The Traveller Mindset

[Centisteed]

Originally Posted by Trixbat

3)Near C rocks and Asteroids

Really this is not about asteroids especially, it's about reactionless drives.

Classic Traveller never defined a maneuver drive (I spent a few posts discussing this a few months ago) but over time, to prevent people having to track fuel issues and allow ships to happily blast off from planets and zip about to the jump point in a day or less, it became obvious that it was probably a reactionless or semi-reactionless drive i.e., one that didn't use up reaction mass or fuel. The starship design rules seem to confirm this.

LOL! Man that sounds like a cartoon! I never realized
they had created a lazy feature for getting to the planet
after jump. I figured it was more like Niven's Known Space,
where after the week-long jump, you would have to change
to a standard drive & spend another variable number of
weeks in flight towards the planet (because let's face it,
space travel takes time!).

They might as well have allowed technology so you could
beam yourself to the planet's surface from the jump point
rather than having to travel to the planet at all. OK, so
now I can see what the fuss is about. I hope that when
T5 comes out, they address the c-rock issue.

Otherwise, I guess the c-rock issue is what would turn
the Traveller system into The Long Night, really quickly,
once an extremist started to think about the unthinkable.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Centisteed

They might as well have allowed technology so you could
beam yourself to the planet's surface from the jump point
rather than having to travel to the planet at all. OK, so
now I can see what the fuss is about. I hope that when
T5 comes out, they address the c-rock issue.

It's on the TL tables... TL 16 shows "matter transport" crossing water, air and land. Bk 3, p15.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by hal

1) Small planets don't have the gravitational pull to retain gases over time, for which the atmosphere would leak away. To be blunt, early Traveller didn't really pay much attention to things like density of planets, nor gave a real formula for gravity for the various sized worlds.

And what gravity rules it did have were hidden in the encumbrance rules.

2) The economics rules for tramp freighters permitted characters to get rich fast without any real nod to how difficult it can be for a realistic economy.

OTOH, for PCs who were puttering about in a scout ship and sometimes looked for a bit of cargo for extra bucks, the CT trade rules eere perfectly adequate.

Ship leaves planet A with planet C as its destination - some two parsecs away. Old Traveller rules (ie Classic Traveller) mandated that a Jump-1 ship charged two tickets to reach world C at a given value (ie 8,000 Cr for middle passage, 10,000 Cr for High Passage) for a final cost of $16,000 and/or $20,000 to reach planet C from planet A. Now, a Jump-2 ship leaving the same world for the same destination (ie planet C), could only charge $8,000 or $10,000 credits for a jump that took only 1 week (versus 2 weeks at BEST for a Jump-1 starship).

There are other things at issue here. Over the time it takes the ships to reach planet, the J1 ship has had double the operaging costs as the J2 ship (IIRC, jump fuel cost is about the only cost doubled).

Add to that that a J2 ship, having larger J-drives, power plant and fuel tanks, will cost more than a J1 ship of the same displacement (compare the the free and far traders) but generates less revenue (less space for staterooms and cargo).

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by copeab

Add to that that a J2 ship, having larger J-drives, power plant and fuel tanks, will cost more than a J1 ship of the same displacement (compare the the free and far traders) but generates less revenue (less space for staterooms and cargo).

But the number of units moved over time is greater for the J2 ship. It moves, say, 80% of the cargo of a J1 ship two parsecs in one jump. The J1 ship moves 100% of its capacity over two parsecs in two jumps. The J2 ship moves 160% of the J1 ship's capacity in the same number of jumps.

J1 ships are outclassed for transportation over any distance greater than one parsec.


Hans

[copeab]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

But the number of units moved over time is greater for the J2 ship. It moves, say, 80% of the cargo of a J1 ship two parsecs in one jump. The J1 ship moves 100% of its capacity over two parsecs in two jumps. The J2 ship moves 160% of the J1 ship's capacity in the same number of jumps.

J1 ships are outclassed for transportation over any distance greater than one parsec.

One important factor I left out is really subsector dependent: the density of worthwhile systems.

Location, location, location ;)

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by copeab

One important factor I left out is really subsector dependent: the density of worthwhile systems.

Location, location, location ;)

While true, there's no way astrography can make any route greater than one parsec more advantageous for J1 ships than for J2 ships.

(Well, J1 may be better on a three parsec route -- I haven't actually worked out the numbers there -- but J3 ships will beat J1 ships like a big bass drum over three parsecs.)


Hans

[copeab]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

While true, there's no way astrography can make any route greater than one parsec more advantageous for J1 ships than for J2 ships.

Oh, there are situations where each type (J1 and J2) have a clear advantage over the other, but most other situations are case by case. Still, a J2 ship is more flexible in destinations than a J1 ship.

[copeab]

We rarely used the advanced character creation. I partially made up for this by giving all characters one extra skill a term (among some other character creation house rules).

I never used (or owned) Patrons and I traded off CotI after a year or so.

For combat. I mostly used the basic rules, except since I didn't use combat maps I didn't use maps and characters added STR, DEX and END to form a HP pool, which was then divided back out after combat (was this similar to what was in AHL or Snapshot?).

[Trixbat]

Originally Posted by Centisteed

LOL! Man that sounds like a cartoon! I never realized
they had created a lazy feature for getting to the planet
after jump. I figured it was more like Niven's Known Space,
where after the week-long jump, you would have to change
to a standard drive & spend another variable number of
weeks in flight towards the planet (because let's face it,
space travel takes time!).

It is interesting how little time you actually spend "in space" in Traveller.

Arguably, space is just boring, of course, but then again, a week in jump isn't any more interesting except for the possibility of total isolation (good for locked room scenarios when one passenger knocks off another or whatever).

SPI's Universe had jumps being instant but deep space trips variable with destination star size and often taking multiple weeks. (An odd side effect of this was to make it more worthwhile to establish a chain of commerce via red dwarfs, though given they used a real star map there were plenty to go around. One not explored in the rules was the precise accuracy of the jump: if it was very good, it would have made more sense to just put big drives on the starports and have them jump back and forth - instantly - with separate ships for inter-planetary shuttling trade. I seem to recall the psi jump drive in Universe was pretty random, though. )

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by copeab

Oh, there are situations where each type (J1 and J2) have a clear advantage over the other, but most other situations are case by case. Still, a J2 ship is more flexible in destinations than a J1 ship.

The only situations where J1 ships have a clear advantage over J2 ships is over a distance of 1 parsec. With the possible exception of three parsecs, provided there are systems in each hex along the route. However, since a J3 ship will have a clear advantage over J1 over 3 parsecs, J1 ships still won't be doing three-parsec runs even if they do have the advantage over J2 ships there.


Hans