Traveller 2nd edition clarifications and questions

GarethL

Banded Mongoose
Couple of questions for y'all,

1/ Disease, pg. 76. This section seems to cover recovery from an illness or bio-weapon, but not the liklihood of being effected, thoughts?
SOLVED: Transmission is effectively considered to be automatic - if the first effect roll is a success then maybe you lucked out.

2/ Armour, pg. 94. Is the skill requirement example here correct? It seems like the penalty should be -6 (-2 each for skill levels 0, 1, and 2). Or is it intended that a requirement of level zero is only there to catch out the unskilled?
SOLVED: Ignore level 0 requirements unless unskilled.

3/ Fast & Slow drugs, pg. 109. What is the duration of these drugs per dose? Two months and one day respectively seem inferred, but it isn't clear?

4/ Closed Vehicles, pg. 132. Just to be clear here, according to the cover bullet-point, a vehicle with armour 10 applies a DM of - 10 to attack rolls against the crew? And if hit, presumably no vehicle armour applies (shot through a vision slit, firing loop or whatever)?
SOLVED: Use the normal Cover rules (-2DM), but apply additional armour equal to the vehicles armour level.

5/ Open Vehicles, pg. 132. Do these really provide no cover benefit? It seems like the sides of the air raft should at least afford the standard DM -2 cover penalty to attacks?
SOLVED: Normal Cover rules apply if appropriate.

6/ Air Raft, pg. 138. Should this have the "Open Vehicle" trait?

7/ Far Trader, pg. 166. Under the fuel tanks entry, should this be "4 weeks operation, one jump-2"?
SOLVED: The Fuel Tank Entry should be "4 weeks operation, one jump-2"

8/ Vacuum and Suffocation, pg. 78. The last paragraph of the life support entry seems to imply that it should be used in addition to the vacuum damage? If this is not the case then vacuum damage seems contradictory (as vacuum damage here is listed as 1d per turn and the damage listed under vacuum is 1d/2d/3d/... each turn?

9/ Vacuum radiation damage, p78. Do these apply to suited characters too? It seems like this should be an entry on the Radiation Exposure table?
SOLVED: Yes it does, however, the rules here seem to be in need of tweaking.

10/ Radiation, p77. Is the Radiation Effects table correct? It seems like the look-up values for immediate exposure should be smaller than those on the cumulative exposure parts of the chart?

11/Radiation and radiation armour, pg. 77. Exposures are across several differing time-frames - how do I apply armour consistantly? A "minor reactor leak" at 2d rads/hr is just as good at getting through radiation protection as a "major reactor leak" at 2d/20 minutes when logic suggests that the major leak should be worse?
SOLVED: Just apply armour each time and try not to think about it....

12/ High Gravity, pg. 76. The DM-1 should only apply to physical skills, right? Like the low-g section does?

13/ Fuel use, pg. 147. Gaining fuel is discussed, and individual ships have some notes on fuel use, but there is little detail? How much fuel do I use mooching around a solar system for example?
SOLVED: Fuel use other than for jump is part of general use and is effectively ignored - power plants seem to use one ton of fuel per month?.

14/ Modular Cutter, pg. 191.The fuel and open modules seem to cut off all access to the engineering section? Is this right? I'd expect at least an access tunnel. The engineering section doesn't even have its own airlock, so you can't even spacewalk to it?

15/ LabShip, pg. 171. The lab ship pinnace seems to be of a completely different design to the one shown on pg. 190? Does it use the same stat block?

16/ Ship-Ship missile strikes, pg. 162. The effect of multiplying damage by the attack roll effect is that attacks with an effect of zero effectively miss? Is this intentional? Maybe the wording should be "If the attack roll had an effect of 1+ then multiply..."?
SOLVED: Just an oddity of the system (also applies to point defence and electronic warfare) - the effect is the number of hits, and if the effect is zero, zero missiles hit.

17/ Aerospace Defence Laser, CSC, pg 128. What does the "Track" trait do? I can't find it in the CSC or the core rules?

18/ Berthing Costs, pg. 226. What is the interval for berthing costs? Is it per day? Per week?

Many thanks for any thoughts,
 
2/ Skill-1 is a level, skill-0 is not a level, just basic familiarity.

7/ Yes.

9/ Presumably, Vacc Suits protect a little. (I think the radiation in space is vastly overestimated.)

