Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
That’s my thinking as well. Ditto virtual crew.
Ship's Brain Interface sizing and use
- Thread starter jaysm
- Start date
There's also nothing wrong - and a lot to like about - a group that starts out unskilled in some areas.
If they find themselves with a skill hole, eight weeks and a successful EDU roll can fix that. Or, maybe you can get by shooting at the pirate with a -3 for a while. Beam lasers help; throw the DEX 9 farmboy in a turret and he's -3 for skill, +1 for DEX, +4 for weapon, so still hitting on a 6+ at Medium range.
If they find themselves with a skill hole, eight weeks and a successful EDU roll can fix that. Or, maybe you can get by shooting at the pirate with a -3 for a while. Beam lasers help; throw the DEX 9 farmboy in a turret and he's -3 for skill, +1 for DEX, +4 for weapon, so still hitting on a 6+ at Medium range.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
If he's a cityboy, would competency in video games count?
CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
Skill holes also foster creative really bizarre solutions to problems.
(This is good.)
(This is good.)
Or a player character that is a robot (since those are a thing in RH).
8 weeks is a long time, when you find you need a skill, generally you need it sooner than that.
I like characters with low skills and skill gaps, and that farm boy is going to be able to knock down small craft piloted by mooks who cannot land a shot on target after a few shots and maybe that'll be fun.
Against even a Type A however it is going to take him a dogs age to make any impression on his target. With a beam laser you need the effect (and preferably crits) to make a dent, just hitting isn't really enough (even with a triple turret). A pulse laser makes hitting only a little harder so you might miss or get 2 less effect damage, but it doubles the base damage and moves it to the point where 8 points might get through armour.
And as has been pointed out in the weapons for merchants thread, medium range is not where you want to be if you are facing someone who actually has a real gunner and credible weapon systems if you are handling that equivalent to a red rider for the first time in your life.
I can attest that us farmboys are just as or more likely to be gamers.
Player agency or really good software would be the main reason to do it. Fire/Control still helps an unskilled gunner, so you either have that auto-shooting for no bonus to hit (+0), or applying its bonus to the meat puppet sitting in the chair. If the gunner is DEX 9-11 (likely, since if no one has Gunnery or JoT you do want your dexiest character at the controls), that's a starting net -2, which happens to be offset by the bonus for Fire/Control 2. If you are running better than F/C 2 you will be better with unskilled gunners at the controls than letting the computer kill the fleshy ones.
(As touched on above, any level of JoT boosts an unskilled gunner into useful territory, too. JoT 3, DEX 12 might not even bother studying...)
A good pilot can help, as can software (see my previous post).
Obviously the intended way to cover it is the skill package, as was previously mentioned. A group that is expected to get into space combat should be taking an appropriate skill package, just as one that expects to get into ground combat takes one of those, or a group facing an espionage campaign takes one suited for that.
And... this MAY be Traveller heresy, given how few real jobs there are in space combat to fill... but you CAN hire someone to shoot the ship's guns.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
The pilot can evade, or fly a steady course to improve gunnery success.
Yep, but that is now two jobs that need your "DEXiest" character (with fixed mounts that can be the same person though - the extra DM-2 for the pilot operating turrets is sub-optimal).
Which works for that paradigm but not if you have campaign that follows the normal Traveller "have gun will travel" route where this month it is espionage, next month a body guarding job, and at any point dealing with repercussions of what you did last week in whatever form that takes and dealing with the random encounters of travelling through the universe.
Which is yet another NPC that the referee has to manage (but that requires even more work as it is a semi-permanent feature). Hireling NPCs really can impact player agency.
A droid gunner achieves the same end, is less difficult to manage, can be expected to do exactly what it is told preserving player agency and is not such an ongoing financial drain on the party (wages, life support and possibly extra accommodation).
A single function robot only needs a basic brain and so will be cheap. As a side benefit whilst it could do simple additional tasks (like watch over the ship) which would be tedious for a player character to do it is not so versatile that the players might consider it an extra hireling to take on the ground adventure as well.
Players can of course choose to have a whole heap of robot helpers, but that will be a solution the players have found to the problems they don't want the characters solving.
In the game with my daughter* she wants a raft of robot assistants (pets really) to accompany her (she has been working with a crew droid and a labour droid so far but really wants a Shadow Security Robot). She isn't comfortable at the moment with roleplaying the interactions with NPCs but is quite happy to direct hirelings on a transactional basis. Most NPCs would react poorly to that, but for robots it is ideal. I think she is also concerned about getting a person killed, but a robot can be repaired (or at least the brain backed up and installable into a replacement).
*She is playing the character she rolled, and that means some rubbish characteristics. This is preparation for when she gets out into the real world where she won't get to save and reload every decision she makes. Playing what you got is one of the most valuable aspects of Traveller (and OSR generally) to me. She is solving the limitations of her character in exactly the same way humans have always solved them, with their brain and with tools.
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Well, unless you keep making your robots/virtual gunners a wacky "it's programming has gone crazy with the years"/"someone gavce it a very noticeable personality profile" (which would grind, very quickly) then a bunch of Model X70 robot crewmen does leave the referee with rather fewer options for roleplaying with the crew.
I have two robot crewmen (a steward and a table) that the players love, and a bunch of robot crewmen that crew other ships that they are never on. But the fun, dramatic, emotional or intriguing interactions over time that get players attached to the world around them are easier to use sophonts for, barring a handful of exceptions.
Terry, I get that you have a lot of TL16 stuff around so at least you have fully self-aware robots to use for this purpose, if you're playing with others.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
I am and I do. I also know that what I make is likely niche in the Traveller universe. I can live with that.
I think that this is the big difference in playstyle. To me, I am always looking for ways to dangle another, distinctive, long-term NPC in front of the party, and they are always keeping an eye open for more interesting characters to surround themselves with and to emotionally invest in.
No that totally makes sense: at TL16 there is every reason to throw robots into the mix around your party. They can be just as varied and three-dimensional as other sophont characters with whom to interact.
