Condottiere
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Technological level seven allows the construction of an early prototype jump drive; optionally, you could add a limitation of a quarter parsec, instead of the full fourish light years, to cut down cost and/or complexity.
type 23 Corvette
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Not in CT, HG, MT. GT, T20, GT:ISW, HT, CE etc you can't (by the rules as written, you as the referee can do so with the game's blessing)
The prototype rules in T5 and the lower TL rules in MgT are deeply flawed.
The prototype rules in T5 and the lower TL rules in MgT are deeply flawed.
I don't follow Mike.
What is a TL9 "culture" in the context of the Imperium with standard drives? Isn't the space-faring culture the same more or less everywhere within the Imperium?
What is a "TL10 HG culture" versus a "CT81 culture"? I'm pretty sure RAW aren't intended to create any such distinction - it's all one official setting. I think there is a certain charm in having the mixed technologies and just provide a bit of technobabble to make sense of it.
So the rules I go with are BOTH/AND! (Though I am a CT81 guy, not CT77)
TL-10 in HG lets you build up to J1 and 6G, up to 10,000 tons.
TL-10 in LBB2 lets you build up to J4 in up to a 400 ton hull, or J1/1G up to 800 tons. You can have 6G in a starship of 200 tons.
This is where the small-ship/large ship distinction comes from.
LBB2, rules as written (not setting), means you can have high Jump ranges almost as soon as you discover Jump Drives. The ships are small, and especially so if you want best performance.
LBB5, rules as written (which somewhat aligns with the official setting) means you can have big ships as soon as you discover Jump Drives, but jump ranges are limited until higher tech levels.
Basically, this means that an LBB2-only early Imperium is relatively weak in terms of force projection but can be vast because it can send high-Jump messenger boats out to its fringes. Interstellar trade isn't necessarily a large part of any world's economy. A HG early Imperium can project force, but can't be terribly large and remain unified due to communication (and force projection) speed limits. Large-scale interstellar trade is possible, but likely not over substantial distances.
Both/And gets you a vast early Imperium with lots of localized interstellar trade and large pre-positioned forces.
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AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Small ships do not necessarily imply lack of "star-lift", you just need more ships.
Given the canonical worlds with billions if inhabitants any hypothetical interstellar polity can afford a few large ships or a great many small ships, either way the amount of "star-lift" is about the same.
Yes, that is what I find charming. It fits our intuition that small ships should be "faster." You know, the (little) Millennium Falcon, the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs and therefore can outrun the lumbering (big) Star Destroyers. It puts something special in the player scale and there is a "reason" for it - the different technology of the drives.
If THAT is the "problem", I think you are both asserting a "problem" that isn't there for the OTU settings.
CT is TL15; clearly this setting isn't affected by what was optimal at TL10. But even in M0 the Imperium is TL12 at 150 years before its founding, so it has J3 big ships. How would allowing J6 little ships too (Both/And) change the nature of the 3I expansion? The little ships are not material in warfare because they can't carry spinal mounts that rule the battlespace. The J3 fleet speeds pace war efforts of the pacification campaigns as well as the huge megacorp traders, but there is a useful (and fun!) space for faster little ships too. (This is actually my favorite tech setting and it is where Both/And makes the most difference.)
To the extent there is a setting problem with Both/And as you have described it, it would have to be exist in some TL10 empire. So this is a problem for the Ziru Sirka expansion? I mean, I feel like that isn't really something that needs to be solved, but in a pinch I'd say the ZS didn't have the 3I drives but a third architecture and that is why they only had J1 for as long as they did. This just isn't a verisimilitude issue for the story, at least not to me.
Now, I don't deny that if you don't play with HG at all and have a small-ship-only universe, you do have a different setting. But I dont' see how Both/And changes anything besides add some fun diversity at player scale - a good thing.
And, for the record, I think Both/And is what the rules as written say.
But it's a lot more expensive, especially in the sub-1KTd range, to do it with a big fleet of small ships.
I misread the table. Good catch.
