Bill Sheil
Cosmic Mongoose
The PDFs (Traveller_Core_Rulebook_2020.pdf and Traveller_Core_Rulebook_2020_Tablet.pdf) for the original 2016 core rulebook currently available for download at drivethru and (I am told) on the Mongoose download site are both regressions to an older (probably c2016 pre-release) eBook rather than the up-to-date versions.
Specifically the "old chestnuts" of missing Hull Points on the ship pages (p166+) and Autocannon 1D damage (p136) that were identified and fixed in 2016 are both back (again). There may, of course, be other issues but these are the easiest to identify as signature errors and are actually, unfortunately, quite well known amongst critics and get called out over and over again.
I seem to find myself defending Mongoose online (Reddit and Facebook) a lot about errors in the publications; my position is that although there is definite room for improvement the problems are never game breaking (which I hold to). In this particular case I find myself a little embarrassed. I have a had a few online disagreements in the past where people have insisted that these specific errors have "never been fixed" and I have argued that they have as I have a correct printed manual and downloads going back to 2017 where the issues are fixed. But now I discover that the errors have actually been reintroduced in the latest 2021 online copies. Not only that but apparently the Autocannon damage error was replicated in the first 2022 PDF and apparently will go to the first print run with that error that was actually "fixed" over five years before.
The latest round of this kicked of from a fairly constructive "MgT versus T5 for a new player" discussion (https://www.reddit.com/r/traveller/...r_mongoose_2e_is_one_better_than_the/hj33zd6/) but then started going a bit sour when the OP realised they had purchased the old rulebook less than a month before a new version dropped. And then the revelation that he also had "out of date" PDFs and had also acquired a hard copy (in the US) that also manifests these errors, even though my 2017 hard copy has them resolved. It may have been an old, old book cleared out from the back of the warehouse but it worries me that there has been a later print run that also rewound the fixes.
These issues themselves are not show-stoppers (although the missing Hull Point is serious as the formula is not provided either) but the failure to make fixes stick makes it difficult to argue that Mongoose is trying to be responsive.
I spent a lot of time checking forum posts and previous downloads but long story short is that the issue seems to have been identified about release time in 2016 and was apparently first fixed then. In 2017 the PDF eBook still had the errors, but the printer friendly version was fixed. In (February) 2018 the main eBook was fixed. Sometime in 2020-2021 the main eBook regressed to the errors again, The first tablet release (4th August) was correct but the update (18th August) regressed to the errors again.
Can I suggest (Matt) that beyond updating the PDFs you (1) track down the rogue erroneous version(s) on your systems and eliminate them with (extreme) prejudice so they do not keep polluting the book updates and (2) reach out to the user in question (u/saltedcaramelplease) and see if you can placate him.
Specifically the "old chestnuts" of missing Hull Points on the ship pages (p166+) and Autocannon 1D damage (p136) that were identified and fixed in 2016 are both back (again). There may, of course, be other issues but these are the easiest to identify as signature errors and are actually, unfortunately, quite well known amongst critics and get called out over and over again.
I seem to find myself defending Mongoose online (Reddit and Facebook) a lot about errors in the publications; my position is that although there is definite room for improvement the problems are never game breaking (which I hold to). In this particular case I find myself a little embarrassed. I have a had a few online disagreements in the past where people have insisted that these specific errors have "never been fixed" and I have argued that they have as I have a correct printed manual and downloads going back to 2017 where the issues are fixed. But now I discover that the errors have actually been reintroduced in the latest 2021 online copies. Not only that but apparently the Autocannon damage error was replicated in the first 2022 PDF and apparently will go to the first print run with that error that was actually "fixed" over five years before.
The latest round of this kicked of from a fairly constructive "MgT versus T5 for a new player" discussion (https://www.reddit.com/r/traveller/...r_mongoose_2e_is_one_better_than_the/hj33zd6/) but then started going a bit sour when the OP realised they had purchased the old rulebook less than a month before a new version dropped. And then the revelation that he also had "out of date" PDFs and had also acquired a hard copy (in the US) that also manifests these errors, even though my 2017 hard copy has them resolved. It may have been an old, old book cleared out from the back of the warehouse but it worries me that there has been a later print run that also rewound the fixes.
These issues themselves are not show-stoppers (although the missing Hull Point is serious as the formula is not provided either) but the failure to make fixes stick makes it difficult to argue that Mongoose is trying to be responsive.
I spent a lot of time checking forum posts and previous downloads but long story short is that the issue seems to have been identified about release time in 2016 and was apparently first fixed then. In 2017 the PDF eBook still had the errors, but the printer friendly version was fixed. In (February) 2018 the main eBook was fixed. Sometime in 2020-2021 the main eBook regressed to the errors again, The first tablet release (4th August) was correct but the update (18th August) regressed to the errors again.
Can I suggest (Matt) that beyond updating the PDFs you (1) track down the rogue erroneous version(s) on your systems and eliminate them with (extreme) prejudice so they do not keep polluting the book updates and (2) reach out to the user in question (u/saltedcaramelplease) and see if you can placate him.
