World building new major races
- Thread starter Nelphine
- Start date
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
I thought that's what I wrote.
Anyway, before breakaway hulls, it seemed ambiguous whether you could just link jump drives together, as you would manoeuvre, or power plants.
Anyway, before breakaway hulls, it seemed ambiguous whether you could just link jump drives together, as you would manoeuvre, or power plants.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
All you need is a generate program - the navigator carries it over to the computer, puts it in the slot and presses the button. They can then go back to their other job of making coffee for the pilot. And they have the generate program that goes with the Hironimus Nexus.
I stick with CT, the number of dice rolls required to get a ship from starport to jump is exactly zero unless they are doing something to cause a risk - unrefined fuel, jumping within 100D, flying without annual maintenance.
I disliked the MT task library necessary to jump, I dislike the GT task library to jump, and I dislike the MgT task library to jump.
Every die roll in a chain increases the likelihood of failure.
I stick with CT, the number of dice rolls required to get a ship from starport to jump is exactly zero unless they are doing something to cause a risk - unrefined fuel, jumping within 100D, flying without annual maintenance.
I disliked the MT task library necessary to jump, I dislike the GT task library to jump, and I dislike the MgT task library to jump.
Every die roll in a chain increases the likelihood of failure.
Well, I certainly agree on that aspect. Though they never did explain why they needed a guy to carry the computer printout to the engineer once your ship got above 200 dtons 
I'm assuming they really meant "co pilot".
I liked the CT engine problems method where unrefined fuel could screw up any or all of your engine components until you grounded the ship for maintenance. That being short handed in the engine room increased problems.
Any situation that requires a die roll is almost certainly going to have too high a failure risk unless you only roll when things are pear shaped. A lot of authors seem to think "average" means "average difficulty task under normal circumstances" not "average difficulty of a totally screwed up situation" when they select task ratings.
I'm assuming they really meant "co pilot". I liked the CT engine problems method where unrefined fuel could screw up any or all of your engine components until you grounded the ship for maintenance. That being short handed in the engine room increased problems.
Any situation that requires a die roll is almost certainly going to have too high a failure risk unless you only roll when things are pear shaped. A lot of authors seem to think "average" means "average difficulty task under normal circumstances" not "average difficulty of a totally screwed up situation" when they select task ratings.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
I only require rolls when it is something dramatic. Otherwise, as long as 7 + their die modifiers are equal to or lower than the difficulty, auto-success.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Supposedly, taking off and landing are the most critical periods during the flight.
Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
And clipping parked jets while taxiing.
This is only a record of commercial flights, mind:
Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
That is about 3 in every hundred, and is quite high. So I wouldn't, but would a referee tell me the odds? There again the odds of dying in a Traveller career seems quite high, yet I still do it. That's how it is.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Apparently, lower odds and choice demonstrated a lack of trust in Seven Three Seven Maxes.
AndrewW
Emperor Mongoose
"Never tell me the odds!"
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
NASA won't let you go to orbit in back if the odds are worse than 1:270, which is close enough to rolling a 3 on 3D. But that's for the whole trip, so you'd probably have to badly fail a couple of rolls in sequence during three critical periods: Lift-off, on-orbit, re-entry. And maybe a fourth for docking - the Soyuz and Progress don't exactly have stellar records when it comes to that...
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
So four rolls - lets say you only fail if you roll a 2 on 2d.
Your chance of a successful mission is 88.5%.
How about 3 or less for failure?
Your chance of a successful mission is 71.6%.
What if you fail on a roll of 4 or less?
You now have a 47.5% chance of a successful mission.
Your chance of a successful mission is 88.5%.
How about 3 or less for failure?
Your chance of a successful mission is 71.6%.
What if you fail on a roll of 4 or less?
You now have a 47.5% chance of a successful mission.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
Right, you would have to first roll badly to see if there was a problem (which, actually doesn't seem unreasonable), carry the Effect forward to figure out its severity, then roll to fix it... bad Effect might just mean try again - at least if it wasn't during ascent or descent, and only on another failure after that the really bad thing happens. Or:
Convince NASA it's too cold to launch Difficult (10+) Admin
Problem with the o-ring: Requires 1-, DM-1 if out of spec temperature at launch, DM-1 because it was never the best design
Severity of problem: 2D: On a 2-, well, you know, on 3-6 noticeable burn-thru on ascent (Difficult Recon roll to notice at the time), 7+ only noticeable on solid booster recovery. Same DM as the problem.
Notice that only the first roll requires any skill to avoid a 'bad thing'...
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
It doesn't work like that.
If you roll four times on 2d with a target of 3+ you succeed 88.5% of the time, by requiring four rolls in sequence you are raising your chances of failure with every additional roll required. It doesn't matter how you apply the fluff.
Any target number above 3+ on any of the four rolls makes your chance of success fall.
If you roll four times on 2d with a target of 3+ you succeed 88.5% of the time, by requiring four rolls in sequence you are raising your chances of failure with every additional roll required. It doesn't matter how you apply the fluff.
Any target number above 3+ on any of the four rolls makes your chance of success fall.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
The point is that you only have to roll the second time if you fail the first time. Rolling snake eyes twice in a row is 1:1296.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
The mission.
launch - fail and you are dead
dock - fail and you are dead
reentry - fail and you are dead
land - fail and you are dead
You only fail on a natural 2.
88.5% chance of success.
If your chance of failing any of the above is more than a natural 2 your successful mission chance decreases.
This is why you should not roll dice unless you are willing to risk the consequences.
Alternatively you need to adjust the die rolls.
For example you could say you have boon on every roll thanks to meticulous planning, simulations, training and engineering.
launch - fail and you are dead
dock - fail and you are dead
reentry - fail and you are dead
land - fail and you are dead
You only fail on a natural 2.
88.5% chance of success.
If your chance of failing any of the above is more than a natural 2 your successful mission chance decreases.
This is why you should not roll dice unless you are willing to risk the consequences.
Alternatively you need to adjust the die rolls.
For example you could say you have boon on every roll thanks to meticulous planning, simulations, training and engineering.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
I never said it that way. In all four cases, roll to see if there is a problem (low percentage), roll to see if you can fix the problem, or it isn't serious enough to blow up the ship, and only then roll to see if it kills you. So as long as you have a chance of success on the second and third rolls, it lowers the probability of failure below that of the first roll. Each roll stops the kill chain, so if it's (rounding) 0.03 x 0.33 x 0.25, for instance, the total risk is 0.002475 times 4 is 0.0099 or 1% for the whole mission, so in that example , not great, but you get the idea.
For the shuttle we can argue that the odds of avoiding catastrophe are 1/134 on the way up and 1/135 on the way down, and probably close to zero (or less than 1:135 by experience) while in space or docking (Soyuz/Progress dockings never killed anyone, but they sure failed the 'problem exists' roll often.) Those would be added together, obviously, to give you ~0.015 or about 1:67 chance of dying, which is a reason not to ride the space shuttle and comes out to about 2 shuttle incidents for the program, as you'd expect. NASA is demanding better odds than that for its commercial program.
