alex_greene
Guest
Speculative trading rules.dragoner said:
Traveller fans love complexity.
House Rules - Fixing Ship Fuel Operational Times
- Thread starter Solomani666
- Start date
Traveller fans love complexity.
dragoner said:
One could easily overcome this by having an explanation of the thought process behind fuel consumption. If you notice in High Guard, with the rules for designing sub-100 ton class ships, there is an explanation of how you can more accurately calculate fuel consumption so you can tweak your design.
I'm not picking on your reply, I also do like simplicity. However, it doesn't take away from the game at all by stating "fuel consumption assumes full power on the reactor at all times, running minimal power (life support, no weapons, no drive) extends your fuel supply by 500%, and no weapons being used extends it by 33%". You still have the simplicity of the rules (players who don't want to calculate that out don't have to), but for those that do, or refs that want to incorporate this into an adventure, can. Everyone wins.
I might also point out that refueling is a pretty basic concept, but trying to find out just how long it takes to refuel (pumping water in, vs. filling your tanks at a starport, vs refueling in a gas giant vs. having to refuel on a comet) is not listed anywhere. It's left up to the ref or players to come up with their own rules. Which was the point of this thread.
Or you could have the reactor shut down and the ship run on batteries; which is a normal cycle for systems that incorporate them.
Re: Refueling
A ship with fuel scoops may gather fuel from bodies of water using
hoses. It may also scoop hydrogen from a gas giant. Scooping takes
1–6 hours and requires a successful Pilot skill check.
page 141, Core Rules
As per simplicity, Einstein said it best:
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
Which is what struck me with the change to kl, and then a bunch of zeros you had to count with your thumbnail, that's what they made scientific notation for. That spoiled MT for me, fix one thing and then break another.
edit: Also with extra complexity, it is usually the GM that gets saddled with the calcs, on top of everything else. The two biggest going rules sets also are CT and MgT, which are also the least complex, and that dovetails into one of the biggest complaints of non-Traveller players I hear on other RPG forums is that their biggest barrier to entry is that Traveller is too complex. It is what it is.
Re: Refueling
A ship with fuel scoops may gather fuel from bodies of water using
hoses. It may also scoop hydrogen from a gas giant. Scooping takes
1–6 hours and requires a successful Pilot skill check.
page 141, Core Rules
As per simplicity, Einstein said it best:
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
Which is what struck me with the change to kl, and then a bunch of zeros you had to count with your thumbnail, that's what they made scientific notation for. That spoiled MT for me, fix one thing and then break another.
edit: Also with extra complexity, it is usually the GM that gets saddled with the calcs, on top of everything else. The two biggest going rules sets also are CT and MgT, which are also the least complex, and that dovetails into one of the biggest complaints of non-Traveller players I hear on other RPG forums is that their biggest barrier to entry is that Traveller is too complex. It is what it is.
In theory, sure. But none of the designs I've seen (with the exception of the 20ton launch/lifeboat in High Guard) is equipped with batteries. So I would say batteries (or emergency power) would be in the "not normal" category.
And they've stated rules around the operations (at least this time there is some alternative for power usage calculations. You get 1,000 hrs of life support and light sensor/commo use, or 1hr with everything turned on.
I was aware of the refueling listed in the CRB, and it does keep to your desire to keep thing simple. It also has some glaring logic holes. Pumping water is not quite the same as pumping liquified hydrogen gas, and neither of those is the same as trying to scoop up gases.
As for explaining things simply in the rules, some of the formulas are not exactly simple. It's far simpler to put a table in than it is to say calculate how long it takes to recharge batteries - "The time to recharge a battery is equivalent to the battery endurance used (in low power setting) divided by 1,000 divided by the power plant rating multiplied by 2. If using solar panels to recharge the battery , the "power plant rating" is.1"
And the rules are littered with things like this. Which doesn't quite fit into the keep it simple argument. Traveller is no more complex than SFB, or even D&D (I have many tomes of rules to attest to this). It's just different.
And they've stated rules around the operations (at least this time there is some alternative for power usage calculations. You get 1,000 hrs of life support and light sensor/commo use, or 1hr with everything turned on.
I was aware of the refueling listed in the CRB, and it does keep to your desire to keep thing simple. It also has some glaring logic holes. Pumping water is not quite the same as pumping liquified hydrogen gas, and neither of those is the same as trying to scoop up gases.
