Announcing: The Open Playtest!

[SableWyvern]

Discussion on system mapping

While I like the idea of including a quick and simple process for generating the most important features of a system, such as the one you outlined, I wouldn't want to see full system generation disappear entirely.

Having said that, I already have all the info I need to do full system generation, so it's inclusion or lack thereof won't really effect me.

 

[Seventh Termer]

True the GURPS TU is a variant in that the timelines depart from the OTU in 1116

But it is edited by one of the co-creators of Traveller and authors have generally made a huge effort to produce detailed material that is consistent with the CT canon (and on the rare occasions when they've changed something have got Marc Miller's approval).

For those that don't have GT Ground Forces Doug Berry states that typically each subsector has one line regiment of marines (equivalent in size to an army brigade but commanded by a colonel) which operates primarily in the ground assault role.

He also implies that at the sector fleet level there are additional marine line regiments and support units (including marine armour and artillery) to operate as a strategic reserve.

What he doesn't cover are marine detachments aboard navy ships

If you add up the ship troop complements of a typical subsector fleet would probably be equivalent to up to another regiment (its worth noting that at least in CT Imperial dreadnaughts do not carry marines and that only 6 of the 20 Imperial navy ship classes in CT supplement 9 do so - with contingent sizes ranging from 20 on a Gionetti-class light cruiser to 150 on an Azhanti High Lightning frontier cruiser).

CT Adventure 1 is the only place where a ships troops contingent is detailed and suggests that they have a much higher ratio of officers to men than a line regiment - with 4 officers commanding 36 enlisted men and what is effectively a platoon commanded by a captain - suggesting taht they have more of a special forces TOE and role - which is as you'd expect given the variety of situations a patrolling cruiser might encounter.

The brigadier is not there to command the marine units in combat but to administer and control all of the various marine assets attached to the subsector fleet - which in a normal peacetime subsector would consist of one line regiment of ground assault troops plus perhaps several dozen independent platoon and company sized contingents of ships troops.

Certainly marine divisions are in the Invasion Earth imperial order of battle - however these would represent the combined marine forces of an imperial grand fleet drawn from several sectors launching a massive attack on the Solomani capital - and is therefore quite consistent with Doug's depiction of the normal situation in a frontier subsector.

Plus Invasion Earth is set over a hundred years before the Classic Traveller era (1105-1112).

Dragging this back to chargen:

What this should all actually mean is that Marines are a small and highly specialised elite corps - they should therefore be much harder to join than the army, operate in a much wider range of environments, always use the highest tech available, find survival tougher, and have a leaner command structure in which officers and NCOs are expected to perform at a higher level than their army rank equivalents.

So I would expect to find enlistment rolls much harder (in CT they were 8+ but with more likelihood of an attribute DM - so End 7+ would be about right), promotion also harder, survival less coarse-grained than the 4+/6+/8+ progression.

Star Marine (wrong name - what wrong with Ships Troops) should replace Pilot with Gunnery - canon being fairly clear that marines do man ships guns on occasion but never pilot starships.

(marine fighter pilots are another matter but assuming they exist they will like USMC aviators ground support specialists and this seems to be better covered by the flyer skill or the pilot skill appearing under the advanced education table).

I am also dubious about Sensors skill - that's clearly a naval role aboard ship and Tactics would make more sense as you need Tactics for a boarding party or ST-style away team every bit as much as you need them for ground assault ops.

 

[Seventh Termer]

A more general point - what is it with the wholesale renaming of skills?

Do we really gain anything by changing Liaison to Diplomat or Engineering t o Engineer? (other than that diplomat is easier to spell and engineer is easier to fit into little tables).

Consistency is nice - although you have Athletics rather than Athlete, Leadership rather than Leader etc - so if that is the intention it clearly fails.

In any case a game that has proudly mis-abbreviated vacuum as 'vacc' for thirty years because the original author couldn't spell has no business being pedantic about grammar...

Although I am bit of a canon-obsessive I am not a rules grognard and have nothing in principle against fiddling with the skills list - but where a skill already exists in CT and is ported over without significant change why rename it?.

 

[Mongoose Gar]

A more general point - what is it with the wholesale renaming of skills?

In some cases, skill names were taken from T5. In others, probably an error on my part.

 

[Seventh Termer]

More on skills:

Diplomat, Advocate, Persuade and Broker seem IMO to be poorly differentiated.

