But what does <insert component here> actually do?

[MaxTac Transfer]

The Profession skill for me is a "covers all the boring stuff" and "quick build NPC" mix of skill. The system is not detailed enough / does not provide enough skills to break up all the tasks a crewman has (In GURPS terms: 1 point in deck scrubbing, 1/2 in potato peeling, 1/2-2 in climbing around in the masts, 1/2-2 in properly touching your forehead when an officer comes by...) so they lump it under "Profession: Crew in Nelsons Navy" and rate them from 0 (Landman) to 2 (Able Seaman)

We use the career based point buy so the players have a bit more freedom of choice and we give a few more points. So a Profession:<Your career> is a requirement and used to cover all the "does my character know" basic roles in a "on the job" situation. "Where do I find a spare part for x" is Profession:Crewmember while "Handling the finances of the lab craft" is Profession:Researcher etc...

 

[Condottiere]

It's a macro approach to character capability.

I kinda suspect that's why you get six service skills at mostly factor/zero, after four years - this is what your character should be able to do at that stage of his life, having undergone that training and experience.

 

[swordtart]

Except very few careers get Profession. The only military career that gets it is Army and then only for those on a support assignment. For the rest it is Citizen, Drifter, Entertainer and Prisoner. I am ignoring the Profession 0 as background skill as that is so low level as to be irrelevant.

You can spend your entire life in the Navy and at no point will you acquire Professional(Crewmember) - and by that token Profession(Soldier) is not achievable either though Profession(Army Cook) might be. Soldier is a thing I made up, but Crewman is there in the Companion.

I think that the Companion went the wrong way in trying to make it more useful by specifying specific bonuses for particular specialisms. It should have simply remained your ability to monetize the skills and innate abilities you have. That monetisation just happens by you putting yourself into the workplace, not because you have X skill. We have all seen Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares where some idiot who couldn't cook instant noodles is being paid to be a professional chef or some noodle is styling themselves as a professional restaurateur.

If I had to tie the Profession to anything it would not be a skill. It appears to me to be more a work ethic or level of self-confidence to charge normal working stiffs for your services. I know many very competent people who might be offered a financial incentive to undertake a package of work but usually do it as a favour for friends. I have an entire business directory of potentially less competent people who will do it for money for anyone and then move on.

 

[MaxTac Transfer]

Except very few careers get Profession. The only military career that gets it is Army and then only for those on a support assignment. For the rest it is Citizen, Drifter, Entertainer and Prisoner. I am ignoring the Profession 0 as background skill as that is so low level as to be irrelevant.

You can spend your entire life in the Navy and at no point will you acquire Professional(Crewmember) - and by that token Profession(Soldier) is not achievable either though Profession(Army Cook) might be. Soldier is a thing I made up, but Crewman is there in the Companion.

I think that the Companion went the wrong way in trying to make it more useful by specifying specific bonuses for particular specialisms. It should have simply remained your ability to monetize the skills and innate abilities you have. That monetisation just happens by you putting yourself into the workplace, not because you have X skill. We have all seen Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares where some idiot who couldn't cook instant noodles is being paid to be a professional chef or some noodle is styling themselves as a professional restaurateur.

If I had to tie the Profession to anything it would not be a skill. It appears to me to be more a work ethic or level of self-confidence to charge normal working stiffs for your services. I know many very competent people who might be offered a financial incentive to undertake a package of work but usually do it as a favour for friends. I have an entire business directory of potentially less competent people who will do it for money for anyone and then move on.

We handle background skill different. They are not restricted to "what you did before 18" and not free. As said - we did some work on the system prior to using it.

 

[CordwainerFish]

I spent a couple of years as a lab technician at a college. I was a graduate Physicist and had also studied Chemistry at school and did electronics as a hobby. I was able to cover those aspects of the job with some flair. I also had to cover Biology for which I had no qualification and only the broad level of knowledge imparted in a general science class when I was 10. In Traveller terms I had Science 0 in biology (but frankly even that is an overestimate).

I was however fully capable however after very little training able to make and safely dispose of petri-dishes, catalogue and identify the various biological indicator solutions, prepare specimens etc. When I was called on to do something outside my expertise I either asked someone to show me (and I learned it by rote) or I looked it up in a book and actually learned it.

As Lazarus Long points out, a big chunk of science is button sorting and bottle washing (but he seemed to think that's a bad thing; I don't.) Nobody just sits around all day with their feet on their desk until they have a eureka moment. Well, Paul Erdős.

