Charted Space Capital Warships are under gunned.

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Rightly removed from the revised, current version.

It would be natural to remove it as a UNIQUE ship that appears in one adventure. Leave it in that adventure not double publish it where players will be familiar with it before they play.

We know it is misjumping because the rules say that an unmaintained ship (without the special DNR system) and no sophont performing astrogation will quickly start to misjump. The rules are very clear on the effects of that. Except if it doesn't follow the rules*, which you are usually very voluble about!

Alien ships can and do have special rules. The jump drives may very well be an advanced design with a much longer time for break downs, it is a TL 15 ship by the write up. Its crew might have been around until very recently as well as the fuel only last 8 weeks. It has 2 jump drives so it would take twice as long to reach the unmaintained limits causing misjumps.

The no sophonts rule may not apply to the alien tech as well. The no sophonts rule doesn't seem to be in any book I have so I can't judge the degree to which it applies/does not apply.

 

[tytalan]

In which case robots are capable as per the Robots rules so you just defeated your own objection up thread.

Yes at a -8 according to robots -4 for plotting and -4 for none conscious while the first could be mostly removed the second can’t be removed by skills

 

[tytalan]

You asked which MgT2e book, HG'16 is a MgT 2e book, so now you change your goalposts... the 2022 revisions do not replace the earlier books, Matt said so, they are updates not new editions.

Update as in updating the rules by that very statement the rules in HG2022 replace the rules in HG16 by updating them. That’s what the word update means.

 

[tytalan]

The no sophonts rule may not apply to the alien tech as well. The no sophonts rule doesn't seem to be in any book I have so I can't judge the degree to which it applies/does not apply.

The rule is in AoCS 2, HG 22, And the Robots Handbook as been stated before in this thread

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Update as in updating the rules by that very statement the rules in HG2022 replace the rules in HG16 by updating them. That’s what the word update means.

BUT it does NOT update the Annic Nova. It doesn't state anything at all about it. It MAY make rule changes that should be reflected in an updated design (I haven't checked) but that doesn't ELIMINATE the Annic Nova from canon. At most it will result in modifications to the ship (which needs mods due to errors as cited earlier). Can you name even one UPDATE that would CHANGE the Annic Nova? Can you cite a statement that the Annic Nova is no longer canon from people in authority to do so?

The 2024 CRB apparently changes the bridge size table for 100 ton ships making them classify with 51-99 ton craft not with the 101-200 ton as previous. That does not obsolete everything else in High Guard 2022 just that one fact. The ships that affects need changes. One I would use is for 10 ton bridges, add a stateroom, studio or more cargo. But the ship itself is not erased. Those with 6 ton small bridges would cease to be small bridges and the price would rise (slightly).

 

[Endie]

Starship Operator’s Guide, p64, “Drones and Virtual Crew” section:

“Astrogation must still be done by a sophont but some ships can theoretically fly with an astrogator alone.” My italics.

Simple and succinct.

 

[rinku]

Core Rule Book doesn't explicitly say you need a sophont to Astrogate, but neither does it provide any way to do so otherwise. Unlike other crew positions, there are no means provided to automate it.

The main sourcebook for automating things, Robot Handbook has this:



The most important part of that rule is "...in the Charted Space Universe..."
It is a setting rule, not a general Traveller rule. Discard it as you see fit in YTU. Or, have an automated Astrogator and keep plotting until you get a success. It's only a -4 penalty on a base 4+ repeatable 1D6x10 minute task, after all.

High Guard mentions it in passing under the Astrogation crew position discussion:

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

View attachment 5976

MOST SPECIES IN CHARTED SPACE DO NOT AUTOMATE. Interesting.

 

[rinku]

As far as I can see, even using the rule the only downside is that it's likely for the robo-astrogator to take longer to get a plot than a breather will. In most situations, that's not a bottleneck, since flight to jump point still takes longer, and the bot can start working on it earlier than takeoff, and/or take an extra time increment to get a +2 and 1D6 hours per attempt. And even THEN, if there's a human Captain with Pilot 0 or Science (Astronomy) 0 to check the plots, it's only a -2 anyway. The -4 really is for a fully automated ship without any qualified oversight.

For the single most complex starship task, requiring the utmost precision, that doesn't seem unreasonable.

 

[Terry Mixon]

As far as I can see, even using the rule the only downside is that it's likely for the robo-astrogator to take longer to get a plot than a breather will. In most situations, that's not a bottleneck, since flight to jump point still takes longer, and the bot can start working on it earlier than takeoff, and/or take an extra time increment to get a +2 and 1D6 hours per attempt. And even THEN, if there's a human Captain with Pilot 0 or Science (Astronomy) 0 to check the plots, it's only a -2 anyway. The -4 really is for a fully automated ship without any qualified oversight.

For the single most complex starship task, requiring the utmost precision, that doesn't seem unreasonable.

Or you could go the other way. A robot could accept an additional DM -2 and do it fast. The odds are still in favor of a success and only 1D6 minutes per attempt get wasted looking for 10+. The interwebz tell me a dozen rolls on average to make it. 12 x 3.5 = 42 minutes. Most people could live with that.

 

[rinku]

Fair enough too.

I've just had the image pop into my head of a child-like robot holding up a jump plot written in crayon for approval, with dozens of rejected ones scattered around.

"Astrobot do good this time?"

... and that's exactly how Chat GPT works!

 

[Sigtrygg]

Starship Operator’s Guide, p64, “Drones and Virtual Crew” section:

“Astrogation must still be done by a sophont but some ships can theoretically fly with an astrogator alone.” My italics.

