Jump Precisions

Here's something to think about.

You have to plot where point B will be in one weeks time.

If you do not know the exact duration of your jump when you plot it then you have no clue what is at your destination.

Is it possible that the jump drive actually moves you through "now" and the duration is purely a construct experienced by the crew.

What if the jump is actually instantaneous in the "now" since if you are travelling at c time is reduced to 0?

A consequence of this is that nothing has moved while you experience a week +/- so galactic cluster velocity, galactic velocity, system velocity, planet velocity is all 0. The time is then experienced as you are squeezed out of jump space at B.

The jump is instant in the now, the tranition upon arrival takes one week, during which you are now coupled to location B.
So if I understand you. You enter Jump at time t-departure. You move instantly to the the J-Space "location" that is congruent to the real-space target destination. It is still t0. That location remains congruent to your new "location" in J-Space. It takes a week + variable for you to leave the J-Space and transition to real-space (probability wave collapsing - whatever) and it is like bursting a balloon lots of pressure building until you emerge (with a massive pop) at t-arrival.

That makes as much sense as anything. It makes no difference to the game system, doesn't allow you to infer anything game breaking but it might stop this pesky questions.

Have a merit badge :)
 
A level 1 Medic will be quite capable of dealing with trivial medical problems without making them worse e.g. a nose bleed. They will be aware of when a headache can be treated with pain killers or is a symptom of concussion (easy task). They capable of using a Medi kit and identifying the correct broad spectrum drugs to treat routine ailments and perform simple surgical operations (treating the symptoms of space flu or suturing non-life threatening wounds etc).
The issue is that this is what Level 0 describes "Competently trained but little experience". Skill 1 is several years of experience and/or higher training beyond that. And it is stated to be the equivalent of a paramedic, nurse, or such individual.

If you think a paramedic, Army medic, or a nurse has the ability to do nosebleeds and that's about it, then I guess there will be no agreement here.

But look at the game mechanics: You can't come out of character creation with a rank 1 in a skill without at least 4 years of doing something. You join the Merchants. Your first four years you get trained in 6 skills at level 0 and you *might* get a skill at lvl 1 (if you make a promotion roll).

The rules flat out state that rank 0 is trained but inexperienced and each rank above that equals multiple years of experience. You can downgrade the effectiveness of everyone's skills if you want, but if you aren't upskilling your characters over what the game gives them, they are all gonna be pretty incompetent. It's your game.
 
So if I understand you. You enter Jump at time t-departure. You move instantly to the the J-Space "location" that is congruent to the real-space target destination. It is still t0. That location remains congruent to your new "location" in J-Space. It takes a week + variable for you to leave the J-Space and transition to real-space (probability wave collapsing - whatever) and it is like bursting a balloon lots of pressure building until you emerge (with a massive pop) at t-arrival.

That makes as much sense as anything. It makes no difference to the game system, doesn't allow you to infer anything game breaking but it might stop this pesky questions.

Have a merit badge :)
Here's something to think about.

You have to plot where point B will be in one weeks time.

If you do not know the exact duration of your jump when you plot it then you have no clue what is at your destination.

Is it possible that the jump drive actually moves you through "now" and the duration is purely a construct experienced by the crew.

What if the jump is actually instantaneous in the "now" since if you are travelling at c time is reduced to 0?

A consequence of this is that nothing has moved while you experience a week +/- so galactic cluster velocity, galactic velocity, system velocity, planet velocity is all 0. The time is then experienced as you are squeezed out of jump space at B.

The jump is instant in the now, the tranition upon arrival takes one week, during which you are now coupled to location B.
Yup, that's basically what I said earlier. More clearly expressed. Fully agree.
 
And yet people have fender benders in car parks all the time despite having years of familiarity and having to study and pass a test to become a licensed driver. It is not all about whether you have a skill, it is whether you can apply that skill effectively in a specific circumstance.
Yup, getting your DL is equivalent to skill 0. And people routinely violate safety laws and generally do stuff that is the equivalent of the various things that give negative modifiers in jump travel.

Even with that and the incredible density of traffic, the accident rate is about 0.013%.

There are spaceships out there with negligent, desperate, or just reckless crews and that's reflected in the game mechanics with penalties. Fortunately, they rarely affect anyone except themselves because of how big space is. But that's fine. If the players are choosing not to do maintenance, to use unrefined fuel, to not have enough crew, to jump early, or whatever...then that's on them and they are choosing the risk.
 
