Underwhelmed

[Mytholder]

I'll update the characteristic description; it is confusing.

 

[tbeard1999]

It appears that I was not right. But one could judge how well or quickly a task is completed based upon the margin of sucess.

Tom

The mechanic is still overly fussy and of dubious benefit in my opinion. Worse, the combat system seems especially unfriendly to the kinds of combats I like to run in my games. I like to have fairly large firefights with hordes of bad guys (or bugs) and the idea of having to fiddle with multiple idiotic initiative dice makes my stomach churn. The "group them into squads) fix is still mechanically tedious. There's also a great deal of wasted motion in the combat system, fiddling with "ticks", etc. While the combat system may "work", it doesn't work particularly well. To put it another way, there are already plenty of obtuse, fiddly combat systems out there. We really don't require another one.

Nor am I able to understand how a rational game designer could set the survival rolls at 8+ for 1/3 of the military vocations. A 7% chance of surviving 4 terms in 1/3 of the military vocations is silly IMHO. In fact, the designer seems to have gone to a lot of effort to discourage any kind of macho career options. Or, he didn't bother to actually do the math. Either option fails to fill me with much confidence.

The apparent damage mechanic is also a step back. Can't be sure until I see actual weapon and armor stats, but it appears that armor simply absorbs damage. That's a poor choice to model weapon penetration as it uses the same value for damage and penetration. GURPS has already exhausted the list of available fiddly fixes for this problem, and presumably T5 will mirror some of them. Oh joy...

--Ty

 

[tbeard1999]

I've seen a lot of people who had problems with the combat system who, upon actually running combats, found things flowed quite smoothly. While mileages will vary, the impression I get is that Timing and Effect work well in combat.

For other situations, I would only make use of Timing and Effect in time-critical tasks. Most of the time, a simple success/failure will suffice, or you can just take the high roll as a MoS; T&E thus becomes a tool to be used only when you want finer detail.

(All from the perspective of someone who hasn't actually played the game yet.)

The playtest rules don't have weapon or armor stats, so how were they able to run actual combats?

--Ty

 

[aramis]

Since Gar posted a few sample stats on the Mongoose Forums... the same day the draft was released.

Oh, and draft 2 is up, and includes many more armors, weapons, and combat data.

 

[Allensh]

The playtest rules don't have weapon or armor stats, so how were they able to run actual combats?

--Ty

They provided some provisional stats on the Mongoose forum.

And the version 2.0 playtest doc does have equipment in it now, including weapons and armor.

CT did not have armor penetration rules and these things add complexity that the game simply does not need. I am sure more advanced rules for those things will appear later..like maybe in an equipment book or the Mercenary book.

I have run LARGE scale combats with the system. Using the squad rules it was NOT tedious, and it did move quickly, at least as quickly as D&D 3.5 and actually a lot quicker. This is practical experience, as in, I have actually done it.

Allen

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Actually, tbeard, I'm surprised they survival rolls are so low for the military options - IOW, that the survival rate is so high. Even taking death out of the equation, and making survival solely determine continuance in the career, 7% is a pretty decent chance to become a "lifer".

 

[Supplement Four]

I had high hopes for Mongoose Traveller. They did such a fantastic job on Conan.

But, alas, I think I'll have to agree with some of the OP. The current download rules on the Mongoose site just aren't "doing it" for me.

It looks a lot like ACT, and I didn't like ACT at all.

Unless something more earthshaking comes my way (I'll still look at T5), it looks like it's still CT for me, folks.

 

[travlar]

Actually, tbeard, I'm surprised they survival rolls are so low for the military options - IOW, that the survival rate is so high. Even taking death out of the equation, and making survival solely determine continuance in the career, 7% is a pretty decent chance to become a "lifer".

Ecept if there isn't much fighting going on. But whether the chance is realistic or not, a 7% to make it past four terms is going to make the careers relatively hard to get many skills in.

 

[captainjack]

Ecept if there isn't much fighting going on. But whether the chance is realistic or not, a 7% to make it past four terms is going to make the careers relatively hard to get many skills in.

The point is to encourage an end to chargen, and begin adventuring.

I'm not gonna run the numbers to confirm, but 7% retention after 16 years ? How far off is that in today's US military ? Not very, I imagine.

-Cap

 

[captainjack]

I had high hopes for Mongoose Traveller. They did such a fantastic job on Conan.

But, alas, I think I'll have to agree with some of the OP. The current download rules on the Mongoose site just aren't "doing it" for me.

It looks a lot like ACT, and I didn't like ACT at all.

Unless something more earthshaking comes my way (I'll still look at T5), it looks like it's still CT for me, folks.

I may regret asking this, but what did you expect ?

Ah well. At least you love CT. That makes you a good person.

 

[aramis]

I Ran a session

I ran a session. It ran quite well.