In CT Liaison was a kind of fall back skill that could be used whenever a more specific skill like Bribery, Admin, Streetwise, Broker or Legal was inappropriate or unavailable.

Other than the tendency of some advanced careers to produce characters with ridiculously high Liaison skills, this actually worked very well and was based upon a design philosophy of identifying common types of interaction that a starship crew might frequently undertake (bribing someone, dealing with the law, buying/selling trade goods, dealing with bureaucracy) and assigning specific skills to them, rather than trying to abstractly model general classes of social interaction as most later RPGs have done.

Over many years of playing CT I can't remember ever having a problem identifying which skill was appropriate to a social interaction and almost never had to look at the skill descriptions to know what they meant.

I really do not get that feeling from this iteration of the playtest social skills - the descriptions are clear enough but as names 'advocate' and 'persuade' seem just too general, while 'diplomat' is too specific for what is actually a relatively general skill according to the description.

Plus the changes are radical enough to break backwards compatibility with CT and necessitate a complicated conversion process rather than the simple one of identifying a handful of skills that have changed and what they map to.

 

[Mongoose Gar]

Bribery certainly isn't coming back - it's far too narrow given the granularity of other skills.

Your other points, though, are well founded. Let me have a think.

 

[Seventh Termer]

More general comments:

Have high hopes that this ruleset will significantly update technology rather than be yet another edition of Space 1977.

Nice therefore to see references to sub-dermal armour and cybernetic replacements in the playtest.

However what about standard topoi of modern (post-1977) SF like cybernetic or geneered enhancements (why should anyone in a TL-15 society start adult life with Strength of 2 for instance?) and computer implants?

Even if it is generally accepted that nanotech and full AI and transhuman cyborgs are not 'Traveller', access to high tech which we will probably have even within our own lifetimes will make a huge difference to aspects of the game like ageing (I once worked out life expectancy tables based on CT and discovered that whether by accident or design they yielded exactly the same LE as an American male had in 1973 - which is clearly not a sound basis for calculating LE in the 56th century).

So how do you build these updated assumptions into the rules?

On ageing, rolls clearly have to reflect both the tech level and social level of the character and his environment.

However this gets complicated when you leave your homeworld (as most PCs will have done): a TL-1 barbarian who somehow joins the Scouts will then have access to TL-15 medicine and will age accordingly.

Similarly unless a world is interdicted or otherwise completely isolated rich folks will always have access to much better imported tech and medicine than poor ones.

Looking for a simple mechanic I'd suggest letting both Tech and Soc give you DMs (with Tech-15 giving you a pretty heavy DM however you calculate it) on the ageing roll.

Alternatively you could use a formula like (Tech+Soc)/4 rounded to generate the term at which you start ageing rolls.

So if you are a Soc-11 knight on a Tech-13 world you are not going to start ageing until term 6.

But if you are a Soc-3 barbarian on a Tech-1 world then you start ageing from term 1 (with lo-tech 'ageing' representing a range of permanent physical impairments from accident and disease rather than ageing in a clinical sense).

 

[far-trader]

...On ageing, rolls clearly have to reflect both the tech level and social level of the character and his environment.

If I may muddy the waters in an attempt to avoid complication here...

Aging rolls have imo been misinterpreted from day 1. The roll is not how long you've lived, but how hard you've lived, and Travellers live very very hard. "It's not the years, it's the miles." I'd like to see the title of the table and such changed to remove the confusion, something like "Life Crisis" might work.

And as for the fallacy that high tech and high Soc will alleviate the problems associated with longevity, well that's just it, it's a fallacy. Oh sure there is a general trend in history but it's more about simple hygiene than better gadgets or more money. There may even be cases made for it in a far future setting but I can cite real Earth cases of "primitive" cultures that have better health than the typical affluent North American to counter. Besides, it's an unnecessary complication, imo at least.

Just a couple quick thoughts on it.

 

[captainjack23]

Yeah. Vacc-1 the skill for vacc suit, which we use in a vacuume. Still. Vacc seems a more natural contraction - unlike comms ? Ah whatever.

More importantly, yes, I'm in favor of less skills, not more. Still, MT and later seemed to have way too much granularity on the guns side and way less so on the social side; so as long as we don't go back there , folding together a few would be fine. Still, too rough a granularity and we're back to D&D classes.

Frankly liason and streetwise should cover it; legal social interaction vs underworld . perhaps keep carousing as the informal version ?


deception might be retained but could be rolled into a general "stealth" skill for its elements of disguise and impersonation.

