New Player Questions

[TheLonelySandPerson]

Hello! I'm pretty new to Traveller, and I'm just looking for some clarifications about chargen.

First, the flowchart seems to be... uh... really off. I saw the errata/clarification that you do get an advancement roll regardless of whether you attempt to earn commission, but I still have questions:
1. If you succeed on Advancement in the same term as you earn Commission, does the advancement apply to your officer rank or your enlisted rank?
2. If you take Pre-Career Education, you do still age 4 years and will start your first actual career at age 22, right?
3. On the first term in each career (except the first career, of course) you only gain one skill at 0 for Basic Training instead of rolling on a skill table, right?
4. Prisoner event #5 doesn't list a difficulty. Should it be 8+ like the other events?
5. If you have a mishap as a Prisoner, do you still forego your advancement roll and therefore have no chance to get paroled? If not, can you still earn an advancement in addition to being paroled?
6. More generally, I guess, if you have a mishap in a career you cannot be ejected from, do you immediately go back and start a new term, or do you continue the process for that term?
7. If you fail a parole roll, are you forced to continue character creation?
8. LIkewise, if you roll a 12 on your advancement roll, are you forced to continue character creation?

I collected some other questions and concerns while I was waiting for my account to be approved, so, uh, here goes.
9. The price for a TL 11 laser pistol power pack is the same in the core book and CFC, but it still seems wrong. The TL 9 power pack costs half what the gun (which comes with a power pack) costs, which makes sense, but the TL 11 power pack costs the same as the entire gun-plus-power-pack combo. So it seems like I would never want to buy a spare power pack when I could get a spare power pack plus a spare gun for the same price. Is this right? Or are you really supposed to buy the power pack separately despite what it says in the Energy Weapons intro?
10. On the same note, are slugthrowers also supposed to come with a full magazine?
11. What is the "appropriate specialty" for firing the fixed weapons on a space fighter? None of the Gunnery specialties seem to apply.
12. The core rules and the Vehicle Handbook seem to disagree about the bonuses and penalties for off-roading. Core says normal vehicles are -2 speed and DM-2 control off-road and can't cross rough terrain, while offroad and tracked vehicles are normal off-road and take those same penalties in rough terrain. Vehicle Handbook says off-roaders get +1 off-road, ATVs get +2, and tracks get +4. I assume these are not meant to be used in concert, and I can certainly cobble together something sensible, but I'd like to see if there's any official word on how that's all supposed to work.

On a more story/flavor note, lucky number...
13. What sort of Flyer would a Navy pilot typically operate to gain the Flyer skill? It seems like almost everything they would fly (fighters, shuttles, launches) would use Pilot (small craft) instead. Army and Marines, sure, lots of Flyer (grav), but unless we regularly have highly-skilled Navy pilots driving the equivalent of forklifts or being assigned to dirtside garrison duty in Firehammers...

 

[Linwood]

Partial answers:

(2) - Yes
(3) - Yes
(11) - I would go by TL. If it’s a starfaring Navy then flyer(grav) is most likely. But it’s up to you.

 

[Anonymous]

13. What sort of Flyer would a Navy pilot typically operate to gain the Flyer skill? It seems like almost everything they would fly (fighters, shuttles, launches) would use Pilot (small craft) instead. Army and Marines, sure, lots of Flyer (grav), but unless we regularly have highly-skilled Navy pilots driving the equivalent of forklifts or being assigned to dirtside garrison duty in Firehammers...

serious answer: space fighters might be asked to fly in atmosphere, you probably learn conventional airplane first. also if your fancy antigrav thrusters are damaged how do you land?

joke answer: going by military pilot sterotypes. "antigrav golf cart" because ground contact vehicles are just plain dirty and the golf must go on.

 

[Garran]

#4: Yes. Difficulty defaults to 8 if nothing is listed.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

1. If you succeed on Advancement in the same term as you earn Commission, does the advancement apply to your officer rank or your enlisted rank?

