The Imperial Navy has Arrived!

[Helpersson]

Nah, that's John Neville in The 5th Element

you can see him in action here:

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

A question on uniforms:
Which type of uniform is worn by the spacehands on p.116?

I believe I have identified the others:
P.118: Duty suits
P.119 working dress
P121-122: formal dress uniform
P124-125: ceremonial dress uniform

 

[Subzero001]

So is this book just a collection/update from previous books and "fluff"?

 

[Vormaerin]

Its a setting book, not a rule book, if that's what you are asking.

 

[Subzero001]

@Vormaerin
So this book is just "fluffs" the background like what uniforms people ware, what the refresher looks like, the insides of a spaceship. Is there background for making "navy" players like the 1st edition updated to 2nd edition/2022/23? I guess I'm asking if this a need now kind of book while starting up or something the GM will use to "fluff" out their universe. Thanks

 

[Vormaerin]

It has lots of 'what' about how the Navy functions. It doesn't have an expanded character creation mechanic. Here's the table of contents if that helps you.

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

It doesn’t expand upon character creation, but it does explain and expand upon the roles of various crew and ranks, how and why certain skills are given as basic training/upon promotion and stuff like that

 

[Garnfellow]

Over the history of Traveller several different attempts have been made to capture the look and feel of the beloved Terran Trade Authority books, but this is probably the first one to really nail that vibe. This might be the best looking Traveller book, ever.

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Suggestions
P. 109 Navy Model Gauss Pistol: increase range to 30
P.110 Naval Snub Pistol: increase range to 10
Naval Snub Submachinegun: increase range to 75

This matches earlier products (Element class Cruisers and CSC Update) and helps keep the product line synced (repost from earlier in the thread)

P116-125 expand upon the image captions. Example:
Current caption is Chief Petty Officer. Expand to:
Chief Petty Officer
Work Dress
Snub pistol

And so on for the others. Might as well capitalize on the amazing artwork and turn it into something of a catalogue

 

[GabrielGABFonseca]

So! I wanted to go through the entire book before posting here, but with the release of the World Builder's Handbook, much like a moth to a flame, I won't be able to pay attention to anything else for the foreseeable future, so I've decided to post what I've got so far and come back later.
I got all the way to Page 115, the start of the Personnel chapter, and I have not been keeping tabs with this thread - so if there are repeats of things previously mentioned, I do apologise.
But without further ado:

---

These are the straight-forward mistakes, such as typos or easily corrected errors:

• Page 1, 'Credits', Classic Traveller: I love Martin Dougherty's work, but pretty sure this one should read 'Marc W. Miller'
• Page 10, 'Early Frontier Wars and The Civil War (589-620)': The header should read 'Early Frontier Wars and The Civil War (589-622)', see first paragraph: 'the series of immense internal conflictscollectively known as the Civil War (604–622)'.
• Page 10, 'Early Frontier Wars and The Civil War', second paragraph: Plankwell 'proclaimed himself emperor' by Right of Assassination, not through Right of Fleet Control (see The Third Imperium, Page 90, first paragraph). This change will necessitate a tweak of the third paragraph which immediately follows it, to explain what the Right of Fleet Control is.
• Page 13, second paragraph: 'The admiral must weigh up the consequences verses thelikelihood of any given outcome, (...)' should be versus instead of 'verses'.
• Page 32, sixth paragraph: 'This could occur in the case of very large conflicts or where multiple sectors involved.' missing an 'are' between 'sectors' and 'involved'.
• Page 43, 'Superdreadnought': 'The superdreadnought is a concept which has sometimes appears.' this one is self-evident, I hope.
• Page 44, 'Cruisers', second paragraph: '(...) its weaponry could inflect severe damageon that capital ship.' should be inflict, not 'inflect'.
• [?] Page 46, 'Carriers and Tenders': There is no entry for Fleet Carriers, despite it being mentioned by the other entries.
• Page 72, 'Watches and Duties', first paragraph: 'Small ships implement these procedure as best they can (...)' should be procedures, plural, not 'procedure'.
• Page 83, 'Action Stations', first paragraph: '(...) crew in a holed compartment will suit up as quicklyas possible As sections report suit readiness, atmosphere can be evacuated (...)' missing a period between 'possible' and 'As'.
• Page 97, 'Flight Systems', third paragraph: 'Vessels with only a few craft house them in docking space and/or hangars.', should read docking spaces, plural, instead of 'docking space'.

---

The following is a much more complex issue to resolve, so it has its own little section:

• Page 15, 'Diplomacy and Soft Power Projection': This section, as far as I understand it, misrepresents the concept of Soft Power projection. 'Soft Power Projection' is in and off itself arguably an oxymoron (Disclaimer: I have not read Joseph Nye's books on the matter, so the following comes from a layman's understanding of the term, albeit backed by evidence).
  The Oxford Dictionary for English defines 'Soft Power' as follows:
  • "power (of a nation, state, alliance, etc.) deriving from economic and cultural influence, rather than coercion or military strength".
• Now a direct quote from The Imperial Navy:
  • 'Diplomats and political leaders understand the language of fleet movements and ‘friendly visits’, and will often come to an understanding without anything explicit being said or written.'
• I believe intimidation falls under the 'coercion' category, and therefore by definition not Soft Power.

Again, international relations is not my area and I could very well be wrong about the above, but I felt it needed to be pointed out.

