Mercenary, Heavy Weapons.

[zozotroll]

NOt me, i bought it the moment it hit my FLGS.

And again, If I used the term Jovoan on Mercury, as in mercury is a jovian type planet, i wopuld certainly be taken to task for it. And yet that is also just a label.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Yeah, it's not like Jar-Jar Binks; it's not as awful as Greedo shooting first; it's not even Darth Vader building C-3PO as a child... It's about equivalent to "Younglings", as a wince inducing moment that's quickly forgotten.

 

[Emryys]

Just got my copy! 8)

Time for a Recon mission... will report my findings, Sir!

 

[Pagan priest]

I do understand why military gearheads are nonplussed by those errant entries, but to get more upset than a mild irritation is surely nit-picking?

This is it exactly. The way some people are going on about it they sound like they're refusing to buy the book because it's got some mis-termed items in it, which is just plain silly.

Think of it this way: if the only things you know about the book are gross conceptual errors that ought to be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer, that could be taken as a good indication that all the other things that you have not yet heard about are also going to be garbage. In that light, it is not silly at all, although I personally would want to actually see the book in question before making a descision. On the other hand, if I would be buying via mail, I would consider that enough to avoid the purchase.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Think of it this way: if the only things you know about the book are gross conceptual errors that ought to be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer, that could be taken as a good indication that all the other things that you have not yet heard about are also going to be garbage.

But that is not the case. The conceptual errors are not gross, and would not be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. If that's the impression you got from this thread then you have been mislead by a lot of the criticism, which is the point I've been trying to make.

I doubt a layman new to Traveller would find fault in the way which has been found here.

And normally a lot of bad impressions about a product would indicate it was garbage, but when those criticisms focus entirely on what amounts to less than 1% of the content then it is going to give a false impression indeed.

 

[Pagan priest]

Think of it this way: if the only things you know about the book are gross conceptual errors that ought to be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer, that could be taken as a good indication that all the other things that you have not yet heard about are also going to be garbage.

But that is not the case. The conceptual errors are not gross, and would not be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. If that's the impression you got from this thread then you have been mislead by a lot of the criticism, which is the point I've been trying to make.

I doubt a layman new to Traveller would find fault in the way which has been found here.

And normally a lot of bad impressions about a product would indicate it was garbage, but when those criticisms focus entirely on what amounts to less than 1% of the content then it is going to give a false impression indeed.

Hmm, but isn't the severe lack of ironmongary one of the other big complaints? Also, from what I have read about the complaints, it seems to be stuff that is independant of Traveller, or anything gaming at all.

Mind you, I still think the best option is to actually go to your FLGS and look at the book and then decide.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Hmm, but isn't the severe lack of ironmongary one of the other big complaints? Also, from what I have read about the complaints, it seems to be stuff that is independant of Traveller, or anything gaming at all.

Mind you, I still think the best option is to actually go to your FLGS and look at the book and then decide.

If you call 23 new weapon types to be a lack (and only 3 of those are 'MagRails' and that's not including the Field Artillery), then perhaps. Yes, I'd like more! But there's enough for me to be satisfied with the product. Some stuff is beyond the OTU tech level - but then this is right for a main line generic Traveller product. And only 2 weapons at that.

And then there's the new armours, augments, sensors, medical stuff. And then 10 times that in pages of other stuff.

I'll repeat, the impression you have got is totally misleading. This product is no turkey, but you wouldn't thunk it given the level of complaint against it.

So that final bit is a pearl of wisdom - folk should check it out for themselves and then decide whether it's worth buying.

 

[zozotroll]

Definatly not a turkey. Perhaps 2 pages have the errors that are being discussed. But people dont talk all that much aboput what they like.

I like the new carrreeers, and the expanded event tables. I like the ticket system. And when I read it in detail, I expect to like the HQ section.

As a matter of fact, i like the equipment section. A couple of descriptions sound weird, but on the whole, it is a great product.

And Matt poped in and told us the equipment book is still in the future, so dont think this is the end of cool gear.

 

[EDG]

Think of it this way: if the only things you know about the book are gross conceptual errors that ought to be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer, that could be taken as a good indication that all the other things that you have not yet heard about are also going to be garbage.

Personally I don't know one type of gun from another (or from something that isn't a gun), all I'd care about is that I get more shooty stuff and I wouldn't even notice that a howitzer (big shooty rocket thing, right? ) is called something it shouldn't be. So I don't think the (massively overblown, IMO) problems are "intuitively obvious to the most casual observer" by any means.

Ditto for the frag gun. I don't care how the bloody fuses work, I just care that it goes boom over someone's head - the technical details really aren't that important in an expendable shell that has a lifespan of a few seconds .

 

[zozotroll]

Now you are where most of us are on planets. Place to land, trade, get fuel, maybe shoot somebody for no good reason..Not all that worried if it can really exist or not.

 

[EDG]

Now you are where most of us are on planets. Place to land, trade, get fuel, maybe shoot somebody for no good reason..Not all that worried if it can really exist or not.

And that's fine. You won't see me shrieking about how nobody should buy a book with unrealistic planets in it though. (hell, I've got d20 Future - which talks about some stars being green. A glaring howler, certainly, but since the rest of the book is pretty good and since I know better than that, I can just ignore it and replace it with the right thing and be done with it).

 

[Infojunky]

I want to point out I was only frustrated with 2 paragraphs in an entire book.

It is worth while purchase overall.

 

[cbrunish]

Have to put my 2 cents in. At first I was bothered by the term howitzer for the AT Gun. Mainly because the howitzer is an indirect weapon and also an area affect weapon. But when I retired it was from an Artillery unit (but as a Cbt Medic), and I did pick up alot on the artillery side of things. If you want to make a howitzer weapon then just use the AT Gun and mulitply its range by 20 and the radius to be approx 50 meters (the current Paladin has an approx range of 15 K with a blast radius of 50 meters).

