New Product Idea for Far Futures Enterprise

[Hal]

Hello Folks,
How many people here, would be interested in the following project:

Take any and ALL ships we can find from the Classic Era days, and fix their High Guard 2nd edition stats so that they MATCH what they should match instead of being broken?

For example? In the thread about the Zhodani Chatl, I mention that the stats given in the Adventure class ships I, do not match anything I can reproduce using High Guard Shipyard, and consequently, High Guard 2nd edition rules when I tried to use a spreadsheet to do it manually.

So why not create content via say, High Guard Shipyard, to match as best as possible the original parameters of the ships published in earlier material, and then have the new revised material published via PDF? If done as a group project, it might even be released free to the public if Marc so desires, or it can be released for a nominal sum - nothing to awaken dreams of avarice in the team members putting this out

I like the idea myself actually. Anyone else like the idea enough to approach Don and see if he considers it worth the while to broach to Marc? The idea here, isn't to create something that requires Marc to spend time on and take him away from his already FULL plate, but to try and HELP him. We do the work first, retain as much of the "fluff" where we can, and only FIX those things that are broken. Supplement 9 Fighting Ships, Traders and Gunboats, The Spinward Marches Campaign, and other various documents can be combed through in an effort to fix problems and clean things up.

 

[Whipsnade]

Hal,

The problem than becomes in how the broken designs should be fixed.

There was a recent thread concerning SMC's broken rider and tender designs. The proposed fixes ran a wide gamut and there were good arguments for nearly all of them. Should you drop the number of riders to retain more of the tender's previous, albeit broken, capabilities? Or should you make the riders smaller for the same reason? Or should the riders stay as close to their previous capabilities as possible and the tender be radically changed?

And all those question don't even touch on the numbers and type of fighters the SMC tender is said to carry.

The designs are too broken and there are too many equally valid ways to fix them.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Hal]

True, but then again, a general concensus can be reached on what is perhaps the better route to go - or, in such an event, Marc himself or perhaps Don can view the "entries" and pick what they think are the better corrections. That would be one of two different methods for determining the better route to go with the corrections. Group vote or a central judge figure agreed to in advance. I don't know if Don will appreciate me donating his time like that *teasing grin*, but if one never asks, one can never get a yes.

 

[far-trader]

I think Bill summed up my take on the idea pretty much. Nice idea but finding two ship designers who can agree sounds like a long shot I think a lot of gearheads have already done this over the years for their own use (I know I have, several times over) and each probably has a slightly different set of standards applied and no two the same.

For example, the Chatl, works pretty well with one small change* to fix the "wrongness"...

...imo. Your ideas in the other thread differ (not wrong or bad, just different)

*TL15, makes it all fit (not counting armor, did it have armor?) and all you lose is 1 agility point (agility 1 instead of 2, or 2 with no energy weapons)

EDIT: Still, if this takes off, sign me up I'm crazy that way...

 

[robject]

Two dedicated Traveller grognerds who get along well and have HGS could toss off about a hundred ship designs in a month.

I suggest that's the place to start.

 

[The Oz]

Hmmmm. Well, I have long since "fixed" to my satisfaction all the HG2 designs I know of, using HGS as the medium for the "fixing."

But the trouble is the consensus, as we've already determined.

 

[Hal]

One of the things that drives me crazy overall as GM, is the prospect that if the players are required to work within the rules, then the game designers should honor the same rules they inflict on the players

Overall, the Zhodani culture is in theory, one tech level behind the Imperium, which implies that the Imperial counterpart in the Zhodani culture will be using the TL 14 standard, and the colonial fleet counterpart in the Zhodani culture will take the usual grab bag approach using TL's 13 and under. Where the ships are given for use by official stats for official naval ship designs, the same approach one uses in the TCS design background should apply to those design "fixes". Ie, if the ship is stated to be TL 14, and TL 14 is the highest TL available for designers of Zhodani ships - then, TL 14 becomes a "hard limit".

If there is an agreement amongst the "designer fixers" what the priority is for the various design parameters, then fixing things should be "relatively" pain free when it comes to trying to find an "agreeable" fix.

