Traveller General--Dawson's Christian Edition

But dogs are like that too

Just got a deal on classic traveller, what am I in for lads?

a whole mess of 'make your own setting' using the first 3 books, slowly solidifying into the 3I from then on

bump

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The CDROM, box, or PDF?

Weapon vs. Armor Tables
Everything you need to run any genre (except for content)

Classic deluxe box set

To bring in a topic to discuss, imagine if someone would make a new Traveller game, basically translating a traveller edition along with the rules of a few source books into something in /v/ format along with an 'editor' for players to easily make content/systems/'modules' of their own.

If they made the graphics really basic and basically had simple, cusomizable chibis for humanoid models, with Kotor/M&B tier on-world surroundings, would that go down well, or is AAA tier graphics a must for it to work nowadays?

Vilani are the best non-solomani race, prove me wrong

You've got everything you need. My personal favorite presentation of Classic.

I'd like to imagine we've already passed the point where so many of these intensely hyped "galaxy sandbox" games (NMS, Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous, etc) have either underdelivered or outright flopped that maybe gamers are willing to compromise the graphics part for better gameplay. We need a good space game, regardless of what it looks like. Traveller definitely has the legacy and the brand name to turn some heads, but it definitely needs a competent developing team and not just a bunch of con artists.

X3 seems to be the closest we've gotten currently

> but it definitely needs a competent developing team and not just a bunch of con artists.
Well I def can't deal in competent developing team. It's just a distant dream. A traveller game, but in it's core simple and unambitious. Chibi models to subconciously reduce the player's expectations in regards to graphics, made with strictly limited animation strings, but customizable parts (pointy ears for darrians, round ears for humaniti, wolf heads for vargr etc). Standardized 'city' models made - at first - only for different tls, then later with new ones added to match with variation in climates. 'Cities' only consisting of small maps/scenes, connected through interactible street maps/high-speed elevators/cabs which act as a 'menu' from which to choose the 'part of the city' to go to. Maybe with some 'street corner' maps to serve as stages for random (or flag/switch-triggered) encounters. Stuff I have little idea of how to realize is ship design/modification. But my first guess would be a mix between RTS games in that you need specific and sufficient outside area to add components on the outside like placing a building in a ship-building menu, and dwarf fortress/dungeon defense games in that internal area can be repurposed. And space combat being not these impressive 2d-bomb-fests like in that more recent game, but plain round-based combat on a 2-d field in 2000s style 3d graphics.

The whole idea behind starting out small and unambitious, is to have a small game with only little variation in the beginning, and taking the time to focus on the mechanics and menus working (without bugs/memory leaks etc). And then once the game is complete, you can start working your way towards 'ambition' by spending further developing time more relaxed and focused on adding variation.

> Heresy
Go play Warhammer then. I'll play Traveller with survival rolls, thanksamillion.

I like that idea, a modular kinda game would be lovely, if it would be easy to mod also would be rad.

I also see a few problems, mainly how the hell will you get the okay to do so without upseting the titulars of Traveller rights and what time will you use.
Making a Not-Traveller setting would give you more lee-way, but then how do you market it to lure traveller gamers.

Allowing for or facilitating mods/user-created content to be worked into the game is the entire point of it.

> What is Warcraft
> What is Blood Bowl/Chaos League

Others have had the problem, others have found ways around it. And yes, it would need preparation for the case that an agreement can simply not be achieved, by means of making and using a similar but studio-own system. Which would happen to not be very difficult, seeing as below is how I got into traveller/tg in the first place.
> Get into Veeky Forums
> Babby's first rounds of Warhammer Fantasy, D&D and homebrew fantasy
> Want space adventures instead
> start making entire homebrew space system, with expanded lore, 2d20 system for muh realism/odds, skill learning system, ship combat, etc etc
> only later discover Traveller
> It covers everything own homebrew space system covers and more, and in places is VERY similar but more simple (and looking back, objectively better for Veeky Forums purposes) with 2d6 system
> completely fall in love with Traveller
> discard homebrew space system completely

Well, while the Vargr ARE an uplifted species there is an importand difference between them and your usual uplifts.

