Sensor readings from the star system next door will tell if they have radio. Well, if they had radio a few years back - you could always arrive and find something dramatic has happened since then. How they use their radio signals may give you some clues as well, hints that they're signaling satellites in orbit, for example. If your computer can make sense of the transmissions, you may get some images to give you more details. Depends on you having some pretty decent detection gear, but a scout should have that.
Beyond Maximum Imperial Tech
- Thread starter Bob Weaver
- Start date
Sensor readings from the star system next door will tell if they have radio. Well, if they had radio a few years back - you could always arrive and find something dramatic has happened since then. How they use their radio signals may give you some clues as well, hints that they're signaling satellites in orbit, for example. If your computer can make sense of the transmissions, you may get some images to give you more details. Depends on you having some pretty decent detection gear, but a scout should have that.
I can see that, but if you jumped into an unexplored system you wouldn't click on the computer to call up the local tech level.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Hmm, any radio detection at interstellar distances is going to require some pretty large antenna arrays. If you have that sort of equipment on an adjacent star system, you are very likely already know quite a lot about the targeted star system, as you would have already been checking it out.
I think what Blue Ghost is looking at is an area where there are no established bases, and you are jumping blind into a system or systems with no real knowledge of what is there, at least for the players. They may know in advance if there is a gas giant there for possible skim refueling, but beyond that and the spectral type, they have nothing to go on.
In order to do that, you are going to need a ship with considerably more endurance than your standard Traveller ship in terms of life support and supplies, and also crew. You will probably need extra fuel for your power plant even with skim refueling, as you might be investigating a planet for a while, from both orbit and on the ground, along with checking out the various planets that are in the system. In short, a customized exploration ship, not your standard scout.
Yeah, that's more or less my aim here. The game specifically delineates mapping out sectors and exploration. And I think exploration was created and written with fuel skimming in mind.
So yeah, like Timerover points out, I mean true exploration; jumping into the unknown. "To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations..." kind of thing.
If you're out beyond the Imperium or any of the empires, then how do you determine tech level. Do you even have that knowledge, and if you do, how do you justify having it?
So yeah, like Timerover points out, I mean true exploration; jumping into the unknown. "To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations..." kind of thing.
If you're out beyond the Imperium or any of the empires, then how do you determine tech level. Do you even have that knowledge, and if you do, how do you justify having it?
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The referee has that knowledge. He rolled up UWPs for these worlds using the world generation system. He doesn't tell the players directly, but he uses his knowledge to describe what doohickeys the natives use. Whereupon, having been told that the natives have steam railway and singleshot rifles, the PCs conclude that the local TL is 4 and write that down in the report to their superiors.
Hans
To quote Bob Weaver, who started this thread;
Tech Level 18 looks like "Star Trek"-like type technology (referencing charts on pages 86 and 87 from CT's TTB, and starter Charts and Tables booklet). I'm not sure that's super tech, though maybe relative to Traveller.
Now, also from TTB;
This comes from the "Worlds" chapter in TTB. Now T5 expresses Tech Levels as the following;
And referencing the mini chart in T5; apparently "transporters" appear to have been kicked up a few notches (TL16 in CT, now TL19 in T5), and stellar or planetary engineering, though mentioned in CT is not on the charts, but appears to be at TL28 for T5.
Okay, so I know CT is not T5, but the way the rules are written in both volumes, to me at least, CT seems to indicate that you, the Referee and the Players, might be blazing new trails, and that if you are, you need to roll up the worlds, and specifically the Tech Level, which you might or might-not know.
The rules do not state that you will know the TL of the world you're travelling to, but it seems implied that the players might know it through rumors from NPCs and what not.
Some of the concept I've formulated deal with a variety of techs, some fun, some dangerous, but all enjoyable in terms of playing the adventure. Yet I believe that it's important to keep unknown techs unknown. *EDIT*; Known worlds defined by the TL number in the UWP seem to be in game knowledge for ship's captains, crews, and other individuals travelling from one port to the next.
Tech Level 18 looks like "Star Trek"-like type technology (referencing charts on pages 86 and 87 from CT's TTB, and starter Charts and Tables booklet). I'm not sure that's super tech, though maybe relative to Traveller.
