re: Vehicles

The 101 Vehicles book (I don't remember the title exactly,
sorry) doesn't include ANY starships -- I know because I'm
dealing with exactly the same problem you are -- how to get
all those great Traveller ships into my game without doing
any real work (especially the ones from Supplement 9 -- Fighting
Ships).  The Vehicles book contains things like speeders,
GCarriers, tanks, and all sorts of basically mundane transportation
equipment.

As a sidebar, the "Rebellion Sourcebook" -- which is basically
a rules-free description of the politics and people of the
Shattered Imperium -- does contain plans for a *few* battleships
and cruisers.  These are the only other plans I've seen except
the ones in the Imperial Encyclopedia.  I don't have any issues
of the Traveller's Digest, they may or may not have printed ship
plans.

I asked my hobby store clerk, who generally seems to know
what's coming out, if GDW had any plans to release something
like the old supplements 7 and 9.  He said he didn't know
of any such releases planned within the next year :-(.

- ---
Ed Driscoll
The University of Michigan
[email removed]

> The 101 Vehicles book (I don't remember the title exactly,
> sorry) doesn't include ANY starships -- I know because I'm
> dealing with exactly the same problem you are -- how to get
> all those great Traveller ships into my game without doing
> any real work (especially the ones from Supplement 9 -- Fighting
> Ships).

Just how compatible are ships designed under High Guard with the new system?
The sizes of various things have changed; density is no longer constant, which
means mass and volume aren't necessarily equivalent any more; and you have to
account for all the sensors separately. As an exercise, let someone try to
design a Type S scout courier, similar in performance and TL to the original,
as designed in Book 2. That means TL9!

> As a sidebar, the "Rebellion Sourcebook" -- which is basically
> a rules-free description of the politics and people of the
> Shattered Imperium -- does contain plans for a *few* battleships
> and cruisers.

Plans?! For what size "battleships"? Remember "Azhanti High Lightning", which
had a dozen or so A3-sized plans of decks, and each plan represented many
similar decks. And that was only a heavy cruiser! I'd expect the plans for,
say, a "Plankwell" class 200,000 ton battleship to occupy a book by themselves.

> I asked my hobby store clerk, who generally seems to know
> what's coming out, if GDW had any plans to release something
> like the old supplements 7 and 9.  He said he didn't know
> of any such releases planned within the next year :-(.

How does one get something "Approved for use with Traveller" by GDW? Maybe we
could release our own?

 "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   [email removed]

> Just how compatible are ships designed under High Guard with the new system?
> The sizes of various things have changed; density is no longer constant, which
> means mass and volume aren't necessarily equivalent any more; and you have to
> account for all the sensors separately. As an exercise, let someone try to
> design a Type S scout courier, similar in performance and TL to the original,
> as designed in Book 2. That means TL9!

Compatible??? Not at all! :-( :-(
Just look att the Jumpdrives and their fuel consuptions.
In old T (& HighGuard) the drive drunk 10% of the ship volume
in fuel per parsec of jump. In MegaT it's appetite is based on the volume
of thwe drive!!!
(Example: 100tons hull with Jump-6 would require 60(old)tons of fuel
according to the old rules, In MegaT it would only take about 35(old)tons!)
((Old ton is deplacement tons: 1 old ton <=> 13.5 new kilolitres))
The net result is that with old T it was easy to make 6-G Agility-6 ships
but harder to achieve any big jump numbers, In MegaT Jump-6 is a piece of
arcturian cake, but Agility-6 AND non-missile armaments is nearly impossible.

Anybody know if this was intentional or just the result of some goof-up
when they (GDW) designed MegaT???


- --
Bertil K K Jonell @ Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg
NET: [email removed]
VOICE: [phone removed] / +46 300 61004     "Don`t worry,I`ve got Pilot-7"
[address removed]                             (Famous last words)
"During the high point of the Downes Age, they put Ming the Merciless in charge
of designing Carlifornia gas stations" W.Gibson "The Gernsback Continuum"

	The process of designing a vehicle is, well a bit too long. First,
you choose a hull design, and decide its size and configuration and armor.
Power supply comes next, then locomotion, communication, sensors and
electronics, weapons if you want, screens if you want, bridge if needed,
accommodations, and fuel. The system was designed in a way so that you can
use it to create vehicles, starships, or small crafts. The only thing I don't
really like is that it took a long time just to create a craft of any kind.

	You can design crafts of any kind up to Tech level 21.

	As for combat, well vehicle combat is covered in the personal combat
section, a vehicle is not very different from a person in combat except
it has more firepower/armor. The combat between two vehicles doesn't take
any longer than the combat between two people, thanks to the task system.
You can use civilan vehicles in the combat, too. It just can't fire back,
that's all. What kind of actions occur in combat? Well, you can fire,
you can evade, or intrupt someone else's turn if your turn go before his.
Image, tank A is fighting against B and C. A is aimming B ready to fire, but
C goes first. Thus C decides to perform a intrupt on A, (the form of intrupt
is up to you, you can fire or whatever. As long as it's something that A can't
ingnor. If you succed hitting A and push it aside. A lost it's turn, and B is
safe.) Using the combat system, I have done as many as 15 vehicles combat
without dragging it down...

			Mac

> 	The process of designing a vehicle is, well a bit too long...

	Hmm... I see what you mean.  But surely you can cut certain steps
out depending upon what kind of vehicle you're designing?  Or make the
answers "standard" for a certain class of vehicle.  I agree with you, it
sounds great, perhaps I can get my traveller-playing cousin (hello there
David) to buy the system so I can look at it :-)  Then he can play traveller
and I can autoduel and we'll both be happy :-)

> 	You can design crafts of any kind up to Tech level 21.

	Sounds fun... what kind of options are at that level?  Hmmm...
for that matter, I don't recall much in the old system being above TL16,
aside from a little chart that had vague things like "anti-matter power"
or "personal disintegrator weapons" or "teleportation" etc.

> 	As for combat, well vehicle combat is covered in the personal combat
> section, a vehicle is not very different from a person in combat except
> it has more firepower/armor.

	Hmmm... this doesn't sound perfect.  I realize that ground vehicles
(Cars) are a relatively small portion of the spectrum of vehicles possible,
but do they all move the way human beings do?  Or are there accel/deccel
rules and such?  From what's been said, I suspect that "grafting" on an
adaptation of such rules might work well.

> The combat between two vehicles doesn't take any longer than the combat
> between two people, thanks to the task system.

	How does this task system work?  I've seen various "task systems"
for skills-based RPGs, basically a basic skill plus modifiers for conditions.
Is this similar, or more involved?

	Thanks for all of the information.  This is sounding like a more
attractive system the more I hear about it!  (Now if only I had the cash...
anybody know anybody who needs a decent tech writer?  How about an FRPG
writer? :-)

Steven J. Owens  |  [email removed]  |  [email removed]

"Okay, Major Jonathan "Wrong-Is" Wright rubs his magic ring of Imperial
 Intervention and twenty stormtroopers wearing battledress  and carrying
 gauss rifles pop out of the microwave oven..."

	- Sean T. Grape, in a truly bizarre traveller campaign...
 (Anybody seen this guy recently?  He's probably on the net, somewhere...)