It becomes most obvious with skills like engineering. To be a competent enough at your job to get by as it stands, you need 3 level 2 skills to do the usual tasks, and that doesn't even make you qualified to work on life support.
One solution that popped to mind, was to start all routine tasks a level easier, but only on a ship/piece of equipment the player is familiar with. It won't work on the alien ship they just stole.
I don't understand the point of making engineering a specialty skill. Where are you actually going to be working on just one engine type? As crew of a battleship, maybe? I could see maybe distinguishing between starship engineering and working on ground based power plants and whatnot, though I don't know that that gets much value.

But a engineer needing Engineer 2 in 4 specialities, plus Electronics and Mechanics means no one is qualified to be an engineer on a free trader. It is pretty silly.
 
The issue is that this is what Level 0 describes "Competently trained but little experience". Skill 1 is several years of experience and/or higher training beyond that. And it is stated to be the equivalent of a paramedic, nurse, or such individual.
There is no issue. Skill 1 needs to roll 1 less on the dice to succeed in a task compared to skill 0. That is what Skill 1 means and nothing else. All the random words are in the book and in your head from previous versions are fluff and don't affect how the game works.
If you think a paramedic, Army medic, or a nurse has the ability to do nosebleeds and that's about it, then I guess there will be no agreement here.
At what point did I say that a paramedic can only deal with nosebleeds. I made the point that the majority of shipboard duties will be for trivial matters that a skilled person could succeed at without risk of failure vs. an unskilled person who might actually make it worse.

Skill level 1 is fully capable of dealing with challenging tasks, you just need to take your time and use the appropriate equipment. 1 for skill, +2 for taking your time*, +1 for an expert system. You will succeed in an average task 91% of the time. A +1 stat bonus or a toolkit* will raise the chance of success to 97%. Even the failure only be a marginal.

*Taking your time for a First Aid check results in it taking 1D*10 seconds vs 1D*6 seconds so there is no excuse. The checks requires medical equipment and the TL12 Medikit which is pretty ubiquitous in TL12 ships lockers gives +2. A specialised MediMate(TM) watch costs under Cr300 with expert and provide another +1 to a skilled user and is a popular graduation gift for medical students and technicians.
But look at the game mechanics: You can't come out of character creation with a rank 1 in a skill without at least 4 years of doing something.
No edition of Traveller has let you gain level 1 in a skill before your first term to my knowledge. In MGT2 Before your first term (either a career or pre-career education) you have background skills. You are 18. You might never have made your own bed. You can still get a job either office work, delivery driver or in a service industry. Your background skills will make you a background character.
What point are you trying to make?
You join the Merchants. Your first four years you get trained in 6 skills at level 0 and you *might* get a skill at lvl 1 (if you make a promotion roll).
Send them to university. You can choose two skills. If you graduate you get one at 2 and one at 1. You also gain 2 EDU. Get event 10 and get lucky and you might get another level. So you could leave University with level 3 in a skill and a +1 EDU bonus. Four of the skills are very applicable to ships crew (including Medic).

If you are retiring for a life of adventure after your first term and want to be a spacer, try the Navy. The basic training will give you more useful shipboard skills. You might even leave with a ships boat to play with. You could run sightseeing cruises to the oort belt.

If you want to stand a chance in the real world, you could go to university and then join the Navy (or Merchants). Some people say you get the full suite of service skills at level 0, others say you only choose one as this is your second batch of basic training. But the extra education will improve your chances of advancement and since you have a chance of being recruited as an officer you might get free sword training and get promoted to sub-lt and get Leadership as well.

Other than words in Italics which are serving suggestions, none of this is opinion. It is baked into the rules.
 
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no edition of Traveller has let you gain level 1 in a skill before your first term to my knowledge.
That's my point. Skill 1 is years of experience. It isn't beginner barely out of training level. You keep acting like lvl 1 is a noob. That's level 0.

And, yes, I have a 'bee in my bonnet' because Mongoose keeps introducing fairly difficult skill task values for activities that were essentially routine for 40 years. This is why the scout/courier just needs a pilot in classic traveller, but now needs a Pilot, Engineer, and Astrogator in Mongoose. And that's aside from the fact that they have three different mechanics about jump accuracy in print at the moment.

