Ask MongooseMatt ANYTHING!!!

[Terry Mixon]

Summary of questions asked and @MongooseMatt's (or someone else officially with Mongoose)'s response to them:

1. Is the MCr1 price of an emergency low berth in High Guard 2022 Update a typo? Previous editions call for KCr100.

[Status May 13, 2025: Answered]

[From @paltrysum: Not a typo as it has been MCr1 since Mongoose 2e in 2016 but as 1e and CT has it as KCr100 it might be updated.]

2. Will Mongoose consider using KCr, BCr, TCr, and commas ( or anything, really) separation to make large numbers readable?

[Status May 6, 2025: Answered]

[From @MongooseMatt: They are considering KCr and BCr may have already been used.]

3. Why persist with a hydrogen filled jump bubble when: 1. it is based on very dodgy fanon and 2. it is contradicted by collectors and batteries in both the setting and the High Guard rules themselves.

[Status May 10, 2025: Answered]

[From @MongooseMatt: Mongoose wishes to leave these details up to referees without further clarification.]

4. Are single occupancy staterooms the default in Mongoose Traveller or double occupancy? Do the leaders (officers) go single or are they also double occupancy?

[Status May 10, 2025: Answered]

[From @MongooseMatt: There is no default assumption for staterooms. Some high ranking officers will be in singles (captain, executive officer, chief engineer?) and the rest will double up.]

5. Regarding the Telepath or Clairvoyance Psionic powers:

Can a Telepath or Clairvoyant project an image into a mechanical device?

[Status May12, 2025: Answered]

[From @MongooseMatt: As it stands, no. However, it is not beyond the possible that someone, somewhere in Charted Space, has figured out how to do this.]

—-

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.

 

[boggo2300]

Yeah, but it doesn't say that anywhere. So, that is your houserule. Are you still paying for food that no one eats when those rooms are empty? Do Chirpers come by and eat your food when no one is looking? Is this why you have to replace the food and water every month? lolz

no it's not, it's an interpretation of the rule as written, which is what you are supposed to do, I would point blank refuse to play a game thar locked me down so tightly for everything, it's why I never played later D&D too many rules, not enough creativity.

 

[MasterGwydion]

no it's not, it's an interpretation of the rule as written, which is what you are supposed to do, I would point blank refuse to play a game thar locked me down so tightly for everything, it's why I never played later D&D too many rules, not enough creativity.

How is entirely making up what that 1,000Cr per person life support cost is, an interpretation? You are assuming, not interpreting. It is like being an interpreter. If one person doesn't speak, you have nothing to interpret, you just stand there. This rule doesn't speak in any way as to what it pays for, so you are not interpreting anything.

Later D&D? Are we talking 4th and 5th or are you talking 1st to 2nd or 2nd to 3rd or 3rd to 3.5?

I quit playing later D&D 4th and 5th because they took all of the rules away and made it generic.

 

[boggo2300]

How is entirely making up what that 1,000Cr per person life support cost is, an interpretation? You are assuming, not interpreting. It is like being an interpreter. If one person doesn't speak, you have nothing to interpret, you just stand there. This rule doesn't speak in any way as to what it pays for, so you are not interpreting anything.

Later D&D? Are we talking 4th and 5th or are you talking 1st to 2nd or 2nd to 3rd or 3rd to 3.5?

I quit playing later D&D 4th and 5th because they took all of the rules away and made it generic.

It's never come up what that Cr1000 is, no-one in my game cares, they pay the cost, therefore they can eat, breathe and not freeze, they don't pay it, they die that's all that really matters. which I suspect is the same for most tables.

2e is when I stopped bothering with D&D too many rules limiting every damn thing, and 3e, 4e, and 5e got progressively worse, hence the only Fantasy games I play now are OSR ones

 

[Condottiere]

no life support costs for quarters are for the room not the occupants, same as with staterooms, it's unrelated to the number of prisoners
yes, every person on the ship requires Cr.1000 per maintenance period life support
obviously yes
diluting it how?
yes, but thats more detail than the game models, and way more than most referees would want to bother with, but if thats what you want to do, house rule it

Let's say, we eliminate staterooms completely.

Are we still paying a kilostarbux per person onboard?

This presumes a separate set of life support machinery, if that worked that way.

 

[boggo2300]

Let's say, we eliminate staterooms completely.

Are still paying a kilostarbux per person onboard?

This presumes a separate set of life support machinery, if that worked that way.

yes, you can do that, they have nowhere to sleep, wash or anything else not involving sitting at a console, but they wont die, it would be an incredibly uncomfortable journey though, and It's kind of a pointless speculation since I wouldn't think you would find anyone willing to do it

 

[MasterGwydion]

yes, you can do that, they have nowhere to sleep, wash or anything else not involving sitting at a console, but they wont die, it would be an incredibly uncomfortable journey though, and It's kind of a pointless speculation since I wouldn't think you would find anyone willing to do it

The Bad Batch did it on their ship. You wouldn't get paying passengers to do it, but throwing up a hammock in the cargo bay, washing up out of a bucket, and playing basketball in the cargo bay would work better than crew accommodations on a submarine. lol. Heck crews used to sleep in hammocks on the gunnery deck on old sailing vessels, which is what most of Traveller seems based on.

