Muster out with a scout ship - A question

[rinku]

Yeah. Those stray helium atoms get everywhere...

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, unrefined could be untreated sewage.

 

[rinku]

I knew we shouldn't have drawn water downstream of that arcology...

 

[rinku]

But actually that's a fair point. Not the hydrogen fuel tanks or their plumbing, but the water intake stuff would need regular cleaning.

 

[ottarrus]

To the OP one of the downsides to free fuel and maintenance is that the IISS will debrief you and download your ship's transponder log for inspection.
IISSanta will know when you've been naughty!

 

[boggo2300]

To the OP one of the downsides to free fuel and maintenance is that the IISS will debrief you and download your ship's transponder log for inspection.
IISSanta will now when you've been naughty!

if you haven't been naughty enough they will punish you, it IS the IISS after all

 

[Vormaerin]

Just realised (after 45 years!) that there has never been any penalty for using unrefined fuel for anything aside from Jump. Power plant and M-Drive don't care. Which does seem sensible. No need for a fuel processor on a non-starship or outpost.

Just FYI, "never" is incorrect. There was originally a penalty in CT. In Book 2 (1977), you rolled for drive failure distinct from misjump when using unrefined fuel. This caused all three drives to fail. It was still tested with each jump, so you technically couldn't have drive failure without a jump, but drive failure did affect the whole engine. The neat thing about this version was the +1 per jump continued even if you switched to refined fuel if you didn't purge the whole system with a week's downtime at a starport. Check was 11+, +1 per jump made after using unrefined fuel.

In Book 2 (1981), Drive failure was still distinct from misjump. You needed to roll a 13+ but you tested each week of operation, whether you jumped or not. +1 for unrefined fuel, +1 for each missing engineer, +1 per week annual maintenance was overdue. If you had drive failure, you rolled 7+ for each of the power plant, maneuver drive, and jump drive to see which ones were damaged enough to be shut down.

I don't recall if it still existed in MegaTraveller for not. Pretty sure it isn't in any other editions of the game.

 

[Condottiere]

Should have made unrefined fuel a customization option, with no or lesser penalty for misjump.

 

[actionman]

Also, there's Scouts and there's... scouts.

Senior Scout Harrigan, decorated hero of the Querion Incident and minor Subsector media personality on Spacebook:
"Oh no, sir! You're money's no good here - whatever you need we're happy to provide!"

Former Scout Moople, record holder for being found drifting at the edge of space with no memory of what happened, and suspected of being responsible for the Querion Incident:

"Jensen, escort this one to the fuel station. And keep a VERY close eye on them. That'll be Cr2000, Moople. In advance."

Hmmm, if the policy is arbitrarily enforced or interpreted as one pleases, then things could easily devolve into a 1000Cr donation to the station administrator's retirement fund as a token of gratitude for the free fuel and maintenance.

 

[actionman]

To the OP one of the downsides to free fuel and maintenance is that the IISS will debrief you and download your ship's transponder log for inspection.
IISSanta will now when you've been naughty!

if you haven't been naughty enough they will punish you, it IS the IISS after all

But, there are only a few vague laws, and the scout is detached, not under IISS regulations. So unless said scout is nuking planets and taking the survivors as slaves while restricting interstellar trade, I don't think the station administrators would have much to say. There's probably a staff intelligence officer who looks at transponder records then interviews the detached scouts in an informal setting.

 

[CordwainerFish]

To the OP one of the downsides to free fuel and maintenance is that the IISS will debrief you and download your ship's transponder log for inspection.
IISSanta will now when you've been naughty!

I'd think that not only would the Scouts not drop a dime on you, they'd be happy to have information from outside the line. They're not an enforcement agency, they're an intelligence agency.

 

[Sigtrygg]

When in doubt consult the classics...

"The Detached Duty Office was created to keep track of all retired and detached Scout personnel in order to be able to swiftly recontact them and return them to active service in an emergency. In addition, the Detached Duty Office controls all surplus IISS craft (scout ships and courier vessels) making them available to some ex-Scouts if that will help the llSS in its missions. The office is divided into two branches - Records and Intelligence.
The Records Blanch maintains documentation on all Scouts serving an detached duty. Virtually all former Scouts fit this classification and are subject to recall for military service or for specific scout missions. Normally, however, only those Scouts with surplus Scout vessels on loan to them are actively monitored.
The Intelligence Branch is an information gathering agency for the Scouts. Its primary function is to debrief detached duty Scouts when they visit scout bases for refueling or maintenance on their vessels. The Intelligence Branch also maintains active agents (spies) in areas where information is vitally needed

The Security Branch is charged with providing security and law enforcement for the Scout Service. Security Branch Scouts serve as police enforcers on Scout property, as commandos or shipboard light troops, for special Scout activities, and as clandestine agents for Intelligence Branch. Agents of the IISS Security Branch have great authority to arrest, detain. or question individuals suspected of violations of Imperial law, and can demand cooperation from local authorities as the need arises."

They are the only detailed major Imperial service that has definitive powers of arrest.

 

[Geir]

When in doubt consult the classics...

