Vent-Rant MegaTraveller what I hate about it.
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LeperColony
Traveller Card Game Dev Team
I'm a die hard TNE fan, so what I like most about MT is the Hard Times to Survival Margin developments. But despite that, I'm not a huge fan of the Rebellion. It just appears too "stage managed," with all the factions arranged just-so, that none of them could gain final victory. I also think that the factions were too poorly developed in the game materials, to make them different enough from each other. Later MT materials like Arrival Vengeance (another favorite of mine), Hard Times, and especially Survival Margin do make them increasingly distinct, but by then it's too late.
I also think, in a universe where:
Robots (which is what Lucan claimed The Real Strephon was)
Actors/impersonators (what Dulinor claimed T.R.S was)
Surgically altered doubles (what T.R.S. said his clones were, to give them a chance at life)
and even clones (what fake Strephon really was)
exist to relieve emperors of mundane duties, the fact that there's no protocol to confirm the continued existence of the sovereign after a duplicate's public demise is all rather silly.
I also think, in a universe where:
Robots (which is what Lucan claimed The Real Strephon was)
Actors/impersonators (what Dulinor claimed T.R.S was)
Surgically altered doubles (what T.R.S. said his clones were, to give them a chance at life)
and even clones (what fake Strephon really was)
exist to relieve emperors of mundane duties, the fact that there's no protocol to confirm the continued existence of the sovereign after a duplicate's public demise is all rather silly.
snrdg082102
SOC-14 1K
Hello all,
I only had the opportunity to play CT, by the time I started with MT, TNE, and T4 I could not find any Traveller group.
CT is the mature but aging polity at the height of power.
MT is in my opinion mirrors history when a long lived polity crashes. I'm not sure what my quibbles are in this setting.
TNE is, again in my opinion, how the remnants of the collapsed polity fared after the collapse. My quibble of TNE is with the loss of the reactionless M-Drive while retaining the Jump Drive.
T4 is an attempt at showing the rise of the next incarnation of the last star faring polity that collapsed.
I only had the opportunity to play CT, by the time I started with MT, TNE, and T4 I could not find any Traveller group.
CT is the mature but aging polity at the height of power.
MT is in my opinion mirrors history when a long lived polity crashes. I'm not sure what my quibbles are in this setting.
TNE is, again in my opinion, how the remnants of the collapsed polity fared after the collapse. My quibble of TNE is with the loss of the reactionless M-Drive while retaining the Jump Drive.
T4 is an attempt at showing the rise of the next incarnation of the last star faring polity that collapsed.
Interesting that I never responded to this topic back in the day . . .
What I liked about MT was that it consolidated all of the char gen rules from CT in one place and standardized them. And I liked much of the art.
What I didn't like was the overly complex ship design system and ultimately the lack of consistent quality support for the Rebellion setting. DGP also seemed inordinately good at layering on additional setting details that I'm not sure really needed to be there.
The rest of it was pretty "meh" to me (at least in retrospect). The task system annoyed me as being too . . . mechanical, too easily gamed maybe? (Hey, it was 25 years ago
).
In the end what I did was have my group build PCs according to MT rules and then run a Spinward Marches setting aboard CT starships. I was loosely working towards the Rebellion at some point but never got there.
What I liked about MT was that it consolidated all of the char gen rules from CT in one place and standardized them. And I liked much of the art.
What I didn't like was the overly complex ship design system and ultimately the lack of consistent quality support for the Rebellion setting. DGP also seemed inordinately good at layering on additional setting details that I'm not sure really needed to be there.
The rest of it was pretty "meh" to me (at least in retrospect). The task system annoyed me as being too . . . mechanical, too easily gamed maybe? (Hey, it was 25 years ago
). In the end what I did was have my group build PCs according to MT rules and then run a Spinward Marches setting aboard CT starships. I was loosely working towards the Rebellion at some point but never got there.
Could you give a specific example for clarification?
(Just so I understand what you mean).
It has been a while since I dug my MT books out but off the top of my head I think devoting half an "alien" book to the Vilani was a bit of a waste and could see no reason to introduce the Primordials. I have a recollection of coming away from having read the Vargr half of the first alien book thinking that if you removed all the material that originated with CT, what remained was kind of underwhelming. I never had much use for the detailed breakout of tech levels and while many people apparently loved them, the random customs generator from Grand Survey seemed more silly than helpful. Looking back I'd probably have been happier if there had been a straight second edition of Traveller that consolidated what had been spread across a lot of books, supplements and JTAS issues and didn't focus on metaplot so much. (That's what 25+ years of hindsight does for you I guess).
Actually, IIRC this was the first occasion that the Vilani had been given any significant detail at all. Sure they had been mentioned before and some odds-and-ends details were evident from earlier writings. But V&V was the first book that actually gave the Vilani some significant detail.
And it is something that I think was necessary considering that one of the two core cultural backgrounds contributing to the Imperial culture as a whole was the Vilani culture. IMHO that was not at all a waste - it was the first time we got to really find out who they were.