That is why I mentioned, that if you have a group of "grogonards" working together, and everyone proposes a generalized fix priority from the start even before working on the designs, and then everyone tries to fix ships based on the priority listing - we can then find (or so I hope!) common ground for working together to find a fix. Now for the fun part. Having agreed before hand, what the priorities should be, the next step is to have people hammer out designs they think fills the criteria agreed to in advance. If three for four designs emerge despite the criteria, that is when the voting comes into play saying "Hey, while I like mine, YOURS fits the bill a heck of a lot better than I initially managed." Even if there were 5 people participating in the process, and 2 voted for one ship, and 2 voted for another ship, and the fifth voted for a third ship, we have by votes, two "tied" ships. Then, the "tied" ships go to Don and/or Marc for them to weed out as they see fit.

Now for the fun part...

Even the "Weeded out" designs can be published and given a history.

Does the Admiralty Board decide upon what it wants for a ship design based on blueprints, or will the Admiralty board give up the specs, and invite competitors to build a prototype from which they will subject to naval trials and then pick the one they want? Any weeded out design can be given a colorful history saying that it was one of the contenders, but missed out of being selected.

Such a design can then be utilized as a "Unique Ship" where there is only the one, and it was sold to a subsector navy at a considerable discount. Ironically, the Subsector navy finds the ship suitable for its needs and begins to place orders for the failed Imperial Design (or the failed Zhodani design, etc).

In short? Nothing has to go to waste, and the PDF booklet can be produced "gratis" or with a nominally low fee to encourage further exploration of Classic Traveller. In fact? I personally would contribute skull sweat to this such that I would enjoy it becoming a PDF distributed via RPGNOW free of charge or for a Dollar or two.

For those who REALLY want to have fun with this? Why not create an overview deck plan. It doesn't really act like deck plan prints so much as shows that the ship has 5 decks, general fuel tank placements, etc - but leaves the rest for any other GM to fill in as they see fit. Sort of like how the Adventure Class Ship decks are done - all within a readable view area, but not drawn to the full 15 mm scale (or so I am assuming those are going to be printed if printed on a computer printer!).

Now - the reason I'm suggesting an agreed upon priority criteria listing in advance, is so that we can avoid people with reasonable viewpoints, getting into a clash of egoes to the point where it becomes "un-fun" (gotta use non-standard english once in a great while, ya know? <g>)

In any event, such a project requires a project co-ordinator, someone willing to archive the agreements, the emails, and even the final files produced by all involved. A general "brief history" would be submitted by various people, with a single project leader working on smoothing out the wrinkles. Or, if the project leader is lucky, the people he's working with will all enjoy trying to do the most wrinkle free descriptions they can manage. The nice thing of working via Instant Messenger (Yahoo or Microsoft IM) is that discussions can flow in a synegergistic manner where creativity can work at building upon each others ideas instead of in a linear manner by just one person. For instance, I'd never have had the idea of "Failed competative bids" if someone hadn't mentioned the problem of getting grogonards to agree on a single fix <g>.

Well, enough on that. If the project has enough willing participants, and Don and/or Marc like the idea - then why not work at producing such materials? In fact? Why not do something like this for yet one more good reason...

Marc has contacted various people about updates or free files for those who purchased certain CDs from him. Imagine a PDF being made of the corrections to classical ships, and having that file being emailed out to all previous purchasers of the CT CD?

Just a thought. <g>

 

[Hal]

Now, before we go any further, why not list those "criteria" that should be nailed down as priority issues, and see if we "grogonards" have even a basic "commonality" we can work from?

For example, Mission statements for the ship mean what in the general scheme of things? If the Mission statement requires that the ship be capable of deep strategic deployment (say Jump-5) with Manuever 3, with 2 staterooms (Using the Chatl for example here), 1 turret with three weapons, one of which is a Sandcaster), what would you as a retrofitter think should hold priority? Hull size? Armor Levels? Mission Priority? TL?

