Help! I'm gonna buy TNE...!

[Jeffr0]

I should be fixing my program for the upcoming High Guard tournament... but I keep looking at TNE, Path of Tears, and Smash and Grab longingly.

The scans have been demonstrated to me as being pretty good, so I can't worry about that.

I was going to wait for the TNE CD, but don't expect that for years now.

I was going to get the MT CD first, but my CT CD had lots of missing pages and annoying stuff like that, so I'm waiting on word that the MT CD is fixed before I buy it.

Please tell me how awful the TNE material is-- especially the ship design and combat in the core book. That way I can have a good reason not to get it!

 

[jfetters]

Depends what you want, ultimately.

The TNE ruleset can be cumbersome if you let yourself get mired down in too a fine level of detail. But if you're going to do a lot of Ship Design and Combat, then you'd best get the original Fire Fusion and Steel & Brilliant Lances. Although BL is the more detailed version of Starship combat.

PoT and Smash & Grab should be must haves in any case, especially the former

 

[Jeffr0]

I have Brilliant Lances in a lovely boxed set. (Wow! $10 a year ago! Drool.)

Stupidly, the first thing I wanted to do was design the example ships with the FF&S "lite" rules they included with it. I spent hours fiddling, but never got anywhere.... I was never quite sure I was doing everything just right, thanks to some occasionally unclear instructions in the design rules....

(Is anyone interested in making an annotated design walk-through for BL? What about actually playing BL?)

 

[jfetters]

Hello, I am a Traveller Addict too

(say it out loud, it helps Jeffr0)

Are you able to buy the food you need?
Are you able to pay most of your bills?
Are your friends not talking to you any more because you talk Travellees?

Then by all means, complete your Traveller addication and buy TNE.

Don't worry the feeling of love and hate at the same time is quite common in most Traveller addicts.

I know, aint that the truth? Idle time and money are our worst enemy sometimes!

I have Brilliant Lances in a lovely boxed set. (Wow! $10 a year ago! Drool.)

Stupidly, the first thing I wanted to do was design the example ships with the FF&S "lite" rules they included with it. I spent hours fiddling, but never got anywhere.... I was never quite sure I was doing everything just right, thanks to some occasionally unclear instructions in the design rules....

Actually, there is/was a decent spreadsheet floating around on the net that allowed design using FF&S 1 tables that was very helpful. Real starship design is almost impossible without it, unless you like the smell of eraser. It also gives you pretty immediate feedback if you screw up - the only issue being that it is so long you may have to compress the zoom. It even creates a HTML ship data sheet!

(Is anyone interested in making an annotated design walk-through for BL?

What about actually playing BL?)

Sure! PbP or PBEM sounds cool to me - I just need to get rid of the damn treadmill in my office so I'll have space! Also good for Battle Rider.

 

[Jeffr0]

Sure! PbP or PBEM sounds cool to me - I just need to get rid of the damn treadmill in my office so I'll have space! Also good for Battle Rider.

Start thinking about this then.... Let's just pick a scenario and go with it.... Isn't there one about a Vampire ship in BL...?

I'll be running a Trillion Credit Squadron Tournament in May. I should be sick of High Guard after that! Look to start a BL game shortly after that if you'll still be interested then....

 

[the angle]

TNE has its share of problems, but so does every version of Traveller ever published. Like any of them, you need to sift through it for the gems (of which there are many), use them to drive your own creativity, and throw away the stuff that doesn't work or that doesn't fit your universe. I just re-read my copy of TNE (the parts of it that I find inspirational) a few nights ago, and found plenty of nourishing brain food. It's all in how you use it.

Steve

 

[Starviking]

Actually, there is/was a decent spreadsheet floating around on the net that allowed design using FF&S 1 tables that was very helpful. Real starship design is almost impossible without it, unless you like the smell of eraser. It also gives you pretty immediate feedback if you screw up - the only issue being that it is so long you may have to compress the zoom. It even creates a HTML ship data sheet!

I think you're referring to Annti Lahiten's old spreadsheets - they're very nice. I'm not sure they work with new versions of Excel, though I may be wrong.

If anyone wants a copy just ask in this thread, as my PM box is just tooo limited to cope with the inevitable surge of requests...

 

[jfetters]

I know... We definitely need larger mailboxes here. 10 messages for inbound AND outbound messages is waaaaay too restrictive in this day and age of cheap storage.

Anyway, yes, that is the spreadsheet I was speaking of, thanks.

And there is a trick to getting the macros to work under Excel 2003 and 2007. Basically, the macro references some methods that are only located in the MSDATLST.OCX ActiveX Library file, which is no longer included in Office. So, once you get a copy of the file, you copy it down to a folder and register it with the system using the regsvr32 utility:

regsvr32 PATH\MSDATLST.OCX

Then once that is in place, you have to make sure that Excel trusts the macro, so you depending on the version of Excel you have, and where you are running the macro from, there are different paths to doing this.

Essentially, it means lowering the security profile of Excel on your machine, at least temporarily. But the spreadsheet will run just fine.

 

[jfetters]

Start thinking about this then.... Let's just pick a scenario and go with it.... Isn't there one about a Vampire ship in BL...?

I'll be running a Trillion Credit Squadron Tournament in May. I should be sick of High Guard after that! Look to start a BL game shortly after that if you'll still be interested then....

Yep, let's plan on that - I'll at least have the treadmill out of the basement by then

 

[wnourse1]

I think you're referring to Annti Lahiten's old spreadsheets - they're very nice. I'm not sure they work with new versions of Excel, though I may be wrong.

If anyone wants a copy just ask in this thread, as my PM box is just tooo limited to cope with the inevitable surge of requests...

I'd take a copy - I've just gotten back into Traveller after almost 15 years and pulled out all my old stuff. I've been pulling everything off the net that I can find as well.

Thanks!

 

[Theophilus]

Actuallly, Anti's spreadsheet isn't the only one out there.

I have another that does most of the same things, but I forget who authored it.

 

[wnourse1]

Yes, there are a couple from the HIWG CD content, but I'm all for getting my hands on anything I can