"The Detached Duty Office was created to keep track of all retired and detached Scout personnel in order to be able to swiftly recontact them and return them to active service in an emergency. In addition, the Detached Duty Office controls all surplus IISS craft (scout ships and courier vessels) making them available to some ex-Scouts if that will help the llSS in its missions. The office is divided into two branches - Records and Intelligence.
The Records Blanch maintains documentation on all Scouts serving an detached duty. Virtually all former Scouts fit this classification and are subject to recall for military service or for specific scout missions. Normally, however, only those Scouts with surplus Scout vessels on loan to them are actively monitored.
The Intelligence Branch is an information gathering agency for the Scouts. Its primary function is to debrief detached duty Scouts when they visit scout bases for refueling or maintenance on their vessels. The Intelligence Branch also maintains active agents (spies) in areas where information is vitally needed

The Security Branch is charged with providing security and law enforcement for the Scout Service. Security Branch Scouts serve as police enforcers on Scout property, as commandos or shipboard light troops, for special Scout activities, and as clandestine agents for Intelligence Branch. Agents of the IISS Security Branch have great authority to arrest, detain. or question individuals suspected of violations of Imperial law, and can demand cooperation from local authorities as the need arises."

They are the only detailed major Imperial service that has definitive powers of arrest.

Which would be a power of enforcement.
Couldn't remember is that was Classic or came in with that Imperial protective squad thing later on.

As for the origin of the WBH comment on Scout bases and costs for scout ships... pretty sure I plagiarized that rather than made stuff up, but didn't keep any notes on the source. Or else I plagiarized based on a faulty memory... which I suppose is called either confabulation or dementia depending upon the diagnosis.

 

[MasterGwydion]

When in doubt consult the classics...

"The Detached Duty Office was created to keep track of all retired and detached Scout personnel in order to be able to swiftly recontact them and return them to active service in an emergency. In addition, the Detached Duty Office controls all surplus IISS craft (scout ships and courier vessels) making them available to some ex-Scouts if that will help the llSS in its missions. The office is divided into two branches - Records and Intelligence.
The Records Blanch maintains documentation on all Scouts serving an detached duty. Virtually all former Scouts fit this classification and are subject to recall for military service or for specific scout missions. Normally, however, only those Scouts with surplus Scout vessels on loan to them are actively monitored.
The Intelligence Branch is an information gathering agency for the Scouts. Its primary function is to debrief detached duty Scouts when they visit scout bases for refueling or maintenance on their vessels. The Intelligence Branch also maintains active agents (spies) in areas where information is vitally needed

The Security Branch is charged with providing security and law enforcement for the Scout Service. Security Branch Scouts serve as police enforcers on Scout property, as commandos or shipboard light troops, for special Scout activities, and as clandestine agents for Intelligence Branch. Agents of the IISS Security Branch have great authority to arrest, detain. or question individuals suspected of violations of Imperial law, and can demand cooperation from local authorities as the need arises."

They are the only detailed major Imperial service that has definitive powers of arrest.

Love this! Thanks for sharing this.

 

[CordwainerFish]

Or else I plagiarized based on a faulty memory... which I suppose is called either confabulation or dementia depending upon the diagnosis.

I am in this picture and I don't like it.

 

[Sigtrygg]

You know if you are unsure about canon all you have to do is ask...

who needs an AI database.

 

[Endie]

Good catches by both @boggo2300 and @Limpin Legin

This kind of inconsistency really needs to be taken care of during the writing and development process. This is a prime example of what I mean whenever I complain of this kind of thing.

Mongoose needs a database person, even an unpaid volunteer/intern, to enter information from each Traveller canon book into a database that writers can check whenever they want to write about a particular subject or person, place, or thing for a new Traveller product.

I'm tempted to do it on my own, just to learn about databases and SQL, like set up the community version of MySQL. I'd learn some SQL, get familiarized the MySQL databases, and read Traveller books!

Maybe Mongoose has something like this already.

Edit:

I mean, here I am criticizing after the fact with no knowledge of the difficulties, production schedules, costs, and trade-offs that Mongoose has to make to bring a Traveller product to market. My own post reminds me of how Bethesda's Skyrim developers got irritated with the modding community complaining about problems with the game, and the devs commented unofficially that production schedules and cost cycles make the kind of quality control the modding community wanted almost impossible, and that modders have the freedom to work at their own pace to bring fixes and mods to the community.

Still this kind of inconsistency fragments the OTU even more along with all the other inconsistencies, obscurities, etc.

FYI in case you do embark on this sort of thing, you’d want to use a nosql, document-oriented db approach. Something like MongoDb, DynamoDB, elasticsearch etc.

It would also be a huge amount of work to do in this manner (though less than trying to use a sql db approach!)

 

[actionman]

FYI in case you do embark on this sort of thing, you’d want to use a nosql, document-oriented db approach. Something like MongoDb, DynamoDB, elasticsearch etc.

It would also be a huge amount of work to do in this manner (though less than trying to use a sql db approach!)

Great advice, thank you. It would be a hobby project.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Also, there's Scouts and there's... scouts.

Former Scout Moople, record holder for being found drifting at the edge of space with no memory of what happened, and suspected of being responsible for the Querion Incident:

"Jensen, escort this one to the fuel station. And keep a VERY close eye on them. That'll be Cr2000, Moople. In advance."

And assign "fumble fingers" Jenkins to his "maintenance", don't bother to detox him first either.

 

[actionman]

They are the only detailed major Imperial service that has definitive powers of arrest.

I don't think the rest of the Imperial feudal pyramid bothers with such niceties as "definitive powers".