Anyone seen the new Sector Fleet book?
- Thread starter phavoc
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Dark Lord Skippy
Mongoose
phavoc said:
Isnt it just a reprint of Grand Fleet with MGT rules?
Subzero001
Banded Mongoose
The original Grand Fleet was only 59 pages or so. And the Sector Fleet book says it has 139 pages. So I would think they expanded on the original Grand Fleet book some. :shock:
Hoping they added some nice goodies.
Hoping they added some nice goodies.
mechascorpio
Mongoose
I can't bring myself to buy this as fast as I usually do, not after how bad the graphics in Crowded Hours looked. I'll let someone else jump in first this time.
nats
Banded Mongoose
mechascorpio said:
Aww you beat me too it!! lol! I also will not be buying this until I have seen a paper copy myself. And I am taking the three Mongoose Traveller books off my Christmas list until Ive checked them out in York's Travelling Man also assuming they have them, they dont get new books very often there.
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
Looks like I am the only chap in Europe who has actually bought "Sector Fleet" so ...
As I am not familiar with CT or other versions of Trav I can't comment on how closely Sector Fleet resembles earlier books. Unfortunately there is no bibliography, though the author has clearly drawn on other texts. Sector fleet does exactly what it says on the tin, and is a primer on the Imperial Navy with a nod to other related issues, and with a lot of specific detail on the Spinward Marches Sector Fleet. The text is often quite dry, but if you want some detail and background it is there. I feel that it could be particularly useful to players who don't have much knowledge of how militaries and navies work. The book also brings together a number of different and relevant aspects of the fleet into one cover. Illustrations are few and far between, for those who like pretty pics in their books.
I think that the book provides a workable Imperial Navy and fleet for use in the Spinward Marches, perhaps especially in conjunction with HG and a naval campaign. If you are intending to have the IN as an important part of your game, and don't already know much about it, then probably worth getting.
Egil
PS There are a number of points where I don't agree with some aspects of the equipment of the IN, as suggested in Sector Fleet, but I suspect that this is just repeating earlier material, so won't get into a MTU vs OTU now, after all, its just our different takes on science fiction.
Edited for clarity
As I am not familiar with CT or other versions of Trav I can't comment on how closely Sector Fleet resembles earlier books. Unfortunately there is no bibliography, though the author has clearly drawn on other texts. Sector fleet does exactly what it says on the tin, and is a primer on the Imperial Navy with a nod to other related issues, and with a lot of specific detail on the Spinward Marches Sector Fleet. The text is often quite dry, but if you want some detail and background it is there. I feel that it could be particularly useful to players who don't have much knowledge of how militaries and navies work. The book also brings together a number of different and relevant aspects of the fleet into one cover. Illustrations are few and far between, for those who like pretty pics in their books.
I think that the book provides a workable Imperial Navy and fleet for use in the Spinward Marches, perhaps especially in conjunction with HG and a naval campaign. If you are intending to have the IN as an important part of your game, and don't already know much about it, then probably worth getting.
Egil
PS There are a number of points where I don't agree with some aspects of the equipment of the IN, as suggested in Sector Fleet, but I suspect that this is just repeating earlier material, so won't get into a MTU vs OTU now, after all, its just our different takes on science fiction.
Edited for clarity
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
Thinking about my last post, it is probably worth pointing out that there are no detailed ship descriptions in Sector Fleet, though quite a lot of different types are mentioned, usually with a tonnage figure but no other details. Some of the types are detailed in Fighting Ships, HG or Traders and Gunboats, others are not. Nor is there anything by way of adventure seeds or randomly generating opposition (thought the latter is well covered in HG anyway. But, as said earlier, the book delivers what it says it will in describing the IN and the Spinward Marches Sector Fleet.
There are few typos, and the text is generally clear, though in some places it is not clear whether "Escort" is referring to Fleet Escorts or Close Escorts.
Egil
There are few typos, and the text is generally clear, though in some places it is not clear whether "Escort" is referring to Fleet Escorts or Close Escorts.
Egil
nats
Banded Mongoose
Egil Skallagrimsson said:
Sounds like a strange book indeed. I was expecting it to have detailed stats on all the different ships in the Spinward Marches that could be used to formulate a decent High Guard Zhondani v Imperium battle campaign. If it doesnt go into that kind of detail what the heck does it actually do? Doesnt sund all that useful for gaming to me - more like yet another product that was great fun for the author to write but when it comes down to it is practically useless for most gaming uses (like Fighting Ships). Definitely sounds like a lost opportunity to expand High Guard combat rules by providing more role playing ideas.
