Aramis: The Traveller Adventure Preview

[MongooseMatt]

You can find a preview to the updated Aramis: The Traveller Adventure at;

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/rpgs/traveller/adventures-and-campaigns/aramis-the-traveller-adventure.html

We will have copies of this classic book around the middle of next month.

 

[delrom5]

The city map looks a bit blocky:- is it just a holding map which will be replaced when by a high resolution copy when the book is publsihed?

 

[MongooseMatt]

It is indeed - I'll get our chaps to have a look at it on Monday, but I know they had trouble getting the PDF file size down to something reasonable!

 

[IanBruntlett]

It is indeed - I'll get our chaps to have a look at it on Monday, but I know they had trouble getting the PDF file size down to something reasonable!

How about a compromise? Medium resolution in the PDF and a high resolution download from Mongoose' website?

 

[apoc527]

That is a sweet cover!!!

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

That is a sweet cover!!!

Oh yes!

 

[GJD]

What exactly is a "smut base"? Referenced in the description of Aramis....

Loocs like an OCR error from "scout base" when somone was scanning in the CT version :wink:

G

 

[Captain Jonah]

What exactly is a "smut base"? Referenced in the description of Aramis....

Loocs like an OCR error from "scout base" when somone was scanning in the CT version :wink:

G

Well those scouts have something of a reputation. Smut may be the correct word after all :lol:

 

[cmdrx]

The ironic thing is that my current Traveller campaign is using Mongoose rules system with the Classic Traveller Adventure! Now it will be official. Great minds and all that, right? ;-)

 

[cmdrx]

What exactly is a "smut base"? Referenced in the description of Aramis....

I thought it was a slang reference to Startown.

 

[middenface]

Oddsbodkins! It's now saying in stock and there a new link in the preview.. some deckplans..by yours truly... I hope.. alas the link is not quite working... or at least on my end.

 

[IanBruntlett]

Oddsbodkins! It's now saying in stock and there a new link in the preview.. some deckplans..by yours truly... I hope.. alas the link is not quite working... or at least on my end.

Had a look for the deck-plans and couldn't access them.

BTW, how big is this work? How many pages? Is it hard or soft backed?

TIA,


Ian

 

[Prime_Evil]

When the adventure goes on sale on DriveThru RPG, would it be possible to include the maps as seperate files - preferably as vector graphics rather than raster graphics so that they are scalable and resolution-independent? I believe that it it possible to embed files in Adobe Illustrator or EPS formats into a PDF via InDesign...

 

[AndrewW]

When the adventure goes on sale on DriveThru RPG, would it be possible to include the maps as seperate files - preferably as vector graphics rather than raster graphics so that they are scalable and resolution-independent? I believe that it it possible to embed files in Adobe Illustrator or EPS formats into a PDF via InDesign...

PDF supports SVG vector images.

 

[GamingGlen]

Reading the preview it says Aramis has a corrosive atmosphere, but the UWP is showing "8" which is a Dense atmosphere and breathable.

 

[Prime_Evil]

PDF supports SVG vector images.

Thanks. Providing deckplans and maps in SVG format would be a huge improvement over the blocky raster graphics used in many Traveller products to date.

 

[Tobias]

Reading the preview it says Aramis has a corrosive atmosphere, but the UWP is showing "8" which is a Dense atmosphere and breathable.

Another scan error, I'd assume. Originally it was a B, misread by the scanner software as an 8.

 

[Anonymous]

Got the PDF through Drive Thru.

Really enjoyed it, BUT a few things sadly annoyed me:

1. No stats for any of the major NPC's.

2. The whole Pysadian Escapade adventure was a complete waste of time. Every traveller group I have ever played in would have said the same thing. You are running a commercial operation, and there are no cargoes to be had and few passangers. You have two choices: The first is to cut and run for Zila and hope to pick up some revenue there. The second is to expend not small amounts of money and also time, going into the interior to try and pick up some wood which will be lucky to net you more than a few thousand credits at most. Every group would have cut and run. Even if the GM had said that the wood was worth 10,000 cr per ton (the most you can get for wood in the Merchant Guide) on Aramanx, most would still have cut and run. Also annoyingly no mention was made of what the wood would get on Aramanx, sloppy editing I think. Unfortunately also the Anola's are too obvious a source of the problems, however good an actor your GM is. Also that led into the largely irrelevent Psionics Institute scenario, which is also rather a waste of space. A well plotted red herring into any of the other investigations would have been better instead of those two adventures.

3. The typos went overboard this time. It rather spoke of too much of a rush to produce the campaign.

 

[BP]

When the adventure goes on sale on DriveThru RPG, would it be possible to include the maps as seperate files - preferably as vector graphics rather than raster graphics so that they are scalable and resolution-independent? I believe that it it possible to embed files in Adobe Illustrator or EPS formats into a PDF via InDesign...

PDF supports SVG vector images.

PDF supports virtually any vector format - as one can program it to do so from raw PostScript (though there are limitations on numeric accuracy).

Vector images not only look better on various resolution devices, but have less issues related to printing (and are easier to optimize by commercial printers), not to mention generally result in much smaller file sizes. Vector illustrations have been the default standard for several decades.

Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) is a better choice for PDFs, especially when also printing. Adobe Illustrator .ai files actually embed EPS content within (and originally started as just EPS content). PDF is tokenized PostScript with additional features (related to e-viewing - such as transparency, GPU 3D graphics, hot links, animations, fillable forms, etc. - PostScript hasn't been changed since the '90s).

I mention this as SVG files are prone to suffer more conversion issues unless one generates them from, well, Adobe Illustrator or other Adobe products that spit out EPS and PDF directly. SVG also lacks certain features that PS supports - such as gradient meshes and resolution snapping, better fine line and font control, and embeddable programming.

Don't get me wrong, I like and use SVG (a lot) and Adobe, the company, supports SVG, even though it beat out its own PGML. But, as is typical in the industry, despite being an open standard, SVG files created in one program don't always read well into another. (I love InkScape - its free and in some ways more powerful than Illustrator - but occasionally I have to resort to raw PostScript or hand editing the SVG to get the desired PDF out of it. )