Terran Dawn Campaign Guide [Progress, Questions]
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Question
I was hoping for a “small ship universe” for my Terran Dawn campaign (Solomani Rim pocket empires towards the end of the Long Night).
Published Traveller products lists the largest known TL 12 Terran Confederation ship, just before forming the 2nd Imperium, at 30,000 tons. The much larger 2nd Imperium stayed at TL 12, but probably would have put out some larger ships before their fall into the Long Night. The Old Earth Union pocket empire centered on Terra held out a small pocket of civilization through the Long Night which lasted many centuries.
The Old Earth Union pocket empire at under 10 systems is a speck of dust compared to the 2nd Imperium and fell to TL 11, perhaps a little lower, before rising back to near TL 12 again.
What is a realistic largest ship for the Old Earth Union? TL 12 Terran Confederation was somewhat larger then the Old Earth Union when their best (known) battleship was 30,000 tons (Gurps Interstellar Wars). TL 12 Sylea when beginning to grow to sector size had the use of a 90,000 ton battleship (T4 Melieu 0 campaign guide). This makes me think I would be justified in making the TL 11-12 eight system Old Earth Union's largest battleship well under 30.000 tons. Perhaps 20,000 or even 10,000 tons?
Thoughts?
I was hoping for a “small ship universe” for my Terran Dawn campaign (Solomani Rim pocket empires towards the end of the Long Night).
Published Traveller products lists the largest known TL 12 Terran Confederation ship, just before forming the 2nd Imperium, at 30,000 tons. The much larger 2nd Imperium stayed at TL 12, but probably would have put out some larger ships before their fall into the Long Night. The Old Earth Union pocket empire centered on Terra held out a small pocket of civilization through the Long Night which lasted many centuries.
The Old Earth Union pocket empire at under 10 systems is a speck of dust compared to the 2nd Imperium and fell to TL 11, perhaps a little lower, before rising back to near TL 12 again.
What is a realistic largest ship for the Old Earth Union? TL 12 Terran Confederation was somewhat larger then the Old Earth Union when their best (known) battleship was 30,000 tons (Gurps Interstellar Wars). TL 12 Sylea when beginning to grow to sector size had the use of a 90,000 ton battleship (T4 Melieu 0 campaign guide). This makes me think I would be justified in making the TL 11-12 eight system Old Earth Union's largest battleship well under 30.000 tons. Perhaps 20,000 or even 10,000 tons?
Thoughts?
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
I suggest that as a starting point, use the 500 credits per person rule from Trillion Credit Squadron. That gives you a Naval budget to buid with and will give you an idea of how big you can go on ship sizes.
Of course, you will have to make some assumptions about the ship philosophy, does the PE believe that a lot of small ships or a few big ships is the best Naval doctrine? Perhaps different PEs have different ideas?
Despite what the rules in HG say, ships under about 20,000 tons are just too small for the Spinal Mounts in the book. You end up with a ship that has a spinal mount, minimal performance and not much else. That in itself is a design philosophy. Do you put in a spinal mount or a bunch of 100-ton bay weapons? Again, perhaps different PEs have different ideas.
Not much help I guess, but hopefully it will spark something.
Of course, you will have to make some assumptions about the ship philosophy, does the PE believe that a lot of small ships or a few big ships is the best Naval doctrine? Perhaps different PEs have different ideas?
Despite what the rules in HG say, ships under about 20,000 tons are just too small for the Spinal Mounts in the book. You end up with a ship that has a spinal mount, minimal performance and not much else. That in itself is a design philosophy. Do you put in a spinal mount or a bunch of 100-ton bay weapons? Again, perhaps different PEs have different ideas.
Not much help I guess, but hopefully it will spark something.
I just started working on a similiar campaign idea - so this thread and the linked materials have been EXTREMELY interesting.
I used this as a guide to ship sizes, which fit in well with my plan to base the space navy on the structure of the current US navy. Only thing that doesn't really fit are the current day carriers which displace 90,000 tons - but carriers in space wouldn't need quite the same flight deck, so smaller versions should work.