Simple and succinct.

And contradicted by all previous canon.
Why is this requirement not in the core rule book?
Why is it not mentioned in High Guard?
Why was it never mentioned at all in any Traveller iteration before the MgT2e companion?

 

[Sigtrygg]

Core Rule Book doesn't explicitly say you need a sophont to Astrogate, but neither does it provide any way to do so otherwise. Unlike other crew positions, there are no means provided to automate it.

The main sourcebook for automating things, Robot Handbook has this:

View attachment 5975

The most important part of that rule is "...in the Charted Space Universe..."
It is a setting rule, not a general Traveller rule. Discard it as you see fit in YTU. Or, have an automated Astrogator and keep plotting until you get a success. It's only a -4 penalty on a base 4+ repeatable 1D6x10 minute task, after all.

High Guard mentions it in passing under the Astrogation crew position discussion:

View attachment 5976

It has never existed in Traveller canon until Mongoose authors put it there, so yet another difference between Mongoose Charted Space and previous canon.

Why didn't Mongoose write their own setting rather than continue to change the established setting?

Charted Space did not have dogfighting spacecraft, ion weapons, personal energy screens, a requirement for sentient beings on jump ships - if Mongoose wants a setting to showcase all the rules then write an original setting rather than overwrite established canon.

 

[Endie]

And contradicted by all previous canon.
Why is this requirement not in the core rule book?
Why is it not mentioned in High Guard?
Why was it never mentioned at all in any Traveller iteration before the MgT2e companion?

It's clearly stated in an official source that clarifies those previous rulebooks. That's how clarification works! As you know, IYTU, things can, of course, be as different as you like.

It has never existed in Traveller canon until Mongoose authors put it there, so yet another difference between Mongoose Charted Space and previous canon.

Why didn't Mongoose write their own setting rather than continue to change the established setting?

I know you hate this, but Mongoose own Traveller now. And the OTU. It is theirs to do what they like with, and the game is seeing a wonderful renaissance as a result, as customers enjoy it. But you should ask these questions of them in the Chat with Mongoose forum rather than asking me for my theories, if you really do want to know!

 

[Condottiere]

The intent was to prevent totally uncrewed starships.

The rationale is somewhat dubious.

I put it down to quantum entanglement.

 

[Sigtrygg]

It's clearly stated in an official source that clarifies those previous rulebooks. That's how clarification works! As you know, IYTU, things can, of course, be as different as you like.

It is not a clarification, it is a fundamental change introduced to the setting which was not there before a set of optional rules...

I know you hate this,

I hate very little...

but Mongoose own Traveller now.

Yes, and I am glad that it has such a good home.

And the OTU. It is theirs to do what they like with, and the game is seeing a wonderful renaissance as a result, as customers enjoy it.

me too, I really like the Singularity campaign, what they have done with the FFW so far has been disappointing to me but I keep buying it.

But you should ask these questions of them in the Chat with Mongoose forum rather than asking me for my theories, if you really do want to know!

I have had many a conversation.

 

[rinku]

I'm happy to accept it as presented in the Robot Handbook as a setting rule, especially as the Navigation plot is such as easy task. The takeaway is that if a sophont crew are completely unskilled at Astrogation and have no related skills to help with the Robo-plot, it might take a while. You CAN have a bot with high INT and Astrogation skill that will reliably offset the -4, so the end result is that a reliable automatic astrogation brain needs to be more expensive than an autopilot or autogunner. Which makes a great deal of sense to me.

It also follows on that since a crewmember with Astrogation 0 can get the job done, that the demand for auto-astrogators isn't going to be huge, especially on smaller ships where that's probably the Pilot anyway.

But having said that, the fully conscious requirement still seems a bit stark, given that robot brains don't got straight from toasters to Minds. As a refinement to it, maybe give the Self Aware brains a lesser -2 penalty?

 

[tytalan]

But having said that, the fully conscious requirement still seems a bit stark, given that robot brains don't got straight from toasters to Minds. As a refinement to it, maybe give the Self Aware brains a lesser -2 penalty?

The conscious requirements is for the jump itself robots can be fully conscious but that’s TL 17.

 

[tytalan]

Back to the original point of the discussion I think I have a good general rule of thumb for fixing capital ships. 2/3 of the crew requirements would be put in barracks this represents the E0-E2 members of the crew. Since this is capital ships the captain would get a high or luxury stateroom to their self, if it’s high that say 1% of the remaining crew should be in double occupancy high or single occupancy standard with the rest in double occupancy standard. If there a flag officer on board they would get the same size stateroom as the captain and the staff would get the same as the 1%( probably 2-6 individuals). On bigger ships the captain would get a luxury with similar distribution.

Weapons should be upgraded as so
Turrets that have a barbette version should be upgraded to barbette
Barbettes that have a small bay version should be upgraded to small bays
Bays should be upgraded by one size except large which should be increased in numbers by half
Spinal mounts that’s up to you
This may require an upgrade in both crew and power plant but most of the time that will not be an issue you also might want to upgrade ammo storage.

I think that would be an appropriate conversion for capital ships. You might have to do a little adjusting to balance things out I find in most cases reducing the size not the rating of the maneuver drive does the trick if that not enough use the size reduction advantage of the bays.

As far as robot crew I don’t see that being a general thing but smaller empires might use more automation to offset crew numbers so they can support more ships.

 

[Terry Mixon]

The conscious requirements is for the jump itself robots can be fully conscious but that’s TL 17.

The conscious intelligence programming in a regular ship’s computer is TL16.