Who actually wears combat armour?

[locarno24]

Sudden thought: who in the OTU normally uses it - because neither the marine nor the army careers have realistic access to the Vacc Suit skill, which you need to wear the stuff effectively.

Now, I know some people will argue that the Marines' default Battle Dress/0 can be substituted, but whilst there's definitely some cross-over between the two, letting someone substitute level zero skills for one another seems to be pushing it.

Besides which, I can't see imperial marines using combat armour that much - since Uncle Strephon's boys tend to reach for battle dress for heavy infantry units, you'd think it'd be either cloth/light armour or battle dress without much between the two.

[dragoner]

It is an old overlooked point, I usually just give most vets vacc-0 if they are from a high tech world or were Imperial Army.

[DBB]

Off the top of my head, Starship security personnel, Imperial Navy security details and shore patrols, army personnel, lower than Imperial tech armed forces, Marines on non-assault assignments.

Battledress (powered armour) would tend to be assigned to assault and/or elite units. Its cost and complexity would dissuade its assignment to other units when adequate alternatives exist.

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

DBB, while I don't disagree with you, I believe the original poster was concerned that the necessary Vacc Suit skill was NOT in the skill tables for those careers and backgrounds.

[locarno24]

I usually just give most vets vacc-0 if they are from a high tech world

That's actually how this came up - the player in question pointedly picked a world where he could claim Vacc Suit/0 as an education skill "because you need it to wear combat armour", which provoked the question "don't you get it as part of....no, no, you don't, do you?"

DBB, while I don't disagree with you, I believe the original poster was concerned that the necessary Vacc Suit skill was NOT in the skill tables for those careers and backgrounds.

Actually, it was a bit of both. No book that I've got (note that I'm limited to Mongoose published stuff) actually says how a ship's marine detachment is organised (unless it's buried somewhere in sector fleet). Certainly not at a unit or default equipment setting, anyway.

Add to this that all the combat-ready marines I've seen in adventures are usually battle-dress clad, I was wondering if they do use anything less (beyond, as I say, cloth armour/protec suits or something similar that might form part of standard no. 2's) or if they canonically jump straight from unarmoured to battledress (which would explain why marines, at least, don't need the vacc suit skill).

Any unit other than the imperial marines is going to vary from planet to planet so wildly it's not worth describing outside a specific adventure or setting book. Although would be interested if anyone has any specific references to naval security specific from the marines (Aside from MPs - I can't see them turning up to a bar-fight to arrest some drunk deckies wearing what from it's weight is essentially modern infantryman battlefield armour).

[F33D]

I usually just give most vets vacc-0 if they are from a high tech world

That's actually how this came up - the player in question pointedly picked a world where he could claim Vacc Suit/0 as an education skill "because you need it to wear combat armour", which provoked the question "don't you get it as part of....no, no, you don't, do you?"

Reminds me of Scouts. No way to learn how to fire a ship's weapons.

[DickTurpin]

Neither the marine nor the army careers have realistic access to the Vacc Suit skill, which you need to wear [Combat Armor] effectively.

Reminds me of Scouts. No way to learn how to fire a ship's weapons.

Those characters would have to pick up the skills either using the Connections Rule (p. 8 CRB), the Traveller Skill Package (p. 38 CRB), or else take the time to study it during play, I guess. That is one reason I am a big fan of the Connections Rule.

[F33D]

Those characters would have to pick up the skills either using the Connections Rule (p. 8 CRB), the Traveller Skill Package (p. 38 CRB), or else take the time to study it during play, I guess. That is one reason I am a big fan of the Connections Rule.

Correct. But, that doesn't justify broken service skill rules.

[coldwar]

With in the scout book, the Courier option has Gunnery skill in the Education table.

However, I don't really understand why scouts would really pick up the Gunnery skill in general.

With combat armour, its description shows it is issued to ground troops and mercenaries. Checked the merc book. Only one career has the correct skill. (Ship Security 'Table')

[F33D]

With in the scout book, the Courier option has Gunnery skill in the Education table.

Sure. However it isn't in the CORE rules.

However, I don't really understand why scouts would really pick up the Gunnery skill in general.

Because they explore unknown regions of space in armed star ships & fly ARMED Courier ships carrying VIP's & valuables plus, their ships & crew are pressed into service with the Imperial navy during war. It would be insane to not be able to operate basic equipment you need to use.

During peace time, on an average day, Scouts would use ship weapons MORE than the Navy.

[coldwar]

And the operating check lists for scouts say that if found in a situation that is going to have ship combat, is to flee and jump away. And avoid combat at all costs if they can.

I haven't seen them portrayed anywhere, in the materials I have read, as gung ho fighters. The most I've seen about combat situations for scouts is that they are panicky and not really trained for combat.

And, when a scout ship is armed, the scout can hire people to man them. They don't cost much as compared to other crew.
And most scout ship designs are not armed, nor given indication that they would be due to their design nature.

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

With in the scout book, the Courier option has Gunnery skill in the Education table.

Sure. However it isn't in the CORE rules.

However, I don't really understand why scouts would really pick up the Gunnery skill in general.

Because they explore unknown regions of space in armed star ships & fly ARMED Courier ships carrying VIP's & valuables plus, their ships & crew are pressed into service with the Imperial navy during war. It would be insane to not be able to operate basic equipment you need to use.


During peace time, on an average day, Scouts would use ship weapons MORE than the Navy.