 

[boggo2300]

The Bad Batch did it on their ship. You wouldn't get paying passengers to do it, but throwing up a hammock in the cargo bay, washing up out of a bucket, and playing basketball in the cargo bay would work better than crew accommodations on a submarine. lol. Heck crews used to sleep in hammocks on the gunnery deck on old sailing vessels, which is what most of Traveller seems based on.

though they had bunks for everyone except Omega, who slept in the turret

 

[Condottiere]

You can feed the diapers to the reactor.

 

[Condottiere]

But on a more somber note, it would presume that you don't need staterooms.

Adding cabin space gives the crew more room to move around and to access other components of the ship, such as the engines or cargo bay. However, it does not provide comfortable living space and is generally only used in interplanetary craft where passengers are only expected to be on board for a few hours.

Every 1.5 tons dedicated to cabin space allows the ship to carry another passenger in moderate comfort.

Cr50000 per ton

Cr250 per ton Life Support Cost

Taken separately, do we add a kilostarbux per person, to this?

 

[boggo2300]

if they are crewed for most of the maintenance period yes, but that's not really likely with smallcraft cabins due to the "few hours" duration it mentions

 

[Condottiere]

In that event, we do have cockpits, with no life support mentioned, beyond a twenty four hour duration.

Which would imply, that if you pay no life support, you can have a free twenty four hour window to enjoy free range oxygen.

 

[boggo2300]

chuck em in a vacc-suit and get thirty hours

 

[hopsnbaer]

I don't understand why the life support for the state rooms and passengers such a big deal. The rules are pretty clear. It is an abstract that covers a cost and reasonably keeps my sense of believability.

I am more concerned with the space taken up by additional life support. I always assume a ship has space for at least a month worth of supplies. It would be nice to have tonnage for if I want to lay in additional weeks of Life Support. I can use the Supply units, which kind of break down on the small ship level, or the numbers from 2300 which work well enough, or just handwave it away.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I don't understand why the life support for the state rooms and passengers such a big deal. The rules are pretty clear. It is an abstract that covers a cost and reasonably keeps my sense of believability.

I am more concerned with the space taken up by additional life support. I always assume a ship has space for at least a month worth of supplies. It would be nice to have tonnage for if I want to lay in additional weeks of Life Support. I can use the Supply units, which kind of break down on the small ship level, or the numbers from 2300 which work well enough, or just handwave it away.

The spreadsheet @Arkathan has created takes the supply units into account. Small ships don't have to have the full 100 days of supplies and its workable.

 

[hopsnbaer]

The spreadsheet @Arkathan has created takes the supply units into account. Small ships don't have to have the full 100 days of supplies and its workable.

I use that, which I think is based off the Supply Units from HG. Completely workable and sufficient as an abstract, but I don't think takes into account the full number of passengers and crew. I don't need an answer, it would just be nice.

 

[Condottiere]

Life support is important, besides keeping your characters alive in dead space, is because the large bite it takes out of your budget.

Let's say you have four characters on a hundred tonne starship, that's double occupancy at six kilostarbux per month.

Two parsec jump per month with twenty one percent volume unrefined fuel, thirty one hundred fifty starbux.

 

[hopsnbaer]

Life support is important, besides keeping your characters alive in dead space, is because the large bite it takes out of your budget.

Let's say you have four characters on a hundred tonne starship, that's double occupancy at six kilostarbux per month.

Two parsec jump per month with twenty one percent volume unrefined fuel, thirty one hundred fifty starbux.

I just think it is fair. Trade is also kind of broken as RAW so money is usually not an issue. If you want to do a Firefly type game where money is scarce it is really up to the GM to manage the availability of cash.

 

[Condottiere]

Actually, the fly in my bonnet is, that life support costs don't seem to make cents.

 

[Arkathan]

I just think it is fair. Trade is also kind of broken as RAW so money is usually not an issue. If you want to do a Firefly type game where money is scarce it is really up to the GM to manage the availability of cash.

Give the ship a quirk: Bad reputation, deny the players access to brokers for spec trade, and only allow Freight packages.
That'll turn off the spigot.
(I don't think that even I could be that evil... but never say never.)

 

[CordwainerFish]

I just think it is fair. Trade is also kind of broken as RAW so money is usually not an issue. If you want to do a Firefly type game where money is scarce it is really up to the GM to manage the availability of cash.

The crew of the Serenity had money problems because they were a bunch of screwups of low enough repute (partly because of their money problems) to not be competitive in the lucrative core worlds and in a state of diffident spaceworthiness (largely because of their money problems), and kept running into the consequences of their prior dubious actions (which they got into in ill-advised attempts to get out of their money problems). Shouldn't be hard for a referee to lock players into that position without obviously having their thumb on the scales.