Eamon--
First, let me admit that I was never comfortable saying, "this group has
this many ships and no more," and don't believe/hope I never did. For
example, in PoT I defined the ships held by the RCES and RCN, but NOT the
planetary navies, those privately held by individuals, corporations, etc.
The reason for this is because, although PoT does have the guidelines for
generating, say, how many ships Solee has, it does not cover how many
Guild or Free Trader or Vampire ships are out there. Referees need wiggle
room. When I was last current in Traveller, there had not been much work
on formalizing the density of shipping by sector, subsector, world,
trade-lane, etc. On the one hand the nature of the game (and movies, TV
shows) makes people want to imagine 100s of ships wherever you look (I'm
talking in 3I, not the TNE Wilds) but more rigorous work seems to indicate
fewer ships, but it's not clear to me that is commonly observed.
If you've played 5th Frontier War you'll by struck by how few warships
there are in the area, fewer than most players would expect. While 5FW is
certainly "canonical," it is fair to ask is it really accurate? Perhaps
the number of ships was limited by the counter-mix (i.e., game's budget),
but they could have addressed that by saying each counter represents 100
ships instead of 8, and I believe the game itself defines the contents of
the counters (if not, BatRon and CruRon compositions are defined in other
contemporary things). But I recall reading an article (must be online)
that does some really deep analysis of world population and warship
density that basically confirmed the 5FW density. This implies that
somewhere GDW had some rules for how many (how many tons of) warships
could be built by population, starport, etc. However, I never became aware
of any of these. It is fair to assume that since Frank was one of the 5FW
designers he was aware of the algorithm, and it is probably very similar
to the one he put in PoT, i.e., same order of magnitude.
You could also get at the ship "carrying capacity" of a polity or region
(again, in 3I peacetime, not TNE Wilds) by using the rules that were in
High Guard/Trillion Credit Squadron on how many tons of ship a planet's
shipyard could build at a time. I honestly do not know if we pulled that
forward into TNE by the time we closed. Since peacetime shipbuilding was
not a primary focus of TNE it is possible we might not have thought of it.
Anyway, you could take the shipbuilding tonnage capacities of the worlds
in an area and multiply by 20 (average ship service life--that's a SWAG,
not a rule--you could push that up to 50 or more to allow for those
ancient mortgaged Free Traders, but Yachts and warships are going to be
replaced more often) to see the maximum tonnage that could be supported by
that industrial base. That would only be at maximum output (wartime) and
that tonnage would be divided among warships, civilian vessels, etc.
You could also get at it by calculating (via various assumptions not
supported by rules) what taxes are generated for an area into the naval
budget, what that could buy, etc.
Bottom line is that is a lot more work than you or I are going to do, so I
looked for the article in the 5FW para and could not find it. But on the
way to not finding it, spotted hundreds of posts on COTI and SJG and SFRPG
where Traveller authors were haranguing over fleets and fleet sizes dating
back to T4. Maybe one of the recent Traveller games has come up with a
rule of thumb, maybe it's right or not, or maybe people are still arguing.
But it seems like there's still uncertainty on it which is why I still
say, the referee needs wiggle room in case he needs to pull some more
ships out of his hat.
So if I had my coffee that day I would have said the CofS top level
government owned the 2 Covenanters, handful of Lauritsen UPSs, and so on,
but would have been silent on whatever additional ships might have been
owned by other actors which could be mobilized. Also remember to fall back
on this old loophole: "ship" means jump-capable, whereas non-jump capable
SDBs are not counted, and could number in the hundreds per system.
> I got the feeling, from the folio adventure with the Ref's Screen and
the
> Challenge 76 piece, that their overwhelming effort was focused on
securing
> the approaches to the Covenant.
Yes, absolutely. This is the correct answer, and the correct use of finite
resources, defend outward and early, not in the last ditch. The key is
identifying these approaches, and this goes back to the "J2" map
discussion to identify those. But you also have to identify approaches
that could be taken by a J3, J4 ship and so on. Fortunately the longer the
local night goes on, the less likely that threat ships out there will
retain high jump performance.
> I thought the jump naval assets they had
> were not enough on their own to do this.