Now, also from TTB;
This comes from the "Worlds" chapter in TTB. Now T5 expresses Tech Levels as the following;
And referencing the mini chart in T5; apparently "transporters" appear to have been kicked up a few notches (TL16 in CT, now TL19 in T5), and stellar or planetary engineering, though mentioned in CT is not on the charts, but appears to be at TL28 for T5.
Okay, so I know CT is not T5, but the way the rules are written in both volumes, to me at least, CT seems to indicate that you, the Referee and the Players, might be blazing new trails, and that if you are, you need to roll up the worlds, and specifically the Tech Level, which you might or might-not know.
The rules do not state that you will know the TL of the world you're travelling to, but it seems implied that the players might know it through rumors from NPCs and what not.
Some of the concept I've formulated deal with a variety of techs, some fun, some dangerous, but all enjoyable in terms of playing the adventure. Yet I believe that it's important to keep unknown techs unknown. *EDIT*; Known worlds defined by the TL number in the UWP seem to be in game knowledge for ship's captains, crews, and other individuals travelling from one port to the next.
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Sorry for continuing to ramble, but the reason this topic and my "Setting" poll topic in the poll section are important to me, is because I'm sensing that Traveller has lost its possibility for a settingless venue.
Last night I was reading one of my old threads "What was wrong with MT" (which, by the way, needs trimming), and both Kaladorn and Whipsnade, older users and players / fans of the BBS, talked about how Traveller had migrated from a "settingless" game, to one set in stone. Based on that, it seems like a lot of players are of the opinion that you already know the TL of the next system over, or perhaps of every system.
I'm just having a hard time coming to terms with the notion that the Imperium is TL16 at best, and that, as an example, within its borders and known to everyone, there is a TL25 or higher system. And, to further the example, that said system is known to all, so much to the point that it's been visited, cataloged, and put in a software update for characters. That's one of my issues here (note; not with the OP, but just the thinking of some of the thoughts expressed here).
Unless someone wants to respond to this, I think I'm about done here.
Last night I was reading one of my old threads "What was wrong with MT" (which, by the way, needs trimming), and both Kaladorn and Whipsnade, older users and players / fans of the BBS, talked about how Traveller had migrated from a "settingless" game, to one set in stone. Based on that, it seems like a lot of players are of the opinion that you already know the TL of the next system over, or perhaps of every system.
I'm just having a hard time coming to terms with the notion that the Imperium is TL16 at best, and that, as an example, within its borders and known to everyone, there is a TL25 or higher system. And, to further the example, that said system is known to all, so much to the point that it's been visited, cataloged, and put in a software update for characters. That's one of my issues here (note; not with the OP, but just the thinking of some of the thoughts expressed here).
Unless someone wants to respond to this, I think I'm about done here.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I can see your point, Blue Ghost, as the OTU has a massive effect on limiting the creativity of what you can do within it. That is why I am working on a new sector, where the idea would be that an individual can create the worlds within the sector that he or she wishes to, using Traveller to do so, but not restricted to conforming to the official canon, of which there are several.
Along with that, I am working up a Tech Level Chart of my own, using the Tech Level concept of Classic Traveller as the basis, but then allowing for things like A. Bertram Chandler's Kinsolving's Planet to also be around. The fact that a world does not appear to be inhabited does not necessarily mean that nothing is there.
One thing that does bug me about the OTU is the fact that by rolling for Star Port first, there is the automatic fact that unless you roll an "X" for star port, the world has already been checked out. So I am looking at an alternative world generation system too, where the basic characteristics come first, and then the Game Master decides the rest, based on what he or she wants.
This is a work in progress, so I may start posting in the My Traveller Universe thread some of my ideas. Some of them probably will be viewed as more than a bit heretical.
That's sort of like saying that oceans are wet. As Robert Prior so wisely said a while back: "The very act of writing a Traveller book closes the doors on possibilities. Any game supplement does that, assuming the publisher cares about internal consistency."
Basically, lots of material to use or freedom to do your own thing; pick one.
That's the way to do it! If you don't like to be constrained by the OTU, don't set your campaign in the OTU.
Hans
Thanks Timerover; I think that's pretty cool what you're doing. It's almost like getting back to basics for Traveller, which was why the Imperium was there if you needed it, but you could also create your own sectors as your players went from one system to the next.