 

[J. L. Brown]

So my proposal. Profession does not grant any specific skill. If you can convince the referee that the task might reasonably encompassed by the job description then at best you can apply the Profession Skill level as a mitigation against the normal -3 for an unskilled. If you have the skill then you use the Skill level instead, the Profession Skill does not help. In this way Profession skill is a limited sort of Jack Of Trades skill. You still apply the full skill level on the test to make income for the Profession.

I really like this approach. Even basic Profession/0 is good enough to find employment & earn credits each month -- and it is assumed that a person is using default skills in a non-stressful situation, with task chains & extra time.

Oh yes, the REASON I was exploring Profession so much is because Profession(Labourer) 2 is such a bargain for the Basic Brain. Now I was considering Profession(X) 2 as the basic for a lot of basic utility droids for my Space Port commercial concourse (see I got it back on topic). Now for simple revenue generation engines this works wonderfully since the Profession Skill generates income without lots of complicated supply and demands maths (but I'll be applying the Passenger Availability modifiers).

This led me to query what other professions a basic droid might perform and I considered Soldier. I am thinking Star Wars Battle Droid level of competence here. Suitable for suppressing civilian populations and throwing en-mass into battle, but easily outsmarted (unless led by a competent commander) and with limited initiative. Clearly the ability to reliably hit targets with a weapon is not a pre-requisite as if you roll 1000 2d6 you will still get plenty of 12's.

And I think this is brilliant. I am looking at Profession (Starship Crewmember)/2 for a shipboard droid -- they can be assumed to be able to make vacc-suit, damage control, and maintenance skill rolls with only a -1. With Vacc-suit/1, or Mechanic/1 they are more competent -- but Profession (Starship Crewmember)/2 includes all manner of general knowledge & standard procedures that accompany good spacemanship.

 

[swordtart]

...and it is assumed that a person is using default skills in a non-stressful situation, with task chains & extra time.

Absolutely this. That earnings check covers a months worth of activity a lot of it presumably talking round the water cooler or checking your phone.

There is a wonderful story (that I hope is true) about a musketry officer in colonial warfare. Having trained all his men such that they can knock down a coconut at 50 yards every time he is disappointed by their performance in their first actual fight and asks his native sergeant why his men who were such good shots on the range failed to hit anything in the firefight. The sergeant replies that "the coconuts weren't shooting back!".

Lindy Beige said there is evidence to suggest that only about 2% of soldiers in WW2 shot to kill. The suggestion it that is was because drill at the time consisted of shooting at round targets. Once you got an actual man in the sights it all became a bit too real. Later armies practiced shooting at man shaped targets and the proportion of soldiers shooting to kill is now far higher.

 

[Condottiere]

This would be an interesting statistic, at, say, Agincourt.

Or, Cannae.

 

[Endie]

Pirates of Drinax had the PWH (Person-Work-Hour) thing, but it was kind of clunky and I hated it. Skills had no effect, even Untrained had no effect. Although in this case, it sounds like you need a mechanic like that, but still please don't.

The first paragraph on the PWH description (it's in the Companion, on page 3, the first page after the table of contents) covers the effect of skill:

"An individual with a skill level of 0 (or anyone if the task does not require specific skills) produces 1 PWH per hour. Higher skill levels produce 25% more PWH per skill level. Thus someone with a skill level of 2 produces 1.5 PWH and a true expert with a skill level of 4 works twice as fast as a person with basic familiarisation."

Edit: which is not to say that the figures aren't insane: a highly skilled person with the use of a digger, robots, advanced tools etc will take an alleged 2,000 hours (a year of five days a week) to build a sodding landing field.

 

[Geir]

Edit: which is not to say that the figures aren't insane: a highly skilled person with the use of a digger, robots, advanced tools etc will take an alleged 2,000 hours (a year of five days a week) to build a sodding landing field.

Yeah... If I ever get to do my infrastructure book (or section in a book) that needs to be addressed.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Yeah... If I ever get to do my infrastructure book (or section in a book) that needs to be addressed.

Are you listening, @MongooseMatt? We NEED this. Give @Geir lots of money to make this happen.

 

[Endie]

Yeah... If I ever get to do my infrastructure book (or section in a book) that needs to be addressed.

I would 100% prepay a kickstarter at a high tier to have this happen.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I would 100% prepay a kickstarter at a high tier to have this happen.

As would I.

 

[swordtart]

The first paragraph on the PWH description (it's in the Companion, on page 3, the first page after the table of contents) covers the effect of skill:

"An individual with a skill level of 0 (or anyone if the task does not require specific skills) produces 1 PWH per hour. Higher skill levels produce 25% more PWH per skill level. Thus someone with a skill level of 2 produces 1.5 PWH and a true expert with a skill level of 4 works twice as fast as a person with basic familiarisation."

