Traveller General

Wow, I'm dumb. Thanks!

Also, shoudn't it be 1.75? Or should I always round up?

Yeah, lots of not-so-big compartments and all... I need to work it out on a deck plan yet.

Your power plant also produces 210 power, not 200. The fuel consumption was reduced be installing the smaller plant, so you have more than 8 weeks of duration.

You basically round the ship up to the nearest 100 tons and then figure the bridge cost.

The old 10-ton ATV is gigantic, even taking into account that it is very tall. That's a BIG Winnebago or full length tour bus, and then some.

Wow, it really shows I'm new to this... Thanks again for helping me with this, posting (hopefully correct) variant.

The mortgage on this thing scares me...[/spoiler

if it's supposed to be 140m3... yeah that's pretty big. Unless it's 10 metric tons, then it's understandible considering armour.

I've been wondering. In MgT1's robotics book, it marks TL 13--"Galactic Standard"--as the end of the "Age of Slavery", which sorta implies robots are... around, y'know? So why is it you don't see robots more often in the Imperium? Why is it that robots don't fill in schlep crew ratings on starships?

Well, humans are cheaper. And there will be more of them. And I'd guess if robots are free and more efficient they work for the big guys, not for travellers. Or maybe there are a shitton of robots around but mechanically they are the same? Maybe you don't even know that the guns on a Cruiser that shot you down were operated by robots.

Or maybe they dislike space.

TL13 robots are pretty dumb, and mostly used for mindless grunt work. By 14 or so they get modestly useful. They don't hit sapience until a high TL15 to TL16.
Hiver robots are pretty good, if you trust a robot made by Hivers.

Do you think that Imperial robots at TL13 and above will still be three-laws-compliant? I seem to remember some sort of official Imperial prohibition on warbots. That might make explain some of why they aren't commonly crewmen, since it'd be difficult for a robot to get around its laws to effectively repel boarders, or man a turret.

I don't remember such a prohibition, but it totally makes sense given the old Vilani reluctance to put too much reliance on technology.
I know the Zhodani have no such compunction, though.

So what would a TL13 robot look like in terms of intelligence, anyway? Anything resembling something with emotion or crude thought? The robots supplement compares them to animals, and points to this as the reason why robots-rights activists start to crop up at TL13--so are we talking the intelligence of a cat or dog, at most? Is even that too much?

Wow this is autistic. You guys actually enjoy these rules? What reward do you get from mastering literal spreadsheets for an imaginary world? Tabletop games are supposed to be FUN.

Here, have a TravellerWorld hack. I play Dungeon World and this is pretty close to that. It's far better than the autistic 1960s RPGs you guys are all into.

Sorry for having fun differently from you.

Ironic shitposting is still shitposting, anti-DW fag. Quit trying to recruit with your terrible bait.

Except I'm not shiposting. The Dungeon World system is flat-out better at doing your style of game, and more.

Does Traveller have relationship mechanics? No. Dungeon World does.

Does Traveller have fast intuitive combat that doesn't restrict you with stupid, limiting rules and a forced initiative order? No. Dungeon World does.

Does Traveller have a host of character options all of which function under the same base mechanic? Again, no.

Dungeon World does.

Maybe you should try playing it before you judge it.

You can play whatever you want, but it's going to be inferior. I'm sorry but that is just true. I hate to sound like a GURPSfag, but unlike the case of GURPS, Dungeon World actually IS better than pretty much any other roleplaying game currently on the market.

Some people enjoy flight simulators on the pc, some people like arcade style flight games, others like building model planes and flying them with remote control, and some people learn to fly for fun. Just because you prefer to play the console variety doesn't mean other people shouldn't enjoy something more complex or challenging.

;^)

>Except I'm not shitposting.

>he said while blatantly shitposting

Have not had a chance to play yet but planning a game. Looks to be no more or less complicated than base travelller, though the game will be what you make it

Prove literally anything I said wrong.

