Yet another Battledress debate

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Re the 'can't hurt armour' part of the debate; regardless of what designs someone may cook up with the vehicle design manuals, the G/Carrier is a primary combat vehicles:

A grav carrier is effectively a flying tank, and is the standard fighting vehicle of many military forces.

And it takes multiple damage rolls from a single hit from an equivalent tech FGMP, which is the standard arm for Imperial Marine battle dress (avg damage 40, armour 25) - nor is that a weapon vulnerable to interception by point defence.

Yeah, the grav carrier is described as a flying tank, and would certainly be vulnerable FGMP fire, I suppose the designs I was thinking about are the grav tanks suggested in the vehicle books with armour of 60-80 points, which would be hard to defeat with any available man portable weapon, even at TL15 (though there is still a significant theat from some vehicle mounted weapons). That tends to make grav carriers more of a flying APC. To be honest, the on the tank designs the armour is a bit much, in the unlikely event of one of these beasties ever appearing in one of my games, I would probably thin it's armour down, improve anti-armour (perhaps by making the FGMP "destructive" or allow some kind of Achilles Heel.

Egil

 

[Captain Jonah]

Side topic while we are on about battledress. Have people watched the trailer for Starship Troopers : Invasion.

http://starshiptroopersinvasion-movie.com/

Some good looking battledres.... erm power suits in action there though they seriously need to ramp up the firepower the troopers carry. Something belt fed, gattling or chain, light autocannon in the 10mm to 15mm range or 20mm to 30mm auto grenades.

 

[locarno24]

Some good looking battledres.... erm power suits in action there though they seriously need to ramp up the firepower the troopers carry. Something belt fed, gattling or chain, light autocannon in the 10mm to 15mm range or 20mm to 30mm auto grenades.

But then they wouldn't get murderised in such droves by the arachnids! That can't be allowed!

 

[IanW]

Some good looking battledres.... erm power suits in action there though they seriously need to ramp up the firepower the troopers carry. Something belt fed, gattling or chain, light autocannon in the 10mm to 15mm range or 20mm to 30mm auto grenades.

But then they wouldn't get murderised in such droves by the arachnids! That can't be allowed!

I have similar views about "tanks" that can be penetrated by a FGMP.

The G-carrier is a tank if, and only if, there are no anti-tank weapons in the vicinity.

 

[hellbat]

I am puzzled by the high price of both battledress and combat armor in Mongoose Traveller.

In all other versions of Traveller combat armor was about Cr 20,000 and Battledress about Cr. 200,000. Now they are Cr 200,000 for combat armor and Cr. 2,000,000 for battle dress.

The increased price of combat armor, in particular, creates huge problems.

These are:

1. If a force can afford combat armor, it can now afford the high end FGMP and PGMP weapons, which have become cheaper than combat armor, rather than more expensive.

2. Combat armor was once the standard of TL 11+ military units. Now it costs far, far more than the weapons of any mercenary soldier. This messes up the economics of a TL 11+ mercenary unit with combat armor by vastly increasing. the "cost per soldier." If soldiers cost Cr. 200,000 each for their unpowered Combat Armor oddities occur.

In Classic Traveller it was common for a Cr. 1,000,000+ to be a very valuable ticket for a company sized unit of 100+ mercs. But with each soldier costing Cr. 200,000 just to armor if you capture a mere five enemy soldiers - or lose five of your own - you've gained or lost a million bucks worth of equipment!

3. Combat armour causes some mustering out play balance issues. It can be selected under the Armor benefit. If so, you can get Cr. 200,000-400,000 worth of armor depending on your TL. IF this is indeed a viable black market price you can likely resell for at least half this value. (If the armor is "old or dented" it still works, right, and you own it legally?) This is not a huge issue

4. There is a gap in the affordable range of armor at TL11+. If you prefer to stick to more 'canon' classic traveller armors you are kind of in a lurch with the Mongoose traveller rules, because:

- Combat armor is well out of the price range and if you give players enough credits to buy it, they can also start buying potentially unbalancing fusion and plasma guns.

- The TL10 Combat Environment Suit, which in Striker/Megatraveller was rated a nice "armor 6" (one more than Cloth/Flak) and was the standard choice, has been downgraded to a mere "armor 3" in Central Supply Catalog. Sure you can stack it, but you can do that with other armors.

