Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
Is it better efficiency through laziness ... or better laziness through efficiency?
I can never remember ...
"I'm not real good with cause and effect. Why is that?"
CT Only: The overwhelming utility of grav vehicles
- Thread starter Tobias
- Start date
I can never remember ...
"I'm not real good with cause and effect. Why is that?"
casquilho
SOC-13
One of the eternal struggles I have in my mind is the struggle between what I understand about science and what I wand at times in my games under the heading of "rule of cool". Does the idea of Grev-Buggies showing up and being used like a combo personal car, jet, helicopter at the point they do make sense? Maybe not. Is the mental image of my crew zipping along the sky across the open desert with their hair (those with hair) fluttering in the wind cool? Yes, it is.
Sometimes, as painful as it may be for some, I pick the rule of cool over the rule of science. And when I do, for me, I don't let it ruin a fun game. I run with it and enjoy it. Thus, on my Far Trader we have a grav-buggy and a pair of quads and a mech loader.
I will always love threads that make me think. Threads that challenge me and make me ask why. Just that sometimes I also say "oh well" and let the stuff play out for the movie in my head not for the textbook in my computer.
Sometimes, as painful as it may be for some, I pick the rule of cool over the rule of science. And when I do, for me, I don't let it ruin a fun game. I run with it and enjoy it. Thus, on my Far Trader we have a grav-buggy and a pair of quads and a mech loader.
I will always love threads that make me think. Threads that challenge me and make me ask why. Just that sometimes I also say "oh well" and let the stuff play out for the movie in my head not for the textbook in my computer.
I agree, but occasionally we run into the Star Trek Transporter paradox: it's so useful at solving problems that, to create a good story, we sometimes have to break it or make it do something weird.
casquilho
SOC-13
I agree, and that is also part of the struggle. How to have something fail at the right moments but not too often as to break the game either.
Got to love the tight rope walk we sometimes do for our fun.
Heinlein was quite big on this point of efficient laziness with his sub story in Time Enough For Love.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
I've had some time to contemplate what a planetary transport net should look like in Traveller.
One issue I tend to run into is that designing vehicles, is that for some reason, a lot of concepts you'd think would be, fail cost effectiveness, benefit or otherwise, at least in Mongoose.
In terms of safety and fool proofing, you could add an autogyro, so that if for any reason the gravitational motors fail, you can descend, not crash.
One issue I tend to run into is that designing vehicles, is that for some reason, a lot of concepts you'd think would be, fail cost effectiveness, benefit or otherwise, at least in Mongoose.
In terms of safety and fool proofing, you could add an autogyro, so that if for any reason the gravitational motors fail, you can descend, not crash.
Rocket-deployed parachutes. Or just plain rockets if there's insufficient atmosphere for 'chutes to work.
But yeah, I'd consider an ATU where the Type S carries a Jeep and a gyrocopter instead of a grav car to be pretty cool.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
I'll speculate that whatever is easiest to maintain.
We may need to shift those "aging" rolls downward to Immediately after Muster and every 2 years for post enlistment, High TL populations.Is the question really "Is transportation needed" or "Are Grav Vehicles needed"?
Is a Grav Buggy needed at a mall, of course not. But the local mall here has carts for janitorial, maintenance, security, and an assistance cart available for the handicaped and elderly. So to be honest, I think the question you really were trying to answer is "Is Grav based vehicles really even needed in most places?". And in that case, I agree, given the restrictions you outline, for the most part, no they are not.
Marcatlas
SOC-12
Grav "motors" aren't going to have a bunch of moving parts. Even less complicated mechanical wise than an electric motor. And those can run for years with zero maintenance and with no failures even when built at TL 5. And those items are not even man rated
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Very much dependent on Traveller maintenance cycles.
"sometimes"?
They Deus Ex Machina the transporter to uselessness every chance they get.
A favorite has always been in Star Fleet Battles, "Transporter Bombs", small mines that you can plop out into space using the transporter, or simply toss out a hatch in the back.
Naturally, you can't beam them on to an enemy ship. Because, of course you can't. Same reason you can't beam over an ounce of anti-matter onto a rival ship, you know, fot dramatic effect (and, boy howdy, would the effect be dramatic!).
But it's ok to beam a shipload of Tribbles into Klingon engineering spaces!
casquilho
SOC-13
Grade School Comedy is always going to be more powerful than any tech known to man. The laugh is needed and must be allowed to happen.
I've had any number of electric motors fail over the years. I know of things that do not require maintenance but they all die after a while. To the best of my knowledge Striker is the only CT source speaking to maintenance, and they require maintenance for both grav vehicles and grav belts. That's a wargame, and we're dealing with sci fi tech with no clear idea of how it works and what it needs other than the sci fi geek speak they use to describe it, so probably not much to extrapolate from Striker other than some sort of maintenance is expected and it might break down without it.
Elsewhere in Traveller, it's duck feet technology: it does its job and the provisos and quid pro quos, if there are any, are unmentioned and left entirely to the GM's discretion and irrelevant to play unless the GM decides otherwise.
Well, to be fair to the Klingons, they were in space controlled by the Organians and not expecting attack so probably did not have shields raised. I'm willing to bet that commander swore his crew to secrecy rather than having to explain that to the high command.
Marcatlas
SOC-12
Which is only a couple of the reasons I would never run a game with transporters. Too many things broken with it. Things that MUST be possible with it that would break the game, and I never run a game where I have to tell the players, No you can't because it'll break the game. That just means the game is poorly designed. Taking something like a show or a movie and translating directly into a game is not usually easy because of that.
It’s why imo a lot of those movie/TV tie in games don’t work imo.
Players are generally more inventive than your average Hollywood writer they will come up with more interesting uses for technology. Not to mention I’ve played games with literal half-wits (or as I believe the politically term is “infantrymen”) who could rip apart most Star Wars and Star Trek combat tactics in seconds.
casquilho
SOC-13
I have always felt most movie/tv show tie ins do not really work as a pen and paper RPG. They often contain elements that frustrate the table group dynamics as well. I am on board, no transporters or disintegration rays.
Marcatlas
SOC-12
My thoughts and experience exactly. Writers don't have to worry about off script action. Although good ones do worry about precedent. They can ignore that people have brains and won't ever try to create duplicate people for instance with a transporter. Like happened numerous times in the series. Ditto with the tactics. Had many service guys in my groups over the years who had rants along those lines.
Since leaving uni I've only played games with government employees and servicemen, the amount of complaints I've gotten over the years about why x, y or z wouldn't be possible or would be tactically unsound makes me want to cry.
I had a civil servant once use a white paper to win an argument at the table...