It's apparently why your ship's central computer and its size 10, Cr200,000 jump control program adds +0 to Astrogation checks, but a 200 credit app on your laptop adds +1? High Guard specifically states any astrogator worth his salt should be able to do the calculations by hand, it'll just take longer.

This isn't just an issue with Astrogation. It applies to Engineering (worse because your poor Engineer is supposed to handle problems with 5 different skills' worth of equipment) and to piloting. A good example being how much more dangerous and slow fuel skimming is in the Companion than elsewhere.

Travelling between the stars is something humans have been doing reliably for thousands of years at this point. It is not intended that normal jumping between known locations is at all risky. And the game system is supposed to function around an assortment of skills that are mostly 0s, 1s, and 2s.

If Mongoose wants typical crews to be 2s across the board, then they should change character creation to make that a normal outcome. Use the Book 4/5/6/7 model for character creation instead of the standard book 2 model. There's nothing wrong with that model. But the game doesn't make characters to match that.

Astrogation is just the worst because it's just a boring skill. It is practically the "cross the street skill". No one wants to focus their character around it unless you are doing a campaign specifically around it, like rift breaking or exploring deep space weirdnesses.

The game system should not be making non dramatic instances difficult for normal characters. By making the extra time and the expert program essentially mandatory to doing the *NORMAL* stuff, how is anyone supposed to do the dramatic and heroic stuff like early jumping or crossing a Jump Shoal or pinpointing arrival on an ice asteroid in the void when you have significant penalties?
 
It what you want normally achievable at a specific level of skill.

As regards ye Scoutship, it's a matter of the science fiction trope of a one man spaceship; coincidentally, I was planning on looking up exactly how many engineers you need, for a given weight of engine(s).
 
1 per 35 tons of engine of any sort if you mean in the Traveller rules.

Earlier editions had a specific exception for ships under 200 dtons that isn't present in MgT2e.
 
Well, to keep that bucket of bolts flying, you're going to need, skill factor zero, Pilot, Astrogation, Engineering, Electronics, and Mechanic.

I think the question becomes, exactly how much attention each function is going to take, if the Renaissance Man takes charge, by himself, for routine supervision and maintenance.

Mechanic is one per thousand tonnes, so a hundred tonnes means only ten percent of the attention span.

Electronics seems specific to sensor operations, though I suspect semi conductors are more widespread; one per seventy five hundred tonnes, would be one and a third percent.

Engines are ten tonnes for the jump drive, two tonnes for the manoeuvre drive, and four tonnes for the power plant.

Generally speaking, while maintaining the jump drive is very important, it's only activated jut prior to a planned jump, so that could take up twenty nine percent of your attention, prepping for a jump.

If you're flying, the manoeuvre drive takes up six percent of your attention.

And, as long as the power plant is running, allocate about twelve percent of your attention, to that.
 
That's my point. Skill 1 is years of experience. It isn't beginner barely out of training level. You keep acting like lvl 1 is a noob. That's level 0.
I keep acting like it is "noob"+1 - because it is.
And, yes, I have a 'bee in my bonnet' because Mongoose keeps introducing fairly difficult skill task values for activities that were essentially routine for 40 years. This is why the scout/courier just needs a pilot in classic traveller, but now needs a Pilot, Engineer, and Astrogator in Mongoose. And that's aside from the fact that they have three different mechanics about jump accuracy in print at the moment.
Play the old edition then.
It's apparently why your ship's central computer and its size 10, Cr200,000 jump control program adds +0 to Astrogation checks, but a 200 credit app on your laptop adds +1?
Jump control is not astrogation. It allows you to conduct Jump/X. It doesn't say it helps you decide where you want to go.
(and it is Cr500). It is the future for crying out loud, in the 70's computers were the domain of specialists, now everyone carries a computer just to look at cat videos. This isn't Dune.
High Guard specifically states any astrogator worth his salt should be able to do the calculations by hand, it'll just take longer.
Yes. An astrogator worth their salt can perform a task that is difficulty 4+ by hand and it'll just take longer. The expert system gives you +1 it is the taking more time that gets you the +2 that makes the most difference.
This isn't just an issue with Astrogation. It applies to Engineering (worse because your poor Engineer is supposed to handle problems with 5 different skills' worth of equipment) and to piloting. A good example being how much more dangerous and slow fuel skimming is in the Companion than elsewhere.