The task system really does work nicely. Damage system is rather brutal, and doesn't provide for the "You mean I got hit?" effect that CT, MT, TNE, T4, and T20 all do allow.

Initiative process is fast, but really needs a mat and marker rather than a die as record. Rolling the die around to find the new value was cumbersome.

7 shots fired:
3 shots with a pistol SS from cover, return fire missed due to stacked mods.
a triple-tap with same pistol resulted in miss-hit-hit, and an initiative of 1....
shot 7 was negligible, as a snub doesn't doo enough damage to count...
The one cutlass swing was nearly terminal for the armored victim. Had he not been armored... but skill 3 in a blade is F*ING lethal.

Not having seen the PT of ACT, and being more of an MT fan than CT, it's good. It's really nice. So far. Aside from the enlisted ranks ....

 

[deniable]

You know, I'm getting visions of an abacus for initiative. That or something like it. The enlisted ranks, I can live with. Now that we have V2.0, I have to actually start testing the thing.

 

[moout_diablo]

I ran a session. It ran quite well.

The task system really does work nicely. Damage system is rather brutal, and doesn't provide for the "You mean I got hit?" effect that CT, MT, TNE, T4, and T20 all do allow.

Initiative process is fast, but really needs a mat and marker rather than a die as record. Rolling the die around to find the new value was cumbersome.

7 shots fired:
3 shots with a pistol SS from cover, return fire missed due to stacked mods.
a triple-tap with same pistol resulted in miss-hit-hit, and an initiative of 1....
shot 7 was negligible, as a snub doesn't doo enough damage to count...
The one cutlass swing was nearly terminal for the armored victim. Had he not been armored... but skill 3 in a blade is F*ING lethal.

Not having seen the PT of ACT, and being more of an MT fan than CT, it's good. It's really nice. So far. Aside from the enlisted ranks ....

You're right about the brutality. People are going to learn taking a penalty to rush that first shot is well worth it, likewise spending a tick or four to dodge.

I think players will consider cloth armor the bare minimum and even that won't save your bacon against a gun-4 opponent with decent dex.

I didn't like the combat system until I stopped using the die and started using a marker and mat.

 

[tbeard1999]

They provided some provisional stats on the Mongoose forum.

And the version 2.0 playtest doc does have equipment in it now, including weapons and armor.

CT did not have armor penetration rules and these things add complexity that the game simply does not need. I am sure more advanced rules for those things will appear later..like maybe in an equipment book or the Mercenary book.

I have run LARGE scale combats with the system. Using the squad rules it was NOT tedious, and it did move quickly, at least as quickly as D&D 3.5 and actually a lot quicker. This is practical experience, as in, I have actually done it.

I will try the combat system out this week.
Allen

I'll check it out. However, you are inaccurate in saying that CT did not have armor penetration. Weapon penetration was determined by chart -- a workable solution for CT's relatively small number of weapons, though not a solution I advocate.

The problem with equating penetration and damage is that it severely distorts the model with certain weapons -- shotguns for instance, which do a tremendous amount of damage, but have relatively low penetration. Weapons that have armor piercing ammunition become unreasonably lethal against *unarmored* targets. And so on. This is a relatively obvious fact (that was addressed in T4, interestingly) and I am not persuaded that it needs to be complex. Of course, starting out with a damage=penetration model may well ensure that the fix is complex...

And a favorable comparison to D&D 3.5 is faint praise. I expect much better than 3.5...

In any case, I'll try the combat system out. I am already concerned, however. I notice that a rifle (damage 8) cannot kill a normal person (END, DEX and STR of 7). Of course it will *always* knock a normal person out--so much for John Wayne being shot in the arm...

The combination of 1d6 with a set damage rating is going to make for very predictable damage, I suspect.

Worse, it appears that firing a burst makes the weapon sooper sooper deadly. On p. 67, an ACR gets a +4 for firing a burst. Since armor protects only once from the attack, burst fire has the effect of making weapons sooper armor piercing and sooper deadly.

In the real world, of course, the only way a burst would cause more damage would be if several hits were scored. In that case, the armor should protect from each hit (assuming the hits all struck armored locations).

And that is apparently what happens when the weapon fires "autofire" -- it scores multiple hits, each of which (presumably) is affected by armor.

So...when facing an armored target in T5, the correct move seems to be to fire a burst, rather than a single shot or half a clip.

<sigh>

My optimism is not increasing...

 

[tbeard1999]

Actually, tbeard, I'm surprised they survival rolls are so low for the military options - IOW, that the survival rate is so high. Even taking death out of the equation, and making survival solely determine continuance in the career, 7% is a pretty decent chance to become a "lifer".

