Rationalizing Book 2 and High Guard

[robject]

Most proposed solutions in bringing Book 2 and High Guard together involve replacing Book 2. In other words, Book 2 is viewed as a mission field.

I offer a unique rationalization here. Rather than throwing away Book 2, I posit that there are a range of drives available in the Traveller Universe, based on three features: Bulk, Efficiency, and Durability.

For example, the Book 2 jump drive is much bulkier than the High Guard jump drive. Setting aside TL concerns and damage tracks, I would chalk that up to Bulk and look for an implicit benefit to this size disadvantage.

HG already implicitly has an Efficiency value, used with its Power Plants and varying by Tech Level. This tells me that the Efficiency of Power Plants in Book 2 fall into the upper end of TL14.

Book 2 maneuver drives, on the other hand, appear to be quite small compared to their High Guard counterparts. I would rationalize that High Guard maneuver drives are in fact more Durable than Book 2 maneuver drives.

 

[mike wightman]

How do you rationalise away that LBB2 drives can achieve jump 4 at TL10?

 

[Enoki]

Why not? The same is true of ship plants here today and historically. Think of it like steam plants on ships here on Earth. A 1200 psi high pressure plant is very compact and efficent but is often "twichy" in terms of reliability. A 600 psi plant is less efficent but more reliable.
What is available commercially and militarily could differ greatly. For example, again using ships, the commerical plant might be a expansion engine while the military is using a trubine. Or in aircraft commercial planes use piston engines or turboprops while military ones use jets.

So, why not assume drives are like that?

 

[Dragoner]

It isn't the drives that bug me about book two, it is the crew sections from High Guard. The propulsion and reactors could be different just by make and if one wanted to make them of different value, use the good old CT "Reliability Factor" like FASA did with their equipment.

 

[Enoki]

It isn't the drives that bug me about book two, it is the crew sections from High Guard. The propulsion and reactors could be different just by make and if one wanted to make them of different value, use the good old CT "Reliability Factor" like FASA did with their equipment.

I completely ignore the crewing in HG and MT. Both are completely unrealistic if you expected the ship manned 24/7. You would think that on something like a naval vessel bigger than maybe 200 or so tons that there would be at least one bridge watch on duty at all times along with one engineer and maybe one or two other crew.
I can't accept that such a ship would be on some sort of autopilot much of the time. Even merchants would have to have the capacity to have a bridge watch at all times as a minimum even if that were the sole position manned like that.

 

[Dragoner]

I completely ignore the crewing in HG and MT. Both are completely unrealistic if you expected the ship manned 24/7. You would think that on something like a naval vessel bigger than maybe 200 or so tons that there would be at least one bridge watch on duty at all times along with one engineer and maybe one or two other crew.
I can't accept that such a ship would be on some sort of autopilot much of the time. Even merchants would have to have the capacity to have a bridge watch at all times as a minimum even if that were the sole position manned like that.

The crewing per HG though gives small ships way too many crew, like a minimal bridge crew is 11 people, even for small ships like a Type-S. Giving a rotating full crew, would be 33 crew members, which I do think often it would be reduced to a watch type crew unless in battle or jumping or a task that required the full crew. Long term space travel would require some conservation of space and life support IMO. Book 2 says one person can operate the Type-S, which I would think there would likely be actually 2-3 and have someone on the bridge at all times.

 

[far-trader]

The crewing per HG though gives small ships way too many crew, like a minimal bridge crew is 11 people, even for small ships like a Type-S.

No actually. I think you've missed or forgotten the note that for ships 1000tons or less you use Book 2 for crew calculations, even for HG builds.

 

[Dragoner]

No actually. I think you've missed or forgotten the note that for ships 1000tons or less you use Book 2 for crew calculations, even for HG builds.

Or I have just been being lazy and using AndrewV's HGS, I usually do hit the book two rules though.

I did miss that note in HG, but always done it that way anyways I guess.

 

[far-trader]

Or I have just been being lazy and using AndrewV's HGS...

That's not lazy, that's smart Andrewmv should be Knighted at the least for that gem

EDIT: Fixed, should be Andrewmv

 

[Dragoner]

That's not lazy, that's smart Andrew V should be Knighted at the least for that gem

Agreed, it is sweet to just play around with making ships.

 

[Tobias]

How do you rationalise away that LBB2 drives can achieve jump 4 at TL10?

You could try something like this: The TL jump limits are a "discovered at" indicator. Once you understand the theoretical principle, all you need are some basic blueprints and a few cheap pieces of black box equipment, and you can build a higher jump level drive using a more primitive industrial base.

 

[rancke]

How do you rationalise away that LBB2 drives can achieve jump 4 at TL10?

You can't. It's an irreconcilable difference between LBB2 and later developments. A basic change in the fundamental underpinnings of the setting that makes LBB2 incompatible with the OTU.

<Pauses to wipe foam from mouth.>

Or you could just add a requirement to LBB2 that Jump-2 drives must be at least TL11, Jump-3 drives must be at least TL12, etc.


