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Topic 3 Thu Jun 01, 1989
J.FUGATE at 18:48 MDT
Sub: MegaTraveller - General Discussions
This topic is to be a catch-all topic for any discussion that doesn't fit in
any other topic.
429 message(s) total.
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Category 11, Topic 3
Message 428 Sun Nov 24, 1991
S.OLSON4 at 20:33 EST
Jay,
I suspect that a lot of the negativity that shows up here and in Topic 29
is very simply because we, the current fans and players of
Traveller/MegaTraveller, don't see exactly what this new revision is going to
gain us. I personally would be much happier with a revised and de-warted MT
than with a completely new system, because I have a lot of investment in
Traveller/MT.
In my opinion, the problems with MT were not so much the rules (although
certain areas could use some fixing), but the lack of support from GDW and
company. DGP tried, but they couldn't output enough stuff to cover the lack
of output from GDW, which was busy with 2300 and 1889.
On the subject of design rules for starships, I think they're almost
required for Traveller because of the universe postulated: there is such a
wide variance in tech levels between different planets that you need lots of
different ships in each "class", and the spatial terrain of an area will also
heavily influence the ships in use. Another reason its required in any
revised Traveller is because Traveller and MT had it: if you don't have new
rules available old Traveller refs will be less likely to convert, unless they
were willing to utilize the miniscule number of ships (mostly wrong, anyway)
that were available in MT or the larger number ships available in
Traveller/High Guard.
I cannot comment on 2300, never having owned the game, but I found (and
find) the designing of starships/space craft/vehicles fun, rather than work.
Admittedly, I could be warped, but still... Also, designing starships can
play heavily in some campaigns, especially if you're operating in the right
kind of enviroment.
Loren,
Could you please say a little more about Star Viking, in particular
whether it will include vehicle/weapon design rules, a la Striker, or not?
I'm intrigued by it, being a long-time Piper fan, so...
And to whoever said that the 800 ton Broadswords would be the obvious Star
Viking ship, I laugh heartily. Try closer to 30,000+ tons, I'd guess. In
Space Viking, Nemesis is a 2000-foot spherical ship, and Piper's ships don't
have fuel requirements per se (it's all fission, and you can run for a good
while on a set of power cartridges). My geometry is rusty, so I don't trust
my memory on how many displacement tons a 2000-foot sphere is, could someone
give us a rough estimate?
Scott
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Category 11, Topic 3
Message 429 Mon Nov 25, 1991
R.DEAN14 [Rob Dean] at 07:09 EST
4/3 pi r cubed, right? I just punched this through and come up with 8.8
million displacement tons for a '2000 footer'. BTW--I'm the one who made the
Broadsword comment. I think it would be too unwieldy from a record keeping
point of view for a single player to try to run 8.8 million tons of ship plus
all the potential carried vehicles. I admit, it was a bit of an underscaled
remark. Rob Dean
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Topic 29 Mon Nov 18, 1991
DIGEST.GROUP [Staff] at 00:43 EST
Sub: The WISH List
You know that the new Traveller is coming soon to a game store near you - but
is you had your way, what would you want to see in it?
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Category 11, Topic 29
Message 44 Sun Nov 24, 1991
R.DEAN14 [Rob Dean] at 20:32 EST
Regarding Twilight:2000, I'll shut up now. I do remember the Grenadier
miniatures, although they came out at one of my financial low points, and I
heard the Trav seminar at Origins. I hope GDW gets them back on the amrket,
though I must add that 25mm will be a lot better for doing the routine work of
a role-playing game than for playing large miniatures battles. The main
problem from a gamer's point of view with 25mm is that tanks and other
vehicles will be too expensive. I'm basing this opinion on the prices of 20-
25mm lead or resin tanks for WWII and modern, which probably are low sales
volume items for their manufacturers, and thus fairly comparable. The
historical miniatures gaming world is engaging in a lot of complaining about
how hard it is to find and interest new people right now, and the second
biggest complaint you hear being discussed is the high cost of initial
investment in miniatures. (The first is the unnappealing format and
complicated nature of the rules--assuming that Star Viking is comparable to
Command Decision or Combined Arms, this will be less of an issue than it would
be if you wanted to become an ancients gamer using the much complained about
WRG Ancients rules, a discussion for another topic--though there is no
miniatures discussion here, is there?). Anyway, as much appreciated as the
Traveller 25s will be, mass combat using micro-armor type equipment will be
easier to hook newcomers with. (IMHO... and our local miniatures cabal has
recently snagged two new people for the group by starting a microarmor project
using Command Decision due to the comparatively low start-up cost.)
Rob Dean
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Category 11, Topic 29
Message 45 Sun Nov 24, 1991
R.DEAN14 [Rob Dean] at 20:52 EST
Jay,
You asked about why anyone would want a ship design system in a role-
playing game, and mention that you thought there were enough ship designs in
2300 to run the game. I think that you may be close to right with 2300--I
havne't got the rules handy, but it seemed to me that the basic game needed
the details of a lander. Mere quibbling. At any rate, back to the question.
The best answer that I can come up with is that there is a substantial
difference in the way ships are handled in Traveller and in 2300. In 2300 a
ship is something which is so rare that players cannot really aspire to own
one. Since they are issued to them by their bosses, they pretty much have to
take what they are given and work with it. In Traveller, it is relatively
easy for a character to end up as the owner of a ship. While a lot of ship
owners will use (and be content with) standard designs, the profusion of small
owner /operators is going to make slightly different customized ships quite
common. After all, while you may want something like a Type M standard
merchant, if you know that you are going to be trading in a cluster where Jump-
2 is going to be sufficient, why pay extra for a jump-3? Also, ships are built
(I get the impression) as one-offs rather than mass-produced for new ship
lots. Thus, the difference in background between the two games logically
leads to a situation where custom ships are more common in Traveller. In
2300, too, extra engine capacity is useful, since it reduces the amount of
time between any two stars, while in Traveller extra jumop capacity is
expensive dead weight. So, unless the flavor of the game is going to change
so much that the current level of ship ownership is going to be radically
different, it will make sense for there to be a ship design system at least as
capable as the old Book 2 system, which was pretty modular and very easy to
work with. The level of detail given in the MegaTraveller referee's manual is
by no means necessary. If, however, a revised version of the MT ref's manual
was used as a basis (i.e., a supplement), it would be a good design scheme to
ensure that the stripped down modular 'Book 2' version remained compatible. I
think it would be possible, even under the current system, to put together
such a 'book 2' subset of the rules in no more than 4 or 5 pages, by leaving
out things like avionics, variable armor and most of the weapon and shield
data, and generating a table of relatively few options for standard hulls,
power plants and environmental suites.
"Historically" speaking, many players I've seen have been as attached to their
ships as to their characters, and I tend to view 'the ship' as another member
of the party. (Albeit one that won't fit into the bar...)
Rob Dean (See--I can be rational, once I got the other off my chest. (-: )
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Category 11, Topic 29
Message 46 Mon Nov 25, 1991
DIGEST.GROUP [Staff] at 01:28 EST
Sounds like a reasonable answer to me, Rob.
::Bowing to your obvious greater grasp of Traveller as a gaming genre::
:)
- - Jay
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