Edit: which is not to say that the figures aren't insane: a highly skilled person with the use of a digger, robots, advanced tools etc will take an alleged 2,000 hours (a year of five days a week) to build a sodding landing field.

Surely robots would provide their own skills and additional PWH. Since even a basic brain can give Profession(Labourer) 2 (e.g. the KCR5 Labour Droid in the Robot Handbook) it should be counting as 1.5 PWH each. Given robots only need to stop to recharge each Labour Droid should be contributing in the order of 30 PWH per day. They also don't have the weekend off.

Even without the Robot Handbook you would surely be assuming that a droid helper would be at least an additional 1 PWH.

My reading is the basic assumption is simple tools and machinery . For a landing strip that is pick, shovels (or the Excavation Tool Kit from CSC) and maybe a laser drill. Heavy plant such as an excavator robot (with Large Construction Equipment) would be contributing around 1/3 of a DTon per hour or around 6 DTon per day (based on the rules in the Robot Handbook).

As for 100 PWH per DTon of landing area being reasonable, I have seen quotes that 27 cubic yards* is the amount that can be dug in dirt using manual tools per shift i.e. 8 PWH = 0.72 cubic metres. On that basis 1DTon of 14 cubic metres is around 150 PWH, so the numbers are not insane for digging manually (and are possibly a bit low).

One unskilled person working with a basic Excavation Tool Kit assuming a backbreaking 8 hour day and having the weekend off may well take a year to dig that landing strip for a 100 DTon ship. A single Labour Droid however will complete it in 73 days (assuming 20 hours per day and 8 hours recharging every 3 days). A specialist construction droid (like the Toolsack Workbot) will take half that, but for the cost you could get almost 20 Labour Droids each equipped with excavation equipment, that could complete the work in 4 days.

Work smarter, not harder

* This was a typo it should read feet. I have left it here as a marker in case it is quoted elsewhere and people get confused.

 

[Endie]

Surely robots would provide their own skills and additional PWH. Since even a basic brain can give Profession(Labourer) 2 (e.g. the KCR5 Labour Droid in the Robot Handbook) it should be counting as 1.5 PWH each. Given robots only need to stop to recharge each Labour Droid should be contributing in the order of 30 PWH per day. They also don't have the weekend off.

Even without the Robot Handbook you would surely be assuming that a droid helper would be at least an additional 1 PWH.

My reading is the basic assumption is simple tools and machinery . For a landing strip that is pick, shovels (or the Excavation Tool Kit from CSC) and maybe a laser drill. Heavy plant such as an excavator robot (with Large Construction Equipment) would be contributing around 1/3 of a ton per hour or around 6 DTon per day (based on the rules in the Robot Handbook).

As for 100 PWH per DTon of landing area being reasonable, I have seen quotes that 27 cubic yards as the amount that can be dug in dirt using manual tools per shift. So 8 PWH = 0.72 cubic metres. On that basic 1DTon of 14 cubic metres is around 150 PWH, so the numbers are not insane for digging manually.

One unskilled person working with a basic Excavation Tool Kit assuming a backbreaking 8 hour day may well take a year to dig that landing strip for a 100 DTon ship. A single Labour Droid will complete it in 66 days. A specialist construction droid (like the Toolsack Workbot) will take half that, but for the cost you could get almost 20 Labour Droids each equipped with excavation equipment, that could complete the work in 3-4 days (including 8 hours of slow charge).

For better or worse, everything you mention is covered in the table in the Drinaxian Companion that I used for the quote. The numbers I gave are accurate for the version given there.

 

[swordtart]

For better or worse, everything you mention is covered in the table in the Drinaxian Companion that I used for the quote. The numbers I gave are accurate for the version given there.

"A PWH represents the amount of work an able individual can do in an hour, assuming they have a suitable set of tools and machinery."

This does not mention Robots or Advanced Equipment and your 1 year quote is based on 2000 PWH at 8x5 hours per week = 50 weeks. That is not even a highly skilled person as even a skill-2 person would be taking only 33 weeks.

So I disagree that "a highly skilled person with the use of a digger, robots, advanced tools etc" will take a year of five day weeks to build a 2000 PWH landing field.

 

[Endie]

"A PWH represents the amount of work an able individual can do in an hour, assuming they have a suitable set of tools and machinery."

This does not mention Robots or Advanced Equipment and your 1 year quote is based on 2000 PWH at 8x5 hours per week = 50 weeks. That is not even a highly skilled person as even a skill-2 person would be taking only 33 weeks.