Yes, I agree again. Jump assets are also too valuable to risk in combat if
something more readily replaceable can fight in its place. So why did I
illustrate the Covenanters if they're not really the backbone? Starships
are just cooler than not starships, and I thought the Covenanter hybrids
were cool.
> I used the references to
> extensive use of outposts to craft weapon-controlling variants as a
major
> part of interdicting fuel sources. So in a system with 3 gas giants
there
> might be an outpost at each one - each outpost controlling missile packs
in close orbit of the giant. Outposts would be small, probably based on
modular cutter pods, and as stealthy as possible. Each system in the
cluster containing Sufren and Haze would probably have a jump-capable ship
> on station, either to provide back-up, or to courier a warning if a
large
> incursion was in progress.
That is sound thinking. I would suggest also at the gas giants redundant
OPs, maybe one above each pole (N an S, or hidden in rings/asteroid belts
if present). As big as a GG is, "close orbit" might be a ways out there,
which is good. You'd want them to be far enough out that they can remain
in a stable orbit without getting pulled in. If you've got BL you'd want
to noodle around with X-ray laser ranges, amount of prompt ground the
missiles could cover to get into firing position, etc.
The jump ships will be used heavily for communication, keeping all the
systems informed. And I don't mean it has to be the warships that do that,
you don't want to put too much wear and tear on them, but you also need to
use them to confirm that all systems are functioning and keep the crew
trained up in their use. But if you have a bunch of J-couriers use those
for the communication. That communication has to be continuous, a
non-porous defense wants "near real-time information" which when commo
requires jump is a goal, never a fact.
You'll also need to identify asteroid belts as well. Also, the OPs should
each control a few sensor drones to send around on sweeps.
I don't know if I published this, or just put in a bookmark for later in
some glossary, but whatever I saw about detecting in-jumping
precipitation, have stuff to detect those.
The big thing is that the jump-ship in the system's first job is to get
word out to the rest of the Covenant that something has jumped in, NOT to
get decisively engaged and ruined, as the jump ships are pretty much
irreplaceable resources. However, they would dump off all their missiles
to be taken over by local control before leaving.
Also, remember to use the "a boat is not a ship" loophole: SDBs, SDBs,
SDBs. If you have Assignment: Vigilante, that includes a big 1000 ton SDB
that is established as having been produced in large numbers near the
Solomani sphere, i.e., in Diaspora sector. Have some of those. Those are
designed/rated with the MT rules, so they're probably busted, so you'll
have to redo them in TNE. My approach is start by matching size and
weapons fit with the prototype. Since it's non-jump you won't have to
trade off J for M, so G it up hot. And also remember that TNE does not
observe the "one hardpoint per 100 tons" rule, you can keep loading on
weapons until you run out of surface area. However, do put on your sensors
and EMS radiators first.
Also consult Regency SB and look at how RQS turned all of these small
craft into gunboats. CofS will want to do that as well.
Finally, and this is a pure TNEism, Marc has repudiated this elsewhere,
TNE allows jump capable craft smaller than 100 tons. I am honestly of not
convinced of J-torps, but I do know that I want you to be able to built
little couriers or Xboats down around 50-80 tons and not 100.
> To support such ventures I thought many of the Covenant Scout/Couriers
would have been modified to carry a cutter module (a big modification when
> you consider the internal layout), and ships like the Donosevs and the
Broadswords not only assisting with their cutter capabilities, but also
using grapples to carry more outpost material at > reduced jump.
Yes, definitely the Donosevs would have their labs ripped out, keeping
sensors that could be used for military purposes, and have those spaces
used for hauling cargo, supplies, construction materials, missile reloads.
Given their limited internal configuration, you could have the cutter
modules bulge out to make the ship like 120 or 130 tons, but that would
reduce jump below 2. Okay if they're in service on J1 routes. One of the
Traveller abstractions is that star systems are always an integer value of
parsecs apart. In "reality" this would not be the case, two stars might be
only 1.8 pc apart and not abstracted to 2. This would mean that in those
cases you COULD get by with a ship with Jump 1.8 performance. However, TNE
was not going to assert that kind of change to the star maps. If you had
extra J drive components you could beef up a 120 or 130 Type S to restore
J2, but that would be an unlikely use of resources. It would be far more
valuable to create a new jump-capable ship rather than uprating an
existing one.
