Poll: Ablat

[DrSkull]

Here's a quick poll question, how many of you have ever had a player character actually wear a suit of Ablat armor, in any version of Traveller? (Heck, how many of you have seen an npc wearing it?)

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Dave "Dr. Skull" Nelson

 

[Mår Ekkertsen]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally astringled by DrSkull:
...actually wear a suit of Ablat....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Zero/Nil on all counts.

 

[William]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DrSkull:
Here's a quick poll question, how many of you have ever had a player character actually wear a suit of Ablat armor, in any version of Traveller? (Heck, how many of you have seen an npc wearing it?)
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Several. Then again, lasers are very common IMTU and a layer of ablat is cheap help.

William

 

[Uncle Bob]

Nope. Well once, but Mercenary hadn't come out yet.

Reflec isn't that expensive and wears better under cloth and a business suit or a CES. We figured if the PCs preferred ACRs to Lasers, the NPCs would too.

 

[soloprobe]

Truthfully...None NPCs often Have better...and PCs often have worse....

 

[Artikid]

Well... I did, with my first character...
Got robbed, had very little money and it was the first time I played CT. So I bought Ablat!

 

[Elliot]

Never used Ablat, Never ref'd a game that used ablat.

I didn't allow reflec as I did not think that it was a viable form of armour - especially under cloth. This made ablat the only option bar battle dress or combat armour, but still no one used it.

 

[Nurd_boy]

I actually liked ablat...the reason,
1st. lasers where fairly common in my higher tech ports-of-call(security/criminal/etc...)and they are easily recharged. ablat does give some protection against 'normal'damage.
2nd. I REALLY don't like the 'silver-jumpsuit' look of coming from a 'lost in space' episode....
3rd. ever try to conceal yourself when you look like a xmas orniment?

 

[Takei]

Never had a pc or npc use ablat. Come to think of it, I've never seen mesh or jack used either!

------------------
Paul

 

[Elliot]

On tbe point of reflec - Can it work? - can you put it under cloth? (I think that this will mean that the surface is no longer reflective). In which case Ablat becomes the only lowish tech armour against lasers. Which means that lasers (which I thought were pretty weedy and cumbersome in Traveller) become hard core weapons.

Sorry to post master for deviating the issue away from ablat poll!!!

 

[Nurd_boy]

reflect can go under cloth but the problem is, a laser hit will burn a hole to the reflect, damaging the cloth and reducing its value. But put on top, your stuck with the 'lost in space jumpsuit'that gets ripped if something other than lasers hits, loosing laser protection.

 

[phydaux]

Never wore ablat, never saw a PC or NPC wear it either. Once a new player sent his character into a store to buy some ablat during his first game session, but the funny looks the player got from all the other players made him change his mind.

Laser weapons have always seemed to be exclusivly military weapons whenever I played Traveller. Seemed PCs always had autopistols and cutlesses and the NPCs always had shotguns and SMGs (yup, love those "fair fights").

My PC ALWAYS wore jack. According to the rules, anyone in a heavy leather coat was effectivly in jack. I just payed 3X the list price and told the GM I was wearing a "stylish leather jacket."

 

[jalberti]

Ablat was never used my gaming. Most of my gaming was ground or space mercenary in nature, so combat armor or battledress were the most common. In non military situations, jack was the armor of choice.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Ablat? Never touched the stuff, nor most other forms of armor. There was just no reason to.

 

[phydaux]

Blue Ghost,

no reason to use armor? Your GM just wasn't trying, was he?

 

[Blue Ghost]

Sorry; clarification here, I should've said most other forms of armor.

Our group perpetually tried to get away with wearing BD, CA, and CE suits out on the streets. I actually had one guy tell me "We eat, sleep and breath in the stuff..."

Needless to say, I was a ruthless DM when it came to combat encounters.

 

[GypsyComet]

I had a character who was like that with his Vaccsuit, but he was a Scout with a low CON...

 

[Gatsby]

Yeah...what is it with Scouts and thier Vacc Suits? "Never break atmospheric integrity!" was his phrase.

Gats'

 

[GypsyComet]

In my case it was the low CON and how we decided he'd "acquired" it. Character generation (this was MT) produced a low CON to begin with, but the character failed a Survival roll to enter the game, and we started in Aramis subsector, so i told the group by way of introduction that I'd had a bad time in that dustup with Vargr pirates some months earlier while on loan to the Navy for courier duty. While *I* hadn't taken any hits, my ship had, and I spent several days in a faulty Naval hardsuit. When they found me and saw what the suit had done to me, the Navy quietly and quickly awarded me a Purple Heart and sent me on my way. The Scouts, being heartlessly savage in their internal humor (they are known, IMTU, for playing dirty when it comes to comparing service medals with other Armed Forces), swapped my Purple *Heart* for a Purple *Colon* and gave me a medical discharge to go with...

The character was thereafter hard to seperate from his soft suit, but you couldn't pay him enough to put on a hard suit...

[This message has been edited by GypsyComet (edited 25 July 2001).]