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Feedback Please

Like last time, please ignore the text itself. I didn't even change it from the Kraft fighter. What I am looking for is: how readable is this? Is the text too small? Are the figure numbers hidden? Is the legend unreadable? Are the placement of the numbers unhelpful? Stuff like that. If you want to check over my math to make sure I have everything right feel free, but that should not be the focus since my editors have not yet had a chance to look over these yet.

I just caught a pair of typos. It should be 24 hull points, and the cost is off by MCr. .01.


cornathian-boarding-shuttle.jpg


cornathian-boarding-shuttle-2-r1.jpg


Thanks in advance.
 
Boarding actions? Really?

Aesthetically it looks fine. No clutter, nice fonts, different topics in different boxes, nifty colors, pseudo-3D deckplan with keyed locations, etc.

It looks great, but the idea behind the design? That's another issue.

Lots of people will like it and it will sell well, but it's alleged role is a near impossibility.
 
a deck plan grid is useful for explaining ship characteristics or as a battle matt but only from a full-on view. in the 30-degree view depicted here the "deck plan grid" is distracting, and I believe modern gamers would find it clunky and old-fashioned. may I suggest two depictions, 1) full-on grid battle matt deck plans to fully explain ship characteristics and 2) cut-away graphics for "real-word" visualization of the ship.
 
font size on the 1st page is legible, but a little bit on the small size on my screen. 2nd page, the white text over grey grid-space is legible, but feels cluttered/hard to focus on. it would be better without the grid under the words.
 
I'm reading it onscreen at 4×7" with no serious difficulty. I'd prefer a slightly lighter grey behind the text.

The text size I use for entering this message is actually about the same size onscreen.
 
Why is that? It won't work as a marine vessel to board enemy vessels?


Let me preface my answer by referring you to the How Crunchy do you like your Traveller thread and poll. I describe MTU as "Rocky Road; it's hard and soft, crunchy and gooey, all depending on what aspect we're discussing. When it comes to zero-gee, vector movement, and the like MTU is as crunchy as all hell.

You are not docking with a vessel which can still maneuver, you are not docking with a vessel which can still yaw, pitch, or roll, and you are most certainly not ramming the nose of your only ride home into the crystal-iron hull of another vessel just to try and make a hole through which your marines can board.

If a vessel is incapable of movement, you can "dock" after a fashion and send out parties with breaching charges to make all the holes you need. You aren't, however, going to be piloting a flying jackhammer, auger, drill press, cutting torch, chisel, or other "tool" big enough to cut, punch, grind, or burn it's way through another vessel's hull because you're aren't going to be suicidal enough to risk damaging your only source of life support and your only ride home.

Yes, I know some referees think forcibly docking with a vessel able to maneuver is somehow possible. One idiot even suggested it's the same as a moving plane landing on a moving carrier, apparently and perhaps deliberately overlooking the fact that the carrier wants the plane to land safely. Forcibly docking with a vessel able to maneuver is not possible, however.

It may be fun somehow for the referees and players involved, it may be the most operatic form of space opera, but it's not possible and no one can seriously claim otherwise.

Keep in mind that I am not showing the civilian variant that removes the acceleration benches and has lots of cargo space.

They may be perfectly logical and workable designs which will be well received. This flying jack hammer, however, taints the entire product IMHO. You might as well publish a shuttle design which reaches orbit thanks to the efforts of eight tiny reindeer.

I'm sure some other people will like it, but the science part of Traveller's science-fiction dies a little more with this design.
 
You are not docking with a vessel which can still maneuver, you are not docking with a vessel which can still yaw, pitch, or roll, and you are most certainly not ramming the nose of your only ride home into the crystal-iron hull of another vessel just to try and make a hole through which your marines can board.

Totally understandable and agreed. This ship is made for breaching space stations, not ships. The Cornathians have problems with rebel groupS, many of which operate out of some orbital base or converted asteroid, all of which have a speed of 0, if not less. This ship is designed to counter that problem. It won't ram the door as much as grapple. The cutters on the front end, part of the breaching tube, will make a new permanent door. ;) If that doesn't solve the problem, the marines will.
 
While the layout is okay for readability, I' ve got to say, I'm not a fan of the 3D style plans. The new MGT style plan is nigh useless at the table. The blocky icons do not do anything for realism and or determining line of sight realistically. Much rather see 2d traditional plans or high detail 2d plans usable as battle mats.

I'd also agree that the idea behind the ship needs some serious rethinking. The whole breaching a space station or other vessel is just plain silly. Carrying over a 100 troops who are going to disembark four abreast into a hail of fire not to mention all the zero G debris they just created on impact.
 