Hmm.

 

[captainjack23]

Yeah. Vacc-1 the skill for vacc suit, which we use in a vacuume. Still. Vacc seems a more natural contraction - unlike comms ? Ah whatever.

More importantly, yes, I'm in favor of less skills, not more. Still, MT and later seemed to have way too much granularity on the guns side and way less so on the social side; so as long as we don't go back there , folding together a few would be fine. Still, too rough a granularity and we're back to D&D classes.

Frankly liason and streetwise should cover it; legal social interaction vs underworld . perhaps keep carousing as the informal version ?


deception might be retained but could be rolled into a general "stealth" skill for its elements of disguise and impersonation.

Hmm.

 

[captainjack23]

More general comments:

Have high hopes that this ruleset will significantly update technology rather than be yet another edition of Space 1977.


However what about standard topoi of modern (post-1977) SF like cybernetic or geneered enhancements (why should anyone in a TL-15 society start adult life with Strength of 2 for instance?) and computer implants?

Unfortunately, two issues: cyberpunk and transhumanism already have their games, so a half way attempt to accommodate them will be , well, half a**ed. Second, all that gains us is todays version of tomorrow - which is, after all, what traveller was then.

If all we are trying to do is model the future, we may as well be an academic discipline, and who wants that ? What we seem to have with traveller is a flavor, and one that says: progress has fits and starts, and while things change, humans stay the same

....that and the Imperium shows OBVIOUS signs of psychohistorical meddling, but I digress.

 

[AKAramis]

Re: Bribery, Persuade

Perhaps it should be
Persuade: Bribery
Persuade: Orate
Persuade: Fast-Talk
Persuade: Author

Solves both issues.

And I disagree that bribery was a narrow skill in older editions...it ranged from payments to ignore, to promises to pay, and didn't require that the act be unlawful nor even immoral.

 

[Gruffty the Hiver]

....that and the Imperium shows OBVIOUS signs of psychohistorical meddling, but I digress.

....nothing at all to do with we Hivers, I can assure you

Aramis is absolutely spot on with regards to Bribery skill in CT. There's nothing in CT to indicate that the act to which the bribery relates has be illegal/immoral/fattening.

In my experience, Bribery skill has been used more for "speeding up" things like ship registration, customs, entry/exit visas, etc. Somtimes even to "help along" a tricky piece of negotian with the Starport Authority guy who wants quiet life...

 

[TrippyHippy]

More general comments:

Have high hopes that this ruleset will significantly update technology rather than be yet another edition of Space 1977.


However what about standard topoi of modern (post-1977) SF like cybernetic or geneered enhancements (why should anyone in a TL-15 society start adult life with Strength of 2 for instance?) and computer implants?

Unfortunately, two issues: cyberpunk and transhumanism already have their games, so a half way attempt to accommodate them will be , well, half a**ed. Second, all that gains us is todays version of tomorrow - which is, after all, what traveller was then.

If all we are trying to do is model the future, we may as well be an academic discipline, and who wants that ? What we seem to have with traveller is a flavor, and one that says: progress has fits and starts, and while things change, humans stay the same

....that and the Imperium shows OBVIOUS signs of psychohistorical meddling, but I digress.

As I have said before, there is a difference between Traveller the rules-set (which should try to accomodate all sci-fi backgrounds), and Traveller the setting, which is it's own beast.

 

[captainjack23]

[/quote]

As I have said before, there is a difference between Traveller the rules-set (which should try to accomodate all sci-fi backgrounds), and Traveller the setting, which is it's own beast.[/quote]

And yes, you have said that, and quite eloquently. Unfortunately, I (politely) disagree. The flavor of Traveller the rules set is, granted, the source of the OTU flavor, BUT.....the flavor is the flavor.
<Polemic mode=on>
I've never seen the need for rule sets which can cover all fantasy settings, nor do I ever expect to see one successfully do so; we all know why- too many kinds of fantasy, interpretations, etc. .

Gaming the future is essentially no different; the future in a game is simply a fantasy setting set in the future, with the disadvantage that there is an absolute confirmation of the model: just wait for the future and see. I have yet see ANY SCIFI RPG, hard soft, near/ far future whatever that was "correct"; I mean, honest to god, Twilight2000 ? Heck, even traveller in 1977, often written and often played by some VERY smart people managed to utterly miss the advent of the microcomputer and the information age.