- This means that you are left only with various "non-canon" types of armor from Central Supply Catalogue which are fine but don't really feel "traveller" to me and the various finicky armor stacking rules.

I'd like to see Combat Armor errated to Cr. 20,000 - 40,000 and Combat Envirionment Suit restored to the classic traveller Armor 6 rating (in old mercenary it was "cloth -1" but as negative numbers were advantageous, that meant it was better than cloth. I wonder if someone read Mercenary wrong and didn't realize that!)

 

[Infojunky]

Hellbat it all comes down to the Editions Authors view of battledress/powered armor, there is a sizable chunk of the fan base who think powered armor is a "super-suit". Which they are welcome to hold the opinion.

My fix is that Combat Armor is Powered in that it supports its own weight and is very common as equipement for Mercs. But even more common is the Combat Environment suit.

Now to roll things up the current Mongoose Edition is based on the classic books and reflect those values but they are in the "Super" Battledress school so for "Meta-Game-Balance" have boosted the cost of Battle dress.

Lastly this topic is one of the Traditional Flame-bait discussion of Traveller fandom. (Note; this mis-match of opinions seemingly extends all the way back to the staff of GDW while writing CT, so it is not a new issue)

 

[Captain Jonah]

You can say the price is black market and legitimate buyers (Imperial Marines/Hurscarls?licensed Mercs) pay a fraction of that price.

If the penalty for selling it as a restricted technology or weapon is high enough, a few years in a very nasty asteroid prison for example then the black market price could be many times its “real” price.

That Merc company could bulk buy Combat Armour or get them from a used supplier for 40 or 50K each. Or you could take equipment as part of your pay. A planetary government or megacorp could have trade deals with the manufacturers to lower the price even more.

Powered armour has an exoskeleton that above and beyond the weight of the armour increases the wearers STR and DEX making it a very potent bit of kit. Again this is almost certainly restricted with very nasty penalties. Black market prices could be again 5 or more times the “real” price.

In a merc/hurscarle type game they are going to be far cheaper because they are being bought from a legitimate seller by a legitimate buyer.

Still in terms of cost Cr200,000 is a lot if you are Adventurers running jobs for 10 or 20K a time. If on the other hand you are operating a Merc cruiser and pulling in a million or two a month running convoy escorts or anti piracy runs and you want to put your ships troops in combat armour it’s a few months of work and you are done.

One of the things with Traveller is that all the rules, the books, the prices etc are the meridian. The middle point.

YTU could be tech 15 going on 16 where the backwards worlds are tech 14, high tech is common and cheap and the traffic police wear light battledress with enhanced reflexes and Grav belts.

Or you could be running a developing tech game or post apocalypse such as Veil, Avalon or TNE and higher tech items are both rare and very expensive.

That is the thing with Traveller. Even in the 3rdI its still YTU and you can set the prices where you want.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

That is the thing with Traveller. Even in the 3rdI its still YTU and you can set the prices where you want.

Hear Hear!

 

[hellbat]

Hellbat it all comes down to the Editions Authors view of battledress/powered armor, there is a sizable chunk of the fan base who think powered armor is a "super-suit". Which they are welcome to hold the opinion.

My fix is that Combat Armor is Powered in that it supports its own weight and is very common as equipement for Mercs. But even more common is the Combat Environment suit.

Now to roll things up the current Mongoose Edition is based on the classic books and reflect those values but they are in the "Super" Battledress school so for "Meta-Game-Balance" have boosted the cost of Battle dress.

My concern is that the current Mongoose Edition differs from the classic books and does not reflect those values. I can live with the idea of battle dress now costing a great deal
but what I am worried about is the increase in the price of Combat Armor (not battle dress!)

If you read my post the primary concern I have is that at Cr. 200,000-400,000 for combat armor it is not affordable as equipment for mercs. It distorts the rewards and costs and tickets and means that the suits of combat armor are often far more valuable than the rewards earned!

I believe combat armor and combat environment suit should be common, as they were in classic traveller, but this is difficult when the combat armor is 10 x the price of the suit in classic traveller and the combat environment suit has half the protection - despite being TL10 of the lower TL and cheaper Flak jacket, unlike the version in Classic Traveller.

In short, this doesn't make sense!

 

[hellbat]

That Merc company could bulk buy Combat Armour or get them from a used supplier for 40 or 50K each. Or you could take equipment as part of your pay. A planetary government or megacorp could have trade deals with the manufacturers to lower the price even more.