11/ The rules ignores intensity of radiation, only uses total absorbed dose over random time periods. Shielding reduces the absorbed dose regardless of time period. Yes, it is very simplified.

13/ Jumping use a lot of fuel, 10% of ship volume for each Parsec jumped (minimum 10% if short jump). Everything else use very little fuel and is covered by power plant fuel requirement. Travelling in-system by manoeuvre drive is covered by the power plant fuel requirement.
 
AnotherDilbert said:
2/ Skill-1 is a level, skill-0 is not a level, just basic familiarity.

So, just to clarify,

If the armour has a requirement of Vac Suit 1 and I have:
Vac Suit - no skill: -2DM
Vac Suit 0: -2DM
Vac Suit 1+: No penalty

And if the armour has a requirement of Vac Suit 0 and I have:
Vac Suit - no skill: -2DM
Vac Suit 0+: No penalty

AnotherDilbert said:
9/ Presumably, Vacc Suits protect a little. (I think the radiation in space is vastly overestimated.)
In all fairness, I think even the basic space suit has 10 radiation protection, and the rad hazard is only 2d6 / round - so for bare minimum protection you're only suffering around 5 rads every 36 x 6 seconds, or 1.4 rads per minute - pretty trivial given the radiation scale in the rules.

Thanks for your answers.
 
4) It provides armor. You get +2 bonus for Cover and Armor = the vehicle armor from that direction.
5) your decision as a referee. If the angle and the open vehicle provides cover, give them +2. If it doesn't, don't give them.
 
GarethL said:
So, just to clarify,

If the armour has a requirement of Vac Suit 1 and I have:
Vac Suit - no skill: -2DM
Vac Suit 0: -2DM
Vac Suit 1+: No penalty

And if the armour has a requirement of Vac Suit 0 and I have:
Vac Suit - no skill: -2DM
Vac Suit 0+: No penalty
That is my understanding.



GarethL said:
AnotherDilbert said:
9/ Presumably, Vacc Suits protect a little. (I think the radiation in space is vastly overestimated.)
In all fairness, I think even the basic space suit has 10 radiation protection, and the rad hazard is only 2d6 / round - so for bare minimum protection you're only suffering around 5 rads every 36 x 6 seconds, or 1.4 rads per minute - pretty trivial given the radiation scale in the rules.
Core said:
In addition, the Traveller will also absorb 2D x 10 rads every round if they are actually in space...
Average 70 rads / round, quite dangerous. Regular vacc suits will get you killed rather quickly.
 
Even if an Astronaut never leaves the ISS, the cumulative radiation exposure is significant; eyes, in particular, tend to accumulate damage.

That being said, Imperial Standards should have caught up to this one, and reduced exposure to 0 in mundane cases...
 
Tenacious-Techhunter said:
Even if an Astronaut never leaves the ISS, the cumulative radiation exposure is significant; eyes, in particular, tend to accumulate damage.
Sure, but you're talking about months of exposure there,

Using RAW, a six hour spacewalk (not unheard of) is going to accumulate an approximate dose of 70 (average roll) - 10 (suit protection) = 60 rads per six second combat round, or a total of 216,000 rads, which seems astronomical.

Over that same period a major solar flare will only inflict apx. 6,300 rads...

And I was starting to think my earlier mistake of 2d6 rads per combat round seemed high... (1.4 rads per combat round still adds up real quick over a long spacewalk).

Maybe the duration should be longer and the dose significantly lower? I guess at least most players will be using kit better than TL8...
 
AnotherDilbert said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays said:
Exposures on the ISS average 150 mSv per year
150 mSv is roughly 15 rad.
Yeah - I try not to compare RPGs with the real world too much as things are often wonky (and I don't know if Traveller Rads map directly to real world Rads)! That said, it should be possible to spacewalk without suffering from -4 END each time... So the internal consistency is off somewhat.

Hell, radiation weapons give you a dose only twice as large as being in space for a round!

What if the dose where reduced to say "2d6 rad per 20 minutes", that would mean a 6hr spacewalk in a TL8 suit (protection 10) would suffer from 2.5 rads on average, whilst an unprotected person (other difficulties aside) would suffer from 126 rads - is this more reasonable?
AnotherDilbert said:
+1 for that,

One area we haven't discussed is that exposure is likely to vary wildly with where you are in relation to major radiation sources - exposure at 1AU from the sun is likely to be roughly 4x as much as exposure at 2AU (inverse square rule), and that isn't discussed in the rules (it's a simplification, but non-the-less),

Additionally, is the ISS at a low enough altitude to be at least partially protected by the earths magnetic field? This isn't something I know much about, but perhaps we are underestimating the exposure because we are comparing with a protected environment?
 
