Proto-Traveller
- Thread starter Jeffr0
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The Oz
SOC-14 1K
You got me there: I totally missed that in my set of suggested construction rules.
Looking at Book 2, we see that for standard hulls a 400-dton ship takes 14 months, a 200-dton hull takes 11 months, and a 100-dton takes 9 months. I would extend that and say that for standard designs (any small craft being produced in quantity) it might go like this:
99 to 51 dtons - 8 months
25 to 50 dtons - 7 months
less than 24 dtons - 6 months
For any non-standard small craft, I'd add a month onto those construction times.
These build times might seem fairly long, but consider that any shipyard building them in quantity will have an assembly line going so that many such small craft will be worked on at one time: it might take 6 months to make a single 10-dton fighter, but if you start 4 new fighters every week, you'll be building 4 fighters a week once the first 6 months are over.
The Oz
SOC-14 1K
If you wanted to classify some Book 2 drives as military, I would do it within each TL, and say that the first two letter drives (or just the first letter drive, if that TL only adds two new drive letters) available at each TL are civilian, all other drive letters at that TL are military. All drives from lower TLs are automatically civilian drives.
So:
TL9 - AB are civilian, CD are military
TL10 - ABCDEF are civilian, GH are military
TL11 - ABCDEFGHJ are civilian, K is military
TL12 - ABCDEFGHJKL are civilian, MN are military
TL13 - ABCDEFGHJKLMNP are civilian, Q is military
TL14 - ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRS are civilian, TU are military
TL15 - ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVW are civilian, XYZ are military.
What do ya'll think?
So:
TL9 - AB are civilian, CD are military
TL10 - ABCDEF are civilian, GH are military
TL11 - ABCDEFGHJ are civilian, K is military
TL12 - ABCDEFGHJKL are civilian, MN are military
TL13 - ABCDEFGHJKLMNP are civilian, Q is military
TL14 - ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRS are civilian, TU are military
TL15 - ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVW are civilian, XYZ are military.
What do ya'll think?
Big freighters are themselves a problem. In a proto-trav or small-ship heresy, peventing them is a noble thing... (pun intentional)
Big ships tend to lead to centralized authority. Not something the darker traveller settings really want.
See, the big difference is that a 1000T cruiser (Bk2 or SSH) can wipe out any single 200 or even 400 Td ship all alone. But a 1000T merchant cruiser is much tougher, and requires the navy gang up. Under MT or BL, this is still quite true.
From the stand-point of creating the illusion of dominance, being able to whack any one freighter is scary for the freighter; even if 5 are the guns equivalent, if one screws up, the big ship can crunch one at a time.
HG, however, and it's TNE Equivalent BR, are critical hit systems: hits are telling if they happen at all. So the big ship is at an unrealistic advantage. If you have enogh firepower to do crits at all, the more crit-causers the faster the target dies given the same total armament pool.
T20 is a hybrid; Big ships are less tough per ton, but do far more damage per ton, plus you have "critical hits" in the above sense, as in rating reductions, not linked to size, so you can die from structure OR crits.
Big ships tend to lead to centralized authority. Not something the darker traveller settings really want.
See, the big difference is that a 1000T cruiser (Bk2 or SSH) can wipe out any single 200 or even 400 Td ship all alone. But a 1000T merchant cruiser is much tougher, and requires the navy gang up. Under MT or BL, this is still quite true.
From the stand-point of creating the illusion of dominance, being able to whack any one freighter is scary for the freighter; even if 5 are the guns equivalent, if one screws up, the big ship can crunch one at a time.
HG, however, and it's TNE Equivalent BR, are critical hit systems: hits are telling if they happen at all. So the big ship is at an unrealistic advantage. If you have enogh firepower to do crits at all, the more crit-causers the faster the target dies given the same total armament pool.
T20 is a hybrid; Big ships are less tough per ton, but do far more damage per ton, plus you have "critical hits" in the above sense, as in rating reductions, not linked to size, so you can die from structure OR crits.
What a load of rubbish. How can you have Evil Megacorporations without 5000 ton freighters?
The Ziru Sirka wasn't built around 200 ton Free Traders, you know. Any decent Vilani bureau would build its organisation around the biggest ships it could build - it's just more "efficient" that way.
A small ship universe means that ships are 5000 tons or smaller, not that they are 1000 tons or smaller. And, ideally, built according to Book 2.
YPTU may differ, of course. And it should.
(That's YProtoTU, if it's not obvious).
The Oz
SOC-14 1K
I did.
At TL9, the biggest civilian ship is 400 dtons, the largest military is 800 dtons.
At TL 10 it's 1000 dtons for each.
At TL11 and TL 12 it's 2000 dtons for each.
At TL 13 it's 2000 dtons for civilian, 3000 dtons for military.
At TL 14 it's 3000 dtons for each.
At TL 15 it's 5000 dtons for each.
At all TLs except TL15 the largest possible civilian ship is capable of the same jump as the largest possible military ship (Jump-1). At TL15 a 5000 dton civilian ship is only J-1, while a military ship of the same size can reach J-2.
I don't see any real problem.
What a load of rubbish. How can you have Evil Megacorporations without 5000 ton freighters?
The Ziru Sirka wasn't built around 200 ton Free Traders, you know. Any decent Vilani bureau would build its organisation around the biggest ships it could build - it's just more "efficient" that way.
A small ship universe means that ships are 5000 tons or smaller, not that they are 1000 tons or smaller. And, ideally, built according to Book 2.
