OriginalCaruso
Cosmic Mongoose
I’m sure GMs already have their own way of handling communications between ships inbound and outbound from jump points but thought I’d draft a few notes used IMTU which draw from my ex military background.
In real life, there are two communication bands used by civil and military, VHF and UHF. Within these two bands there are guard frequencies 121.5 MHz and 243.0 MHz. Never broadcast on these frequencies unless you want a very unfriendly knock on the door, your location will be pinpointed.
In Traveller, I use the guard frequencies for emergency comms such as distress calls etc. adds a bit of flavour when role playing.
Transponders are another feature which can be used to player advantage. During last nights session I discovered rules within Secrets of the Ancients ~pg71 on how to disguise a ships transponder message, first a brief digression into the real world on how transponders actually work.
RADAR is (or was back in my day) categorised as Primary and Secondary. A Primary RADAR has a very narrow focus beam delivering both range and height information to a display. When a target is detected, the Secondary radar knows this information and sends a coded pulse to the target via a beam offset from the Primary RADAR. The Secondary return provides contextual information from the aircraft transponder - commonly known as a Squawk code. The Squawk code contains aircraft information and pilot set codes indicating hijack state etc.
In Traveller, I use the above concepts to allow pilots to indicate state. Also, according to the rules discovered during last nights game, I now allow subterfuge by masking transponder output.
I hope someone finds this useful
In real life, there are two communication bands used by civil and military, VHF and UHF. Within these two bands there are guard frequencies 121.5 MHz and 243.0 MHz. Never broadcast on these frequencies unless you want a very unfriendly knock on the door, your location will be pinpointed.
In Traveller, I use the guard frequencies for emergency comms such as distress calls etc. adds a bit of flavour when role playing.
Transponders are another feature which can be used to player advantage. During last nights session I discovered rules within Secrets of the Ancients ~pg71 on how to disguise a ships transponder message, first a brief digression into the real world on how transponders actually work.
RADAR is (or was back in my day) categorised as Primary and Secondary. A Primary RADAR has a very narrow focus beam delivering both range and height information to a display. When a target is detected, the Secondary radar knows this information and sends a coded pulse to the target via a beam offset from the Primary RADAR. The Secondary return provides contextual information from the aircraft transponder - commonly known as a Squawk code. The Squawk code contains aircraft information and pilot set codes indicating hijack state etc.
In Traveller, I use the above concepts to allow pilots to indicate state. Also, according to the rules discovered during last nights game, I now allow subterfuge by masking transponder output.
I hope someone finds this useful