Travelling between the stars is something humans have been doing reliably for thousands of years at this point. It is not intended that normal jumping between known locations is at all risky.
It isn't risky for competent people (Skill 1 or greater) who treat the duty with respect.
And the game system is supposed to function around an assortment of skills that are mostly 0s, 1s, and 2s.
With a plethora of technological items and characteristic bonuses that supplement those skills. Skill 0 is enough to not require a skill roll for easy tasks. A skill 1 character with appropriate equipment and appropriately careful may not need to roll for Average checks either.
If Mongoose wants typical crews to be 2s across the board, then they should change character creation to make that a normal outcome. Use the Book 4/5/6/7 model for character creation instead of the standard book 2 model. There's nothing wrong with that model. But the game doesn't make characters to match that.
YOU believe you require skills that high. You seem to be the only one espousing that viewpoint here. The problem may be at your end.
Astrogation is just the worst because it's just a boring skill. It is practically the "cross the street skill". No one wants to focus their character around it unless you are doing a campaign specifically around it, like rift breaking or exploring deep space weirdnesses.
Astrogation / Navigation always was for jumping. It was also a bit niche for the other uses of it. So is Seafarer, Drive(Mole) or many other skills in pervious additions. No one is forcing you to take them.
The game system should not be making non dramatic instances difficult for normal characters. By making the extra time and the expert program essentially mandatory to doing the *NORMAL* stuff, how is anyone supposed to do the dramatic and heroic stuff like early jumping or crossing a Jump Shoal or pinpointing arrival on an ice asteroid in the void when you have significant penalties?
I think you are overly focussing on one specific instance of an optional system.

I also don't think that someone that can only boast an unaided+1 to skill checks has any right to expect to be doing the "heroic stuff" with any guarantee of success. "House" isn't focussed on the perfectly competent pharmacologist on the dispensing counter. "Indiana Jones" isn't focussed on Marcus despite him being a full professor at the university. "Lord of the Rings" doesn't focus on Gamling who is the Theoden's right hand. Star Trek medical issues were delt with by Bones not Nurse Rand.

Heroic stuff is done by heroes and the "Rider of the Mark 3" with Animal Handling 1 holds their beer for them.

That doesn't mean that stories cannot be about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, it just means they are expected to fail a lot more. That failure and dealing with the consequences is where the drama is. "Stranded on Arden" is a complete adventure about failing to get an exit visa. Making all your passengers jump-sick is dramatic.

And in a last ditch attempt to close this down.

Most actions undertaken by Travellers do not require a skill check. A Traveller does not have to make an Athletics check to run through a forest or Electronics (computers) to access information from their ship’s library. Some actions will require the Traveller to have a particular skill but will still not require a check. A Traveller with Flyer 0, for example, can fly an air/raft under normal conditions without having to make a check.

The referee should only call for checks when:
• The Travellers are in danger.
• The task is especially difficult or hazardous.
• The Travellers are under the pressure of time.
• Success or failure is especially important or interesting.

If you don't think that Jumping is difficult or hazardous then you don't need a roll.
 
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The whole jump thing, at least as written in the current contradictory rules, should be tossed and rewritten to maintain logical consistency. Crossing 3ly and emerging within a few hundred thousand km of your planned origin point IS pretty precise navigation if you think about it. It really comes down to just how they want to explain jump and then write the rules so that it is logically consistent within the stated structure.

IF the time of your jump is going to retain its 6d6 time variable AND you want to retain accuracy to your arrival point in N-space AND keeping the whole being pulled out of jump if you hit a significant gravity well AND that you MUST have a gravity well to come OUT of jump space, THEN you have to toss:

1) the idea that your jump bubble will collapse on its own bringing you back into N-space (this contradicts the rule that you cannot jump into a deep space hex without a gravity well as your destination). This then implies that your jump drive has no specific distance associated to it - you'll keep on traveling in jump space for an infinite distance, or at least until you come withing 100D of a significant gravity well.

2) a ship will emerge a significant distance from it's intended destination no matter how accurate your plotted return to N-space is due to the time variable since planetary objects have their own velocity are constantly moving. This means that ships will spend a significantly greater amount of time in N-space traveling from their origination point to their destination - just how much depends on their jump time variability. This is going to, potentially, be DAYS of additional travel for a 1G ship depending on just how far away from you destination you emerge.