I'd also agree that the idea behind the ship needs some serious rethinking. The whole breaching a space station or other vessel is just plain silly. Carrying over a 100 troops who are going to disembark four abreast into a hail of fire not to mention all the zero G debris they just created on impact.


Bingo.

"Where'd the shuttle land?"

"Outboard of hydroponics level 4, section B..."

"Good, good... Redeploy 3rd platoon to passageway 1-A-76 and shift their heavy weapons squad spinward of frame 773 in the rotunda."

"Nice of them to design an assault shuttle with a can opener in it's nose so we know exactly where they'll be boarding, huh?"

"I'll laugh later, right now I want to make sure that shuttle has plenty of empty seats when it leaves..."

Compare and contrast that to...

"Only one shuttle landed but we've several groups moving on the hull across this entire quadrant. Maybe 100 or 150 personnel in total."

"Damn... Each of those groups will have breaching charges, not that they'll all enter through the holes they blow..."

"Orders?"

"Pull everyone outboard of Ring Three in that quadrant. They can hit us from too many different points. Redeploy to the fallback positions along the inter-ring transport tubes. Hopefully by that time they'll be more interested in driving inward than trying to flank us."

I am a war-gamer and navy vet. I played RPGs with war-gamers, navy vets, and infantry vets. Fantasies in place of sound tactical thinking were gleefully punished at our game tables. My players would have struggled to keep their poker faces in place while they eagerly planned to butcher the NPCs boarding their space station via a flying can opener. After policing the ambush zones and stripping the dead of anything useful, my players would have laughed in the face of any referee dim enough to think a flying can opener could work.

Other groups think and play differently so other groups will find this assault shuttle "useful".
 
actually.... the flying can-opener approach could be a valid model for search-and-rescue teams. stick some autodocs and emergency cryo pods in the back, and your team's job is to get people out alive- people who due to hull breaches/fires do not have access to escape pods, vacc suits, or airlocks. and you do it without depressurizing the room that the survivors are trapped in.

aside from that, i can realistically see some bureaucratic paper-pushers who dont know tactics thinking the design is good, pushing production, and some lobbyists getting approval for sale to the navy... where someone takes one look at them, knows how FUBAR the basic idea is, yet has to find some kind of use for the bloody things....
 
actually.... the flying can-opener approach could be a valid model for search-and-rescue teams.


Yes, but that's not the role it is being suggested for.

Besides, GT has already done that with both a modular cutter design and a non-jump design based on the Suleiman hull.

... i can realistically see some bureaucratic paper-pushers who dont know tactics thinking the design is good...

There is a previous example of this in canon; the assault boat module for the modular cutter. That module dug trenches upon landing for the troops it carried; trenches or, more accurately, graves.

However, do you want to "waste" an entire page in a product to present a failed design? I could see a few paragraphs tucked into a discussion of other variants, but an entire page with illustrations? There must be another variant which would worth that entire page.
 
Overall, the composition feels very dark.

It would be OK for me since I prefer to use PDFs, but that would eat ink to print out at home for use in a game and be rather dark to write notes on.
 
The original second page looked OK apart from the grey grid under the isometric deck plan.

My preference is to use the same styles to tie the two pages together, consistently.

First, framing. I would put the same sort of "metal frame" around the floorplan as is currently around the ship image. This indicates to the reader that "light blue line frame" means text, while "framed as though it's on someone's cabin wall" means an image. ;-)

Second, I would put the same level of grey behind the floorplan of the ship as is behind the ship image. It would make the key more readable. Also, the engine room and cargo areas are not keyed (I assume the little brown boxes are cargo? Don't think a 60t small craft has enough room for tanks! and they don't look like couches.). And what do the different coloured floor areas mean? If the colouring is significant, then it should be noted on the key. Are the black sections the fuel, or the aerofins? And is there meant to be a door (iris valve) between the main cabin and the breaching tube?

Finally, "Acceleration" is misspelt - "Accelleration Benches" should only have one "L". (BTW, I only spotted that because that's a mistake I make all the time.)
 
Sorry to be critical, but that black on black design is not an improvement. Very dark, harder to read and it will be an inkjet killer.

I'm not sure if you're committed to using this plan or design but using the design as a cargo shuttle is as impractical as an assault boat. Why waste tonnage on 4 weeks of PowerPlant fuel when there is not even an overnight cabin for the crew? Bow loading doors for such a long cargo compartment where the doors are not as wide as the hold, very inefficient. Cargo shuttles would be designed for maximum loading and unloading rates. A four man crew for a cargo shuttle seems rather excessive, sensor operator? Tonnage on armor, high end computer all unnecessary.

I like to see some technical thought in ship design when it's a product I may purchase.
 
My singular complaint about the first one is resolved in this one by having the bulk the text off of the ship diagram. I found that text hard to read. This design is better.
 
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