As for explaining things simply in the rules, some of the formulas are not exactly simple. It's far simpler to put a table in than it is to say calculate how long it takes to recharge batteries - "The time to recharge a battery is equivalent to the battery endurance used (in low power setting) divided by 1,000 divided by the power plant rating multiplied by 2. If using solar panels to recharge the battery , the "power plant rating" is.1"
And the rules are littered with things like this. Which doesn't quite fit into the keep it simple argument. Traveller is no more complex than SFB, or even D&D (I have many tomes of rules to attest to this). It's just different.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
1. From what I recall, as compared to me looking it up, is that the starship fusion power plant is an inefficient generator of power, since it was optimized to to create the burst of power to activate the transition process in the jump drives.
2. It shouldn't be a secret that I like looking at the rules to see if I can squeeze out something from a loophole. You need jump capacitors to accumulate the energy for the planned jump transition, and that black globe damage transformation energy can be used for that purpose: that could have been interpreted that power plant/factor was only relevant to initiate the jump.
3. I don't think any starship captain would be happy to let chance deteriorate a jump bubble so that he ends up where the logarithm tables tells him he should end up, especially if continuously powering it will guarantee it, and then switching it off drops him where he expects to be.
4. This seems more obvious with the grid, where there is no bubble slowly deteriorating.
5. Personally, I think that the ship itself only needs minimal power; the question is, if the bubble needs constant buffering up, and if the length of the jump dictates how much power needs to be allocated to that.
6. That's relevant back to point (2), since you could do a Jump Six with a factor One power plant, assuming the capacitors hold enough power to transition a Jump Six.
7. In normal space, you could activate an auxiliary power plant factor one, and supplement that with solar panels to give you almost unlimited duration.
8. In my opinion, currently in Mongoose you can't get around the power plant going full out during transition, though the option to glide to your destination in hyperspace sounds intriguing.
2. It shouldn't be a secret that I like looking at the rules to see if I can squeeze out something from a loophole. You need jump capacitors to accumulate the energy for the planned jump transition, and that black globe damage transformation energy can be used for that purpose: that could have been interpreted that power plant/factor was only relevant to initiate the jump.
3. I don't think any starship captain would be happy to let chance deteriorate a jump bubble so that he ends up where the logarithm tables tells him he should end up, especially if continuously powering it will guarantee it, and then switching it off drops him where he expects to be.
4. This seems more obvious with the grid, where there is no bubble slowly deteriorating.
5. Personally, I think that the ship itself only needs minimal power; the question is, if the bubble needs constant buffering up, and if the length of the jump dictates how much power needs to be allocated to that.
6. That's relevant back to point (2), since you could do a Jump Six with a factor One power plant, assuming the capacitors hold enough power to transition a Jump Six.
7. In normal space, you could activate an auxiliary power plant factor one, and supplement that with solar panels to give you almost unlimited duration.
8. In my opinion, currently in Mongoose you can't get around the power plant going full out during transition, though the option to glide to your destination in hyperspace sounds intriguing.
phavoc said:
The amount of fuel required by the power plant depends on the
rating of the power plant. See the table at the bottom of this page.
The fuel amounts listed will power the ship for four weeks, which is
the bare minimum for a Jump-capable starship.
page 107, core rules
It is just that simple, changing a single word; people are misconstruing detail with complexity. Adding another layer of gibberish to what is already there, I have an aversion to, yes. These ship designs are obviously not done by hard science types, but liberal arts people; it shows. Even in the fact that having some sort of backup system is questioned? It is what it is, I'm not going down that road; however, if one wishes to use a more realistic assumption, it is the year or two stated up thread (MT reactors were more inefficient than Mongoose).
Condottiere said:
Keep in mind Mongoose really changed the jump paradigm with it's version. Now the jump drive gets powered to open up the "hole", and the rest of the fuel is pumped out as excited hydrogen particles to form the bubble and create a pocket universe. This slowly degrades and when it 'pops' you drop back into realspace. Previously the reactor went into overdrive and quickly converted all the fuel into energy to power.
Condottiere said:
Solar cells are good for powering the lights, but you can't go anywhere under just solar panels - well, I guess if you had a shit-ton of them. But then you'd be one giant solar panel instead of a ship.
Condottiere said:
Yes, currently in Mongoose the power plant getting you into jump space runs at full power plus drains your jump fuel to create a bubble. Under all the versions you are essentially "gliding" through jump space.
dragoner said:
That's the same thing I'm stating. I'm not for adding more complexity, but I see adding more depth as something that is totally different. If I want to know how long it takes to do something that's not a bad thing. If you've seen T5 rules you can see how badly this idea can be implemented. I am NOT advocating this at all. But having a table to the side of the page providing more explanation is great. You can choose to use it or not. In this sense I've always loved the GURPS product line because they followed through with this concept and it made the books really rich in detail.
