Travellers Needed! High Guard Updates

[Condottiere]

Californium rounds and nuclear damper.

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

Californium rounds and nuclear damper.

Yes, very old school- I remember reading about that in the LBB Mercenary, and was glad to see how it carried on through all the modern editions.

 

[RYXlord]

I don't know if this has been mentioned or not, but is the crew requirements for gunners on Commercial / Military craft correct?

For Military it says "1 per small bay; 2 per turret, barbette, medium bay and screen; 4 per large bay; 1 per 100 tons of spinal mount weaponry" Surely a single turret doesn't require twice the crew as a small bay?

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

I don't know if this has been mentioned or not, but is the crew requirements for gunners on Commercial / Military craft correct?

For Military it says "1 per small bay; 2 per turret, barbette, medium bay and screen; 4 per large bay; 1 per 100 tons of spinal mount weaponry" Surely a single turret doesn't require twice the crew as a small bay?

That is for shift work

 

[Condottiere]

Less shift work, more casualty replacements.

 

[Terry Mixon]

In the exotic technology section for astrogation checks for hop drives, it says this:

"In addition to making hops possible, Hop Control software reduces the distance in parsecs – for purposes of calculating DM for Astrogation checks – by 10 rounding up (minimum one)."

I suspect that should be divided by 10 rather than reduced by 10 or anything more than hop 1 will be virtually impossible.

Edit: Looking at the Singularity entry for hop drives, it says this, so the wording in High Guard should be updated to match.

"In addition, the hop governor reduces the difficulty of all astrogation DMs to one level per hop; therefore, any hop of 1–10 parsecs only incurs DM-1 on the astrogation check. Likewise, while the technology does not exist for a hop-2 (it will not until a TL18 version of the drive can be built), if there were a hop-2 drive, making a hop of 11–20 parsecs would only incur DM-2 on the astrogation check."

 

[Terry Mixon]

The refit times and costs don't lend themselves well to prototype systems like the Hop Drive. The flat MCr1 per days makes a refit to add the new Hop Drive take an extremely unreasonable timeframe and cost far more than it should since the prototype drive starts out at 10 times the cost of a J1 and then gets x5 for being a prototype. There needs to be something to cover that.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Less shift work, more casualty replacements.

Though the actual crew are told it is for shift work...

 

[Condottiere]

As I understand the requirements, it's because how long you expect the battle to last, and whether they have to be on alert all the time, in case the warship is taken by surprise, especially by air attack.

Unless the enemy is stealthed, kinda hard to get surprised in (mostly) empty space.

 

[NOLATrav]

The Frozen Watch was a thing in the CT days and probably should make a comeback.

The (highly trained) crew of a free trader should be able to run a 50 kiloton starship in the 57th century, one crew member for each task the ship requires. Triple that number for 24 hr coverage on military ships then double that for injury/sickness/random specialists based on the ship’s mission. Adjust Command/Logistics staff accordingly. Commercial vessels probably a little leaner. So probably 100 people running 50k to 100k starships…

Seriously, I think drones and automation will significantly reduce crew requirements if actually put into play. We are already in the age “there’s an app for that” - not to mention AI apps - and quite frankly I’ve found that new players are put off by the old “gunners in the turrets, engineers in the drive room” paradigm of CT. It’s a cool vibe I love and always will but we have to walk that line of human=necessary versus human=irrelevant. Of course humans are necessary in a game but if the players aren’t buying in clearly there’s no game.

 

[Technetium 98]

Frozen Watch is already a thing - can't comment on the whole '200 ton to 50,000 ton with exactly the same crew' thing, though.

But as for feel, with Virtual Crew and drones from the Robot Handbook, you can absolutely have it both ways.

 

[Perkanis83]

Simple solution I am going to implement in my traveller games is that the listed crew requirements are what you need if you want to run a full human crew which almost no one does and instead replace crew with artificial gunners and crew using multiple linked cores following the rules from 2300. this way I can have both low tech "junker" ships and actual high end military spec ships.

 

[Terry Mixon]

With the impending advent of Hop 1 drives (from the Singularity Campaign) the freight and passenger tables (including the new luxury passengers) need to be extended to 1-10 parsecs. The future is now, as they say, and for those wanting to do post Singularity play, this is needed.

Here is a suggestion. I changed the highlighted cell from 50,000 to 30,000 because it was otherwise wildly out of step with the other cost increments.

 

[MarcusIII]

With the impending advent of Hop 1 drives

They don't exist in my game

 

[swordtart]

If 1 hop travel uses the same fuel as J-1 and it takes the same time, in the same stateroom then it should cost the same as well.

Your increased mortgage is your investment in the ship which you recoup when you sell it.

 

[Terry Mixon]

They don't exist in my game

Then this suggested addition wouldn't apply to you, and you can continue to march to your own drum.

 

[Terry Mixon]

If 1 hop travel uses the same fuel as J-1 and it takes the same time, in the same stateroom then it should cost the same as well.

Your increased mortgage is your investment in the ship which you recoup when you sell it.

I disagree. It is far more than the cost of the fuel that determines the rates. Considering the convenience and utility of getting things father faster, and the cost of the drive being much more expensive, that makes no sense.

Let's say I use an H1 drive that is not a prototype on a 200-ton free trader, so as to get the lowest price. Here is how that plays out. Very much not a money maker. The prices would rise and as the other chart states what is expected for 1-6, no one will balk at the rates being higher for longer distances. They might not use them, but the rates themselves are a reasonable extrapolation.

 

[Condottiere]

Overall operational cost.

 

[swordtart]

Cost of purchase is cap ex not op ex. You could include maintenance costs but amortised across the number of jumps per year but it probably won't make much of an extra dent.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Cost of purchase is cap ex not op ex. You could include maintenance costs but amortised across the number of jumps per year but it probably won't make much of an extra dent.

And yet they must be paid monthly because that is how mortgages work in the game (and in real life). We'll just have to disagree on this one.