Whew, that was a long subject field...
Okay, first of all, there were a couple of errors and such in the optional
rules I sent for Old/Classic Traveller:
(1) damage of the body pistol is 2d6, not 1d6
(2) for the jump drive enhancement that allows it to jump
double its normal factor, if the computer is too small, the
jump can still be made, but it takes 10 times longer to compute
the jump for each computer size under what is needed (so, for
example, a factor 6 computer takes 10^6 (!) times longer to
compute a jump-12 than a jump-6). Also, I would recommend that
instead of using the myriad of jump programs, that there is just
one astrogation program (say, use the Jump-3 program).
(3) The 'one hardpoint per 100 tons' should be taken as a legal
limit, not a practical one. A ship can mount as many hardpoints
as desired, though the GM needs to do a reality check (and perhaps
deck plans) to make sure they would all fit and still leave normal
ship functions working fine.
There may be some other stuff, but I can't remember it off-hand.
Back when I fist started GMing Traveller back in late 1983, I decided to
do something that ended up really irking my main player (and a fellow
Traveller GM) -- I ignored the background and set my campaign 500 years
in the future, after the fall of the Third Imperium (actually, I was just
ahead of my time...). The player thought what I was doing was blasphemous,
and that I was ignoring the best part of the game. However, I had some good
reasons for doing so: while it required more work for me (in all the years
since, the campaign has never left the sector it started in, though), it
meant I wasn't dependant on material from GDW or related companies, and if
they made major changes to the background, I wouldn't have to alter my
campaign to be official, or to be able to use future products. As a side note,
no player after the first one was unhappy with me using my own setting.
As an off-shoot of the 'after-the-fall, the Second Long Night' campaign,
all the ships, were of neccessity, small. Face it, after a major war and
several minor ones destroyed most industrial planets, shipyards COULDN'T
produce 20,000 ton freighters or 100,000 ton cruisers. The largest ship
that is in any navy currently is a 6,000 ton 'dreadnaught'. Most heavy
cruisers are 1,000-2,000 tons. There are some bulk transports that are
about that size, but they are slow and unweildy, and sitting targets
for pirates unless escort is provided. Granted, in a campaign set
in the early stages of the Rebellion, ship construction won't be TOO
severely effected, but by the late stages, few large ships will be built,
and most large ships already in service will no longer have ports to
get repaired at (having off course been destroyed during the Rebellion).
About the only thing that would keep total disaster from befalling the
old Imperium would be the independant merchants in their small (200-400 ton)
freighters, plying the shipping lanes between each war-ravaged planet.