Traveller General: Back from the Frontier edition

See if we can stir up some posts:

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

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

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

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

...

Traveller bro is back.

Is it sacralege to use the GURPS rules for Traveller?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

That image raises a question.

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

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

s/laughably/lovably/

Interdastibg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Previously on Traveller General!

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

>Previously on Traveller General!

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

Never mind. I'm a dope.

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

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

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

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

>Are you sure about that?

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

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

No problem. I had to check my post too!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

requesting
Spaceship Zero
Spaceship Zero: Slave Ship of Despair

...

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

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

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

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

That actually makes a lot of sense.

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

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

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

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

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

That's a good way to put it.

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

Mostly improv as well, I like dis

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

Yeah tell your tales, stories here are most appreciated.

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

Which edition?

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

Boring? Hell no!

Please continue when you're able.

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

But yes, continuing:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

>what stolen shipment?

To be continued.

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

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

>PCs inform him of what's been going on

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

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

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

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

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

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

>time to shoot some kids eh?

To be continued.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

>the leader doesn't budge

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

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

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

He goes to fire...

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

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

>it explodes in his hands

To be wrapped up in the final post.

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

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

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

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

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

>just to close this up

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

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

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

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

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

Mayor Hadle is ISS, undercover of course.

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

>it's getting worse each month

Damn post limit, one more to go.

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

>the players are actually a little stunned

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

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

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

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

So, thoughts?

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

Great session. Thanks so much for sharing.

I love RPG AARs

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

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

I'm taking it as a good sign.

>I'm taking it as a good sign.

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

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

Fine job, user. Might even try to use this campaign arc idea myself, someday.

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

Cost: 100Cr

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

Cont.

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

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

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

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

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

My mistake sorry.

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

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

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

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

quick notes on Mongoose 2e Vehicle Handbook:

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

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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