Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Astrogation/zero should be a requirement for starshipmaster certification.
Crew Salaries
- Thread starter Terry Mixon
- Start date
That might matter more if they all didn't have at least Engineering 0 in the other specialties.
None of them are going to refuse to repair the air conditioning because they're usually the one that deals with the powerplant.
Read my post again. I'm just pointing out that in a group, whoever is best at a specialty will usually be the one that does that work. They may not have been specifically hired as a Jump Engineer, but that's the role the guy with Engineering (Jump Drive) 2 will end up doing if the others have a lower skill. (Unless the Owner on board with Engineering 0 INSISTS that he pushes the Jump button on HIS damn ship, thank you very much...)
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Dissecting that custom, means that triple Ay engineering can be left mostly unsupervised.
And astrogation is more problematic once volume increased.
And astrogation is more problematic once volume increased.
Crew requirements have changed with every edition. It was MegaTraveller, not Mongoose, that introduced Engineering checks as part of Jump.
However, MGT2e specifically mentions that on a small ship the roles can be done by one or two skilled individuals.
Because there's skill checks involved, you definitely need someone with Astrogation and someone with Engineering. But that can be the Pilot.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Yep, if you have Pilot/0, Astrogation/0, and Engineering/0, you can get by just fine. Remember, you don't actually have to make a roll to jump.
That assumes that someone can actually check who has what skill level. Which is true in a game, but not in real life. In game, Jump Drive is the most important specialty, because there's an actual discrete instance where you can say "ooh, make a skill roll". But in the fiction (rather than the game), the Power plant requires constant monitoring. The life support system is operating 24/7 (hopefully!) and probably involves significant amounts of time in active maintenance (especially if you have specialized environments for non humans on the ship). The maneuver drive operates for hours or days at a time. The jump drive is like something you mess with 2-3 times a month? And the task check is extremely easy, especially since you'll almost certainly get a bonus from your Astrogator's task chain (because he can reroll until he gets a good result per the rules). All the example tasks for PP, M-Drive, and LS are 8+ or 10+. J-Drive? 4+. 
Given how much you have to choke the roll to actually misjump (You have to fail a 4+ check by 3 or more to actually misjump in a dangerous way rather than just being late or a bit off your destination but in the correct system).
Anyway, it is irrelevant to my point, which is that Engineering being a cascade skill is bad game design. What is the game play value of having Engineering be a cascade skill? What opportunities for interesting characters or situations does that enable?
Why Engineering and not Medic? Medic is even more obviously a skill in which intense specialization occurs. Medic could cascade for First Aid, Diagnostics, Surgery, and Long Term care. But we don't, because that's stupid in the character system Traveller uses with its relatively few skill levels.
IRL, I had an infection in my foot a few years ago. I had one doctor whose job was to identify and treat the infection. A completely different doctor whose job was to deal with the damage the infection did to my foot. Both of them deferred to a nurse specialized in wound care about actually treating and bandaging the post operative wound. And none of those people were the ones who visited me multiple times a week to do the wound care and physical therapy (aka long term care). But this game is probably going to be one PC in the ship's medic role. So having one skill that covers "is a ship's medic" is fine. They can make all the medic rolls that the game requires.
Engineering should be the same. Naomi Nagata's player shouldn't have to say "Sorry, I'm only +0 on "doing the engineer thing for the episode" because I'm only good at doing the thing we did in that other episode. And it's a 10+ so wish us luck.."
It does not make the game better.
Given how much you have to choke the roll to actually misjump (You have to fail a 4+ check by 3 or more to actually misjump in a dangerous way rather than just being late or a bit off your destination but in the correct system).
Anyway, it is irrelevant to my point, which is that Engineering being a cascade skill is bad game design. What is the game play value of having Engineering be a cascade skill? What opportunities for interesting characters or situations does that enable?