3) Taken together, both of the above points really throw a wrench into all the base rule calculations for actual ship revenue, expenses, and all other starship operations. Ships would not be able to make as many jumps per year due to the extra time they have to spend in N-space getting to their destination (leaving the planet to get to a jump point remains unchanged - we'll not get into the mess of departing a planet in the opposite direction to decrease the actual time it takes to get to a 100D distance...)

I think it's fair to say that when the grognards sat down to discuss the initial rules of Traveller they never really thought about the realities of orbital mechanics. From the rule point of view all planets have zero orbital velocity, and if you take it from that perspective the rules, as written, will work without too many mental gyrations.

To do the least amount of rewrites to the original rules it would simply be better to say time spent in jump space is not 100% aligned with the universe's clocks. That time variable is inflicted ONLY upon the people within the ship. Thus your 160hrs in jump space may only be 150hrs by the clocks of the people in the rest of the universe (or at least who also weren't in jump space). For 99% of all people traveling between systems this is really going to be a non-issue. For people who spend their entire lives jumping, they would experience a very small amount of time dilation - not enough to really affect game mechanics though. This would then allow for ships to enter N-space right on the edge of the 100D limit and the travel time tables would remain intact.

The question of the jump bubble duration AND the gravity well issue cannot easily be rectified. It can't work both ways. If you say your bubble will dissipate based upon your jump drive capabilities, then ships will re-enter N-space at the point their bubble collapses. Period. That means jumping to a deep space hex is entirely allowable and expected based upon your jump distance. That also keeps the 100D occlusion rule intact.

It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to make the rules work, it just takes a wee bit of effort to think through how they work and ensure they stay logically consistent. The idea that "ooh! this sounds cool! Let's put this into the rules" is generally a bad idea if that new rule breaks existing ones. Many other games and settings have published rules bibles that all the designers must follow to retain consistency. New things aren't prohibitited, but deviations from the cannon must first be reviewed and then slotted in so they don't break the system (unless it's, for example, something like laser weaponry becoming the norm over gunpowder-based weaponry).

Ideally when publishers or gamers find an error, it needs to be fixed. Don't wait decades to fix things because it's "canon" - if it's wrong don't make it canonically wrong (cough... Gazelle escort... cough).
 
Requesting Landing Privileges at a Starport: Routine (6+).
First Aid: Average (8+) Medic check
Cooking a Fine Meal: Average (8+)
Landing at a starport requires a Routine (6+) Pilot

These are the kinds of things the game thinks someone with skill 1 or 2 needs extra time and probably expert computer assistance to do reliably.

Maybe you are right. It's actually harder to ask for landing clearance than to plot a 1 parsec Jump. I wonder how they manage since most ships don't even require anyone with Electronics (Comms) on the crew. Though Electronics is common enough that surely someone will have it at 0, so they don't take that -3 on top of it.

Anyway, your argument would make more sense if the game actually produced characters with exceptional skills. But it doesn't. It produces primarily characters with skills in the 0-2 range and stats in the -1 to +1 range. So if you want your game to be about people struggling to do basic tasks, then go ahead.

There's a lot that I like about the Mongoose version of Traveller, which is why I play it. But this creation of task difficulties heavily slanted into 8-14 range when the game is built around characters with bonuses in the +0 to +4 range is bad design.
 
