New Styles for CT

[endersig]

Don't get me wrong folks, I love the good old CT, but does anyone else feel it leaves a little to be desired? Don't bother pointing me to other forms... tried that, got confused, came back. I've had a series of "House rules" that work at it, and i will post them, but what are yours?

The "Tagline" for my campaign is "Blasters, Fast Ships, Lightsabers and Fast Chicks...."
1.) Character Generation=NOT RANDOM! i HATED having a bunch of Vanilla Marines or Army characters, so in my system, you choose your race and your job, from which you could determine your stats and skills... i.e if you were a Wookie Engineer, you would have STR 14 and Engineering-3 Also, a manditory background story so that your GM can better craft Missions.

2.) Blasters, Lightsabers and Jedi... please, we all KNOW we need them, use standard psionics with a slight "tweak" (no teleporting) and you are set.

3.) High G Ships. What is the point of a fighter that is just as slow as a fast cruiser?? 12g is the limit for small craft my friends.

4.) HEAPING helpings of Star Wars, Andromeda and Star Trek. We owe so much to Mr. Lucas, and
Mr. Roddenbury

 

[CarlP]

Sounds like a fun universe. Quite interesting. I've been working on a campaign that faces some similar issues.

1. I am using the Shadowrun game system for character generation. I'm working on archetypes, so players can just grab one and go. That's taking a bit of work. Actual character creation seems to be going nicely, though.

2. I always kinda liked the slugthrowers of Traveller. I've got lasers, but no blasters. I'm not after the high tech gee-whizery you're after. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

3. Yeah, High-G for the little ships makes sense.

4. I lean on other sources for my inspiration. But that's just a personal preference.

all in all, though, I found Traveller to be an excellent starting point for my campaign.

Carl

 

[Falkayn]

Originally posted by endersig:
HEAPING helpings of Star Wars, Andromeda and Star Trek. We owe so much to Mr. Lucas, and
Mr. Roddenbury

Well, if you liked T20 you could merge it with the d20 Star Wars rules and come up with something very interesting.

When I first got into Traveller, it was on the CT LBBs and I wanted to do a mecha game. That was interesting, but I kind of got lost in the rules, and then someone introduced me to Battletech/Mechwarrior.

I got back into Traveller with MT, and have never wanted to go too far away from the classic feel ever since (mainly because if I wanted Star Wars I would just play whatever incarnation of rules they were in - I've played ALL of them).

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by endersig:
Don't get me wrong folks . . .

The "Tagline" for my campaign is "Blasters, Fast Ships, Lightsabers and Fast Chicks...."
.
.
.

I'd see no problem playing with these house rules, but it isn't the ruleset that matters most to me.

It's the setting.

I've played Star Wars before, and it's very difficult to avoid the "us vs. the Imperium" until it's nothing else and get very tired and worn down by it. Avoiding that problem would be vastly more important than rules tweaking.


IMTU: Rules Changes

Mostly a few gearhead things and bunch of forgotten skills rulings (which I wrote down in the early 80s and haven't seen again in a long time).

In High Guard 2, I allow a new component. Hardening. It has twice the cost of Armor, and represents internal structural improvements, some internal armor, and superior fire/damage control systems. It counts as armor points against Meson Gun attacks.

I also introduced a variety of new accomodations. In military ships, Captain's got a 10 dTon suite (including room for a steward), the senior officers got single staterooms, officers double staterooms, and crew got mass bunk-room cabins.

I also designed all my ships with an error on my part from misreading the HG2 rules (an error I only discovered a few months ago right here on CotI). Basically, the dTons of a turret is determined by the type of weapon in it, not by the quantity. My mistake was that I always calculated that a turrent's mass was equal to Weapon Qty * Mass on Chart. So, the batteries of turrets on my designs were allocated at 300% of need. Fixing it wouldn't be too tough, I know. But the more I looked at it, the more I hated it. 3 laser cannons massing the same as 1? What? I just decided that it "didn't work" like the rules said it did IMTU, because the rules in this case made no sense at all.


Oh yeah, I just remembered, we had some nerfs in place to prevent munchkinization of Jack of all Trades (which got exploited way too much), but I can't remember what we did exactly . . . and my notes aren't accessible right now.

 

[kafka47]

Why not play Traveller as it was played in the 1970s and early 80s. Watch the films of the era: Alien (certain parts of Aliens), Appocalyse Now, Blake's Seven, Logan's Run and countless others.

You will see that CT was meant for this era much more than Star Wars. As Loren said Marc was inspired to do Traveller well before SW. Sure, SW built the Imperium Campaign to the grand thing that it is but remember there is a whole tradition behind it. If you play these scenarios based upon films of the 1970s - I would suggest maybe use the other LLB (emphasis upon Book not Supplement) you will find that CT offers a completely new way of looking at the universe.