What I wish now? That the rules for pocket empires could be automated, that the abstract RU be converted to Imperial Credits, and the various "political groups" in the Rebellion, be played out. Land combats are done via FFW game mechanics or MT mass combat rules, with space battles run using MT rules.
THAT would realize the potential of the Rebellion story arc!
THAT would realize the potential of the Rebellion story arc!
I only mentioned the prospect of Pocket Empires for those who want to use MT rules and have some strategic framework to work within as they run their own Traveller Universes and deciding who could do what with what resources available.
T4 rules tended to be somewhat abstract and came closest I believe, to simulating the "reality" of the FFW game rules in general. But - that's for a different forum I suspect.
It would be interesting if you opened up a thread in "In My Traveller Universe" and detail the stuff you're doing.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Going back to the title of the thread, aside from the whole Rebellion concept, which I disliked intensely when it came out, and still dislike intensely, there is the whole issue of the design sequences.
Case in point, Tech Level 6 Radar Jammer. The power requirement for what I would call a short-range jammer with a 5 kilometer range is 500 kilowatts, mass is 0.5 metric tons (or 1100 pounds), the price is 7.5 Million Credits, and the volume is 1 cubic meter. The power requirements for a radar jammer used by the US Air Force B-29 during the Korean War (1950-1953) for jamming North Korean/Chinese/Russian fire-control and searchlight-control radars was 10 to 30 watts, see the following quote.
The quote is from UNITED STATES AIR FORCE OPERATIONS IN THE KOREAN CONFLICT 1 July 1952-27 July 1953, page 77. Now, the volume require for the four racks might be about right, but the power requirements, weight, and obviously, the cost of the equipment is horribly overstated. The flyaway cost for a B-29 bomber was $639,188 complete, with a cost of $34,738 for electronics. That data comes from the Encyclopedia of U.S. Air Force Aircraft and Missile Systems Vol. 2 Post-World War II Bombers 1945-1973. I will concede that was published in 1988, one year after MegaTraveller was published.
Case in point, Tech Level 6 Radar Jammer. The power requirement for what I would call a short-range jammer with a 5 kilometer range is 500 kilowatts, mass is 0.5 metric tons (or 1100 pounds), the price is 7.5 Million Credits, and the volume is 1 cubic meter. The power requirements for a radar jammer used by the US Air Force B-29 during the Korean War (1950-1953) for jamming North Korean/Chinese/Russian fire-control and searchlight-control radars was 10 to 30 watts, see the following quote.
The quote is from UNITED STATES AIR FORCE OPERATIONS IN THE KOREAN CONFLICT 1 July 1952-27 July 1953, page 77. Now, the volume require for the four racks might be about right, but the power requirements, weight, and obviously, the cost of the equipment is horribly overstated. The flyaway cost for a B-29 bomber was $639,188 complete, with a cost of $34,738 for electronics. That data comes from the Encyclopedia of U.S. Air Force Aircraft and Missile Systems Vol. 2 Post-World War II Bombers 1945-1973. I will concede that was published in 1988, one year after MegaTraveller was published.
As a first glance, the cost per unit weight seems about right and the total weight of your sample RW Jammer vs the TL 6 MT Jammer seems responsible for the bust in price.
I would question a bit of apples to oranges comparison since IIRC the MT Jammer jams ALL radio frequencies simultaneously (or any combination of frequencies) so its capabilities exceed those of the real world counterpart. I have no idea how many jammers would have been needed to jam all available frequency combinations selectively, but it would clearly have narrowed the gap somewhat.
Personally, I would have been happy with an order of magnitude correlation between the rules and reality (which your example does not support).
Now I still find 'hate' from the OP to be too strong a term.
Even a bad design sequence is better than a bad W.A.G.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
As a first glance, the cost per unit weight seems about right and the total weight of your sample RW Jammer vs the TL 6 MT Jammer seems responsible for the bust in price.
I would question a bit of apples to oranges comparison since IIRC the MT Jammer jams ALL radio frequencies simultaneously (or any combination of frequencies) so its capabilities exceed those of the real world counterpart. I have no idea how many jammers would have been needed to jam all available frequency combinations selectively, but it would clearly have narrowed the gap somewhat.
Personally, I would have been happy with an order of magnitude correlation between the rules and reality (which your example does not support).
Now I still find 'hate' from the OP to be too strong a term.
Even a bad design sequence is better than a bad W.A.G.
Then a better comparison would be the British jammer Jostle I - IV. This was a very large, multi-frequency radio jammer of the sort you mention above. It weighed 1,320 kg and was fitted in the bomb bay of a B-17 or B-24 by the RAF. It used 2 kW of power.
The casing measurements were 127 cm tall, 62 cm diameter, or about 2.5 cubic meters in size.
The cost in terms of credits would be about (this is rough) $1 Mcr
So, the mass is about right, the volume is underestimated by about 2.5 times (electronics are light but take up lots of volume for things like cooling), the cost grossly over estimated, and the power use under-estimated (tubes consume far more power than solid state electronics do as much of their energy is waste heat).