> only casuals play competently designed games

Kek

It's really reassuring that people here don't fall for the blatant low-quality troll bait. That's a rare thing on Veeky Forums these days, it seems.

Also, I was wondering if players want to sell their ship, how should I manage the price? Especially if it still has mortgage? In Mong 2e, I can't seem to find rules for that.

Hm. That's a toughie, especially because if it's still got a mortgage on it, what they're selling in reality is both the shares for which they have already paid and therefore own -and- the responsibility to that debt. I suppose a lot of it might also depend on where you're trying to sell it, and the TL level disparity between the place you sell it at and the ship.

My first thought was "I bet GURPS Traveller has a section on that." Then I checked the core rules, and I can't even find any rules for buying a ship, outside of chargen! WTF, GURPS? Are GT players just supposed to cough up the 28 million credits for a Beowulf class trader?

For the simplicity's sake let's say they're going to sell it in the highport they bought it, so it's the same TL and there's a shipyard they are willing to get another ship from. So it's more like an upgrade than a sell in fact.

I was thinking about something like 80% of what they've already paid and the bank/mortgaging company buys the ship back from them esentially. Trying to sell it on the free market is... tough, yeah.

80% sounds like a fair enough starting point, yeah. Good opportunity for any of the players to employ any skills dealing with/tangential to brokerage?

Ahhh yes, I forgot about broker skill! Well it could be something akin to the price table on speculative trading, but much more confined, maybe range from 70% to 90%? And rolling D2 with broker and Soc modifiers, like normal skillcheck?
2-4- 70%
5-7- 75%
8-10- 80%
11-13 85%
14-16 90%
17-20 95%

Does it make any sense?

70%-90% sounds like a pretty sane range if you plan on selling it back to the "bank," as it were--though, I'm no economist. Soc modifiers seem like a good idea to use, too, yeah; hadn't thought of that, good call. They probably haven't flown it for very long, so age and wear probably isn't much of an issue... the only other factor I can think of is that it might be some sort of janky opposed-check against the bank representative's relevant soc and broker scores, I guess? Does MgT2 do opposed checks...? I've yet to take a look at any of it. >:

And then I guess there's the possibility that your players are psychopaths and might decide to make an adventure of it, stalk the rep for a few days, and then attempt to blackmail them for a better price.

I'd think of it more like trading in a car or selling a house.

They can take it to any shipyard or buyer, and get something close to the market value for a used ship (less if it's punched full of laser holes and infested with alien Ebola).

Whatever cash you get pays off the mortgage, and anything left over can be rolled over into the new ship.

If you want to give them a bit of a windfall, you could always tip them off to a buyer that's desperate for a ship.

Opposed checks are much less predictable I think.

Blackmailing the bank rep seems like a nice adventure seed indeed. Mong 2e makes opposed checks and has "effect of check" that is normally your roll- the target number, or your roll - opponent's roll. I don't know how it worked in classic or Mong 1E

And since people seemed to be interested, here's another design of mine. This time more tradey than fighty. Feel free to show me what's wrong.

That's a great idea as well! Similar in effect I think, but more flexible.

The only problem is- how will I determine the value of a used starship?

Well... the Old Ships rule from MgT1 knocks off 1d6 shares of value every decade. So maybe ignore the age, unless it was already in service for some time before it was purchased?

Another thing that occurs to me from is that someone could use... I don't know Streetwise? Something like that to scout out a desperate buyer. That way, they might get a better price for the deed, but they might not be a very reputable person, and it could lay a hook for a later date when the Space-Feds come knocking, asking questions about the PC's connections with the pirate who bought their ship.

Well, I don't think a ship will depreciate in value as quickly as a car does, nor is it likely to gain a lot of value (like a good home in a growing economy) unless it's drastically upgraded.

Maybe knock off 2% of the new value per year, until it reaches some arbitrary floor (just above the scrap value)?

