Traveller General

Nice, I have mixed feeling about mongoose but more traveller is ever good.
7chan doesn't have it yet, with cleaning it and all that I expect it will be a few days until we get the copy.
Is that one with the mechs?

yup, mechs, vehicles and rules to build them. Basically on-planet High Guard

There was another traveller general up yesterday, but it rolled off pretty fast: Also, try to use one of the simpler OP images, I've found in making these threads over the past couple of years that it helps if the thread stands out visually on the catalog. I think a lot of our posters don't intentionally CTRL-F and search for Traveller, they just sort of notice it in passing.

I only recently realised I could add filters that'd bump certain threads to the top of the catalog and highlight them.

some of us are stupid ok

>People are prejudiced against it.
I don't see why, it blends pretty well with Traveller. The sector generator for example is a thing of beauty.

What do you guys use to make spaceships? For the actuals stats and deckplans,some software to make it easier or the old school way of papper and pen?

I use a clunky old program called High Guard Shipyard for design. I don't usually do deckplans for stuff I design, though I probably should.

>I don't see why, it blends pretty well with Traveller.

He was making a joke about monosodium glutamate (MSG) and not SWN. Sheesh.

\m/

I used to use that, when I still used Book 5 ship design. Now I spend my days idly pondering breakpoints in Book 2 and wondering why they didn't put the tech levels from Book 3 on the drive table so you could actually look at the breakpoints.

Also, man, Book 2 is harsh on size breakpoints in a way that makes small pocket empires much more viable, because lol if you think you're building anything jump 4. Jump 3, perhaps, maybe j2m2 fighter carriers if you're brave, but they won't give you much strategic range.

>Book 2 is harsh on size breakpoints in a way that makes small pocket empires much more viable

That's 'cause LLB:2 is pure "Proto" while LBB:5 is the Great CT Schism in book form.

So I just want to say that I don't really have much experience with Traveller at all, just reading MGT2 Core and talking about some other people that play. Might have a game coming up soon. I just say this because I know it's frustrating for me when people who don't understand games I play try to make changes or recommendations.

But I've been rolling up a lot of characters and it seems that characteristic arrays can be very, very volatile. Now, stat DMs seem to be significantly less game-changing than in other systems and I think it's overall a bit neat how the character generation overall forces you into paths you might not have chosen otherwise. But you can still end up with some real dinky characters.

Would it be entirely unreasonable to put some sort of limit on the minimum possible sum of player attribute DMs? Something like if your total DMs add up to -2 or -1 or less then you can reroll or bump some stats up till you hit the break point.

>Would it be entirely unreasonable to put some sort of limit on the minimum possible sum of player attribute DMs? Something like if your total DMs add up to -2 or -1 or less then you can reroll or bump some stats up till you hit the break point.

I would consider that a decent houserule for MGT -- Mongoose put a lot more weight on those randomly rolled stats than there used to be. (In Classic only about 25% of tasks in the book use your stats at all, the rest are based on skills, things in the world, or even just straight 2d6 for a couple of things. It also helps that a guy with a 2 is not a cripple or anything by the CT rules for encumbrance and things)
For Mongoose I'd say if your DMs are negative when added together then reroll your lowest stat, and repeat until it's in the clear.

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Agreed. I'd offer it as an option for a house rule, if anyone seems particularly upset. If it turns out to be a problem, have them train the stat during travel as a fluff-wise justification for the change during play.

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First of all, Mong 2E user.

I make my spaceships using a simple google sheet with basic formulas already in. Works well, does mean I need HG on the other part of the screen and a lot of manual imput.

For deck plans, I liked the flashy isometric ones in the rulebooks. So i downloaded icons and grid and use GIMP to create deck plans. It does take a while with larger ships, but when you get the swing of things it's pretty intuitive and looks good.

Oh and here's the ship my players currently use:

Very nice. Thanks for sharing it.

Damn, that's comfy

Cool, that's a cool ship bro.

And here's the stats, from one note:

please post more! I'm making an airship game and I need ideas on how to represent ship designs.

I have a tough nut to crack, maybe you can help me: (Mong 2E btw) I have a gal in my party that's a one-trick pony really: 14 EDU, 12 INT, 4 in Science (phytopathology), 1 persuation, 11 electronics (drones), 1 engineer (power plant), 1 profession (pharmaceuticals) 1 deception (we have better) 1 Medic (we have better)

I'm stuggling to make encounters for her to have a use, she's useless in space combat, she's useless in ground combat, she's a great RPer with tons of ideas but when dices start rolling there's not much she can do. Any help?

here's 250t transport with some fighting capacity (two double pulse laser turrets)

>Any help?