Why is this important? Because, as is basically accepted in other RPG genres, all you have is flavor, and some ground rules you made up out of thin air. All visions of the future are fantasies, and all rely on flavor. Try to accommodate them all? Not doable. So pick your rules like ice-cream.

Traveller is Traveller -it is unabashedly heroic SF, Gernsbackian, Asimovian, Andersonian, what have you. It does this superbly well. It is not Ian Banks, or the Diamond age, or Snowcrash, or Cordwainer smith.
There are excellent systems that do those- but not traveller (well, not Corwainer Smith, I admit -more's the pity).

Besides, today’s tomorrow is tomorrow’s joke: I mean, steam powered walking boots? Computers with wax cylinders ?
Cyberpunk is already seeming dated given what nano-biogenetics is working on. detail invites comparison. So only give enough for flavor.

<mode =NORMAL>
Thank you for your attention. And down with biochipping nanovirii !

 

[captainjack23]

Y
More importantly, yes, I'm in favor of less skills, not more. Still, MT and later seemed to have way too much granularity on the guns side and way less so on the social side; so as long as we don't go back there , folding together a few would be fine. Still, too rough a granularity and we're back to D&D classes.

Frankly liason and streetwise should cover it; legal social interaction vs underworld . perhaps keep carousing as the informal version ?


deception might be retained but could be rolled into a general "stealth" skill for its elements of disguise and impersonation.

Hmm.

I made a point of looking at, and counting the skills - 41. WOW !

Cool. Thats way less than many systems. I think I'll retract my statement that things should be combined; things look good. Still, I like the suggestion of making persuade a group skill, but don't over slice it.

 

[captainjack23]

....that and the Imperium shows OBVIOUS signs of psychohistorical meddling, but I digress.

....nothing at all to do with we Hivers, I can assure you

....mumble mumble mophead.

 

[TrippyHippy]

And yes, you have said that, and quite eloquently. Unfortunately, I (politely) disagree. The flavor of Traveller the rules set is, granted, the source of the OTU flavor, BUT.....the flavor is the flavor.
<Polemic mode=on>
I've never seen the need for rule sets which can cover all fantasy settings, nor do I ever expect to see one successfully do so; we all know why- too many kinds of fantasy, interpretations, etc. .

Gaming the future is essentially no different; the future in a game is simply a fantasy setting set in the future, with the disadvantage that there is an absolute confirmation of the model: just wait for the future and see. I have yet see ANY SCIFI RPG, hard soft, near/ far future whatever that was "correct"; I mean, honest to god, Twilight2000 ? Heck, even traveller in 1977, often written and often played by some VERY smart people managed to utterly miss the advent of the microcomputer and the information age.

Why is this important? Because, as is basically accepted in other RPG genres, all you have is flavor, and some ground rules you made up out of thin air. All visions of the future are fantasies, and all rely on flavor. Try to accommodate them all? Not doable. So pick your rules like ice-cream.

Traveller is Traveller -it is unabashedly heroic SF, Gernsbackian, Asimovian, Andersonian, what have you. It does this superbly well. It is not Ian Banks, or the Diamond age, or Snowcrash, or Cordwainer smith.
There are excellent systems that do those- but not traveller (well, not Corwainer Smith, I admit -more's the pity).

Besides, today’s tomorrow is tomorrow’s joke: I mean, steam powered walking boots? Computers with wax cylinders ?
Cyberpunk is already seeming dated given what nano-biogenetics is working on. detail invites comparison. So only give enough for flavor.

<mode =NORMAL>
Thank you for your attention. And down with biochipping nanovirii !

Well, that was quite an eloquent outburst too! - but I would argue that the current rules-set presented so far in character generation, would be enough of a tool-kit for myself to do a decent cyberpunk-style game. You just need to tweak the equipment list and 'attitude' a bit - but that's the sort of thing you could do in a cyberpunk supplement, rather than core rules. I do think that the core-rules should be able to encompass a wide variety of technological concepts though - including VR, Genetic engineering, nanotech and AI, as they may arise in many types of setting.

 

[Occupant]

Okay, here's my thought...
Warren Okuma's (That's Me) Pre-Career
Event Table.

Events, Pre education. Roll 1D6, 1-2 Table-1 Different Events, 3-4 Table-2 More Common Events, 5-6 Table-3 Mundane Events.

