Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
I think that is a good idea.
Travelling Across the Great Rift
- Thread starter MongooseMatt
- Start date
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Engineering tends to be the big ticket item(s).
Operating costs: salaries, life support, and fuel.
Operating costs: salaries, life support, and fuel.
Fluffy Bunny Feet
Cosmic Mongoose
Needs many more spacecraft quirks. Some by brand. Low quality brand more breakdowns, higher maintenance. High quality brands fewer breakdowns lower maintenance. Breakdowns could be limited to certain subsystems (no matter what we do that SMELL keeps coming back) and to truly fix them would take a complete replacement with another companies unit. That one airlock/hatch that ALWAYS jams or won't lock.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Life support manufactured by Lois Kwote Industries.
Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
My group used to love the fluff text of Battlemechs converted to in-game quirks/advantages.
Like the command & control capabilities of the light mech Mongoose or weapons with bonuses to target or damage.
Players want to protect those systems, and it sucks if you have to replace them with lesser or generic systems.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
I wouldn't mind tables of quirks to attach to equipment.
But I feel somewhat dubious, that anyone can create them that would have a balanced effect on the game.
But I feel somewhat dubious, that anyone can create them that would have a balanced effect on the game.
This is why I am increasingly disenchanted with MGT2 as a rules system - the constant tweaking and minimaxing of rules and endless multiplication of ship designs goes against the whole spirit of the original game and also makes it harder and harder for writers to produce designs that actually reflect the RAW.
At this point MGT1 for all it's many faults is starting to look pretty good in comparison.
At this point MGT1 for all it's many faults is starting to look pretty good in comparison.
Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
5k plus years of interstellar travel SHOULD have produced millions of designs. Some succeed, some get pushed by politics and expedience, some get lost in some filing system for millennia until some schmuck decides that they want to build a custom ship just like that one. The architect pulls up the file, cleans it up, changes the date and charges full price for someone else's work.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
I know what you mean. It would perhaps help if all authors used the rules as written and getting them checked.
I don't mind the advantage/disdvantage system in HG2022, in fact I would like it to go further and remove some of the pointless restrictions. The thing is the original OTU didn't have such a system, so by employing it now you are introducing yet another ship/technology paradigm.
By the time MgT1e was revised to make 2e things were much worse. There were ship rules scattered across a dozen or more supplements and adventures.
For MgT3e I want a single set of comprehensive rules that can be used for any setting, so lots of different technologies and options. Then a clear guide on waht is setting legal:
Third Imperium uses x,y,z
2300 uses v,w,x that sort of thing.
And then, for the love of gygax, make authors use the rules. No making up stuff for the Third Imperium or 2300 or any other extant setting, if it isn't in HG2030 tough luck.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
I rather suspect that won't happen.
A regularly updated index to list High Guard components and rules, and it could include errata that reconciles contradictions, and explains exceptions.
A regularly updated index to list High Guard components and rules, and it could include errata that reconciles contradictions, and explains exceptions.
Fluffy Bunny Feet
Cosmic Mongoose
For my own convenience I'm intermittently working on a series of documents keeping all the information on prices, tonnage and bonuses for the various types of components for building a ship/station. When done I'll make a separate edited down copy for what is available to the PCs. I'm including the book/page reference for the original write up with each component plus explanatory notes for things like conflicts and of course including house rules.
One thing I find annoying in HG22 is some components are listed by item (makes sense for some those with fixed sizes) and others by ton (makes sense for the variable size) but SOME do not have a variable size and STILL are listed by ton. Why are workshops fixed at 6 tons but have a by the ton charge? This results in some of the errors in the books. For example in the small craft book some of the modules have errors charging by the ton for acceleration seats when they are by the item but other get it correct.
Maybe Mongoose could produce a ship design book with pages to be put in a binder and books with additions can be sold with those pages bundled in them so you can slip them in the right section of the binder? You provide the binder ideally.
One thing I find annoying in HG22 is some components are listed by item (makes sense for some those with fixed sizes) and others by ton (makes sense for the variable size) but SOME do not have a variable size and STILL are listed by ton. Why are workshops fixed at 6 tons but have a by the ton charge? This results in some of the errors in the books. For example in the small craft book some of the modules have errors charging by the ton for acceleration seats when they are by the item but other get it correct.
Maybe Mongoose could produce a ship design book with pages to be put in a binder and books with additions can be sold with those pages bundled in them so you can slip them in the right section of the binder? You provide the binder ideally.