Make the rolls in turn. First Commission potentially gaining you rank O1 instantly, then Advancement potentially increasing your current rank. If you are an officer you don't have an enlisted rank anymore.

2. If you take Pre-Career Education, you do still age 4 years and will start your first actual career at age 22, right?

Yes, it takes four years. It can be taken in terms one to three, not just before the first career.

3. On the first term in each career (except the first career, of course) you only gain one skill at 0 for Basic Training instead of rolling on a skill table, right?

I generally follow p16 rather than the flowchart on p10.

Just getting a single skill-0 instead of a skill roll is too mean for my taste, so I use both skill roll and Basic Training. Might be a house rule, but it seems to be what p16 indicates...

4. Prisoner event #5 doesn't list a difficulty. Should it be 8+ like the other events?

Default is Average (8+), if nothing is specified use 8+.

Note that if no difficulty is listed for a check, you can always assume it is Average (8+).

5. If you have a mishap as a Prisoner, do you still forego your advancement roll and therefore have no chance to get paroled? If not, can you still earn an advancement in addition to being paroled?

Leaving the Prisoner Career
A Traveller may not normally leave or be ejected from this career – not even mishaps will force them to leave.

The Mishap will not eject you from the career, so I assume you continue the rolls, including Advancement, as usual.

6. More generally, I guess, if you have a mishap in a career you cannot be ejected from, do you immediately go back and start a new term, or do you continue the process for that term?

Core p16 says continue, Core p10 says start a new term (and/or go to skill gain), take your pick. I follow p16 and continue as usual.

7. If you fail a parole roll, are you forced to continue character creation?
8. LIkewise, if you roll a 12 on your advancement roll, are you forced to continue character creation?

Yes, unless you start playing with the characters still in the career. You could presumably start a campaign in prison.

At the end of each term in the prisoner career, if the Traveller’s Advancement roll is greater than their Parole Threshold, it means their prison sentence has come to an end and they leave this career. Otherwise, they may not leave this career and must continue in it for another term.

If you roll a natural 12, then you must continue in this career. You are too valuable to lose and will be strong-armed into staying.

9. The price for a TL 11 laser pistol power pack is the same in the core book and CFC, but it still seems wrong. The TL 9 power pack costs half what the gun (which comes with a power pack) costs, which makes sense, but the TL 11 power pack costs the same as the entire gun-plus-power-pack combo. So it seems like I would never want to buy a spare power pack when I could get a spare power pack plus a spare gun for the same price. Is this right? Or are you really supposed to buy the power pack separately despite what it says in the Energy Weapons intro?

Yes, that seems to be a mistake. The power pack should presumably be cheaper than a weapon including the same power pack.

10. On the same note, are slugthrowers also supposed to come with a full magazine?

I assume ammunition is bought separately, but MgT is quite simplified: ammunition is barely specified. Note that ammunition has no specified weight.

I guess it's up to you if you want to keep track of ammunition. Mongoose has a habit of creative vagueness to allow you to do what you want.

11. What is the "appropriate specialty" for firing the fixed weapons on a space fighter? None of the Gunnery specialties seem to apply.

The same as usual, i.e Gunner(Turret). Fixed mount space combat weapons are still "Turret Weapons".

If you like, you could add a speciality for Fixed Mounts.

12. The core rules and the Vehicle Handbook seem to disagree about the bonuses and penalties for off-roading. Core says normal vehicles are -2 speed and DM-2 control off-road and can't cross rough terrain, while offroad and tracked vehicles are normal off-road and take those same penalties in rough terrain. Vehicle Handbook says off-roaders get +1 off-road, ATVs get +2, and tracks get +4. I assume these are not meant to be used in concert, and I can certainly cobble together something sensible, but I'd like to see if there's any official word on how that's all supposed to work.

I assume they are supposed to be the same thing, but the VH is more detailed. Note that trait Off-Roader is not the same as in the Core book.

I agree that only the best mod from (Off-Roader, ATV, and Tracked) can be used.