And, for the record, I, too HATED the changes to ship design that they did with MT... it made it horribly complex for no added playability. Or fun.
Jak Nazryth
Mongoose
I'm at work right now so I haven't had a chance to read everything in this thread, but enough to get a good idea of the pros and some stated cons.
Warning... what might look like a tweak embedded later, it's just a joke. I know some of us can bristle at a perceived slight when questioning their intellect....
Next week I am rebooting my Traveller campaign, so some of these issues will be on my front burner very soon. I can't go into a lot of detail, but I do have an issue with a "one size fits all" power plant/fuel consumption. Forgot who mentioned this, but a fusion power plant constructed thousands of years from now... should not require the vast amounts of fuel for standard operations. GURPS Traveller took this into consideration 15 years ago when it was just showing up on the scene.
Before Mongoose, I played GURPS Traveller for a while in 1999-2001 time line. While there are many things I love about the Mongoose game mechanics for combat and skill sets, I don't like the simplicity of the ship construction. For instance, if you have a big jump drive, small maneuver drive, you power plant still is required to be the same size as the largest component. If you have 4 state rooms, or 100 staterooms, it doesn't matter... the life support and normal space fuel consumptions is still the same and only based on the size of the power plant, even though the power plant might only use a quarter of it's potential in normal space (jump 4/maneuver 1) etc.. GURPS fixes ALL these issues, and it isn't that hard to do.
Sometimes I'm surprised that so many on these boards who are physicists and Engineers (who will go to the mat and hurl insults at each other) when describing in detail (and have the calculations to prove it) anything from the thickness of a titanium hull (down to the atom) to why Laser Pistols need an "extension cord to a power pack' because you can't stack enough electrons on nickle-cadmium matrix small enough to act as a "clip" in the pistol grip, to how many dice damage a missile should do after accelerating for 24 minutes over thousands of kilometers.... BUT... creating a simple spreadsheet for the systems and power usage of a star ship would be bad for the game because the math is too hard. lol
(I say that last part completely tongue-in-cheek so please don't take offense)
I think I will use GURPS as my basis of design and ship operations only and use Mongoose for everything else. In case people are unfamiliar I'll give you the very basics. All components in GURPS ship design have a power requirement from Jump, to life support, to communications, to each stateroom, to energy weapons. All "power points" or a "power slice" is base on continuous usage. All you do is add up the points, then look at the power plant chart and size the power plant to your requirements. In the biggest departure from Mongoose, GURPS fusion power plants are so efficient, the total life time (about 40 years) of "non-jump fuel" is built in to the power plant tonnage. You don't guzzle 10 or 12 tons of fuel every two weeks, just to keep your life support on. 99% of these calculations only take place during the design phase (GM writing up the stats) of a Traveller ship, so it rarely comes into game play. But in certain conditions, if warranted, it's a very easy process to look at your ship stats, do a very quick calculation to say... "Power plant has taken damage and we only have 20 power points per turn to use... what can we turn off?"
Anyway, I like mongoose a lot. But since they are using the LBB's from the 70's as their basis of design, they inherit an overly simplified and outdated ideas of technology in some cases.
Just my two cents.. and something I would like to see in any future revamping of the core rules. Not a lot.. but just a little more "realism"... if that thing is possible in a pretend futuristic sci-fi game system..
Warning... what might look like a tweak embedded later, it's just a joke. I know some of us can bristle at a perceived slight when questioning their intellect....
Next week I am rebooting my Traveller campaign, so some of these issues will be on my front burner very soon. I can't go into a lot of detail, but I do have an issue with a "one size fits all" power plant/fuel consumption. Forgot who mentioned this, but a fusion power plant constructed thousands of years from now... should not require the vast amounts of fuel for standard operations. GURPS Traveller took this into consideration 15 years ago when it was just showing up on the scene.
Before Mongoose, I played GURPS Traveller for a while in 1999-2001 time line. While there are many things I love about the Mongoose game mechanics for combat and skill sets, I don't like the simplicity of the ship construction. For instance, if you have a big jump drive, small maneuver drive, you power plant still is required to be the same size as the largest component. If you have 4 state rooms, or 100 staterooms, it doesn't matter... the life support and normal space fuel consumptions is still the same and only based on the size of the power plant, even though the power plant might only use a quarter of it's potential in normal space (jump 4/maneuver 1) etc.. GURPS fixes ALL these issues, and it isn't that hard to do.
