But what does <insert component here> actually do?

[Arkathan]

I think 'Residential Zones' should be both larger and more expensive than a ship -- folks are expected to be able to be born, grow up, live, work, raise a family, and die in a space habitat. That should mean there is a way to be self-supporting in space; and that 'whatever it is' should be built into the residential zones. Right now I am just figuring that half of the 'supply points' a ship uses are nutrition; but that is a clumsy kluge -- almost as bad as basing 'Supply Points used per day' off the tonnage of the hull.

I think part of the problem is that we tend to draw out deck plan accommodations based on a single unit. For a SOC 7 family of 4, it would be 16 dtons of space for living quarters and access. 800 sq ft of high tech fold-away furniture and another 400 sq ft of common area, as opposed to 150 sq ft of living space and 50 sq ft per stateroom of common area on a ship. Residential zone common areas are half the tonnage of accommodations, instead of one ton per room of whatever size on a ship, whether one or two people occupy it.

I know. Not great by current standards.
(According to Google)
Currently, an average 2 bedroom apartment in Germany is just under 1,000 sq ft.
A typical middle class family in Europe could expect 650-860 sq ft. varying widely by location and population density.

Yeah. Needs work.
Some "experts" recommend 600sqft per person. that equates to 12 tons if you want to apply it all to a private space or 8 tons of living area plus 4 tons of common area. Note that a 3 bedroom, 1800 sq ft home is more than plenty for 4 people in many areas of the world. (one set of double occupancy)

 

[-Daniel-]

Currently, an average 2 bedroom apartment in Germany is just under 1,000 sq ft.
A typical middle class family in Europe could expect 650-860 sq ft. varying widely by location and population density.

Whenever the conversation of space for people on ships or space-stations comes up we trot out Earth norms and say "see it is fine". Except that those norms for living spaces on Earth are very deceptive. How many of those Germans stay in their home 100% of the time for 10 days or more? Never leaving or interfacing with the various spaces outside that home? I live in a family home of just over 1000 sq ft and there are four of us here. But I get to walk out into my back yard whenever I want (not counted in that sq footage). I can walk up the block and have a snack at the local fast-food location (not counted in that sq footage). I can get in my car and drive over to the local mall (for sure thousands of sq feet and not counted in that 1000 sq feet.) and walk around shopping or dining or whatever I want. I never, ever stay 100% of the 24 hour day inside my house. So is that 1000 sq feet really fair?

People like to use cruise ships and point out how small the cabins are. But what about the thousands of sq feet dedicated to other uses? Pools, restaurants, theaters, shops, etcetera? You do not go on a 10 day cruise and then stay locked in your cabin the whole time.
Ok, I will stop because I get my point of view is not the majority in the Traveller fan base. The norm is to min/max the engines and weapons and who cares about the crews, hell let them hot bunk in hammocks strung three high in a storage closet.

 

[Arkathan]

Whenever the conversation of space for people on ships or space-stations comes up we trot out Earth norms and say "see it is fine". Except that those norms for living spaces on Earth are very deceptive. How many of those Germans stay in their home 100% of the time for 10 days or more? Never leaving or interfacing with the various spaces outside that home? I live in a family home of just over 1000 sq ft and there are four of us here. But I get to walk out into my back yard whenever I want (not counted in that sq footage). I can walk up the block and have a snack at the local fast-food location (not counted in that sq footage). I can get in my car and drive over to the local mall (for sure thousands of sq feet and not counted in that 1000 sq feet.) and walk around shopping or dining or whatever I want. I never, ever stay 100% of the 24 hour day inside my house. So is that 1000 sq feet really fair?

People like to use cruise ships and point out how small the cabins are. But what about the thousands of sq feet dedicated to other uses? Pools, restaurants, theaters, shops, etcetera? You do not go on a 10 day cruise and then stay locked in your cabin the whole time.
Ok, I will stop because I get my point of view is not the majority in the Traveller fan base. The norm is to min/max the engines and weapons and who cares about the crews, hell let them hot bunk in hammocks strung three high in a storage closet.

You will notice that I showed a larger number at the end of my post, along with a Yeah, this needs work.
For a habitat/space station, which is where you use the residential area rules, you need to add in the commercial districts, industrial districts, schools - if applicable, and common areas, which amount to half the residential area, but shouldn't be used as passageways. Commercial districts should include restaurants. Common areas are parks and free recreation areas.
Also note that the above was not intended as a submission as a rule, but more of a where is Traveller, where are we and where do we need to get to.