And I'm not talking about the hundred thousand years of evolution the Vargr had after they where uplifted.

As pointed out. The Vargr were created by an alien species, which is by ,human standarts, fucking bananas. And for those weirdo aliens they were supposed to be experiments and or minions.

Your usual bear, dolphin, jabberwock, monkey, etc uplfit was BUILD to work gor/with humans and understand humans and be at least bearable to have around for humans.

Vargr are just bonkers and i think gor it right. 3/10 crew quality, would rather take an aslan.

as someone completely new to traveler what edition would be recommended to start with?

Traveller is love mate !
Aaand works so well that it doesn't gain any screentime by idiots fighting about stupid rules. (except MgT 2e)

>get into Pathfinder
>"What the fuck is with those rules ?"
>"The fuck is up with those casters ?"
>"Do i really need to read 600 pages of rules ?"
>I trip over Traveller, and bought it as my very first own rulebook.
>It's everything i wanted it to be, not to crunchy, not to fluffy.
>Boys, we do space now !
Pic related and oc

If you are fine with some small inconsistencies, i would recommend mongoose traveller 1E. The rules are mostly based on orginal traveller and has the right fluff/crunch rations for my tastes.

But for the love of everything holy, don't give mongoose money. Download Cepheus engine, it's free and basically a carbon copy of MgT 1e. Solid supplements for CE/Mgt 1E are the Central supply catalouge (when you ignore the additional armor rules). high guard and most 3rd party supplements. ( I recommend the 3rd party robot supplement)

And only to have said that it exists. there is also mongoose traveller second edition, if you want to pay money for less than medicore art, weird to bad rule changes and giving mongoose money.

Cheers

He forgot the obligatory 'traveller has existed for 40 years, pick and choose what you need, lest you drown in content' warning/advice

Okay beginners read on the fly list i would recommend.

Cepheus engine/ MgT 1E (CE IS MgT 1e but with better editing and for free)

Central supply catalouge (drop the extra amor rules, the rest is rather solid, althoug non- lethal weapons are pretty strong

High guard.

carefull selection of 3rd party (for mongoose Traveller 1e) supplement from the OP archive.

That would be my most generic beginner starter kit. priority of needing/reading from top to bottom.

how would one roleplay a robot? I can't seem to grock it since there's no AI

Not at all. You roleplay a robotics engineer and keep robots as 'minions'/'pets'.

but what about...Aybee Wan Owen, Traveller's Digest

Each issue contains roleplaying advice for someone using AB-101

I'd like a second opinion

Yeah, I tried hunting them down. The only one I've found (that I liked) to buy is a cover of "Dawson's Christian"

I did learn that "Carmen Miranda's Ghost" was made by a dude who is still fairly popular and does a lot of comedy sci-fi/fantasy songs.

Also I learned that "filk" is a thing and is my #1 reason for my time machine project.

> time machine project

Explain

>It's everything i wanted it to be, not to crunchy, not to fluffy.

Traveller is the fucking best.

What's wrong w/ Mongoose?

I want to travel back in time when filk was a big deal.

Then I get all the songs.

editing issues by the dozen, mostly

>The universe would be better off with them gone and their systems being divided up between the Empire and the Zhodani.

Third-wold hellhole buffer state. Better than having a fortified Imperial-Zhodani border several sectors across.

Not that user, but Mongoose has had a track record of some pretty spotty editing jobs when it comes to their material. MgTe2 in particular is kind of a mess, with the core rulebook missing any sort of index (at least in the print version) as well as many instances of referring to discarded or changed rules from previous editions. In the context of Traveller specifically, they unfortunately decided to revoke the OGL they had for 1st edition when MgT2e rolled around, meaning third parties couldn't really publish their own material using the Mongoose line with the same kind of freedom.

This coupled with the aforementioned editing problems has given some players a sour outlook on Mongoose, though frankly I couldn't care less. However, there are some people who are frankly so salty about them that Cepheus Engine has pretty much become the martyr in some kind of war against anything Mongoose related. At least one very dedicated user has been trying to force constantly in every Veeky Forums Traveller thread, so if you see constant bitching about Mongoose, MgT2e in particular, and also shilling for CE in the same post, chances are it's him.