> Talking of outposts, how did you see the Covenant using them? Listening
stations were mentioned as being extensive, and I figured they dumped data
> to ships running sweeps, with the data transferred back down the line to
the Covenant. I'm not even sure if the stations were supposed to be
manned, but in the NE I guess that could be seen as essential.
Given that this is not just early TNE, but pre-TNE (reflecting that the
CofS has been doing this for a long time to survive to 1200), yes, manned
outposts would be the appropriate flavor. Also, there would be a clear
protocol before sending and receiving those data dumps to demonstrate,
"Yes, still people here, not a Virus-infected listening post," and aboard
the receiving ship the receivers would be isolated, and they would also
carry spares in case they did somehow pick up an infected broadcast.
I would suggest that you would not want to make a distinction between the
OPs above and these LPs, meaning that they all can control flocks of
missiles and sensor drones in their areas. That also makes them more
standardized for production in bulk.
> Also mentioned were Scout Service outposts, to aid recontact with the
wilds. I saw these as staging posts, and probably not located in target
systems, but if you have any recollections on them, I'm all ears.
If I had the article where I could read it, I would, and if I spotted
something that reminded me of more detail I would share it.
What to you mean "target systems?" Here is a thought, take it for what it
is worth. These Scout Service outposts could be posts outside the CofS
frontier where Free Traders and Guild ships are allowed to call, trade,
refuel, reprovision, and exchange information with CofS to mutual benefit.
The idea is that CofS would say, "Don't come inside our frontier, we'll
have to shoot you, but meet us out here at these outposts and we can
trade." Naturally there will have to be elaborate IFF routines observed by
the incoming ships. And you will have to think about, how do I staff these
things, do I have to keep jump-ships out there too? Maybe not, maybe you
just armor the daylights out of the place where the people sit, have it
armed well enough to blast a trader that looks at them funny, and the
"trade" may not be very face-to-face, but the trader drops some crates on
the porch, the CofS guys push something out an airlock, and they wave
good-bye.
> I did do a little bit of expansion of the RC/Covenant storyline, but in
a
> very hazy way. I reckoned that once they saw what the RC had done,
albeit
> with help from the Hivers, they would start to pursue an aggressive
shipbuilding strategy, and so some smash & grabbing.
They should already be building ships as aggressively as possible; they're
already at war with the universe around them.
> However, the latter would be tempered a little by the fact that the
Covenant seems less dogmatic with regards to
> government types, having two charismatic
> dictatorships and one democracy.
> People the RC would have no problem hitting hard might get diplomatic
approaches from
> the Covenant.
Not necessarily. Dictatorships don't necessarily flock together,
dictatorships can just be harsher with others. Remember the whole point
behind the "Covenant" is that it is very harsh, and is what allowed them
to survive. They could easily be more brutal with TEDs, following their
existing dictum, "we must do what it takes to survive. Life is tough all
over."
But, by what mechanism would they have seen what the RC has done? They may
not learn about it until they meet the RC.
> I disliked the way the Covenant was toasted in the Avenger timeline,
Me too, now that you tell me. Actually I had heard that before.
> ignored that. However, I didn't really do any solid timelining. I did
however do a draft of the Belladonna's mission to Sufren, hitting lots of
> the interesting systems in Thoezzent and Promise L, H, and D on the way.
Did we write somewhere that Belladonna was going to CofS? It seems like I
see a lot of references from different people about Belladonna taking that
mission.
> How did you see things going? The Covenant absorbed? The RC morphing
into an alliance of states? Something else?
I saw them as being RC's first ally, but not really being absorbed, but
they have a common cause so it would be an alliance. Think of this
RC-centric alliance as that aggregate composite concrete, with the rocks
inside a concrete matrix. The CofS would be one of those rocks and the RC
would be all of the concrete around it.