 

[Condottiere]

You also have to remember real estate starts off at, default, fifty kilostarbux per four and a half square metres.

Or, 1'032.255933407105 starbux per square foot.

That should be 5'161.278 greenbux per square foot.


In October 2024, the median listing home price in New York, NY was $850K, trending up 6.4% year-over-year. The median listing home price per square foot was $903. The median home sold price was $708K.

 

[Arkathan]

You also have to remember real estate starts off at, default, fifty kilostarbux per four and a half square metres.

Or, 1'032.255933407105 starbux per square foot.

That should be 5'161.278 greenbux per square foot.


In October 2024, the median listing home price in New York, NY was $850K, trending up 6.4% year-over-year. The median listing home price per square foot was $903. The median home sold price was $708K.

And that even with large numbers of people moving out to escape crime, policies and taxes.

 

[swordtart]

Whenever the conversation of space for people on ships or space-stations comes up we trot out Earth norms and say "see it is fine". Except that those norms for living spaces on Earth are very deceptive. How many of those Germans stay in their home 100% of the time for 10 days or more? Never leaving or interfacing with the various spaces outside that home? I live in a family home of just over 1000 sq ft and there are four of us here. But I get to walk out into my back yard whenever I want (not counted in that sq footage). I can walk up the block and have a snack at the local fast-food location (not counted in that sq footage). I can get in my car and drive over to the local mall (for sure thousands of sq feet and not counted in that 1000 sq feet.) and walk around shopping or dining or whatever I want. I never, ever stay 100% of the 24 hour day inside my house. So is that 1000 sq feet really fair?

People like to use cruise ships and point out how small the cabins are. But what about the thousands of sq feet dedicated to other uses? Pools, restaurants, theaters, shops, etcetera? You do not go on a 10 day cruise and then stay locked in your cabin the whole time.
Ok, I will stop because I get my point of view is not the majority in the Traveller fan base. The norm is to min/max the engines and weapons and who cares about the crews, hell let them hot bunk in hammocks strung three high in a storage closet.

These points definitely apply to permanent residents. Where you decide Travellers should be will depend on your game concept. If you are thinking sleek Star Trek Next Generation accommodation with swathes of room you will come up with a different answer than if you thinking Serenity.

You could allow for that flex by specifying all accommodation in terms of SOC (much the same way we define cost of living). The crew of the Serenity are at best blue collar workers. They are definitely scraping by and even have minimal common areas (we even see the cargo bay being pressed into service for recreation). The Star Trek crew we see clearly have a high standard of living but they are clearly in a post scarcity society. They can replicate anything and their holodeck is effectively infinitely large.

Every ton of space you dedicate to people is a ton less you can dedicate to making the ship pay for itself. Those large areas on cruise ships are because the ship is the thing people are paying for. People on cruises are not travelling to get somewhere. The cruise is the end in itself. One complaint of tourist destinations is that cruise passengers rarely stay long enough to experience the culture of the place they are supposedly visiting and don't really spend enough money there, most of their money has already gone on paying for the ship and all those entertainments you mention. A lot of it is also shopping and those retail spaces pay for themselves.

There is a tie in to TL and accommodation is one of the few things that do not have TL tiers. Back in the day when you lived in a log cabin, you were so busy buying food and working you didn't need space for your recreational needs as you didn't have much downtime. Even in winter when you couldn't get out much as you were mending and repairing (and possibly starving). My grandfather used to grumble that in his day "we made our own entertainment". My life is still physical, my house is stuffed with things I have acquired as my early life meant the acquisition was a lengthy process and I developed a hoarder instinct. Now I can buy stuff from China with pocket change that I would have had to save for months for. I am still storing all that crap, but if I was born into that lifestyle I would probably be one of those people who seem to change their car when it needs a service. My entertainments were books, models and electronics all taking up their Dton of storage. I suspect my children will keep far less stuff than I do and their entertainments seem to be rented and based on a mobile phone. If they had a holodeck they would probably never leave it.

Traveller needs to be able to reflect both extremes and anything else the referee an players want to explore. It needs to be a framework for YTU. Fixing ships accommodation at a pre-conceived level and then fudging the number to say it includes x or y without actually considering the implications of that stores up trouble for the future and makes the referees job harder rather than easier.

So I would calculate the minimum space required to exist and have it multiplied by a function of SOC (the richer you are the more stuff you want to have). Then divide it by some function of TL with early TL meaning lost of physical things and later TLs being able to simulate physical things or to replicate them on demand and recycle them when no longer needed.

