High Guard 2022 example ships crew messed up?

[swordtart]

I would not recommend Traveller Worlds, but if it works for you, go for it. Not going to rehash 40 years of discussion on ship economics, either. If you want to delve into that, there's already endless discussions on it on this and every other Traveller forum ever.

I am starting to see inconsistency in Traveller Worlds. I was hoping as it was linked from Traveller Map it would be somewhat canon, but it might be more random than I had anticipated (the results there on Tarsus for example are very different from the sourcebook).

I'd like a simple way of determining when normal space travel becomes a significant issue, and it would be nice to have a lookup table rather than hand crank it all, but I can see I am going to have to do that (possibly using an earlier simpler version of the system generation model as even the CT scout book is a drawn out process). Fortunately I only have a very small number of systems to work up.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Rule 0 in action...

Rule Zero is for Referees and Players, not published ship/vehicle/robot/equipment design.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Vormaerin]

I am starting to see inconsistency in Traveller Worlds. I was hoping as it was linked from Traveller Map it would be somewhat canon, but it might be more random than I had anticipated (the results there on Tarsus for example are very different from the sourcebook).

I'd like a simple way of determining when normal space travel becomes a significant issue, and it would be nice to have a lookup table rather than hand crank it all, but I can see I am going to have to do that (possibly using an earlier simpler version of the system generation model as even the CT scout book is a drawn out process). Fortunately I only have a very small number of systems to work up.

As the World Builder's Handbook says, if all you need is to get from planet to planet, then the simple system of just generating the mainworld and a few minor bits besides is all you need. Anyone doing the many versions of "planet of the week" gameplay does not require a more complicated system than that. That's not me. But I normally reverse engineer things. "I want X. What has to be true for that to be the case?" rather than trying to crank out all the numbers in the full detail way.

As far as Travellerworlds go, I'm not an expert on what its issues are. But I am pretty sure that it is based on T5's random system generator, not Mongoose's, for starters. And either it is based off an early version of the rules that had flaws or the program itself is buggy. I know it is usually way off on temperatures. As far as I am aware, the only thing it pulls from Travellermap is the UWP (and maybe the gas giants?). It definitely won't match any write ups in published books or on the wiki.

 

[tytalan]

A couple of things
1) most designs by mongoose don’t work by either the CRB or HG 2022, the Gazelle is a good example no matter how you look at it the tonnage doesn’t match.
2) in some ships cases the crew requirements are legacy from early editions of Traveller which often didn’t work even back than

 

[phavoc]

Mop the deck.
We mopped the deck.
Good, now wax the deck.
The deck is waxed.
Now strip the deck, and there will be more of the same on the morrow.

Buffers and wax (and the navalized equivalent) probably remain the bane of crews and soldiers in any epoch.

 

[phavoc]

Okay I am not the most savvy while dealing with high guard but are the example vessels meeting the required crew requirements?

High guard pg 23 by my reading which may be wrong indicates that a minimum crew of a civilian starship consists of the following

1 pilot
1 astrogator
1 engineer
1 maintenance
1 administrator
1 sensor op
1 medic
1 officer who in a civilian vessel also acts as the captain

for a total of 8 crew.

Many of the civilian vessels don't meet this requirement let alone exceed it. The lab ship crew is listed as pilot and astrogator for a 360 ton ship. Maintenance crew on is first mentioned for a civilian ship with the subsidised liner a 600 ton ship. Are the designers rounding down (I was told quite firmly in another thread that I should round up) or are the designers playing loose and fast with the crew rules?

As I see it, those are roles, and not necessarily individual positions that must be filled by an individual. The reality is going to be that automation takes a lot of the skut work away from crews, and automation requires a bit of attention as well.

For small ships, especially non-military ones, it is not unexpected to see no one manning the bridge 24x7. Sensors will alert them to incoming hazards (or at least known ones that can be detected). On a military ship I'd expect a watch to be conducted on the bridge, in engineering and probably in the weapons control section. Everything else is subject to change based on what is happening on the ship. Smaller ships, like a Scout, may see their bridge fully occupied only during jump re-entry, or scanning of planets up close and everyone is curious. Otherwise the systems will do the work and they just need to monitor them and provide oversight (or else review the sensor data to look closer at things of interest).

In theory a pilot can double as the navigator and sensor operator. The engineer can double as the maintenance guy, and maybe the medic is the admin. Anyone can wear the captain's hat. However.... when things get busy it gets harder to do multiple jobs. Piloting the ship and evading incoming fire makes it harder to read the sensors and plot the jump accurately. So as your time is focused on other tasks your chances of mistakes increase in the minor things. That can be easily accounted for in die rolls with additional difficulty in successful rolls, depending on circumstances.

You are also going to see smaller, less professional ships (i.e. the ones full of PC's) going slack with certain things. Think of the episodes on Firefly where they ran parts down to the bone (and then some) because they had no cash to buy spares. Or when they were all at the dinner table and nobody was on the bridge. Episodes like that are likely to be handled more by PC's than by professional crews (pirates might be professional rogues, but they would most likely lack a sense of formality due to their chosen profession).

There is a lot of wiggle room here to make things different and fun for all involved (including Evile GM's rolling dice and cackling evile behind their screens... for no apparent reason!)

 

[Shardan13]

Phavoc, I appreciate the points you are making and there been plenty of people telling me in this thread that player crewed ships positions will be somewhat loose. The issue I had was that the example ships profession crew didn't seem to fit what the required table said. Thanks to some help it turned out that some of the positions were rounded down, some were rounded up, some rounded to the nearest number and one example of a typo slipping past editing.

Also I think it's appropriate that players suffer some difficulties when their characters find themselves in a high stress situation onboard a ship and need to be a two places at once, just as long as I'm not in the player group in question .

 

[Condottiere]

Depends also on the career culture.

Scouts would be more communal, merchant lackadaisical, navy controlled.

I tend to think that astrogators in the Scouts and Navy are going to be encouraged to acquire more skill points in their chosen vocation, plus any that modify that positively when on a roll.

So, lots of stargazing.