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Golden Age 1 ?

Originally posted by Falkayn:
The deckplans are well done, I just don't like the layout of the Far Trader ... well, actually it's well laid out for its work, but it just doesn't look real to me. Too much surface area for holes to be made in - and it doesn't help that it doesn't match the drawing (no joining corridor between central cargo area and forward passenger cabins). The blockade runner has a nice, simple design and picture. Of the 2 deckplans I like the Far Trader one better, Tanuki's has more useful detail (although I don't like that blue/green fuel color).
Sorry the design didn't work for you. I wanted something visually distinct that didn't look like the usual streamlined brick. I rather like the result, but YMMV and all that. :cool:

The joining corridor is my fault. The original three-views (actually five-views) that I sent in for Brian were done before I did the actual deckplans. I decided it needed that bit of corridor as I was doing the plans. I sent a note off on the changes (moved the dorsal hatch a meter aft, added the corridor, reduced the size of the turrets, etc.) but I guess Bryan had already finished the drawing. Consider it a minor variation between models.

The fuel-tanks should be the standard light blue from the Windows 16-color palette. Looking at my print-out it looks like there is a bit of green in it now. I'll have to try a lighter blue next time.

I rather like Michael's design. The deckplan is clean and simple and very reminiscent of classic CT deckplans. Degree of detail is a trade-off we all make. Peter Vernon goes for the full color extra detail look, all the way to including throw rugs and cats. The classic CT look was mostly walls and bulkheads and left much to the imagination. I prefer something inbetween these two, with a few touches of color to bring up visual interest.
 
Originally posted by Falkayn:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Looks very nice, but one error so far. The data blocks for the Zhodani ships ;)
Sigg,

What's wrong with them?

Thanks!
</font>[/QUOTE]Don't know if it's just my copy, but an 8t fighter with 14 staterooms, an autodoc and carrying 5x8t fighters may be a bit of a mistake ;)
 
By the way, I like both sets of deckplans
 
Shouldn't the meson gun on the destroyer and the PA on the Gazelles do radiation damage as well?

And speaking of the destroyer... wow :eek:
 
Part 2, hmmmm. I was waiting for reaction to part 1. But I have the outline completed anyway.
Sigg Odra, that stat block error will be fixed by Hunter. :rolleyes:
 
Quote: "In my experience, not giving PCs a choice is a recipe for disaster. They will look for the way out, any way out, as their desire to suspend disbelief wars with the unpalatable nature of the adventure's "do this, or else" attitude. I expect most PCs to either evacuate the air from the marine cabins, and escape over the frontier with a cargo of nice weapons and vehicles, or at least end up in an armed standoff with them. The eventual conclusion, whereby the marines and PCs are expected to bond together because of being jointly shafted, is also unlikely to happen - far more likely that the PCs give up easily and walk away from it all."

This is something that cannot be helped in my gaming experience. Some groups will continue on without flushing the marines into space. The group I gamed with for so long would probably end up doing that. But there is nothing in the epic to stop the crew from doing that, and there is nothing that one can do to prevent players from acting this way. When writing an epic one has to stick to the plot and leave all the stupid, inane and unrealistic PC actions up to the PCs.
Just in the same way there is nothing in CT adventure 4: Leviathan, to prevent people from stealing the Leviathan and using it to conduct piracy all around the Trojan Reach (which is exactly what happened for 3 years in the 80s with my gaming group).
The premise of GA 1 is the players have been drafted as an auxilliary. Sure, they can skip the draft and be hunted by the navy from that point on. But that is a thread for another time, and is not the subject of the epic.
If the players are drafted and have an obligation to perform their duty, that is the premise of the epic. They may not like it, but that's life in a warzone.
My point is, you cannot write an epic covering all the possibilties in Traveller, by the very nature of one's ability to jump off the beaten track in a starship.
 
I must say, I'm not impressed with the Epic format in general - it's far too disjointed for my tastes. Do all adventures published by QLI have to follow that format? So far it's a major turn-off for me.
 
So...as usual, it looks great. I'll read it closely tonight (well, that's the plan; see next) and see if there's anything for me to add.

Here's why I'm writing: anyone having any trouble printing it?

I spent the most time on the Print Edition. It keeps failing on the page with the subsector map. It prints the gridlines and the map legend column, but nothing else.

When I gave up on that, and told it to skip pages 8 and 9, and print pages 10-35, then it barfed on page 24, the one with the deckplan.

So then I switched to the Screen Edition, but it wouldn't print at all.