All in all, unless you've got a decade spanning campaign, I think it should be a pretty negligible depreciation. A working ship is always worth something to somebody, even if it's just for parts, or to service a remote colony.

Another thing to consider is that a shipyard might offer them something like 75% of market value, to ensure their profit margin... maybe a little more if they're doing a trade-in.

Then knock off the cost of any major repairs it requires, of course.

Now that I've written all this out, it seems to me like selling a profitable ship might be inferior to simply buying a second one, and leasing out the first... Has anyone ever had a group just hire an NPC crew to run their old ship on a predictably profitable trade circuit?

Closest the group I run has come was leasing out their 1000dT distributed hull trade ship to some smugglers...who they then claimed stole the ship and turned in for a reward. And that was the last time I let them talk me into letting them have insurance...they had it all planned out...and of course the smugglers were all killed in the recapturing of their ship...fuckers essentially got paid twice for doing nothing.

That must have been hilarious, seeing your face as their scheme unfolds. Players rarely come up with some clever shit like that, sadly.

Well if you sell the ship you have a downpayment that will not only lower your mortrage but also enable bigger shinier ships. At least on my homebrew noone' s leasing a ship to some pennyless travellers, some capital is required, at least few % and a good broker check.

And if they want to have two ships, they'll need to operate a mini fleet. Which can be a pain in the ass if the ships have different j-drives. I don't feel having a second crew somewhere else is interesting, and money falling from heaven each month is not what I want either. Thanks for tips though!

>At least on my homebrew noone' s leasing a ship to some pennyless travellers, some capital is required, at least few % and a good broker check.

In Classic a purchase requires a 20% down payment, as I recall.

How do you make those tables?

I'm a Mong 2e pleb, so did not know that. Also 20% for anything bigger than a far trader is... A lot. I guess you didn't get a ship until a few months at least? I should just download and read it to be honest.

Those were made by hand in OneNote, but I think I'll switch to excel for ease of calculations.

If you wonder how to make tables in OneNote, just press tab and it'll start automatically.

As a side note, that program is pretty neat for organising a setting. And easy as fuck to use.

Well, ship shares in MgT 1e were 1% rather than MCr1, so it was pretty easy to hit that 20% mark, especially with a group of 4-8 people. And designated reward ships like the Yacht gave 5 SS for a Yacht or 2 SS for any other ship. So SS were more valuable for more expensive ships...
Especially if you could turn around and sell your ship and buy a different one, on an old hull at near scrap value and start fixing it up, with minimal morgage.

Thanks. On the topic of groups, how many people does a really comfy group have in traveller? I'm running a D&D5E with 5 people and it can be problematic sometimes to get all players to talk, so I decided 4 might be better. But traveller seems to be much more about sharing duty than bashing monsters so maybe it works out better with bigger groups? What are your experiences?

I'd say 4 is comfy, 5 pushes the practicable limit of DM organizational skills, and 6 is the absolute limit before things degenerate into Super Smash Bros PGMP Edition.

Thanks, but I'm a lincuck.

4-6 works with the groups I've run. I tried 3, but it ended up with me running a spreadsheet and getting player input for what they wanted to trade, then just jumping back and forth along out of the way systems making a killing supplying TL7-10 systems with TL 12/13 tech.
8 people has the opposite problem of not enought time for everyone to have input.
For new GM's I would say cap it at 5, once you get some experience running a moderate sized group you can up it to 6. More if you're running a game for adults and not just really old children.

Thanks! Maybe I'll try with 5, they are somewhat adult, at least half of them... Anyway, thanks for your input.

Also, should I leave trading to players as the book suggests or is it better to take care of it myself and maybe pregenerate some stuff? I'm pretty confident they won't cheat anyway.

Well, I don't use Linux but there should be some notes segregation tool for it. And there's always open office, I guess.