Sometimes I'm surprised that so many on these boards who are physicists and Engineers (who will go to the mat and hurl insults at each other) when describing in detail (and have the calculations to prove it) anything from the thickness of a titanium hull (down to the atom) to why Laser Pistols need an "extension cord to a power pack' because you can't stack enough electrons on nickle-cadmium matrix small enough to act as a "clip" in the pistol grip, to how many dice damage a missile should do after accelerating for 24 minutes over thousands of kilometers.... BUT... creating a simple spreadsheet for the systems and power usage of a star ship would be bad for the game because the math is too hard. lol
(I say that last part completely tongue-in-cheek so please don't take offense)I think I will use GURPS as my basis of design and ship operations only and use Mongoose for everything else. In case people are unfamiliar I'll give you the very basics. All components in GURPS ship design have a power requirement from Jump, to life support, to communications, to each stateroom, to energy weapons. All "power points" or a "power slice" is base on continuous usage. All you do is add up the points, then look at the power plant chart and size the power plant to your requirements. In the biggest departure from Mongoose, GURPS fusion power plants are so efficient, the total life time (about 40 years) of "non-jump fuel" is built in to the power plant tonnage. You don't guzzle 10 or 12 tons of fuel every two weeks, just to keep your life support on. 99% of these calculations only take place during the design phase (GM writing up the stats) of a Traveller ship, so it rarely comes into game play. But in certain conditions, if warranted, it's a very easy process to look at your ship stats, do a very quick calculation to say... "Power plant has taken damage and we only have 20 power points per turn to use... what can we turn off?"
Anyway, I like mongoose a lot. But since they are using the LBB's from the 70's as their basis of design, they inherit an overly simplified and outdated ideas of technology in some cases.
Just my two cents.. and something I would like to see in any future revamping of the core rules. Not a lot.. but just a little more "realism"... if that thing is possible in a pretend futuristic sci-fi game system..
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
For those people who are so, so desperate for 'realism' as part of a Traveller game go hunt down a copy of MegaTraveller Starship Operator's Manual. A good read for those facts without bogging down the actual game. Otherwise, for me, if the ship gets me to where I want to go, the lights are on and I can breath and the guns fire then the game is going swimmingly.
alex_greene
Guest
The revised Traveller Core Rulebook should really cover this issue, and perhaps resolve it in the form of multiple options.
The options I was thinking of are:-
- Original CT rules;
- Mongoose 1st Ed TRB rules;
- Fuel lasts 1 full month;
- Fuel lasts 6 months;
- Fuel lasts 1 year;
- Fuel lasts 20 years;
- Referee can have his own options.
Either way, ships equipped with backup batteries (remember: Engineering can reconfigure the Jump capacitors to act as backup batteries, and solar panels can keep them replenished indefinitely) need never worry about running out of fuel after a Jump; and when refuelling the Jump drives, the power plant fuel also tends to be replenished automatically.
Another option is to reduce the volume of fuel, both for Jump and power plant use, basing the calculations not on the mass of the ship but on the mass of the drives.
It's like the hyperdrive option in the Traveller Core Rulebook. I think that presenting a range of options is a better way than picking one and later discovering that the "official" version has kind of a fatal flaw. Like failing a Survival roll and dying during chargen ...
The options I was thinking of are:-
- Original CT rules;
- Mongoose 1st Ed TRB rules;
- Fuel lasts 1 full month;
- Fuel lasts 6 months;
- Fuel lasts 1 year;
- Fuel lasts 20 years;
- Referee can have his own options.
Either way, ships equipped with backup batteries (remember: Engineering can reconfigure the Jump capacitors to act as backup batteries, and solar panels can keep them replenished indefinitely) need never worry about running out of fuel after a Jump; and when refuelling the Jump drives, the power plant fuel also tends to be replenished automatically.
Another option is to reduce the volume of fuel, both for Jump and power plant use, basing the calculations not on the mass of the ship but on the mass of the drives.
It's like the hyperdrive option in the Traveller Core Rulebook. I think that presenting a range of options is a better way than picking one and later discovering that the "official" version has kind of a fatal flaw. Like failing a Survival roll and dying during chargen ...
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
alex_greene said:
The immediate problem becomes line obsolescence and/irrelevancy. Every ship published to date, across a dozen or more books, assumes ONE fuel model. The minute Mongoose publishes such a set of options, even in a sidebar like that for warp drives etc, some folks are going to abandon the standard model and determine that all those ships, including three books of nothing BUT ships, are not on their shopping list anymore.
Major variance should be allowed for (and left to) the 3rd party ATU writers, or to setting books where it is called for.
GypsyComet said:
This is a joy, throw away every published ship; I'd much rather use what is there. As far as gurps goes, people should play it if they want to, but this is the forum for mongoose.
