Traveller Wish List

[siefertma2]

How about some impromptu market research? What would you like to see come out for Traveller/2300AD/Twillight?

More TAS: I'm sure Hunter has this is the works, it's just been a while since anything new came out.

Miniatures! I want minis. Give me character figs and spaceships, and not just for Traveller. I need 25mm Kafer for my future 2320 players to waste. (There are plenty of modern military figs to keep the T2000 players happy.)

Software support for player creation: I'd like to see someone talk to AlterEgo Software and come up with a T20 version of Metacreator. It would make my PC creation much faster.

Did I mention I wanted to see minis?

 

[RainOfSteel]

If any thumbscre . . . ah!, urk! . . . ahem, influence be had, I'd like to see:


</font>

• T20 Starship Naval Combat -- Low Priority</font>
• CT (Via Mark) Second Survey -- High Priority</font>
• T20 Printed Books -- High Priority</font>
• 2320 Starship Construction</font>
• T20 Gateway Sector Atlas Books, Four. (Think BtC and RoF, but in T20/CT stats).</font>

EDIT-------28Dec04 1815 MST
I forgot to add:

</font>

• OTU Worldbook -- Very High Priority -- A Traveller's Guide to Charted Space</font>
• Totally Revised World/Starsystem Generation -- High Priority -- The World Engineer's Manual</font>
• New technical architecture -- Medium Priority -- The Architect's Blueprints (Or some such.)</font>

 

[aramis]

My desires are somewhat different, and pobably not in Hunter's license:

• MT CD-Rom (Marc's working on it. Hopefully much faster than T5)
• T5 - preferably with an MT-ish combat system and a strong and readable TTA book.
• A resurgence in face to face roleplaying. (I know Hunter's doing his part...)
• REALLY GOOD alien racial books, multi-system.
• Peace on Earth.

 

[danbuter]

I'd like to see a Traveller rulebook that didn't require 10-30 pages of errata

.

 

[robject]

^Amen to that.

I hear that if there were 200 positive responses to the MT-CD-ROM survey, Marc would announce the project. So it might be on hold until enough people want it.

A generic technical architecture book could be a gold mine to all technical gamers from all walks of the RPG world. By its very nature, a tech architecture book would be game-neutral -- using time, newtons, the metric system, watts, etc to describe stuff.

And, of course, miniatures are fun. And how about plastic ("Snap Tite"?) models?

And as for TAS Bulletins -- bring 'em on. I believe JTAS has them for the GT milieu. Surely the Peers here at COTI could have something similar to look forward to.

Finally, of course, T5.

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by robject:
I hear that if there were 200 positive responses to the MT-CD-ROM survey, Marc would announce the project. So it might be on hold until enough people want it.

There's been over 200 people for some months now and the project is a go as of October of this year or so (link) as far as I can tell.

Now as to when it's actually out no idea whatsoever. Also see the original cd-rom thread (link).

Wishlist? At this stage I'll be happy with Starfall going to playtest and possibly the air TA to come out on PDF. The player's book would be nice to have in book form but I'm not as gung ho about it (or Traveller for that matter) as I once was. Some sort of complete FF&S would be nice but would likely be dang difficult to do and people like David Pulver are likely busy busy right now.

I can do without the rest or make do. It might make nice reading but I have enough reading to do already.

Casey just looking for one steam-powered divine hammer

 

[BetterThanLife]

15mm Minis. (I'll even settle for reasonable priced Cardboard Heros.)
15mm Deckplans. I can draw them but as far as furnishings and interior details, all I wind up with is similar to the classic adventure deckplans with numbers for what is in a room.

Starship combat that makes sense. It has to work on both ends of the spectrum. Big ships and small ships. Fighters have to be able to shoot each other, not possible under HG/MT rules, and Capital ships have to be able to survive a couple of hits, not possible under T20.

Starship Minis.

Official Subsector Capitals in Gateway Domain.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Bhoins:

Fighters have to be able to shoot each other, not possible under HG/MT rules...

I didn't realize this. Where lies the problem here?

 

[TheEngineer]

Well, the fighter topic under MT is difficult but not impossible if using all of the rules, especially ships and fleet tactical skill pools...

 

[mike wightman]

Simple to explain.
A decent heavy fighter in HG has an agility of 6.
This gives the fighter a -6 to be hit. It also gains a -2 due to target size.
Total defensive bonus -8.

The best weapon factor a fighter can have is USP:5 with a TL 14+ fusion gun. It needs a 6+ on 2d6 to hit.

But the fighter gets a -8 remember?
So the fusion gun needs to roll a 14+ on 2d6.

If there is a computer difference of 2 models or greater then the fighter can be hit, so capital ships with their larger computers stand some chance to hit, but similar fighters from as much as 2 TLs apart can not hit each other.

 

[robject]

Well, that sounds absurd. There 'ought' to be a way to equalize that out -- for example, ships with equivalent agility cancel each other's DM out. Or can agility also be a bonus to hit a target?