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And finally, this is not a true issue per see, but I wanted to bring attention to this.

• Page 7, 'The Rise of the Solomani', first paragraph: 'The Terrans, now known as the Solomani, developed jump technology independently in -2434.'
  • In the process of compiling my Traveller Timeline document [link], I've discovered that the given date for the (Solomani) discovery of Jump Drive is all over the place among the different Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition products. Aliens of Charted Space, Volume 2 lists the date as -2439 (Page 10), whereas The Solomani Front gives the year -2431 (page 119), and now The Imperial Navy gives -2434. This stems from a deeper issue regarding Traveller's timeline and conversions to real-world dates (see the appendix of my Traveller Timeline document, 'The Year Zero Question') — as shown in the appendix 'Date Conversion in TRAVELLER', the "real" date should be (day 190 of) -2435, Imperial Calendar; As my own calculations aren't official canon yet, the value given in this book could be changed to -2431 to conform to the date given in the Traveller Integrated Timeline, or be kept as-is.
    (Obs.: All three books, The Imperial Navy included, where written by Martin Dougherty. This is not to throw shade at him; I merely find it amusing.)

---

Overall I've found this a very good book so far, as is to be expected of a MJD book! I'm looking forward to finish it... after I go through World Builder's Manual first.

 

[GabrielGABFonseca]

Took me a bit but finished the rest of the book. As promised, here's the rest of my feedback*.
*(I know there's a new forum section for that, but given all the feedback was already here anyway, decided to stick to this thread)

---

Typos & Co.:

• Page 128, 'Promotion': 'This is not now an effective navy works.' should be not how, not 'not now'.
• Page 152, 'Bases', second paragraph [?]: 'anything outside the permitted zone will be challenged with a degree of suspicion. Ships within
  the prohibited zone are likely to be challenged but are not assumed to be suspicious.' I'm not sure this is an error per say, but this seems like a redundant phrasing to me. Is this intentional?
• Page 152, 'Bases', fourth paragraph: 'One of the experiments being trialled at Depot is the idea of jump-capable monitors this seems at first to be a contradiction in terms, since by definition a monitor is intended to defend a single star system.' some sort of punctuation, most likely a full stop, missing between 'jump-capable monitors' and 'this seems at first'.
• Page 153, first paragraph: 'This includes receiving ships training ships, and recruiting ships, in addition to vessels set up to look like those of potential enemies.' missing a comma between 'receiving ships' and 'training ships'.
• Page 158, 'Alpha Crucis Detachment' Graphic, lower 'Battle Rider Squadron': the lower 'Battle Rider Squadron' seems to suffer from a severe lack of battle riders. Either a mislabelled image, or the wrong image used for the right label.
• Page 171, 'Flight Operations Centre (12)', second paragraph: '(...) maintenance requirements and all other aspects of smallncraft administration, (...)' an misplaced 'n' in 'smallcraft'.
• Page 178, first paragraph: 'It consists of one 100 dual-mounted high-yield fusion guns grouped in batteries of four turrets.' seems like someone couldn't make up their mind between 'one hundred' and '100'

---

Suggestions & Nitpicks:

Not truly a mistake, but a minor gripe; the book routinely states that a ship "masses" X tons. The 'tons' in Traveller are not a unit of mass, but of volume, so technically speaking, all such instances of 'ship such-and-such masses X tons' should read 'ship such-and-such displaces X tons'.
Again, this is a minor thing, but considering that this ('tons' as mass and not volume) is a very common misconception, I think taking care with the language would help people, especially people unaccustomed with 'Travellerisms', avoid this mistake.
Should this be a change you wish to effect, instances of 'masses' and 'massing' used in this context can be found on the following pages:

• Page 44, Light Cruiser: 'The most common type of cruiser in the Imperial Navy, light cruisers mass around 30,000 tons and are (...)'
• Page 46, Strike Carrier: 'Massing around 75,000 tons, strike carriers mount (...)'30,000 tons and are (...)'
• Page 46, Escort Carrier: 'Typical mass is around 30,000 tons, with no spinal mount and a complement of 80 fighters.'
• Page 47, Text Box: 'Large carriers, massing around 100,000 tons, are designed (...)'
• Page 49, Text Box: 'The typical escort masses about 5,000 tons.'
• Page 54, Non-Starships: 'A vessel which does not have to devote tonnage to jump drives and fuel can carry far more weaponry for the same mass and cost as an equivalent starship.'
• Page 54, Riders and Monitors: 'This creates extremely resilient vessels but they are not mass-efficient.'

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Something I also noticed, but is probably too late to change, is how the diagrams provided for the Tigress have their components arranged in ways that explicitly contradict the text. I don't really have any expectation that this is something that can be addressed, considering the process of asset creation, but I think it should be pointed out so this is kept in mind for future projects.

Not to end on a downer note though, I once again reiterate: this was a very good book! Outstanding job to all those involved

 

[alex_greene]

No, no, that's clearly Charles Gray.

“I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey,”
Me: HOW STRANGE???
Also me: "He has no

Spoiler: [EXPLETIVE DELETED]

[EXPLETIVE DELETED]

neck."

 

[alex_greene]

So I just bit the bullet and bought it. I definitely need it for research, because sooner or later I am going back to Intensity, and Pixie, and Drinax, and I might as well get to know my enemy.