Aaaaaaah

Graphics don't matter. Artistic style and direction is what matters.

No, what really matters is depth of gameplay, and allowance for emergent gameplay

MgT2e HG percentage based system is pretty rad though, although the biosphere is fairly powerful - per dton and 1 point of power, remove life support costs for two people. Combine that with a workshop and your belters are going to be saying "Planets? We don't need no stinking planets!" and setting up Eclipse Phase style anarchist communes in the nearest asteroid belt. Given enough time, and the materials in any asteroid belt (even the goddamn Oort cloud is enough to support a good size civ), they can build their own shipyards.
But I kind of like that idea.

bumping with the best source for hard(ish) SF anything: projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/

>projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
To be fair, my salt comes mostly from making Their license OGL, since some of the best material for 1E is 3rd party, like the robot book.

also CE has the positive point of being FREE, and having slightly better editing than mongooses version.

I got to admit that 2e's ship percentage design rules are pretty neato. But i think that including rules like power points to a ships reactor, just so the engineers would't feel useless during ship combat, is pretty dang stupid.
Because some people need to be told that they have numbers to push around, god forbid if an engineer starts improvising in a rpg and starts sputing nonsene like "i transfer power from the live support systems to the engine so we are faster" or "Since the drive is destroyed, i want to cut off it's power circulation to overcharge the ship's turrets, this might very well damage them, but is a problem for future me."
God forbid that.

And i startet ranting about 2e like... the day before yesterday.

I meant, closing the OGL
Also the greentext snuck in somehow... it's late over here...

I have a question about Solar Panels in High Guard MgT2e. Pic related.
How many Power Points do they generate?
It says they're sized to '10% that of the main power plant', does that mean they generate 10 times the power points per ton as your main power plant, since they're meant to replace it while not manoeuvring or refining fuel?

Maybe they mean that it's 10% the tonnage of a reactor that could supply all systems of a ship? I'm looking to replace much of the reactor of a space station with Solar Panels (since they're way cheaper than fusion reactors), so manoeuvring wouldn't be a problem

>mongoose traveller second edition, ... weird to bad rule changes
I'm going to have to strongly disagree there user. You can always download MgT2e for free, and it's, for the most part, a superior ruleset.

1) Many of the 1e supplements that were poorly written (particularly Mercenaries, but also the instantly outdated Robot), were discarded in 2e, though it retained some bits from disparate books (ship components from Aliens 3 Darrians, for instance).

Robots is not very good simply because it makes overly specific assumptions about the rate of technological advancement, and thus became instantly outdated when a 1Tb hard drive is suddenly TL11 technology.

2) Ship creation is much more flexible in 2e. You're no longer boxed into fixed hull sizes. Power points is a way of showing what components fail when there is power loss (crit hits or otherwise), which can be handy. Now, there are a few missing paragraphs and the editing isn't great, but any literate person can piece together RAI, and if not, make it up.

3) 2e Vehicle rules are far superior to both versions of 1e's, being less needlessly complicated than the first one ("wow, sloped armor is the result of trigonometry, let's add a poor implementation of that!") and much more flexible than the second ("Just make up whatever"). Furthermore, because 2e had been rewritten with both vehicle and starship scales in mind, both interact better with personal scale characters than in 1e, where you had 50x multipliers (Mercenaries 1e)

4) The little things matter: 2e has explicit rules on changing assignments within a career, dropped the silly planet-of-hats homeworld skill requirement, and integrated the education system from 1e Mercenaries and Cosmopolite into core.

All in all, it's a major improvement. Now, I can understand not liking Mongoose for its business practices. But as a ruleset, 2e's better.

Essentially yes. So, it's 10% the tonnage of the reactor that you would otherwise install.

The second sentence in the 3rd paragraph can be taken as part of the if-statement or separately (I'd consider it separate, since the 4th paragraph rules refer to non-maneuvering). In that case, you will have to determine what "minimal maneuvering" is (probably Thrust 0 to 1 at most)

Wow, that would give my Solar Panels a yield of 200 Power Points per ton at TL15 - twice as much as fucking anti-matter!