YPTU may differ, of course. And it should.
(That's YProtoTU, if it's not obvious). </font>[/QUOTE]Anything above 1000Td is hard to do at reasonable tech levels under Bk2.
As for the Megacorps: they don't need to own the shipping. In fact, it's kind of better that they don't... becuase then they can set much harsher guidelines for shipping, and force the costs down artificially.
What's more, far more evil is the megacorp that holds the note on 1000's of freighters, and includes a corporate assistance clause. (Kind of like a reserve activation clause, but for corporate benefit. For example, a contract that says the thirteenth month is free, but you owe one week of sevice after that month to the corporation itself.) That gives you one week free per year... and one week that you can take off but it will catch up at the end. (In short, if they never call you up during the note, at the end, you owe 40 weeks of service, or just shy of a year.)
MPTU would use something like Ken Pick's suggestions in order to provide a full range of jump drives to ships up to 5000 tons. Just a little bit of extrapolation...
Ah, and the Bottleneck Empire. One way of doing this is to make Vland the capital world, and pull the rifts above and below it right up to it. That also beings Capital closer to the Marches. Or, don't use much [or any] of the official map at all... although it's nice to have chunks of the Marches.
Ah, and the Bottleneck Empire. One way of doing this is to make Vland the capital world, and pull the rifts above and below it right up to it. That also beings Capital closer to the Marches. Or, don't use much [or any] of the official map at all... although it's nice to have chunks of the Marches.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Redraw the map would get my vote.
And make corridor much harder to navigate, plus reduce the time the Spinward Marches have been settled so that you cam maintain the frontier feel rather than have a seven hundred year old sector
Then unexplored sectors/subsectors beyond its boundaries make sense
And make corridor much harder to navigate, plus reduce the time the Spinward Marches have been settled so that you cam maintain the frontier feel rather than have a seven hundred year old sector
Then unexplored sectors/subsectors beyond its boundaries make sense
Let me see if I can summarize . . .
Proto-Traveller is powered by CT+ in a 5000T or less ship universe with a smaller Imperium that has more ragged frontiers populated with more criminal characters and a real gritty feeling.
A new idea for a geek code appears (drum roll)
“pt++”
Proto-Traveller is powered by CT+ in a 5000T or less ship universe with a smaller Imperium that has more ragged frontiers populated with more criminal characters and a real gritty feeling.
A new idea for a geek code appears (drum roll)
“pt++”
After reading the first seven pages of this, I think I like it.
My only things:
1 and most important: go with High Guard jump capacities, and make tl9 able to manufacture 5000 ton hulls. How are tl15 ships that size better? Hmm, better sensors, better ranges, better computers, larger jump - they can do J4-6 regularly! - and better manuevering. Edit: This might mean having some way of scaling damage to reflect output differences. Oh, and this does mean changing the required tonnages of the various parts as well.
2 and almost just as important: revise the computers significantly[/i]. A computer at TL9 can run a 5k ton ship, but a tl 15 computer can run it better.
3 and minor: do enlisted ranks too, plus do CG by year and not term. Extrapolation: Marines also get rifle-1 (maybe as a class skill for becoming Cpl or Sgt), and revolver-1 becomes handgun-1, and includes all types of slugthrower, and laser-pistol as well (i.e. low-energy pistols including stunners).
Those are my moddies to it - someone donated a Judges Guild product to my collection, set in Ley sector - it sounded interesting!
My only things:
1 and most important: go with High Guard jump capacities, and make tl9 able to manufacture 5000 ton hulls. How are tl15 ships that size better? Hmm, better sensors, better ranges, better computers, larger jump - they can do J4-6 regularly! - and better manuevering. Edit: This might mean having some way of scaling damage to reflect output differences. Oh, and this does mean changing the required tonnages of the various parts as well.
2 and almost just as important: revise the computers significantly[/i]. A computer at TL9 can run a 5k ton ship, but a tl 15 computer can run it better.
3 and minor: do enlisted ranks too, plus do CG by year and not term. Extrapolation: Marines also get rifle-1 (maybe as a class skill for becoming Cpl or Sgt), and revolver-1 becomes handgun-1, and includes all types of slugthrower, and laser-pistol as well (i.e. low-energy pistols including stunners).
Those are my moddies to it - someone donated a Judges Guild product to my collection, set in Ley sector - it sounded interesting!
Sigg, that's clever, and you've given me a related idea.
On the Book 2 drive lists, there's a disconnect that happens at a certain high point (around drive letter V or so). I'd suggest that that's either a tech-level divide, or a military divide. Or perhaps both, since the military generally use higher TLs than civilians.
This would also explain why Scouts don't use special high-tech military drives: with the Type S, drive maintainability takes precedence over fanciness.
Well, I missed International Talk Like a Pirate Day, but, ARRR! That be the truth, lad.
Well, one truth, anyway. Proto-Traveller is, of course, highly DIY, and its flavour will vary according to its referees and players tastes, but the six-gun swagger is definitely one option.
Unfortunately so is wearing Battle Dress at all times out of munchkin paranoia.
In the "good old days" I developed a habit of banning my players from doing this. I simply stated as a fact that PCs who tried to use Battle Dress and military weapons would definitely die.
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Or, you can take a cue from John Ringo's "March" series (March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars) and have some QC issues with BD from the lowest bidder, etc. (And, from the lowest bidder is the only place PCs are gonna get BD...
)
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