But as for the book Mercenary. I thought it was an excellent buy. I would recommend it for anybody getting into Traveller. The skills and characters were excellent. Hell everything was written nicely. These small issues should not keep some one from buying this product. 8)

 

[Emryys]

Having briefly perused my copy....

Careers:
Nice find was the Air Force and Wet Navy Careers. I liked them from Sup 4.
The expanded Mishap and Events tables are a nice touch, even having them for the original Army and Marines careers.
The Wartime events table should definately add some "Character" to your Merc!
I also like how they have rules for adding the new skills to the core careers tables, good thinking.

Tickets:
The first thing I thought of when I was looking over the ticket creation tables was how this much depth would be great for making patrons. This isn't a slag against 760 (I own it and find it very useful), but having tables to create missions, combined with the generic patrons of 760 would be awesome... maybe I'll have to make some tables...Hmmm
Looks very thorough and useful... now to plug tables into NBOS Inspiration Pad Pro

Combat rules:
It'll take some time to digest all this, but it looks like it adds some cool dimensions to combat as well as a larger scale...

HQ & Bases:
More good info it seems... here is where more pics could have been helpful. A possible supplement would be HQ deckplans with stats and personel.

Equipment:
Can always use more...
I'm not that worried about perfect realism as long as the new rules/stuff don't break the "game". Nothing worse then when players discover a piece of equipment that works so well that the whole universe should be using nothing but it...

One thing that could be helpful is make a "quicksheet" of tables for combat things at the back of the book for photocopy purposes, it really helps for gameplay.
Perhaps in future products...

Overall looks like nothing wasteful here

*All of this is of course IMHO only...

 

[RandyT0001]

And that's fine. You won't see me shrieking about how nobody should buy a book with unrealistic planets in it though. (hell, I've got d20 Future - which talks about some stars being green. A glaring howler, certainly, but since the rest of the book is pretty good and since I know better than that, I can just ignore it and replace it with the right thing and be done with it).

Isn't that what Infojunky was basically doing. He knows more about artillery than the average person and was providing more information to all of us about the deficiencies of the book in that regard so that if one chooses to he can adjust it to be more realistic. If his corrections don't play an important part in your way of playing the game then don't comment but just ignore them. Isn't that what you like to see happen when publically proclaimed dis-interested people make seemingly to you irrelevant posts about realistic planetary generation in those types of threads?

I didn't see him say "don't buy Mercenary," but he is providing additional information so those so inclined can properly adjust for the mistakes therein.

 

[GypsyComet]

I've got d20 Future - which talks about some stars being green. A glaring howler, certainly, but since the rest of the book is pretty good and since I know better than that, I can just ignore it and replace it with the right thing and be done with it).

http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q72.html

To be fair, I've seen references to green stars, but they are a very rare combination of output spectrum and something between the star and Earth that filters the light emitted in a particular way.

Oh, and D20 Future is so Pulpy that green stars should be a common occurrence. One of the clear indicators of the presence of Old Ones, Boskonians, or Vogons.

 

[EDG]

Isn't that what Infojunky was basically doing. He knows more about artillery than the average person and was providing more information to all of us about the deficiencies of the book in that regard so that if one chooses to he can adjust it to be more realistic.

I didn't see him say "don't buy Mercenary," but he is providing additional information so those so inclined can properly adjust for the mistakes therein.

I didn't say that he specifically was telling people not to buy Mercenary... but some people have been making a bigger deal out of the inaccuracies than necessary I think. They're not book-killers, they're not OTU killers, and they're easily ignorable and correctable.

 

[Alan Hume]

Yes, it is an excellent book
but for me the hardware spoils it

Alan

 

[Vile]

This highlights a problem with following the CT book-naming conventions. I thought I was coming at MGT without preconceptions, but now that I've read some in-depth reviews of the book I realize I expected Mercenary to be more-or-less the same as LBB4 of the same name. Clearly it isn't - it's a book primarily designed to let you run and play mercenary campaigns.

So, I wonder what the gear book Matt hinted at will be ... Striker, perhaps?

 

[cmdrx]

Got MGT:Merc this weekend at my LGS. Now that Traveller has support they will start ordering the books (yay!)

Overall I was pleased with it. I remeber and still have the original CT book 4. I liked the way MG expanded on the ticket system, lots of adventure possibilities there. The new classes enhanced, but did not overpower the current system. I was curious as to why there was no rules for military academies and OTC. Perhaps in High Guard (Naval Academy, Flight School?)

And now we come to the crux of the matter, Ironmongery. As most of you old timers know, I'm a major gearhead. This was the first section I went to. I was pleased to see Carbines return, albeit as a form of SMG. I noticed also that a specific skill specialty was added just for them, where in MT (the earliest version I can think of) they were included in Rifleman or Combat Rifleman. I am going to include it to those characters already made using Core Rules but at Rifle -1.

Some here have made comments about the Magrail guns. I looked at those and thought them to be no more than large calibre gauss guns, similar to what I already made for earlier editions, most recently T20, and that is how I am treating them IMTU. No flying discs, just 8mm gauss rounds, maybe larger. Simple solution.

Artilliery Battle Dress, that's going to take a bit more work. These are more like a fusion of Standard Battledress and an Exo-Frame, perhaps even a higher tech version of the Combat Walkers from 2300AD. I can easily see X-TEK building stuff like this, but not for the general public, at least not leagaly...

All in all, good book. And now I await High Guard with as much patience as I can muster...