Ask MongooseMatt ANYTHING!!!

[Terry Mixon]

Okay, not really anything, but when we post questions about the rules or potential typos in the feedback area, we often don't receive a response, so I'm creating this thread in the hopes of getting some response to questions we have, even if it is "we're looking at that" or some such.

I'll kick this off with a question I posted a few days ago. The emergency low berths in High Guard 2022 Update are listed at MC1 a pop. Seems real pricy since Mongoose 1e and all the previous versions of Traveller we checked had it being KCr100. In Mongoose 1e, it was listed as MCr.1 and we suspect a typo. Can we get some clartity on that so we can update the starship build sheet to reflect what we suspect if we're right? Thanks.

Also, allow me to suggest that adding KCr, BCr (or GCr to please @Geir), and TCr to your repertoire would be really helpful and would minimize the complaints about not having comma separation in your big numbers, too.

And sorry for all the wild AMA questions you're about to get @MongooseMatt.

 

[Vormaerin]

It may not say it, but there are ships with a need. As pointed out to me, a lab ship has a pinnace clamped outside the ship, so access is needed. This is a neat solution that avoids my issue with there being an undefined free lunch.

So now you are magically adding a hatch to the lab ship and to the pinnace? Or are we just assuming that however the clamp grabs the ship, it mysteriously aligns with an existing access point on the clamped ship? That's fine when you have a situation like that where a specific ship is the only thing that will be clamped there.

But a lot of time, the clamp is used for more general purposes. So now do we assume that docking clamps automatically put an access hatch on whatever ship they encounter?

I don't have a problem with there being a hatch there. Hatches are essentially free if they are not an airlock. But a 200 ton free trader has its access point on the right side of the ship and the 200 ton safari ship has its access point on the nose. Are you clamping the free trader on its side and the safari ship by the nose?

My main concern is the presumption that a docking clamp automatically gives access to the docked ship. I don't think that's true.

 

[Condottiere]

The thing would be, these would be standardized in spacecraft to allow that.

Not something that the authors appear to have imagined.

 

[Terry Mixon]

So now you are magically adding a hatch to the lab ship and to the pinnace? Or are we just assuming that however the clamp grabs the ship, it mysteriously aligns with an existing access point on the clamped ship? That's fine when you have a situation like that where a specific ship is the only thing that will be clamped there.

But a lot of time, the clamp is used for more general purposes. So now do we assume that docking clamps automatically put an access hatch on whatever ship they encounter?

I don't have a problem with there being a hatch there. Hatches are essentially free if they are not an airlock. But a 200 ton free trader has its access point on the right side of the ship and the 200 ton safari ship has its access point on the nose. Are you clamping the free trader on its side and the safari ship by the nose?

My main concern is the presumption that a docking clamp automatically gives access to the docked ship. I don't think that's true.

I believe that access would require a mating point in the right position. Either a pod or ship is designed to take advantage of it, or it wouldn’t work.

 

[Terry Mixon]

The thing would be, these would be standardized in spacecraft to allow that.

Not something that the authors appear to have imagined.

This. If the tech exists, standards will develop to take them into account.

 

[Vormaerin]

I just think that the hatch is a separate thing, which can be put there when appropriate. AFAIK, non airlock hatches don't have any costs associated with them. But I don't think it's intrinsic that a clamp has a hatch. You can put one there when you have a custom fitted clamp like on the lab ship.

That clamp will not clamp basically anything other than a pinnace the way the art shows it. It's not gonna clamp any old thing, contrary to the literal reading of the rules.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I just think that the hatch is a separate thing, which can be put there when appropriate. AFAIK, non airlock hatches don't have any costs associated with them. But I don't think it's intrinsic that a clamp has a hatch. You can put one there when you have a custom fitted clamp like on the lab ship.

That clamp will not clamp basically anything other than a pinnace the way the art shows it. It's not gonna clamp any old thing, contrary to the literal reading of the rules.

I could live with that distinction.

 

[Condottiere]

I tend to think that hatches are the per hundred tonne freebie giveaways, not airlocks.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I tend to think that hatches are the per hundred tonne freebie giveaways, not airlocks.

Not sure I’d go that far.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I just think that the hatch is a separate thing, which can be put there when appropriate. AFAIK, non airlock hatches don't have any costs associated with them. But I don't think it's intrinsic that a clamp has a hatch. You can put one there when you have a custom fitted clamp like on the lab ship.

That clamp will not clamp basically anything other than a pinnace the way the art shows it. It's not gonna clamp any old thing, contrary to the literal reading of the rules.

I think that it is pretty simple. Traveller build rules do not have that level of granularity. They are there because if they are not, almost none of the designs work. Docking clamps work for all ships based on the size docking clamp. Does it make realistic sense, no, but without a lot more granularity, it isn't doable. Do you want a different docking clamp for every single ship in the game, because that is what you would need. That would require pages and pages of space in a book to list all of the possible configurations of dock clamps. Much easier and more workable in a game setting to just make them all basically the same for all ships, or in our case 5 or 6 different sizes.

 

[boggo2300]

Not sure I’d go that far.

I agree, especially since the rules say AIRLOCK...

 

[boggo2300]

I just think that the hatch is a separate thing, which can be put there when appropriate. AFAIK, non airlock hatches don't have any costs associated with them. But I don't think it's intrinsic that a clamp has a hatch. You can put one there when you have a custom fitted clamp like on the lab ship.

That clamp will not clamp basically anything other than a pinnace the way the art shows it. It's not gonna clamp any old thing, contrary to the literal reading of the rules.

Paltrysum answered this, Docking clamps come with a hatch, NOT an Airlock

 

[Terry Mixon]

That clamp will not clamp basically anything other than a pinnace the way the art shows it. It's not gonna clamp any old thing, contrary to the literal reading of the rules.

As we all know very well, the art isn't what makes the thing, it's the rules. The rules say they can hold whatever, so they can, art be damned.

 

[boggo2300]

Crunch over Fluff EVERY time

 

[hopsnbaer]

It is not stated, but it is obvious that docking clamps have a hatch. See below.

ACS page 102

View attachment 5521

Unless you think that the pilots spend a week in jumpspace stuck in their Light Fighter cockpits?

I have to say that is a reasonable argument based on Canon material. IMTU I would say it is situational.

 

[paltrysum]

Does it even require that? Is there something that says you can pass from one ship to the other? I mean, the ship you clamp to doesn't have to have any special feature to be clampable, so why would you assume there's a matching door?

I don't see anything in the docking clamp description that suggests you can actually pass from one ship to the other as being one of its features. It's just stuck to the outside of your ship.

The implication is that docking space is a small hangar. For example, the Type S scout has a docking space for its air/raft and as you can see from the deck plans, it has a little room of its own.

 

[Condottiere]

To give an extreme example:

Primitive planetoid hull, hundred tonnes, two hundred kilostarbux.

It's typically assumed that a default airlock is two tonnes, at two hundred kilostarbux, each.

And, how many canonical spacecraft designs actually account for all of those freebie airlocks when calculating volume, even when discounting cost?