Are we done with the "update" books?

[Spirit of 1977]

So you are ok with the only viable ship designs being TL15 for everything?

I am OK with lower TL designs being more difficult to optimize. But the key to making the MegaT design rules work for starships is to allow for factional fuel requirements and power plant throttling, which was officially recognized by the Digest Group crew at some point. As we are talking about a dead and buried rules system, I'll keep this short. In HG, you could simply set fuel requirements for 30 days to power everything. That won't work in MegaT. Instead, you set up 3 groups of systems: 1) maneuver drive: only requires 15 days of fuel because every other week is in jump; if a ship spends more time in normal space then there is plenty of unused jump fuel space available; 2) always on systems: these need 30 days, including life support, computer, comms, and sensors; 3) combat systems: these are among the most power costly but most definitely do not need to be active 24/7; e.g., 3 days of fuel would supply 216 combat rounds. Once you implement 1) and 3), fuel space is much less, and lots of configurations are viable again.

 

[tytalan]

I disagree with your disagreement.

The Third Imperium was not fleshed out until the Library Data supplements and LBB:6 onwards being written specifically for it.

And even then the early Third Imperium was a very different place to yanks in space.

CT LBB:0 had a section on making your own setting, while in the original LBBs the Imperium was never mentioned. it wouldn't be until The Traveller Book that the setting would be included in the rules, and I think it has gone downhill from there.
The setting revamp gave us the awful mess that was MegaTraveller, followed by a rules revamp and setting revamp that was TNE with setting and rules completely tied together.

Most of my Traveller gaming does not take place in the Third Imperium.

I’m getting really tired of the bigotry. Traveller has never been “Yanks in Space” and you using that as an implied insult is just plain bigotry. So why are you playing a game originally written by an American and publish in America if you Hate Yanks so much.

As for Mega Traveller being an awful mess that you opinion and it not generally supported. And Mega Traveller had nothing to do with TNE that was a internal move in GDW similar to 2ed D&D

 

[Spirit of 1977]

Well I see you never really did anything with MegaTraveller from this statement. I’ve seen viable ship designs from every TL from 9-15 in Mega Traveller. Just because all the designs in the core books where TL 15 doesn’t make that the only viable options.

This is a bit simplistic. Lower TL fusion plants are less efficient and require more space, though fuel usage per MW is constant. But lower TL ships also have lower jump drives, which frees up a lot of space for fusion plants and maneuver drives. Like I said, optimization is more complex, but it is doable. But I also dove into the Hard Times spaceship rules and was able to create viable system ships with tiny Gs of acceleration.

 

[Spirit of 1977]

While I expect there will be some more back and forth about the dead dead dead MegaT vehicle rules, the more important point is that there seems to be some demand for just such a completely consistent system for MgT! At least that's what I get from the unfavorable comments about the current vehicle rules. I'll just say that a consistent system of power is very satisfying, and means that lots of construction details simply work and make sense without further thought.

 

[tytalan]

I disagree with your disagreement.

The Third Imperium was not fleshed out until the Library Data supplements and LBB:6 onwards being written specifically for it.

And even then the early Third Imperium was a very different place to yanks in space.

CT LBB:0 had a section on making your own setting, while in the original LBBs the Imperium was never mentioned. it wouldn't be until The Traveller Book that the setting would be included in the rules, and I think it has gone downhill from there.
The setting revamp gave us the awful mess that was MegaTraveller, followed by a rules revamp and setting revamp that was TNE with setting and rules completely tied together.

Most of my Traveller gaming does not take place in the Third Imperium.

Actually your wrong the first book to introduce the third imperium was supplement book 3 the Spindward Marches in 1979 and was based on Marc’s in house game and it actually predates the actual release of the game itself.

 

[Geir]

So.... anyway. As Matt said, an updated Vehicle Handbook is a year or more out. In the mean time, let me float this idea about adding back Fusion Plus as an option (which I 'believe' in as much as M-Drive, but hey, it's a 3I thing for sure):

This is just a preliminary thought, but I wonder if it would work:

TL10: Cost per space (of vehicle) Cr50000, Endurance = 30 days at cruise speed, 20 days at max speed, 360 days at minimal power (stationary with the engine running for life support, etc.)
TL13: Cost per space (of vehicle) Cr100000, Endurance = 60 days at cruise speed, 40 days at max speed, 720 days at minimal power.

Refueled with water, or at Cr500 per space with deuterium given 10x duration. Does not require more spaces, just replaces the 'normal' engine and fuel tanks with Fusion Plus units.

This is pretty much taken straight out of the updated CSC (p.117) and a medium-sized generator, which is really just ~2-3 kW or 3-4ish hp, so it might be weak if taken literally. It may instead make sense to make it a 'faster burning' reactor and cut the duration by 5 or 10 to up the horse (or poni) power to enough to give decent power to a vehicle.

Just thoughts at the moment, but it might make vehicles work more like they 'should' or did in the Classic adventures.
And if we cut the duration by 10 and then use heavy water, then we get back to the duration above, net ~25kW per space output, which given an 8-space ground car is about 150 267 horsepower. Close enough. You can still play with the VHB performance knobs for variance.

(edited for bad math)

 

[Vormaerin]

All I want from a vehicle handbook is lots and lots of cool art. You can stick whatever cranky maths you want in there as long as I get the useful bit (the art!)

 

[chibiko]

I like the VHB and second the desire for more art.
But if there were an update focussed on consistency among systems, keeping volumes (tons versus dTons) consistent might be important as well as the fusion/power issue.
A space in the VHB is 0.25 cubic metres, which is perfectly reasonable, but this means that turret capable of mounting a starship weapon in a vehicle requires 1 cubic metre of volume, but a starship turret mounting the same weapon requires 14 cubic metres of volume.
And according to HG, the opposite is true when installing vehicle weapons on a starship.

