Mongoose 2300AD Progress Report

[Ewan]

Not just the French. The Germans are having problems with some former Bavarian colonies that don't want to be part of the reunified Germany.

Plenty of scope for military and espionage campaigns then.

 

[aelius]

Not just the French. The Germans are having problems with some former Bavarian colonies that don't want to be part of the reunified Germany.

Plenty of scope for military and espionage campaigns then.

2300 never had a problem with those. Merchant games are harder though. Ships, even small ones, are hideously expensive and trade is more difficult to deal with than in 3I Traveller.
It is possible to make a marginal living running expensive goods to out of the way places with something like a Thorez, but the authorities usually frown on that sort of thing. 8)
It is possible to play very different games though. I have run everything in 2300 from the Beyern campaign I mentioned up thread to military games against the Kafers. I ran one three year long campaign that never left Earth. The characters had no interest in what was going on "out in the colonies". They did however get to hear the news reports (pulled from the Invasion sourcebook) every time the Kafers advanced further in the direction of Earth.
THAT made for great background.

 

[silburnl]

The key to making use of "Backdoor" is probably going to resolve to a statement that brown dwarf stars are pretty common, but not everywhere, and in the context of 2300AD, rarely in useful spots. Backdoor is the only one so far.

Whilst I accept that the decision to keep the starmap in it's original format is a done deal, I did have a soft spot for a more radical solution to the astrography problem - which was to drop the 'maximum stutterwarp' threshold to a lower value (5 ly or something) and then paint in the 'old' arms by dropping in conveniently positioned brown dwarfs to recreate the canonical star-to-star links.

It didn't address the issue of a bunch of stars getting moved well away from their 80s era locations of course and was probably too much work, but I thought it was a neat hack.

Regards
Luke

 

[Sturn]

I did have a soft spot for a more radical solution to the astrography problem - which was to drop the 'maximum stutterwarp' threshold to a lower value (5 ly or something) and then paint in the 'old' arms by dropping in conveniently positioned brown dwarfs to recreate the canonical star-to-star links.

That's creative, but I would still be concerned over what that would do with the 2300AD-verse. You would suddenly have a ton of brown dwarf waystations plopped down along the Arms. Many players won't realize at all that the starmap is obsolete in someways. Others won't care even if they were told so. But, if you are a referee with players who are very astronomy centered, then that sounds like a nice plan.

Would the location of the brown dwarfs be pretty much speculation? If so, you might be replacing an out-of-date starmap with a purely speculated one?

I also like the idea hinted at above about tweeking the gravity well requirements from canon. A.i. you need a star's gravity, not just a planet's, to discharge. So maybe say that Brown Dwarfs don't have the mass to discharge, but perhaps a few of the very largest can? If this cutoff makes some gas giants large enough to allow discharge, I don't see a problem with it - you have to get well inner system to discharge via the star or you can get close to a gas giant in the outter system. I'm astronomy deficient so someone else may be able to answer if there is a cutoff mass that makes this work? If it would, the only change to canon would be that ships are circling the system's star or more often an outter gas giant before heading to the target planet. So, some stations might crop up around gas giants that weren't in canon.

 

[aelius]

Saying a ship has to go all the way in to the primary would change the setting considerably. Ships use outer planets to discharge to save a great deal of time. Also it is much more stealthy. Kafers and human blockade runners would lurk in the outer system to bypass occupied systems without combat. Both sides scattered mines in the orbits of outer system planets to catch these blockade runners.
I believe the canon limit for discharge was stated to be the point where the gravity field approaches 1/10th G. This was also the level where the stutterwarp becomes relatively useless for anything more than station keeping maneuvers.

 

[Colin]

2300AD Outline

Introduction and Acknowledgements ✔

Chapter 1: Background ✔

Chapter 2: The Core Worlds ✔

Chapter 3: The Frontier ✔

Chapter 4: Foundations and Corporations ✔

Chapter 5: Aliens of 2300AD ✔

Chapter 6: Character Generation ✔

Chapter 7: Augmentations and DNA modification ✔

Chapter 8: Technology Essay ✔

Chapter 9: Equipment and Weapons✔

Chapter 10: Cortex-hacking ✔

Chapter 11: Vehicles ✔

Chapter 12: Starship Design ✔

Chapter 13: Starships, spacecraft, and space stations ✔

Chapter 14: Space Operations and Space Combat ✔

Chapter 15: Space Encounters ✔

Chapter 16: NPCs and Animals ✔

Chapter 17: GM’s Handbook ✔

 

[gloomhound]

You are killing me man.

 

[Ewan]

Looks good

 

[Colin]

And it's off. To Mongoose, that is.

Many thanks to the people who have helped me over the last few months, your assistance has been invaluable.

Now I just need to wait for Matt to open his inbox, and scream at the sheer size of the thing.

 

[Jame Rowe]

And it's off. To Mongoose, that is.

Many thanks to the people who have helped me over the last few months, your assistance has been invaluable.

Now I just need to wait for Matt to open his inbox, and scream at the sheer size of the thing.

And if I can hear it from where I am, I'll know it's either really great, or really horrible. (And I suspect it'll be really great.) :lol:

I am SO looking forward to this.

 

[IanBruntlett]

I'm relatively new to this Is 2300AD related to the 3rd Imperium in any way?

Roughly how much will the 2300AD book(s) cost?

I've got a shelving problem. A bookcase shelf (just one shelf) full of books and a fair number of Mongoose Traveller hardbacks collapsed. The book case is OK but I'm down one shelf

 

[BFalcon]

I've got a shelving problem. A bookcase shelf (just one shelf) full of books and a fair number of Mongoose Traveller hardbacks collapsed. The book case is OK but I'm down one shelf

I've got plenty of shelving here - I can give them a home!! :lol:

I know what you mean though - my Traveller collection is growing to be one of my largest - Mongoose are a bit like Palladium in their release schedule, in that you struggle to keep up sometimes...

 

[hdan]

Is 2300AD related to the 3rd Imperium in any way?

No, it's a separate setting with different assumptions.

 

[Sturn]

Glad to hear this Colin. Congrats. What are the predictions now for a release date now that this is done?

@Ian

Check wiki for a description of 2300AD. I think drivethrurpg still has a free synopsis of the setting also?

 

[rust]

Is 2300AD related to the 3rd Imperium in any way?

No, it is a smaller setting with a much shorter history, a significantly
lower technology level and a slightly more "hard" science fiction ap-
proach than the Imperium. Highly recommended.

 

[zero]

Its tempting. Very tempting. However I'm doing Cstars online via Pbp, same with Ctech, playing Traveller with the 3I as my main game now (see my Darrian campaign thread) and I'm also planning to play Call of Cthulhu using Secrets of Japan and Dreamlands for when we fancy a change :lol:


...I may end up getting it anyway :lol:

 

[Pentapod earplug]

Great! So what happens now?

 

[Colin]

The Mongoose folks look it over, send it back to me a few times, and commission artwork. Then then lay it out, add the art, print it, and sell a bajillion copies. (I hope)

In the meantime, I start work on the supplements. We're just hashing out what those should be right now.

 

[Pentapod earplug]

Thats even greater. Is there a tentative list of supplements anywhere?

 

[Colin]

In my email to Matt, yes...

There will be adventures, and sourcebooks for each of the Arms and for the Core. Sourcebooks will include worlds, starships, unique vehicles and technologies, adventure seeds, bestiaries, and other fun stuff.

Campaign guides, perhaps, for the major campaign types (Ground Military, Space Military, Troubleshooting, Exploring, Merchant and Illegal)

A books of equipment, weapons, and vehicles.

Likely other stuff....