I'm sorry to hear that about Star Fire. Star Fire started out as the ultimate in gearheadedness; you built a ship, then you fought with it. I still remember all those "W"s and "A"a in a row, and all the other letters comprising systems and capabilities.
I always got a sense that that's where Traveller wanted to go with it's original rules; i.e. in Starter and Basic you spent the money (or promised to pay at least) for some architect, drafted up your "dream ship", and then went adventuring. The issue with Traveller, and why our group never got heavy into drafting up deckplans, was that it was a bit heavy and vague on what a "Ton" equaled in terms of volume ... a few other rules issues, such as how many hits your hold / cargo area or general hull could take before your ship flew apart, and so forth.
But I don't see T5 as leaning towards the Travller equivalent of Home Depot DIYers. I see it addressing the need for players and Refs to make up devices and vehicles they think would have been cool to have, but weren't addressed in the rules.
Example (and I've brought this up before); the LASER pistol from Mission on Mithril. It required that you wear a Laser Carbine power pack. It's like one of those things about Traveller from the early days that I'll never forget, because part of the whole idea behind a pistol is that it's portable and concealable. Wearing a big honking power pack meant for a military grade energy weapon is kind of a giveaway ... I mean you can't really hide it under your white dinner jacket as you enter the casino or five star restaurant. I immediately came up with the 10-shot battery that fit in the hilt of the weapon, and wondered why the author didn't include something similar in the write up.
That's kind of the whole point behind T5's various "thingy makers". I don't see a huge plethora of devices flooding the website, nor a revival of the Traveller Webring (which would actually be a cool thing, in my book) with all kinds of vehicles, ships and weapons. Maybe we need that?
I always got a sense that that's where Traveller wanted to go with it's original rules; i.e. in Starter and Basic you spent the money (or promised to pay at least) for some architect, drafted up your "dream ship", and then went adventuring. The issue with Traveller, and why our group never got heavy into drafting up deckplans, was that it was a bit heavy and vague on what a "Ton" equaled in terms of volume ... a few other rules issues, such as how many hits your hold / cargo area or general hull could take before your ship flew apart, and so forth.
But I don't see T5 as leaning towards the Travller equivalent of Home Depot DIYers. I see it addressing the need for players and Refs to make up devices and vehicles they think would have been cool to have, but weren't addressed in the rules.
Example (and I've brought this up before); the LASER pistol from Mission on Mithril. It required that you wear a Laser Carbine power pack. It's like one of those things about Traveller from the early days that I'll never forget, because part of the whole idea behind a pistol is that it's portable and concealable. Wearing a big honking power pack meant for a military grade energy weapon is kind of a giveaway ... I mean you can't really hide it under your white dinner jacket as you enter the casino or five star restaurant. I immediately came up with the 10-shot battery that fit in the hilt of the weapon, and wondered why the author didn't include something similar in the write up.
That's kind of the whole point behind T5's various "thingy makers". I don't see a huge plethora of devices flooding the website, nor a revival of the Traveller Webring (which would actually be a cool thing, in my book) with all kinds of vehicles, ships and weapons. Maybe we need that?