The referee is then able to tailor the accommodation to match his concept of the vessel in question. A low TL (and therefore likely cheaper) vessel for working stiffs will have cramped accommodation and maximise the ships profits (but they are going to have to carry more passengers who being cramped are likely to have more stress and therefore risk of incident). Or he can have the sector Dukes son flitting about in a top of the range vessel where even the assistant chef is a baroness and absolutely cannot share accommodation darling and must have space to declutter her mind before creating her next masterpiece desert.

... and for the military you might need to hotbunk. Since you are on duty half the time why should, that pit sit empty where we could put more torpedos!!

And to be fair during 2020-21 I spent the vast majority of my time in my house. I did not kill anyone, we spent more time as a family playing games and doing joint activities than at any other time before or since. Our house is UK typical 4 bedroom (12 Dton in traveller terms - slightly over half of it common rooms and access). Our occupation of it is not typical we have a whole room full of re-enactment gear (in theory a spare bedroom, but you can't get to the bed) it is also full of the clutter accumulated by a 50 year old hoarder who has more hobbies than time to conduct them and the attention span of a butterfly.

 

[J. L. Brown]

There is a tie in to TL and accommodation is one of the few things that do not have TL tiers. Back in the day when you lived in a log cabin, you were so busy buying food and working you didn't need space for your recreational needs as you didn't have much downtime. Even in winter when you couldn't get out much as you were mending and repairing (and possibly starving). My grandfather used to grumble that in his day "we made our own entertainment". My life is still physical, my house is stuffed with things I have acquired as my early life meant the acquisition was a lengthy process and I developed a hoarder instinct. Now I can buy stuff from China with pocket change that I would have had to save for months for. I am still storing all that crap, but if I was born into that lifestyle I would probably be one of those people who seem to change their car when it needs a service. My entertainments were books, models and electronics all taking up their Dton of storage. I suspect my children will keep far less stuff than I do and their entertainments seem to be rented and based on a mobile phone. If they had a holodeck they would probably never leave it.

So I would calculate the minimum space required to exist and have it multiplied by a function of SOC (the richer you are the more stuff you want to have). Then divide it by some function of TL with early TL meaning lost of physical things and later TLs being able to simulate physical things or to replicate them on demand and recycle them when no longer needed.

I agree that Tech Level is certainly a variable that factors into 'quality of life'. The TL-0 mk1 human body requires very little space; so that is the 'core' that we build around -- everything else is 'quality of life' stuff.

I would argue that higher TL = more volume per being. Sure, folks might be content to be plugged into the matrix & live their entire lives in a space the size of a coffin -- but the volume of machinery & mechanisms to support those matrix-dwellers should also count into their 'space consumed'. This is especially true for 'print it when you want it, recycle it when you are done' societies -- every person needs sufficient production & scrappage to meet their moment-to-moment requirements.

I also think that the current Traveller does rather poorly with the square cubed law; enclosing an additional unit of volume requires less and less material for every unit, because the surface area grows slower than the volume enclosed. If a billion people need to be housed, then it is easier to create a given volume as a single unit rather than as a billion individual hulls.

 

[Jame Rowe]

You want to know what the component does? What's your career and relevant skills? Oh, then yes, you know what it does.

 

[Arkathan]

I would argue that higher TL = more volume per being. Sure, folks might be content to be plugged into the matrix & live their entire lives in a space the size of a coffin -- but the volume of machinery & mechanisms to support those matrix-dwellers should also count into their 'space consumed'. This is especially true for 'print it when you want it, recycle it when you are done' societies -- every person needs sufficient production & scrappage to meet their moment-to-moment requirements.

I dread the dystopian future in which SOC 0 human drones are hooked up to VR suits and made to play grindy resource gathering puzzles all day... when in reality they are loading and unloading cargo.

 

[swordtart]

I agree that Tech Level is certainly a variable that factors into 'quality of life'. The TL-0 mk1 human body requires very little space; so that is the 'core' that we build around -- everything else is 'quality of life' stuff.

I would argue that higher TL = more volume per being. Sure, folks might be content to be plugged into the matrix & live their entire lives in a space the size of a coffin -- but the volume of machinery & mechanisms to support those matrix-dwellers should also count into their 'space consumed'. This is especially true for 'print it when you want it, recycle it when you are done' societies -- every person needs sufficient production & scrappage to meet their moment-to-moment requirements.

