Thread: Re: Space Weapon Effective Ranges-->Ship Design

That's great stuff. Was it clear from where you sat that we no longer had
jump grids in the hull skin? I would have had the engineer doing a lot
more with configuring the contours of the jump envelope to "bite into"
j-space, allowing for anything carried externally, blah, blah, blah.

Faster jump prep, more accurate jump precip, less variance to jump time,
nice. Maybe even masking or spoofing jump entry so it would be less
evident where you were jumping to.

Of course the danger of your system is now that engineers have all those
pretty little cards, every other skill is going to want them. So we could
publish all of the skill/technique cards for all the skills. And we could
sell them in packs where they would be randomly distributed, and there
would be rare cards that you could get if you bought enough packs, like,
"pull flying monkey out of your butt, make any one random major system
failure go away."

Ah, hindsight.

> No worries, Dave. That's great to hear and very flattery, thank you Dave.
> The larger idea of organizing the technobabble came from Shadis, so not
> sure I could sell it. I sure adapted the hell out of it for my TNE and SW
> campaigns, though. :D
>
> Found the description I put on COTI back in 2002:
>
> I started with some guidelines I got from an old Shadis article.
> Basically,
> Technologies, (sub)Systems and Effects are put on index cards. For every
> "pip" [+1] in a technical skill, a player gets one card. AS GM, I gave
> players a choice out of a number of sleections, first based on
> fundamentals
> "required" and then as the player's skill went up, he would gain the
> opportunity for "electives."
>
> I based the cards on the DGP Starship Operations Manual extrapolated for
> TNE tech (HEPlaR and Jump Drives both gained additional subsystems, for
> example).
>
> Jump Drive was a Technology card gained from Starship Engineering. It
> explained the basic theories, as put in the various Library data, etc. The
> Jump Drive System card showed the various Individual components (hull
> grid,
> fuel tankage, fuel lines, HPG, links to the Main Computer [a separate
> Technology/Systems card(s) that would have to be learned on their own],
> etc
> etc).
>
> Engineers had speciality Effects they could learn. Solo Jump was the most
> basic (a single uncoordinated jump). Coordinated and Synchronized Jumps
> were other skills, as were rebuild/repair procedures. I incorporated the
> "alarm lights" as notifications to an individual system (which I had
> compiled random tables for). I would say for example to the engineer.
>
> (As the Ship is preparing to go to jump. "You get an alarm light
> indicating an issue with the (random roll): power spike from the Hull
> Grid.
> He consults that card, which says how the grid gets the fuel from the line
> and with energy provided by the HPG, creates the jump field in the
> ejectected h2 "bubble" around the ship [ the paradigm for jump IMTU) and
> see's there's a possibility for misjump, which he can relay to the
> captain,
> who can decide if it's worth the risk or if repairs (up to and including
> EVA) are necessary. Done either by GM fiat, or more rolls.
>
> If it happened while in Jump, it would be a whole lot more interesting.
> This, along with more random rolls, made repairs a whole lot more
> interesting, too. Naturally, the most skilled enginners ended up with all
> kinds of cards and tricks to do. Faster jump prep. Tweaked drives. Greater
> accuracy, less variance to the jump time, etc etc.
>

yeah, it was clear. I was still using "a" grid but not "the" (DGP) Grid.
It was more along the lines of the layout of the h2 "nozzles."

My ultimate intent IMTU was to have different ways of doing the same thing.
So that while the Coalition (and Solomani amongst others) didn't use the
DGP grids, the 1st Imperium Vilani did and so they showed up in more than a
few designs in the 3I. But it wasn't required. This would have led to
"specialized" cards where I could throw a left hook at the player who
thought he knew everything there was to know about a particular field (and
would let me introduce "new" cards if they encountered a strange alien race
who had this crazy idea... that actually worked)

Similarly, I had decided Thruster Plates breakthrough was at TL15 in the 3I
and possible at TL14 with certain TL15 advances but required close
integration of the T-plates with CG lifters that made it... dangerous to
use after the release of Virus ("Grav Pong" was practically impossible to
prevent). Most 3I designs were still HEPlaR by that reckoning, but more
due to the Vilani's cliched traditionalism and Solomani infrastructure was
still mostly HEPLaR as well due to the TL deal. But there were these
oddball prototypes running around that the players might run into...

Definitely saw the opportunity in equipment/weapons modding/repair as well
but was more interested in doing alternate technology (big B5 fan at the
time) and contemplating if I wanted to introduce hyperspace into that
Traveller Universe or do a new alternate universe game with TNE rules....