13. What sort of Flyer would a Navy pilot typically operate to gain the Flyer skill? It seems like almost everything they would fly (fighters, shuttles, launches) would use Pilot (small craft) instead. Army and Marines, sure, lots of Flyer (grav), but unless we regularly have highly-skilled Navy pilots driving the equivalent of forklifts or being assigned to dirtside garrison duty in Firehammers...

If you get the Flyer skill, you get the Flyer skill, not the Pilot skill.

You get to choose the speciality. Normally I would probably choose Grav rather than, say, Airship, but that is entirely up to the player and the campaign.

 

[Condottiere]

At some point, mobile aerospace defence revolves around flying tanks, since with a turret, your nose can point one way, and your mighty stick another.

Also, no runways.

Unless you're involved in logistics and communications, this would be assigned to pilots who have have taste for ground attack, since with purely gravitationally motivated vehicles you're going to be very much planet bound; the carrier would have to go low orbit for recovery, whereas with a launch tube the grav vehicles would get enough of a nudge to catapult them to an altitude where their motors gain traction.

 

[TheLonelySandPerson]

12. The core rules and the Vehicle Handbook seem to disagree about the bonuses and penalties for off-roading. Core says normal vehicles are -2 speed and DM-2 control off-road and can't cross rough terrain, while offroad and tracked vehicles are normal off-road and take those same penalties in rough terrain. Vehicle Handbook says off-roaders get +1 off-road, ATVs get +2, and tracks get +4. I assume these are not meant to be used in concert, and I can certainly cobble together something sensible, but I'd like to see if there's any official word on how that's all supposed to work.

I assume they are supposed to be the same thing, but the VH is more detailed. Note that trait Off-Roader is not the same as in the Core book.

I agree that only the best mod from (Off-Roader, ATV, and Tracked) can be used.

I think you're missing my point. I don't think they intended for an ATV on normal off-road terrain to handle better than it does on a road. If we use both of these rules, it takes no penalty for driving off-road, and also gets DM+2 on control rolls. It seems like they had intended to say ATVs and tracked vehicles could drive offroad at DM-2 (per usual) and in rough terrain at DM-4, then give them a DM+2 or DM+4 to counteract the penalties. But that's not what it says.

My house rule would be that going off-road gives you a DM-2 and rough terrain is DM-4. Off-roaders reduce that penalty by 1, ATVs by 2, and tracked vehicles by 3 (but never offer a bonus). Normal vehicles just can't handle rough terrain at all. Speed is reduced by the same number as the DM, to a minimum of Idle.

After all, tanks can drive over trenches and obstacles pretty well, but still can't blow past them at full speed, and they do risk getting stuck. (Which is what the jump boosters are for.)

13. What sort of Flyer would a Navy pilot typically operate to gain the Flyer skill? It seems like almost everything they would fly (fighters, shuttles, launches) would use Pilot (small craft) instead. Army and Marines, sure, lots of Flyer (grav), but unless we regularly have highly-skilled Navy pilots driving the equivalent of forklifts or being assigned to dirtside garrison duty in Firehammers...

If you get the Flyer skill, you get the Flyer skill, not the Pilot skill.

You get to choose the speciality. Normally I would probably choose Grav rather than, say, Airship, but that is entirely up to the player and the campaign.

I'm asking, from an in-universe perspective, what grav vehicles a Navy fighter pilot would typically be called upon to fly. To put it another way, I just rolled Flyer for a Navy pilot. What is the narrative that this result is telling about the duties my character has been assigned for this term?

 

[TheLonelySandPerson]

At some point, mobile aerospace defence revolves around flying tanks, since with a turret, your nose can point one way, and your mighty stick another.

Also, no runways.

Unless you're involved in logistics and communications, this would be assigned to pilots who have have taste for ground attack, since with purely gravitationally motivated vehicles you're going to be very much planet bound; the carrier would have to go low orbit for recovery, whereas with a launch tube the grav vehicles would get enough of a nudge to catapult them to an altitude where their motors gain traction.