How many rolls?
Classic: 0
Skilled: 2
Advanced: 4

Table 1: Different Events
1 Trouble * Is for tab. I don't know why the tabs are not reading.
*1 Ine Givar Terrorists are active on this planet: Militia: Choose one from, Melee (any), Gun Combat (any), or Recon.
*2 Harassed by a gang or thugs: Choose one from, Athletics, Carouse, Melee (any) or Gun Combat (any pistol).
*3 Duels: Choose one from, Melee (any) or Gun Combat (any).
*4 Combat, Drafted planet side for a Month for Support: Planet is hit by low level war. Choose one from, Medic, Mechanic, Drive (any).
*5 Combat, Drafted planet side for a Month for Support: Planet is hit by low level war. Choose one from, Drive (any), Flyer (any), Mechanic.
*6 Riots: Choose one from: Athletics, Recon, or Comm.

2 Natural disaster
*1 Asteroid strike: Choose one from, Flyer (any), Medic, Comms, Athletics.
*2 Tsunami: Choose one from, Flyer (any), Seafaring, Athletics.
*3 Hurricane: Choose one from, Drive (any), Flyer (any), Seafaring, Athletics.
*4 Massive Solar Flares: Choose one from, Drive (any), Computer, Engineering (electronics),
Science (Physics).
*5 Epidemic: Choose one from, Drive (any), Flyer (any), Medical, Science (Biology or Chemistry).
*6 Super Volcano Erupts: Choose one from, Drive (any), Science (Physics or Planetology).

3 Side Quests
*1 Damn those meddlin' kids! Get Investigation. If you want Investigation-2 you can, but you get a rival.
*2 You find lost money from a bank robbery, get 10,000 x 1D6 and get investigation skill.
*3 You train to kill your next enemy or rival. Get Gun Combat (any), Explosives, or Stealth.
*4 You help a stranger, karma smiles upon you. Ironman skill-1 (two if you are not using Ironman character generation).
*5 A contact needs help. You give help. Turn that contact into a friend, and roll a skill on the personal development table (Drifter). You get a contact.
*6 It always begins with a woman (or man, or Vargr or whatever)... roll two skills on the Drifter Service skill table... and a rival.
4 Weird
*1 You get Animals 3 skill.
*2 After a huge drinking binge, you sign up for the draft and get two bonus skills in that career!
*3 You get a new level 1 skill. Any. One that you don't have. No explanation, your just naturally good at it and suddenly developed it. No explanation at all. Really. Yeah, really. Uh-huh. Yup.
*4 A rich, distant relative dies and leaves you 1D6 shares or take a skill in Diplomacy.
*5 You get sued and win! Get 1D6 shares or Advocate skill.
*6 An aging expert takes you under his/her/it's wing and trains you in a new skill to level 2.

5 Idle Hands
*1 Rule one. Nobody talks about the brawl club... Get +1 End, and get Melee (any).
*2 Mountain climbing +1 Str (Max 9), +1 End, get Athletics.
*3 Soo bored, so how about a game? Get Gambling or Carouse.
*4 Hobby: Get Art-2.
*5 Did somebody say party! Get Carouse!
*6 Constantly settle trouble with neighbors. Get Diplomacy.

6 Work Related
*1 Intensive training, roll two more skills on next career table.
*2 Cross training, roll two more skills on any career table.
*3 Conference. You increase an existing skill by one.
*4 Physical fitness program. +1 End (Max 9) and +1 Str.
*5 Homeworld intensive training. Raise two background skills to one.
*6 Super career counseling. Change any two skill rolls made for your careers. Yeah, that's right you change the rolls.

Table 2: More Common Events.
1 Strange trouble
*1 Get Stealth, Recon, and an enemy.
*2 Earn Advocate. Bleh.
*3 Force to get Admin skill. Yeaaah.
*4 Enginner-1 for all specialties.
*5 Get Melee (any) and have fights.
*6 You get Persuade.

2 Odd vacation
*1 Are... we... there... yet. Drive (any) 2.
*2 Get Survival. You are reluctant to fly.
*3 Get Stealth. And a Rival, that's a stalker.
*4 Get Deception. Yeah. One of those vacations.
*5 Get Heavy Weapons (any), yup they threw a civil war.
*6 Get Astrogation. You know how to hand calculate orbits when the computer is down.

3 Not so bright choices
*1 Survival School, survival. It was very, very, miserable.
*2 +1 End. More scut work.
*3 The vacation from hell. Get Mechanic and Diplomacy.
*4 Athletics 2. Unwillingly.
*5 Sensors 2. Grudgingly.
*6 Streetwise 2. Against your better judgment.