I also think that the current Traveller does rather poorly with the square cubed law; enclosing an additional unit of volume requires less and less material for every unit, because the surface area grows slower than the volume enclosed. If a billion people need to be housed, then it is easier to create a given volume as a single unit rather than as a billion individual hulls.

TL is difficult. At low TL you need a plow and oxen to pull it and lots of land because your harvest might only be 4 times what you sow, you need to store the grain, the pigs, the cattle and you need accommodation for all that as you only eat what you grow and you can't really keep it fresh for long. At TL4-5 your proportion of crops are much higher so you need less land and while your tractor is large, it probably takes up less space than the oxen, the land to feed the oxen, the shed to house the oxen etc. You might also just be buying it in from someone else so that 4 acres per person is probably an acre per person that they may never set foot on. At Tl 7-8 your tractor is the same size or maybe larger, but in proportion to the work it does, it is effectively much smaller. Since you can process foods you can do away with bulky raw ingredients and convert a lot of it to compact powders and just reconstitute it when you need to. You never need to see any farmland. In spaaaace that farm land might be in another system. Their contribution to the footprint of the food chain is irrelevant as they are not on your ship.

Your 1920's visual news feed was a cinema, the only way you could make it size effective is to divide the size of the cinema by all the people who would use it, once you get a 1950's tv it is the size of a modern fridge and it occupies a far lower proportion of space for 4 people, at the present time you can get a flat screen 52 inch screen that's overall volume is probably less than that 1950's version especially since it also replaces your desk sized wireless, the VCR that come in the 80's, your Gramophone which itself was replaced by the more compact CD player and you might replace it all with a 200" home cinema that takes up even less space. It is also only 52" because it can be. It could as easily be your mobile phone.

In general the trend of technology is to make things smaller (as smaller usually means cheaper and more convenient). However as it becomes cheaper it becomes available to more people so we accumulate more of it. That to me would be an increase in SOC with it's corresponding increase in "stuff". Now I have 5 different games consoles all taking up space, not because they are bigger than my Interstate pong console from the 70's (that game now runs on an system smaller than my fingernail on a 1" screen which has better resolution than my television did in the day). They take up more space because I can afford to buy 5 of them. If you merge the two you bake in assumptions again that will unravel, they are connected but that connection needs to be exposed in the game system so that referees can ignore it if they think it might be different in the future.

Mal is still moving cows round the universe, but Picard would probably store them in a teleport buffer assuming he was ever in a position to need access to cattle.

 

[swordtart]

I dread the dystopian future in which SOC 0 human drones are hooked up to VR suits and made to play grindy resource gathering puzzles all day... when in reality they are loading and unloading cargo.

Future... we are already there. As soon as you can make a living playing computer games (or eSports as they call them) you have jumped the shark

 

[Condottiere]

It's a consumer society.

At some point, we became the product.

Eventually, we'll consume each other.

 

[J. L. Brown]

TL is difficult.

I agree; as Yogi Berra once said: 'Making predictions is hard, especially about the future'. Traveller has some pretty infamously bad technology predictions built in -- computers being the most obvious example. But while we may not know the 'how' of technology, the 'what' seems pretty obvious. That is to say, we may not be able to predict the exact date for the invention of the drawn reciprocation dingle-arm... but we do know that technology makes things 'better', lighter, simpler, more easily produced, more efficient, easier to use, etc. Much of technology is just building the capability into the tool. Those trends can be extrapolated into the future without a lot of risk.

At odds with this is the unspoken premise of Traveller -- it is a game. Players want stories where their characters make a difference, and are not just some unimportant 'way to carry the equipment around'. So, no matter how likely we think that general AI and skilled automated labor might make humans redundant, the technology assumptions we build need to leave room for players to have fun.

Mal is still moving cows round the universe, but Picard would probably store them in a teleport buffer assuming he was ever in a position to need access to cattle.

The Star Trek canon is all sorts of messy and contradictory; any society which could materialize stuff from just energy & information is likely to simply send the information.

 

[Arkathan]

Future... we are already there. As soon as you can make a living playing computer games (or eSports as they call them) you have jumped the shark

We still have a window at redemption.
Those guys are still sitting at their consoles and playing for donations/ad revenues.
Once we get to the Tom Sawyer white washing the fence scenario, with people thinking they are in a martial arts class, the machines have won.

 

[swordtart]

At odds with this is the unspoken premise of Traveller -- it is a game. Players want stories where their characters make a difference, and are not just some unimportant 'way to carry the equipment around'. So, no matter how likely we think that general AI and skilled automated labor might make humans redundant, the technology assumptions we build need to leave room for players to have fun.