From wiki:
Estimates are that humans unshielded in interplanetary space would receive annually roughly 400 to 900 mSv
Exposures on the ISS average 150 mSv per year
Conclusion: the ISS is fairly well shielded, removing ~75% of incoming radiation.


I think (vaguely believe) normal radiation in space is dominated by cosmic background radiation, unless you are in a rare major solar event or Van Allen belt or something. The cosmic background radiation is nearly constant everywhere in space, so the same radiation regardless of your distance to the star, unless you are very close to the star.

Radiation still varies in time and space, giving the Referee ample opportunity to give unwary Travellers a taste of radiation sickness...


Also remember anti-rad drugs are very effective. Even major doses of radiation will only inconvenience Travellers with access to medical care.
 
AnotherDilbert said:
From wiki:
Estimates are that humans unshielded in interplanetary space would receive annually roughly 400 to 900 mSv
Exposures on the ISS average 150 mSv per year
Conclusion: the ISS is fairly well shielded, removing ~75% of incoming radiation.


I think (vaguely believe) normal radiation in space is dominated by cosmic background radiation, unless you are in a rare major solar event or Van Allen belt or something. The cosmic background radiation is nearly constant everywhere in space, so the same radiation regardless of your distance to the star, unless you are very close to the star.
So we're talking background exposure of 40 - 90 Rads pa, less any protection?

Given the lives of most PCs and likely exposures from other hazards, any real exposure from background radiation is going to be the rounding error when compared with other sources - we may as well treat it as zero...

Sure, in the real world it is an issue - but for the travellers it's just a couple of extra rads here and there. Pretty much irrelevant (especially as we don't consider other trivial sources - a characters lifetime dose is typically considered to be zero at the start of a campaign if nothing else! I was always a little surprised that the life-path tables never even considered it or incorporated it into the injury and/or event rolls, although as you note, anti-Rad drugs are fairly accessible and very effective).
 
GarethL said:
So we're talking background exposure of 40 - 90 Rads pa, less any protection?
Yes, if you are floating in space without any shielding, such as a vacc suit. If you do that I think you have bigger problems...

GarethL said:
Given the lives of most PCs and likely exposures from other hazards, any real exposure from background radiation is going to be the rounding error when compared with other sources - we may as well treat it as zero...
I agree.
 
About the disease, I think the check is the same for being infected. After failing the first check, the traveller takes damage, and then the cycle repeats until he overcomes the disease... or dies.
 
GarethL said:
Additionally, is the ISS at a low enough altitude to be at least partially protected by the earths magnetic field? This isn't something I know much about, but perhaps we are underestimating the exposure because we are comparing with a protected environment?

Yes and no... most of the time, there’s some truth to that, but the ISS frequently passes through the South Atlantic Anomaly portion of the Van Allen belts, where a lot of radiation is channeled; so more like “mostly yes, but often the opposite”.
 
Thanks for your help so far guys, any thoughts on any of the other questions (I updated the first post to reflect answers already received, and added another about ship-ship missile strikes),
 
AnotherDilbert said:
16/ The calculation determine how many missiles hit. If 0 missiles hit you do 0 damage.
See beta-test thread http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=118038
Is this a change from the core rules, as I checked both my print copy and the pdf download and both say:
Code:
If an attack roll for a missile salvo is successful, the target will sustain damage. Roll for damage as if for a single missile and deduct the target’s armour as normal but do not apply the effect of the attack roll. Instead, any damage is then multiplied by the effect of the attack role.
i.e.: The damage roll is multiplied by the effect (capped by the number of missiles remaining in the salvo),

Normally a roll with an effect of zero is still a success, but in this case the damage is ([Damage roll] x 0) = 0, effectively penalising missiles?

e.g.: I have launched a raid of six TL12 missiles vs. a TL 12 foe, two missiles get through ECM and PD. The missiles roll 2d6 + 1 [Guidance Mod] + 2 [# of missiles remaining in the flight] = 2d6 + 3 vs. TN 8.

I roll a 5 + 3 = 8 - a hit.

Since the effect is zero however the raid will inflict zero damage.

As an aside, I am surprised that the DM modifier for the salvo size isn't "for each missile after the first"?
 
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