Tell her that her PC is useless for the current campaign. If she's the great RPer you claim she is, she'll make a new PC which is more in tune with the game.

Is traveller an "easy" system to pick up? My group wants to play it, but none of us have ever tried it. Our experience is limited to 3.5e, pathfinder, and board games. In general they want a Star Trek-lite sort of experience. Which edition would be best for us?

>Which edition would be best for us?

MGT because you're familiar with 3.5e.

There is also a d20 version of Traveller called T20.

Mongoose 2 ed is in my opinion easy to pick up, has clear and intuitive rules and works good.

Assuming you stick to CT or Mongoose, it's way simpler than the goddamn mess that is 3e.

Even GURPS is.

Trek's more a feel sort of thing. Give them a big ship and a crew and let them boldly go from system to system surveying things, perhaps? Not necessarily a huge crew, but double digits. Maybe give them a ship like the Kinunir, refit a few things to give it fewer marines (just a redshirt section) and more science.

>There is also a d20 version of Traveller called T20.
ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.

>Science (phytopathology) ... 1 profession (pharmaceuticals)

There's your problem. You let her make a character that is based around an idea that's completely incompatible with all forms of campaigns. Not only that but you let her pick a skill that's a subcategory of a subcategory (phytopathology would be part of biology), and is completely useless (and against the rules).

You said she's a great RP-er. Those kinds of players are the best because they can make the best out of subpar characters, but if you let them make one that's so completely incompatible with the rest then there's not much you can do. Also just because you have a character that does something "better" doesen't mean that she couldn't do it. If she's into RP-ing but the party will never let her do stuff because her dice rolls are a bit worse then you're going to have bigger problems than this situation.

But in any case either rework her character a bit since you did allowed it to be done wrong (give her biology 4 instead or maybe allow her to get bio 2 & another one at 2) and she'll instantly have a better character. As for the rest of the skills, tell her that at least having gun combat 0 would be great since then she could do something useful in combat. Also bring the idea of skill software up, they are generally good to think about when your char has subpar skills IMO.

CT's Leviathan has a real Trek feel, albeit with more a commercial theme.

Leviathan is a great adventure. The ship's crew numbers 50+ however so the referee is going to be saddled with a shitload of NPCs even if the players run 3 or 4 PCs on their own.

That's probably a better idea than Kinunir, but hey, what problems can't the PCs solve when they have a 35-sophont marine contingent on board?

Maybe make her a sector-renowned specialist in the field who's not exactly einstein, but can get in the back door of anywhere with a science team by talking shop with someone who nerds out over that sort of thing. Like a super-social face character, but specialised in science - the usual security forces will never think to screen the scientists, they'll be concerned with infiltrators in bars chatting people up not someone offering to discuss their new paper and wandering around in a white coat.

Thanks, we'll check them out

I'd stick to 1e. Especially if you don't have much experience outside 3e. Sure the supplemets are a mess (and you should really really stick to the core rules until you get more experienced so you know what's crap). 1e's general GM-ing side is well the most similar to D&D 3e. 2e effectively removes the ability from the GM to give out modifiers instead you change the target number around and they also felt in necessary to include 5e's advantage/disadvantage for some reason.

But in reality 2e is very much like 1e so even if you go with that it's completely fine. Most of the changes are just changes for change's sake and the couple actual improvements/downgrades can be easily houseruled in to eachother.

My main point was that a biology 4 character could still be a sector wide known specialist in something while being mechanically superior in all respects to the example character because biology 4 can be used for more than just plant diseases.

>you should really really stick to the core rules
whichever edition you pick, this is pretty solid advice. Don't add stuff just because it's there, especially if it's a mongoose product, but even classic runs better without the expansions for some people.

Dittoing this. Keep things simple, especially at first. There's so MUCH material out there across several editions and 40+ years that you can quickly drown in it all.

Classic's initial 3 books advised that one or two subsectors could provide years of play.

Mongoose, because I prefer relatively generic systems, and particularly because the retro feel isn't *necessary*, especially in MGT 2e, which gives the system better flexibility with portraying generic settings.

Also remember that Mongoose allows for a Skill package at the end of character creation, so you don't end up with 5 guys on a ship who all can't fly it.