On the other hand, in keeping with our recent discussion of RC good guys,
sometimes kind of mean, you could go the twisted route and say the RC just
cannot abide having these two dictatorships over there, so they have to
run a decapitation raid on CofS. That would be an interesting thought to
pursue, but it would be a stupid waste of resources, and bog the campaign
down further when there's also Solee to contend with. But the political
aspect of the RC, the Federalist stuff, would be inflamed by, "now we're
aligned with dictatorships." Oriflamme would love it, others less so. But
if politics makes strange bedfellows, the Wilds ought to damn well compel
CofS and RC to get along and appreciate each other.
You might find that CofS orders missions that are not compatible with RC
standards, what happens if you're an RC ship in orbit and a CofS mission
does something outside of the RC ROE? Stand by? Stop them? How? There
could be some really good high drama there.
I know that I wrote a lot here, but it's all just agreement with your
ideas, expansions, suggestions. I think you are doing an excellent job
logically expanding CofS from what I presented. It would make a nice
follow-on Challenge article were that still an option. Thanks for sending
this, I liked them and it's nice to see you running with it.
> Eamon
> --------------------------------------------
> On Tue, 18/3/14, <> wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Jump route maps (was Re: Since Dave N is
> feeling talkative)
> To:
> Date: Tuesday, 18 March, 2014, 13:10
>
>
> Â
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Eamon--
>
>
>
> I agree, that is another significant consideration, and one
> which my
>
> described maps would only capture if you did that in
> advance, or did it
>
> carefully, looking for those indicators. But you are
> correct, that is the
>
> way you SHOULD do them to be perfectly accurate. While most
> ships can
>
> easily do a gas giant, having to bust up ice asteroids or
> land in a water
>
> ocean is different.
>
>
>
> How did things work out for the Covenant in your campaign? I
> recently saw
>
> that Avenger did a New Era adventure on the RC heading out
> to meet them.
>
>
>
> > On a slightly related note, during my intensive phase
> of obsession with
>
> > the Covenant of Sufren, I made a map with systems
> having difficult
>
> > frontier refuelling partially shaded, as I felt that
> would affect the flow
>
> > of vampire ships and the Covenant's posture against
> them. For some reason
>
> > I've never really needed route maps, but I can be
> fooled by a system that
>
> > seems to provide a nice link on a route, but which is
> bone-dry(-ish).
First, let me admit that I was never comfortable saying, "this group has
this many ships and no more," and don't believe/hope I never did. For
example, in PoT I defined the ships held by the RCES and RCN, but NOT the
planetary navies, those privately held by individuals, corporations, etc.
The reason for this is because, although PoT does have the guidelines for
generating, say, how many ships Solee has, it does not cover how many
Guild or Free Trader or Vampire ships are out there. Referees need wiggle
room. When I was last current in Traveller, there had not been much work
on formalizing the density of shipping by sector, subsector, world,
trade-lane, etc. On the one hand the nature of the game (and movies, TV
shows) makes people want to imagine 100s of ships wherever you look (I'm
talking in 3I, not the TNE Wilds) but more rigorous work seems to indicate
fewer ships, but it's not clear to me that is commonly observed.
If you've played 5th Frontier War you'll by struck by how few warships
there are in the area, fewer than most players would expect. While 5FW is
certainly "canonical," it is fair to ask is it really accurate? Perhaps
the number of ships was limited by the counter-mix (i.e., game's budget),
but they could have addressed that by saying each counter represents 100
ships instead of 8, and I believe the game itself defines the contents of
the counters (if not, BatRon and CruRon compositions are defined in other
contemporary things). But I recall reading an article (must be online)
that does some really deep analysis of world population and warship
density that basically confirmed the 5FW density. This implies that
somewhere GDW had some rules for how many (how many tons of) warships
could be built by population, starport, etc. However, I never became aware
of any of these. It is fair to assume that since Frank was one of the 5FW
designers he was aware of the algorithm, and it is probably very similar
to the one he put in PoT, i.e., same order of magnitude.
You could also get at the ship "carrying capacity" of a polity or region
(again, in 3I peacetime, not TNE Wilds) by using the rules that were in
High Guard/Trillion Credit Squadron on how many tons of ship a planet's
shipyard could build at a time. I honestly do not know if we pulled that
forward into TNE by the time we closed. Since peacetime shipbuilding was
not a primary focus of TNE it is possible we might not have thought of it.