Do note that maneuvering means using the drive at all, so apart from the 'minimal maneuvering' clause, you won't be using solar panels while your normal m-drive is on.

So it's fine for stations and the like, but you can't use them for much else. (I'd be more explicit with the minimal maneuvering and limit it to Thrust 1 (that is, maximum may be higher, but averages to 1g))

I'd probably go even further and say that 'minimal manoeuvring' means Thrust 0. I really only want to use it for space stations, since they sit around soaking in sunshine all day anyway.
Gives me a fun idea though, a ship that doesn't have a reactor at all, just batteries and solar panels. It can zip around at Thrust 5 or something for a few hours, but then has to recharge.

They did make some good choices. I like High Guard and Vehicles, and a few of the skill changes make sense as well.
I just don't like the skill cap. But I like being able to get better at things.
I did that with my Colony Container - no reactors, just solar panels and batteries. The recharge rule are odd for a single battery though.

1) Yeah i noted that the mongoose supplements are shit in since the 3rd party ones are ways ahed of the stuff mongoose publishes even with 2e like the 3rd party robot supplement.
Also, the roll 3 take the two best is really poorly implemented into the game, unlike compared to 5e DnD (where it was stolen from) where are multiple mechanics and it's well implemented.

2) that argument pretty much avoids my point of adding the mostly unecessary power point system, it's a sidegrade not an up or downgrade, change for the sake of change.3) yeah since i totally want my Particle beam, which has the size of a large truck and a fusion power plant connected to it, to only put dents in a car. Also 2e brought the fucking "smart" weapon trait with it, which is really fucking retarded, since it takes an already strong abstraction (tech level) and makes it an working mechanic in a weapon.
To the vehicle rules itself: i never saw a problem with them, mind to elaborate ?

4) Yeah the homeworld rules are pretty stupid and I'm pretty sure most GM handeled in the way "if you come from a worl like that, you could take it instead of an education skill" (at least that's how i did it)

Also there was the shitty buissnes strategy of putting all the ship building rules into high guard and leaving players and GM's alike with the standart asset of ship's in the book.
and adding (at best) mediocre art and demanding twice the money for something thats basically a sidegrade with colourfull pictures.

And there is the spotty design decision of skill learning: Learning new skills was never travellers stick, since it's more of a system for an episode style of play "spock is always spock and won't start driving tanks".
But i can respect the idea of "we can't punish people for having more skills, since they will learn more slowly"
What i think is bullshit is "Now you learn new stuff by rolling on a basic attribute of you... namely education." So instead of punishing people for their skills, we punish them for their attributes, a qualitative mongoose product.

Sure 1e has it's flaws, but you can work with those and tweak them with some small houserules, 2e needs you to outhright ignore entire design decisions that make 2e "new" and "different" to stop players about rule arguing.

All in all. 2e is pretty much a sidegrade from 1e and mostly up to taste, your taste might be shit and that's what you might like, but still subjetive taste.

Here's what I'm thinking of doing:
>drop bane/boon
That's just a fucking bandwagon jump. We already had easy adjustment of the die rolls, just hop the difficulty up or down by one step (also, I believe in having the difficulty just modifying the target you have to hit, not being a bonus or penalty. It's like they saw "hit 8+ for an average task under stress" and went "all rolls must hit 8+, not matter how difficult". What the hell is wrong with just going 10+ or 6+ for a roll?)
>Keep background skills and the skill changes
Dropping HW skills made sense - especially since a world with 4 or more trade codes that provided skills could wipe out your education skills. I might require some skills for certain small cultures though (space gypsy? You have Vacc Suit 0, automatically. Roll 8+ to get PSI for women, if yes auto get Clairvoyance 0. Now pick either an Art or something physically useful for running spaceships). Putting computer into electronics also made sense, as did renaming Trade into Profession (even though plenty of skills can be used in the same way that Profession is, it still covers things the other skills don't)
>High Guard and Vehicles
I haven't run a full test of Vehicles yet, but so far it looks fairly easy. I like the percentage based options: it lets me easily figure out the base needs for my design before I even choose a hull, so I can design the mission package first instead of trying to shuffle my numbers because I don't want to rework everything for a new hull size.
I'm on the fence about power points - they don't get used in Vehicles, I kind of like having a balancing act in ship design, but they still don't really do anything - it's fairly trivial to just drop another half ton or so of power planet to get enough for, oh say, a small missile bay in your free trader and unleashing a Manticoran Missile Massacre (hell, the damn thing has enough spare power in spaceflight to power a mass drive bay). It's just to make you choose.

