How many people have access to the MT Alien modules to make a decision?
I don't know, but would those be the rarest supplements mentioned here (I frankly don't know)?
And this aside, he mentions them, even if as oposition to CT:AMs
How many people have access to the MT Alien modules to make a decision?
Just one question: one of the options talks about "CT Alien Modules (versus MT or JTAS profiles)".
They're actually subsumed and superseded by later material -- especially MegaTraveller's Imperial Encyclopedia, which is very nearly a corrected verbatim of the Library Data LBBs.
You are assuming that the readers use MegaTraveller material. I do not. I go with the Library Data in the LBB supplements. Again, look at the break in the poll when it comes to MegaTraveller.
The MT Imperial Encyclopedia is a better presentation of the material from Subs 8 & 11. It's worth considering even for CT players.
Going by the current poll results there are a lot of people unaware or in denial of the importance of T5 to the OTU.
By the way why didn't you include Agent of the Imperium as a poll option for defining the OTU?
Imho, unaware. A rulebook the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica does not inspire people to run out and purchase it.Going by the current poll results there are a lot of people unaware or in denial of the importance of T5 to the OTU.
My latest poll attempt is for getting a bead on what published works are the most useful for defining the Charted Space setting.
I'm looking for a minimal but complete set. Actually I'm looking for opinions about which printed sources are most valuable for determining this minimal but complete set.
So, what publications help draw the best boundaries?
I've only got 20 options(!) so I may group things together. Ha.
I'm open to more sources. For example, I'm SUPER WEAK on TNE and Lorenverse material.
There are multiple OTUs, depending on what rules edition you are playing. Given the rules proliferation, that cannot be, and never will be, a single OTU.
You have a small ship OTU. You have a large ship OTU. You have the Imperium in rebellion OTU. You have the Virus OTU. You have the beginning of the Imperium OTU. You have the beginnings of a T5 OTU, which in theory needs to hold all of the earlier OTU, but the small ship and the large ship are mutually contradictory, so pose a bit of an insolvable problem.
There never was a "small ship OTU"... The OTU itself really takes form with the 1980 High Guard and the Sup 3 combined.
The 1977 rules do have provisions for only small ships, so if there was not an official written OTU, the Traveller Universe for the 1977 rules was a small ship one. It was just not fully official, although Adventure 1 clearly has only a small ship universe in mind.
Marc has said that the concept of the OTU didn't exist until after Sup 3 was published. Sup 3 was supposed to be an exemplar, not a canon. Same with A1-A4, and S1 & S2. Tools for a busy ref, not the beginning of a larger setting work.
Apparently, things changed when the fans asked for more. Calling the proto-setting an OTU is a stretch at best.