Anyway, you could take the shipbuilding tonnage capacities of the worlds
in an area and multiply by 20 (average ship service life--that's a SWAG,
not a rule--you could push that up to 50 or more to allow for those
ancient mortgaged Free Traders, but Yachts and warships are going to be
replaced more often) to see the maximum tonnage that could be supported by
that industrial base. That would only be at maximum output (wartime) and
that tonnage would be divided among warships, civilian vessels, etc.
You could also get at it by calculating (via various assumptions not
supported by rules) what taxes are generated for an area into the naval
budget, what that could buy, etc.
Bottom line is that is a lot more work than you or I are going to do, so I
looked for the article in the 5FW para and could not find it. But on the
way to not finding it, spotted hundreds of posts on COTI and SJG and SFRPG
where Traveller authors were haranguing over fleets and fleet sizes dating
back to T4. Maybe one of the recent Traveller games has come up with a
rule of thumb, maybe it's right or not, or maybe people are still arguing.
But it seems like there's still uncertainty on it which is why I still
say, the referee needs wiggle room in case he needs to pull some more
ships out of his hat.
So if I had my coffee that day I would have said the CofS top level
government owned the 2 Covenanters, handful of Lauritsen UPSs, and so on,
but would have been silent on whatever additional ships might have been
owned by other actors which could be mobilized. Also remember to fall back
on this old loophole: "ship" means jump-capable, whereas non-jump capable
SDBs are not counted, and could number in the hundreds per system.
> I got the feeling, from the folio adventure with the Ref's Screen and
the
> Challenge 76 piece, that their overwhelming effort was focused on
securing
> the approaches to the Covenant.
Yes, absolutely. This is the correct answer, and the correct use of finite
resources, defend outward and early, not in the last ditch. The key is
identifying these approaches, and this goes back to the "J2" map
discussion to identify those. But you also have to identify approaches
that could be taken by a J3, J4 ship and so on. Fortunately the longer the
local night goes on, the less likely that threat ships out there will
retain high jump performance.
> I thought the jump naval assets they had
> were not enough on their own to do this.
Yes, I agree again. Jump assets are also too valuable to risk in combat if
something more readily replaceable can fight in its place. So why did I
illustrate the Covenanters if they're not really the backbone? Starships
are just cooler than not starships, and I thought the Covenanter hybrids
were cool.
> I used the references to
> extensive use of outposts to craft weapon-controlling variants as a
major
> part of interdicting fuel sources. So in a system with 3 gas giants
there
> might be an outpost at each one - each outpost controlling missile packs
in close orbit of the giant. Outposts would be small, probably based on
modular cutter pods, and as stealthy as possible. Each system in the
cluster containing Sufren and Haze would probably have a jump-capable ship
> on station, either to provide back-up, or to courier a warning if a
large
> incursion was in progress.
That is sound thinking. I would suggest also at the gas giants redundant
OPs, maybe one above each pole (N an S, or hidden in rings/asteroid belts
if present). As big as a GG is, "close orbit" might be a ways out there,
which is good. You'd want them to be far enough out that they can remain
in a stable orbit without getting pulled in. If you've got BL you'd want
to noodle around with X-ray laser ranges, amount of prompt ground the
missiles could cover to get into firing position, etc.
The jump ships will be used heavily for communication, keeping all the
systems informed. And I don't mean it has to be the warships that do that,
you don't want to put too much wear and tear on them, but you also need to
use them to confirm that all systems are functioning and keep the crew
trained up in their use. But if you have a bunch of J-couriers use those
for the communication. That communication has to be continuous, a
non-porous defense wants "near real-time information" which when commo
requires jump is a goal, never a fact.
You'll also need to identify asteroid belts as well. Also, the OPs should
each control a few sensor drones to send around on sweeps.
I don't know if I published this, or just put in a bookmark for later in
some glossary, but whatever I saw about detecting in-jumping
precipitation, have stuff to detect those.
The big thing is that the jump-ship in the system's first job is to get
word out to the rest of the Covenant that something has jumped in, NOT to
get decisively engaged and ruined, as the jump ships are pretty much
irreplaceable resources. However, they would dump off all their missiles
to be taken over by local control before leaving.
