Battle Dress

[rust]

Clearly we must/must be a slave to any rules printed. Good God man, have you lost your mind?? You must have a fever or something!

I blame it on my anti-authoritarian upbringing.

In fact, I have rewritten much of the rules for my setting ( :shock: ), and
now I use a modified ( :shock: ) character generation system, and then
convert the characters to BRP and roleplay them with modified( :shock: )
BRP rules.

I am afraid I am a completely hopeless case ... :lol:

 

[opensent]

But if we create NPCs using the rules, they too will be aged in 4 year increments.

CT Book 1: "Character Generation: Most players new to Traveller spend some time in the generation of various character types. It is recommended that the referee save these characters for future use as non-player characters, hirelings, and other types."

To set an NPCs age arbitrarily, well that’s just not done! I mean, you’d be ignoring the character creation rules! That’s almost like making Battle Dress an exception to the design system! Clearly we must/must be a slave to any rules printed. Good God man, have you lost your mind?? You must have a fever or something!

Erm, Rust is not a slave to the rules. He uses BRP. In his own universe. With characters converted from MGT.

While it is possible and plausible to meet someone 18 ... 62 years old, it is impossible to create a battle dress as described in Mega Traveller - to me at least this makes a difference.

The guy just got done arguing that Battle Dress as described in MT is 'impossible to create'. Maybe not a slave to the rules, but certainly a vassal.

 

[opensent]

I blame it on my anti-authoritarian upbringing.

In fact, I have rewritten much of the rules for my setting ( :shock: ), and
now I use a modified ( :shock: ) character generation system, and then
convert the characters to BRP and roleplay them with modified( :shock: )
BRP rules.

I am afraid I am a completely hopeless case ... :lol:

So why not re-write the design system to allow Battle Dress, that venerable CT Book 1 armor system to exist as published??

 

[rust]

So why not re-write the design system to allow Battle Dress, that venerable CT Book 1 armor system to exist as published??

I would have no problem to rewrite any design system, but to achieve
results like this one:

Battledress-13's 3.8L *is the same volume* as a gallon of milk and its folded up package has a density of 6.8 g/cc.

I would have to rewrite physics and the laws of nature, and this would
seem to go a bit too far in a science fiction game. :lol:

 

[opensent]

In for a penny, in for a pound I say. But hey, if you can keep a straight face while telling players, who are roleplaying thier week in ‘jump space’, that battle dress is what goes too far, then rock on...

 

[rust]

But hey, if you can keep a straight face while telling players, who are roleplaying thier week in ‘jump space’, that battle dress is what goes too far, then rock on...

No week in jump space in my setting, although I might be able to find an
explanation for this.

But a densitiy of 6.8 g/cc for superdense when common real world steel
has a density of 7.8 g/cc really is something my players would never buy.

 

[opensent]

But hey, if you can keep a straight face while telling players, who are roleplaying thier week in ‘jump space’, that battle dress is what goes too far, then rock on...

No week in jump space in my setting, although I might be able to find an
explanation for this.

But a densitiy of 6.8 g/cc for superdense when common real world steel
has a density of 7.8 g/cc really is something my players would never buy.

Yes, and wouldn't want to drive these hyper accurate gamers to go back to D&D, or Battletech would we? :lol:

 

[rust]

Yes, and wouldn't want to drive these hyper accurate gamers back to D&D, or Battletech would we? :lol:

Well, this discussion is going nowhere, I am afraid.

In my view the MegaTraveller version of battle dress is nonsensical, so
I will continue to use my setting's version based upon the GURPS Travel-
ler technology assumptions, and you use whatever you consider appro-
priate for your setting and campaign.

 

[opensent]

So no battle dress and no combat armor.. how sad...

 

[Infojunky]

So in a game where you can routinely manipulate gravity, jump though an alternate dimension to effectively travel faster than the speed of light, where war is conducted with sub atomic particles such as mesons, in a game that has Hivers, Aslan, and militant vegetarian centaurs, you draw the line at suspending disbelieve when it comes to the volume of Battle Dress as published? Of all things, this is what you find to be inconceivable?

>Quote; You live on a Spaceship Darling.....<

 

[kristof65]

Wow. This thread went downhill fast.

 

[Infojunky]

In my view the MegaTraveller version of battle dress is nonsensical, so
I will continue to use my setting's version based upon the GURPS Travel-
ler technology assumptions

Wow, do you know how circular this argument is?

Gurps vehicles while based on some of Steve's ideas is/was heavily influenced by Striker. Mega Traveller is Striker (OK a version with lots of the good part obfuscated by English majors and/or Fanboy tech assumptions (there are a bunch of real Howlers in MT)).

And, many of the people who have written for Gurps:Traveller Wrote for CT and MT thus another continuity of thought.

Or All you arguing is the detail expression of the thing, not the thing, as for a gross examination they are the same thing. Coming back to preferences it is the religious argument of game system (which is just as heated as the OS one).