What precisely ARE the parameters that can be identified outright for any ship design regardless of whether it is home brewed or "Official product material that happens to be in error"?

Lets identify the actual criteria with ship design first, then try to come to an agreement on which order things need to be looked at, and see if we can find a series of design fixes that hit the most of the higher priority items for the least "change" from the official design. Staying within TL limits for example, would be a HIGH priority for me if the ship was listed as TL 14 with the premise that it was a hold over from the Fourth Frontier War. Sure, if it can be fixed to TL 15 specs and meet the published stats on the original, that would be one thing, but making a ship meet the listed "history" as well as the High Guard design rules is one of the reasons such a ship was targeted for revision in the first place - it needs to conform to the listed description as well as the rules.

Probably one of the lowest priority items for me is how many subcraft the ship carries. If crews were not double bunking in a design, but subsequent design changes permit the published stats to occur at the expense of say, one armor level and 2 staterooms - I'd say, go for it. If the published stats are such that the ship needs to be armored (it is a "Heavy" of the class by description) then perhaps lowering its Manuever drive by one level will be sufficient to meet the needs of the ship design.

See, the problem is - not every single "design error" is the same. So "Some leeway" has to be built into the process of saying "First, what is wrong with this ship"

I think too, that we need to create a list of ships that need to be "Fixed" and list WHY the design is in error. The Spinward Marches ships are going to be a problem, but, hey, I'm an optimist <g>. Surely, with the respect we have for each other as individuals, we can find common grounds for fixes no? Heck, perhaps it would make for a bit of "color" that a certain ship MUST have drop tanks in order to meet the design parameters. Imagine having a Fleet which must be able to utilize drop tanks, and finds it can't find any available for such a specialized Hull. Since Drop tanks are not "jump-capable" ships, one would think that the specialized tanks can be made at any Class A or Class B port. Since one knows the actual volume of the tanks, might it not be possible to treat the construction of simple drop tanks as building a "hull" like structure only? Who knows, perhaps we can find a way to add in a "new rule" missing from either of HG or Adventure 5: TCS... how long it takes to manufacture drop tanks <g>. Imagine the adventure possibilities inherent in such an endeavor... "You are approached by Naval officer and a Grav flatbed. Atop the flatbed is a massive container labled as jump netting. The officer waves over two technicians who accompanied the transport of the jump netting, while the officer hands you a copy of his Imperial Writ signed by the local noble of the world. The writ entitles the officer to select any jump-2 capable merchanter ship in an emergency situation via Emergency Charter at 150% normal fees, to a location that will be 3 jumps away for the combined tonnage of the drop tank and the merchant ship."

The Technicians rig the ship up so it can tow the drop tank from high orbit to a new location, be refueled at the new location and jump immediately for the next star system, yadda yadda yadda.

That's an adventure I'd have never even THOUGHT of for use in my campaign world were it not for a certain someone suggesting Drop tanks for a particular ship from THE SPINWARD MARCHES CAMPAIGN

 

[DonM]

Well, I am monitoring this thread, to see if it goes anywhere

:rofl:

And if something interesting comes up, we'll pass it on to Marc.
But you did succeed in getting both Rob and my attention...

 

[DonM]

Two dedicated Traveller grognerds who get along well and have HGS could toss off about a hundred ship designs in a month.

I suggest that's the place to start.

I just wish Andrew would fix the admittedly few bugs left in HGS...

 

[far-trader]

I just wish Andrew would fix the admittedly few bugs left in HGS...

Last I heard (very recently, over on the Yahoo CT-Starships Group he is still getting bug fix reports, so maybe he's thinking about it.

But that is one of the problems. Even using HGS will require manual checking of each design for the minor errors. No biggie for small ships, bit of a headache for big ships.

And the group doing the work should probably have a good working knowledge of Book 2, High Guard, and TCS (which helpfully clarifies some of the HG rules). And knowing the 2nd ed changes of B2 and HG would help immensely in spotting the breaks for those designs that came out during the transition.