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 12:53 PM, <> wrote:

> **
>
>
> That's great stuff. Was it clear from where you sat that we no longer had
> jump grids in the hull skin? I would have had the engineer doing a lot
> more with configuring the contours of the jump envelope to "bite into"
> j-space, allowing for anything carried externally, blah, blah, blah.
>
> Faster jump prep, more accurate jump precip, less variance to jump time,
> nice. Maybe even masking or spoofing jump entry so it would be less
> evident where you were jumping to.
>
> Of course the danger of your system is now that engineers have all those
> pretty little cards, every other skill is going to want them. So we could
> publish all of the skill/technique cards for all the skills. And we could
> sell them in packs where they would be randomly distributed, and there
> would be rare cards that you could get if you bought enough packs, like,
> "pull flying monkey out of your butt, make any one random major system
> failure go away."
>
> Ah, hindsight.
>
>
> > No worries, Dave. That's great to hear and very flattery, thank you Dave.
> > The larger idea of organizing the technobabble came from Shadis, so not
> > sure I could sell it. I sure adapted the hell out of it for my TNE and SW
> > campaigns, though. :D
> >
> > Found the description I put on COTI back in 2002:
> >
> > I started with some guidelines I got from an old Shadis article.
> > Basically,
> > Technologies, (sub)Systems and Effects are put on index cards. For every
> > "pip" [+1] in a technical skill, a player gets one card. AS GM, I gave
> > players a choice out of a number of sleections, first based on
> > fundamentals
> > "required" and then as the player's skill went up, he would gain the
> > opportunity for "electives."
> >
> > I based the cards on the DGP Starship Operations Manual extrapolated for
> > TNE tech (HEPlaR and Jump Drives both gained additional subsystems, for
> > example).
> >
> > Jump Drive was a Technology card gained from Starship Engineering. It
> > explained the basic theories, as put in the various Library data, etc.
> The
> > Jump Drive System card showed the various Individual components (hull
> > grid,
> > fuel tankage, fuel lines, HPG, links to the Main Computer [a separate
> > Technology/Systems card(s) that would have to be learned on their own],
> > etc
> > etc).
> >
> > Engineers had speciality Effects they could learn. Solo Jump was the most
> > basic (a single uncoordinated jump). Coordinated and Synchronized Jumps
> > were other skills, as were rebuild/repair procedures. I incorporated the
> > "alarm lights" as notifications to an individual system (which I had
> > compiled random tables for). I would say for example to the engineer.
> >
> > (As the Ship is preparing to go to jump. "You get an alarm light
> > indicating an issue with the (random roll): power spike from the Hull
> > Grid.
> > He consults that card, which says how the grid gets the fuel from the
> line
> > and with energy provided by the HPG, creates the jump field in the
> > ejectected h2 "bubble" around the ship [ the paradigm for jump IMTU) and
> > see's there's a possibility for misjump, which he can relay to the
> > captain,
> > who can decide if it's worth the risk or if repairs (up to and including
> > EVA) are necessary. Done either by GM fiat, or more rolls.
> >
> > If it happened while in Jump, it would be a whole lot more interesting.
> > This, along with more random rolls, made repairs a whole lot more
> > interesting, too. Naturally, the most skilled enginners ended up with all
> > kinds of cards and tricks to do. Faster jump prep. Tweaked drives.
> Greater
> > accuracy, less variance to the jump time, etc etc.
> >
>
>
>

Nice idea, having different races use different technology combinations,
but easier to do in your own campaign than to try to sell it and
adjudicate it in an established universe. That was something GDW tried in
2300 but would have been harder to retrofit onto Traveller.

> yeah, it was clear. I was still using "a" grid but not "the" (DGP) Grid.
> It was more along the lines of the layout of the h2 "nozzles."
>
> My ultimate intent IMTU was to have different ways of doing the same
> thing.
> So that while the Coalition (and Solomani amongst others) didn't use the
> DGP grids, the 1st Imperium Vilani did and so they showed up in more than
> a
> few designs in the 3I. But it wasn't required. This would have led to
> "specialized" cards where I could throw a left hook at the player who
> thought he knew everything there was to know about a particular field (and
> would let me introduce "new" cards if they encountered a strange alien
> race
> who had this crazy idea... that actually worked)
>
> Similarly, I had decided Thruster Plates breakthrough was at TL15 in the
> 3I
> and possible at TL14 with certain TL15 advances but required close
> integration of the T-plates with CG lifters that made it... dangerous to
> use after the release of Virus ("Grav Pong" was practically impossible to
> prevent). Most 3I designs were still HEPlaR by that reckoning, but more
> due to the Vilani's cliched traditionalism and Solomani infrastructure was
> still mostly HEPLaR as well due to the TL deal. But there were these
> oddball prototypes running around that the players might run into...
>
> Definitely saw the opportunity in equipment/weapons modding/repair as well
> but was more interested in doing alternate technology (big B5 fan at the
> time) and contemplating if I wanted to introduce hyperspace into that
> Traveller Universe or do a new alternate universe game with TNE rules....

