Recent content by darktalon

Well, my source is due to get Dilettante next week as I hoped and I should have it in my hands by the end of the week. Already got it on order. Look forward to checking it out then. :)

Tropes are descriptive, not prescriptive. They're not even an excuse, let alone a mandate, to rehash the same old plot a zillion times.

And the 2d6 mishap and d66 event tables for Army and Marines. :)

Besides, many of the character types in other books also come under the "civilian" heading (merchants, dilettantes, scoundrels, some psions and agents and arguably scouts are all civilians) so it's probably too broad a label.

If you can track down the radio specials (don't know if they were ever released on tape or CD though) then you don't even have to worry about the dodgy effects. :)

I think citizen and scholar careers would probably go in the same volume much like nobles and entertainers in Dilettante. Book 9: Colonist?

It's because it takes time for the skills and equipment to work on new tech to filter down to the everyday user. We're at early TL 8 but you need expensive equipment and specialised training to build or even maintain a TL 8 device, like your example of a 2010s car engine (TL 8) versus a 1970s...

Well, there's precedent for Bioware licensing their properties for tabletop (Dragon Age) - and there's Mongoose, a large (by the standards of the industry) company with an established sci-fi product line and a liking for licensed games. Stranger things have been known... :)

I'm hoping my usual source gets it with next week's batch of new releases. That's most of the careers with books of their own now, isn't it?

Oh, hell yeah. :) I seem to remember one of the Traveller S&P articles talking about Mass Effect though I don't recall the context.

I have a later printing High Guard (with the right table of contents) that still has the -2 for age 42+ for High Command. Am I right in assuming that I should disregard it?

So the new book could give him the opportunity to realise his ambitions within the campaign itself! :D

In TNE, the close structure is the cheapest hull (presumably because of the efficiency advantage of modular construction) but uses more hull material than the sphere because of its greater surface area, relevant if you want a ship that's well armoured but not too heavy. (Edit: it also, unlike in...

Am I missing something, or is there actually no reason to choose a close structure over a sphere? Both have 70% of weapons bearing, partial streamlining and the same hit table for meson guns, but the sphere is cheaper.

The Traveller universe has a good 200-ton jump-2 ship in the form of the type A2 Far Trader. It's always been a popular choice in my campaigns because my players liked the speed and flexibility that jump-2 offers but wanted something bigger than a type S - I guess the same idea you had. Give it...