And we need to decide what we're fixing. What I mean is, HG specifically allows and does not invalidate Book 2 designs (however wrong it may be on that) so we shouldn't be converting them to HG should we? I'd vote no, or if we did then they should be done such that they remain essentially the same (i.e. no HG Type S with 20tons of cargo space silliness, etc.)

Of course there are more than a few threads here already tackling some of the more widely known designs (AHL and Kinunir pop readily to mind). I don't recall a clear consensus there either (heck, I can't always get a clear consensus personally).

First off I guess we need a list of all the ships. I'm sure somebody has compiled that somewhere (I'm almost certain I've seen it, will hunt around in a bit).

Second we need to discover which ones need fixing...

...all but the Book 2 Type S. That was easy (well, there may be one or two more that aren't broken, but not many).

Part of the problem is some of the rules are open to interpretation. So what looks broken may be a simple difference of interpretation. I think before I'd want to tackle this, at the very least, I'd want a solid, exhaustive, complete, authoratative example of just how crew numbers are meant to calculated in HG. Now I'm going to have to check Marc's workup of the P.F. Sloan class (?) escort again. Maybe he did and I've just forgotten but I seem to recall still having questions even after that.

Off to look some stuff up and think some more.

 

[far-trader]

Ah, wrinkle number one in Marc's detailed example of the P. F. Sloan class crewing

The crewing includes the Medical Section. That marks it as HG1*. I've always wanted to see the Medical Section retconned into HG2 as it seemed like errata that it was missing. So I'll have to check the differences of crewing between HG1 and HG2 to see if there's some insight into calculating crewing. I seem to recall HG1 being a bit clearer but it's been a while. I'm not saying Andrew got it wrong with HGS, I've just never been sure what is "right" as far as the numbers and breakdowns.

* I've long suspected many if not all the High Guard designs in Supp 9 were HG1, explaining some of the contradictions.

 

[far-trader]

Wrinkle number two in Marc's example, the Arian Lisiani (P. F. Sloan class Fleet Escort) in Challenge 25, while the Medical Section crew is HG1; the model/9 fib computer, agility 6, and powerplant 9* all point to HG2 (top computer in HG1 being model/7, no agility in HG1, and top powerplant being 6 in HG1).

* among other items

So, it's another transitional blended design, automatically broken by it's very nature and I'm not sure of much help in figuring anything out crew allocation wise.

The crew allocation issue I have may even be a phantom of this very problem. When I've tried to get the same crew numbers in the past of some ships in Supp 9 they didn't jive. Not with HG2 or HG1. Little wonder if the designs I was looking at are some strange hybrid of the two. So I may very well have a good handle on crew numbers as they are supposed to be, but it will never match the "official" designs.

And it's this problem that makes me wonder if there's any point to trying to fix them at all. We don't even know how they were broken to begin with. How do we know what to keep and what to chuck? Is the P. F. Sloan broken because the crew number doesn't add up? Should it include the Medical Section from HG1 to make it match the 40 crew? Or should it be redone by HG2 without a Medical Section and fudged to make it work out to 40 crew? Or just take whatever number comes up? Or what?!

This short exercise reminded me why I hate the idea The only way to sanity is to chuck every single official design and start fresh and build for YTU the way it looks right to you. Or accept every single official design exactly as it is presented. DO NOT DIG DEEPER! They are not wrong, they are simply different due to secret design practices and materials not available anywhere else

 

[far-trader]

I just can't seem to stay away from the insanity inducing exercise

I poking away at Marc's example again, interesting note, the drive percentage total is listed as 31% for doing the deckplan. The interesting bit is you can arrive at that percentage in both HG1 and HG2 despite the differences in the drives. Curious no? An artifact or deliberate jiggling of the percentages?

HG1 : J4=250tons, M6=1000tons, P6=300tons : Total=1550tons

HG2 : J4=250tons, M6=850tons, P9=450tons ; Total=1550tons

At least this will (maybe) let me figure out which Engineering Section crew rules were used* since the tonnage is the same but the calculations are different. Unless those calculations were also jiggled to come to the same result.