I mean... flying tanks and gunships is explicitly what the Army/Cavalry career is about. Navy pilot calls out space fighters, shuttles, and other small craft, which are all Pilot (small craft), not Flyer (grav). I could certainly see armored cav making orbital drops as you describe, but they're still Army units and maybe Marines.

For that matter, Flyer is present in EVERY Navy assignment, even for engineers and ship crew. The hell are these guys DOING?...

Edit: Then again, the Background Skills section suggests that someone who grew up as a belter would know Flyer as a background skill, so maybe that's the answer -- it also covers shuttlepods, runabouts, and maintenance boats. I have no idea what specialization that would use. Grav?...

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, a diameter around any floating rock; I believe in MongoVerse it's a hard one thousand two hundred and fifty around anything defined as a planetary body, assuming High Guard is used as a guide regarding lifters.

I'd base it on local gravity.

It's unclear if you can use [vehicle] anti gravity motors to poot along at one percent efficiency outside orbit.

 

[Linwood]

Even fighter jocks and sub drivers need trucks and HMMVs to get around the base.

Keep in mind that some tables (like service skills) are meant to apply to both officers and enlisted. So Flyer might seem an odd skill for a Navy starship pilot, but it’s standard work for the Able Spacehand who has to drive those hotshot pilots around groundside.

Also consider the skill you roll/pick doesn’t necessarily reflect the character’s actual duties during the term. The character may have picked up the skill during their off-duty time.

 

[Condottiere]

It's three to four learning to fly a car than pilot a spaceship, in the Navy.

Though I wouldn't have placed piloting in the basic skill set, just like I wouldn't expect a Stewardess to be able to fly a passenger aeroplane, either.

 

[TheLonelySandPerson]

In theory, a diameter around any floating rock; I believe in MongoVerse it's a hard one thousand two hundred and fifty around anything defined as a planetary body, assuming High Guard is used as a guide regarding lifters.

I'd base it on local gravity.

It's unclear if you can use [vehicle] anti gravity motors to poot along at one percent efficiency outside orbit.

Well, artificial gravity operates just fine far from planets, and M-drives are referred to as "grav thruster plates" in at least one spot, so not all grav tech relies on planetary gravity. I don't think there's an issue with that -- a small pod could easily use the same controls as a traditional grav vehicle without relying on exactly the same principles.

Keep in mind that some tables (like service skills) are meant to apply to both officers and enlisted. So Flyer might seem an odd skill for a Navy starship pilot, but it’s standard work for the Able Spacehand who has to drive those hotshot pilots around groundside.

It's not in the Service Skills. It appears in every one of the specialized Navy assignment lists.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I think you're missing my point.

Not really missing as much as avoiding thinking about it. I agree it makes no sense and needs house-ruling.

After all, tanks can drive over trenches and obstacles pretty well, but still can't blow past them at full speed, and they do risk getting stuck.

Remember all vehicles are two speed bands slower off road.

I'm asking, from an in-universe perspective, what grav vehicles a Navy fighter pilot would typically be called upon to fly. To put it another way, I just rolled Flyer for a Navy pilot. What is the narrative that this result is telling about the duties my character has been assigned for this term?

Many ships have vehicles that needs driving.

A Naval base operates a lot of vehicles. How many cars, jeeps, and trucks does the USN or USAF operate?

The Navy ferries around Marines. Naval boats and vehicles are presumably crewed by the Navy.

A naval Pilot learning Flyer might have cross-trained with the Marines for combat support.

 

[TheLonelySandPerson]

Remember all vehicles are two speed bands slower off road.

I had read the speed reduction as a penalty which ATVs ignored, since it restates both penalties when it talks about ATVs in rough terrain.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I had read the speed reduction as a penalty which ATVs ignored, since it restates both penalties when it talks about ATVs in rough terrain.

Agreed, Off-Roader, Tracked, and ATV vehicles basically treats gentle terrain as road.