Yes, with HG it's "Both/And" by definition. The OTU background seems to have been mostly written as HG-only, though (and the OTU as we know it didn't really take shape until after 1st Ed HG). That's reasonable if you assume a Both/And scenario with HG TL caps applying to LBB2 for first invention only. That is, until someone figures out how to control a Jump-2, the Type S can only do J-1; but once it's known how to control a Jump-5 (TL-14), any TL-11 world in the culture can build a J-5 ship using Size K drives in a 400Td hull. Maybe it's that the Jump-5 computer program that's TL-14? (RAW doesn't care about TL for writing programs, though... so maybe that's not the limiting factor after all.)
Maneuver drives get weird in this dichotomy, though. Out of universe, it's because they're the products of two different technology progression paradigms. In universe, I'm not sure how you'd explain it, or if anyone has tried.
I like the "loopholes" provided by LBB2. From a setting perspective, they can be "prototypes" or obsoleted designs. Or surprises.
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Yes, it is weird. Here is my explanation:
HG and LBB2 J and M drives are similar sized if taken together, but reversed as to which is larger - M drives are smaller in B2 but larger in HG. IMTU M drives share J drive equipment in B2; they are integrated. B2 M drives rating have to be the same or smaller than the J-drive. It turns out that is true in most all canon ships already, and I usually just ignore the couple of cases where it isn't ("those are a spectacular designs. Don't make 'em like that any more.") A couple more house rules to clean up inconsistencies in case any player wants to make there own vessels.
+1
Yes, it is weird. Here is my explanation:
HG and LBB2 J and M drives are similar sized if taken together, but reversed as to which is larger - M drives are smaller in B2 but larger in HG. IMTU M drives share J drive equipment in B2; they are integrated. B2 M drives rating have to be the same or smaller than the J-drive. It turns out that is true in most all canon ships already, and I usually just ignore the couple of cases where it isn't ("those are a spectacular designs. Don't make 'em like that any more.") A couple more house rules to clean up inconsistencies in case any player wants to make there own vessels.
+1
Not a bad handwave. I'd say it's tied to the power plant (while disallowing mix/match min-maxing). Basically, the maneuver drive is an accessory to the power plant that does [gravity technobabble] to the reactor exhaust and the power plant is configured to optimize this, while HG maneuver drives turn energy into thrust (and the powerplants are optimized to put out megawattage rather than hot exhaust). On small ships, the (let's just say, "quirky") LBB2 fuel requirements are a big penalty; on the larger ones a high TL is needed to get high performance.
Gs closely matching Jn is an artifact of the "Pn=Jn or Pn=Gs, whichever is greater" rule in 2nd Ed. LBB2. The additional cost in MCr and tons to bring M-Drive Gs up to Jn is relatively small (just the M-Drive, since the fuel and PP are already required). Going above that gets costly fast.
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IMTU I've assumed CT81 drive capabilities are dictated by the TL of the 3I. Similar to how M0 revolutionized power plants, in a similar vein the 3I manufacturers highly capable small ship drives in high volume, modular and capable of up to J6.
The nature of high tech "magic" being applied to small ship drives handwaves away a lot of the issues, including being able to be installed and serviced at significantly lower tech shipyards. You don't need to be able to build a car to be able to change the motor.
Your post though brings to mind that using the same logic, at M0 small ship drives would be limited to J3, while Zhodani tech using the same system would be limited to J5. I think I'm ok with that.
Just mt 2Cr
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
No, low tech power plants makes large low tech ships very expensive.
Take a simple TL-10 LBB5 large transport:
10 kDt, J-1, M-1, 7764 Dt cargo, MCr 2914.
