That's realistic. One can travel (mid passage) on freighters today and steward service isn't always available depending on the ship.
Revisiting High Guard crewing
- Thread starter Carlobrand
- Start date
That's realistic. One can travel (mid passage) on freighters today and steward service isn't always available depending on the ship.
Maybe. Never having sat on the bridge of a free trader, I've no idea what the pilot does that warrants having one in the control chair. For all I know, his job looks more like the job of a nuclear power plant operator than that of an airline pilot. Maybe he spends his time watching dials and pushing buttons to keep everything working together to push the ship in the right direction. I have no idea what is involved in making those maneuver drives do what you want them to, nor how simple or complicated it is to keep them running right. Maybe you have to constantly monitor them to keep them providing the same degree of thrust along the same line or they start working unevenly and start yawing or pitching the ship. All I know is, for some reason the game wants someone in the pilot's seat.
I recall we had a debate on that, whether the guy spent most of his time cooking or cleaning rooms or being waiter/bartender or playing rec-room-host-slash-entertainer. I think the one firm thing we settled on was that there was no way the high-passage passenger of a free trader could expect the kind of service he'd get on a full-size liner. Was looking more like the stewardess on an airline than anything else.
Here's a simple and accurate way to look at it. ANYTHING along those lines of what you mentioned can be done better a by a computer. That is axiomatic. So, the human Helmsman is simply giving broad directions to the flight computer. Like I mentioned earlier, in something like a Free trader or a Type S the person doesn't even need to be on the bridge. They can control everything from the data pad they carry.
So much so that IMTU High passage option doesn't even exist on freighters. For one thing there are not the entertainment options nor the space required for those.
IMTU high passage (a.k.a. priority passage) on free traders do exist. It's just high passage service that doesn't exist on free traders (or at least that no one expects). In other words, if someone wants to spend a priority passage voucher on a trip with a free trader, there is some motive other than the service involved.
Hans
Right. Unlike the 3I my TU doesn't have command economy price controls. It is a free market situation. High passage (1st class, Luxury class, etc.,) isn't offered by freighters. But, if someone wants to pay more to guarantee a room the ship will take it. When passengers out number available slots it gets a bit like EBay at the Star port. People going "online" to out bid each other for a cabin.
This was talked about in another thread, where the discussion included the idea of having a watch officer on the bridge to keep an eye on all the automated stuff. Everything would be reliant on the computer being able to track the diagnostic tools, and if that was the case the watch officer does what you mentioned above. Given that there's no mention of having an IT dude on each vessel, there must be a significant degree of reliability in their computer systems.
Interesting. So, let's write off the pilot and navigator. Actually, at TL15 we can pretty well write off most of ... wait, there's that whole business with the Kinunir's AI killing the crew. I'm thinking maybe that one wasn't done better by a computer - or maybe that computer hadn't heard the axiom.
My thought: I'm playing Traveller. Game wants me to put someone in there who has Pilot skill. The physics are easy enough that a TL7-8 machine could do the job pretty much on its own, yet they want a pilot even on the milk runs. Why? Dunno, but they want it, and it's apparently an involved enough skill that not every Joe who goes through the Scouts or Merchants or what-have-you comes away with it. Robots tells me it's at least involved enough that it takes as much programming space as a Medical or Engineering program, and more than a Grav Vehicle or Ship's Boat program. The evidence of modern computer games suggests a bright 12-year-old can direct a computer well enough to get a ship from one point to another through the emptiness of space, yet here sits a person who is being paid more than the guy who keeps the fusion plant going.
So I speculate: what could be different about a far future ship running to and from a point in far orbit - with no winds to buffet it and a good deal less traffic than Google's self-driving car has to deal with - that they'd want a human to do it rather than a Google brain? Heck, even the ascent through atmosphere and back doesn't really need a human. Why do they want one?
Or maybe that's the wrong question. Maybe the right question is: do I want to scrap the Traveller rules and write rules that reflect the world of the bright 12-year-old? Do I want a milieu in which the human is pretty much deadwood until the shooting starts?
Well, lessee. If I rewrite those rules to say that the merchant line can hire bright 12-year-olds at minimum wage to fly ships to and from jump point for those nice safe A/B ports, then I might as well tackle all the other nonsciency elements while I'm doing it. Long-range lasers, sandcasters, stealthed or otherwise difficult to detect ships, and - most of all - all these silly humans doing jobs that a decent robot could do just as well for less money.
Maybe I'm lacking in humility, but I think I could do a pretty good job at that. Paint a picture of a future where computers and robots do most of the work while humans mainly manage them and give them some guidance when things get unpredictable. Paint a picture of a future where we sit back and play video games or read the classics until trouble shows up, then go deal with the trouble so we can get back to our video games and classics. It's not even particularly hard to do - I think it shows up from time to time in some sci fi stories. Good ol' Isaac led the way, if I recall, before he shipped his bots off to some alternate dimension.
Problem is, it wouldn't be Traveller. It actually kinda looks like the Robots of Dawn. Kinda feels like it too. Me, I like the human element in a story. I guess Isaac does too, 'cause he shipped his bots off and gave us a Galactic Empire with humans doing the work.
So, plan B: speculate on the reasons why the very obvious end result - the one that we would expect if we drew a straight line from the present forward - does not come to pass in the Traveller future. Speculate on what differences might exist between our straight-line axiomatic future and the obviously different Traveller future to turn a job that would otherwise require a bright minimum-wage earner into a job that pays Cr6000 a month. Because sometimes the straight-line axiomatic path takes us somewhere kinda dull.
See Mgt for more on this. Playing TL 15 space craft like they are pre-TL 7 is just too unbelievable for many players. Thus, MgT created rules that work well while allowing for the the post slide rule age.
MgT=Mongoose? I got my hands on a Mongoose High Guard a month or two back, but I have no other Mongoose, and I'm finding the High Guard a bit difficult to grok without the main books. Is there a particular book or supplement that you're referring to?
I don't know what MgT supplement are you refering to, but full crews in MgT use to be larger tan in CT/MT (more so in small ships), due to multiple engineering specialties and increased pilots and steward needs. As I said already in other posts, while I see them as more realistic, they are also less game-wise, as a gaming party of 3-5 characters wil lrerely be able to fully crew a far trader.
OTOH, in MgT there are several levels of crewing, from mínimum to full, if that's what you meant.
The Core Rule Book is what you need. It has a good rule section on simple automation that still leaves the crew for the most part. Even though you install a Pilot program it isn't Self Aware or AI in that sense.
I think Don is working on errata for the game and parts of High Guard will be clarified. Parts of it are confusing imo.
