High Guard

[Garyius2003]

First impressions:

1. Since it is at the front of the book, college is exactly what is wrong with Mongoose Traveller in several spots. Good base ideas poorly laid out, with missing graphs, and with the good idea being worse for the player in the end because (I assume) no one playtested the great idea to finish it up.

2. Assuming the new career DM rule also applies to staying in a navy career (ie, no minuses towards staying in), the new paths are a great idea. I wished they had slowed down a little on throwing guys out on the event table, but out of three tries I only had one guy booted on the events table so far.

3. The ships feel like traveller should. The thing I didn't like about real High Guard was that the ships were massively overmanned. These feel right.

4. Who's idea was it to take up valuable pages with overly small, useless deckplans?

5. The mega freighter/liner and better battle wagons. This and GURPS Far Trader is exactly what I see the middle of the Imperium being. Huge ships playing routes carrying massive amounts of cargo and people. In fact, the end of the nearest main mega liner route is only [jump-10 farther than the PCs are likely to be able to go]. This plus the new navy ships make the Imperium and cross Imperium border more real--the PCs see a cruiser or Battleship and escorts every so often, or every time they are in a system with a navy base. However, when they jump into some scrub world and see a full cruron and batron, time to reconsider whether they need to be there, and if the outer gas giant looks like a good bet.

 

[ThunderChilde]

Glad you like it, I suppose you have the revised edition?
1.Somewhere around either here or over on Mongooses boards is a thread with some home brew university and academy rules.
2.Yes the "not a new carreer" rule is nice, I think it does apply if you are shifting Fleets (Imperial, Sector, Planetary).
3.I agree on the manning requirments of old, it felt like the ship was overstaffed to the point of still being well covered after combat loses, never mind the cold watch.
4. Keeping a promise, there are many who hope those are redone as vector graphics so that they are actually usable.
5.Have you seen traders and gunboats yet? Pure shiny chrome for YTU.

 

[Kilgs]

First impressions:

1. Since it is at the front of the book, college is exactly what is wrong with Mongoose Traveller in several spots. Good base ideas poorly laid out, with missing graphs, and with the good idea being worse for the player in the end because (I assume) no one playtested the great idea to finish it up.

Yeah, I can't figure out the reason for Naval Academy either. On the Mongoose forum, there is a thread discussing it but no real results.

 

[Garyius2003]

Yeah, I can't figure out the reason for Naval Academy either. On the Mongoose forum, there is a thread discussing it but no real results.

The academy would have made great sense with 30 minutes play testing to tweak it.

Academy: Upon success gain +2 edu (max of B), DM +1 for all enlistment, survival, and advancement rolls in navy careers, and select three skills from the service skills table of the speciality branch; if Honors than edu +3 (max of B), DM +2 for all enlistment, survival, and advancement rolls in navy careers, and select three skills from the service skills table of the speciality branch.

Bingo. That was an idea after rolling three navy characters.

 

[Kilgs]

The other issue is the failure to enter your specific branch of service. The rules indicate that everyone enters Crew Career after college (except for some fluff about pulling strings). So, you enter Naval Academy, graduate with honors after 4yrs in Flight School. Then go to Crewman Career for another 4 years and then hope to roll into the Flight branch… (8y to enter Branch)

Or you could go into Crewmen direct, then go into Flight direct. (4y to enter Branch)

Not to mention the failure of logic on sending someone to Flight school for four years and then putting them in general Crew.

I like your idea although I’m still not satisfied. I’m gonna have to opt for a direct route into the specialty branch of your choice.

And yes, it obviously was not looked at during design.

 

[Original_Carl]

You can't get into Flight unless you have 4 years and O2/E2.

This makes me wonder if you get a promotion roll during your Midshipman term so that you can make O2 and be allowed into Flight (or engineering, support, etc).

The threads I've read on the Mongoose forums are all over the place. Most folks are houseruling the heck out of Naval College. I could find nothing "official" on how it's all supposed to work.

I would think that Mongoose had a plan for Naval Colleges and actually figured that there would be an advantage for gaining entrance to and graduating from one.

 

[Garyius2003]

I would think that Mongoose had a plan for Naval Colleges and actually figured that there would be an advantage for gaining entrance to and graduating from one.

I think that as well. My point in suggesting my solution wasn't that mine is a good idea--it is that rolling up three characters showed me there was a serious issue and 10 minutes thought gave me a decent solution.

Mongoose didn't devote the three man hours to playtest rolling up to test the whole system, nor the 10 minutes to come up with a college solution.

 

[Kilgs]

You can't get into Flight unless you have 4 years and O2/E2.

Been working this out with a guy rolling up a HG character and I think the above is incorrect.

Per HG p4:

"There are two distinct ways to choose to roll a term on a naval career path. Either simply meet the listed Qualifications of the path as normal, or meet the Previous Service requirements."

Per HG p6:

"A character who is not of the minimum rank number or above the maximum rank for a career suffers a -1 DM per missing rank number when trying to qualify for that career… If a character qualifies for a career when he is below the minimum rank, he is promoted to that rank... Some careers are only available to commissioned characters.”

I houseruled as follows:

Automatic qualification if character has Prior Service and required Rank.
Regular qualification (dice roll) pursuant to the DM as noted by the required Rank. If the required rank is a Commissioned Officer, the character must be at least an O1.

For Naval College, I'm trying this...

Naval College Changes

Upon graduation from a Naval College, the character gets the following:

Standard Graduation
-Basic set of skills from Branch at 0
-One skill from Service Skills at 1 (roll)
-One skill from Specialist Branch at 1 (roll)
-+1 EDU (to a maximum of 12)
-Ally

Honors
-Basic set of skills from Branch at 0
-One skill from Service Skills at 1 (roll)
-One skill from Specialist Branch at 1 (roll)
-One skill from Advanced Education Branch at 1 (roll)
-+2 EDU (to a maximum of 12)
-Ally and Rival

 

[Original_Carl]

I did not notice the -1 DM per missing rank, so thanks for pointing that out.

I like your Naval College change. I'm past character creation in my current game, but I'll try it out if given the chance.

For Honors Graduates, I think I'll allow automatic entry into their Branch of specialization (Gunnery, Support, etc.) along with an automatic promotion to the minimum required rank.

For non-Honors Graduates, I'll make them roll for entry into their Branch with the appropriate DMs, giving them credit for 4 years of service. If they fail the roll, they do a term as Crew and can then re-apply to their branch of choice, again failing back to Crew if necessary.

 

[Kilgs]

For Honors Graduates, I think I'll allow automatic entry into their Branch of specialization (Gunnery, Support, etc.) along with an automatic promotion to the minimum required rank.

Yeah, I really wanted to do something like that too. Then I decided that I had monkeyed around enough for one day...

This player has raised a whole series of questions that are not covered. I'm planning on listing a few of them as they bring up considerable changes in how things are done. I was forced to "handwave" most of them but clarification still needs to be provided. I'll try and get them up in the next few days.