for higher ranks
A counterpoint for the privileges? What indicators can I give for a corrupt priest? A fabulous church? (okay, I like that one)
>Unusual significance of water
Hm... the context on this one is going to be interesting...
>Anonymity required
All members of the priesthood ceremonially lose their family name, and all family, and take new names. I'll add
>unusual headgear: masks
and combine it with
>unusual significance of water
to create
>All members of the priesthood are legally a new person, with their old identities legally drowned (in the old ways, any birth records were also destroyed with water). They are forbidden from contact with their former friends and family in the strictest sects, but even the most liberal sects require the constant wearing of the traditional full-face mask in public. Most require the mask to be worn even in private, excepting only when the priest sleeps.
>Their new names are given to them by their ordaining superior, who usually lets them select the personal name, but the surname is generated from their old last name and birth parents first names, with the holy prefix "Den". Children of priests (provided that they were not born to the now dead person the priest was) are raised from birth to be priests themselves.
>this is far kinder (cont)

>>55015189
>(cont) this is far kinder than expecting a child who grew up surrounded by people in masks to handle a society where people don't cover their face.

>>55015189
>>55015197
Now, to work on the tattooing...
Patterns of transmission of investiture? Unique identifiers?
Hobbies? Symbols of your previous life? Anything the priest wants?
I like them all - the idea of the tattoos being the expression of the hidden individual, the heritage of investiture, the history of the dead, and the priestly fingerprint (other than whatever pattern they put on their masks if they want), really appeals to me. Of course, it's hidden tattooing because the priest is supposed to be anonymous to the public. They're not supposed to be a person, they're supposed to be a conduit to God.
Or something like that.
Oh, and
>Progressiveness: Conservative/Stagnant
>Aggressiveness: Competitive/Militant
>Extensiveness: Discordant/Friendly
pop multiplier: 8

I decided to change Hexlein's UWP
A7359D8-C Hi In
It is also the 8th satellite of the gas giant that occupies the habitable zone of its binary system, sitting some 80D into the gas giant's well, and the entire setup is sitting well past the primary's 100D limit. Right at the 100D limit of the gas giant sits a moon with a military base (and, strangely enough, a farming colony) that services the 8 sensor/customs cutters that endlessly circle the gas giant, watching for transits

File: deecf63e8d4d1e18a37ad5d9def55d26.jpg (669KB, 700x969px) Image search: [Google]

669KB, 700x969px

RIP Brian Aldriss
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/brian-aldiss-dies-aged-92-614886

>>55023066
who?

>>55023116
You're not serious, surely?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Aldiss