But do we have millions of car designs?
No we have mass production of many but a finite number of models because cars are expensive and economies of scale make them way cheaper.
Which is why previous versions of Traveller had standard designs that were significantly discounted.
Yes if you had a billion credits to spend you could design and build your bespoke Jump-6 battleyacht - but such ships are a rarity almost never encountered particularly out on the wild frontiers.
What I'd much rather see than the endless proliferation of mini-maxed (often ineptly) designs just to bulk out yet another book is how different races fill the basic niches of free trader, yacht, liner etc.
And there is a lot to be said for a modular quick ship design system as long as unlike CT's it is actually compatible with the HG one.
Of course there would be standardised hulls, drives, staterooms etc as in a universe of thousands of planets and trillions of sophonts the demand for ships is enormous and the industrial capacity matches that demand. Plus standardisation allows modules to be easily replaced and ships to remain in service for centuries and even millennia.
No we have mass production of many but a finite number of models because cars are expensive and economies of scale make them way cheaper.
Which is why previous versions of Traveller had standard designs that were significantly discounted.
Yes if you had a billion credits to spend you could design and build your bespoke Jump-6 battleyacht - but such ships are a rarity almost never encountered particularly out on the wild frontiers.
What I'd much rather see than the endless proliferation of mini-maxed (often ineptly) designs just to bulk out yet another book is how different races fill the basic niches of free trader, yacht, liner etc.
And there is a lot to be said for a modular quick ship design system as long as unlike CT's it is actually compatible with the HG one.
Of course there would be standardised hulls, drives, staterooms etc as in a universe of thousands of planets and trillions of sophonts the demand for ships is enormous and the industrial capacity matches that demand. Plus standardisation allows modules to be easily replaced and ships to remain in service for centuries and even millennia.
Fluffy Bunny Feet
Cosmic Mongoose
We have 1 planet and less than 1.5 centuries yet we have many active models and yearly variants not to mention the same vehicle sold under different names by different branches of the company. Now multiply that by 11000 planets in ONE empire over 5000 years. Add in all the different TLs and tonnages.
I can't see all the star faring nobles all in the 200 ton yacht when modern sea faring yachts are all over the tonnage range from tiny little ones to mega yachts that need a 2nd yacht to service them. That 200 ton yacht is more what you get from Rent-A-Yacht. There would be lots of different sizes of yachts each with its own level of customization depending on the foibles of the noble. Lots of different Free Traders based on the needs of a given sector/sub sector and the owner. All the range of ships from 100 tons to multi mega ton designs if the trade is there.
Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
An ineptly min-maxed design is an intentionally flawed design to show corporate politics and the whims of foolish, but powerful people still prevail.
Several recent book HAVE shown ships from several races. Is your gripe more along the lines of my favorite was left out? It also runs counter to your gripe about wanting to have fewer designs, because in game stagnation and boredom.
And there it is again, wider standardization means more ship types.
You can't have modular Elite Dangerous hulls, restricted to 40 designs, if you only allow the few types shown in CT. But you can do that IYTU.
If you like the idea of standardized modules: make some; give them the standardized discount; and then make some ships that can use them.
And as Fluffy Bunny Feet said, YES. There should be millions of designs from five thousand years across all of Charted Space... and a bunch of them SHOULD suck.
In Amarillo Design Bureau's SFB Romulan fleet, the new ships were made modular, so that after a couple of weeks in a shipyard, they emerged with a different profile. Except the modules were not compatible with other ship classes, with the exception of a few failed prototypes.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Artificial intelligence probably pregamed a lot of proposed designs.
It tends to come down to whether the design suits the role, and if you can afford it.
It tends to come down to whether the design suits the role, and if you can afford it.
CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
Also, car designs have to be crash tested (unless a bargain basement Hugo Drax pays bribes to get out of the requirement), which helps keep down the number of models.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
If we can computer simulate a nuclear explosion, we probably can a catastrophic atmospheric reentry.
Gearheads are going to gearhead and in Traveller you minimax your gear rather than your character so that is a key appeal of the game to a lot of players.
But there are other players who have limited interest in, time for, or funds to pay for an ever more complex game and I am one of them.
But there are other players who have limited interest in, time for, or funds to pay for an ever more complex game and I am one of them.
Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
Player made designs require no money.
Official compilations of designs you don't care about cost no money. Just don't buy them.
What is the real issue?
If you aren't designing ships, then rules across several books don't matter... although they should just be in HG.
