Book X and Supplement X - Comments Wanted!

[OddjobXL]

They're actually more than that. I picked up Behind The Claw and it's very useful as a supplement to Mongoose Spinward Marches because you can just take a quick eyeballing of a sector and immediately get a useful handle on what, and who, is there without having to invent it all yourself. But there's also not so much detail you don't feel free to work out the details to your own liking or even set them aside and redo the world on your own terms.

 

[Prime_Evil]

I'd like to see a few of the Third Imperium books already mentioned, but I'd also love to see some more generic supplements that cover other styles of SF. The World Builder's Handbook is probably the biggest hole in the system at the moment, but there are plenty of other possibilities:

• World Builder's Handbook Yes, we really need this book. Hopefully it won't simply be a rehash of the detailed system generation from Megatraveller or the World Tramer's Handbook, but would be updated to include the latest scientific data. We've learned a lot about possible exoplanets in the last decade!
  
• Alien Environments: A book providing rules covering survival in a range of environments, starting out with mundane environments such as desert, jungle, arctic, and underwater settings. However, the book should also cover truly alien settings such as frozen methane worlds, the upper atmosphere of gas giants, worlds with corrosive atmospheres et al. It might also touch on some of the extreme environments that can appear in SF, such as planets that orbit variable stars and the like.
  
• Biotech: A book that covers biotechnology and genetic engineering in the same way that cybernetics covered cybertech.
  
• Stardrives: A book covering alternative methods of FTL travel, including warp drive, hyperdrive, and artificial wormholes, et al. This book should incorporate modified starship construction and starship combat rules for each option. It should also discuss the impact that changing the FTL travel mechanism has on the kind of interstellar societies that might arise. It could also be a good idea to discuss various options for interstellar communications in this book, if the GM wants to incorporate FTL communications in their alternate Traveller universe.
  
• Time Travel and Alternate Dimension: A book covering classic SF tropes such as time travel, alternate history, dimensional travel, etc.
  
• Mecha: Although not really appropriate for the OTU, a book covering mecha construction and mecha combat would be a welcome addition to the system. Ideally this would build on the existing vehicle construction rules and might also incorporate some ideas from Robots. Perhaps this book could also discuss ways to incorporate anime tropes into Traveller for GMs who want to run a campaign in the style of Robotech, Neon Genesis Evangelion, or even Ghost in the Shell.
  
• Martial Arts: How about a detailed martial arts system for Traveller with details of various combat styles and martial arts weapons?
  
• Colony: How about a book that covers establishing and provides rules for establishing and running a new colony. This book could include rules for terraforming, as well as rules covering the various hazards that frontier colonies face - including alien microorganisms, hostile natives, pirate raids, economic failure, and the like. Perhaps it would also be a good idea to include rules for raising the tech level of existing colonies or native cultures, as well as rules for lost colonies that gradually drop from the starting tech level to something lower (such as a medieval tech level).

 

[tzunder]

I echo the Colonist book which should be as good and detailed as the MT Word Builders Handbook.

Then a mix of 3I stuff and one generic:

So a History of the Fifth Frontier War, written as just that, a blow by blow history with some stats and adventure seeds, but keep the core game at 1105 so this is there if you want to move into the VFW.

A big fat book of Less Well Known Aliens, the Virushi, the Vegans, Bwaps, Dandelions, all the guys in the GURPS Aliens 4 book, Dolphins, Chimps, and one or twelfty new ones. That could well be a two parter..

Humaniti, again like GURPS, all the little sub species of humans dotted around.

Apocalypse NOW! A book about post apocalypse SF gaming.. which would be useable in the OTU for any of the many Long Nights and planetary collapse, but also allow Mad Max or Planet of the Apes or Zombie Apocalypse games. [It'd make a cool pairing with the Colonist book, build it up with one and tear it down with the other!]

"Down with the Empire", rebels, traitors and revolutionaries in the Third Imperium. Just what do the Ine Givar believe, and who else opposes the aristocratic plutocratic tyranny of the Empire?

 

[Dave Chase]

I have one additional suggestion to my colony suggestion.

At the very least have rust be a play tester if not one of the game proof readers.

His level of research and realism in what potential future planet colony world might be like and what colony's must to do to survive, IMO is very, very good.

Dave Chase

 

[Darzoni]

After thinking carefully about what I would like to have as a player and/or GM, I have concluded that I want a World Building Guide to better help fill out details from UWPs, and a Alien Module on Vilani.

 

[kafka]

So a History of the Fifth Frontier War, written as just that, a blow by blow history with some stats and adventure seeds, but keep the core game at 1105 so this is there if you want to move into the VFW.

Sort of like the CT Spinward Marches Campaign for CT but with players in the thick of it...interesting...I like it. Long ago, I proposed to Liam D. that he write such a campaign based upon his experiences in Iraq. He echoed the sediment, that it could also be mapped onto Homer's Odyssey.

I also was intrigued by the film Tears of the Sun & more recently Whistleblower (I admit it I like Monica Bellucci) however both films also deal with rescue in some way. I think that overlaying with conflict of the FFW would make a cracker adventure campaign.

You could have war for the war buffs and tree hugging adventures for the more passive...in the end have a resolution that home is not the same as you left it.

 

[Jak Nazryth]

To many posts for me to read at work, so this may be a repeat. But the squeaky wheel get's the grease, right?

I would like Mongoose to release a book called "Starships" or something similar.
All second addition / fixed rules including ALL rules, extra components, new components, etc... spread throughout all the existing supplements will be represented. The first chapter should be nothing but rules. The second chapter should be an operations section with great illustrations. The third chapter should be improved combat. The final 3/4 of the book should be deck plans. The volume could be larger (thicker) than most supplements, simply because of the number of ships involved.
Possibly you could break out separate smaller volumes for various races/cultures including paragraphs about design and operation philosophy. I know there are a few ships in each alien supplement, but a book devoted solely to ships would be a big help for GM's and players alike.

 

[Rick]

I like the earlier posts mentioning a Scientists and Scholars book - a Field Scientist could be an adventurer career just as easily as some of the others - Indiana Jones, Samantha Carter, Daniel Jackson, Lara Croft, Steven Franklin, Ian Malcolm, MacGuyver - there is a long list of field scientist/adventurer types in TV and Film!!

 

[andreav]

Not a book as such (well not at all actually) but what I would like to see is another couple of sectors set aside as refs preserves. One inside the Imperium (Daibei, Delphi or Massilia would be good.) And another similar to Foreven but on the Solomani side of the Imperium. Hinterworlds would have been ideal, but its already been developed in MT. Leonidae would do though, and its near the K'kree and Hivers too

Andrew