TMB and HG Starships - Design Theory Question

[Sylvre Phire]

My apologies if I seem to be retreading an old topic here...

In a pique of curiosity, I broke out my copy of the main corebook, High Guard, and the CT reprints and compared notes when it came to the Mongoose starship rules and CT starship rules. What I found was that there seems to be a difference in design theory behind the two.

In Classic Traveller, High Guard acted as an extension of the starship creation rules in LBB2. In Mongoose Traveller, High Guard is geared toward building capital scale ships. Why the shift in theory here? Also, can we expect to see a "bridging of the gap" of sorts when Mongoose unveils its technical system for Traveller?

Pax et bonum,

Dale

 

[Allensh]

CT High Guard was very much oriented towards capital ships and in fact, trying to use those rules to make smaller vessels is a bit problematic; the book even says to use the Book 2 system when making smaller ships.

Despite some bows to the old HG system, the rules in the new HG are more compatible with the TMB rules than the CT version was with its core system, imo.

Allen

 

[SM]

That was vey much my intention with my involvement in HG to make sure that the standard ship and capital ship rules were as consistent as possible at the interface point (ie around the 2000 ton displacment mark).

This consistency of approach with rules even before my involvement was to ensure that virtually any ship designed under the main rulebook rules (only those with lots of bays and screens are no longer acceptable) was still compatible with the HG rules. They may lack all the bells and whistles that a ship designed with HG can have but you avoid the "broken design" syndrome you get with some (non-Traveller & non-Mongoose) rules systems.

 

[SSWarlock]

And as a vet Traveller ship designer, I'd like to say "well done!", SM. I actually enjoy designing ships for Traveller again and it's been a long, long time since I've been able to say that.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I played really hard near the interface at 2000 tons to break the system, but the designs kept coming out within a few percent of each other.

VERY WELL DONE!

 

[Sylvre Phire]

*nods in silent enlightenment*
*goes off to start constructing ships*

Thanks for the info.

Pax et bonum,

Dale

 

[GypsyComet]

I played really hard near the interface at 2000 tons to break the system, but the designs kept coming out within a few percent of each other.

VERY WELL DONE!

Yup. The drive percentages of total hull volume follow a nice scale efficiency relationship that, in most cases, levels off (as opposed to dropping over or climbing up a cliff) at the transition to Capital ship percentage drives. M1 drives basically level out at around 1000 tons instead of 2000, and M6 drives have an odd dip right at 2000 tons, but otherwise its a really good transition.

 

[Woas]

So Traders and Gunboats is the book that will generally be about ships under 2000 dT?

 

[GypsyComet]

Not to sound TOO Californian, but yes, totally.

There was a "Fighting Ships" on the schedule and solicited a while back that would presumably be the capital ship equivalent. It is also the one area that Mongoose should probably back off of on the deckplan promise, at least in book form. This edition of Traveller needs its AHL boxed game, after all...

 

[AKAramis]

Not to sound TOO Californian, but yes, totally.

There was a "Fighting Ships" on the schedule and solicited a while back that would presumably be the capital ship equivalent. It is also the one area that Mongoose should probably back off of on the deckplan promise, at least in book form. This edition of Traveller needs its AHL boxed game, after all...

Why? At small scale, plans can still be useful, and yet cover large ships, especially with the slice method used in AHL.

 

[atpollard]

IIRC the AHL was a small "large ship". Deckplans for a 100,000 ton ship will be unreadable at even 2 page size and a real deckplan will be a LOT of work at that Dreadnaught Scale.

 

[GypsyComet]

It also really cuts down on the number of ships covered. Ships small enough or compact enough (at larger sizes) to cover in just a few pages is one thing, but twelve pages for one ship (the Sylea in MGT HG) that I'm going to have to re-draw anyway to be useful for a shoot-out near the sick-bay* is not good use of pagecount. Give us poster maps in a boxed set, ala AHL, instead.

I'm not saying that Mongoose should abandon or hedge on the deckplan promise, but if quality is ill-served by clumping and 1:750 maps, moving stuff around and exploring format alternatives should be looked into.

---

* If someone can describe how to get from port to starboard in the Sylea's neck without an elevator trip into gunnery, I'm sure the damage control teams would love to hear it.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I thought Mongoose was going to offer PDF files of all the deckplans in Hi Res, so for that firefight near Sickbay, you could print out the necessary sections from those files.

Have we seen them yet?

 

[captainjack23]

* If someone can describe how to get from port to starboard in the Sylea's neck without an elevator trip into gunnery, I'm sure the damage control teams would love to hear it.

You are a gearhead amongst gearheads, and I mean that as a compliment. We really need to sling dice sometime - say, AHL ? Next con ?

 

[GypsyComet]

We really need to sling dice sometime - say, AHL ? Next con ?

If by "next" you mean September, sure. Let's start the planning now. Either the AHL or something big-ish done by Mongoose scaled up to 15mm plans.

I can just see the event submission now. "No really, we're going to need 35 feet of tables."

 

[captainjack23]

We really need to sling dice sometime - say, AHL ? Next con ?

If by "next" you mean September, sure. Let's start the planning now. Either the AHL or something big-ish done by Mongoose scaled up to 15mm plans.

I can just see the event submission now. "No really, we're going to need 35 feet of tables."

Oh yes. Thats absolutely the earliest I could have my.......head.......together to attend a con. AND, I'll probably be doing HOTT tourney again.

But I LIKE the idea of 35 feet of tables. A Lot. :twisted:

 

[SSWarlock]

Are you going to have overhead track-mounted body slings for the players or just lots of aisle space between the tables?

I vote for the body slings. :wink:

 

[GypsyComet]

Each sheet for the AHL is 17x22, so one really long row of tables would work.

 

[captainjack23]

Each sheet for the AHL is 17x22, so one really long row of tables would work.

Yeah, but so would the body slings - or, at least bosun's chairs....come on, you said it needed to be showy ...

 

[GypsyComet]

There's showy and then there's showy.

I'm a firm believer in visually impressive games at conventions, but I draw the line at having to rent a moving van to get the game to the convention hall if all I'm getting is free admission...