Zim Desktop Wiki, man. It's cross platform, and is the best tool I've ever used for campaign notes.

zim-wiki.org

>Also, should I leave trading to players as the book suggests or is it better to take care of it myself and maybe pregenerate some stuff? I'm pretty confident they won't cheat anyway.
Well, the trade rules have always been kind of skewed. A lot depends on the Sector/Sub-Sector and what established trade routes there are. Something a lot of GM's forget, if there is a trade route, that means BIG Corps are already going to have MASSIVE Cargo haulers servicing the route. So that sweet little trade route exchaning ore for computers? Corp Owned. Luxury Goods for Medical Supplies? Corp Owned.
You NEED to remember that the party doesn't exist in a vacuum...I mean, sometimes they do, but...nevermind.
If your group wants to trade anything other than freight they need to find places OFF the main communication/trade route, which generally means J-4/5 capable ships or lots of little shitty systems with nothing to offer all vying for goods from a random High TL world with 1 or 2 good trade codes.
If you are running around in a randomly generated Sub-Sector the 2nd is most likely. But try to establish some competitors, don't let your players just waltz in a buy up every lot of cargo, have some NPC trading groups show up every now and again, either buying up valuable goods or flooding the market with their own cheap crap.

Thanks, will check it out. It seems rather ugly, though. Stupid thing, I know, but I'm a sucker for nice new flashy interfaces. Probably why I like Win10.

Getting on topic, I'm thinking on fluffing J-drives to warp drives, but instead of longer range, give them higher speed. Considering the sector is TL13 max, so there are 4 variants of FTL drive, will it wreck the traveller economy? Anyone done or seen such thing in homebrew? I'd be grateful for ideas.

Thanks, that's really useful. My system is rather small, 14 star systems ATM, maybe will get to 16. I'm trying to create a somewhat interesting memorable worlds with a mataplot involving all of them. Also there's no one big Imperium faction, there are several that control few planets each (at least in this sector, it's on the fringes of known space). I don't think there will be a lot of great opportunities for trading. Smuggling, on the other hand...

MgT 2e High Guard pg 66 has Hyperspace, Warp Drive, and Time drive rules. Thought they're different from the alternate drive rules from MgT 1e.
I would use MgT 1e rules for Warp travel (Warp Drive travels Drive # parsecs per week of travel, doesn't need its own fuel, but P-Plant consumes 2x standar fuel during Warp Travel) vs MgT 2 (Same as Hyperspace, but doesn't open portal. Jump Distance per hour, requires Power=dT of Drive)

I'm aware of the warp drive in high guard, but it throws any kind of balance out of the window. If you can warp in an hour you can do twice as much per month and won't have time to train new skills. So no problems with mortgages but stagnant chars. 1e version seems much more reasonable, thanks for that.

The ATV takes up ten displacement tons when included as a useable vehicle on a starship. That implies that it is a bit less than that itself, but possibly not by much.

...

...

Better version of Dawson's Christian. Music starts around ~0:45.
youtube.com/watch?v=C3fIu2OdWn8

How would anons here feel if I posted in the general to recruit players for an online game (text only)?

Not ready for launch yet, but I assume there'll be more interest here than in the gamefinder.

I have briefly, rolled up some character and did an interplanetary flight.

Its the same complexity as traveller, nothing too crazy, just instead of traveling to different star systems, you're traveling to different planets within our solar system.

The careers are great and give you all sort of interesting skills that a good DM would put to use.

Pic related, one of my Orbital characters I rolled up.

PbP or chat?
Either way you are more likely to get recruits here than in the game finder thread.

Chat for adventuring, with limited PbP for down time activity

Yeah, in MgT1's High Guard they address that briefly. I think it's explained as vehicles and ships in the core rulebook essentially fitting into indentations in the ship, making them occupy minimal tonnage, but making maintenance or repairs problematic to simply impossible. Then they went over different hanger types varying by their degree of capaciousness and how this impacts readying times for vessels. I think launch tubes for super-rapid deployment were something like 25x the tonnage of the largest ship planned for launch with them, storage hangars with a windup time are like 1.1x, and standard hangars are like 1.3x. I seem to remember someone saying in MgT2 they made standard hangars double the tonnage of the held vessel, though. (Don't quote me on that one, my memory is shoddy.)