Part of it was getting more specific and granular than FF&S design intended
without a real change in the rules ("What was the jump drive doing with
that h2? Some of it was being burned in a high yield power plant inside
the Drive but some was getting ejected to form a bubble outside the ship)
much less invalidation of designs from Supp 9, etc (which DGP obviously
didn't think of). I wanted to allow even Vilani ships to be able to use
grapples, etc without needing subcraft needing that same grid.

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 1:25 PM, <> wrote:

> **
>
>
> Nice idea, having different races use different technology combinations,
> but easier to do in your own campaign than to try to sell it and
> adjudicate it in an established universe. That was something GDW tried in
> 2300 but would have been harder to retrofit onto Traveller.
>
>
> > yeah, it was clear. I was still using "a" grid but not "the" (DGP) Grid.
> > It was more along the lines of the layout of the h2 "nozzles."
> >
> > My ultimate intent IMTU was to have different ways of doing the same
> > thing.
> > So that while the Coalition (and Solomani amongst others) didn't use the
> > DGP grids, the 1st Imperium Vilani did and so they showed up in more than
> > a
> > few designs in the 3I. But it wasn't required. This would have led to
> > "specialized" cards where I could throw a left hook at the player who
> > thought he knew everything there was to know about a particular field
> (and
> > would let me introduce "new" cards if they encountered a strange alien
> > race
> > who had this crazy idea... that actually worked)
> >
> > Similarly, I had decided Thruster Plates breakthrough was at TL15 in the
> > 3I
> > and possible at TL14 with certain TL15 advances but required close
> > integration of the T-plates with CG lifters that made it... dangerous to
> > use after the release of Virus ("Grav Pong" was practically impossible to
> > prevent). Most 3I designs were still HEPlaR by that reckoning, but more
> > due to the Vilani's cliched traditionalism and Solomani infrastructure
> was
> > still mostly HEPLaR as well due to the TL deal. But there were these
> > oddball prototypes running around that the players might run into...
> >
> > Definitely saw the opportunity in equipment/weapons modding/repair as
> well
> > but was more interested in doing alternate technology (big B5 fan at the
> > time) and contemplating if I wanted to introduce hyperspace into that
> > Traveller Universe or do a new alternate universe game with TNE rules....
>
>
>

My main rationale for discarding hull jump grid was carried craft, but
stronger in my mind was that the hull grid just felt too narrowly literal
as well as operationally inflexible, and not interesting enough.

> Part of it was getting more specific and granular than FF&S design
> intended
> without a real change in the rules ("What was the jump drive doing with
> that h2? Some of it was being burned in a high yield power plant inside
> the Drive but some was getting ejected to form a bubble outside the ship)
> much less invalidation of designs from Supp 9, etc (which DGP obviously
> didn't think of). I wanted to allow even Vilani ships to be able to use
> grapples, etc without needing subcraft needing that same grid.
>

Right, definitely understandable and not possible with DGP's conception (or
most MT'ers idea) but definitely one I wanted to be possible... yet still
have a reason for a paranoid PC to be forced to go EVA for a repair job so
they could jump, possibly under durress. :D

Or the N/PC captain could just determine it's worth the risk and take his
chances.

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 1:47 PM, <> wrote:

>
>
> My main rationale for discarding hull jump grid was carried craft, but
> stronger in my mind was that the hull grid just felt too narrowly literal
> as well as operationally inflexible, and not interesting enough.
>
>
> > Part of it was getting more specific and granular than FF&S design
> > intended
> > without a real change in the rules ("What was the jump drive doing with
> > that h2? Some of it was being burned in a high yield power plant inside
> > the Drive but some was getting ejected to form a bubble outside the ship)
> > much less invalidation of designs from Supp 9, etc (which DGP obviously
> > didn't think of). I wanted to allow even Vilani ships to be able to use
> > grapples, etc without needing subcraft needing that same grid.
> >
>
>
>