Recent content by J. L. Brown

High Guard is the central bible for ship construction; it extends even beyond the default setting. It makes sense that important (and especially non-setting-specific) ship software should be described there. The 'Core Rules' are not authoritative; they are focused on player characters &...

I have recently become enamored of an approach from 'Ars Magica' 5e: 'Pyramid pricing'. Basic performance is defined, then getting each bonus costs progressively more. So AP 0 costs zero 'build points' AP 1 costs one, AP 2 costs two more than AP 1, AP 3 costs three more than AP 2, AP 4 costs...

True -- but if each section pays 2%, then the whole hull is legal whether or not they are joined up. At one point I was in the habit of including 2% in every hull I built & claiming a 'standardized interface' that allowed an arbitrary number (and combination - Mongoose has made no attempt to...

A 100 dTon Breakaway Hull; with Jump Drive & fuel in one section, and all the 'mission' equipment in the other might work. Design the drop-able 'Jump' section without a Bridge by using Virtual Crew; all the non-Virtualizable crew ride in the other hull. If you are aiming for 50 dTons exactly...

It is nice that you have a solution for your Traveller universe; but no 'starter' ships come with docking clamps -- nor is it clear that an airlock is included with a clamp. Plus there are some other disadvantages to clamps: A party of Travellers is paying a noticeable opportunity cost for a...

That looks larger than a bull, and masses about the same.

Hauling it around; more especially if the party does not have a ship. But even with a ship, many ships do not have a dedicated small-craft berth, so your boat displaces paying cargo & freight.

The Ship's Boat benefit is limited to (IIRC) 10MCr; but this makes it worth less than the '25% of the Mortgage is paid' benefit, which is worth around (depends on the specific ship, obviously) 25MCr. So the Navy character mustering-out benefit closes the gap a little in comparison to the 'get a...

Which adds 'Atrocity' to the negative modifiers; and pray that there are no recordings, talkative crew, floating bodies, or any paper trail that EVER connect you to the target. In addition to the 2d6+1 hit to standing, you are talking about a +8 modifier to the Pirate Response Index (Drinaxian...

The human body is roughly the same density as water; and varies (for adults) between ~45 and ~120 kilograms; so a 150 liter tank is overkill. Even allowing 50% more space for 'wastage' or 'clearance', 225 liters is very much 'all adult humans within two standard deviations'.

'Taking their ships' is an Infamous Incident; it is against the 'unwritten code of the stars' and heavily penalized -- in addition to the standing hit from 'Stealing Cargo'. Stolen goods must be fenced, and return a small fraction (between 10% and 30%) of their usual value. The way the Piracy...

Well yes -- but piracy pays so incredibly poorly, especially the way it is set up in this campaign. Regular speculative trade is far less dangerous, does not involve the risk of costly repairs, or worsening diplomatic relations, and pays FAR more money. So, if a minor power needs a bunch of...

I just noticed this: So a advanced computer/1-equivalent brain would have room for 1 Skill/0 package. But a Computer/2 equivalent would get room for two Skill/0 packages for EACH of its points of bandwidth, so 2 x 2 = 4 Skill/0 packages. That has a big effect with high capacity / high INT...

First: my (very over-simplified and probably incorrect) understanding: Vacuum is not empty; there is energy present. That energy represents an infinite number of possible wavelengths. Virtual particle pairs (matter and anti-matter counterparts) constantly emerge -- for nearly infinitesimal...

Could be a red giant star, or the swollen pre-kablooie 'helium burning' stage of a dwarf star -- much, much larger than what we usually imagine for a star. The giant ringed planet are still many AU from the surface of the star; but still caught on silhouette.