Fire control software is the scouts friend. I doubt if the scouts will get involved in much ship to ship combat in peacetime, when they do, the computer operates the turrets. In wartime, naval gunners might be attached, but scout ships are generally weakly armed, and would be used to scout, not fight.

Egil

[GamingGlen]

It isn't all that hard to make notes in the book to fix the problem.*

For the Marines, give the player an option to take Vacc Suit 0 instead of Battle Dress 0, listed in the Service Skills table, during basic training (or make it a mandatory change). Same goes for the Army, replacing Athletics 0 (which is unnecessary) with Vacc Suit 0.

I had a similar issue when making a scholar character, who wasn't a physician, and another player keeps criticising the tables for creating a physician who might not end up with nothing more than Medic 1 after several terms. So I made two notes: when a result has either Any Science (any) or Medic, you can take your choice of either; this way a scientist won't be a better physician, or vice-versa, than his supposedly chosen field.


* Yeah, I am/was one to be aghast at writing in a book, even to update it with errata. But since my Traveller core book has a torn corner, it's not longer a big deal.

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

A couple of thoughts about combat armour.

We allow combat armour without the vacc suit capability, it gives you the protection, and nbc capabilities, and can be used with respirators, filter masks etc, and costs half the price (and we have much cheaper combat armour and battle dress anyway, but that is another thread).

Imagine a planet like earth, soldiers will want the protection of the armour, but don't want the complexity and expense of a vacc suit.

However, for "proper" combat armour, we allow the character to have obtained vacc 0 if it can be justified by their background (e.g. army career in a high tech world), but it needs to replace one of their other level 0 skills. Otherwise, learn during play, or accept the -2 skill penalty.

Egil

[F33D]

Fire control software is the scouts friend. I doubt if the scouts will get involved in much ship to ship combat in peacetime, when they do, the computer operates the turrets. In wartime, naval gunners might be attached, but scout ships are generally weakly armed, and would be used to scout, not fight.

Egil

Sorry, doing mental gymnastics to justify gaping holes in the rule set doesn't cut. Keep trying though.

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

It isn't all that hard to make notes in the book to fix the problem.*

For the Marines, give the player an option to take Vacc Suit 0 instead of Battle Dress 0, listed in the Service Skills table, during basic training (or make it a mandatory change). Same goes for the Army, replacing Athletics 0 (which is unnecessary) with Vacc Suit 0.

I had a similar issue when making a scholar character, who wasn't a physician, and another player keeps criticising the tables for creating a physician who might not end up with nothing more than Medic 1 after several terms. So I made two notes: when a result has either Any Science (any) or Medic, you can take your choice of either; this way a scientist won't be a better physician, or vice-versa, than his supposedly chosen field.


* Yeah, I am/was one to be aghast at writing in a book, even to update it with errata. But since my Traveller core book has a torn corner, it's not longer a big deal.

No problems pencilling amendments into the CRB here! I tend to think that vacc suit 0 will form the basic lessons of battledress training, before the recruit gets to play with all the cool extras, so anyone with battledress 0, or higher, will have vacc suit 0 (but not the other way round).

Rolling for skills can throw up some unexpected results, though in your example it could be argued that a particular medic has spent most of his time in jobs that use non-medical skills to support medical practice, leading to skills in comms, investigate, persuade or science. All useful skills. The other alternative is to allow players to select some, or all, skills from the tables rather than rolling.

Egil

[DickTurpin]

Going back over the rules I don't see anywhere that says Vacc Suit is required to wear Combat Armor. I don't see any reason to modify the Army skills tables to add it.

Marines should have Vacc Suit as a core skill since their reason for existing is to be able to fight on, or be deployed from, starships. The skill tables do not actually need to be altered however; it makes more sense to just alter the Battle Dress skill description to allow its use in place of Vacc Suit.

As currently written, the Battle Dress skill is only there as a requirement to use the armor; a player will (probably) never be asked to actually make a skill check with it. By making that simple change to the description it will actually become a truly useful skill and fix a glaring oversight in the Marine career at the same time.

[Jeraa]

Going back over the rules I don't see anywhere that says Vacc Suit is required to wear Combat Armor. I don't see any reason to modify the Army skills tables to add it.

The armor table in the core rulebook says combat armor requires Vacc Suit 0 to wear without penalty. For every skill level you are missing you take a -2 DM on all actions.

Note if you use Central Supply Catalog, the Vacc Suit skill requirement was removed from combat armor.

[DickTurpin]

The armor table in the core rulebook says combat armor requires Vacc Suit 0 to wear without penalty. For every skill level you are missing you take a -2 DM on all actions.

Note if you use Central Supply Catalog, the Vacc Suit skill requirement was removed from combat armor.

Interesting, the table on page 87 of my copy of the CRB lists "None" under the Required Skill column for all armors except Vacc Suits, HE Vacc suits and Battle Dress.

[Jeraa]

The armor table in the core rulebook says combat armor requires Vacc Suit 0 to wear without penalty. For every skill level you are missing you take a -2 DM on all actions.

Note if you use Central Supply Catalog, the Vacc Suit skill requirement was removed from combat armor.

Interesting, the table on page 87 of my copy of the CRB lists "None" under the Required Skill column for all armors except Vacc Suits, HE Vacc suits and Battle Dress.

There has been at least 2 printings of the core rulebook. Apparently, the problem was fixed in one of the printings.