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StoshIam

StoshIam

SOC-3
Anyone running a TL7-8 Pre Gravitic game? like Orbital: 2100?
I bought back into Traveller with a few versions of the rules in PDF a few weeks ago and I am building a setting, set only in the next 10-30 years in the future.
Cis-lunar main(ly), initial tentative steps in NEO mining.
Tone: Not so much space wants to kill you and everyone wants a cut, think more Ben Bova "Welcome to Moonbase", and Allen Steele "Rude Astronauts"/"Orbital Decay" Naturally I blame this on the "Travelling without Jumping" article in JTAS 18, and some flashes of brilliance moments in The Traveller Adventure and Beltstrike!
 
Spinward Flow said:
Have you considered investing in Kerbal Space Program as your go-to resource for anything having to do with space in your game? You would really only need the Traveller bits for character game play at that point ... not for ships ...

www.kerbalspaceprogram.com

KERBAL SPACE PROGRAM - Private Division

www.kerbalspaceprogram.com www.kerbalspaceprogram.com
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Thanks, I play regularly and started digging out my copy of The Traveller Book and Beltstrike! to begin again. It unfortunately has lead me into a dive into Blender for Module design so, Deckplans
 
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I used to play "Lunar Lander" back in the day, but never did very well.

The trick with a "low tech" space environment is, as always, power, and how you apply it.

If you're just going to be Cis-lunar, it's less of an issue. But the key manifestation of Traveller is its high G drives. In space flight, it's all about orbits and energy conservation. In Traveller, we don't care about those things, even in TNE. It's a "turn and burn" world. Point the ship at the bright star, and light up the drive.

In a low power setting it's transfer orbits, slingshots, etc.

Cis-Lunar is less of an issue because the orbits are so simple. You practically can (and we effectively did) point the ship "at the moon", and light it up. Obviously its more involved than that, but that's an engineering slide rule problem, not a gaming problem per se.

The problem that dominates space flight is simply "not enough fuel" to do what you want, and, more importantly, not enough fuel to get out of trouble should you get into it.

Now this can all be handwaved away. Do a "HEPlaR" update to your local space drives. That is, simply "advance" to a more efficient drive. An order of magnitude in efficiency will work (suddenly you have 10 times the fuel or 10 times the lift) and be a total game changer.

If you go with "modern day" rockets, you're just not going to get anywhere, truly. There are a lot of issues with space flight (radiation, long term zero G, etc. etc.) but the BIG one is power.

To make it "playable", "something" would need to be done in terms of drive tech.
 
whartung said:
I used to play "Lunar Lander" back in the day, but never did very well.

The trick with a "low tech" space environment is, as always, power, and how you apply it.

If you're just going to be Cis-lunar, it's less of an issue. But the key manifestation of Traveller is its high G drives. In space flight, it's all about orbits and energy conservation. In Traveller, we don't care about those things, even in TNE. It's a "turn and burn" world. Point the ship at the bright star, and light up the drive.

In a low power setting it's transfer orbits, slingshots, etc.

Cis-Lunar is less of an issue because the orbits are so simple. You practically can (and we effectively did) point the ship "at the moon", and light it up. Obviously its more involved than that, but that's an engineering slide rule problem, not a gaming problem per se.

The problem that dominates space flight is simply "not enough fuel" to do what you want, and, more importantly, not enough fuel to get out of trouble should you get into it.

Now this can all be handwaved away. Do a "HEPlaR" update to your local space drives. That is, simply "advance" to a more efficient drive. An order of magnitude in efficiency will work (suddenly you have 10 times the fuel or 10 times the lift) and be a total game changer.

If you go with "modern day" rockets, you're just not going to get anywhere, truly. There are a lot of issues with space flight (radiation, long term zero G, etc. etc.) but the BIG one is power.

To make it "playable", "something" would need to be done in terms of drive tech.
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Wow, thanks for the Drive-splaining. I Thank you and just remembered why i stopped playing Traveller after getting on the internet 20 something years ago.
I guess there are no "playable" stories to tell without higher tech, back to Advanced Squad Leader and 30s tech.
 
Mongoose have a new game in the works that does exactly what you are after:
New Traveller Universe: Pioneer
Around the bottom end of 2022, we will be releasing a brand new universe for Traveller, with the current working title Pioneer. This will be a self-contained book (so no need for the Traveller Core Rulebook), as we will be tweaking the Traveller rules somewhat for this one.

Pioneer is set in our own Solar System, around 10-30 years in the future. Humanity is just starting its new wave of exploration of the planets and moons, and you will be on the leading edge of these missions – this is a game where you will be the first to walk on Mars, the first to establish a Moon base, the first to test mining operations on an asteroid... and if you push the timeline forward, the first to look for life on Europa, to visit Saturn’s moons, and much more. The whole Solar System will be your playground and you will be the first to explore it. The likes of Gravity, The Martian, Interstellar (in terms of atmosphere, not the actual mission), Sunshine and 2001/2010 are very much our touchstones for this new universe.

