Recent content by swordtart

War often creates opportunity. "You mean you were gun running in the middle of a civil war?" "Well, that's the best time to do it, Rodney. Supply and demand."

It depends on if you still want to pay KCr4 per DTon for the hull. If you want to do extensive reshaping of the exterior to obtain an advantage I'd expect it to cost more. You can pick and choose your asteroid of course so it would depend on the availability of the perfect one for your needs...

I'd prefer those distinctions to be via the stat used to operate the skill. Mechanics is an odd word to described repair of electronic systems and I find it hard to accept that you could repair something that you don't understand. I agree that a differentiation between operation of complex...

I also like the general skills cascading to more specific skills but it can go too far. I would have liked it to have gone further in some cases in MGT2. Persuade, Carouse, Streetwise and Deception have overlap and I think they are all specialisms of the same basic skill to smooth talk and...

Sorry, I didn't explain that well. If you had those skills you would be rolling without penalty. You don't need to have them for simple maths or writing. There are plenty of reasons why a science or language skill would be useful but you might as well take advantage of the extra techniques in...

There is the Language* skill and Maths is a specialism of science (and Science 0 would mean a check at no penalty). The two examples you quote would just be trivial tasks of those skills. Even with no formal skill you would be fairly likely to pass. Of course your EDU modifier would apply and...

I think we agree about this, but I am therefore confused why you tied it to a list of academic qualifications. If you are talking about CT then the argument is different. There were fewer skills anyway and you didn't even need to roll for much of the time. I am talking about the MGT2...

That was not my argument. EDU is used if you are explaining to someone how the rifle works. DEX is used to hold your balance, steady the rifle and control your breathing to hit a target. If you have never used the rifle INT might be used to see if you can work out how it works. See how a skill...

O' levels were not average qualifications, only about half the student population even took them (and those that did tended to take 9 or more). It was also the boundary between joining the Civil Service as an Executive grade (i.e. Manager) vs an Administrative Grade (Clerk). These were the...

But again that ties EDU only to academic learning and the EDU modifier applies to all learning. A level Physics is not general education it is the Science skill. A degree in Mathematics is not general education it is ...err.. Science again apparently. Think of any PhD and it won't be in...

I am also noticing that very few careers are actually adversely impacted by low EDU. Ironically the career you would expect to follow from education (Scholar) has a very low requirement to remain employed and other than Physician advancement is wholly unconnected with EDU. If EDU is a measure...

It should, but in Traveller the Hons Grads only get a better chance in subsequent careers over the basic Grads, there is no EDU difference and of course it is INT that determines your level of graduation so there is no correspondence there. Only 3% of the population have EDU of 2 and need to...

If you were a TL15 computer engineer, EDU would not help you with that task unless you had experience of working with ancient technology. That would to me be a classic INT task. Where I allow INT to be used instead of EDU I also tend to increase the task time. If you know how to extract data...

I don't buy online books by just looking at the cover. There is usually a description and that is just as capable of carrying unequivocal versioning rather than hinting at it.

Could be, or they could be massively educated though an apprenticeship with a master craftsman but only in a single subject area. In that single area however they are still using skills they have learned (possibly with great personal effort), not just using native smarts and making it up on the...