CT Only: Some thoughts on Book2 Drives

[infojunky]

Ok, pondering book2 again. Notably the concept of using multiple drives and the malfunction rules.

Drives have a malfunction roll of 13+ with DMs for past annual maintenance and missing Engineers.

With that each additional drive give a +1 to the malfunction role.

Also considering upping the engineer requirement as well.

 

[Spinward Flow]

With that each additional drive give a +1 to the malfunction role.

Nope.
It just means that when a drive DOES fail, you've got an alternate to swap in and replace it with while you offline the malfunctioning drive.
Backup = backup (so to speak).

Also considering upping the engineer requirement as well.

Unnecessary.
More drive tonnage will automatically require more engineers by default.

 

[Grav_Moped]

The thing that bothers me is that a Subsidized Merchant missing its lone engineer gets the same penalty as a 2kTd J1/1G freighter missing one of its two engineers. I'd think having the entire driveroom staff gone would have the greater impact...

 

[vegas]

Automation

 

[Spinward Flow]

The thing that bothers me is that a Subsidized Merchant missing its lone engineer gets the same penalty as a 2kTd J1/1G freighter missing one of its two engineers. I'd think having the entire driveroom staff gone would have the greater impact...

That's just a side effect of how poorly granularized the original LBB2 rules were written (see: 10Pn fuel requirement rule). The game design philosophy behind those decisions was of RADICAL simiplification, so as to keep the rules as streamlined (and narrow) as possible (presumably to save on word count, but also arguments over the text). The results were ... adequate ... so long as no one tried to "peek behind the curtain" and take things too seriously in the direction of Parsing Out The Simulation and fill in the gaps left behind (oops).

Which is a long winded way of saying that the LBB2 rules were ... insufficiently ambitious ... as plainly demonstrated by LBB5 coming along with a whole new paradigm to rewrite the entire system just a few years later so as to cover the entire swath of tonnages from 0 to 1,000,000+, rather than just being limited to the range of 100 to 5000.

 

[Grav_Moped]

That's just a side effect of how poorly granularized the original LBB2 rules were written

As I see it, it's that they weren't thinking at all about how it would scale. It's just a game mechanic to deter understaffing (and/or create drama when it happens).

 

[Spinward Flow]

Yes, exactly.
Oversimplified to make the GAME run smoothly ... with a side effect of letting the SIMULATION suffer.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Keep in mind it didn't start put as a science-fictional simulation of the future, but as a simulation of science fiction that was set in the future.

 

[coliver988]

Yes, exactly.
Oversimplified to make the GAME run smoothly ... with a side effect of letting the SIMULATION suffer.

while true, it is a game first and foremost that has its own set of criteria. Primarily: are we having fun yet?

which is also why I love these discussions: while my groups sadly do not get into the nuts and bolts (so analyzing efficiencies and all that "accountants in space" that Traveller has sort of collected as a sobriquet) I do love reading all these comments and opinions. These discussions can make my running the game a bit deeper.