Code:
MH-K611142-000000-00000-0 MCr 2 914 10 000 Dton
bearing Crew=47
batteries TL=10
Cargo=7764 Fuel=1100 EP=100 Agility=0
Single Occupancy 7 764 2 914
USP # Dton Cost
Hull, Streamlined Custom K 10 000
Configuration Flattened Sphe 6 800
Scoops Streamlined 10
Jump Drive 1 1 200 800
Manoeuvre D 1 1 200 300
Power Plant 1 1 300 900
Fuel, #J, #weeks J-1, 4 weeks 1 1 100
Purifier 1 44 0
Bridge 1 200 50
Computer m/4 4 1 4 30
Staterooms 47 188 24
Cargo 7 764
Nominal Cost MCr 2 913,70 Sum: 7 764 2 914
Class Cost MCr 611,88 Valid ≥0 ≥0
Ship Cost MCr 2 330,96Compare with a TL-10 LBB2 small transport:
1 kDt, J-1, M-1, 794 Dt cargo, MCr 230.
Code:
ML-A611111-000000-00000-0 MCr 230 1 000 Dton
bearing Crew=5
batteries TL=10
Cargo=794 Fuel=110 EP=10 Agility=1
Single Occupancy LBB2 design 794 230
USP # Dton Cost
Hull, Streamlined Custom A 1 000
Configuration Flattened Sphe 6 110
Scoops Streamlined
Jump Drive E 1 1 30 50
Manoeuvre D E 1 1 9 20
Power Plant E 1 1 16 40
Fuel, #J, #weeks J-1, 4 weeks 1 110
Bridge 1 20 5
Computer m/1 1 1 1 2
Staterooms 5 20 3
Cargo 794
Nominal Cost MCr 229,50 Sum: 794 230
Class Cost MCr 25,25 Valid ≥0 ≥0
Ship Cost MCr 206,55Note that the small ship is cheaper per Dton of payload. They use about as many crew per payload.
The small ship is potentially profitable as a freighter, the large ship is not.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
So what?
TCS said:
Limited pilots are just a mechanism to make TCS tournaments interesting. It has no meaning for any canonical or pocket empire navy.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
A TL9 culture is a planet/system/subsector/sector that has only advanced to TL9 - think of it as the Expanse setting with a jump 1 drive available rather than a gate network.
Using LBB2 ships could be jump 1-6 or 1-3 depending on which edition of CT you go with, go with HG and ships are jump 1.
A TL10 culture is similar to a TL9 culture but advanced to TL10.
And this is where we are talking past each other. There are many handwaves you can use for a TL15 culture to make the letter drives co-exist in a bespoke setting, and thus explain why both exist in the OTU. If you are building your own setting from the ground up then the setting faces the rules as written paradigm disconnect I have outlined.
Note that there is an era of the OTU that can only exist with the HG interpretation and that is the Vilani being limited to jump 1 for 5000 years or so. Using CT rules as written the setting could have the Vilani with jump 1-6 ships.
I agree.
The OTU pre MT is definitely both, the Traveller Adventure proves this beyond any dispute. From MT through to T5 there is only a single paradigm.
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Me too
You are conflating the 3I setting of the OTU with the CT rules, the CT rules do not map directly to the 3I setting, nor do the HG rules, you have to throw it all in the mixture and still you end up with stuff like the Gazelle...
I agree, the whole point of the OTU was to be a bare bones setting to hang adventures off and to have fun
You contradict your final statement with your own second last paragraph
If you only use CT77 or 81 then you have a different setting to one that makes use of HG79 or 80.The rules are contradictory and inconsistent, your interpretation of both/and is similar to how I have handwaved it over the years too - a TL15 culture can provide the engineering data to allow for the construction of the letter drives at the lower TLs (ever consider that a 100t scout built at Glisten is still TL9
).
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
You have to actively go and buy the supplemental rulebooks. No CT set ever included HG in the basic rules.
You could pick up the Traveller Book and The Traveller Adventure and play in the OTU for years and never pick up a copy of High Guard.
The contradictions are many
letter drives vs % drives
pp fuel
relative m-drive, j drive, pp sizes
j drive performance by TL
You could pick up the Traveller Book and The Traveller Adventure and play in the OTU for years and never pick up a copy of High Guard.
The contradictions are many
letter drives vs % drives
pp fuel
relative m-drive, j drive, pp sizes
j drive performance by TL
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