Muster out with a scout ship - A question

[Condottiere]

Dazzle camouflage.

Potentially.

Possibly, the only time you shoot (low powered) laser beams at yourself.

 

[Vormaerin]

Annual maintenance is still a thing, the cost is just amortised over the year:

No specified down time though.

Yeah, but that changed in the Starship Operator's Manual. There's a whole section on how you can do "ongoing maintenance" instead of parking at the starport for 2 weeks.

 

[CordwainerFish]

Yeah, but that changed in the Starship Operator's Manual. There's a whole section on how you can do "ongoing maintenance" instead of parking at the starport for 2 weeks.

Pity, those two weeks are a great opportunity for the Travellers to get into trouble have some much-needed R&R.

 

[swordtart]

Yeah, but that changed in the Starship Operator's Manual. There's a whole section on how you can do "ongoing maintenance" instead of parking at the starport for 2 weeks.

Those rules are only an issue if you have that book (and it was way down on my priority list)

 

[Vormaerin]

The same is true of all the robot stuff people argue should be affecting how everything is done. *shrugs*

 

[Sigtrygg]

Is the Starship Operator's manual really a Mongoose Traveller Supplement? It uses T5 tropes more than HG 2022 rules...

and Singularity is going to change how computers are dealt with...

 

[swordtart]

The same is true of all the robot stuff people argue should be affecting how everything is done. *shrugs*

I am sure you can have a bundle of fun with just the $1 starter editions. Even with the supplements there are rules that I just don't agree with and house rule out.

I try not to argue against rules that I don't have the supplement for and try to cite references so people can come to their own conclusions. It is irritating to have someone argue that a rule is X and then discover they are misquoting or citing a previous edition without identifying it. I now have most editions, but some are too arcane to read cross from or use such a different baseline ruleset that extrapolation is a fools errand.

Once you have the Robot handbook it is hard not to find ways to replace virtually everything with a Robot. Once you realise that TL12 computer is tiny and cheap (which is exactly how it should be) then it is hard not to envisage Travellers festooned with computers steering their every action (much like society today).

When I was playing in the 80's and we first saw how big ships computers and hand comps were "in the future" we laughed derisively. Sadly the designers got that badly wrong and trying to recapture that "golden age" is just going to make it seem a bit silly to a modern audience. It is a way to play Traveller but it is not the "Right" way to play traveller. The "Right" way is whatever works for you.

 

[Sigtrygg]

"Once you realise that TL12 computer is tiny and cheap (which is exactly how it should be)"

They run AI software now too...

"In the Third Imperium and other regions of Charted Space, AI is a useful tool but one that is highly regimented and controlled. For various reasons – some quite valid – sophonts keep the lid on tightly when it comes to AI. For Humaniti, this means establishing stringent design limitations, and creating multiple fail-safes to prevent disasters from happening. AI is not allowed to operate independently; it is only allowed to think within very specific confines and only to achieve tightly defined goals. AI innovators can create brilliant computer minds but they must also create tools and safeguards to keep them in check."

 

[swordtart]

"Once you realise that TL12 computer is tiny and cheap (which is exactly how it should be)"

They run AI software now too...

"In the Third Imperium and other regions of Charted Space, AI is a useful tool but one that is highly regimented and controlled. For various reasons – some quite valid – sophonts keep the lid on tightly when it comes to AI. For Humaniti, this means establishing stringent design limitations, and creating multiple fail-safes to prevent disasters from happening. AI is not allowed to operate independently; it is only allowed to think within very specific confines and only to achieve tightly defined goals. AI innovators can create brilliant computer minds but they must also create tools and safeguards to keep them in check."

AI software is a spectrum and any software is only as good as the idiot that wrote it. These days people are lazy and use code generators rather than employ software engineers who actually understand the implications of adding that Class you found on the internet into your core systems. The time spent testing used to be equal to the time spent developing. With "minimum viable product" philosophy it is out the door before the requirements have been tested, let alone the implementation. It's OK because the consumer will test it

There is an old adage that software grows to just beyond the point you can maintain it. Until that point all the managers want more... just more damn it! After that point the software engineers are too busy patching the emergent issues to actual develop anything new. Software grows to fill the time and resources available to it often without corresponding function growth.

 

[Vormaerin]

I am sure you can have a bundle of fun with just the $1 starter editions. Even with the supplements there are rules that I just don't agree with and house rule out.

I try not to argue against rules that I don't have the supplement for and try to cite references so people can come to their own conclusions. It is irritating to have someone argue that a rule is X and then discover they are misquoting or citing a previous edition without identifying it. I now have most editions, but some are too arcane to read cross from or use such a different baseline ruleset that extrapolation is a fools errand.

Once you have the Robot handbook it is hard not to find ways to replace virtually everything with a Robot. Once you realise that TL12 computer is tiny and cheap (which is exactly how it should be) then it is hard not to envisage Travellers festooned with computers steering their every action (much like society today).