* EDIT: Or not. Peachy. The crew total doesn't even add up right in the example for such a small ship. It starts with saying 32 enlisted and 8 officers for a total of 40. But the details list a total of 33 enlisted and 8 officers for a total of 41. Great

EDIT II: Nope. Totally bogus crew numbers in the example. Don't even come close to either version of HG crewing rules. Not even in the ballpark for Engineering. Neither set of rules breaks them down the way the example does. I think I could hear several little grey cells scream in agony as they exploded trying to rationalize the crew numbers...

 

[Hal]

In Answer to Trader Dan's comments (all of them!) <g>, I think this would be one of the criteria that needs to be looked at.

First? Take HGS and see if the entered values of the ships in Supplement 9: Fighting Ships, matches that of the program.

Why do this? Because of the following idea I'd like to put forth...

If we all make an effort to build HGS files of the various ships in question, we will have a library of such ships to include with the program in future releases - assuming that Marc Miller approves of this.

Second, it will rigourously test HGS for those aforementioned bugs.

Third, if HGS is wrong and the book is right, we'll be able to know that we took a REALLY close look at the design, and had to find out which was wrong, HGS or SUPPLEMENT 9.

So, just because a design doesn't fit HGS doesn't mean it is wrong, it just means that it needs a closer look.

Now, the criteria for judging if a ship needs to be fixed? Any Book 2 designs listed anywhere, need to be cross checked with the actual book 2 rules to see if they fit or not. Compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges kind of thing.

If someone wishes to convert the Book 2 design to a HG2 analog, all the better, but it won't be an actual "correction" so much as a conversion. Again, something that may or may not be worth pursuing. Personally? I like the idea of including HG2 stats for a ship for this work simply because it allows a GM to say "Hey, I've got this really COOL collection or compendia of ship classes". One reason I picked up the T20 compendium of books was so I could have a series of TL 14 designs along with class names should I ever desire to use them for my campaign set in the future. As result of my renewed interest in Traveller as of late, I offered to run a campaign one on one over the net for a buddy of mine using (hopefully!) Screen Monkey. It didn't work well for him the last time because he had dial up and I had cable, and he kept dropping off for some reason. Maybe this time will be different. If not, then he and I can attempt to fit in some face to face without too much difficulty. So, yes, I like the idea of having some of the "older" TL 14 designs floating about in my Traveller Universe. Some of those "older designs" will be brand new production ships from shipyards rated at TL 14. A proven design, with an already existing parts distribution from when the ship was a front line Imperial design, means that the costs for maintaining it would be a far nicer attraction for the subsector or planetary navies.

But I digress. First order of business for this thread, and those who are willing to give it a try is this:

Take HGS, and enter in ALL of the ship designs from Supplement 9. Save the files and then compare their results with OTHERS who are doing the same thing. Those files should be reasonably identical where possible, and corrections to designs might be as minor as changing the cargo capacity of a ship, or its rated cost, or what have you.

An alternative to the use of HGS, might be to use spreadsheets from the getgo (ie from the start). Then a show all work kind of thing would work out perfectly. Me? I'd approach it from the viewpoint of "if it works in HGS, then it probably is correct, if it doesn't work, THEN use the spreadsheet to see where it disagrees. THEN announce which ships failed the accuracy test.

Oh, and one more thing.

The standard to utilize is not whether or not the design fits High Guard 1st edition rules or not, or try to explain why the error exists. The standard to use is that of one single standard. Does the ship fit the rules of High Guard 2nd edition or not. If not, why, and what will it take to make it match. In a way, this is like when you have Car Wars version 1.0, then 1.3, then 1.9, then 2.0, then 2.5. Once you reach 2.0 and it doesn't change, then it is time to look at all the designs produced with 1.0 on up to 2.0, and bring them into conformity with 2.5.

At least, that's my thoughts on the matter. This project is basically about conformity to HG 2nd edition. In fact? If you consider the clarifications in Trillion Credit Squadron as addenda to High Guard 2nd edition, we're really talking about High Guard 2nd edition revised

On that note, time for me head back to my normal life Will start with Supplement 9 from the start, and work my way forward to the last ship. If you do not have my personal email, feel free to request it and I will of course send you a PM saying what it is.