The US Navy website can provide lots of inspiration. Just go to the US Navy Today section, and click on Status of the Navy.
I used this as a guide to ship sizes, which fit in well with my plan to base the space navy on the structure of the current US navy. Only thing that doesn't really fit are the current day carriers which displace 90,000 tons - but carriers in space wouldn't need quite the same flight deck, so smaller versions should work.
The US Navy website can provide lots of inspiration. Just go to the US Navy Today section, and click on Status of the Navy.
Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
Great idea. I will add up the population of the Old Earth Union soon. I haven't designed any craft yet though. Any idea what a rough credits-per-ton average would be? I would imagine it would vary greatly between a tanker ship versus a battleship, but a ballpark figure would be helpful to give me a nice total tonnage instead of a total credtis.
Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
Hate to hear this. I was hoping the latest, newest technology battleship would be a spinal mount vessel around 10,000 to 20,000 tons.
Stuie said:
Thanks, I had looked over wiki entries and past Traveller products to get a good idea what to name my various military ship classes. I have (in order of size), Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers, a Frigate, and Corvettes thus far. Also a carrier in there.
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
You can put a Spinal Mount in a 10-20KTn ship, but that will be just about all it can have. To me, that is a perfect design point for fleet philosophy, so I actually like it. You can have a 20KTn Battleship with lots of 100-ton bays or you can have a 20KTn Dreadnaught with a Spinal Mount. But, not both in the same ship. Now your Spinal Mounted ships will HAVE to be part of fleets with lots of protection, because they really won't be able to protect themselves. But when they hit you, you die.
Sturn said:
Found on P. 29 of Trillion Credit Squadron itself that on average a trillion credits will build around a million tons of craft.
After running some numbers based on the population of the Old Earth Union and the ballpark figures above, the fleet I had planned was about half of what Trillion Credit Squadron would have predicted. I can live with that. It's a ballpark figure anyway and a pocket empire within the Long Night would not be nearly as proficient (I could argue half as proficient!) at spitting out ships as the 3rd Imperium would be. I'm very happy with the results which seem well thought out and researched even though they initially were not.
A free adventure for the Terran Dawn setting is available. Not my creation, an excellent contribution of Paul Dutton's. A detailed adventure. Only CT stats included due to publication policies, but should be easy enough to convert. Set just outside the Old Earth Union.
The Stolen
It is pure Traveller but has some nice elements of Horror and even Cyberpunk mixed in.
The Stolen
It is pure Traveller but has some nice elements of Horror and even Cyberpunk mixed in.
dmccoy1693
Cosmic Mongoose
Sturn said:
I'm hoping you mean the Fair Use Policy and not the OGL. AFAIK CT is not OGL, but I may be wrong on this.
dmccoy1693
Cosmic Mongoose
Sturn said:One of the policies.
Edit: It appears I should have stated FUP not OGL.
Ok, just checking *does to check out The Stolen*
Nanook Medium Grav Carrier in use by the Old Earth Union. Version show is an APC used by the Union Marine Corps. Based upon an Old Crow resin miniature. Used with permission. http://www.oldcrowmodels.co.uk/25mm/glaive/glavgl.gif http://www.oldcrowmodels.co.uk/ocproducts.htm
QUESTIONS
#1
When doing research I had divided up UWPs for easier viewing thus:
B 356 899 - A
As in I put a spaces between the physical and social characteristics for easier reading. I accidentally left this format of UWPs in some PDFs I released. I believe I need to correct this due to some sort of copyright rule I read once, but don't recall?
#2 Long Traveller tech question
I have a pocket empire in Terran Dawn (Old Earth Union) that is on the verge of TL 12 and fielding some "prototype" technologies. One of these are "bounce belts" used by some elite infantry. These are non-full strength grav belts. I currently have their ability described as being able to negate a large portion of the user's weight, but not allow full flight. This results in an ability to travel or jump akin to moon-walking. I'm thinking of switching this ability to one that allows leaps, but not flight. A.i. the weak grav module allows a jump and safe landing every so often.