Also, remember to use the "a boat is not a ship" loophole: SDBs, SDBs,
SDBs. If you have Assignment: Vigilante, that includes a big 1000 ton SDB
that is established as having been produced in large numbers near the
Solomani sphere, i.e., in Diaspora sector. Have some of those. Those are
designed/rated with the MT rules, so they're probably busted, so you'll
have to redo them in TNE. My approach is start by matching size and
weapons fit with the prototype. Since it's non-jump you won't have to
trade off J for M, so G it up hot. And also remember that TNE does not
observe the "one hardpoint per 100 tons" rule, you can keep loading on
weapons until you run out of surface area. However, do put on your sensors
and EMS radiators first.
Also consult Regency SB and look at how RQS turned all of these small
craft into gunboats. CofS will want to do that as well.
Finally, and this is a pure TNEism, Marc has repudiated this elsewhere,
TNE allows jump capable craft smaller than 100 tons. I am honestly of not
convinced of J-torps, but I do know that I want you to be able to built
little couriers or Xboats down around 50-80 tons and not 100.
> To support such ventures I thought many of the Covenant Scout/Couriers
would have been modified to carry a cutter module (a big modification when
> you consider the internal layout), and ships like the Donosevs and the
Broadswords not only assisting with their cutter capabilities, but also
using grapples to carry more outpost material at > reduced jump.
Yes, definitely the Donosevs would have their labs ripped out, keeping
sensors that could be used for military purposes, and have those spaces
used for hauling cargo, supplies, construction materials, missile reloads.
Given their limited internal configuration, you could have the cutter
modules bulge out to make the ship like 120 or 130 tons, but that would
reduce jump below 2. Okay if they're in service on J1 routes. One of the
Traveller abstractions is that star systems are always an integer value of
parsecs apart. In "reality" this would not be the case, two stars might be
only 1.8 pc apart and not abstracted to 2. This would mean that in those
cases you COULD get by with a ship with Jump 1.8 performance. However, TNE
was not going to assert that kind of change to the star maps. If you had
extra J drive components you could beef up a 120 or 130 Type S to restore
J2, but that would be an unlikely use of resources. It would be far more
valuable to create a new jump-capable ship rather than uprating an
existing one.
> Talking of outposts, how did you see the Covenant using them? Listening
stations were mentioned as being extensive, and I figured they dumped data
> to ships running sweeps, with the data transferred back down the line to
the Covenant. I'm not even sure if the stations were supposed to be
manned, but in the NE I guess that could be seen as essential.
Given that this is not just early TNE, but pre-TNE (reflecting that the
CofS has been doing this for a long time to survive to 1200), yes, manned
outposts would be the appropriate flavor. Also, there would be a clear
protocol before sending and receiving those data dumps to demonstrate,
"Yes, still people here, not a Virus-infected listening post," and aboard
the receiving ship the receivers would be isolated, and they would also
carry spares in case they did somehow pick up an infected broadcast.
I would suggest that you would not want to make a distinction between the
OPs above and these LPs, meaning that they all can control flocks of
missiles and sensor drones in their areas. That also makes them more
standardized for production in bulk.
> Also mentioned were Scout Service outposts, to aid recontact with the
wilds. I saw these as staging posts, and probably not located in target
systems, but if you have any recollections on them, I'm all ears.
If I had the article where I could read it, I would, and if I spotted
something that reminded me of more detail I would share it.
What to you mean "target systems?" Here is a thought, take it for what it
is worth. These Scout Service outposts could be posts outside the CofS
frontier where Free Traders and Guild ships are allowed to call, trade,
refuel, reprovision, and exchange information with CofS to mutual benefit.
The idea is that CofS would say, "Don't come inside our frontier, we'll
have to shoot you, but meet us out here at these outposts and we can
trade." Naturally there will have to be elaborate IFF routines observed by
the incoming ships. And you will have to think about, how do I staff these
things, do I have to keep jump-ships out there too? Maybe not, maybe you
just armor the daylights out of the place where the people sit, have it
armed well enough to blast a trader that looks at them funny, and the
"trade" may not be very face-to-face, but the trader drops some crates on
the porch, the CofS guys push something out an airlock, and they wave
good-bye.
