As I mentioned in another thread, I started up a Traveller game with two of my kids, and we had our first full session last night.
Their Captain sent out patrols to find a Vargr Corsair that had been harassing shipping in one of the more isolated areas behind the claw in the REFT sector.
I know my Third Imperium doesn't mesh with "canon" since my Spinward Marches has been developing a history if its own off and on over the last 25 years of my life, so don't worry about any inconsistencies you see in what I write, it fits MY Third Imperium.
Their squad is made up of 4 TL 14 Heavy Cruisers and one "light" Carrier (the one in High Guard) and they were flying the "Multi Purpose" fighter that is also in High Guard, with Beam lasers.
So they made great sensors checks at the appropriate time (rolled over a 10, in fact), so they found the Corsair after only a few hours. They radioed in the contact and engaged.
I am definitely very, very rusty on handling space combat, but I got better as the encounter went on. The fighters speed and skill definitely played into their favor, plus successful use of the Dodge kept them alive, otherwise they would have died, since the Corsair had 3 Pulse laser turrets in play.
I think they lost initiative only twice as well. Anyways, they battered the heck out of the Corsair, the final round was kind of funny too.
They had completely gotten through the Hull and were doing internal hits, so in the same round one fighter got a double hit on the crew, doing enough damage to put every last one of them unconscious, while the other fighter took out the last of the maneuver drive. Sensors were obliterated, everything else was disabled. With the exception of 2 gun turrets, one of which the Vargyr had successfully gotten back on line during the fighting.
So I kept giving ambiguous answers as to how the Vargyr had quit firing their guns, their maneuver drive was out (jump drives had been disabled due to an earlier double hit as well), but they wouldn't respond to comms.
To my kids credit they decided to not fire any more unless fired upon and waited for the squadron to arrive and do a boarding action. That is when they found out the entire Vargyr crew was unconscious.
So I then did some other rolls to determine a few things, one of which was their actions of engaging the Vargyr, avoiding any damage what so ever to their own fighters, as well as capturing a "prize" that was largely only disabled, not destroyed, got them a CCG award and a cash reward they can collect when they muster out, and will be held in a trust until then.
I then decided how I wanted them to earn skill ranks for this campaign, so I decided on a variant I pulled from Mega Traveller, and awarded tic marks accordingly.
Then we called it a night. I asked my kids what they thought of Traveller and the game session. They described it as "great" and "fun", and most importantly of all hope to play it again tonight, after my Eclipse Phase game.
Their Captain sent out patrols to find a Vargr Corsair that had been harassing shipping in one of the more isolated areas behind the claw in the REFT sector.
I know my Third Imperium doesn't mesh with "canon" since my Spinward Marches has been developing a history if its own off and on over the last 25 years of my life, so don't worry about any inconsistencies you see in what I write, it fits MY Third Imperium.
Their squad is made up of 4 TL 14 Heavy Cruisers and one "light" Carrier (the one in High Guard) and they were flying the "Multi Purpose" fighter that is also in High Guard, with Beam lasers.
So they made great sensors checks at the appropriate time (rolled over a 10, in fact), so they found the Corsair after only a few hours. They radioed in the contact and engaged.
I am definitely very, very rusty on handling space combat, but I got better as the encounter went on. The fighters speed and skill definitely played into their favor, plus successful use of the Dodge kept them alive, otherwise they would have died, since the Corsair had 3 Pulse laser turrets in play.
I think they lost initiative only twice as well. Anyways, they battered the heck out of the Corsair, the final round was kind of funny too.
They had completely gotten through the Hull and were doing internal hits, so in the same round one fighter got a double hit on the crew, doing enough damage to put every last one of them unconscious, while the other fighter took out the last of the maneuver drive. Sensors were obliterated, everything else was disabled. With the exception of 2 gun turrets, one of which the Vargyr had successfully gotten back on line during the fighting.
So I kept giving ambiguous answers as to how the Vargyr had quit firing their guns, their maneuver drive was out (jump drives had been disabled due to an earlier double hit as well), but they wouldn't respond to comms.
To my kids credit they decided to not fire any more unless fired upon and waited for the squadron to arrive and do a boarding action. That is when they found out the entire Vargyr crew was unconscious.
So I then did some other rolls to determine a few things, one of which was their actions of engaging the Vargyr, avoiding any damage what so ever to their own fighters, as well as capturing a "prize" that was largely only disabled, not destroyed, got them a CCG award and a cash reward they can collect when they muster out, and will be held in a trust until then.
I then decided how I wanted them to earn skill ranks for this campaign, so I decided on a variant I pulled from Mega Traveller, and awarded tic marks accordingly.
Then we called it a night. I asked my kids what they thought of Traveller and the game session. They described it as "great" and "fun", and most importantly of all hope to play it again tonight, after my Eclipse Phase game.