This is also difficult as Traveller didn't really have any advancement system other than better equipment. The post muster training somewhat alleviates this but it is still painfully slow and requires you take time off from adventuring to achieve (which sort of defeats the purpose). Having a character generation system where you might get as little as 1 level in 4 years sort of predicates that you are what you are at the end of character generation. If you don't advance then you are really only going to be able to do the same stuff.

Without the fancy gizmos you are waiting for death. You NEED half a dozen points of armour or even a slug pistol can one shot kill you. Without the super medicine if you do get injured, you are going to be out of commission for weeks. Without the high tech vehicle with auto pilot one of your characters is likely to be forced into a particular career just so you can move from place to place safely. My characters don't leave home without a diplo-vest under cloth or a cloth trench coat over cloth. They carry the best weapons they can because they expect the other guy to as well (lots of law level 0 worlds in the Collace arm).

Players have fun making decisions and seeing the effect of those decisions as they have agency, not from fluffing a skill check which is just chance. One of those decisions is to buy the tech so that when it comes to the dice roll they have stacked the deck in their favour. If they didn't and fail the check that was also a decision.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Traveller has had an experience and advancement system ever since LBB:2 1977 page 40.

I have run many games where character advancement occurs, it just takes time.

If your Edu is less than your Int than it is actually pretty fast to increase it to parity.

Take a 4 year sabatical from the game and learn a skill at 2 via college, if all the PCs do this at the same time no problem.

Skill or attribute training is front loaded if you make the determination roll.

Then there are the esoteric method the referee can implement such as memory implants etc.

 

[Arkathan]

My players advance steadily using the post creation method, although they did start with high EDU, and use the Library on their ship during jumps.
It's slow enough to be an achievement to celebrate and fast enough not to be something they forget about because of a grind.

 

[Sigtrygg]

If you want a real cheat for skill improvement in CT:

buy a robot

make sure it has Instruction 4 as basic programming

buy the skill you want to learn for the robot at 4

it teaches you to skill level 3 over the course of

sell skill program and buy next one.

"Each level of each skill taught requires six weeks of instruction during which the referee should severely curtail both players' activities, or a six month course with other activities somewhat less curtailed. At the conclusion of the course, the learning player must roll 9+ on two dice to achieve the skill, with a DM of +1 for lntel 8+ and +2 for lntel 10+"

So six month with instruction during jump...

 

[swordtart]

Traveller has had an experience and advancement system ever since LBB:2 1977 page 40.

I have run many games where character advancement occurs, it just takes time.

If your Edu is less than your Int than it is actually pretty fast to increase it to parity.

Take a 4 year sabatical from the game and learn a skill at 2 via college, if all the PCs do this at the same time no problem.

Skill or attribute training is front loaded if you make the determination roll.

Then there are the esoteric method the referee can implement such as memory implants etc.

And in the first paragraph of that section we end with "The experience which is gained as the individual character travels and adventures is,
in a very real sense, an increased ability to play the role which he has assumed." The philosophy is player advancement, not character advancement. By playing your character you will be come better at identifying when it is your characters time to step up.

Burying it in the book about Starships shows how much it was expected to be part of the game. It says limited as the first word after the heading.

I did start writing a long analysis of it all, but it is not really pertinent to my point. the main issue is it takes 4 years and after those 4 years you might have to take an aging roll and end up worse off. It is also VERY historical.

If you think that is an advancement and experience system then enjoy. It works as a post campaign reward before the next campaign starts, 4 years recovery before the next major upheaval fits the lethargic tempo of the Traveller service life (quick men we only have 4 years to prepare before the next major event occurs), but my characters are as likely to retire when the sun sets on the current campaign.

 

[swordtart]

If you want a real cheat for skill improvement in CT:

buy a robot

make sure it has Instruction 4 as basic programming

buy the skill you want to learn for the robot at 4

it teaches you to skill level 3 over the course of

sell skill program and buy next one.

"Each level of each skill taught requires six weeks of instruction during which the referee should severely curtail both players' activities, or a six month course with other activities somewhat less curtailed. At the conclusion of the course, the learning player must roll 9+ on two dice to achieve the skill, with a DM of +1 for lntel 8+ and +2 for lntel 10+"

So six month with instruction during jump...

My point exactly you use the technology to advance. Not sure why you would bother spending all that extra to get instruction 4, just let the robot use the skill.