In a merc/hurscarle type game they are going to be far cheaper because they are being bought from a legitimate seller by a legitimate buyer.

That is the thing with Traveller. Even in the 3rdI its still YTU and you can set the prices where you want.

Here's the problem. If you say these are black market or cheaper in bulk, does this apply to everything? So if I want gauss rifles for my mercs, and flak jackets, are they all cheaper in bulk too? Why is the combat armor and battledress "black market priced" but everything else "bulk priced?"

The issue also comes up if someone is writing adventures for Mongoose or OGL traveller adventures for a broad audience. If the author is going to put combat armor into the game, he'll have to think - "if these guys defeat my four man team, can they sell these suits for Cr 800,000" (or some fraction thereof).

It's a problem. It would be like a D&D d20 game deciding that chanimal and plate armor were 10 times the price of a previous edition (but swords and so on all cost the same) so that suddenly the entire low level economy (and feudal economy) is distorted.

 

[Old timer]

Are you aware of the poly carapace armours from Merc and CSC, cheap, good protection, not sealed but that is easily covered by layering them with combat environments suits, or cheaper still, a combat environment suit and torso protector. That to me seems more like the armour a mercenary company is going to buy and use until they make some serious money and buy combat armour.

 

[Infojunky]

My concern is that the current Mongoose Edition differs from the classic books and does not reflect those values. I can live with the idea of battle dress now costing a great deal
but what I am worried about is the increase in the price of Combat Armor (not battle dress!)

Ok, I want y'all to harken back to the old Adventure style where each book had some bits of teck for sale or acquisition in the set-up phase and those prices made sense for that adventure. Well that is kinda the way I handle thing now, just because two or three authors make contradictory assumptions in other places, doesn't mean I am going to let them get in the way of the adventure/scenario I am writing and running.

If you read my post the primary concern I have is that at Cr. 200,000-400,000 for combat armor it is not affordable as equipment for mercs. It distorts the rewards and costs and tickets and means that the suits of combat armor are often far more valuable than the rewards earned!

I believe combat armor and combat environment suit should be common, as they were in classic traveller, but this is difficult when the combat armor is 10 x the price of the suit in classic traveller and the combat environment suit has half the protection - despite being TL10 of the lower TL and cheaper Flak jacket, unlike the version in Classic Traveller.

Then use the CT Prices...

In short, this doesn't make sense!

Yep, but this what happens when you have a bunch of English Majors (at best) trying to write technical details, One of the biggest failings of the Mongoose edition is its inconsistant technical details. Don't take that is damnation of the edition just a fact, every edition has its major flaws, and tech is rough. Or to put it another way in this realm Mongoose is still way better than MT IMHO. View all of Published Traveller as your source material and generally a fix is in there. (I have a interesting little combat/equipement fix kicking around the back of my head that uses some concepts from Savage Worlds fused with Striker/Azanti High Lighting and the MGT task system)

In the end it is your game set things as you see fit, explain the changes in terms of you game to your players and Have FUN!

 

[hellbat]

Some good looking battledres.... erm power suits in action there though they seriously need to ramp up the firepower the troopers carry. Something belt fed, gattling or chain, light autocannon in the 10mm to 15mm range or 20mm to 30mm auto grenades.

But then they wouldn't get murderised in such droves by the arachnids! That can't be allowed!

I have similar views about "tanks" that can be penetrated by a FGMP.

The G-carrier is a tank if, and only if, there are no anti-tank weapons in the vicinity.

Originally - in Classic Traveller - the G-carrier was a TL9 medium grav armored personnel carrier. Its armor values in CT were enough on the front to avoid FGMP, but on other sides strong enough to stop lower-TL anti-tank rockets but exactly equal to the penetration of the FGMP-14, meaning that an FGMP shot would lightly damage it on an average die roll.

 

[hellbat]

Are you aware of the poly carapace armours from Merc and CSC, cheap, good protection, not sealed but that is easily covered by layering them with combat environments suits, or cheaper still, a combat environment suit and torso protector. That to me seems more like the armour a mercenary company is going to buy and use until they make some serious money and buy combat armour.

Yep. What is annoying to me as a Traveller fan is that the "poly carapace" aren't Classic Traveller armor types, but a new invention. They're seemingly made to fix the hole left by what combat armor used to be.

