GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
Mechanically, MGT is in the same family as CT and MT, while T5 is most related to T4.
And before you pull old references out again, let me clarify that I bought my 1977 edition of CT brand new, along with every other edition since (barring Trav Hero, though I have an older edition of Star Hero). I am one of that rare and apparently scary breed of Traveller Synthesists who uses what he likes from every edition.
Also, my references in this discussion are specifically to ships and their assumptions. "Mutually based on CT" has never worked before, partly because CT has two completely different approaches to drive volume, ship combat, and ship damage. Well, THREE actually, if you count the conversions of starships into Striker.
And it does count, because Striker became the basis for MegaTraveller's starships, vastly over-powering weaponry, requiring huge powerplants and fuel for them, and using a more liberal formula for jump fuel in an attempt to compensate. A failed attempt, I might add. It took a late edition change in the core assumptions of starship operations to make MT ships look at all like CT ships. MT ships had no Bridge, just control panels, displays, and computers.
TNE reduced the hull-melting power requirements of the lowly laser turret (and the other HE weapons) to a slightly more reasonable level, reduced powerplant fuel by an order of magnitude, then added fuel as reaction mass. It kept the skinny jump fuel requirements of MT because reaction mass was a huge need. TNE had no fixed Bridge volume but did separate workstations into Bridge and Non-Bridge. Oh yes, and no hardpoint limit based on volume. Instead, it was based on surface area.
T4 went back to reactionless maneuver drives (though the reaction drives of TNE were an option), inefficient powerplants, fixed hardpoints, and back to fat jump fuel requirements. It kept the fluid Bridge, though. T4 would do ship design three times in its brief life, each of them a bit different, but still more closely related than any two of CT's.
T20 kept the larger jump fuel requirements but adopted formulas for all drives and a fixed Bridge.
GURPS Traveller altered ship construction fundamentally by assuming that every ship system's stated volume included the power to run it, converting "power slice" from a golfing insult to a ship architecture term overnight...
Along comes T5 in early form, with formula-based drive sizes, no fixed Bridge, and no volume for the ship's computer.
While fixing Bridge size for simplicity (part of their mission statement), Mongoose's drive tables and fuel needs were built using the T5 formulas, and computers still have no discrete volume.
While Mongoose looks closer to CT Book 2 and T5 looks closer to CT High Guard, their results are the same instead of being utterly different. A sub-2kton MGT ship is component volume compatible with T5 top to bottom. On purpose.
The two games are otherwise quite different. On purpose.
And before you pull old references out again, let me clarify that I bought my 1977 edition of CT brand new, along with every other edition since (barring Trav Hero, though I have an older edition of Star Hero). I am one of that rare and apparently scary breed of Traveller Synthesists who uses what he likes from every edition.
Also, my references in this discussion are specifically to ships and their assumptions. "Mutually based on CT" has never worked before, partly because CT has two completely different approaches to drive volume, ship combat, and ship damage. Well, THREE actually, if you count the conversions of starships into Striker.
And it does count, because Striker became the basis for MegaTraveller's starships, vastly over-powering weaponry, requiring huge powerplants and fuel for them, and using a more liberal formula for jump fuel in an attempt to compensate. A failed attempt, I might add. It took a late edition change in the core assumptions of starship operations to make MT ships look at all like CT ships. MT ships had no Bridge, just control panels, displays, and computers.
TNE reduced the hull-melting power requirements of the lowly laser turret (and the other HE weapons) to a slightly more reasonable level, reduced powerplant fuel by an order of magnitude, then added fuel as reaction mass. It kept the skinny jump fuel requirements of MT because reaction mass was a huge need. TNE had no fixed Bridge volume but did separate workstations into Bridge and Non-Bridge. Oh yes, and no hardpoint limit based on volume. Instead, it was based on surface area.
T4 went back to reactionless maneuver drives (though the reaction drives of TNE were an option), inefficient powerplants, fixed hardpoints, and back to fat jump fuel requirements. It kept the fluid Bridge, though. T4 would do ship design three times in its brief life, each of them a bit different, but still more closely related than any two of CT's.
T20 kept the larger jump fuel requirements but adopted formulas for all drives and a fixed Bridge.
GURPS Traveller altered ship construction fundamentally by assuming that every ship system's stated volume included the power to run it, converting "power slice" from a golfing insult to a ship architecture term overnight...
Along comes T5 in early form, with formula-based drive sizes, no fixed Bridge, and no volume for the ship's computer.
While fixing Bridge size for simplicity (part of their mission statement), Mongoose's drive tables and fuel needs were built using the T5 formulas, and computers still have no discrete volume.
While Mongoose looks closer to CT Book 2 and T5 looks closer to CT High Guard, their results are the same instead of being utterly different. A sub-2kton MGT ship is component volume compatible with T5 top to bottom. On purpose.
The two games are otherwise quite different. On purpose.