Hans

EDIT: Incidentally, I've never understood why GDW didn't revise LBB2 to be compatible with HG. I understand the attraction of a simpler ship design system; I just think it would have been (and still would be) easy to make a cut-down version of HG that had the simplicity of LBB2.

 

[AndreaV]

Or I have just been being lazy and using AndrewV's HGS, I usually do hit the book two rules though.

I did miss that note in HG, but always done it that way anyways I guess.

HGS (or at least 1.3 on) should default to book 2 for ships between 100 and 1000 tons

 

[AndreaV]

That's not lazy, that's smart Andrew V should be Knighted at the least for that gem

 

[AndreaV]

You can't. It's an irreconcilable difference between LBB2 and later developments. A basic change in the fundamental underpinnings of the setting that makes LBB2 incompatible with the OTU.

<Pauses to wipe foam from mouth.>

Or you could just add a requirement to LBB2 that Jump-2 drives must be at least TL11, Jump-3 drives must be at least TL12, etc.

Hans

EDIT: Incidentally, I've never understood why GDW didn't revise LBB2 to be compatible with HG. I understand the attraction of a simpler ship design system; I just think it would have been (and still would be) easy to make a cut-down version of HG that had the simplicity of LBB2.

I've always assumed it was an attempt to preserve the "all you need are the LBB's" factor. More curious is why the default ship design system in all the alien modules is book 2.

 

[AndreaV]

Most proposed solutions in bringing Book 2 and High Guard together involve replacing Book 2. In other words, Book 2 is viewed as a mission field.

I offer a unique rationalization here. Rather than throwing away Book 2, I posit that there are a range of drives available in the Traveller Universe, based on three features: Bulk, Efficiency, and Durability.

For example, the Book 2 jump drive is much bulkier than the High Guard jump drive. Setting aside TL concerns and damage tracks, I would chalk that up to Bulk and look for an implicit benefit to this size disadvantage.

HG already implicitly has an Efficiency value, used with its Power Plants and varying by Tech Level. This tells me that the Efficiency of Power Plants in Book 2 fall into the upper end of TL14.

Book 2 maneuver drives, on the other hand, appear to be quite small compared to their High Guard counterparts. I would rationalize that High Guard maneuver drives are in fact more Durable than Book 2 maneuver drives.

I'm not sure you can really rationalize the two systems together. However...

Well if you have three factors (bulk, efficiency and durability) the obvious thing is that they follow a "pick two" rule (bulk and efficiency mean you sacrifice durability, while efficiency and durability means you sacrifice bulk.) So from that Bk2 which are bulkier have efficiency and durability going for them. Mmmm.... maybe the three factors would better be Bulk, Efficiency and Cost?

 

[Dragoner]

HGS (or at least 1.3 on) should default to book 2 for ships between 100 and 1000 tons

I have been using 1.21, your program is awesome though, I have no complaints, I was just mentioning the descrepancy between HG & Bk2 rules.

 

[HiverLord]

How do you rationalise away that LBB2 drives can achieve jump 4 at TL10?

IMTU, I explain to players (who have noticed this on occasion) that as the jump number increases, the jump field/bubble becomes harder to control, and the technological limits represent the designer's/engineer's/crew's abilities to understand and control those fields.
This might not be a purely 'canon' response, but works for my groups. Or so far, anyway...

 

[far-trader]

IMTU, I explain to players (who have noticed this on occasion) that as the jump number increases, the jump field/bubble becomes harder to control, and the technological limits represent the designer's/engineer's/crew's abilities to understand and control those fields.
This might not be a purely 'canon' response, but works for my groups. Or so far, anyway...

That's a fair enough reasoning but you've misunderstood the original question and problem

In Book 2 one can build a J4 ship at TL 10 (for the computer primarily, theoretically J6 is possible at TL9 even, but it would require drop tanks and the original rules which didn't tie computer model to jump limit iirc*). This is from the drive letters in Book 2 and the corresponding TL progression of same in Book 3.

In Book 5 (HG) though a new TL progression, totally disassociated from that of Book 2, was introduced. In HG J4 requires TL 13, and J6 requires TL 15. The only jump drive available at TL 9 is J1.

This is a HUGE break and part of the reason the two systems are really incompatible.

* EDIT: TL 12 for J6 in Book 2 for the model/6 computer requirement

 

[mike wightman]

Stupid thought time.

The type C drive was the first invented, at TL9. It was only capable of achieving jump 1 though due to poor understanding of jump dimensions.

By late TL9 the types B and A drive had been invented, still limited by ignorance to jump 1.

Can't be bothered to type the rest for the other drive types but basically their maximum performance is limited by jump physics TL and having a computer capable of performing the calculations.

Don't forget the Terrans had jump 3 before they realised that empty hex jumps were possible, again a physics/computational breakthrough.

(I still maintain the designers of HG 1 made an error with the drive % tables and that's the real reason for the drive size disconnect.)