Yeah, I already treat the phytopathology as a biology most of the time, just have hard time making it useful in an adventure. Also she has Admin, Diplomat, Drive, Explosives, Gun combat, investigate, tactics and vacc suit at 0.

yeah, the problem is although she's a renowned specialist, she did burn a lab at the end of her career and has 4 SOC. So no love from anyone, basically.

I think I might ask her to rework the char a bit, or maybe make another one from scratch,

I'd be glad if you could shoot me with some applications for her science skill, so far she only used it once or twice sadly. I have no problem with other chars (and we DO have not-gun wielding aristocrat with some admin skill, for example)

And the biggest problem is space combat- really there's nothing she can do apart from maintaining the power plant.

Funny thing is, her smart ideas and lucky persuasion rolls saved them a couple of times already.

>14 EDU
So one of the great things about Traveller is that many of its rules and modules are cross-compatible. A 14 EDU qualifies the character for Advantages in the Mongoose 1e supplement: Cosmopolite (it's up in the archive above if you want it).

These Advantages are fairly situational (and have some wonky rules interpretation, which is unfortunately par for course with Mongoose), but they can offer some crucial general bonuses.

>Also she has ... investigate, tactics ...at 0.
Then she's fairly set; with high EDU and INT, she's a fairly good investigator and can form military tactics

>space combat
She has electronics (drones) 1. Get a few million credits and make a tiny drone ship (say, 5dtons with a fixed pulse laser turret, chemical rockets and a bunch of fuel (for exploiting thrust points)) and she'll be fine.

Thanks, I'll check the supplement!

Well half the team are decent investigators, so she does it from time to time only.

But the drone idea is great! I was waiting for the vehicle book to work something out, but I guess making a small flier without the bridge is not strictly AGAINST the rules, eh?

Thanks once again!

>I'd be glad if you could shoot me with some applications for her science skill,

If she won't reboot the PC or if you can't persuade her to, then use her as an adventure hook.

She's some sector-wide boffin in phytopathology? Then have someone or some government show up wanting to hire her as a consultant for precisely that.

There's huge habitat on some planetoid, moon, or airless planet somewhere whose life support systems are slowly deteriorating. The various algae, mosses, plants, and whatnot such large scale systems use are ailing and dying out. The crisis point hasn't been reached yet but, unless the problem can be reversed, the systems will break down and the population begin to die. The PC is offered a large amount of money to investigate the issue and the other PCs are hired as her assistants.

The investigation could be easy or hard. The reason could be natural or sabotage. The solution could be simple or complex. The danger could be nonexistent or extreme. You get the idea.

>She has electronics (drones) 1. Get a few million credits and make a tiny drone ship (say, 5dtons with a fixed pulse laser turret, chemical rockets and a bunch of fuel (for exploiting thrust points)) and she'll be fine.
She may not be able to fly the ship or run a gun turret, but give her a drone and an x/box controller and she'll do you top-notch aerospace support.

>small flier without the bridge is not strictly AGAINST the rules, eh?
In fact, in HG 2e, it's explicitly mentioned. So long as the ship has a computer (and they all do), it can be flown as a drone. Keep it small, as exterior docking or a small docking space on the main ship still takes up a bit of space, and you don't need a large drone/fighter ship to put a weapon and some engines on it.

It'd probably be better to stat it out as a ship so it has decent anti-ship weaponry rather than suffer the damage penalty for using planetary-scale weaponry on vehicles.

> fly the ship or run a gun turret
Auto-gunner programs. Just hand-wave something or other that connects her electronics (drone) skill to the operation of the drone, and its done. The electronics (remote operations) in 2e specifically uses this as an example.

that idea is golden, than you SO MUCH, I'm stealing it.

So I'm a dummy for not reading the High Guard carefully then, as I didn't catch that bit.

In fact they have a 30 dT fighter-shuttle she could use! Damn, thanks guys.

>She's some sector-wide boffin in phytopathology? Then have someone or some government show up wanting to hire her as a consultant for precisely that.
>There's huge habitat on some planetoid, moon, or airless planet somewhere whose life support systems are slowly deteriorating. The various algae, mosses, plants, and whatnot such large scale systems use are ailing and dying out. The crisis point hasn't been reached yet but, unless the problem can be reversed, the systems will break down and the population begin to die. The PC is offered a large amount of money to investigate the issue and the other PCs are hired as her assistants.
This is good.

Hell, make it a semi-regular thing - convert some cargo space into a samples & flora lab, grow a ton of babby bits of ecosystems, pick up something new at every world you visit and some day that weird pseudolettuce will come in really handy, or the way the root nodules work on ethoian jahsweed will be relevant to a research project halfway across the sector.

