I recently started running a MegaTraveller campaign as an alternative to my gaming group's regular D&D games. I hadn't really messed around with Traveller since the LBB days, so I was surprised (and delighted) to see all the material that exists now. Being a tinkerer, I couldn't simply just use the standard MegaTraveller universe, so I've been making changes to it over the past month or so.
Starting out, I never liked the Vargr or the Aslan. I prefer more alien aliens (the Hivers, for instance, are brilliant), so they had to go. The roles they play are interesting, though, so I simply "reskinned" them with aliens from a couple of books I liked: The Vargr are now the Dirdir (from Jack Vance), and the Aslan are basically Frank Herbert's Gowachin. In a similar vein, the Zhodani are now non-human aliens who stumbled across and incorporated a couple of minor human worlds in their early history, making them a pan-species empire. Since my campaign is centered in the Spinward Marches, this allows me to have a well-organized hostile alien empire while maintaining the interesting possibilities of "psionic human Zhodani agents".
Probably the biggest change I've made, though, is to revamp the economy. I know this is a common topic, so forgive me if I'm going over old territory here.
I prefer a universe where the amount of travel and trade is quite a bit higher than in the OTU, so I had to grow the economy across the board. I can't recall who wrote the thread, but I remember seeing one here that extrapolated from the per-capita Imperial Naval budget numbers in Striker and Trillion Credit Squadron that the per-capita income in the Imperium was around Cr 42,000. This fits nicely in my vision of the sort of activity you'd have, so I'm going with that.
At the same time, I recognize that freight is completely broken in MT, so I had to rework that based on the operating costs of ships (including mortgage payments). Looking at that, it's obvious that the biggest factor in operating expenses are the number of jumps a ship makes. The actual jump distance doesn't seem to matter so much: I've worked out Jump-1, 2 and 3 variants of the Beowulf using the MT design rules, and the Jump-2 variant only has a cost-per-kl about 25% more than the Jump-1. The Jump-3 is more like 60% more than the Jump-1, but it's still within the realm of viable for (at least) small ships operating in rift areas off of major shipping lanes.
Because of that, I've set the typical tramp shipping costs, per kl, at Cr 400, 500 and 650 for single jumps of 1, 2 and 3 parsecs, respectively. Extra jumps are figured at full price, so I'd expect to see small ships working their routes to optimize for single jumps of whatever range is native for them. This will let my three Beowulf variants all make enough profit from cargo alone to cover their operating costs, though they won't see enormous profits from only cargo. Low passage rises to between 3,425 and 5,600 - with the caveat that my low berths aren't nearly so deadly as CT low berths. Since low passage is expensive, it's got to be more reliable. Middle passage runs between 14,500 and 23,570, and it's probably the only warm passage that a tramp freighter will be providing. High passage is about 40% over that. These prices cover the loss that a small ship would take in dedicating potential cargo space to passengers, with a bit of extra profit over that.
I'm envisioning these economic changes providing a far more active universe. While travel from one system to another is still extremely expensive, I could see the existence of some amount of an interstellar tourist industry, and a pretty sizable trade volume that would support the existence of large freighters.
I've seen some material that states that the IISS includes intelligence services, which I'm keeping. This lets me set my PCs as active Scouts with a mix of "traditional" Scout missions and intelligence missions.
Other than that, the setting sits pretty close to the standard MT universe. My PCs haven't played Traveller before, so they're unaware of the stuff that happens in the MT timeline. They're currently in the Rhylanor subsector, and it's 248-1116. News of Strephon's assassination (I'm keeping that!) should arrive around the end of 1116, which will provide about 3 months of play before the Imperium starts to go sideways. I've so missed this game!
Starting out, I never liked the Vargr or the Aslan. I prefer more alien aliens (the Hivers, for instance, are brilliant), so they had to go. The roles they play are interesting, though, so I simply "reskinned" them with aliens from a couple of books I liked: The Vargr are now the Dirdir (from Jack Vance), and the Aslan are basically Frank Herbert's Gowachin. In a similar vein, the Zhodani are now non-human aliens who stumbled across and incorporated a couple of minor human worlds in their early history, making them a pan-species empire. Since my campaign is centered in the Spinward Marches, this allows me to have a well-organized hostile alien empire while maintaining the interesting possibilities of "psionic human Zhodani agents".
Probably the biggest change I've made, though, is to revamp the economy. I know this is a common topic, so forgive me if I'm going over old territory here.
I prefer a universe where the amount of travel and trade is quite a bit higher than in the OTU, so I had to grow the economy across the board. I can't recall who wrote the thread, but I remember seeing one here that extrapolated from the per-capita Imperial Naval budget numbers in Striker and Trillion Credit Squadron that the per-capita income in the Imperium was around Cr 42,000. This fits nicely in my vision of the sort of activity you'd have, so I'm going with that.
At the same time, I recognize that freight is completely broken in MT, so I had to rework that based on the operating costs of ships (including mortgage payments). Looking at that, it's obvious that the biggest factor in operating expenses are the number of jumps a ship makes. The actual jump distance doesn't seem to matter so much: I've worked out Jump-1, 2 and 3 variants of the Beowulf using the MT design rules, and the Jump-2 variant only has a cost-per-kl about 25% more than the Jump-1. The Jump-3 is more like 60% more than the Jump-1, but it's still within the realm of viable for (at least) small ships operating in rift areas off of major shipping lanes.
Because of that, I've set the typical tramp shipping costs, per kl, at Cr 400, 500 and 650 for single jumps of 1, 2 and 3 parsecs, respectively. Extra jumps are figured at full price, so I'd expect to see small ships working their routes to optimize for single jumps of whatever range is native for them. This will let my three Beowulf variants all make enough profit from cargo alone to cover their operating costs, though they won't see enormous profits from only cargo. Low passage rises to between 3,425 and 5,600 - with the caveat that my low berths aren't nearly so deadly as CT low berths. Since low passage is expensive, it's got to be more reliable. Middle passage runs between 14,500 and 23,570, and it's probably the only warm passage that a tramp freighter will be providing. High passage is about 40% over that. These prices cover the loss that a small ship would take in dedicating potential cargo space to passengers, with a bit of extra profit over that.
I'm envisioning these economic changes providing a far more active universe. While travel from one system to another is still extremely expensive, I could see the existence of some amount of an interstellar tourist industry, and a pretty sizable trade volume that would support the existence of large freighters.
I've seen some material that states that the IISS includes intelligence services, which I'm keeping. This lets me set my PCs as active Scouts with a mix of "traditional" Scout missions and intelligence missions.
Other than that, the setting sits pretty close to the standard MT universe. My PCs haven't played Traveller before, so they're unaware of the stuff that happens in the MT timeline. They're currently in the Rhylanor subsector, and it's 248-1116. News of Strephon's assassination (I'm keeping that!) should arrive around the end of 1116, which will provide about 3 months of play before the Imperium starts to go sideways. I've so missed this game!