> I did do a little bit of expansion of the RC/Covenant storyline, but in
a
> very hazy way. I reckoned that once they saw what the RC had done,
albeit
> with help from the Hivers, they would start to pursue an aggressive
shipbuilding strategy, and so some smash & grabbing.
They should already be building ships as aggressively as possible; they're
already at war with the universe around them.
> However, the latter would be tempered a little by the fact that the
Covenant seems less dogmatic with regards to
> government types, having two charismatic
> dictatorships and one democracy.
> People the RC would have no problem hitting hard might get diplomatic
approaches from
> the Covenant.
Not necessarily. Dictatorships don't necessarily flock together,
dictatorships can just be harsher with others. Remember the whole point
behind the "Covenant" is that it is very harsh, and is what allowed them
to survive. They could easily be more brutal with TEDs, following their
existing dictum, "we must do what it takes to survive. Life is tough all
over."
But, by what mechanism would they have seen what the RC has done? They may
not learn about it until they meet the RC.
> I disliked the way the Covenant was toasted in the Avenger timeline,
Me too, now that you tell me. Actually I had heard that before.
> ignored that. However, I didn't really do any solid timelining. I did
however do a draft of the Belladonna's mission to Sufren, hitting lots of
> the interesting systems in Thoezzent and Promise L, H, and D on the way.
Did we write somewhere that Belladonna was going to CofS? It seems like I
see a lot of references from different people about Belladonna taking that
mission.
> How did you see things going? The Covenant absorbed? The RC morphing
into an alliance of states? Something else?
I saw them as being RC's first ally, but not really being absorbed, but
they have a common cause so it would be an alliance. Think of this
RC-centric alliance as that aggregate composite concrete, with the rocks
inside a concrete matrix. The CofS would be one of those rocks and the RC
would be all of the concrete around it.
On the other hand, in keeping with our recent discussion of RC good guys,
sometimes kind of mean, you could go the twisted route and say the RC just
cannot abide having these two dictatorships over there, so they have to
run a decapitation raid on CofS. That would be an interesting thought to
pursue, but it would be a stupid waste of resources, and bog the campaign
down further when there's also Solee to contend with. But the political
aspect of the RC, the Federalist stuff, would be inflamed by, "now we're
aligned with dictatorships." Oriflamme would love it, others less so. But
if politics makes strange bedfellows, the Wilds ought to damn well compel
CofS and RC to get along and appreciate each other.
You might find that CofS orders missions that are not compatible with RC
standards, what happens if you're an RC ship in orbit and a CofS mission
does something outside of the RC ROE? Stand by? Stop them? How? There
could be some really good high drama there.
I know that I wrote a lot here, but it's all just agreement with your
ideas, expansions, suggestions. I think you are doing an excellent job
logically expanding CofS from what I presented. It would make a nice
follow-on Challenge article were that still an option. Thanks for sending
this, I liked them and it's nice to see you running with it.
> Eamon
> --------------------------------------------
> On Tue, 18/3/14, <> wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Jump route maps (was Re: Since Dave N is
> feeling talkative)
> To:
> Date: Tuesday, 18 March, 2014, 13:10
>
>
> Â
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Eamon--
>
>
>
> I agree, that is another significant consideration, and one
> which my
>
> described maps would only capture if you did that in
> advance, or did it
>
> carefully, looking for those indicators. But you are
> correct, that is the
>
> way you SHOULD do them to be perfectly accurate. While most
> ships can
>
> easily do a gas giant, having to bust up ice asteroids or
> land in a water
>
> ocean is different.
>
>
>
> How did things work out for the Covenant in your campaign? I
> recently saw
>
> that Avenger did a New Era adventure on the RC heading out
> to meet them.
>
>
>
> > On a slightly related note, during my intensive phase
> of obsession with
>
> > the Covenant of Sufren, I made a map with systems
> having difficult
>
> > frontier refuelling partially shaded, as I felt that
> would affect the flow
>
> > of vampire ships and the Covenant's posture against
> them. For some reason
>
> > I've never really needed route maps, but I can be
> fooled by a system that
>
> > seems to provide a nice link on a route, but which is
> bone-dry(-ish).