LBB2 crew

[mike wightman]

How many engineers does a ship with 30t of drives require?
What about a ship with 75 tons of drive.

Put another way, do you round up, down, or to the nearest 35t?

Just curious...

 

[Andrew Boulton]

God knows why anybody still uses Bk2 in this day and age (dons flameproof suit), but based on the SubLiner and Patrol Cruiser I'd say round up.

 

[Golan2072]

I round up. And LBB2 is far from dead, it was reborn in new flesh. You see, if time is your most limited resource, LBB2 is a great blessing. Look here to see the possibilities of LBB2 rebirth.

Also, keep in mind that not everyone has T20 (I don't) and not everyone has the time to work with the complex MT/FF&S/Striker system.

 

[jrients]

Thanks for the link, E 2-4601! What do you think of Ken Pick's stuff over at Freelance Traveller? I like his multiple engine rules in particular.

Sigg, I always round up. I wouldn't be against allowing that extra engineer to be underqualified. If they're only responsible for 5 or 10 tons of drive, I might inclined to let them squeeze buy with JoT-1 or Elec-1.

 

[mike wightman]

Nice link Employee

jrients, I round up too. That reduced skill requirement is not a bad idea.

I like Ken Pick's ideas too

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"And LBB2 is far from dead"

I'd call it undead. It was officially replaced by HG 26 years ago. If you want to use CT, that's the obvious choice. If you're short of time/lazy, use HGS:

http://www.downport.com/amv/software/hgs.html

 

[mike wightman]

It's a shame that the good folk of GDW kept on using LBB2 for all the Alien Module ship designs - apart from the K'kree where they hybridised HG/LBB2

Not to mention the Traveller Adventure, and Beltstrike

You'd think that if High Guard was meant to replace CT ship design that LBB2 revised version, the Traveller Book, or Starter Edition would all have used High Guard based ship design instead.

They didn't.

All of the last three were produced well after High Guard, so it could be argued that High Guard was replaced by ship design in revised LBB2, TTB, and Starter edition

 

[aramis]

Based upon teaching Everyday Mathematics to elementary school students, heres a thought:

Whenever a rate sets a minimum, round up, or you are under rate.
Whenever a rate sets a maximum, round down, or you are over rate.

 

[far-trader]

Aramis has saved us with grade school math

And as Andrew notes the practice seems to be round up.

I round up, but when calculating salaries don't pay full rate for partial requirement. I know, it's a detail

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Okay, Sigg, you're right: they were inconsistent.

You have to admit, though, he fact that many canonical ships are impossible to build using Bk2 is a slight problem...

 

[jrients]

Andrew, my canned explanation for curious players is that the tables and sequences in LBB2 represent what's readily available with minimal hassle.

So, for example, there could be a "half-A" sized J-drive that would allow you to build a 100-ton Jump-1 vessel but you're going to have to pay someone to design one from the ground up and someone else to custom build it. And you'll need a special license to legally operate a non-standard drive.

 

[mike wightman]

IMTU I tried to combine an explanation for the large size of the jump drives and that high jump numbers are available at low TLs.

The Imperium is a TL15 culture, but many of its worlds manufacture at much lower TL.
The knowledge of how to build a jump 6 drive is available to even a TL9 Imperial world.

That TL9 version of the jump 6 drive requires importing critical high tech components, and the final drive is much larger than a TL15 version would be.

The TL15 industrial worlds could just build whole drives and power plants for lower TL worlds, but that would destroy the local economies of those lower TL worlds, so they sell them components instead - which are probably designed to have a finite life so that the customer has to keep coming back

So the LBB2 drives are what is available as standard drives within the worlds of the Imperium.

 

[Jame]

Employee, that's a nice link, but I think you forgot to put armor construction rules into it, at least the part of it where you give armor tonnages...

 

[Golan2072]

I probably forgot to; it uses the High Guard formula, so if you have HG just use its armor formula.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"Andrew, my canned explanation for curious players is that the tables and sequences in LBB2 represent what's readily available with minimal hassle."

Players don't need them. As a Ref, I need rules that reflect the OTU, which Bk2 doesn't.

 

[mike wightman]

As an addendum to my post above, high TL culture being able to build more advanced tech at lower TLs thanks to reverse engineering and imported components is how I also explain grav vehicles and fusion power at TL8, and why the TNE OTU was limited to HEPlaR drives - they lacked the higher TL industry necessary to build thruster plates (which become a TL13 baseline tech IMTU).

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
"Andrew, my canned explanation for curious players is that the tables and sequences in LBB2 represent what's readily available with minimal hassle."

Players don't need them. As a Ref, I need rules that reflect the OTU, which Bk2 doesn't.

Which rule set best represents the OTU?

Only TNE and T4 can model the ships of their version of the OTU. The GURPS ATU makes different tech assumptions, and the T20 rules go back to High Guard, but changes them ever so slightly to make them incompatible.

Run CT adventures - especially The Traveller Adventure - and most of the time you are using LBB2 designed ships.

LBB2.1 is different to LBB2.2, High Guard 1 is different to High Guard 2 etc. etc.

I no longer think in terms of an OTU, the ship tech depends on the rules paradigm in use IMHO.

As you said earlier Andrew, "they were inconsistent", so how can any of the ship design rules really be any better than any other at representing an OTU that keeps changing the goal posts for what is official?

Use what you are happiest with, and borrow from the rest, is my motto

 

[aramis]

I'm leaning heavily toward an ATU with a very different approach to either.

Much lower drive speeds (HP Ion using 5% per 0.1G), much bigger drives, and a keyhole drive using wormwholes ala Starfire's J drives.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
As you said earlier Andrew, "they were inconsistent", so how can any of the ship design rules really be any better than any other at representing an OTU that keeps changing the goal posts for what is official?

Well, I prefer to go with the rules that have the fewest camels to swallow. Of Book 2 and HG2 I prefer HG as being more universal (if that's the word I want), but I dislike the absurd power plant fuel consumption rates both use. MT rules itself out (for me) by changing the jump fuel volumes. TNE gets the axe for not having thrusters. T20 got the chop when I couldn't figure out the computers.

My preferred system is QSDS1.5. Sadly, it's perfectly true that each of these systems describes different universes. Sometimes in ways that makes a huge difference. For instance, by HG rules jump-3 freight is a little more expensive than jump-2 whereas by QSDS1.5 rules jump-3 is a bit cheaper than jump-2. Obviously the merchant fleet of a universe where the one is true will differ significantly from the merchant fleet of a universe where the other is true.


Hans

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"Which rule set best represents the OTU?"

Well, since the OTU includes ships larger than 5kt, the answer isn't Bk2.

"Use what you are happiest with, and borrow from the rest, is my motto"

Can't argue with that.