Requesting Landing Privileges at a Starport: Routine (6+).
This is a 1D minute task. A 6+ roll with +1 DM for skill means 1 you have 83% chance right off the bat.
If you fail (you made an error in protocol, there was too much interference, you used the wrong frequency or they took a dislike to your accent and are just being petty), you can just try again. The chance of failing it twice is less than 3%. The chance of failing it three times is 0.5% So you are all but guaranteed to make it third time.
Three tries will take a maximum of 18 minutes (but could be 3 minutes and average 10 minutes). Unless you really need to land within 18 minutes then there is no significant consequence in failing the roll so there is no point making the player roll it.
If you had checked you were using the most recent comms protocol (by using your hand dandy expert system, or doing an Admin check on the comms protocol database on your ships computer with an Admin task chain) you could reduce the chance of failure (or bring a Level 0 skill character to the same success chance as for the Level 1 character above).
If you double check everything you have less than 3% chance of screwing it up first time around, but it will take 1Dx10 minutes so you might just risk it.
First Aid: Average (8+) Medic check
This is a 1D combat rounds check. It must be initiated within 1 minute.
In this case taking extra time increases the time taken to 1D x 10 seconds and so it is difficult to see why you wouldn't by default giving you +2.
You are also required to use at least basic medical equipment. Usually this is a Medikit and it is hard to see circumstances where this wouldn't give you at least +1, but lets not assume anything.
Your chance of success is exactly as above except with Medic you don't get a redo so the consequences are higher. If you get a higher effect it restores more characteristic points, but success gives 1 point back. As a paramedic your job is to keep people alive so bringing one characteristic (END usually) from 0 to 1 is good enough to either stop them dying or bring them back to consciousness ff they had zeros in two characteristics.
If you fail and they die you didn't kill them but if you were using second rate equipment then you didn't do you best to save them.
A readily available Tl12 Medikit (+2) and an Cr300 expert system (+1) will guarantee that you cannot fail the roll. So I find it hard to believe that they would not be standard equipment for a professional Paramedic. When paramedics attended me recently there were two of them and each had a backpack of medical electronics.
Now if you are off-duty in a bar when someone gets shot you can't be expected to have that stuff (though as the expert system is microchip sized you might have it on you at all times) and, assuming you choose to offer assistance, you might be forced to make do with the very basic first aid kit they hold behind the bar (-1). In this case your chance drops to 58%, not great, but better than the unskilled barman who has only 27% chance of success. You can't be blamed if they don't make it.
Cooking a Fine Meal: Average (8+)
This is a 1D hours check. Doing it slowly will take 1Dx4 Hours. This is more nuanced. Obviously the numbers are the same as the first aid example but taking the extra time is a significant impact. However we are talking about a fine meal. This is an average task not a routine one so it is not just the daily fare of the high passengers so spending longer may not be unreasonable. Professional chefs often prepare things the day before and will check the food and remake it if necessary. You are definitely going to be using your recipe book (expert system - dirt cheap as well). There are no useful toolkits for this specified in the CSC.
The chance of success without taking longer is 72%. If I have time to remake it it can bring that to 92%. This is the same as if I took the four times a long being careful. If I had unlimited ingredients then I'd keep redoing it, but if I was preparing the only Froo Food we had on the ship I might take the extra time instead. Of course time might run out.
to maximise my chances I would be specifying using superior ingredients and negotiating a boon from my referee which will bring the baseline 72% up significantly.
Landing at a starport requires a Routine (6+) Pilot
This one is easy. As a routine task we could just say it succeeds.
It is a 1D x 10 Seconds check but it says in the task description that most pilots take their time making it 1D minutes for the +2.
We have a 97% chance of success (snake eyes to fail).
It doesn't actually specify but I would say this is a DEX check and therefore an expert system is of questionable value, maybe some sort of task cain but it would be a stretch.
If we are lucky then the ship has Aerofins which would mean we couldn't fail (and neither could a novice Skill 0 pilot).
If not we are looking at a marginal failure. The example of marginal failure on P61 unfortunately says that the ship might never fly again but that is not a marginal failure in a routine task in my opinion. It will depend on the nature of the port, but minor damage to the ship, a negative DM to tasks requiring cooperation of the port, a fine or a really nasty scrape on the paint work that puts off potential clients would all be appropriate.
Should we expect a professional to fail 3% of the time? I think that is not unreasonable even on a routine task, we often fail routine tasks because we grow complacent.
These are the kinds of things the game thinks someone with skill 1 or 2 needs extra time and probably expert computer assistance to do reliably.

Maybe you are right. It's actually harder to ask for landing clearance than to plot a 1 parsec Jump. I wonder how they manage since most ships don't even require anyone with Electronics (Comms) on the crew. Though Electronics is common enough that surely someone will have it at 0, so they don't take that -3 on top of it.
I don't actually agree with some of the task descriptions e.g. accessing publicly available data for example sounds like an Admin rather than Electronics(Computers) to me.
I suspect the answer is that these are examples. The referee (or scenario) decides on the task requirements and the examples in the book are serving suggestions.
Anyway, your argument would make more sense if the game actually produced characters with exceptional skills. But it doesn't. It produces primarily characters with skills in the 0-2 range and stats in the -1 to +1 range. So if you want your game to be about people struggling to do basic tasks, then go ahead.
I don't get this at all, but I suspect I never will since we have gone round this dozens of times.
 