 

[rust]

Wow, do you know how circular this argument is?

I do not think so, but perhaps I should explain it.

I do not accept these values as plausible:

From MegaTraveller, IE p75
BD-13 3.8L, 26kg
BD-14 2.7L, 12kg

and therefore use the 250 lbs. mentioned in GURPS Traveller instead,
which I consider far more plausible.

That's all.

 

[Infojunky]

Was not gonna answer.... Just not..... It goes on and on and on.....

Since we can't settle on a definition of what we are talking about it's all pointless.... Too many different opinions, to many different takes on what it is.

I for one will stay with the original definition in CT, all Battledress is powered combat armor.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Something which I have noticed in all the debates about battledress (powered) is that people seem to be talking about why a single size/volume/mass etc is the right one.

The 3I is huge, its marines/specfor/black ops etc have many jobs and a great many equipment specs for those jobs.

The marines storming heavily defended ships/bases/planets via assualt shuttles or orbital drops need something for those jobs, the recon/commandos want something light, fast, stealthy and with a long power lifespan. Defence is a secondary for them. The marines alone are large enough to have several sets of specialised battledress (powered) and to have the need to justify spending the credits on them.

What about swat teams going after Ine Givar, with high speed orbital transport swat teams are world wide responders and can easily be in a light battledress with the door kickers in something with the same armour levels as marine assualt armour. The cost isn't so high when compared with the training invested in elite response teams.

In terms of bulk overlaping plates will add an estimated 2 cm all round just from the armour, allow another 2 cm for the muscle fibres to flex and a life support inner layer and you can be adding as little as 5-6 cm all round. Heavier plates and thicker muscle fibres will add more to this but even 10cm does not massively restrict access in properly designed armour

Clearly the heavy and stronger the armour the bulkier it will be but with light suits being just strong enough to negate the weight of the suit they can be fairly slim.

Battledress can be many things to suit many needs and over the life of the 3I it is going to have gone through many evolutions to suit changes in use. Decomissioned stuff is passed down from the marines etc to sector fleets to planetary forces to hurscarles and to client states and mercs.

What merc companies may be using could be several generations out of service compared to the marine drop squads. This leads to a level of ref ruling that can help with some of the problems of player battledress if what they try so hard to get is 50 years out of date, 2/3rds of the armour of front line stuff and adds no strength. But it is still battledress which draws a lot of response fire and leads to calls for military support.

The marines responding to a terrorist alert from the local PD may be confused when they blow the terrorist battledress into tiny bits with the first plasma hit, the players wearing the obsolete armour will be reaching for some dice and a new character sheet.

 

[GypsyComet]

What merc companies may be using could be several generations out of service compared to the marine drop squads. This leads to a level of ref ruling that can help with some of the problems of player battledress if what they try so hard to get is 50 years out of date, 2/3rds of the armour of front line stuff and adds no strength. But it is still battledress which draws a lot of response fire and leads to calls for military support.

I generally assume that the type(s) of BD in use by the Imperial Marines is distinctive in appearance, if nothing else. Licensed star mercs may buy BD, but it will look different. Not necessarily bigger, just different.

 

[Ishmael]

wow....
what a nice argument and such thoughtful rebuttals.....

jump drives don't bother me; they seem to be based ( imtu at least ) on observable quantum electron tunneling and don't seem to meaningfully violate conservation of momentum or anything like that ( but I could be wrong about that ) and they don't violate the 300,000k/sec speed limit. I just base its performance on mass and not volume ( and a couple of other tweaks too )

standard Trav grav tech does bother me, so I base its energy requirements on changes in potential energy to keep perpetual motion machines from being made.

standard UWP generation does bother me, so I made up my own. I posted parts of it on these boards already.

I tweaked weapon design from FFS1 to allow me to convert weapon stats to MT...I also tweaked AHL's combat tables to use MT stats with damage based on momentum to let heavy/slow bullets act more realistic fashion. ( I love Springfield m1873 rifles.... )

I am slowly redoing ALL of FFS1's vehicle rules to suit me and allow me to make vehicles I love in a more realistic manner ( try comparing a 2000hp blown hemi in a funny car with a 2000hp rolls royce merlin with a 2000hp locomotive engine from a GP9 with what you get with FFS1 ).

I can hardly be called a "slave to the rules "
Instead, I bend them to my own purpose.

I just want mtu to be consistent where physical laws that are enforced over here are not ignored as pain-in-the-ass, over there. And as always MTU<>YTU|MTU<>OTU.

 

[towerwarlock]

If you look at the various FFS books, as tech levels advance, armour materials get heavier but the also get stronger. Which given modern materials technology is quite accurate. Sure powered down a suit of Battledress make take 2 - 4 people to move by themselves. But powered up, the suit does all the work itself, leaving the operator free to whup some but.