>What the hell is wrong with just going 10+ or 6+ for a roll?
Basically nothing, it's just the same thing in green:

>Keep background skills and the skill changes
I would recommend the approach had.
>"if you come from a world like that, you could take it instead of an education skill"
So your dude born on a small mining asteroid can actually know how to handle a vacc suit.

>>High Guard and Vehicles
It is, but there is usually the approch for 1e: Choose everything you abolutely need and add hull/Drives/power plant's at last.

But your way of doing it works too and i encourage you to play any version of traveller you like.
Welcome aboard traveller.

>a 1Tb hard drive is suddenly TL11 technology.

...do they just not do research at all?

Yep, they basically dropped everything from CT's Robots into the book with some bare modifications and horrible editing.
Sort of like how D&D 3.x says that you can move 30ft/6seconds (actually, 3 seconds, so 10ft/sec) all the time without realizing that in AD&D 30ft/move action was your tactical speed.
Porting without understanding.

Maybe they just copied the older versions, you know the OLD ones, where 100 GB of harddrive sounded like alot.

AAAAND didn't do their research and editing.

>Zero Punctuation

My Zhodani

>to only put dents in a car.
So you haven't read it then? a 2d6 particle beam (in starship scale) does 20-120 hull damage (before adding for effect, which can be significant, given the significant range bonuses starship weapons have), while a TL8 car has a total of 12 hull (and 2 armor).

>To the vehicle rules itself: i never saw a problem with them, mind to elaborate ?
1e Vehicles, while quite fun to use, was needlessly complicated, partially for the M3 calculations, but mostly because of the inclusion of its power and fuel efficiency rules, which leads to odd optimization: the most efficient (in terms of power-to-weight, and then to cost) power plant to use for nearly everything (belowTL17) was the TL10 turbine engine. Everything else, including TL15 fusion reactors, was less efficient.

Actually, I approve of putting the ship creation rules in High Guard, as it saves from having to flip through two books to build a ship. Also, 2e High Guard has a ton of optional rules which are very useful when using the ruleset for non-I3 settings.

>that ship, pic related

> range bonuses
ah yeah another thing to remind me of, a certain range make you shoot better with your gun. Because the mongoose career system (both) already handed out too few of those.

Also 2e's vehicles are made out of cardboard, tinfoil and D&D players reality acceptance.

I'm putting my faith in the vietnam veteran when it comes to vehicle and gun combat, not in the fat brit.

Did you had problems with players wanting to build a turbine car ?
Also i heard that combat between different kinds of vehicle combat (boats vs. planes, spaceships vs cars, etc) translates not all that well.

>Actually, I approve of putting the ship creation rules in High Guard, as it saves from having to flip through two books to build a ship.
Okay when you like to pay more for less, that's your style.

>Also, 2e High Guard has a ton of optional rules which are very useful when using the ruleset for non-I3 settings.
Which were also in 1E some even in the CRB... which you would know if you would've read it.

Well anyway, have fun with your overpriced picture book.

Look, can we all just agree that the Biosphere is awesome, yet possibly overpowered?

why?

>Also 2e's vehicles are made out of cardboard
It should be noted that reaching 0 Hull does not destroy the vehicle, just make it inoperable (for instance, having an axle blown off a ground car means it can no longer function as a means of transport, although it could possibly still be used for other functions like storage/shelter).

>Did you have problems with players wanting to build a turbine car?
It's the most efficient option for EVERY vehicle type, so of course.

>Which were also in 1E some even in the CRB
No. There is a new chapter of High Technology in 2e HG, which has stuff like warp/hyperdrives, time drives (although those were in 1e Psion), quad turrets, weapons that are more akin to Star Wars blasters, super-lasers, etc. etc. There's also more 'common' sci-fi fare such as deflector screens and energy shields, and gravity well generators.