What data do you base this on? Surely we'd have heard if military service was so brutal that it prevented 93% of enlistees from making 20 years? And note that the 7% does not take into account reenlistment rolls. With those factored in, you're talking about 0.2% or so. (In the case of Marines, the reenlistment roll is made 72% of the time per term, and 16% of the time in term 4 (-4 to roll for age 30+). That means that only about 0.2% of characters will make it through their 4th term.

This seems absurd on its face. Worse, it punishes characters who choose the more exciting careers and gives them little compensating rewards. This is Traveller, for cripes sake, not Paper and Paychecks.

 

[tbeard1999]

I ran a session. It ran quite well.

...Damage system is rather brutal, and doesn't provide for the "You mean I got hit?" effect that CT, MT, TNE, T4, and T20 all do allow.

Please explain the "you mean I got hit?" effect.

The damage system does not appear to me to be any more brutal than CT.

In CT, a rifle did 3d damage, which means that 2 hits would be necessary to kill an average character. At medium range, a shooter with +2 to hit mods and a rifle will hit an unarmored target 99% of the time. So 2 shots will be needed on average to kill an unarmored normal man.

In MGT, a rifle does 8+1d6 damage which is about the same as CT. However, the same shooter hits 41% of the time. So ~5 shots will be needed on average to kill an unarmored normal man. EDIT since to hit modifiers are added to damage, the weapon damages is 2 points higher, which means ~4 shots are necessary to kill an unarmored target.

In CT, armor is an "all or nothing" proposition. So if you got hit, you took full damage. At medium range, a shooter with +2 to hit mods and a rifle will hit a cloth armored target 41% of the time. So it takes about 4.8 shots to kill a cloth armored target in CT in this case.

In MGT, armor reduces the damage. With the same +2 to hit mods, the T5 shooter hits 58% of the time and averages 8.5 points of damage. It takes an average of 4.3 shots to kill an average cloth armored man with a rifle in T5 at the same range.

So (in this case), the CT system is far more lethal against unarmored targets and about as lethal against armored targets.

I'd also note that the Azhanti High Lightning/Striker system is far more lethal than T5 against unarmored targets. A rifle (Pen 3) will *kill* an unarmored man on a penetration roll of 9+ (27.7% chance) and will badly wound him on a penetration roll of 5+ (67% chance). To hit chances are the same as T5. If the suggested damage equivalents are used, he'll die outright 27.7% of the time and take 6D damage (which will kill him around 50% of the time) 40% of the time. That means that 2-3 shots on average will kill a man.

 

[ditzie]

Hey tbeard, unless I heard wrong, isn't Mongoose Traveller different from T5? Or do you have a copy of T5 you're playtesting??

 

[PFVA63]

RAND Corporation

Hi,

I don't know how relevant it might be to your discussions but there are some papers on military retention issues in the US Military that may be of use as an example.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/2005/MR1532.pdf

http://www.rand.org/publications/bib/SB5063.pdf

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1566-1/MR1566.1.ch2.pdf

Regards

PF

 

[moout_diablo]

Please explain the "you mean I got hit?" effect.

The damage system does not appear to me to be any more brutal than CT.

I just posted a comment on combat on the MGT/RTT forums. I'm finding comat to be extremely hazardous. Rather than write a new version, I'll paste my comments from the other board:

I've tried for two days to pinpoint what it was bugging me about the combat system (besides ticks and I'm getting used to those) and it's the low point distribution of weapons.

I did a workup with a few combat sims and found that facing off against a high skill hombre means pretty much instant death (well, unconsciousness and it may as well be the same). MGT,RTT, whatever it's called adds ALL DMs for damage. A guy with a Gauss Pistol at optimum range (+2) aiming for a tick (+1) with Guns(SP)-3 (+3) will do 1d6+7+6=~17 points of damage.

If he wins initiative and you aren't armored, you are toast.

The gauss pistol (under these circumstances) will always do 14 minimum damage and maximum 19. That's freaking HUGE damage against someone with an average 8 stat since the average is so high.

While using one die to keep the numbers rolled down sounded good to me at first, it seems to really stack the weapon damage at the very high end.

...snip...

I'm not sure if I would have a workable suggestion, though. Maybe only add the combat skill into the damage? Lower the effect of most weapons? Maybe even go back to throwing multiple dice without effect and then adding the DMs

Now, I know CT was dangerous but if I have Gun-2 or more and decent range, I can take down pretty much any average unarmored Joe in one shot, guaranteed. Cloth armor does little to stop me from dropping a mu on the first shot.

I might well have said "you mean I got hit?" if someone rolled a low attack with a body pistol. That won't happen when you stack all the DMs in MGT.

 

[tbeard1999]

Hey tbeard, unless I heard wrong, isn't Mongoose Traveller different from T5? Or do you have a copy of T5 you're playtesting??

I assumed it was T5. In any case I'm too lazy to write out Mongoose Traveller. And MT is already taken.