Had a chance to look through this now, gave me something to read on a business trip.
I liked the book. It is a good background book for 3rd Imperium.
It has a lot of good information about organisation, roles and procedures of the Imperium Navy. As someone said above makes it good for naval campaign. A lot of the information is available on the various CT and MT CDROMs.
There is some new stuff, such as likely rank commanding the various different sorts of ships which I do not think I have seen before. The career stuff is based around "schools", so in many ways this information ties in better with CT and MT character generation.
In terms of a more classic tramp freighter campaign, the definition of the various Spinward Marches sector fleet is useful, particularly if your campaign is set in around a border subsectors such as Five Sisters. YMMV depending on the style of campaign you run.
My other thought is, it is the sort of information Mongoose would need to be maybe - I don’t know - kick off the fifth frontier war.
I liked the book. It is a good background book for 3rd Imperium.
It has a lot of good information about organisation, roles and procedures of the Imperium Navy. As someone said above makes it good for naval campaign. A lot of the information is available on the various CT and MT CDROMs.
There is some new stuff, such as likely rank commanding the various different sorts of ships which I do not think I have seen before. The career stuff is based around "schools", so in many ways this information ties in better with CT and MT character generation.
In terms of a more classic tramp freighter campaign, the definition of the various Spinward Marches sector fleet is useful, particularly if your campaign is set in around a border subsectors such as Five Sisters. YMMV depending on the style of campaign you run.
My other thought is, it is the sort of information Mongoose would need to be maybe - I don’t know - kick off the fifth frontier war.
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
DFW said:
It's not the book for ship specification, it is the one if you want to know how many, and what type, of ships are likely to be in the Icetina flotilla in Lanth sub-sector on 111-1105. The nearest comparison might be a simple guide to the USN today, that gives an idea of where ships are based, rank structures and lots of other details about traditions, history etc, but not much detail about specs of the ships. For that you consult, say, Jane's Fighting Ships. So, it is a description, though perhaps not in your terms. On the other hand, it would run into 100s of pages if it attempted to give specs for the every class used by the IN, a number of which are written up elsewhere, and that is clearly not the purpose of this particular book.
I think that the comments posted by Smiths121 are very fair.
Egil
Egil Skallagrimsson said:
If it doesn't describe the ships in question then there is NO data on "what type" of ships are likely to be in the Icetina flotilla.
A name of a class without a description of said class of ship isn't useful. For any type of fleet. Example: Describing the "types" of ships that make up a typical U.S. carrier task force when no detailed description exists of the "types" of ships listed is pretty useless. That's axiomatic.
Example: The Spinward Marches fleet consists of 45 Roses, 25, Gophers, & 120 Rocks. There, you have a "meaningful" description.
IanBruntlett
Emperor Mongoose
I guess we won't know until it comes out. I'm a computer bloke, not a military man.DFW said:
However taking your example in point, you can reuse some concepts in use today. For instance the fleet you list might be given more Traveller-like names, with the addition that, say a Gopher is a Battleship, a Rose is a Cruiser and a Rock is a Destroyer,
My apologies for mangling military terms. I hope you get the drift of my suggestion
EDIT EDIT:- Removed trailing quotes that I didn't mean to include!
IanBruntlett
Emperor Mongoose
My only exposure to that idea is the Mg B5 ACTA miniatures game (we used pieces of card for our ships). In its Fleet Book you would have listed types of ship specific to both civilisation and time period.DFW said:
DFW said:
Based on the Avenger 2005-06 version, it does give a general Ship Class description prior to describing the fleets. However, the information requires the reader to use common sense and refer to other books for more details on the ship stats. It describes the fleets using the generic ship classes.
nats
Banded Mongoose
Yes this was exactly my point also. There has been precious little to date provided on warship specs for Zondani, Imperials, and all the rest such as Aslan, Hiver etc. This was probably the book to do it in if there was any such book produced.
Even if there was just a list of the ships present in the Spinward Marches, where they are usually located, their patrol zones, and specs for each different type along with perhaps some encounter tables and some rules expansion would have been enough for me. But by the sound of it the book has completely missed the mark.
Even if there was just a list of the ships present in the Spinward Marches, where they are usually located, their patrol zones, and specs for each different type along with perhaps some encounter tables and some rules expansion would have been enough for me. But by the sound of it the book has completely missed the mark.
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