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Should we expect a professional to fail 3% of the time? I think that is not unreasonable even on a routine task, we often fail routine tasks because we grow complacent.
This is, essentially, the root of our disagreement. 3% is ridiculously insanely high for something that happens all the time. Even car accidents are hundredths of a percent chance. Airplane crashes are an order of magnitude less likely than car crashes. There are millions of flights annually and only about 30 crashes.

The rest of the disagreement is philosophical. I don't think that it is good design to assume the players are taking extra time, have large piles of extra gear for every situation, and generally rely on things that they might not have in order to do standard tasks. If you think something is essentially mandatory then the game should build that into the structure of the task. Then, if you don't have it, it is a disadvantage. Bonus equipment and options should be there to let characters do the fancy stuff, not to do the banal stuff.

It is easy to fix at the table because the GM controls whether there is even a roll, much less what it's difficulty is. Is my player trying to land at the starport during a riot in order to pick up refugees? Piloting roll. Is my player just doing a normal landing? No roll.

Even though it is an easy table fix, I feel it is important to convey to Matt and his team that continuing to add new systems with these kinds of task values and unstated assumptions is not a good idea. Especially compounding tasks where you have to make rolls to make more rolls, because that leads to "roll to failure" scenarios. And if players are supposed to be taking extra time and carrying expert systems for every skill, then do like Eclipse Phase or Mindjammer and put that front and center so everyone knows that's expected, not optional. (I don't actually think it is expected because Traveller is not designed to only work with TL11+ equipment like expert systems).

Marc Miller says that people in Charted Space can move between planets as easily as we move between continents. Not strictly speaking true because a week of transit is significant upgrade from a day of transit no matter how you slice it, but from a safety and availability standpoint that should hold true. Players will be plenty challenged doing the crazy stuff.
 
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This is, essentially, the root of our disagreement. 3% is ridiculously insanely high for something that happens all the time. Even car accidents are hundredths of a percent chance. Airplane crashes are an order of magnitude less likely than car crashes. There are millions of flights annually and only about 30 crashes.

The rest of the disagreement is philosophical. I don't think that it is good design to assume the players are taking extra time, have large piles of extra gear for every situation, and generally rely on things that they might not have in order to do standard tasks. If you think something is essentially mandatory then the game should build that into the structure of the task. Then, if you don't have it, it is a disadvantage. Bonus equipment and options should be there to let characters do the fancy stuff, not to do the banal stuff.

It is easy to fix at the table because the GM controls whether there is even a roll, much less what it's difficulty is. Is my player trying to land at the starport during a riot in order to pick up refugees? Piloting roll. Is my player just doing a normal landing? No roll.

Even though it is an easy table fix, I feel it is important to convey to Matt and his team that continuing to add new systems with these kinds of task values and unstated assumptions is not a good idea. Especially compounding tasks where you have to make rolls to make more rolls, because that leads to "roll to failure" scenarios. And if players are supposed to be taking extra time and carrying expert systems for every skill, then do like Eclipse Phase or Mindjammer and put that front and center so everyone knows that's expected, not optional. (I don't actually think it is expected because Traveller is not designed to only work with TL11+ equipment like expert systems).

Marc Miller says that people in Charted Space can move between planets as easily as we move between continents. Not strictly speaking true because a week of transit is significant upgrade from a day of transit no matter how you slice it, but from a safety and availability standpoint that should hold true. Players will be plenty challenged doing the crazy stuff.
It has been a long journey (so thank you for sticking with it and remaining courteous).

I work in aviation and whist I agree that crashes are rare, incidents are far more common than the public might think and landing is the most common. The industry is very regulated and there are a lot of checks and balances but landings particularly are hard on planes and ground crews need to be vigilant for minor damage. Most people who have travelled commercially will recall heavy landings that were uncomfortable (or sometimes terrifying). This is why aircraft get serviced in terms of hours of flight (rather than cars which might only get serviced annually). You are paying a monthly maintenance fee on your starship and I assumed that covered it.

A lot of routine incidents are caused by factors outside the pilots control, but the pilot still needs to react (bird strike, incursions onto the landing strip or taxiways, collisions with ground equipment or FOD while transiting). and these are the times the referee might require you to make a roll. These would still be routine rolls. Most of the time these challenges will end in a near-miss and a flight safety announcement. Where there is an actual incident it will frequently involve solo pilots who are relatively inexperienced. Very experienced pilots can mitigate for this anyway and there is almost always a co-pilot who is double checking everything during landing and take-off (and in game terms would be conducting a parallel task and further reducing the chance of failure). If this was standard practice in traveller then there would be zero chance of failure from these routine causes.

