Vehicle weapons skill specilisation

[chiron0224]

So I tried rolling a character tonight and he joined the army with the cavalry specialization and I was like "Ah yeah grav tanks!!!". Something I noticed though is that the cavalry specialization has Heavy Weapons(vehicle) as one of the skills. Then it struck me. No matter how good my character got at operating the main turret on his sick grav tank ("Ah yeah grav tanks!!!") he couldn't translate that skill into firing the main turrets on a star ship. He could, however, translate that skill to....... FGMPs and mortars? I mean I do see some similarity but vehicle mounted weapons just seem to have a lot more in common with.... well other vehicle mounted weapons. Why not have "vehicle" be a gunner specialization or better yet, why not have vehicle mounted turrets be covered under the Gunner(turrets) skill?

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Turrets might be different from mounted in the way they are used/operated/assembled/maintained.

 

[chiron0224]

Yeah, that's possible. It just still seems odd that operating the turrets on tanks and gun ships doesn't make you any better at all when it comes time to operate the turrets on a ship. Another solution I considered was to let them be separate but to have the space combat rules list Heavy Weapons(vehicle) as a skill that can be used instead of Gunner. Maybe at a penalty, idk.

 

[allanimal]

A starship turret gunner is manipulating a targeting computer that is finding a firing solution for craft moving extremely fast at extremely far distances.
Grav Tank gunners are manipulating targeting computers that deal with much lower speeds and distances. Also, weather, atmospheric effects, curvature of the planet, etc.

So I can totally see the programmers of the targeting computers need different skills.
But the gunners? Well, I can see it both ways.

Now I also see Shawn's point. The skill is useful for more than just shooting the weapon. And the weapons themselves are very different...

This is totally a case of a line was drawn in a grey area, and it won't satisfy everyone no matter where that line is put. I think the line is drawn where it is so that the scruffy ground pounders don't have a chance of infringing on the turf of the elite Navy. :lol:

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

In GURPS, this would be handled as one skill defaulting to the other at a penalty. It could be argued that "Ship Gunner" and "Tank Gunner" should just be specializations of the same skill, granting a 0 Skill Modifier.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

In GURPS, this would be handled as one skill defaulting to the other at a penalty. It could be argued that "Ship Gunner" and "Tank Gunner" should just be specializations of the same skill, granting a 0 Skill Modifier.

But this isn't GURPS though.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

No; but my statement was there to illustrate a context in which it was arguably better handled, as a way to inspire alternative solutions that might be more appropriate. You might as well have said "But this isn't Dungeons & Dragons", for all the relevance pointing out something I already said had.

Contribute, instead of just desperately trying to pose as one.

 

[Nerhesi]

You folks are way out of control. This kind of behaviour only serves to push people away form the games... especially those visitors that don't have an account yet, and wondering about MGT and MGT2.. they've heard some things! Then suddenly this is what they see.

I know, because as I'm about to have lunch with friends I'm getting into the game, they're commenting about the last 3-5 posts and how they're just the two of you insulting each other, and in no way is it even about the point of view. Now it's just school-yard "you're dumb!" etc...

A moderator desperately needs to lock this stuff and edit the personal attacks out.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

I'm more than happy to keep things civil so long as Driscoll keeps his shameless trolling to himself.

 

[chiron0224]

True story though, although Driscoll is getting on basically everyone's last nerve, there also comes a point where you don't feed the trolls anymore.

I would like to return to the original topic of this thread which is about how to handle the turrets skill and whether knowledge of tank turrets should translate in some way. Personally I see what one of the commenters was saying about how a line always has to be drawn and sometimes that line might seem arbitrary and I also have a bad habit of viewing Traveller through the space ship lens so I immediately thought "but how will that help out aboard a star ship?" and that's a habit I need to break when thinking of Traveller.

 

[Deldarius]

I would keep the vehicle weapons and the turret skills separate. The weapons themselves may be the same/similar but the environments in which they are employed are different.

I would however grant a bonus to learning the other skill during gameplay (vehicle weapons -> turrets / turrets -> vehicle weapons.