Could you stand living in a scout ship?

[Blue Ghost]

Well, sort of. I bought the FASA Trek game just to have. I can't say I was too enamored with it; particularly the character sheet with all the skills listed. It was a straight forward 2D10 die convention, which I liked.

Again, I can only go by what Marc Miller encouraged in the basic rules all those years ago, irrespective of Loren's influence, which I don't think has been bad at all. It just seems to me that Mongoose has gone the way of looking at what Traveller was intended verse what Traveller became, and it appears that people like that route regardless of the rules tweakage they've done (blue skinned Darriens, three chair station scout ships, and what not).

I'm not really angry, put out, or whatever by what's become of Traveller. It's a great hobby. I happen to think it's a great one. It sure would be nice to help open it up a bit and increase its popularity and traffic here.

 

[aramis]

Well, sort of. I bought the FASA Trek game just to have. I can't say I was too enamored with it; particularly the character sheet with all the skills listed. It was a straight forward 2D10 die convention, which I liked.

Again, I can only go by what Marc Miller encouraged in the basic rules all those years ago, irrespective of Loren's influence, which I don't think has been bad at all. It just seems to me that Mongoose has gone the way of looking at what Traveller was intended verse what Traveller became, and it appears that people like that route regardless of the rules tweakage they've done (blue skinned Darriens, three chair station scout ships, and what not).

I'm not really angry, put out, or whatever by what's become of Traveller. It's a great hobby. I happen to think it's a great one. It sure would be nice to help open it up a bit and increase its popularity and traffic here.

There's no evidence it was intended as generic.

 

[Blue Ghost]

It says as much in the basic rules. Perhaps a new thread is required.

 

[infojunky]

Perhaps a new thread is required.

I concur.

 

[mike wightman]

There's no evidence it was intended as generic.

Ever read the back of the box?

Entire games can be patterned after any of the many science-fiction novels available

 

[aramis]

"Patterned after" is not the same as emulating.

Traveller's mechanics encode large portions of the setting.

A true generic space game, like GURPS Space, has multiple different hyperdrive options, and tells you how to do it. It also wouldn't have nobility in Char Gen, nor mention the Imperium. (Admittedly, CT-77's mentions are very vague.)

 

[mike wightman]

Would you like me to quote from the Understanding Traveller free booklet or from LBB0?

How about this:

Traveller was envisioned as a generic science-fiction system, which could be used to recreate any science-fiction story or situation.

That's from FFE LBB0-8 BFB.

 

[rancke]

Yes, the advertising hype did indeed portray Traveller as a generic system. One may take that as evidence of intent.

In reality the system had severe limitations in this regard from Day 1.


Hans

 

[whulorigan]

As a side note, TNE actually did try to make Traveller more generic in its Fire Fusion and Steel Supplement, which introduced alternate technologies as options for non-OTU Campaigns, including mechanics for several variant FTL Drive systems (subspace/warp drives, stutterwarp drives, keyhole dives, teleport drives, psionic drives, etc), FTL-communication rules (subspace, tachyon, etc), variants for gravitics-tech, etc.

 

[mike wightman]

Yes, the advertising hype did indeed portray Traveller as a generic system. One may take that as evidence of intent.

In reality the system had severe limitations in this regard from Day 1.


Hans

Yup, there were a lot of assumptions in the rules about the type of setting which required the ref to do a bit of work to adapt to his/her setting of choice.

 

[mike wightman]

As a side note, TNE actually did try to make Traveller more generic in its Fire Fusion and Steel Supplement, which introduced alternate technologies as options for non-OTU Campaigns, including mechanics for several variant FTL Drive systems (subspace/warp drives, stutterwarp drives, keyhole dives, teleport drives, psionic drives, etc), FTL-communication rules (subspace, tachyon, etc), variants for gravitics-tech, etc.

It also tried to reset a lot of the technology assumptions back to what was intended in CT - reaction mass for maneuver drives for example.

 

[whulorigan]

It also tried to reset a lot of the technology assumptions back to what was intended in CT - reaction mass for maneuver drives for example.

Yes. I personally like what T4 did and tried to reconcile the two: R-Drives for TL11- (with HEPlaR arriving at TL10), and Gravitic M-Drives for TL12+.

 

[infojunky]

It also tried to reset a lot of the technology assumptions back to what was intended in CT - reaction mass for maneuver drives for example.

That's alright T5 resets too....