What is really needed is to have an armor called "Combat Armor" (or if you like "light" combat armor) that is sealed, cost Cr 20,000 or so, and has protection equivalent to the poly carapace + CES combination. That way you could have compatibility with Classic Traveller units without having the oddity of imperial or zhodani forces with 8 man squads having Cr 1.6 in unpowered armor.

The polycarapace is a viable band aid on the armor - but it does force you to use the layering rules - which add a little bit of awkward complexity, to use armor that isn't in classic traveller (which feels a bit wrong when classic traveller referred to combat armor for such units), and it isn't in the core book, which means that it often gets left out of published rules or adventures (mongoose perhaps understandably not wanting to assume EVERYONE has Central Supply Catalog).

It is used to good effect in the new pirates series, but really, the simplest way to solve the problem is "remove one zero from the combat armor costs". That would fix everything!

 

[IanW]

Originally - in Classic Traveller - the G-carrier was a TL9 medium grav armored personnel carrier. Its armor values in CT were enough on the front to avoid FGMP, but on other sides strong enough to stop lower-TL anti-tank rockets but exactly equal to the penetration of the FGMP-14, meaning that an FGMP shot would lightly damage it on an average die roll.

Yup, and as such it fits exactly the same role as an M113, which no one in their right mind calls a tank.

Now, lets double the armour (which I'd do anyway at TL9, on account of all those cluster bomblets replacing HE shells at that TL).

We then have a TL9 light armoured vehicle that happily shrugs off hits from an infantry hand weapon 5 TLs higher.

Regarding combat armour, I'd solve it by calling the Carapace armour combat armour, calling Combat Armour Battledress and calling Battledress Assault Battledress

Regarding costs of merc tickets, note that under CT costings of Kcr 8 for a Middle Passage, moving 100 mercs 1 jump still costs KCr 800, leaving you very little change out of a megacredit - Trav economics were simply broken until GT: Far Trader.

 

[hellbat]

Then use the CT Prices...

Yep, but this what happens when you have a bunch of English Majors (at best) trying to write technical details/quote]

Well, "keep the prices the same as they had been unless they were broken" (which I don't think anyone thought was actually the case) should be within anyone's ability.

As for "use the CT prices" - sure, we can do that. But this is a debate thread, and the point of the debate thread is to advance an argument about something.

It would be a really boring debate if the answer was always "it's your game, do as you wish." I get that. I think most people do. But ultimately, it would be nice to create a consensus that this is an issue worth changing if there's a revised edition, or a new equipment catalog.

 

[hellbat]

Yup, and as such it fits exactly the same role as an M113, which no one in their right mind calls a tank...

... Regarding combat armour, I'd solve it by calling the Carapace armour combat armour, calling Combat Armour Battledress and calling Battledress Assault Battledress

Regarding costs of merc tickets, note that under CT costings of Kcr 8 for a Middle Passage, moving 100 mercs 1 jump still costs KCr 800, leaving you very little change out of a megacredit - Trav economics were simply broken until GT: Far Trader.

I agree with you - the g-carrier is supposed to be a high-tech m113. The new G/AV (p. 102 of the Vehicle Handbook) is really a better interpretation of this in the Mongoose system.

The G/Carrier in Mongoose is called a "flying tank" on p. 104 but that's just like a journalist talking about an APC as a tank - if it has a small turret on top and armor, "it's a tank." Actually the G/Carrier as Mongoose designs it is a medium-weight Infantry fighting vehicle (a flying Bradley, albeit a bit under-armored - maybe we'd better say "a flying BMP"). The new G/carrier heavy-variant on p. 105 is actually close to the BMP-3 with a bunch of extra weapons stuffed on top of it give it firepower in exchange for losing some troops.

It's a pity we don't have the iconic Imperial Marine grav APC as a comparison yet with the new Vehicle Design system, but we do have Solomani TL 13-14 armor in the new Alien Module 5.

The Buchephalus Grav IFV and the Raebus heavy grav apc (Solomani AM 5) is rather interesting. The first is a medium IFV with twice the armor of the g/carrier (but a lot more expensive!) and a different weapon mix (VRF and missiles); in some ways it is closer to a Bradley. The second seems to be based on the Israeli style of heavy APCs - it's armor is equal or better than a grav tank, but it has only a popgun weapon.