If you need further help try to check out those White Dwarf or Dragon articles from the above mentioned era and you will see entire Traveller universe who haven't heard what the Imperium is. As adventurers were just working class slobs called in for a job. This is how I began my Traveller Campaign back in '83 and sometimes I miss it. <sigh>

 

[Ran Targas]

Originally posted by endersig:
2.) Blasters, Lightsabers and Jedi... please, we all KNOW we need them, use standard psionics with a slight "tweak" (no teleporting) and you are set.

3.) High G Ships. What is the point of a fighter that is just as slow as a fast cruiser?? 12g is the limit for small craft my friends.

Personally, as much as I enjoy Star Wars and that universe, I despise what a Jedi can do to a game. No Jedi character is ever a struggling Jedi (which saved Luke from being to powerful) and they all out class the normals in the game to the point that it's all about them (as it was with Luke in ROTJ). Jedi characters are born munchkins.

I've run a hybrid game, using a lot of the SW setting but with a few marked deviations:

- The Empire is the Third Reich; extremely human-centric to the point of enslaving or even exterminating most non-humans who pose a threat or have something worth taking.

- The Emperor is very Stalinesque and the Imperial Intelligence organizations make the KGB/GRU look like girlscouts (read the Jedi are extinct as an organization and there are routine witchhunts for force adepts). Wonder why there are only two Sith at any one time? It's because evil hates competition!

- Travellers better have Imperial credentials or face lengthy detention and investigation upon arrival at their destination. Throwing money around is always good, if you have any after the tariffs and taxes.

- Trade is regulated by the Empire; if you don't have a contract, you don't fly it. This makes smuggling and the black market grow in importance and limits what resources are available. Small haulers have found it necessary to contract themselves to big companies just to make ends meet.

- The citizenry is controlled through propaganda which proclaims the Rebels as enemies of the New Order and blaim them for the justifiable oppressive nature of the Empire (read Patriot Act taken to its extreme). No quarter here among loyal citizens for anyone associated with the Rebellion.

- The Scouts are a major threat to the New Order as they know more about the frontier than the Imperial Navy does. In addition, they are notoriously free thinking, and know jump routes, hiding places, and other secrets left out of the official record. The Scouts were among the first to defy the Emperors dictates concerning non-humans in uniform. Those who weren't forcibly sequestered make up the heart of the Rebellion.

- You can't trust anyone! Everyone has a price and the Imperials always seem to have the right currency.

I like to think of it as Kubrick's version of Star Wars; definitely more in the vein of THX-1138 IMHO.

As for fighters, I know there have been literally a dozen threads about light craft in the OTU but I still disagree with most of the rule lawyers.

Small craft are more difficult to detect, should have much higher manueverability therefore they dictate the time/place of battle, and can fight en masse, overwhelming an opponent with limited defenses/lines of fire. Once you have more fighters than turrets to shoot back at them, the advantage goes to the fighters!

And go for 12g maneuverability, but what about all those pilots you are going to liquify? Inertial dampners? A-grav couches? ROV? Got to make considerations for that.

 

[CarlP]

Originally posted by Ran Targas:
And go for 12g maneuverability, but what about all those pilots you are going to liquify? Inertial dampners? A-grav couches? ROV? Got to make considerations for that.

With artificial gravity technology, wouldn't dampers of some sort be trivial? I don't have artificial gravity in my universe--early setting. So ships that can pull two or three Gs are pulling an awful lot. Most ships travel at 1G. And the small craft are limited by the capacity of the pilots--which I believe is in the vicinity of 10Gs, assuming proper fittings.

But with gravplates, I should think you could counteract the effect of 12Gs as easily as you could counteract 6Gs. And clearly, *that* is done in the Traveller universe.

 

[endersig]

Originally posted by Ran Targas:

And go for 12g maneuverability, but what about all those pilots you are going to liquify? Inertial dampners? A-grav couches? ROV? Got to make considerations for that. [/QB]

Actually, My party and i figured a way around this.
1.) G clothing, costly, it is like a Vacc Suit that also works to force blood into your upper body. Full suit: 15,000 Cr works till 9gs, at which point it is useless
2.) the cockpit is entirely flooded with water. This entirely IGNORES any amount of Gs, so all you have to do is get a "Wet Suit" that allow water near your skin, but provides you with air. Didn't work on bridge size or cost modifiers yet, but that is the way to do it.

 

[Madarin Dude]

In actual fighters. They can regularly take up to about 9G for a few seconds at time. 6 G is not considered enough for many of them. I remember one plane that was always grounded when on an excercise because it could not mount a 9G centerline only the 6g wing tanks. Because of the small crew and the G seat I think it is not out of the question to allow for up to 9g agility. Using that for acceleration is a bit much if it is a constant high G.