I'm using...
--WinXP SP2
--Acrobat 6.0.1
--brand new Xerox WorkCenter Pro 55 PS (55 ppm!)

i.e., I work for a Fortune 500 corporation with very nice IT resources, so I'm a bit puzzled. <EDIT>(Yes, I'm trying to print this at work, where all these nice resources are "available" (^_^) just in case that wasn't clear.)</EDIT>

The print dialogs seem to complete okay; the problem seems to be at the printers.

Thanks in advance for any assistance,
Dan
 
I can only suggest you ensure you are printing to a postscript-enabled device. PCL-5 printers possibly won't handle printing the graphics.

EDIT: I've looked at the stats for the Xerox printer you mention. It should have postscript level 3 built in. I note the standard model only has 96 megs of RAM - not much to handle complex postsctipt files generated by seemingly simple PDFs. Howeve,r if you have ever taken apart a PDF in freehand or illustrator you will know how complex they can be. I suggest it is a memory problem. Try printing the graphics pages individually.
 
Thanks, Michael, for your investigation.

As you surely saw, the WCP55 is a PS Level-3 printer. And this one at work has 512MB RAM.

But...I tried on another, older, less nice printer, and there it worked. So go figure. The charitable view is that the brand spankin' new printer isn't configured correctly just yet...

But if anyone else has any trouble, please follow his advice, and print pages separately, or in small chunks.

Later,
Dan
 
Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Don't know if it's just my copy, but an 8t fighter with 14 staterooms, an autodoc and carrying 5x8t fighters may be a bit of a mistake ;)
That's the Zhodani Tardis mod. You think that's something, wait until it pops out the spinal mount meson gun!
file_23.gif
 
Originally posted by Malenfant:
I must say, I'm not impressed with the Epic format in general - it's far too disjointed for my tastes. Do all adventures published by QLI have to follow that format? So far it's a major turn-off for me.
I think the EPIC format is a good start but possibly needs some refining. I remember an old Star Frontiers module that had 2 kinds of encounter, location-based and time-based. It worked quite well for that adventure (is was a little straitjacketed); so some events happen at a particular place, and some in a particular order. The EPIC format seems to be a way of formalising that kind of structure, but it is a little vague about how it goes about it.

I'd like to see more multi-thread adventures (essentially like our fave TV shows that have a main plot and a couple of subplots). Each story-arc would have its own set of keys and scenes, and some of these would overlap to mesh the arcs together. EPIC's a good start, but it needs developing.

As far as GA1 goes, I'll have to dissent and say this is my favourite EPIC yet. I like the moral murkiness, and the potential for infighting. It does look linear but it needn't be played that way; some of the scenes can be easily transplanted to other systems (the corsairs, the raider attacks) - only Singer is a required system (and even then you could move to Kwai Ching say). As most of the action takes place in space you could do it anywhere. As for motivations to go to various planets, you could add more 'pull' and 'gimmick' (and I do think it an omission) in the form of smuggling opportunities, scams, or rumours of 'the big score'. Doing all this under the noses of the marines, and maybe actually cutting them in, could offer plenty of side adventures.

As for dumping the marines: yeah, well players may want to do that but do you think a merchant crew (even a tough one of PC's) would be able to dump 10 gung-ho hardcore marines with heavy weapons? Maybe with guile and subtletly but then they'd have earned it. And even if they did, wouldn't they now be traitors to the Imperium? Not worth the trouble in my book.

Criticisms: the bit where the Collace authorities ask the marines and pc's to help out with the assassin seems a bit wierd - surely Collace has its own high tech resources and even under Imperial client state status they'd still jealously guard their own jurisdictions, especially when the Imperial force in question is a lowly marine lieutenant and a bunch of dishevelled traders with jumped-up auxiliary status. Better to embroil the pc's in the assassination bid, say they arrive just before, and the assassins use them either as unwitting decoys (falsifiying records etc) or get them accidently caught up in the firefight. Clearing names is a better incentive for the pc's to get involved anyway.

I also didn't like the monlogues from officials - it was all exposition, and unrealistic. But then we're not expecting Shakespeare are we?

My main critique of the EPIC series is that they tend to require alot of working up. The first 2 with the 'Broadside of a Barn' definitely needed it, but they were more mini-campaigns anyway. But they often lack deck plans or building layout, and I find that using generic stats from 76 Gunmen for the NPC's to lack imagination and makes them look like faceless cutouts. There are no big stupid guys or clever clumsy girls or whatever; everyone's completely average.

I think the NPC's are more important than the plot! The fact is the 'actors' bring the motivations and solutions to any scenario, and having interesting NPC's can help the Ref adjudicate situations when the PC's go "off message". This flaw is endemic to all QLI adventures. And as I already have 76 Gunmen, I do feel a little bit shortchanged when I see the same stuff repeated in every single adventure.
 
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