On the cost of shipping troops: shipping mercs via middle passage is expensive, but it's probably easily handled in most cases by one of two expedients: assume the customer always pays transit in additional to the ticket cost, which is reasonable, or ship them by low passage, which with a decent medic should have no chance of casualties. Either are pretty canonical, I think.

Your fix for armor makes sense, I think.

 

[locarno24]

Originally - in Classic Traveller - the G-carrier was a TL9 medium grav armored personnel carrier. Its armor values in CT were enough on the front to avoid FGMP, but on other sides strong enough to stop lower-TL anti-tank rockets but exactly equal to the penetration of the FGMP-14, meaning that an FGMP shot would lightly damage it on an average die roll.

Therein lies one of the flaws in the MGT system - both for ships and vehicles - the fact that you can't cause 'glancing hits' or whatever you want to cause them, because there is a single armour value for every facing of every exposed surface of the entire hull. Taking out tracks, sensors, small arms mounts and similar protruding bits isn't possible unless you hit it with a weapon that can go through the main armour belt - which, whilst simple and fast to resolve, is quite clearly rubbish. Enough MBTs over the last century or so have shed tracks after encountering a topographically unfortunate rock, let alone an RPG.

On the cost of shipping troops: shipping mercs via middle passage is expensive, but it's probably easily handled in most cases by one of two expedients: assume the customer always pays transit in additional to the ticket cost, which is reasonable, or ship them by low passage, which with a decent medic should have no chance of casualties. Either are pretty canonical, I think.

Fine from a player's perspective but it still doesn't solve the economic issue that 'someone' is paying for it, and if my mustachio-twirling patron from Evil.Corp is shelling out a million credits just to get you to the field of battle he's surely going to be a lot less forthcoming with support once he gets you there.

Low Berth is not a bad one, especially since merc infantry should, almost by definition, have a decent END anyway. Plus, cost has to be the big driver for units like that. I was debating a design with Middenface for a Merc infantry transport, sort of based on the concept of the ship in Riddick: Dark Fury - that keeps a couple of companies worth of mercs permanently 'on ice' until it finds a war-zone worth thawing them out for...

 

[Captain Jonah]

Here's the problem. If you say these are black market or cheaper in bulk, does this apply to everything? So if I want gauss rifles for my Mercs, and flak jackets, are they all cheaper in bulk too? Why is the combat armour and battledress "black market priced" but everything else "bulk priced?"

The issue also comes up if someone is writing adventures for Mongoose or OGL traveller adventures for a broad audience. If the author is going to put combat armour into the game, he'll have to think - "if these guys defeat my four man team, can they sell these suits for Cr 800,000" (or some fraction thereof).

It's a problem. It would be like a D&D d20 game deciding that chain mail and plate armour were 10 times the price of a previous edition (but swords and so on all cost the same) so that suddenly the entire low level economy (and feudal economy) is distorted.

Traveller pricing is always a problem. It goes with the out of wack Traveller economy.

You can legally buy a gauss rifle, it’s the sort of thing a small gun shop would have two of out back. Or you can pick one up from a larger dealer who has a few in his gun rack.

Battledress not so much. You are not going to find it sitting on a rack at the corner Guns R Us store. It is probably ordered specifically from the supplier and the only time you see it would be a window display at the “Mercenaries One stop Shop – Everything you need for your squad, platoon or company”.

Here you have end user licenses, security checks and all those other things designed to stop Adventurers or criminals (same thing really) getting them. That Marine supply officer who finds he has a few “Off the Books” battledress suits and decides to sell them on is going to want a great deal more than they cost the Marine corp to make up for the risk. The underworld dealer you buy the suit from is going to inflate that price yet again to cover his risk.

If you as a ref don’t want to use anything the players could loot for fear of them selling it then its YTU, go ahead. I have been in, ref’d for and watched groups who go through the pockets of the people they have killed for small change after they have taken the armour, weapons, boots and gold fillings. It happens.

So you have killed that customs patrol that found you were smuggling Psi Dust. You even took out the Battledress trooper on over watch with a Ram grenade. You even took out the customs cutter at point blank range before it could open fire. You jump out, wanted fugitives.

Ok you now have three Imperial tech 14 vacc suits each with several holes, a set of battledress with a missing helmet (it took an AP grenade to the faceplate). A gauss riffle and some laser or gauss pistols. Good loot aside from the whole being wanted fugitives with a shoot on sight Imperium wide order on you.

