The obvious Traveller triva contest

[tjoneslo]

In order to slow down some of the spam bots on the Traveller Wiki site, I'm installing an extension called QuestyCaptcha, which allows the administrator (me) to create a captcha which I get to provide both the questions and the answers.

So I'm looking for the most obvious Traveller related trivia questions (and answers). The two questions I have so far are

• What year was Traveller first published (1977)
• How long does a jump take (1 week)

So I'm turning to the collective brain trust here to see how many more of these questions (and answers) we can come up with.

 

[McPerth]

Are you asking only for questions about Traveller in general or also about OTU?

 

[CosmicGamer]

Some, especially those into versions other than CT, may not know what year Traveller was first published.

Don't know if multiple answer questions are allowed? Like name 4 alien races?

What is the name of the cat like race (Aslan)
What is the name of the dog like race (Vargr)
What size is a Type A Free Trader (200 tons)
What size is a Type S Scout ship (100 tons)

Not even sure if these questions are 100% generic, not having 2300 and other versions where it may be that contact with other races has not occurred and non jump ships are used?

 

[rancke]

What is the name of the cat like race (Aslan)
What is the name of the dog like race (Vargr)

What is the name of the vaguely lion-like race? (Aslan).
What is the name of the wolf-like race? (Vargr).

What was the first sector detailed? (The Spinward Marches)
What was the second sector detailed? (The Solomani Rim)
What was the third version of the Traveller rules? (TNE)
How many frontier wars have there been? (5)
Which Traveller version covered the Core sector? (T4)
What is the era covering the Psionic Suppressions known as? (Milieu 800).
Which era was covered by the T4 rules? (Milieu 0)
Which Traveller version featured an alternate universe where the Rebellion never happened? (GT)

You can ring the changes on a lot of these questions. (Which rules covered Milieu 0, Which war lasted from 1082 to 1084, etc. etc.)


Hans

 

[fridge]

T4, TNE, GT - beware of using abbreviations unless you can provide more than one correct answer to the question. Some may enter details in full then get frustrated if not accepted. Or indicate abbreviations may be the right answer.

 

[rancke]

T4, TNE, GT - beware of using abbreviations unless you can provide more than one correct answer to the question. Some may enter details in full then get frustrated if not accepted. Or indicate abbreviations may be the right answer.

I've assumed that there will be several possible answers listed. For captha purposes there's no real need of questions that require esoteric knowledge. One site I frequent has a captha that asks you to move a named icon out of four. The real requirement is for a concious mind to perform the action/answer the question.


Hans

 

[McPerth]

General Traveller questions:

Which book was Mercenary? (4)
Which book was High Guard? (5)
What means the fourth digit in UPP? (Intelligence)
What goes after atmosphere in UWP? (Hydrography)
What atmosphere has Terra? (6)
What means a world size 0? Asteroid Belt
Which government represents representative democracy? (4)
At which TL jump drive appears? (9)
How many hardpoints may a 500 dton ship have? (5)
Which is the maximum jump achieved at TL 15? (6)
Which is the parter of a Battle Tender? (Battle Rider)
Which is the mínimum tonnage needed for jump ships? (100)
Which skill is required to care for the drives? (engineer)
Which is the safe jump distance from a space body? (100 diameters)


OTU related questions:

How many Major Races are in OTU? (7)
Which Major Race is uplifted? (Vargr)
How many Empires have been in OTU? (3)
Which TL are Imperial Marines equiped in 1105? (15)
How many frontier wars have been in OTU? (5)
Which year was Emperor Strephon killed? (1116)
How many subserctor are in a Sector? (16)
How are the Terran descendents called in OTU? (Solomani)
What was the capital of the first Imperium? (Vland)
Which metal gives name to the Imperial Throne? (Iridium)
Which is the acronym for the Scouts? (IISS)

 

[jcbeckman]

Having only played many, many years ago, and just getting back in, I can tell you that I did not know it was first published in 1977, do not know which original book number is which, know almost nothing at all past CT, etc. If the intent is to frustrate all but the most die-hard, you'll succeed with questions like these. I agree with rancke, you need to have questions that prove a human is answering, not a die-hard trivia test.

 

[tjoneslo]

Having only played many, many years ago, and just getting back in, I can tell you that I did not know it was first published in 1977, do not know which original book number is which, know almost nothing at all past CT, etc. If the intent is to frustrate all but the most die-hard, you'll succeed with questions like these. I agree with rancke, you need to have questions that prove a human is answering, not a die-hard trivia test.

Since the questions are going to be asked when you register and/or doing some kinds of editing on the Traveller Wiki, I'm assuming some level of knowledge and interest in Traveller and the background. However, I would like to make the questions easy enough not to discourage the casual contributor.

So, yes, I'm looking for the questions where the person's response would be "that's easy" but just hard enough the spammer hired captcha solvers have difficulty. And as the discussion above has noticed, making easy questions is hard.

 

[McPerth]

Since the questions are going to be asked when you register and/or doing some kinds of editing on the Traveller Wiki, I'm assuming some level of knowledge and interest in Traveller and the background. However, I would like to make the questions easy enough not to discourage the casual contributor.