4 Family (if you don't have a family, you don't get the skills)
*1 Help your brother or sister, get Art, or Science.
*2 Help your family sell stuff, get Broker.
*3 Help your brother or sister, get Computer.
*4 Big family, get Diplomat.
*5 Stump blasting for mom and dad, Explosives-1.
*6 Cousin made it big, Flyer-2 (not the same specialty). Yup you show him around.

5 Friends/acquaintance
*1 They drag you to the dark side Carouse-2.
*2 A friend ask you to investigate his girlfriend. Get Investigate. Get Friend.
*3 You make a friend. Get Language.
*4 A friend needs to study Navigation. You help giving him/her quizzes and get Navigation.
*5 An acquaintance lets you use his/her simulator. Get Pilot.
*6 An acquaintance lets you use his/her simulator. Get Remote Operations.

6 Strangers/Organizations
*1 Get Gunner (any). It was a job.
*2 They make you do odd stuff for a reality show, get Jack of All Trades and 1D6 x 10000 credits.
*3 You do some volunteer work, get Leadership.
*4 Get Medic. More volunteer work.
*5 Get a yacht and a dock. The other kind. Seafarer-2. Worth 1D6 x 20,000 if yacht, dock, and membership is sold. You belong to a Maritime Yacht Club.
*6 Get the cooking bug. Steward-2 and lots of contest ribbons.

Table-3 Mundane Events
1 Part Time Jobs.
*1-3 Get Trade 2 (not the same specialty) and 10,000 cr.
*4 Get Battle Dress (actually cargo handler exoskeleton) and 10,000 cr.
*5 Get Vacc Suit and 1D6 x 10,000 cr.
*6 Zero-G 2 and 10,000 cr.

2 Education
*1 You like athletics. Get Athletics.
*2 You think you like Art. Get Art.
*3 They make you do the math. Get Astrogation or Science (physics) (closest to math).
*4 You are a hacker get Computer-2.
*5 Driver's ED. You get a drivers license. And then you race. Get Drive (any).
*6 Engineer-2 (not the same specialty).

3 Family Business
*1 Family makes you do the books. Get Admin.
*2 Family makes you do the briefs. Get Advocate.
*3 Family makes you sell stuff. Get Broker.
*4 Family makes you cook and clean. Get Steward.
*5 You meet lots of People, Get Language-2 (not the same specialty).
*6 Get Jack of All Trades. They make you do everything.

4 Outdoor Skills
*1 You work outside or in a fake outside. Get Animal or Seafaring.
*2 Explosive. You learn how to set mining charges. Get Explosives.
*3 Someone takes you Huntin'. Get Gun Combat (any) or Survival.
*4 Someone takes you Shootin'. Get Heavy Weapons (any) or Tactics (laser tag or paintball or the like).
*5 Get Mechanic, you gearhead.
*6 Get Recon or Stealth. Dad or Mom took you out hunting dangerous game.

5 Extra Curricular Activities
*1 Carousing. You go on many dates.
*2 Get Deception. You get as many levels in it as you subtract from you Edu score plus one. You cut class.
*3 Diplomat. Lots of dangerous folks out there. Get Diplomat or Streetwise.
*4 Gambler. Get Gambling.
*5 You are the best school newspaper reporter they have. Get Investigation.
*6 Get Leadership. You organized these delinquents.

6 Summer Camp
*1 Radio Camp: You get Communications.
*2 Get Flyer (any). Lots of simulators. Space camp.
*3 Medic camp. Get Medical.
*4 Martial arts camp. Get Melee (Any).
*5 Get Persuade. You just didn't want to do all that stupid crap.
*6 Get Science-2 (not the same specialty). Science camp.

Rolling an inappropriate skill... like Seafarer in the desert or asteroid. If you can come up with a plausible reason (like living in a domed marina) you can get it, otherwise roll again.

You need pre educational events...

How about these skill options?
Skill Levels:
Classic: As is.
Skilled: Increase to 2 per term taken (not one)
Advanced: Increase to 2 per term taken (not one), and two per promotion (not one).

Enjoy!

Other notes...
Scouts don't have survival? Odd...
No wonder exploration scouts die like flies...

 

[Gruffty the Hiver]

....that and the Imperium shows OBVIOUS signs of psychohistorical meddling, but I digress.

....nothing at all to do with we Hivers, I can assure you

....mumble mumble mophead.

<...mopmopmop...Hiver...mop...Hiver.........mop...>