How often do you use ANY Traveller ship combat rules?
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Otto Harkaman
SOC-12
I think in one of the GURPs books there is a section on Cinematic resolution of space combat. i.e. where combat is role-played out not on a hex boardgame format.
Standard industry terms:
SRD: System Reference Document
OGL: Open Gaming License (usually refers to the Wizards OGL 1.0a, but sometimes to a CC license or the GNU FDL)
CC: Creative Commons. A series of open licenses in fairly common use
GNU: "GNU's Not Unix" - an open source software association
FDL: Free Document License. Used by a small number of games to allow use of the content.
STL: System Trademark license. Several exist.
D20 STL: a now deprecated license to indicate D&D 3.0 compatibility.
O20 STL: Open 20 System Trademark License.
TLL: Traveller Logo License. See Mongoose Developer's Kit for details.
You might try actually looking stuff up, y'know? this is VERY basic stuff in the modern environment.
T20 was done using the D&D 3.0 core rules under the d20 STL and using the D20 SRD 3.0 for open content.
Since there is now a D&D SRD 5.0, it would be possible to rewrite T20 Traveller's Handbook to use the D&D 5 engine instead of the D&D 3 engine.
I've never used them.
I prefer Full Thrust, and similar for spaceship combat.
Seems to me something along those lines would be nice for spaceship combat with the smaller vessels in Traveller.
I'd want to assume laser and beam weapons could do some damage, but that they usually wouldn't be catastrophic, and that even missiles might be more likely to damage and incapacitate smaller ships, instead of vaporizing them.
Think .50 cals and 20mm cannons vs. drug running boats, and/or missile boats and other patrol craft in the modern era.
I prefer Full Thrust, and similar for spaceship combat.
Seems to me something along those lines would be nice for spaceship combat with the smaller vessels in Traveller.
I'd want to assume laser and beam weapons could do some damage, but that they usually wouldn't be catastrophic, and that even missiles might be more likely to damage and incapacitate smaller ships, instead of vaporizing them.
Think .50 cals and 20mm cannons vs. drug running boats, and/or missile boats and other patrol craft in the modern era.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
I was on top of Linux and the whole open source thing in the early 90s before the vast majority of the world or even IT types were, and was tracking on VPN too, so I certainly knew what CC GNU and the rest are and had heard of OGLs and T20's version, just not gaming industry terms like SRD.
Essentially, the SRD is the repository committed code of an RPG or boardgame.
This is true if they float into a system dat, dumb & happy, but any players worth their salt would be on the same alerts that other vessels in MTU stand to when exiting J-space
battle damage is a great way to draw wealthy characters back into a mortgage, taken out to effect repairs their insurance may not cover
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
And I am gathering shorn of compromising IP elements, the literal system vs. settings/material having to be separated, correct?
Almost like clean room coding, or people with IP avoiding the 'stickiness' of open source by making sure their proprietary stuff that they don't want loose is not in it.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Being alert does not save you from the fiscal consequences of even a 'successful' battle.
Some quick talking/persuasion/business relationship skills may be more important then pilot gunnery or ship tactics to avoid battle.
And don't forget the space operatic boarding actions.
So, how many firmpoints do I need to use for harpoon and grapnel lines?
lostscout5
SOC-12
One for the harpoon, one for each grapnel line. You should have at least 2 grapnel lines. And don't forget 1 for the plank.
I voted "Hardly" because unlike SFB or Starfire or Star Trek combat sim or one of the other big space wargames that were on the market, in TTB at least, you didn't know when your ship was destroyed (or the enemy ship for that matter). You could hit the power plant, bridge, manuevre, avionics, but then keep punching holes in the ship itself until doomsday.
We eventually came up with a system, or more readily reread the rules, but most of the adventures also took place on land, so space combat simply wasn't a big factor.
We eventually came up with a system, or more readily reread the rules, but most of the adventures also took place on land, so space combat simply wasn't a big factor.
Ad Astra News
SOC-12
For anyone who does do space combat ...
