Animal Encounters - whats in it?

[nats]

Does this include a list of events for different terrains (such as meteor showers, dustpools, rock slides, quicksand), like the old Traveller used to include in its terrain encounter tables, or is it just purely animals in this book? The core book gives you nothing about these at all although I have loads in my Classic Traveller books that's not really the point is it?

Does it include more info on setting up encounter tables such as typical encounter chart templates for different terrains? The core book is pretty stupid in not presenting a way to set up the templates of encounter tables for different terrain types - for example a vacuum world will not have any animals just events probably.

Does it cover alien plants as well or just animals? Where are the plants rules? Has anyone even considered alien plants in Traveller? Why not?

Does it include anything on hunting/safaris/capturing animals/expeditions? Major hole not covered so far in Mongoose Traveller.

Does it include any chargen for people who deal with animals - hunters/vets/safari guides etc - I know hunters are sort of covered in one of the books (Dilettante) but its not as if I am going to buy it just for that one small bit.

I am just wondering whether this book is worth buying, and if it only enhances the animal design of the core rule book and throws in some finished animals that I can do myself I think I will not be buying.

I want some expanded hunting rules etc the most, but I might just have to use the old Safari Ship for that I guess. From the sound of it it looks like Animal Encounters is a wasted opportunity to present some great rules on encounters on alien planets generally. I like using animals in Traveller but there's loads of holes in the Core Book that this book could have filled rather than just concentrating on expanded animal generation (which we have already anyway) and a few samples that I could do myself.

Please Mongoose start thinking about these books a bit more!!! Use some imagination.

 

[hdan]

Does this include a list of events for different terrains (such as meteor showers, dustpools, rock slides, quicksand), like the old Traveller used to include in its terrain encounter tables, or is it just purely animals in this book? The core book gives you nothing about these at all although I have loads in my Classic Traveller books that's not really the point is it?

Nope, just varmints. Though the encounter tables "choice 7" of each environment has a special event specified, some of which are quite imaginative.

Does it include more info on setting up encounter tables such as typical encounter chart templates for different terrains? The core book is pretty stupid in not presenting a way to set up the templates of encounter tables for different terrain types - for example a vacuum world will not have any animals just events probably.

The book is FULL of 2D encounter tables for cold/warm/hot worlds of various sizes and atmospheres. It doesn't give a lot of guidance for creating your own tables though, and even their vacuum worlds have animals (though they put them in the "special environments" section and acknowledge that they're more SciFi than Sci.)

The expanded animal rules really lead to the creation of a creature profile that is more like a character sheet than a CT creature stat line. The "Galactic Menagerie" section includes a few of these write-ups and some rules for adapting them to various planetary conditions. (Say you want to know what the stats for a Beaker would look like from a High-G world, for instance.) There aren't enough animals in this section to be a "monster manual", but there are enough to at least give you a solid idea what a proper animal writeup should be.

Although, inexplicably, these write-ups don't include the SIZE or MOVEMENT SPEED of the animal. Sigh.

The encounter tables include a subset of the data you really need, which I find to be a serious omission. I think the intent is that the encounter tables for the world you are visiting should be "polished" by the Ref, though frankly that sort of defeats the purpose of having all those tables. You *could* play the creature straight off the table if you were willing to hand-wave some details (like their melee skill).

Though I still haven't gotten around to it, I get the feeling that you could create a 1 page "cheat sheet" that would let you cross-reference animal behavior and such from the encounter tables to get close enough to a full set of skills and stats to play the animal. It would have been nice for Mongoose to include that sheet in the book.

Does it cover alien plants as well or just animals? Where are the plants rules? Has anyone even considered alien plants in Traveller? Why not?

No plants, but fungoid critters are covered.

Does it include anything on hunting/safaris/capturing animals/expeditions? Major hole not covered so far in Mongoose Traveller.

It does have rules for surprise, encounter range and initiative modifications for the various "personality" of creatures, but nothing specific about, say, how much meat you get off a dead animal.

Does it include any chargen for people who deal with animals - hunters/vets/safari guides etc - I know hunters are sort of covered in one of the books (Dilettante) but its not as if I am going to buy it just for that one small bit.

Nope, no character generation stuff.

I am just wondering whether this book is worth buying, and if it only enhances the animal design of the core rule book and throws in some finished animals that I can do myself I think I will not be buying.

It does greatly enhance animal building, with a sophisticated system for generating animal stats and skills, but yeah, it's essentially what you say.

I want some expanded hunting rules etc the most, but I might just have to use the old Safari Ship for that I guess....

I hoped for something similar. Back when S&P was still active, I had expected them to port Safari Ship as an article (like they did Death Station) to help drum up interest in Supp 11, but that doesn't seem likely now.

 

[nats]

Thank you for the detailed reply. Doesn't sound like something I would need at the moment.

 

[DFW]

Although, inexplicably, these write-ups don't include the SIZE or MOVEMENT SPEED of the animal. Sigh.

No size for the animals OR movement abilities? Umm, any word whether or not this will get fixed?

 

[hdan]

No size for the animals OR movement abilities? Umm, any word whether or not this will get fixed?

To be more clear - they do mention the Mode of motion (walking, flying, etc.) but not the rate. So no easy way to tell if the critter is a huge, lightning-fast killer or a small waddling trapper.

You can infer that info to some degree from the given STR and DEX, which is where that "cheat sheet" would come in handy. But considering that these are long, 3-to-a-page writeups, I would have expected those stats to be included.

 

[nats]

Although, inexplicably, these write-ups don't include the SIZE or MOVEMENT SPEED of the animal. Sigh.

No size for the animals OR movement abilities? Umm, any word whether or not this will get fixed?

Yeah they don't have any way to generate a speed for animals in the core book either and I notice that the animal samples there don't have a speed or a size either. It's a right balls up from Mongoose. Could have been a great book if it had included hunting/trapping/tracking rules, flora/fauna, vets/hunters/guides chargen, and some good animal samples and an imaginative animal generator that can create some really weird alien animals. Instead we get a pitiful bust unimaginative copy of the original Traveller book once again. Ridiculous.