Why Engineering and not Medic? Medic is even more obviously a skill in which intense specialization occurs. Medic could cascade for First Aid, Diagnostics, Surgery, and Long Term care. But we don't, because that's stupid in the character system Traveller uses with its relatively few skill levels.
IRL, I had an infection in my foot a few years ago. I had one doctor whose job was to identify and treat the infection. A completely different doctor whose job was to deal with the damage the infection did to my foot. Both of them deferred to a nurse specialized in wound care about actually treating and bandaging the post operative wound. And none of those people were the ones who visited me multiple times a week to do the wound care and physical therapy (aka long term care). But this game is probably going to be one PC in the ship's medic role. So having one skill that covers "is a ship's medic" is fine. They can make all the medic rolls that the game requires.
Engineering should be the same. Naomi Nagata's player shouldn't have to say "Sorry, I'm only +0 on "doing the engineer thing for the episode" because I'm only good at doing the thing we did in that other episode. And it's a 10+ so wish us luck.."
It does not make the game better.
Okay, that's a better explanation of the point you were making.
Things were worse, not better in Classic Traveller days - the skill list was even more limited to people that did ship things and had fights. And you had the extremes of Medic being used for everything from first aid to cryonics, while skill with a Revolver did not carry over to a Snub Pistol (a different revolver), let alone an Automatic Pistol.
Things slowly got better, but Traveller has always struggled with how it wants to do cascade skills, and skill scope. MegaTraveller, TNE, Mongoose 1e and Mongoose 2e all have different takes on it. I'm not sure any of them really nailled it.
I don't think it matters awfully if you rework the skills a little to suit your preferences for YTU.
Things were worse, not better in Classic Traveller days - the skill list was even more limited to people that did ship things and had fights. And you had the extremes of Medic being used for everything from first aid to cryonics, while skill with a Revolver did not carry over to a Snub Pistol (a different revolver), let alone an Automatic Pistol.
Things slowly got better, but Traveller has always struggled with how it wants to do cascade skills, and skill scope. MegaTraveller, TNE, Mongoose 1e and Mongoose 2e all have different takes on it. I'm not sure any of them really nailled it.
I don't think it matters awfully if you rework the skills a little to suit your preferences for YTU.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Sterling fission reactors seem ideal for fire up and forget.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Running, MgT2, but do you remember what it says under Skills and when you make skill rolls?
Diff 10+?
Time Crunch?
Engineer in danger?
Especially important or interesting.
If it is not one of those things, then no roll is required.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Ummm... This is literally what certification does in real life...
It is true in real life.
Uh... but it does specifically call for not one, but two skill checks in a task chain; Astrogation EDU and Engineer (Jump Drive) EDU, when making a jump. p157, as I said.
That general point about not requiring skill checks for every situation is going to be overidden by any situation that specifically requires a check. And it nowhere mentions difficulty 10+ - that's you projecting onto "the task is especially difficult or hazardous". But never mind that, as the it's the last of those that applies anyway.
Success or failure of a jump is always especially important. And everyone's in danger if the roll isn't made.
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MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
It's 2 Difficulty 4 rolls, modified by jump distance. Astrogation doesn't need to be rolled. I agree with you that by RAW, you must roll the Engineering roll for Jump since a specific rule overrides a general rule and it does say "requires an Easy (4+) Engineer (j-drive) check. So you are right, but why make the roll for jump unless you as the Referee want them to misjump? If this rule is applied to all of Charted Space than all J-1 ships have a just over 16% of misjumping each time they jump. Difficulty 5 for a Jump/1, Engineer Rank 1 so that is a +1. Needs to roll a 4 or better. So, roughly 16% of the time ships misjump doing just Jump 1.
This can be mitigated by a good Astrogation check, but you will still have a misjump roughly 7% of the time. (assuming that you roll 7+ on 2d6 about 58% of the time)
Now bump it up to J-2 or J-3 and it really becomes a problem. Let's try J-4
Diff 8 for Jump/4, average crew will need a 7+. That will be failed 42% of the time. Add in the Astrogation again? That is failed 42% of the time as well. That is a success rate of something like 34%. Also a chance of a major misjump (1Dx1D parsecs in a random direction if they have a merciful Referee) is roughly 33% as well.