To do this, you will create characters from around the world, and engage in missions funded by both governments and private enterprise. There is no dedicated combat chapter in this book as your main adversary, by far, is the hostile environment of space and the planets and moons of our sun.

The lead designer for Pioneer will be Sandy Antunes, a name that will be familiar to a lot of you. Dr. Antunes worked as a NASA contractor at NASA/GSFC, an NSF fellow at the Naval Research Laboratory, and is currently a senior programmer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. He also taught as a Professor of Astronautical Engineering for 10 years, and holds a Ph.D. in computational astrophysics. He has written operations, flight and analysis software, and worked with multiple satellite missions in the US and Japan, including CUBIC, ASCA, XTE SUZAKU, STEREO, and Parker Solar Probe, and was the lead for the CACTUS-1 CubeSat mission. He has written 4 books on ‘DIY Space’ for Maker Media and presented talks at both World MakerFaire and Gray Hat/Aerospace Village on the risks from malicious satellites, as well as publishing scientific research on topics ranging from radiation damage to space hardware through to modelling solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs). He has written for multiple gaming books (including Miskatonic University and A Faery's Tale) and short form works (including GURPS: Starbases and Doom: Semper Fidelis), and he is the co-founder of RPG.net.

We are really excited for this project, and believe that for many Traveller players it will be ‘pitch perfect’ in its scope. You will be able to spec mission equipment and parameters, and then literally launch yourself into the unknown…
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This is taken from this year's state of the mongoose post.

Orbital, which you have already mentioned, is a great resource along with Hostile etc. although they may be a little high tech.

Finally if you can find the Cyberpunk supplements Near Orbit and Deep Space they are the closest thing to the setting you are looking at running that I can think of.
 
mike wightman said:
Mongoose have a new game in the works that does exactly what you are after:

This is taken from this year's state of the mongoose post.

Orbital, which you have already mentioned, is a great resource along with Hostile etc. although they may be a little high tech.

Finally if you can find the Cyberpunk supplements Near Orbit and Deep Space they are the closest thing to the setting you are looking at running that I can think of.
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Thank You Mike, I do have Near Orbit from all those years ago and will look for Pioneer.
 
StoshIam said:
I guess there are no "playable" stories to tell without higher tech, back to Advanced Squad Leader and 30s tech.
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There's a whole lot of playable stories, they're just typically not playable "in space". Save for the "in space" stories.

Simply, MOST of the adventure is location based, because getting anywhere takes "too long".

You can steal the research data from that Martian Research lab and make it back to Holiday City just in time to make the Earth Launch window and hop on the Aquarius for that year long flight home if you want.

The Dark Side outpost, which is only 22 hours by Moon Crawler from the Sea of Storms base, is looking for a new Computer tech. But what are these falsified reports being sent back to Huntsville...oh, no time to lose, the Horizon relay sat is coming by and now is your transmission window that you need to meet.
 
whartung said:
There's a whole lot of playable stories, they're just typically not playable "in space". Save for the "in space" stories.

Simply, MOST of the adventure is location based, because getting anywhere takes "too long".

You can steal the research data from that Martian Research lab and make it back to Holiday City just in time to make the Earth Launch window and hop on the Aquarius for that year long flight home if you want.

The Dark Side outpost, which is only 22 hours by Moon Crawler from the Sea of Storms base, is looking for a new Computer tech. But what are these falsified reports being sent back to Huntsville...oh, no time to lose, the Horizon relay sat is coming by and now is your transmission window that you need to meet.
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You already made your point, me posting here in "HOME FORUMS GENERAL TRAVELLER DISCUSSIONS IN MY TRAVELLER UNIVERSE
Was a poor choice, it apparently doesn't fit YOUR style of play.
Sorry Citizen. My Bad, I will have myself shot
find someone else to kick, it's my day off, and it sucked even before your dropped by.
Happy to leave the forum entierly if you want.
Just kick me or tell me to go.
Otherwise Drop the 'tude dude'
 
Please, keep civil. And if anyone does not like the style of play or the setting suggested, no one is forced to intervene

On the thread discussion, I'd look at 2300AD, just keeping out the stutterwarp (let's say it's before its discovery, or just change the setting so that even countries and former history may be different, as it fits better to you).

Without the stutterwarp, the only drives remaining are reaction ones, though I'm afraid the rules don't account for slingshot effects..
 
McPerth said:
Please, keep civil. And if anyone does not like the style of play or the setting suggested, no one is forced to intervene

On the thread discussion, I'd look at 2300AD, just keeping out the stutterwarp (let's say it's before its discovery, or just change the setting so that even countries and former history may be different, as it fits better to you).

Without the stutterwarp, the only drives remaining are reaction ones, though I'm afraid the rules don't account for slingshot effects..
Click to expand...
Thanks, I have the original 2300 rules. Yes the original setting idea is just early Pre Gravitics.
 
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