It's like experience in D&D. Experience was a measure of your characters accumilated knowledge from fending off foes, or avoiding traps, or killing monsters. It was never meant to be a reward unto itself, yet the few times I played D&D that was how players treated it. It was almost like the story, winning treasure and the adventure itself were secondary considerations. And one of my concerns as I read the T5 book was that Traveller had (or has) migrated to a Setting Specific game.
The Imperium is essentially a giant known quantity, and you can whip out your Rand McNally Atlas to look up the next port over, and thereby discover the Tech Level. That was one way you can play the game, but reading a lot of the anecdotes here, to me it seems like this is how most people play the game (though I'm not certain).
Anyway, thanks for the reply. Post some stories if you got them. My best to the OP's campaign. And, like I said, I have some adventure concepts that I would like to publish professionally, and some deal with "ultra-tech" or "super-tech" circumstances. This thread has allowed me to get a feel for what people think of those kinds of settings and games.
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Well, MegaTrav offers a 2-parsec range ship-mounted passive EMS array, but there's no rule that says one has to use it.
I get the allure of adventuring into the unknown, but even leaving aside the the "settingless verses set in stone" debate, there are realities here. If you are on a world capable of building starships, odds are good that the people there have turned eyes skyward and tried to learn all they could about their unknown neighbors before they actually tried to set out and go there, and they certainly have the tools to do the job. Much of that information would make its way into the public database so, yes, you could click on the computer to call up the local tech level - or at least their best guess at the local tech level based on the emissions they were able to receive. How accurate it might be, that's another issue, but certainly if the star has a world blasting out major amounts of non-natural radio, then there's a lot of someones or somethings there that know a bit more than the wheel and stone axes. The whole SETI thing is based on exactly that idea.
I don't think the radio noise is good for more than a few parsecs, inverse square being inverse square, and with the march of technology leading us further into devices that need a lot less power to hear or be heard. Still, there are likely to be clues and hints one can grasp before one actually gets there - and we humans are frankly infamous for making judgments on tenuous data and putting them down as if they were guaranteed Gods'-Own-Truth, only to find out later that we were off the mark by a mile. So, it would not at all surprise me to click a button and find a fully completed UWP in the computer database.
What WOULD surprise me is to get there and find that any of it was actually right.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I agree with you both on this point, the 3I setting can often stifle creativity and restrict the science fiction story you want to tell.
I've played around with the TL chart a bit in the past too for MTU, and note that it days in LBB3 that the gaps are there for the referee to fill
GURPS Space 4th edition is what I use, then convert across to UPP.
I remember an interesting idea that someone around here had a while ago - roll the physical block and the society block separately and match them in a way that makes sense. Then determine star port either by picking it or random and do the same with TL (you can still use the DMs for the latter - you could even consider DMs for the star port type based on trade classification and TL))
Please do, new ideas are always welcome.
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There's a few systems out there in the OTU. Trawling through sector data with the Traveller Wiki and Foreven.com has lead me to discover quite a few options that have been pretty handy for me to be able to run an original game for my group.
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Ackehece
SOC-13
Yes the Imperium is a setting that is pretty set in stone - the Imperium space in the game has been thoroughly explored many times - Grandfather era, false dawn, Vilani first empire, long night, 3rd Imperium etc... - almost 320k Years of exploration in this area! #wellexplored #knownquantity
Outside of this space is where true exploration takes place and the reason that the hop, skip etc drives have been created in T5 so that you don't feel confined to the limits of the Imperium . #jailbreak
If you want an exploration game you can always roll up a sector and have them jump(hop skip whatever) to that sector and map it out - visiting each planet, seeing the material culture of the natives(TL (many possible values but the mode is the planet techlevel)), the natives themselves, etc...
#scout #worldtamer #pocketempire
k
Outside of this space is where true exploration takes place and the reason that the hop, skip etc drives have been created in T5 so that you don't feel confined to the limits of the Imperium . #jailbreak
If you want an exploration game you can always roll up a sector and have them jump(hop skip whatever) to that sector and map it out - visiting each planet, seeing the material culture of the natives(TL (many possible values but the mode is the planet techlevel)), the natives themselves, etc...
#scout #worldtamer #pocketempire
k
Is there a list anywhere of worlds, at least in the Spinward Marches, with canonical scenarios written that take place on or in the same system as them? That could be handy to know the places for which there is less data that, while not requiring new exploration as such, still need updated survey information.
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