The space maps used in Squadron Strike: Traveller are available as a free download (you can also order the pair of map sheets for $12+shipping). The largish hexes form a 32x18 grid on each of two sheets, with continuous numbering down the columns (the top hexes are xx01, the bottom hexes on the second sheet are xx36). The maps measure 36" by 24" each.
Decor is a star field with a nebula on each sheet.
To download them, go to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1386934735/squadron-strike-traveller/description click Updates and click the March 9 update.
Enjoy!
The space maps used in Squadron Strike: Traveller are available as a free download (you can also order the pair of map sheets for $12+shipping). The largish hexes form a 32x18 grid on each of two sheets, with continuous numbering down the columns (the top hexes are xx01, the bottom hexes on the second sheet are xx36). The maps measure 36" by 24" each.
Decor is a star field with a nebula on each sheet.
To download them, go to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1386934735/squadron-strike-traveller/description click Updates and click the March 9 update.
Enjoy!
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Note: the link in the stretch goal link doesn't work; you need to go to the updates page, click on the update for march 9, and use the link on the resulting page...
I won't direct link to it, because, fundamentally, it's a marketing maneuver to get you to Ken's KS page. It's also an awesomely cool thing for Ken to make available, and him using it as a loss leader to get people to the KS page is fine with me as the lead admin.
Its kind of a treasure hunt. Have fun!
I tried many types of space combat. Star Fleet Battles took massive amounts of die rolling. Starfire was decent for what it was. The range scale in the LLBs just was't what I as looking for. That little box containing vector combat in Mayday was so simple in it's complexity, handling missile movement, beams, multiple ships and planets that seemed so real. The hardest part was matching vectors for boarding actions. I ended up making a bunch of hand drawn foam core ships in scale to each other, grabbing a tape measure, and taking over a gym or rec center floor. Watching spectators on an airbase in Germany watch my group of players measuring out distances and vectors as we maneuvered the ships around the large floor was a kick. Firing missiles from a pair of scouts hunting down a subsidized merchant with real F16 pilots watching from the sidelines wanting to get in on the next game was a good feeling.
I'll note that, since 2014, I've run maybe a dozen sessions of Traveller. Of those, I ran two ship combats, and two encounters that could have readily turned into ship combats if mishandled by players.
Now, Alien, while not Traveller, does have a lot of overlap in tone, and I've run a lot more ship combats than I expected to... but not all of them turned actively hostile. Ship encounters are something nervewracking for players in that setting, and dropping to the combat rules more often than needed makes for high tension... as long as it's not too often.
For further comparison, tho', I also have recently run Star Trek Adventures. About every 4th session was a notable ship combat or two.
Now, Alien, while not Traveller, does have a lot of overlap in tone, and I've run a lot more ship combats than I expected to... but not all of them turned actively hostile. Ship encounters are something nervewracking for players in that setting, and dropping to the combat rules more often than needed makes for high tension... as long as it's not too often.
For further comparison, tho', I also have recently run Star Trek Adventures. About every 4th session was a notable ship combat or two.
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
The problem with a "hard" scifi like Traveller is that combat rules generally aren't "hard" enough. For example, no lasers, missiles, or guns would work at the thousands or tens of thousands of km ranges cited, apart from throwing a small, hard to detect, kinetic kill mass or nuke at an unsuspecting target.
And TNE addressed all of that with its "hard" handwavium, specifically gravitic focused lasers and bomb pumped laser missiles.
They acknowledged those issues and came up with the "tech" to help solve the problem.
I think they did not address kinetic kill weapons simply because they felt actually achieving impact (over the gazillion km ranges) was improbable.
If the missiles COULD impact, then why not deliver their payloads much closer to the target ship than 1000s of thousands of km away and hope for the best with the bomb pumped lasers.
IF kinetic kill vehicles were viable, then laser defenses would likely obsolete them readily as the attack vehicles are sitting ducks to lasers. (Another reason for the bomb pumped missiles detonating "far away" from the target.)
Or they skipped them for the same reason we just "Don't Talk About" C-Rocks.
"we could add kinetic energy kill weapons but, that wouldn't be very fun -- would it."
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