 

[Hal]

* EDIT: Or not. Peachy. The crew total doesn't even add up right in the example for such a small ship. It starts with saying 32 enlisted and 8 officers for a total of 40. But the details list a total of 33 enlisted and 8 officers for a total of 41. Great

These are those niggling little details that can use some "cleaning up" as it were <g>. Our job as revisionists attempting to bring things up to a specific standard, is to find which of the errors involved need to be cleaned up so that it will be "clean" for future readers.

Now, here is the funny thing to consider.

Is there a problem if one ship has 41 crew, and another ship has 40, if there are enough staterooms available to house the total crew involved? Nope. On the other hand, if there are not enough crew staterooms available to house the required crew, then THAT is the thing that needs to be cleaned up the most. In fact? Crewing manifests may need to be listed as a range:

Bare Minimal: 40 Crew
Max crewing allowed: 49 (Based on staterooms present and senior officers usually requiring a single stateroom to themselves)

Little changes like this are more a "face lift" than anything else. But, the face lift item is really outside my original proposal.

 

[rancke]

IMO the first step ought to be to write a new revised edition of High Guard ship design (HG3), a new revised edition of Book 2 ship design (B23? Hmm... maybe not) that is actually compatible with HG3, and a new HGS based on those new rules. Otherwise you're starting out with "garbage in".

One thing the new rules might profitably look into is variable manning. Perhaps three levels; Minimum crew (for cheapskate commercial ships), Optimum Crew (for most purposes), and Redundant crew (for military and exploratory ships). Or at least distinguish between what regulatory agencies think a ship ought to have and what free traders think they can make do with.


Hans

 

[far-trader]

...

Is there a problem if one ship has 41 crew, and another ship has 40, if there are enough staterooms available to house the total crew involved? Nope.

(snip)

Bare Minimal: 40 Crew
Max crewing allowed: 49 (Based on staterooms present and senior officers usually requiring a single stateroom to themselves)

Little changes like this are more a "face lift" than anything else. But, the face lift item is really outside my original proposal.

Sure, but, the crew by HG2 rules is more like 62. Not even the same ballpark and won't fit in the staterooms even doubling everyone up.

EDIT: Hang on, I thought I saw 24 staterooms, which would be a max of 40 crew without doubling the officers? Yep, the detailed example says 24 staterooms which was decided I suspect based on 8 singles for the officers and 16 doubles for the crew, total of 40 crew.

 

[far-trader]

...a new revised edition of Book 2 ship design...

There's an idea. Not sure about making it compatible with HG though. I (think I) know where you're coming from and what you mean, but wouldn't it just be tabularized HG then?

Otherwise you're starting out with "garbage in".

Quite, to a degree at least.

 

[rancke]

There's an idea. Not sure about making it compatible with HG3 though. I (think I) know where you're coming from and what you mean, but wouldn't it just be tabularized HG then?

IMO "Book 2" ought to an easy way to make standardized designs. Essentailly a catalog of standard components and a checklist for putting them together. The local shipyard has a standard 400T hull (costing 90% of standard), so the local jump drive manufacturer makes a 16T jump drive that is designed to provide jump-3 for a 400T hull. No one makes 500T hulls, so if you want a jump-2 drive for a 500T ship, you can either buy that 16T jump drive (B23) or have a 15T drive built special (HG3). But if you do buy a B23 drive, then by gum it performs the same way in HG3 as it did in B23.

Likewise, a 20T bridge is actually a standard suite of a bridge (3T), a captain's office (2T), an officers' ready room (3T), an avonics room (2T), an air lock (1T), and a... well, I can't come up with enough to fill 20T, but I hope others can help with suggestions. Anyway, if you want a lean, mean design with a 2.5T bridge and no captain's office, ward room, etc., you have to use HG3. But if you design an HG3 ship with bridge, captain's office, etc., then it ought to fill exactly the same as a B23 bridge.

That's what I mean by being compatible.


Hans