My problem is deciding over the two and giving a sensical reason for the limited prototype. The weak "bounce belt" could be described as unable to negate full gravity at their small size. The technology is not there yet to create a miniaturized grav belt powerful enough to allow flight. If I used the "jump belt" version instead, it gets more complicated. Early TL 12 in the Old Earth Union limits the minimum size of a fusion powerplant to vehicle size (no fusion+ or miniaturization yet). So, power is limited to weaker sources such as a hydrogen fuel cell. Possibly the power for long-duration flight with a grav belt is limited by weak powerplants at such a small size. A fuel cell charges an internal battery that allows a spurt of extreme power to allow a short flight (a jump) and a safe landing. The user then must wait a few minutes (?) as the fuel cell recharges the capacitors for another leap.
Thoughts?
PROGRESS
The text for the Old Earth Union campaign guide is pretty much done. But, it needs graphics, maps, a large amount of editing, etc. My document looks ugly as is, but the information is in there. It's a rough draft and I'm concerned at releasing it in an ugly, unedited, form without all of the needed graphics completed (vehicles, weapons, planet maps). But, it will take some time to get to a better looking releasable stage and I'm considering putting the very rough version out there. Worried that some will look at it in its current stage and be put off, not giving a second glance when I release something cleaned up and finished.
Oh and its grown to 239 pages (yikes!). Once I put in more planetary maps and format much of the text into two columns, this thing will be massive. I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing.
A Technical Manual of vehicles, equipment, starships is next. Doing a Mongoose version first. Some of the graphics for the OEU guide will have to wait until I make them for the tech manual.
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
I would go with the "miniaturization cannot completely negate gravity" idea for the Bounce Belt. You might even have a couple of versions around that for a higher cost can negate a larger amount of the weight.
With a 90% reduction, you get the ability move similar to people on the moon. Maybe just 4-5 meters from a standing start.
With 99% reduction, people will be able to Leap Tall Buildings with a Single Bound.
It could also be used to reduce encumberance for heavy combat armour or weapons. Think of it as a precursor to what will be available with the PGMP-12.
I look forward to reading what you have done!
With a 90% reduction, you get the ability move similar to people on the moon. Maybe just 4-5 meters from a standing start.
With 99% reduction, people will be able to Leap Tall Buildings with a Single Bound.
It could also be used to reduce encumberance for heavy combat armour or weapons. Think of it as a precursor to what will be available with the PGMP-12.
I look forward to reading what you have done!
AndrewW
Emperor Mongoose
Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
The moon is 1/6th g not 1/10th. Ok, 10% of normal is easier to calculate and so would probably work better, just wouldn't exactly match the moon.
Maybe an option to build a more powerful version directly into armour, that negates the weight of the armour?
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
1/6 vs 1/10... That is why I used the word "SIMILAR" not "EXACTLY".
From a descriptive point of view movement in 1/10th gravity will be SIMILAR to movement in 1/6th gravity (but more bouncy). Since a Referee could easily find video of people moving in 1/6th gravity, it would be a good way to show the players what they are capable of and what their characters look like.
From a descriptive point of view movement in 1/10th gravity will be SIMILAR to movement in 1/6th gravity (but more bouncy). Since a Referee could easily find video of people moving in 1/6th gravity, it would be a good way to show the players what they are capable of and what their characters look like.
A rough draft "beta" version of "The Old Earth" pocket campaign guide is available. It is rough with missing graphics, yellow highlights of what I need to look at, needs editing, etc, but 239 pages of information.
Sorry, the file is large at 13 mb. I tried zipping it, but it only reduced to just under 11 mb. If someone with dialup wishes me to, I can divide it up into pieces.
Get it from the Terran Dawn website (scroll down to pick items to dowload) or directly here.
It's huge, I don't expect anyone to comment on all of it. If you would like, pick a piece and tell me what's wrong so I can improve it.
As I complete graphics and read through it all again to more propertly edit it, I will post updates.