 

[flykiller]

Well, that sounds absurd. There 'ought' to be a way to equalize that out -- for example, ships with equivalent agility cancel each other's DM out. Or can agility also be a bonus to hit a target?

nope, and nope. just don't work that way.

bhoins, how 'bout drawing up some starship combat rules yourself? 'swhat I'm doing. think I've got it.

wishlist: players.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by TheEngineer:
Well, the fighter topic under MT is difficult but not impossible if using all of the rules, especially ships and fleet tactical skill pools...

But the tactics pools can be both offensive and defensive dms. So two equal fighters with equal commanders still can't hit each other.

 

[mike wightman]

Well, that sounds absurd. There 'ought' to be a way to equalize that out -- for example, ships with equivalent agility cancel each other's DM out. Or can agility also be a bonus to hit a target?

Nope, and don't forget that by TL15 most capital ships have agility 5 or 6. They suffer for their size modifier though
A 19kt light cruiser or battle rider with agility 6 is a tricky target to hit, and 1900t escorts with agility 6 are more difficult to hit again (they get a -1 size modifier).

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Well, that sounds absurd. There 'ought' to be a way to equalize that out -- for example, ships with equivalent agility cancel each other's DM out. Or can agility also be a bonus to hit a target?

Nope, and don't forget that by TL15 most capital ships have agility 5 or 6. They suffer for their size modifier though
A 19kt light cruiser or battle rider with agility 6 is a tricky target to hit, and 1900t escorts with agility 6 are more difficult to hit again (they get a -1 size modifier). </font>[/QUOTE]Also don't forget that by TL-15 most capital ships have a Model 9 computer. A 500,000 Ton Drednaught, with an Agility of 6, even with size penalties can't be hit by a fighter with a computer model less than 7. (Talk about not being able to hit the broadside of a barn.

)

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Well, that sounds absurd. There 'ought' to be a way to equalize that out -- for example, ships with equivalent agility cancel each other's DM out. Or can agility also be a bonus to hit a target?

nope, and nope. just don't work that way.

bhoins, how 'bout drawing up some starship combat rules yourself? 'swhat I'm doing. think I've got it.

wishlist: players. </font>[/QUOTE]I have done an adaptation of the current T20 Advanced Starship Combat. I will be playtesting it within the month.

But for a Futuristic Roleplaying Game, working starship combat should be included in the rules.

I wonder what the D20 Future Rules for Starship combat look like.

 

[robject]

Would you guys mind moving this to another thread? I'd like to hear more about all this, but at the same time I don't want to derail this thread further.


Gadzooks. There seems to be some sanity violations here. Or is it just in my mind (or am I losing my mind?)?

I figure that if you've got Fighter A with agility 6, then it can easily keep up with Fighter B with agility 6.

Or, or, or, perhaps it's an issue with laser combat at such huge ranges. But then there "ought" to be a range rule that cancels out that agility bonus. Get close enough, get an additional DM (is there a bonus for "contact" range?). That would also allow, for instance, small fighters to damage behemoth dreadnoughts.

OR, it's simply a boundary condition of High Guard, back when TL15 was the end-all be-all of technology and it was assumed that battles would have sub-perfect ships. A not-unreasonable assumption, except nowadays we want the scale to go up to TL24 or so. Maybe "someone" should stretch the system a bit to account for this?

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
I wonder what the D20 Future Rules for Starship combat look like.

I don't have the d20 Future book but it looks like the whole starship combat section is in the free d20 Future SRD.

http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/FutureStarships.rtf

from:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/msrd

From a glance and what I've heard it's pretty much just like personal combat which isn't neccesarily a bad thing. I kinda like the T4 era roleplaying combat system. IIRC both Star Wars d20 RPGs have slightly different ship combat rules which are each different from d20 Future. Any of the above might be adaptable to T20.

As always YMMV,
Casey

 

[mike wightman]

Since this is turning into a generic "what I'd like to see in Traveller" thread how about a ship combat scale measured in a few minutes maximum, with weapon ranges of hundreds of kilometres instead of light seconds?

 

[flykiller]

Gadzooks. There seems to be some sanity violations here.

you're just now noticing?

I figure that if you've got Fighter A with agility 6, then it can easily keep up with Fighter B with agility 6.

yes, but that's two different subjects - maneuver, and agility. at a distance of one light second it takes two seconds for a laser beam to arrive at the last known position of a target, and in two seconds an agility 6 target can displace 384 feet perpendicular to a known incoming weapon. fighter A may generally "keep up" with fighter B, but hitting it is another matter.

I have done an adaptation of the current T20 Advanced Starship Combat. I will be playtesting it within the month.

excellent.

But for a Futuristic Roleplaying Game, working starship combat should be included in the rules.

well, creating rules that "make sense" to yourself and your players is one thing. creating rules for sale to a general audience is another. and it sounds like T20 ASC already works and makes at least some sense to you.