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Imagine my surprise a few years later when a description of the Suerrat finally emerged. Turns out Dulinor was backed by nearly a trillion extras from the set of Planet of the Apes.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
First, the price for electronics for the B-29 includes all of the electronics on the aircraft, including the radios and the bombing radar installation. The jammers are a minor part of the cost.
Second, this is a RADAR jammer, not a radio jammer, therefore, unless you somehow have a radar operating on all conceivable radio frequencies, it is jamming a specific frequency. It is not trying to jam radio communications.
Third, I can give a large number of historical examples of the complete and utter disconnect of the design sequences in MegaTraveller from reality, as the design sequences all start at Tech Level 5 or 6, which means circa World War 2. Kindly take a look at the "Radar Direction Finder" and explain why a directional receiver would require MEGAWATTS of power for operation. The Japanese were using simple "horn" search receivers to pick up Allied microwave radar. Then you have the 5000 kilometer range "continental" radar installation at Tech Level 6. You might also want to take a look at the power requirements of the radios. A Tech Level 5 radio with a 5 kilometer range requires 20 KILOWATTS of power, and weighs 20 kilograms, or 44 pounds. I would suggest you take a look at World War 2 hand-held radios for comparison.
As for the Demolition Table, that is totally off-the-wall. And when MegaTraveller was published, copies of FM 5-25 Explosives and Demolitions were widely available, and still are. There is no excuse for the ridiculous figures used.
I don't have it in front of me, but I thought that MT Radar was variable and multi-frequency to resist Jamming. The TL 5 Radar is not HISTORIC Radar from TL 5, it is near future Radar built using TL 5 technology.
I agree that there may still be a failure of the rules to be calibrated to reality, but simply acknowledge an innate difficulty in modeling historic craft based on the assumptions of the rules. That WW2 fighter never had to try and jam the Radar on a starship.
A small point, but TL 5 is probably closer to WW1. Radar in WW2 was more like a TL 6 prototype.
I still acknowledge your point that kilowatt reality vs megawatt designs is too large of a gap for a gearhead to ignore. Since even at megawatts, the power requirements for electronics get lost in the decimal points of craft design, it should have been ignored rather than incorporated at this level of detail.
With that said, I still use the table frequently to determine TL vs size to estimate things like the radio type and range for Battledress or small craft or vehicles. So even with broken power requirements, I would not describe MT as useless to me. I find it and FF&S a valuable tool for my CT campaigns.
Yes, MT design figures are rarely according with RW counterparts. Power usage is quite out of proportion, and most fuel needs make the designs quite inefficient (fission power is a clear example).
Nonetheless, in some cases it really achieved quite sound designs based on RW counterparts (see vehicle 3 in 101 vehicles and compare it with a Tiger I German WWII tank...).
And even more important, it achieved a sound and (more or less) coherent system to design from a TL5 ground car to a TL15 battleships, with its flaws and drawbacks.
As per power usage, in one Q&A answer in a TD (IIRC) Mr Fugate said that it was due to the cheap power achieved with fusion power, and comapred with the memory needs inflation it occurred as computer memory became cheap.
Of course ,that does not explain why a life support (just basic environment, lights and heat, as per page 81) for a usual TL7 appartment (let's say 70 m2 and 2.4 m ceiling, for a total of 168 kl) would be about 0.168 Mw (so 168 kW), when most such homes in RW use about 4-8 kw power...
Of course, electronics for an airplane or for a ship (be it wet navy or space) should be different, in size, capabilities, power needs and cost. I don't remember if COACC fixed it (I have it not Handy right now).
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I located on my computer the data on the ECM equipment carried by the B=29 in Korea. The total space comes out at about 8 cubic feet or 226 liters, mass of about 400 pounds or roughly 180 kilograms, with a power requirement of about 1.6 kilowatts. If someone wishes, I will crunch the numbers more thoroughly for a more exact specification.
With respect to McPerth's comments on a system to build everything from a Tech Level 5 ground car to a Tech Level 15 Battleship, that should require more than one design system. Apples are much closer to oranges than a Tech Level 5 ground car is to a Tech Level 15 Battleship.
The only other book on MegaTraveller that I have is COACC, which I also have a low opinion off, as the whole Rebellion concept and the design sequences thoroughly soured me on the system. I will stick with Classic.
Note, I am not a fan of Striker either, and I do have the first edition.
With respect to McPerth's comments on a system to build everything from a Tech Level 5 ground car to a Tech Level 15 Battleship, that should require more than one design system. Apples are much closer to oranges than a Tech Level 5 ground car is to a Tech Level 15 Battleship.
The only other book on MegaTraveller that I have is COACC, which I also have a low opinion off, as the whole Rebellion concept and the design sequences thoroughly soured me on the system. I will stick with Classic.
Note, I am not a fan of Striker either, and I do have the first edition.
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