Sorry, the file is large at 13 mb. I tried zipping it, but it only reduced to just under 11 mb. If someone with dialup wishes me to, I can divide it up into pieces.
Get it from the Terran Dawn website (scroll down to pick items to dowload) or directly here.
It's huge, I don't expect anyone to comment on all of it. If you would like, pick a piece and tell me what's wrong so I can improve it.
As I complete graphics and read through it all again to more propertly edit it, I will post updates.
Very nice.
Just a note about size - the icon block and circle emblems would definitely decrease some and improve in quality if done in vector format (like the gray ovals).
The planet maps are nice. You can decrease the physical size slightly (remember area is an WxH equation) and save quite a bit there I suspect without losing quality. Irfanview's Lanczos filter does a superb job and playing with the image compression (typically 80% for jpegs) could lead to significant savings without noticable quality loss.
Just a note about size - the icon block and circle emblems would definitely decrease some and improve in quality if done in vector format (like the gray ovals).
The planet maps are nice. You can decrease the physical size slightly (remember area is an WxH equation) and save quite a bit there I suspect without losing quality. Irfanview's Lanczos filter does a superb job and playing with the image compression (typically 80% for jpegs) could lead to significant savings without noticable quality loss.
Uploaded Beta1.02 after reading through the entire document and making a ton of grammatical corrections. Found several references that were outdated and updated them also. Added prototype battledress. Added hyperlinks to the index.
Still need to work on graphics (new ones) and updating the old ones with suggestions such as BP's, hoping to make them look better and reduce the size of the overall document.
See the website link in my signature or direct link here.
Still need to work on graphics (new ones) and updating the old ones with suggestions such as BP's, hoping to make them look better and reduce the size of the overall document.
See the website link in my signature or direct link here.
BP said:
Some questions hopefully with replies in layman terms.
I make most of my graphics with CAD programs such as Campaign Cartographer and AutoRealm. The two basic options are to save them in JPG or BMP which is what I do. I usually then crop and play with them using IrfanView which allows saving in many formats. For insertion in a PDF, should I be saving as BMP? JPG? PNG? Something else? I've been experimenting and wish to decrease my PDFs overall size but with crisp graphics. Many of my small military symbols which are throughout the document are coming up of poor quality while still making the document 10mb. These are extremely simple graphics.Your mono-tone images - as opposed to continuos tone (color), like real life photos - will never look that great in a raster format (BMP/PNG/JPEG) unless you (or the presentation program) smooths them. I.e., take them in big into IrfanView, then resize them down (using the Lancoz filter) - this will 'blur' the edges (effectively anti-alias them). Best to do this starting from a lossless compression format (BMP/GIF/typical PNGs). JPEG (JPG) is typically lossy (unless specificed otherwise) - which can result in blocky color areas. The output of IrfanView can be in JPEG, though smaller images might compress better in GIF or PNG. If you just copy and paste from IrfanView, OpenOffice will probably save the image internally as a BMP, which will be huge compared to inserting a compressed format (like GIF/PNG).
Your simple graphics could be made in OpenOffice I suspect (Draw? - Write probably supports simple line/circles, etc.) - which is a vector/font format that should translate to PDF very well. [It appears your PDF document comes from OpenOffice...]
OpenOffice supports WMF format well, I suspect. EPS is another option (much better technically for going to PDF), but may cause problems if OpenOffice tries to display them (EPS is a language, as opposed to a data format - EPS can include TIFF format images for preview, but TIFF had too many version/variations to be supported universally well).
[*Sorry, I don't do layman well...]
Your simple graphics could be made in OpenOffice I suspect (Draw? - Write probably supports simple line/circles, etc.) - which is a vector/font format that should translate to PDF very well. [It appears your PDF document comes from OpenOffice...]
OpenOffice supports WMF format well, I suspect. EPS is another option (much better technically for going to PDF), but may cause problems if OpenOffice tries to display them (EPS is a language, as opposed to a data format - EPS can include TIFF format images for preview, but TIFF had too many version/variations to be supported universally well).
[*Sorry, I don't do layman well...]
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