Even 1.3 is a bit sketchy for something with wheels, since there will be either a ramp or a crane involved.
Magic thruster drives are another story.

Honestly even double the size seems like pushing it. I can't imagine trying to work on a car in a shop only twice the volume of it, for instance. But, eh.

CT:

ATV takes up 10dT. Applying the magic 20% +/- you get on deckplans gets you a vehicle bay that takes up 12dT on the deckplan, occupied by an ATV that takes up 8dT.

It's what I do for fighters, also shrinking the bay slightly and using the extra dtonnage (and some of the cargo space allocated to spare parts) for a dedicated repair bay.

TNE went so far as to say that 1x was a dock, 2x was a minmal maintenance space, and 4x was a full hangar.
Of course, even 4x may not be enough for some jobs.

Well, first off, the measurement is a little off. Ships and their capacity are measured in displacement of liquid hydrogen (70.85g/L) and the standard grid size for 1dT traditionally has been 1.5x3x3m = .95dT. So right off the bat you have some extra space to use. Then you have the mass of the vehicle, and let's use a nice intermediate material, Titanium(because it's heavier than Aluminum, but lighter than Iron). Ti comes in at 450g/L or 6x the mass for the same volume, let's call it 3x the mass, because there is going to be open spaces and lighter materials included in the vehicle.
So when allocating space for a non-spacecraft vehicle you are already dedicating 3x it's displacement of LH and if giving it hanger space of 2x that... you are ending up with a pretty big space for that ATV.

Except that vehicles are not listed as mass numbers, but by displacement tons. At least in most editions. If Mongoose has made the mistake of conflating tonnage definitions, I can only wonder what else they screwed up *this* time.

Huh! Neat.

You know what? It is dT's for MgT2e, specifically Shipping, how much space it need to transport it on a spacecraft. Damn. MgT 1e didn't give anything in the Core Rulebook and Supplements 5 & 6 gave m3...and got the numbers very wrong:
Steel 100kg/m3...or 4.5x lighter than the same volume of titanium, or 1.5 if you factor 2/3 of the vehicle being made of something other than titanium.
In any case...Goddamnit Mongoose, espcially you Matt, especially you.

Post some contact info, I'd definitely join your game.

I might being interested in creeping on your game and saying nothing like some sort of creepy PnP lecher.

I'd love to play, assuming my swing shift schedule allows it

...

I'm with the others, I would love to play ina game instead of having to run another one right now. Post Info.

WTF are most of those displays for. The pilot can't even see some of them without breaking his neck/spine let alone interact...

Etc.

Classic Traveller IIRC gave 110% of tonnage for small craft, 140% of tonnage for starships, just for storage or as cargo. I'm presuming pressurized maintenance space would be significantly more than that.

Also, I'm annoyed that Traveller bases everything on volume, totally ignoring mass, and then calls their units "tons". Not confusing at all.

I assumed dTons are a measurement of volume, not mass. Why would you take into account mass of the ATV? The deck building rules also suggest dTons are purely volume.

Clay--mud basically--is a little under 2,500kg per cubic meter. Most metals should be even heavier.

t. ceramics supply warehouse drone.

>Why would you take into account mass of the ATV?

Because maneuver drives are rated in Gs of acceleration, and the more mass you're pushing, the less acceleration you're going to get? Volume doesn't matter, at least outside an atmosphere. Basic physics.

Generally, Traveller ship construction assumes a set mass per cubic meter, for simplicity's sake, but a 100 "ton" cargo bay full of, say, ramen noodles is going to be easier to move than the same volume of, say, lead shot for TL3 firearms.

