Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
That's kind of my point. Whatever extra skill the Astrogator has, that's the extra job they do. If Astrogator is ALL he/she can do - union scale janitor
Hot Rodding is dead?
- Thread starter MasterGwydion
- Start date
The reason "Comms" and "Sensor Ops" aren't jobs on civilian ships is because that is the Astrogator's job. There are no astrogators who aren't doing those jobs. Really really large ships that are running full 24/7 watches have sensor ops for when the Astrogator is off duty.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Electronics/zero shouldn't be too hard to acquire, especially in a technologically inclined civilization.
Electronics is a basic training skill for the space merchants. So any commercial navigator is going to have the necessary skill to do that work.
Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
Not every crew goes through the merchants. Some PC's may have learned Astrogation in post generation to save on paying NPC's (or see below).
Regardless, imposing a -1 because someone also calculated the jump path is just dumb.
You've already admitted Astrogator is basically a non-job other than the calculations. Even you give them busy work at a barely skilled level.
This is what I am arguing. Not which particular spot your universe assigns them to.
You cannot assume that someone got astrogation via a career path. You have skills from connections and three of the campaign skills packages allow a player to get Astrogation-1.
Regardless, imposing a -1 because someone also calculated the jump path is just dumb.
You've already admitted Astrogator is basically a non-job other than the calculations. Even you give them busy work at a barely skilled level.
This is what I am arguing. Not which particular spot your universe assigns them to.
You cannot assume that someone got astrogation via a career path. You have skills from connections and three of the campaign skills packages allow a player to get Astrogation-1.
AndrewW
Emperor Mongoose
Could even do it with more then one aboard and/or virtual crew. Or wafer is another possibility. Ship automation could be another way as well.
The merchant comment was about commercial astrogators (aka NPCs).
Here's the reality. Traveller was set up around certain assumptions of task difficulty and crew requirements. These are fundamentally unchanged since 1981.
On the other hand, Mongoose keeps adding requirements, tasks, and difficulties to said tasks that are not reflected in the character creation system. It is moderately unlikely that a 2-4 term PC will actually qualify for the expectations of a commercial or naval position under mechanics in play.
Just for example, the Type S used to have a crew requirement of Pilot 1. Didn't need an astrogator or Engineer for a 100 ton ship. Free Traders didn't used to require Astrogators. Now they do.
I started a thread a few months back on the lack of support for the Astrogation skill. It nominally does a bunch of things with plotting courses and figuring stuff out. But there's nothing in the mechanics to make that a reality. No player with the astrogation skill is going to know what to do besides be the janitor, as you say. All that about the sensor tech/comms tech is part of real life naval navigators' jobs. But that's not mentioned anywhere explicitly in Traveller.
While Astrogators are probably unique in the "what does this job actually do?" category, Engineers are pretty f'ed too. They need Jump Drive, Maneuver Drive, Power Plant, Life Support, Mechanics, and Electronics to do the things their jobs require.
Your original point was that a hot rod ship was impossible because you can't meet the difficulty of the crew requirements. My point is that the rules as written a Skill 1 character isn't qualified for a commercial job if you take the task difficulties literally, even though they are intended to be. There are too many 8+ and 10+ Tasks involved. Astrogation is just the most egregious example.
Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
I think you are assigning opinions from others to me. I argued that adding difficulties was dumb, since the roles are sequential.
I was responding to someone else who was saying it was impossible. Clearly it is not.
The janitor comment was merely in case the person had no other ship skills...
For example, The Army guy who (Connections) had to learn how to plot a jump after the Navy corvette he was on took fire and the only casualty was the astrogator, and everyone else was busy repairing the ship.
My point was there is no -1 to those inflated task requirements for doing something else later.
I was responding to someone else who was saying it was impossible. Clearly it is not.
The janitor comment was merely in case the person had no other ship skills...
For example, The Army guy who (Connections) had to learn how to plot a jump after the Navy corvette he was on took fire and the only casualty was the astrogator, and everyone else was busy repairing the ship.
My point was there is no -1 to those inflated task requirements for doing something else later.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Engines could be built to be idiot proof, with minimal supervision and maintenance.
Asttrogation, might have a case to make it easier to calculate a micro and monoparsec jump.
Asttrogation, might have a case to make it easier to calculate a micro and monoparsec jump.
You are correct. My mistake. Ottarus was the one saying crewing the ship with all J1s was not gonna work, which led to the tangent about Mongoose task difficulties.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
Just for clarification's sake, I said that crewing a ship on the edge of the technological capabilities of the Imperium with an average multi-tasking Scout [Pilot, Astrogation, Engineering 1 each] was probably not gonna work. Three jobs aboard ship at -1 skill level per job after the first equals a net -2 to the skill checks for all three jobs.
Those are NOT the kind of odds most people want to put into a J-6 Jump. Sure, you can fidget with the gearheading and maybe get something more favorable, but the basic point remains... You don't put a pilot with only propeller certification in an F-35 either. At the end of the day, putting 75 million credits [rough guess-timate] of cutting edge tech into the hands of somebody barely qualified to fly a Detached Duty Type S is criminally stupid.
Those are NOT the kind of odds most people want to put into a J-6 Jump. Sure, you can fidget with the gearheading and maybe get something more favorable, but the basic point remains... You don't put a pilot with only propeller certification in an F-35 either. At the end of the day, putting 75 million credits [rough guess-timate] of cutting edge tech into the hands of somebody barely qualified to fly a Detached Duty Type S is criminally stupid.
Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
Where is the reference on this -1 per job (I searched Core and HG, but couldn't find it), why is a "job" that involves a single calculation performed in advance a negative, and where is the piloting skill needed unless you are using drop tanks during a jump?
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
Only if you have to do all three jobs in the same round.
I could say: Virtual crew - and all you need is an astrogator and a few good toolkits. Or add Auto-repair and repair drones and all you need is the guy with the astrogation picture book (don't eat the crayons). But the point of Traveller is for it to be a setting where people do things, not machines (um, I mean people and not machines do things, because... never mind). That's really the only reason I like the 'live mind' astrogator thing. Otherwise Travelling becomes nothing more than a trip in a robotaxi (hopefully without it circling the parking lot while you argue with the AI chatbox help line, but hey, what do you want from a prototype?)
But I do find the I-failed-so-I-just-have-to-do-it-again Astrogation roll almost pointless, except in a time crunch. It's always going to be at least a +1 passed to the Engineer on the task chain. I'd rather have it be a variant of the old uncertain task where you roll one six-sider and the Referee rolls the other and you don't know the result until the engineer hits the 'Go' button. But if you rolled a 1 and you know you needed an 8, then you know your solution doesn't seem right... and you can make a do-over roll (or maybe you got a 2, so you're unsure enough you want to check your work... fine if nobody is shooting at you or strongly suggesting that you should allow their boarding party aboard).
On the other hand (paw, gripper, appendage) if you use the rules in the Companion with Bad and Very Bad (Really? I don't even like 'Very Difficult' - English has half a million words, let's use some more of them) jumps, then you can't cross a subsector without someone losing their minds for a least a little bit. Somewhere in between is a balance.
Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
While true, this particular chain has mulligans unless you are in a hurry, and since it is done on the way out of the gravity well, you should usually have time for one redo, which as Geir pointed out is generally anticlimactic. Especially if you have a second crew member with astrogation-0 and Engineering -0 or better to assist. Or virtual crew with the same. Three Dice are better than two.
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