If you allow me to advise it, you also must be careful about diferences in several versions. To give you an example, when I suggested as a question the TL at which jump is achieved, that same question could not be done with fusion power or gravitics, as in some versions (e.g. CT) they are at TL8 while in others (e.g. MT) at TL9 (and maybe in others that I know less in others).

 

[tjoneslo]

If you allow me to advise it, you also must be careful about diferences in several versions. To give you an example, when I suggested as a question the TL at which jump is achieved, that same question could not be done with fusion power or gravitics, as in some versions (e.g. CT) they are at TL8 while in others (e.g. MT) at TL9 (and maybe in others that I know less in others).

Most of the questions about TechLevel I've been avoiding mostly because the GURPS TL scale is so very different from the other Traveller versions. In the non GURPS versions, the TL of first appearance of the obvious tech is very stable.

What is the unit of money in the Imperium? (Credit).

 

[rancke]

What is the unit of money in the Imperium? (Credit).

CrImp.


Hans

 

[CosmicGamer]

If you allow me to advise it, you also must be careful about diferences in several versions.

Such as these?

General Traveller questions:

Which book was Mercenary? (4)
Which book was High Guard? (5)

For MgT
Which book was Mercenary? (1)
Which book was High Guard? (2)

How many Major Races are in OTU? (7)
Which Major Race is uplifted? (Vargr)
How many Empires have been in OTU? (3)
Which TL are Imperial Marines equiped in 1105? (15)
How many frontier wars have been in OTU? (5)
Which year was Emperor Strephon killed? (1116)
How many subserctor are in a Sector? (16)
How are the Terran descendents called in OTU? (Solomani)
What was the capital of the first Imperium? (Vland)
Which metal gives name to the Imperial Throne? (Iridium)

What was the second sector detailed? (The Solomani Rim)
What was the third version of the Traveller rules? (TNE)
How many frontier wars have there been? (5)
Which Traveller version covered the Core sector? (T4)
What is the era covering the Psionic Suppressions known as? (Milieu 800).
Which era was covered by the T4 rules? (Milieu 0)
Which Traveller version featured an alternate universe where the Rebellion never happened? (GT)

I agree with rancke, you need to have questions that prove a human is answering, not a die-hard trivia test.

If the wiki is open to reading, it would be easy for any real person spammer to get pass the questions.

Having only a little CT material and some MgT, and very poor memory for things that are not used on occasion, I certainly wouldn't know a lot of the above answers.

So to answer the questions so that I can access the wiki, I'd need to look it up in the wiki, but I'd need to answer some questions.... I see a problem.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Questions like "What year was Traveller first published?" can be answered with a quick internet search. However, even that requires some human interaction (assuming the question is in form of a graphic, and not text that can be copied and pasted) and will weed out bots.

 

[McPerth]

Such as these?

For MgT
Which book was Mercenary? (1)
Which book was High Guard? (2).

Touché

If the wiki is open to reading, it would be easy for any real person spammer to get pass the questions.

Having only a little CT material and some MgT, and very poor memory for things that are not used on occasion, I certainly wouldn't know a lot of the above answers.

So to answer the questions so that I can access the wiki, I'd need to look it up in the wiki, but I'd need to answer some questions.... I see a problem.

I don't see an easy solution to this problem...

 

[HG_B]

For captha purposes there's no real need of questions that require esoteric knowledge. One site I frequent has a captha that asks you to move a named icon out of four. The real requirement is for a concious mind to perform the action/answer the question.


Hans

Right. A couple I go to ask you to answer a simple math question (what is 5 + 8?) for example.

 

[Shonner]

What's wrong with using a photo of a house number and some scratched-up lettering for verifying users? Bots are getting past that?

 

[GamingGlen]

What is the most used color on the cover of most Traveller books? (black)

Or ask about the most used color the word Traveller is in on the cover (not sure how to phrase it). Isn't it red on nearly every edition?

 

[tjoneslo]

The wiki is always open for reading, no questions to be answered.

For the Captcha using mangled words/letter and the ones asking math questions, yes the automated bots can solve them. The former because the image recognition of a computer is now exceeding the image recognition of most people. The latter because parsing and solving math problems is pretty simple computer solving. They work on most sites because the spammers, being lazy and cheap, don't want to pay for the extra stuff to get past them.

I liked the questy captch here because I can change the questions easily enough, aggravating the spammers and without annoying the real contributors.

So yes, the spammers (and everyone else) can look up the answers to the questions in the wiki. So questions the contributors are likely to know the answers, or can find quickly vs non-Traveller people who are likely to be annoyed or frustrated.

 

[HG_B]

For the Captcha using mangled words/letter and the ones asking math questions, yes the automated bots can solve them. The former because the image recognition of a computer is now exceeding the image recognition of most people. The latter because parsing and solving math problems is pretty simple computer solving.

Not if you do something like this: "If Joe had an apple and was given one more, how may does he now have?"

Sorry, a bot can't solve that.

If you have developed one that can, you will be rich.