Does this sound like Charted Space to you?
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
Take extra time. That'll get you a DM+2.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
If you have to take extra time, that is not the way it is normally done. Otherwise not taking extra time would be a penalty.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
I disagree. The penalty comes in with taking less time. DM-2 if you rush it one time increment faster. Taking extra time is baked right into the skill rules and for lesser skilled people is perfectly acceptable.
The base roll: Making a Jump: Easy (4+) Engineer (j-drive) check (1D x 10 minutes, EDU).
Going faster or slower: You can choose, before you roll, to move up or down one level on the Timeframes table. Moving up (reducing the time increment) inflicts DM-2 on your check; moving down and increasing the time taken gives you DM+2 on your check. You can only move a time increment one level in this way.
The time increments:
The jump going slower is 1D hours. An average of 3.5 hours. End result, DM+2 and no chance of a J1 misjump under normal circumstances.
If you can't afford to have the crackerjack engineers, you go slower. Common sense.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
It's right there in the name, "extra", meaning not the way it is normally done. If you buy a burger with extra tomatoes, do you think that is how they are normally made?
Edit - In most jobs, if it normally takes an hour to do the job, but it takes you 4 hours to do the same job, you are probably fired.
Well, since it's a task chain, the Astrogation check matters a great deal. For short jumps, it's mostly going to be a normal success and give a +2 to the Engineering check. So yes, most of those jumps with refined fuel outside of 100D are going to be made with enough positive modifiers as to be automatic.
But if the Astrogator only delivers a marginal success (exact roll) and there's no time to re plot, you'll only get a +1. If the engineer doesn't have at least a +1 mod of their own - let's say they have EDU 8 and they went with Engineering (Power Plant) - they might misjump on a roll of 2.
But that's not too dire, since per the following page:
"If the Engineer (j-drive) check made to initiate a jump is failed by an Effect of -1, the ship will arrive in the target system but appear 1D days later than normal. At the referee’s option, roll an additional 1D – this is the number of extra days the ship spends in jumpspace from the point of view of the crew (the relativity error generated by this misjump causes a difference in perceived time aboard the ship and the rest of the universe)."
Just a minor timewise misjump.
So... I actually agree that in many situations you don't need to roll the Engineering roll. Engineering (Jump) 2, EDU 9 is going to have at least a normal +4 to the 4+ roll and effect won't matter unless you're having it affect the accuracy of the jump.
But if the Astrogator only delivers a marginal success (exact roll) and there's no time to re plot, you'll only get a +1. If the engineer doesn't have at least a +1 mod of their own - let's say they have EDU 8 and they went with Engineering (Power Plant) - they might misjump on a roll of 2.
But that's not too dire, since per the following page:
"If the Engineer (j-drive) check made to initiate a jump is failed by an Effect of -1, the ship will arrive in the target system but appear 1D days later than normal. At the referee’s option, roll an additional 1D – this is the number of extra days the ship spends in jumpspace from the point of view of the crew (the relativity error generated by this misjump causes a difference in perceived time aboard the ship and the rest of the universe)."
Just a minor timewise misjump.
So... I actually agree that in many situations you don't need to roll the Engineering roll. Engineering (Jump) 2, EDU 9 is going to have at least a normal +4 to the 4+ roll and effect won't matter unless you're having it affect the accuracy of the jump.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
And no merchant will stand over their engineers bullying them to go faster when there is a chance of misjump. If the merchant wants it done in the time listed, hire a better engineer.
Skill level 1 is an inexperienced professional. Skill level 2 is what any ship should be using for such a critical role. Assuming everyone hired beginners right out of college to jump their fancy ships is muddy thinking.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
And this. Thanks.