Changing two to four not only is the easiest and quickest solution, but it dovetails with original CT nicely.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
The real fun about energy cost accountancy is balancing the books and yelling in the middle of combat, "All reserve power to the forward shields."
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
phavoc said:
It's not about logic, it's about playability. I don't see the supplements you list as adding "complexity" at all, just different options.
For those who feel their gaming will be enhanced by more book keeping, then there are other versions of trav, or write your own.
Just another thought about fusion power plants in MgT, we seem to be working on the assumption (and, of course, these are fictional assumptions about a technology which doesn't exist and may never exist in this form, or even at all) that they run a bit like petrol engines, and the more power we need, the more fuel we burn. What if they are much more binary, essentially off, no power, no fuel consumption, or on lots of power (much of which might have to be vented if there is not immediate use for it), steady fuel consumption?
So long as there is internal consistency, then this would be just as good a starting point as any other.
Egil
alex_greene
Guest
Fusion power plants would still be able to produce variable output. Increased demand for when the power is needed, for instance to operate the big weapons, and reduced demand when the ship's just coasting in sublight, running on basic life support with passive sensors.
They'd be able to intensify or loosen the pinch field - presumably a combination of grav and MHD fields - to increase or decrease the efficiency of the ongoing fusion reaction, a bit like the choke in an internal combustion engine. And if they needed to get a bit more out of the plant - a bit of overclocking, as it were - they could inject some deuterium and lithium ions into the mixture. The equivalent of activating a shot of pressurised nitrous in a performance internal combustion engine.
The thing about the fuel consumption issue is that, when the rule was introduced in the Traveller Core Rulebook, it was assumed that the ship would have a fairly regular routine - Jump in, spend one week in system, Jump out again - and the fuel would automatically be taken care of when the ship refuelled for each new Jump. I don't honestly believe they thought of scenarios where the ship would have to spend extended periods in-system, or where the ship was at risk of running out of fuel before it could reach planetside. Nor that so many people would obsess over the issue so much.
They'd be able to intensify or loosen the pinch field - presumably a combination of grav and MHD fields - to increase or decrease the efficiency of the ongoing fusion reaction, a bit like the choke in an internal combustion engine. And if they needed to get a bit more out of the plant - a bit of overclocking, as it were - they could inject some deuterium and lithium ions into the mixture. The equivalent of activating a shot of pressurised nitrous in a performance internal combustion engine.
The thing about the fuel consumption issue is that, when the rule was introduced in the Traveller Core Rulebook, it was assumed that the ship would have a fairly regular routine - Jump in, spend one week in system, Jump out again - and the fuel would automatically be taken care of when the ship refuelled for each new Jump. I don't honestly believe they thought of scenarios where the ship would have to spend extended periods in-system, or where the ship was at risk of running out of fuel before it could reach planetside. Nor that so many people would obsess over the issue so much.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
If it's fixed, but the ship isn't using it, I'd channel the excess into storage banks.
alex_greene
Guest
It seems to me that most vessels intended for long-distance travel, such as the characters' ship, should come equipped with fuel scoops, fuel processors, solar panels, backup chemical batteries and even solar sails for slow in-system travel, if they've got time on their hands (or they know that there's an enemy nearby using neutrino sensors to detect the ship's fusion plant and main drive by their neutrino emissions).
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
This is beginning to sound more like paranoia than just wanting cheaper ship operations. I hope it's not from experience by GMs routinely stranding players in very deep space with no ready access to fuel. Most systems in Traveller have gas giants, water and/or refueling stations.
If players regularly jump into unexplored systems, and even then sensors make it possible to detect gas giants from parsecs away with a little time (Traveller Book 3: Scouts pg. 88), they need a bigger fuel supply not a rewrite of the rules. The majority of ships in the core book alone have two weeks fuel, enough to get to any realistic destination and still have plenty of fuel for an emergency or special trips. Checking the core book again I notice only small craft regularly have a week endurance. Some ships, especially military, do have extra endurance filling their mission profiles.
I think people want cheap Jump capacity. The game provides rules for drop tanks and construction of tanker ships to cover such necessity.
If players regularly jump into unexplored systems, and even then sensors make it possible to detect gas giants from parsecs away with a little time (Traveller Book 3: Scouts pg. 88), they need a bigger fuel supply not a rewrite of the rules. The majority of ships in the core book alone have two weeks fuel, enough to get to any realistic destination and still have plenty of fuel for an emergency or special trips. Checking the core book again I notice only small craft regularly have a week endurance. Some ships, especially military, do have extra endurance filling their mission profiles.
I think people want cheap Jump capacity. The game provides rules for drop tanks and construction of tanker ships to cover such necessity.
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