The Robot Handbook is Here!

[MongooseMatt]

Long awaited by Travellers, the all new Robot Handbook has arrived on PDF and pre-order!

You can grab your own copy right here: https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/products/robot-handbook



Robots have been a staple of science fiction for a hundred years, fulfilling every role from near mindless worker, to faithful sidekick, to comic relief, to sinister villain trying to take over the world. They range from remote-controlled drones to super intelligent beings who have far exceeded the limits of their biological creators. Robots may be stationary objects equipped with a single arm or nothing more than a radio to control other machines. They may move across the ground, sea or sky, equipped with limbs, tools and weapons of all kinds.

The Robot Handbook is designed to be both quick and easy to use, and configurable to customise all aspects of a robot’s functions, capabilities and skills; a standard robot can be built in just a few minutes. It also includes rules for making nanorobots and microrobots, androids, clones, biological robots and brains for both vehicles and spacecraft. And what is a cybernetic limb but a robot part? The Robot Handbook covers everything from a cybernetic arm to a whole mechanical body with a live brain inside.

The Robot Handbook comes complete with an immense catalogue filled with robots built using these rules, acting as a springboard for your own designs and allowing you to begin using robots right away to be tools, companions or opponents for your Travellers to encounter.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Great book and excellent resource - where do you want errata?

Page 80 microbots mentions a microbot size table but there is no microbot size table.

 

[Geir]

At one point (submission) it looked like the below. I don't know where it went in the formatting process. Clearly I didn't catch the omission in my pre-release review.


Microbot Size Table

TL	Zero Slots	Mass (mg)	Minimum Length (mm)
(maximum)	-	30,000	40
8	8	1000	12
9	9	500	10
10	10	250	8
11	11	125	6
12	12	60	5
13	13	30	4
14	14	15	3
15	15	8	2.5
16	16	4	2
17	17	2	1.5

 

[Synther]

Just picked this up and I'm already loving this book! Definitely a "must have" for the Traveller Core books!

 

[Sigtrygg]

Is there time to put the table back in?

Great work by the way

 

[Arkathan]

Page 40, the Basic Medikit for the Steward is listed as TL 18 in the example design snippet.

 

[Geir]

Is there time to put the table back in?

Great work by the way

Thanks!
Not knowing if it was intentional or unintentional, I'll have to differ to management (I keep looking for one-eyed smiley faces - but I suppose that's a copyrighted minion thing). In any case, keep the errata coming. I'm apparently entirely blind to the because I know what I meant to say.

 

[gilthy]

Page 226, the text mentions Neumann Archon-Class Nanotech and Neumann Knight-Class Nanotech. However, the tables below mention Archon-Class Nanotech twice (I'm supposing the second one is supposed to be Knight-Class Nanotech).

 

[MasterGwydion]

Love the book! Bought the pdf today.

Page 226, the text mentions Neumann Archon-Class Nanotech and Neumann Knight-Class Nanotech. However, the tables below mention Archon-Class Nanotech twice (I'm supposing the second one is supposed to be Knight-Class Nanotech).

and on that same page can someone please proofread the Archon-class section. It has several typos. "at bay" not "in bay", "devastated" not devasted", and "rogue" not "rouge"

 

[Geir]

Page 226, the text mentions Neumann Archon-Class Nanotech and Neumann Knight-Class Nanotech. However, the tables below mention Archon-Class Nanotech twice (I'm supposing the second one is supposed to be Knight-Class Nanotech).

That one is definitely my fault. You are correct in the supposition.
When it comes to other people's stuff, I can send in a looong list of errata, but, yeah, easier to edit other people's stuff than your own for sure. But if you actually read all the way through to page 226, that's pretty impressive.

 

[Arkathan]

Offensive Self Destruct, page 53
Effect to others. Dividing by a fraction results in multiplying by the flipped fraction (Hits * 2/3 vs Hits * 3/2)

 

[Geir]

Offensive Self Destruct, page 53
Effect to others. Dividing by a fraction results in multiplying by the flipped fraction (Hits * 2/3 vs Hits * 3/2)

Yeah, that should be X 2/3 . That's on me.

 

[Arkathan]

The TL 18 basic Medkit rears its ugly head again on page 63.

 

[Arkathan]

Page 67 Brain Bandwidth Upgrade
Second sentence is confusing... should there be more than two sentences in that paragraph? Did something get chopped?
Or is it just late and my brain is fried?
Edit: Is it saying that if you take a TL 12 Advanced brain, your upgrade is limited to the TL 10 Advanced upgrade, But a TL 12 Very Advanced Brain could use a TL 12 Advanced upgrade to save on costs?

 

[Geir]

Page 67 Brain Bandwidth Upgrade
Second sentence is confusing... should there be more than two sentences in that paragraph? Did something get chopped?
Or is it just late and my brain is fried?
Edit: Is it saying that if you take a TL 12 Advanced brain, your upgrade is limited to the TL 10 Advanced upgrade, But a TL 12 Very Advanced Brain could use a TL 12 Advanced upgrade to save on costs?

The intent is that an Advanced Brain at TL 12 could not use a Very Advanced Brain Bandwidth package at TL12, but it could use a TL12 Advanced Brain Upgrade package (or an TL11 or a TL10). The 'Advancedment' (not a word) of the brain is the controlling factor and you can use cheaper upgrades, but not more advanced upgrades. TL isn't the controlling factor, brain complexity (better word) is.

The wording in the book is not exactly the way I wrote it, which wasn't 100% clear either, but the edit didn't help (Sorry Chris or Matthew, whoever did it - it might even have been a conversation I had with Chris... can't remember). In any case, the problem isn't that a sentence is missing, but that the existing sentence is too long and still not clear. Let me try (brain also fried):

"A robot can use any Bandwidth Upgrade package as long as its brain is of at least the Minimum Base Brain indicated for the package in the table."

(Okay that took me four tries but I ended up with one simpler sentence)

Does that help?

 

[MongooseMatt]

Is there time to put the table back in?

Absolutely, sorry for that oopsie. Everything will be updated early next week.

 

[gilthy]

When it comes to other people's stuff, I can send in a looong list of errata, but, yeah, easier to edit other people's stuff than your own for sure. But if you actually read all the way through to page 226, that's pretty impressive.

... it suddenly was 3 AM ... I certainly didn't read everything in detail yet, but I did scan all the way to the end. I like it!

 

[Subzero001]

from the looks of things I will wait for a sale on this and the new revised/rewritten high guard book 2022 to clear up/incorporate some of the errata as well. thanks

 

[Arkathan]

Thanks Geir!

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Loving this book!

Just getting detailed stats for tons and tons of robots was great, adding rules to build our own makes it even better!



Loved getting stats and pictures for repair, probe and mining drones - surprised to see how humanoid the repair drones are! I’ve always pictured them as some form of floating spider thingies. No complaints though, being humanoid makes sense when they’re supposed to move in human-adapted environments, using human tools and consoles…



Is there a reason for omitting chassis size on the stat sheets? Currently for accurate sizing, one needs to look at number of hits and small/large traits and work backwards from there. Granted, it’s no that often necessary to know exactly, but for describing them or figuring out how many can fit within a certain compartment or so, size is helpful.



P.22 tactical speed enhancement: How come it can’t be combined with vehicle speed movement?



P.250 “The satellite is delivered via standard missile bus, which can deliver four EyeSpy units.” Yet the missile only has carrying capacity for one 2 slot robot, and one Eyespy appears to be size 2?