Character creation discussion

[Asuma]

I won't have time for a proper read through until the weekend, but I thought I'd start off with some comments on character creation:

p 10 - Pre-Career Events. The "gain a permanent DM-1 to any qualification rolls for a career" effect on a roll of 2 seems overly harsh on top of the failing to graduate and -1 SOC
p 12 - Basic traniing. Thanks for specifically calling out military academy graduates skip basic training, that was unclear in the Traveller core book.
p 16 - Astronaut career. The Specialist assignment seems poorly named, "You are a general duty astronaut, qualified for a variety of mission roles" - that's the opposite of a specialist!
p16 - Getting Pilot 1 or Vacc Suit 1 at Rank 2 seems like it could be a bit of a booby prize as there's a good chance of already rolling them on the core skills or assignment tables by the time you get that promotion.

 

[Asuma]

p16 - Astronaut career gives Vacc Suit 0 as part of basic training, so it is redundant to receive as the Rank 0 skill as well.

 

[Geir]

p16 - Astronaut career gives Vacc Suit 0 as part of basic training, so it is redundant to receive as the Rank 0 skill as well.

I swear I took that Vacc Suit 0 out... but now I have to look at my notes, because I sent in some astronaut revisions in between revisions... ah, here it is:

"A corollary to the above is that the Rank 0 skills for the Astronaut career should be deleted as entirely superfluous."

But it slipped past the edits. Beta. Will be fixed.

 

[WHULorigan]

p 16 - Astronaut career. The Specialist assignment seems poorly named, "You are a general duty astronaut, qualified for a variety of mission roles" - that's the opposite of a specialist!

I agree. It seems like there is some confusion between the Specialist and the Expert career paths, both regarding the respective skill sets and the career-path names themselves (and the respective career-path ranks are likewise undifferentiated, highlighting the lack of distinction). Based on the career-path descriptions, perhaps "Expert" should be renamed "Mission Specialist", and "Specialist" should be renamed "Technician". Technician would then focus on non-piloting aspects of flight operations.