These things are explicitly not in 1e. I can understand you not liking the inclusion of these items, but to say that they were in 1e is blatantly false.

Please discriminate between your dislike for Mongoose as a company from their work. Or at least read 2e before you hate on it.

1dton to remove the life support costs of two people? Sure, it's cool, but I'm pretty sure the average belter would gladly drop some of his cargo space just to drop his costs and extend his cruising time to the limits of maintenance and fuel.
Oh, and you can buy two for the price of one stateroom and still have money left over.

It's certainly awesome, but I'm not sure about overpowered. Each ton of biosphere covers the life support for 1,000 to 2,000 cr./month based on normal staterooms. RAI, it's *probably* not supposed to cover life support and supplies for high or luxury staterooms, though the increase in those costs (from 1k to 5k per stateroom) is probably not due to food.

A ton of common consumables is 500cr. (p. 212), and that'd probably last you a long time as well, so it's a tradeoff for not having to visit a port and having nice smelling flowers I suppose.

My reading, based on the running costs, is that it actually ties into the life support systems (and it covers basically Cr3000/month). It doesn't cover the maintenance costs required for the systems, but... Fresh food is a big seller in space.

Help me understand Imperial nobles Veeky Forums, are they literal kings? Important politicians, decorated generals? does it depend on a world's TL? Are there any non-human nobles?

You were assigned, at birth, the duty to protect the Imperium and to be the long hand of the Emperor.
Also, administrating shit. Your siblings that don't hold titles, but are noble, can do troubleshooting shit.
Basically, Nobles are expected to be PC's, but with less bounties placed on their heads. Along the way, their plans and shenanigans happen.
GO into the trove, get into the GURPS folder, and grab Nobles, it covers all this shit. The only thing it doesn't explain is SOC increases, but those are understood as being from famous actions, awards/medals, and the occasional upping of your title. I had a bit of homebrew on noble titles that held no territory, lemme track it down.

thanks user

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The setting spans 300,000 years (with about 288,000 of that being pretty quiet). The Ancients who started the whole thing developed AI after the whole uplift thing kept leading to disappointment, and some of those robots survived. A large number survived on one world in particular, and kept fighting or vermin hunting for so long they left psychological scars on the humans who also survived there. After their power finally ran out, the humans they had hunted were able to civilize and eventually settle the stars, taking their fear of AI with them. Ten thousand years later, as AI was on the cusp of happening anyway, an unhappy accident occurred that caused weaponized AI to wipe stellar civilization off of 90% of the map, thus justifying their fears.

The weaponized AI eventually re-evolved out of the weaponization imposed on it, and the very end of the era described for play has the potential for true AI.

If you are looking for some guidelines, the Classic adventure "Signal GK" is the place to start, then jump to the MegaTaveller-TNE bridge book "Survival Margin", and finally to the 1248 books.

And again, i've read it and found it appalling, just because i don't remember every trauma in it's own does not mean i will read it again.

And I'm repeating mysef: 2e is mostly a sidegrade with questionable design choices of which none are objectively worse or better than other editions.

It's you who startet "MUH BETTER SYSTEM"
>All in all, it's a major improvement. Now, I can understand not liking Mongoose for its business practices. But as a ruleset, 2e's better.

Go home Matthew.

How would you like to play as a full conversion cyborg ?

Maybe you where even transplanted when you where a little child so there would be some behaviour differences between you and your average meatbag.

Also fluff wise a biosphere is still something that needs some ecological balance, something what can be fucked up by a hullbreach or prolonged pollution.

Always 've been more of a sucker for "traditional" spaceship design.

And space ship ships are pretty neat too.

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>letting the Vargr drive

That man totaly deserved whatever comes from this.

You know, for a game all about the space opera tropes of the 60s and 70s, there's a distinct lack of the most important aspect of those cliches: sexy, impractical space getups.

That's more 30s/40s.

Usually a Pulp thing and a little earlier than the 60s, except for a brief resurgence as the Sexual Revolution raged.

Star Trek's costuming was a throwback to earlier adventure fiction.

Also, there's always a lot of leeway in how you run your Magical Traveller Universe.

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