So I don't think 3 in 100 flights where the referee decides a roll was necessary having an incident is wrong. If you count in all the times a roll was not required it will drop to a fraction of a percent. Perhaps tis needs emphasis to scenario writers, but it is very clear in the rules. Where I do feel there should be more guidance and the rules perhaps are at fault, is the severity of failure should be a function of the difficulty of the task. I can't recall it saying this so even if it there it is perhaps not prominent enough. The examples given do not reflect this either (e.g. a marginal failure of a landing check permanently grounding an aircraft).

I also agree that stacking checks on checks is setting people up for failure as it compounds small chances of failure into large effects.

I think have a slightly different philosophy on the game. I think the ubiquity of equipment makes the game too easy (or maybe the good equipment is too cheap). Even a character with no skill at all can conduct most INT/EDU based tasks as though they were level 0 with the same priced expert software that is giving a level 3 character +1. A robot to do the job instead can also be within the range of a character with a reasonable mustering out payment and of course they are not limited to mental skills.

My game is a bit more like Andor and set in the Collace arm so the Empire is not always seen as a force for good so this sort of works. I am also exploring the game with characters with only basic training and background skills and so far they have had some challenging adventures but have not had a particularly difficult time of it. This is mostly due to them being cautious and planning for the worst but they are not particualrly overloaded with equipment. The most significant upgrade was the computer with the majority of the Cr100-200 packages. This was surprisingly cheap and has meant that even in skills they were deficient in if they can take their time, they can succeed.

I would have been disappointed if Level 0 characters were breezing through everything.
 
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I believe that Charted Space assumes that most of the double checking is done by the automated systems. There are rules for reducing large ship crews because of automation and free traders obviously don't even have enough crew to stand proper watches, so there has to be automation handling things and calling on the crew for emergencies. That's why the crew requirements in 2300, which has less automation, are noticeably higher.

But things get messy because Traveller's rules are designed for a much wider range of tech capabilities than just what exists in Charted Space. Despite the popularity of Charted Space, Traveller is first and foremost a build your own universe game system. So you have a lot of tech capabilities that are not integrated into the examples. Like...waferjacks theoretically exist but no one actually has them in any published material that I recall? I think its T5 where you can just declare that you got a waferjack in lieu of a benefit roll if you were in any imperial service. But waferjacks and expert systems are just..not utilized in Mongoose's content. They exist in the rules. But not in any Charted Space material by Mongoose.

Traveller used to just say "Uhh, yeah, there's automation so you only need a small crew". But now there's a Robot Handbook that tells you what that actually looks like. But it isn't applied to anything in Charted Space. Even the stuff that's come out after it.

On the original topic of this thread, the ship's computer used to have (in CT) a program called Generate that produced jump plots. But if you didn't have that program, you could buy them from the starport. However, eventually someoned decided that if some character was the astrogator, they should be astrogating. So that kind of went away. In Mongoose the program for controlling the jump drives also includes jump navigation aids for the astrogator that...do nothing mechanically. But then rules came out where you could install a robotic astrogation expert system that would be better than almost any PC likely would be. Putting us back to the Generate program by another name. *Shrugs*

LIkewise, the game rules never actually say that the 6+ to land at the starport is only for stressful landings. I, as someone who has been GMing for 45 years, think that's pretty self evident. But it isn't strictly speaking the rule.
 
The trouble is you are actually arriving at a different time in the real universe. If you arrived after a week but you had experienced the variable time it would be easier (since that planet is actually where it should be).
For extra (real world) complexity: there is no consistent time between different systems. It is relative to the local gravity gradient and how fast you are going. For extra complexity, remember that speed is also not absolute but relative to something else. So your speed relative to the planet you have left is different to the planet or system you are heading towards, and thus your difference in time duration is also different.
This is why our own Moon is getting its own time zone and GPS system: time runs at a sufficiently different rate that GPS systems there will be affected.
As for the location of your jump target: you don’t know where it is, only that your database tells you where it should be in about a week’s time.
But in game terms we condense all this down to a couple of dice rolls which give us a variable travel time and arrival location 🙂
 
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