The mass given in Supplement 5 and Supplement 6 per cubic meter are not for a solid cubic meter of the material. It is per cubic meter of volume of the entire vehicle, which is mostly air. That is why the cubic meter of Steel in the chassis is given at 100kg - most of that cubic meter is assumed to be air.

Forgot a part - later on in the armor section, the mass given is for each cubic meter of armor, not the volume of the vehicle. There, steel is listed at 6000kg per cubic meter of armor.

Yeah, I must have dropped a zero somewhere or something(1g/L=1kg/m3) 450g/L =450kg/m3....nope, I was right, metric measurement was the one thing my American education didn't fail me in.

The reason I assumed mass rather than displacement is because UNLESS you are shipping something it's mass is generally more important than it's volume as the mass will determine volume. But by using displacement you involve mass of an otherwise unrelated material. Hence my confusion. Why would you measure vehicles using displacement rather than their own mass? Because I'm an idiot and forgot this was Traveller, the trading simulation and displacement is everything.
P.S. that's not a complaint, just an observation of my oversight. I wish more things in life used a unified method of measurement. Even metric ends up with differing units for the same thing.

I'd argue that in general the density of ATV would not differ significantly from the density of the ship, or cargo. Thus, if G-drives can push the ship without a problem, they can do the same with ATV. I understand the physics, but the system is simplified and is supposed to take care of it. If you want to include mass, start from J-drives IMHO

IF you want to include mass, start with one of the editions that includes it on purpose. TNE pays mass the most attention, followed by MegaTraveller and T4.

>start from J-drives
Why? If you want to change the feel of the entire setting, that would be one way to do it, but simply taking mass into account for some things need not wreck the rest of the game's feel.
Though that might be your goal, in which case you should prepare for that rabbit hole to reach China.

Checking some engineering websites we actually get wet clay @ 1760 kg/m3 vs Chromium steel 7830kg/m3, so yeah, Mongoose cannot into maths.

>WTF are most of those displays for. The pilot can't even see some of them without breaking his neck/spine let alone interact...
Part hyperspace navigation, part vilani milkdrop.

What I meant is- if you want to take into account the mass of an APC to check if your G-drives will work properly, you should take into account the whole ship. And J-drives seem to be very big and dense. I find dabbing in mass pointless in Mong2e at least.

Actually, fuck it, giving it a shot.

The panel on the right of the yoke with two discs is some sort of local navigation. Local beacons, RWR-style radar, stuff like that. Left of the yoke you have eight circles - those seem to be basic systems gauges. Directly above the yoke you have the pilot's Tempest session, with linear gauges (temperatures?) and a rear view monitor to the right, and a plot on the left probably showing drive efficiency so you can keep things optimal and not waste money.

The front half of the right side of the cockpit looks like communications to me.

The back half is weird science shit.

The left of the cockpit is ship's systems controls, but not the stuff you'll need more urgently, that's sitting on the left and right of the pilot's seat.

I mean, it's glowy as shit, but who wouldn't do that, especially if they're some daft punk looking motherfucker with a spaceship who's apparently flying around a laser show?

>WTF are most of those displays for. The pilot can't even see some of them without breaking his neck/spine let alone interact...

I assumed the chair swiveled. Besides a lot of them may be more ceremonial than functional -- the title of the piece is "Pilot Priest" by Kilian Eng.

Wouldn't mass be kind of irrelevant to an gravitics-based Maneuver Drive? It basically creates a gravity slope around the ship, causing it to fall towards its destination.
(Though we all know that lead ball will still fall faster than the feathers, even in a vacuum, man!)
I always figured the reason it doesn't take mass into account is because the drives just don't care. They move an object the size of the ship, and that's that.

>the title of the piece is "Pilot Priest" by Kilian Eng.
Some kind of Rocket Rider's Prayer may be relevant.

youtube.com/watch?v=0sc2V_RcsZU

Not a great version.

youtube.com/watch?v=3WLE6FpAcVs