A New Guy With Some Questions

[Codac]

Hello people of the internet, I'm new to the forum and just recently got into Traveller and so far I love the system.

I'm not a huge fan of the OTU though and recently my inner Star Wars geek has come out to play. Now from what I've seen on the forum so far is that people here are fairly hard sci-fi so this probably won't earn me a whole lot of fans but has anyone here tried adapting the MGT rules for the Star Wars universe. I'm mostly thinking vehicle/spacecraft creation rules since that is the area that interests me the most and requires heavy modification.

A couple major things that I've noted down are as fallows:

In general small craft are more heavily armed in SW.
Star Wars has the shields which would balance out the first point some.
Hyperdrives can fit on smaller craft have a longer distance and travel much faster.

There are allot more but those are some main points I've been looking at. So any thoughts are appreciated and thanks in advance.

 

[DFW]

I tried this back in '78-'79. The technology assumptions are SO far apart that it just turns into a mess that doesn't do justice to either "system".

 

[rust]

I am afraid DFW is right, the technology assumptions really are so diffe-
rent that it does not make sense to use the Traveller system for the de-
sign of Star Wars starships or to play a Star Wars game.

For example, the typical player character ship in Star Wars would probab-
ly be a hyperspace capable heavy fighter. Unfortunately Traveller does
not allow faster than light drives in small craft, and the available weapon-
ry also does not fit the Star Wars model in any way I would find acceptab-
le.

Combat would also be a serious problem. Star Wars combat is one where
a player character has to try hard to get seriously wounded or killed, Tra-
veller combat is very, very lethal. Han and Luke would not survive any of
the Star Wars combat scenes played with Traveller rules.

These are just two examples of the many problems you would have to
solve. I am not sure whether it is impossible to bend Traveller enough to
play Star Wars, but I am fairly certain that it is not worth the effort, since
there are far better and playtested rules for Star Wars available.

Sorry for the bad news, and I hope you will find another way to enjoy
Traveller.

 

[AndrewW]

On the plus side Traveller does cover some alternate drives including a Hyperspace drive. Nothing says you can't rule that small craft can have jump (or whatever) capable drives as well. And there is a lightsaber like weapon around and a career in Psion that would be a good match for jedi.

Though I do have to agree that to model StarWars, Traveller may not be the best of systems.

 

[Jak Nazryth]

While I do agree with Rust and DFW there is a little bit or hope for you.
There are optional rules for FTL drives and Fuel already built into the Mongoose Rules (see page 109 core rule book) They describe hyper-drives and anti-matter fuel.
Another option within the T20 rules that allows for a 5% jump fuel ration rather than the standard 10% (In my campaign setting the Darrians are advanced enough to use the 5% rule on some of their more high-tech ships)

Even though plasma weapons have been mostly dropped from Mongoose for vehicle and ship-turret weapons, I have always described a SW "blaster" as a plasma gun, firing a "bolt" of plasma encased in a self sustaining "electromagnetic shell"(think of ball-lighting) which holds in the plasma for about a 10th of a second before "popping", but enough time for the "blaster" fire to go down-range a km or more for a personal weapon, and maybe 1000 km for ship guns. A SW shield would simply be a EM field around a ship or vehicle which i interrupts / absorbs a portion of the plasma bolt container field and makes it "pop" before impacting on the hull. But as we all know based on the movies, SW ship weapons have a range slightly just outside rock-throwing distance. LOL
"He's far to out of range, might as well let him go" says Obi-wan
"Not if I can help it, I think I can catch him before he gets to that moon" says Han.... (The tie fighter appears to be about 100 meters off the nose of the falcon.

On the "smaller than 100 ton" rule for jump capable ships, you can always make a ship that is much smaller than 100 tons, but the size of the engines, power plants, and fuel must be designed as if it were still a 100 ton ship (ie-that's the most compact they can build a jump drive)

Anyway, you can do it, but it will take A LOT of heavily modified house rules. Otherwise you can simply use the Star Wars rules but use the Traveller setting.
Good luck

 

[steelbrok]

Another option within the T20 rules that allows for a 5% jump fuel ration rather than the standard 10% (In my campaign setting the Darrians are advanced enough to use the 5% rule on some of their more high-tech ships)

That's exactly what my Darrians do IMTU!

 

[locarno24]

Lightsaber - Arc-Field Sword (Central Supply Catalogue)
Jedi - See Psion career book

Millenium Falcon-sized ships are fine, as are non lightspeed/shield fighters like the TIE.

If sticking with lasers, note that armour values can't be that high in the grand scheme of things. I'd call ship-scale lasers beam lasers and turbolasers pulse lasers (making them more powerful but easier to dodge).

That means armour 0-2 is vulnerable to anyone, 3-5 is hard to hurt with fighter lasers but vulnerable to turbolasers, 6+ is immune to fighters unless damage has breached the armour first, and 10+ is functionally invulnerable. I'd keep fighters effectively unarmoured, and rarely go above 6 even for capital ships.

Torpedoes - actual torpedoes can be slung on (or in) fighters, but you should note that they're big.

With maxed-out tech upgrades you can get an individual torpedo down to 1.5 dTons, but that's still a significant chunk of the space on a light fighter, which is generally 10-30 dTons.

A nuclear missile is probably a better model - with 2D6 damage it's the same as a pulse laser - i.e. a capital ship gun, which feels right for starwars.


The four key things are:

1) Hyperspace
I'd call this a Core Rulebook hyperspace drive - system to system isn't instantaneous but it's in the order of part of a day. A Thrust-6 fighter or ship can make it along a jump-1 route in 4 hours.

2) Fuel
A core rulebook fission reactor removes the need for tonnes and tonnes of sloshing reactor fuel. The ability to get away without jump fuel - Hmm. That's going to be a house rule. Clearly it draws power, but how much? I'd consider going with the Core Rulebook Warp Drive rule of doubling your reactor drain for the duration of the jump. Nice and simple.

3) Small Craft w/hyperspace capability
A fully miniaturized Jump-A only takes up 7.5 dTons. That's small enough to fit in any light-to-medium fighter (20-30 dTons) without too much of a problem. I did the same thing for my BSG cylon raiders.

4) Deflectors
Hmm....depends what you want them to be. They're definitely not a 'percentage of damage' thing (like a flickering black globe) - they take a certain amount of beating, then fail, with sparking panels and klaxons a-go-go. Also, it's possible to lose critical systems even before the deflectors go.

If it was me, and I wanted to keep things simple, I'd just use the Reinforced Hull rules - buy a 'shield generator' with the same cost and volume as one or more layers of reinforced hull, and the extra hull points are your shields (using the same damage location roll as normal).

If you want something a bit more protective, then up the cost by 50%, and any external hit that isn't Hull becomes Hull on a 4+ as long as you haven't burnt through your shields yet.

 

[GamerDude]

Hello people of the internet, I'm new to the forum and just recently got into Traveller and so far I love the system.

I'm not a huge fan of the OTU though and recently my inner Star Wars geek has come out to play.

Just to chime in here...

Bottom line as posters have said is: The technology concepts/outlook of SW and Traveller are too far apart out of the box. That said doesn't mean you can't make your own rules where necessary. The core mechanics of how things work for not Spaceships is great for combat, character development etc.

Of course, to use the mechanic for rolling up chars you need to create the "careers" available for the players, and this is important for point buy too (core book pg 40).

Also, go look at Cthonian Stars from WildFilre Games, LLC. They have a great alternative way to do Traveller characters on a point buy I think you might enjoy.

TTFN!