 

[salochin999]

Given the implied monthly expense of keeping a ship running, just heading out for a joyride seems to be the province of the crazily wealthy. That, plus the issues with refueling for jumps has made me not really think of the Traveller universe as a place really set up for just heading out second star to the left.

Bear in mind that bank payments are a big part of that so a family with a paid off yacht - or who had the wealth to buy one outright or own a shipyard - has much lower expenses.

That's at one end of the wealth spectrum but at the other end it seems to me there would also be the possibility of buying a bucket of bolts - old, paid off ships which need constant maintenance but are relatively cheap to run apart from that.

 

[salochin999]

I asked this question because it just struck me for some odd reason. Projecting further I'd hate to spend most of my life cooped up in a Type-S. I could more than hack it, would even love it for long stretches, but it would be nice to land on a world and take in a beach or two.

Thanks.

I'd think that would be partly why a certain type of person could hack it - they get to travel around trying hundreds of beaches and spend most of their flight time watching travel programs from the ship's TV database.

There's a hook - an NPC on a surfing tour of the universe hitches a lift on a scout ship.

 

[Timerover51]

A Scout Ship, by definition, is 100 Traveller dTons. Allowing 13.5 cubic meters per dTon, this would equate to a wet navy ship of 1350 metric tons displacement, or 1328 tons standard displacement (standard displacement uses the UK Long Ton of 2240 pounds).

The U-505 submarine, preserved at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, displaces 1,100 long tons surfaced and 1,232 long tons submerged. It is smaller in terms of volume than a standard Traveller Scout Ship. The U-505 had a crew of between 48-56 men, and a patrol endurance on the order of 90 days. I have been in the U-505 several times, and it is very tight quarters.

I have also been onboard the USS Silversides, SS-236, presently a museum ship in Muskegon, Michigan. I even have slept in the captain's bunk. That is larger than the U-505, with a submerged displacement of 2,424 tons, so a bit larger than a Scout Ship. While the pre-war crew was set at 60, considerably more were carried in wartime. Patrol endurance was set at 75 days, mainly limited by food and fuel. Again, quarters are very tight, with the captain's quarters being large enough to hold a bunk, small desk, and wash basin. I would put them at less than one-fourth the size of a Traveller stateroom in terms of deck area, with a lot less headroom. The sub's crew quarters stack bunks 3 high, and the wardroom for the officers is about half the size of a standard Traveller stateroom, again with less headroom.

I fail to see any problems with putting 4 persons for all of one week in a Traveller Scout Ship.

 

[WistfulD]

Did you serve aboard a sub? That would be informative.

 

[WistfulD]

Bear in mind that bank payments are a big part of that so a family with a paid off yacht - or who had the wealth to buy one outright or own a shipyard - has much lower expenses.

That's at one end of the wealth spectrum but at the other end it seems to me there would also be the possibility of buying a bucket of bolts - old, paid off ships which need constant maintenance but are relatively cheap to run apart from that.

True, and can't you muster out of the scouts with effective free use of a scout ship in many Traveller versions as well?

That said, it isn't the only thing in the Traverse keeping people from just wandering. The whole ship design system is built on the idea of routine refueling. Most ships have 1-2 jumps stored (depending on how far they want to jump), power plant fuel and consumables are set up to last a month (and take up huge amounts of space if you stockpile more). Thus, if you just decide to jump to a nearby system, you might have onboard fuel to jump back, and if that fails, you'd better hope that you can skim fuel from a gas giant or star before your supplies run out. It's a far cry from Star Trek, with its replicators, and ftl transit that runs of ongoing power--which of course does need to be refueled, eventually (see Voyager handwaving), but each ftl transit doesn't use up x% of your cargo hold. Therefore, that universe's rules are set up to facilitate just going somewhere to see what's out there.

 

[Reban]

Just to point out that a better measure of comparison would be to compare the "habitable volume" of the subs to the scout. Gross tonnage comparisons might mislead.

There might also be an issue in crew turnover. A crew that completes a 75 day patrol might get a relatively long leave and some crew might have been rotated out. Compare this to the scout crew that has a relatively inactive week in jump and hectic work days while in real space.

I'm of the opinion that as TL goes up, ways of handling psychological and physical stress on the crew improve too.

 

[mike wightman]

Providing the scout/courier computer can run World Of Warcraft: The Redemption of Sargeras expansion I don't see a problem.

It may explain the funny smell that scout/couriers are supposed to develop