When I was playing in the 80's and we first saw how big ships computers and hand comps were "in the future" we laughed derisively. Sadly the designers got that badly wrong and trying to recapture that "golden age" is just going to make it seem a bit silly to a modern audience. It is a way to play Traveller but it is not the "Right" way to play traveller. The "Right" way is whatever works for you.

Okay. I don't see what any of that has to do with anything.

I pointed out that rules change over time. Another person said that a particular rule I mentioned hadn't changed. I pointed out where it had changed. You made a flippant comment that the rules don't count if you don't own them. I merely pointed out that this is true of a wide range of materials, using the Robot handbook as an example because you (or another poster) mentioned droids earlier.

I don't care what rules you use. I certainly don't use all the rules as written. And, in fact, earlier in this thread I said "use whichever rules you like".

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Yeah, but that changed in the Starship Operator's Manual. There's a whole section on how you can do "ongoing maintenance" instead of parking at the starport for 2 weeks.

Sigh.

Thanks, I'll check that out.

 

[swordtart]

Okay. I don't see what any of that has to do with anything.

I pointed out that rules change over time. Another person said that a particular rule I mentioned hadn't changed. I pointed out where it had changed. You made a flippant comment that the rules don't count if you don't own them. I merely pointed out that this is true of a wide range of materials, using the Robot handbook as an example because you (or another poster) mentioned droids earlier.

I don't care what rules you use. I certainly don't use all the rules as written. And, in fact, earlier in this thread I said "use whichever rules you like".

I thought I was agreeing with you.

My comment about supplements wasn't supposed to be flippant, it was supposed to recognise the reality that we are not all trying to collect every rule (though some of us will be) and that our game experience is going to to be limited by our resources and our investment appetite in each subgenre of the game. Having key rule changes buried in some obscure, tangentially useful, coffee table book is not an ideal way for those rules to be promogulated.

If I don't know a rule exists then I can hardly be faulted for not acknowledging it or accommodating it.

These were not criticisms and not aimed at you personally, they were general comments on the difficulty of discussing rules with a diverse community with widely varying experience bases. If someone says "Thus rule changed in Book X" then I know whether I can usefully comment on it as I know whether I have Book X. If there is some paraphrased rule interpretation without citation, I have to make a judgement on whether I agree with that statement based on what is written on the forum, I cannot verify against the source unless I have an encyclopaedic knowledge even assuming I even have that source book.

I think some supplements completely change the nature of the game. Robot Handbook was for me. Some of it was annoying, but it completely changed the nature of MTU from one with no droids in it (other than autochefs and autodocs) to one with droids everywhere. Something like the Imperial Navy Sourcebook on the other hand wouldn't impact my game in the slightest as I am not using that Empire or that Navy. The SOG seemed to be mostly fluff and I don't need more setting fluff to get in the way of how I have got used to things working.

Not everything I say is intended as a challenge to another persons opinion. Sometimes I just ponder things and occasionally people will straighten out a misconception or engage in an interesting discourse that might lead somewhere entirely unexpected.

 

[Condottiere]

What starship doesn't want to avoid that yearly checkup, where it gets annually probed?

 

[Vormaerin]

Sigh.

Thanks, I'll check that out.

I gather the intent is to allow ships that are operating on long range exploration, out in the wilds where there's no reliable A/B starports, criminal ships who want to avoid the more sophisticated ports, and so on to have a way of maintaining the ship. A fair bit of discussion of the complexities of doing various sorts of maintenance in less than ideal environments.

Just like there was a "Special exception" in Deepnight because it was a 20 year mission into the beyond.

 

[Condottiere]

You can always bring your own workshop, fabricators, and mechanics, with you.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I gather the intent is to allow ships that are operating on long range exploration, out in the wilds where there's no reliable A/B starports, criminal ships who want to avoid the more sophisticated ports, and so on to have a way of maintaining the ship. A fair bit of discussion of the complexities of doing various sorts of maintenance in less than ideal environments.

Just like there was a "Special exception" in Deepnight because it was a 20 year mission into the beyond.

Well, it's not new, it was in JTAS#24.

 

[Vormaerin]

Well, there's not very much that is utterly new in SOM. But the current version is applicable to all ships, not just ships with heavy crews and preplanned long distance exploration. Also, a lot more flavor text about what it involves and not just a couple lines of "you can do it if you spend the money and have the crew".

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Geir, you're not hallucinating. However, the emphasized (in red) phrase is not the only significant portion of the quoted text:

"If you roll this Benefit more than once, re-roll the result."

As an alternate to this a GM might allow the extra rolls to result in one of the larger scout craft from the Adventure Class ships book. Ones with more jump fuel, jump range etc. Might include more restrictions of course.

 

[Condottiere]

Expectations, and commitments, would be higher.

You're probably looking at the equivalent of three months out of the year, running errands.

 

[tytalan]

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.

I’m not sure it is an inconsistency. The WBH talks about maintenance which is not the same as refueling and supplies. Seems to me it’s like this you get fuel and other standard supplies but repairs are done at cost.