As a ref its up to you how the players can sell that lot. With molecular level ID tags on the electronics and major armour panels its going to set of alarms any time it is inspected without a legit user license so you need a damm good forger, who can you sell it too that wouldn’t just kill you and take it anyway (it is highly restricted tech).

Items bought and sold in bulk are cheaper. Players are not going to be buying 200 Gauss rifles because they get a 20% discount, they will be buying two or three and the dealer who bought them from his supplier gives them no discount.

In YTU all prices are up to you. I was answering the comment about Merc companies not being able to afford Combat Armour and explaining a way why they could.

A manufacturer across the sector will sell to only Registered major sellers. They bump the price to cover their costs and sell to smaller registered dealers or to the largest or most important customers. The smaller dealers in turn bump the price and sell to smaller registered Merc units and minor dealers. Down it goes with each step adding to the price.

The Duke of Regina wants 12,000 Gauss rifles for his Hurscarles. You know the manufacturer themselves will sell directly to him. A player wants one gauss rifle, that order size is so far down the chain most of the top end dealers would be bothered to process the order. Simply having staff waste time on the sale on one unit would cost the company money.

So everything is cheaper in bulk, the more you want, the more important or powerful you are the higher up the chain you buy and the less you pay.

As mentioned above if you want cheap combat armour that isn’t sealed and has no electronics then call it light or call it a carapace suit or call it a Rigid Armour Suit or anything you want and make it cheap.

For the Merc deals when I say making 1 or 2 meg a month that is the profit. With a Merc Cruiser you have 20 odd troops plus the crew plus fuel, maintenance, maybe a mortgage and lots of other costs. You need to be charging enough to clear all of that and make money.

Or your Merc unit could be the remnant of a much bigger outfit that fell apart after heavy casualties in the not so distant past and sort of picked up a lot of equipment at the time.

Its YTU. If you want combat armour to cost 30k for a sealed suit and 20k for an unsealed suit make those your prices. You won’t get the rules police kicking down your door because you changes published prices to suit your own game.

Re Mercs going to a job and costing. If you have no downside to low berths use them, if they have a problem with long term storage stat loss or death then don't unless you are happy to arrive with 5 or 10% of your force medical cases.

Otherwise troop ship them. 3 Bunks and a bit of living space in 2Dtons and you can ship a lot of troops in a ship. For colony transports and troop ships that’s what I use then add 1Dton of auxiliary life support per 10 people. Plug in modules and mesh floors and that fast subby can carry 100 troops plus a few vehicles and supply pallets.

Traveller allocating 2Dtons to a single trooper in a bunk room is luxurious in comparison to actual troopships, warships or submarines.

 

[Infojunky]

It would be a really boring debate if the answer was always "it's your game, do as you wish." I get that. I think most people do. But ultimately, it would be nice to create a consensus that this is an issue worth changing if there's a revised edition, or a new equipment catalog.

Ok for the record I started this thread 3 years ago asking as to individuals feeling on the nature of Battledress. I wasn't looking for consensus I was looking for opinions. Also note Battledress has hardly ever been used in my campaigns, carousing, gambling and Streetwise are the big combat skills.

I have been running and playing Traveller for 35 years or so, as such I have a mass of expectations/campaign notes that are note going to be bothered much by an edition change or two other than the few modifications needed to play with which ever editions rules decided on for play.

As for input on new on new or revised editions of said game materials hang out here and other open channels of Traveller Fan-dom discussing politely what you feel should be changed to make you happy. A lot of authors do hang out here amongst the fans, heck a number of them started as fans. And if you succeed in not being a Dick (I am not implying that you are, but being a Dick is the fasted why to get the community to ignore you) people will listen to you, maybe even invite you in on play-tests, and there you will have the strongest chance of making a change. The other option is to write your own revised equipement book and publish it, either as a salable item under the OGL or as your own fan-page, this too will get you traction.

But really it comes down to change happens when someone writes and publishes and the community accepts/takes that supplement in to their games. Here Locally meaning vaguely around the the Pacific Rim 3rd party supplements have had as much weight in shaping campaigns as official products.

While much ink has been spilt over "official" or "Canon" the most fun I have seen has been in diverging from said sources. So I am interested in your opinion, I am even interested in it in print with a "Traveller" or "approved for use with Traveller" moniker on it. But as the only path forward not so much.