For ground combat, a robot could be remote operated as well. Like a small personal drone with an attached laser pistol/rifle.

>11 electronics

Holy shit, is this MGT2 skill bloat or something?
In CT, 1 point means you're employable, 2 means you're good, and 4 means you're like an expert. A Medic 4 who has high dex is a friggin' surgeon. At 6 points you're widely renowned in your field, and even folks outside that field have likely heard of you.
11 points in something would probably make you the finest expert in the known galaxy. If she was with a party at my table, the whole adventure might have to revolve around her, because she's clearly an amazingly important person.

No no no it's just 1. I double clicked, sorry. And she's the only person with skill higher than 3.

Yeah I will think about that as well, shouldn't be hard to do.

Thanks all of you, kind souls! Thanks to You I think I can make the game better and make sure this Traveller has shit ton of work. You're the best!

>that idea is golden, than you SO MUCH, I'm stealing it.

No problem. Glad I could help. 's advice is good too; you can use the "scientist-for-hire" angle in many different ways.

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Huh. Wonder what program these deckplans were made with.

GIMP, with deck plan icons from Mongoose, their grid and some time.

If you want some specifics ask away!

Wow, GIMP? I hadn't any clue it could do stuff like that; I've always thought of it as... well, open-source photoshop. Then again, maybe my impression of what photoshop can do is colored by the fact I'm still using CS1.

Well, it's not difficult, really. First you make some paths for outer hull, fit it on the grid, then autodraw some lines. Then make inner walls (in another layer) then in yet another layer you paint the floors (fit this layer under the grid) and at the end plonk some icons that Mongoose provides. After a while it gets pretty intuitive and quick. If you want I can provide a project for one of those in .xcf

Nah, I'm good. I'll muck about it myself; the experience feels to stick longer that way, I think. Thanks, though! This opens up a bunch of stuff!

Yeah, the best advice I can give you is LAYERS! As much layers as you want, and then some. It's better to have more than less, to make sure you can always make some changes if needed easily.

I've got a question about the MG2E travel time formula. It seems they, in lieu of calculating the orbital position and distance between you and the target object they instead make you flat out travel at an effective half speed.

Did I fuck up my calculations or am I right in stating that?

I was thinking about laser communications in Traveller. They're effectively un-jammable and un-interceptable, so they're attractive.

But how small can someone make a laser and still have it be useful for communication without being affected too severely by atmospheric scattering?

Further, how small could one make a laser if one were trying to communicate with an orbital asset from the ground?

Is this something I should just not worry about and essentially handwave?

It's something that I would usually hand-wave.
But if you want to dive into it, here's a paper about using lasers to communicate from ground-space-ground using small satellites. It might have some useful math.
digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2733&context=smallsat

Nice! Thanks, user!

>So i downloaded icons and grid and use GIMP to create deck plans
Where did you get these?

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I think they're available on DriveThruRPG for free; I'm seeing both 2D and 3D packs for deckplan building here; those're probably them.

Yup, that's it. It's a good way to quickly fudge travel times and keep the course of play flowing.

Keeping the course of play flowing is the important thing.

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Oh that is not going to end well.

So, haven't gotten my grubby mitts onto the new MGT2e Vehicle Handbook yet (it's really expensive!), but from the few pages sprinkled around the internets, here what we have (in reference to questions last thread):
- Yes, there's walkers. Walkers also have new options for multi-legged things. Unfortunately, as far as I can see, manipulator arms have no stats as to how much they can carry.
- it's essentially 1e vehicles with a major retooling by getting rid of M^3 mechanics for a more generic 'spaces'. Frankly, as much as I enjoy math, this is a good change.
- As we saw in 2e core, no more 1e velocity calculations; rather vehicles use speed bands in chase/combat, which is more useful at the game table.
- Again, as in core, we have shipping space, so filling up your ship is nice and easy.
- Vehicle modifiers seem to be intact from 1e.
- Biotech vehicles from that one special supplement that no one ever used/read, are in.
- Unfortunately, this being Mongoose, there's already some inconsistencies in the writing (in particular, regarding mounting starship weapons on vehicles. Oh, yes, starship weapons can be mounted on vehicles now.) There's also your usual editing issues and a few typos. Ex: bombs don't have the 'one-use' trait even though missiles do.