 

[Captain Zoom]

If you'd like a simple primer on g forces, try this:

http://www.open2.net/labrats/gforce_science2.htm

At the end of the article they have an interesting link to an aerial acrobatics site that has more stuff on g forces, too.

 

[Madarin Dude]

Good site. It confirms my anecdotal evidence.

 

[Malenfant]

So what would happen if someone was subjected to an instantaneous g-field of 6g or more?

In my setting, ships coming out of jump generate a massive g-field when they "land" in realspace, which basically tries to implode the ship and squish the crew, and acts as a limit to how far the ship can safely jump. How strong would this field have to be to be able to damage the occupants and the ship, if it lasts only for an instant?

Thinking about it, it may be more accurate to say that the mass of the ship and everything in it increases at the instant it arrives in realspace. So how high would the mass have to get before the ship implodes or the crew's bodies collapse?

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by endersig:
2.) the cockpit is entirely flooded with water. This entirely IGNORES any amount of Gs, so all you have to do is get a "Wet Suit" that allow water near your skin, but provides you with air. Didn't work on bridge size or cost modifiers yet, but that is the way to do it.

I thought this had been shown to be distinctly UNhelpful.

I mean, water is relatively uncompressible, but the body isn't. If you go through a 12g acceleration in a water tank, then the water "above" you (ie in the direction of the acceleration vector) weighs 12 times more than it would normally. So you now have a dense fluid that is 12 times heavier than it should be ALSO pushing down on you, on top of the 12g force that is acting on you.

If you have a weight of 10 kg (10 litres) of water above you, then that increases to 120 kg. Admittedly that's spread over your entire body, but still... the pressure acting on you that is only increasing.

Surely vacuum would be a better "medium" in a G-tank, since that would mean that there's no extra weight at all acting on you other than that created by the acceleration force itself?

 

[Madarin Dude]

I think that a sort of gyroscope to always keep the body of the pilot pointed in the right direction as far as the g force is concerned is more appropriate. Find a optimum posture and always keep the back to the G's. Trying ot ge the controls and a view might be a bit odd but that can be done. No window video only, controls that move with the pilot. Might take a whileto strap into but hey if you can get an ounce of performance that way yhen so be it.

 

[Captain Zoom]

Try this link:

http://hypertextbook.com/physics/mechanics/frames/

It's got a list of typical g forces from

0.4 "pedal to the metal" in a typical American car

to

3400 crash-survivable memory units (for flight data/voice recorder), impact acceleration limit

It's got ALOT of links to technical and other articles if you want to do research.

 

[Captain Zoom]

Originally posted by Madarin Dude:
I think that a sort of gyroscope to always keep the body of the pilot pointed in the right direction as far as the g force is concerned is more appropriate. Find a optimum posture and always keep the back to the G's. Trying ot ge the controls and a view might be a bit odd but that can be done. No window video only, controls that move with the pilot. Might take a whileto strap into but hey if you can get an ounce of performance that way yhen so be it.

Not a problem with high-tech configurable holographic control interfaces - the holographic controls can be kept oriented to the body at all times. Probably the issue is the need to even touch the controls, or rather, to move. In a high-g environment, you'd probably want controls that don't require arm movements, or even better yet, no movement (control helmet using brain-waves? - Firefox, Battletech, etc).

 

[Straybow]

What you would need is a breathable fluid that floods all the air cavities, like in The Abyss. Quite reasonable, actually. You still have to be aligned mostly perpendicular to the gee-force in order to pump blood to the brain.

 

[mike wightman]

Not if your arteries were plugged into a pumping system that replaces the heart.
I'd have a separate system for the head to prevent blood vessels in the brain rupturing under the pressure, a system for the limbs and one for the organs of the torso.
The "pilot" would have to have all of these connectors and valves surgically implanted.

And why bother with display screens?
Feed the info straight to the brain

 

[manley_t]

IMTU I have a thrust to mass ratio and that's the Gs of acceleration the ship has. Engine class provides X thrust per 10t.

So it's possible to have large ships with fractions of thrust and small ships with high G thrust.

Gravitics enables higher Gs.

I've also run "low-tech" games where thrust at 1G is the highest available. In this campaign the jump drive was brand new. Ships tended to have 1/4G thrust. Jump was a % of a parsec, depending on how good a job the Navigator and Engineer did.

That game focused around a cluster of star systems that were all J1 from each other. A distance of 1 parsec seperating other star systems was a large rift that only specfically designed deep exploration ships could even being to tackle; and in my game of those none had returned......