 

[Condottiere]

Volume required for transhipment halves, after one hundred twenty spaces, if I remember it correctly.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Well I see you never really did anything with MegaTraveller from this statement. I’ve seen viable ship designs from every TL from 9-15 in Mega Traveller. Just because all the designs in the core books where TL 15 doesn’t make that the only viable options.

Once again you are leaping to incorrect conclusions, and in your friendly posting style. MT had to reduce the fuel consumption of jump drives because the power plant rules were broken, every ship and grav vehicle in IE apart from the TL 14 CE is TL15

 

[chibiko]

Volume required for transhipment halves, after one hundred twenty spaces, if I remember it correctly.

True, but I'm more concerned about the volume disparity when constructing vehicles in that a turret capable of mounting a starship weapon requires 4 vehicle spaces - making up 1 cubic metre (1,000kg) - while a starship turret mounting the same weapon requires 1 dTon, or 14 cubic metres.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Actually your wrong the first book to introduce the third imperium was supplement book 3 the Spindward Marches in 1979 and was based on Marc’s in house game and it actually predates the actual release of the game itself.

How about you read what I said? I said fleshed out.
Oh and you are completely wrong since Mercenary and Adventure 1 pre-dated S:3, not to mention JTAS.

Also consider the great difference between the Spinward Marches of S3 - the outer frontier of an old empire that lacks the strength it once had, to a region settled for over a thousand years and fully under Imperial jackboots.

 

[Varulv]

All I want from a vehicle handbook is lots and lots of cool art. You can stick whatever cranky maths you want in there as long as I get the useful bit (the art!)

Yes!

 

[tytalan]

So.... anyway. As Matt said, an updated Vehicle Handbook is a year or more out. In the mean time, let me float this idea about adding back Fusion Plus as an option (which I 'believe' in as much as M-Drive, but hey, it's a 3I thing for sure):

This is just a preliminary thought, but I wonder if it would work:

TL10: Cost per space (of vehicle) Cr50000, Endurance = 30 days at cruise speed, 20 days at max speed, 360 days at minimal power (stationary with the engine running for life support, etc.)
TL13: Cost per space (of vehicle) Cr100000, Endurance = 60 days at cruise speed, 40 days at max speed, 720 days at minimal power.

Refueled with water, or at Cr500 per space with deuterium given 10x duration. Does not require more spaces, just replaces the 'normal' engine and fuel tanks with Fusion Plus units.

This is pretty much taken straight out of the updated CSC (p.117) and a medium-sized generator, which is really just ~2-3 kW or 3-4ish hp, so it might be weak if taken literally. It may instead make sense to make it a 'faster burning' reactor and cut the duration by 5 or 10 to up the horse (or poni) power to enough to give decent power to a vehicle.

Just thoughts at the moment, but it might make vehicles work more like they 'should' or did in the Classic adventures.
And if we cut the duration by 10 and then use heavy water, then we get back to the duration above, net ~25kW per space output, which given an 8-space ground car is about 150 267 horsepower. Close enough. You can still play with the VHB performance knobs for variance.

(edited for bad math)

I like this but can we get a TL 15 version also

 

[tytalan]

Once again you are leaping to incorrect conclusions, and in your friendly posting style. MT had to reduce the fuel consumption of jump drives because the power plant rules were broken, every ship and grav vehicle in IE apart from the TL 14 CE

In one book one that Marc help write every vehicle is TL 14 or 15. Now look at the MegaTraveller Journal, 1001 Vehicles or just about anything with vehicles/ships in it. But than I don’t expect you to know this I doubt you ever bothered playing MegaTraveller since it was written by a Yank.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Again you are completely mistaken, I have at least two copies of everything produced by GDW and DGP for MT, in some cases three or four.

Why should I be bothered by them being written by a yank?

I dislike the yanksinscpace-ification of the Third Imperium but that is a very different thing to disliking yanks.

 

[Condottiere]

There's probably a difference between written by Yanks, and written by Yanks about Yanks in space.

That would be like saying Forty Kay is Limeys in space.

 

[tytalan]

There's probably a difference between written by Yanks, and written by Yanks about Yanks in space.

That would be like saying Forty Kay is Limeys in space.

Forty Kay is as much Limeys in space as the Third Imperium is Yanks in space.

When a person uses a term like “Yank in Space” as a insult it’s a better indication of their feeling than the backpedaling they do when called on it

 

[Vormaerin]

There's probably a difference between written by Yanks, and written by Yanks about Yanks in space.

That would be like saying Forty Kay is Limeys in space.

There's quite a bit of difference, actually. Considering that the original vision of the Third Imperium as a decaying, overstretched authority full of corruption and abuse of authority was written by Yanks, As was the later version with the more robust, pro-active and effective Imperium, which I feel was most solidified by the GURPS material. Though there's also my least favorite Traveller product of all time, the Regency sourcebook. Which reads a lot like "heh, look how stupid the original setting was, we've fixed it with Democracy!"

I don't particularly agree with Sigtrygg on the "yanks in space" terminology, but there's definitely been a tonal shift in how positively the Imperium is protrayed. And it has nothing to do with the nationality of the writers.

 

[Condottiere]

If it's narrative tone and point of view, a lot of pulp science fiction was basically that, and having digested enough, I understand that some might find it hard to swallow.

Enid Blyton isn't for everyone, but Harry Potter is basically an update.

Classic Traveller feels tired and grey, because its characters are having a midlife crisis, compared to Dungeons and Dragons, where the feeling is anything is possible, life is magical, and the world is your oyster.