>>starship weapons on vehicles

It sounds pretty great, to be honest. I don't know how I feel about starship weapons on vehicles, tough. Can't wait to get my dirty pirate hands on the pdf...

I'm going to go visit some friends. Was thinking of picking up a traveller rulebook and running a oneshot. The only traveller I've run previously was Mongoose Traveller 1e; should I aim for Mongoose 2e, stick with 1e, or what?

Using generic space instead of cubic meters was already done in 1e, in the combined Supplement 5-6 (the second version of the vehicle rules for 1e).

From what I have seen, 2e vehicle design has more in common with Supplement 5-6 design, not the separate Supplement 5 and Supplement 6 stuff.

It's a one-shot so stick with what you already know.

If it goes over well it might wind up a monthly repetition, and I'm wondering whether this is the mythical system where integer upgrades are flat improvements over the previous editions or not.

See in the short-lived Friday thread.

In order for it to go well, they'll have to like playing. There's a better chance of them liking the game if you referee in a smooth, confident manner. You have a better chance of being a good referee if you use a system you have experience with. Stick with what you know.

Then, when or if, they want to play Traveller again, you tell them the game's been updated and you all can learn the new version together.

Set the hook first. Update and expand later.

>Supplement 5-6
Yes, though personally I was never fond of it. It went too far the other way, to the point where it was downright minimalistic and not very interesting. I suppose I (wrongfully?) assumed people didn't much care for it either.

I agree, though, this new vehicle book seems to be picking from lots of pies. Or however that saying is supposed to go.

Though now that I look at it, there doesn't seem to be an open-topped option for walkers? How else am I going to make advanced war machines that are easily taken down by bows and arrows by primitive blue-skinned aliens in some silly, misplaced wankfest?

Buying two books tho...

(They're both in the master archive above. Just saying)

When you said you'd run 1e before, I mistakenly assumed you had a copy. Sorry.

Go to the links at the top of the thread and download the free Cepheus Engine. It's essentially MGT-Lite.

You're running a one-shot. You aren't going to be building ships, wasting time on chargen, rolling up subsectors, etc. You're going to dropping the players into a simple, short, situation with pregens and playing out the story to a conclusion in a few hours.

Tell them they'll be using the "Lite" version in the interest of time. Tell them if they like the game you all can migrate to 2e and start buying splats.

Have fun!

It had its ups and downs. If I recall, the 5-6 combined system let people do some whacky things that shouldn't have been possible with the more time consuming M^3 system. I hope they managed to capture the best of both worlds, though I doubt it; I'd love to have a system which is both easy and doesn't allow people to create broken shit because of slop but those two things usually don't go together.

How many MW is a Power Point in Mongoose 2? I'm reading High Guard and I can't find it.

That is because it isn't there. Just like how computers use a generic bandwidth rating instead of a processor speed and storage space.

>DriveThruRPG
I think I'm retarded because I can't fucking find them.
I liked the design of your ships so much than I downloded GIMP and I'm learning this shit right now, how do you make the grid? It looks so good.

Ah, I'm not actually but rather the guy who first asked him how he did it

Let me just link you directly to the listings themselves; I'm sorry, I really should've done that in the first place. I'm not all here right now, I've been pulling a lot of all nighters lately. Height of laziness. My bad.

drivethrurpg.com/product/181544/TAS-3D-Deck-Plan-Templates

drivethrurpg.com/product/181541/TAS-2D-Deck-Plan-Templates

Hopefully will pop back in at some point and he can reveal to you his secret voodoo

Oh, I'm the guy behind the deck plans. Yeah the links are correct, and as far as I remember the grid is inside as well. All you have to do is extract the blue lines from the white background, then put your "floors" layer between them.

Will gladly help with any questions!

And if you have some problems I can provide you with the grid with 2 layers or one of the projects to look at and see how I do it.

Thanks bro, and no apologise needed, it was my fault for being dumb, a quick search into the TAS would have solved my problems.
It would be pretty cool, I'm learning as fast as I can but the only design program than I used was paint to make shitty edits so I'm a wee bit lost.

mega.nz/#!kZNWwZ5A!BEC6MISulLV4iHivV2p8jgNJP5cfGoOCE8huj5lAwZo

Here's the project. Main things I learned: you want to use layers, lots of them. More layers means much easier tweaking and believe me, you WILL change shit as you go. A LOT. Then, path tool is your best friend, lets you make all the walls hull etc really easy and allows for tweaking on the fly basically.

If you have any specific questions fel free to ask. And uh, some things in here might not be in english, sorry for that.

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