So I disagree that "a highly skilled person with the use of a digger, robots, advanced tools etc" will take a year of five day weeks to build a 2000 PWH landing field.

I didn’t quote the entire two pages of text and tables but the chart I used does mention every advantage (robots, laser drills etc) you mention. I can’t come to the Mongoose forums and break their copyright with multi-page quotes.

By all means argue with the rule book (as we’ve discussed already in this thread, they’re poor) but if you want to correct my interpretation then at least buy and read them.

Edit: I’d also already factored in the half time for the highest level of skill, as I mentioned. The base landing strip time is also explicitly stated.

 

[J. L. Brown]

As for 100 PWH per DTon of landing area being reasonable, I have seen quotes that 27 cubic yards is the amount that can be dug in dirt using manual tools per shift i.e. 8 PWH = 0.72 cubic metres. On that basis 1DTon of 14 cubic metres is around 150 PWH, so the numbers are not insane for digging manually (and are possibly a bit low).

There seems to be an arithmetic error here. One cubic meter is ~1.308 cubic yards; one dTon is about 18.3 cubic yards. This is almost 1.5 dTons per 8 PWH shift. 150 PWH would be close to 27.6 dTons.

 

[Endie]

Nobody can shift three cubic yards of dirt per hour for eight hours straight with manual tools, if manual tools actually means manual (ie hand - manus - tools like a shovel and spade) and we assume they’re not just shifting a pre-sifted pile slightly to one side in low grav.

Someone fit with good gloves might manage a decent percentage of a single cubic metre in an hour (and thus a larger percentage of a cubic yard).

 

[swordtart]

Nobody can shift three cubic yards of dirt per hour for eight hours straight with manual tools, if manual tools actually means manual (ie hand - manus - tools like a shovel and spade) and we assume they’re not just shifting a pre-sifted pile slightly to one side in low grav.

Someone fit with good gloves might manage a decent percentage of a single cubic metre in an hour (and thus a larger percentage of a cubic yard).

Sorry I was doing my calculation in cubic feet originally, I should have replaced the 27 with 1 when I converted to cubic yards. The rest of the values are numbers are correct). We are talking about 1 cubic yard per SHIFT of 8 hours or 3-4 cubic feet per hour (including rest stops etc.)

I didn’t quote the entire two pages of text and tables but the chart I used does mention every advantage (robots, laser drills etc) you mention. I can’t come to the Mongoose forums and break their copyright with multi-page quotes.

If you are not willing to quote rules you could quote page references as we don't know what special circumstances you have applied if you don't share them. Which chart for example. You could have set out your maths in your response just like I did. Then it can be examined and verified if necessary (and typo's identified). You are not breaking copyright by putting some maths down.

It seems that we are talking at cross purposes as I was talking about a 100 DTon capacity Landing Area (which was stated in my post) on P185 and you were talking about the specific 400 DTon landing field on p82. Had you said that we were talking about different things then we might have avoided this.

For the avoidance of doubt I was refuting your assertion and I beleive the "the figures aren't insane". Nothing else said here has convinced me otherwise.

But comparing apples with apples. The base 40,000 PWH is still based on 100 PWH per ton, which is credible for hand tools.
Highly skilled reduces by half which seems fine.
Advanced Tools reduce it by a factor of 4.
Robots reduce it by a factor of 10 (though it doesn't say how many or what sort of robots) and I am not sure how these are supposed to interact and suspect that you can only apply the best tool modifier so the advanced tools are trumped by the robots. This is a somewhat arbitrary multiplier are we talking about half a dozen small excavator bots or a single labour droid with a shovel. If the robots are just those Labour Droids they they have to have supplied tools and giving them advanced tools doesn't seem unreasonable (which would multiply their already higher PWH to 12-14 if we were counting them as separate units). If they are dedicated construction droids however then I suspect they come with the equivalent advanced tools built in and that contribution is already factored in.

Of course as my strip is just a 1/4 of the landing field we could multiply the time I came up with by 4 so the Landing Field would be 16 days for those 19 cheap bots.

By all means argue with the rule book (as we’ve discussed already in this thread, they’re poor) but if you want to correct my interpretation then at least buy and read them.

As you can see I did buy Pirates of Drinax and I have the read them (not necessarily committed all of it to memory of course so I am as liable to error as anyone else). I even used them to build a base. I just treated my robots as discrete units rather than have them be an equipment multiplier as I found that easier to calculate how much they would be costing and what the logistics of it all were.