First Impressions from T4

[Cymew]

I have read all the threads about what parts of T4 were good and bad, and having "thumbed through" electronic copies of some books, I've gotten the impression it's actually a version of Traveller that's far better that it's reputation.

Now, there still were some major problems, but none the less I wish I could buy some of those books...

 

[Cymew]

I have read all the threads about what parts of T4 were good and bad, and having "thumbed through" electronic copies of some books, I've gotten the impression it's actually a version of Traveller that's far better that it's reputation.

Now, there still were some major problems, but none the less I wish I could buy some of those books...

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Cymew:
I have read all the threads about what parts of T4 were good and bad, and having "thumbed through" electronic copies of some books, I've gotten the impression it's actually a version of Traveller that's far better that it's reputation.

Once you replace the Task System and the Ship Construction System, you are absolutely right. These two systems are the big landmines in T4's road to success - remove them, and you could enjoy T4 to its fullest.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Cymew:
I have read all the threads about what parts of T4 were good and bad, and having "thumbed through" electronic copies of some books, I've gotten the impression it's actually a version of Traveller that's far better that it's reputation.

Once you replace the Task System and the Ship Construction System, you are absolutely right. These two systems are the big landmines in T4's road to success - remove them, and you could enjoy T4 to its fullest.

 

[aramis]

In Re HEPlaR: the exit energies needed to provide the listed thrust with the listed fuel are, shall we say, incredibly high.

As in, it should be producing a weapons grade particle beam. It is several orders of magnitude more efficient than is reasonable, and to top it off, the machinery should be melted by the flow rate at the needed energies. (A paraphrase of the common complaints in the TNE realm, where HEPlaR was introduced.)

In re the broken bits:
I agree with 4601's comments: replace tasks and the ship rules, and it is a pretty good game.

The experience system does get rather munchkin, producing typical gains of about 30 levels per year in play in my group. Only two methods have I found that don't break that: 1 skill per X years, and MT's "Advancement Tallies." Set AT spacing down to 90 days, and it works just fine for T4 CG match up.

 

[aramis]

In Re HEPlaR: the exit energies needed to provide the listed thrust with the listed fuel are, shall we say, incredibly high.

As in, it should be producing a weapons grade particle beam. It is several orders of magnitude more efficient than is reasonable, and to top it off, the machinery should be melted by the flow rate at the needed energies. (A paraphrase of the common complaints in the TNE realm, where HEPlaR was introduced.)

In re the broken bits:
I agree with 4601's comments: replace tasks and the ship rules, and it is a pretty good game.

The experience system does get rather munchkin, producing typical gains of about 30 levels per year in play in my group. Only two methods have I found that don't break that: 1 skill per X years, and MT's "Advancement Tallies." Set AT spacing down to 90 days, and it works just fine for T4 CG match up.

 

[Spenser TR]

Necromancy.

I was pouring over various T4 threads looking for references to people's experience and opinions of the family creation system in Pocket Empires when I came across something here that rang my bell pretty loudly.

I appreciated this whole thread; I'm in no way familiar with T4 beyond some quick skims. This thread was well done and I was thankful yet again that people exist in the community who's interest takes them to such places.

Given current conversations about T5.10, the below point seemed particularly prescient:

Conclusion...


What is the biggest lesson we should learn from T4? The lesson of quality control - of the need for adaquate editing and playtesting. Sure, T4 had some level of editing and playtesting, but it was clearly inadaquate. More serious editing and playtesting would've thrown the T4 task system to the trash and bring forth a playable one; it would've make the QSDS far more easy to understand and use. In short, good playtesting and good editing would have seperated the many grains of genious of T4 from the chaff of errors, errata and bad decisions. Learn from this mistake - and lets make T5 the best edition of Traveller ever!

...

Thank you again for this, Omer. This in-depth look at T4 and for calling out this point in particular. It has a serious resonance with my day job.

 

[aramis]

Omer makes one false assumption: That Marc would have allowed a non xD6 < (Stat + Skill) - no amount of complaint about it has ever dissuaded him from it.

That aspect was (and still is) part and parcel of Marc's view of how Traveller should work.

 

[Spenser TR]

Makes sense, and that's definitely clear in the subsequent work.

 

[Timerover51]

Given this discussion, I will have to go back and go through T4 again. I have it in hard copy and digital. I should add that I tend to agree with Marc about task resolution.

 

[aramis]

Given this discussion, I will have to go back and go through T4 again. I have it in hard copy and digital. I should add that I tend to agree with Marc about task resolution.

Those who express a preference for T4 tasks (or T5, for that matter; the differences aren't that big) seem to be the minority even of those using the editions.

The big issue: The labels were, for Joe N Firsttermer, in field, were not entirely consistent with prior uses.

Assuming extra time, minimum employable skill, and average attribute, standard time/extra time:

Level	2300	MT	TNE	T4	T4.1	T4.1 sk2
Easy	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
Routine	70%/100%	83.3%/100%	70%/100%	72.2%/100%	25.9%/42.6	83.3%/100%
Difficult	30%/70%	27.8%/83.3%	35%/70%	42.6%/72.2	5.4%/25.9%	57.4%/83.3%
Formidable	0%/30%	0%/27.8%	20%/35%	25.9%/42.6%	0.7%/5.2%	1.62%/9.72%
Staggering	--	--	--	10%/25.9%	0.05%/0.7%	0.18%/1.62%
Impossible	0%/0%	0%/0%	10%/20%	5.4%/25.9	<0.01%/0.05%	0.01%/0.18%
Attribute/DM	10/+2	7/+1	6/na
Skill	1	1	1	2

[tc=3]7[/tc] [tc=2]1 [/tc]

2300: 1d10+mods for 3+/7+/11+/15+/na/19+
MT: 2d6+mods for 3+/7+/11+/15+/na/19+
T4: (1.5d)/2d/2.5d/3d/3.5d/4d
T4.1 (1.5d)/2d/2.5d/3d/4d/5d; if skill not 1+/2+/2+/3+/4+/5+, then rolls are 2.5d/3d/4d/5d/6d/7d and extra time makes that 2d/2.5d/3d/4d/5d/6d. Technically, the ref isn't obliged to allow 6d and 7d rolls...

The spoiler contains the anydice script

Spoiler:

output 1d6 < 9 named "1d"
output 1d6+1d3 < 9 named "1.5d"
output 2d6 < 9 named "2d"
output 2d6+1d3 <9 named "2.5d"
output 3d6 < 9 named "3d"
output 3d6+1d3 < 9 named "3.5d"
output 4d6 < 9 named "4d"
output 5d6 < 9 named "5d"
output 6d6 < 9 named "6d"
output 7d6 < 9 named "7d"

The numbers for T4 stock aren't too different, but the half dice annoyed many. The numbers for T4.1 are brutally harder... but are much mitigated if you raise employable skill to 2... it makes things better... but raising atts to 12+ makes HUGE differences. I'm not going to calculate it tonight.... but due to the WIDE bells... T4.1 meanings for higher than difficult were really pretty insanely low with average stat... but still allow doing impoissible.

(I figured out long ago that the task labels in 2300 and MT are a good fit IF the basis is average att skill 1 ... they really cannot get an impossible, even with extra time.)