Out of the Darkness - Discussion thread

[Antony]

I have already made some minor changes for my background since I will be using TNE ships with HePlaR thrusters, (saves yet another redesign) instead of dumping jump fuel, which in the TNE universe is the same as maneuver fuel IMTU the zochai crystals were smashed instead.

Cannot wait to get my copy though as my game in the OTU is set in the Banners Sector it will be some time before anyone down there notices that civilisaton is returning.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Scott Martin wrote:

note that the only Traveller universe that was specifically "little ship centric" catapulted from that into massive battles between cap ships. Some of the "background" was also a bit troubling in the context of TNE (Ships venting their jump fuel so that can't retreat = ships that can't maneuver)

A good effort, and one that ties up a lot of loose ends, but one of the attractions to me was that the facilities to build monster fleets *anywhere* had been reduced to rubble, and it would be a long time before they were an issue again. That left a large "window of opportunity" for small (player character scale) ships to change the course of history, an opportunity that (IMO) has now been lost in 1248 unless you want to play Star Vikings working their way to the core on a rescue mission.

I respectfully disagree Scott, and I concur with Malenfant here ( No sign of Hiver manipulation here, yes, I agree with Mal!)--thems wanting to play in a "safe" region, can. The small-ship crews most gamers will get on (ownership or not) that 'affect the future'.

An example in the 1248 OoTD at the end of the pdf places the characters & GM in a sample frontier area, the County of UKSE, 4th Imperium.

Likewise, the scale of vessels in size also is reduced, you will see. True the lessons learned of smaller-cheaper ships are better than a few heavy-duty battledragons. But the players aren't going to man one of these--they're still window dressing. The 4th Imperium and other powers who lost ships at the last battle of Gateway 1244, will take decades (maybe even a century) to replace those losses.

While this will probably make 1248 more palitable to CT and MT fans, it loses a lot of what made the TNE setting interesting to play in: the feeling that players could make a difference.

Don't surrender your control as a GM-Ref. over how you portray the TNE-verse of the era just yet. There's plenty of wiggle room here for everyone, hence it was written systemless Scott!

Heck, we carved out a place in 1210, which without knowing what the pdf. map looked like, is still in 1248 very much Wilds over in the Wilds' side of the Reft (subsectors L,O,P) for our online campaign.

We made some adjustments to what was written, and inserted a Vampire problematic polity just corewards of the (then) Usdiki Trade Federation for our ATU of it..and voila' the player's and their one ship are out making life miserable for these AI-Overlords.

Its been their challenge to try and stir those humans who hunkered down and played it safe to get involved!

Thanks for the viewpoint though. I can understand the view, and appreciate most of your take as equally valid as mine. But there's room for the one-ship, one crew- makes a difference, yessir.

 

[Elliot]

Well I like it - it fits my view of what Traveller should be - the only problem is that the map obliterates the campaign I have been running for near on a year by putting my viral evil empire slap bang in the Terran Commonwealth (oh well, I'll have to resolve that someway,somehow - and by next Saturday

)

 

[Liam Devlin]

Perhaps this "evil vampire polity" was a public relations smear campaign by say...the 'Starfarer's Mercantile Guild'?

Anti-Solomani Hiver-inspired propaganda?

Do wish you luck, Elliot!

 

[jfetters]

Agreeing with Mal & Liam here. You can do plenty to "make a difference" in these campaigns - the major difference being that you can "make a difference" in a relative safe zone.

But everything is there -

You want to run a high-tech oriented campaign? Go to Deneb.

You want to run a bootstrap campaign? There's plenty of space to have a low-tech world to start from still.

You want to run Smash & Grab? Same thing.

Exploration? Go with the Star Vikings to the core.

That is what I really love about this setting - you can run any kind of campaign and still have the characters make a difference.

 

[Michael Taylor]

Scott Martin said: "Some of the "background" was also a bit troubling in the context of TNE (Ships venting their jump fuel so that can't retreat = ships that can't maneuver)"

Not true. Only the amount of fuel required to Jump was vented. There was enough left to power maneuver, wpns etc.

 

[Michael Taylor]

Also, the battles are not with monster fleets. Compared to ther 3I era, they are much smaller fleets. It's just that in the context of this era, everyone's fleets are much smaller. Also, the largest size of ship is now a 10th of what it was in the 3I era, and these 100,000dt dreadnoughts are very very rare. No Batrons of Tigerresses floating around in 1248...

 

[Scott Martin]

Mal, Liam and Jim
I've never really been a fan of the TNE *setting* (I do like most of the ruleset, as you have probably gathered in other forums) but 1248 was the final "nail" to convince me to never run a game in an official TNE universe. I appreciate the sentiment, but if I know that the "official" universe will have significant numbers of cap ships floating around less than 50 years after the first RC expeditions, I'd rather just avoid the "canon" universe entirely and not worry about revising my "universe" later.
________________________

Michael, I'll go into a bit more detail on why the points you mentioned are much more major to me than they seem to be for you.

If the ships vented just enough fuel to be unable to jump (so all but 9.9% of fuel volume) that would leave them with somewhere in the neigbourhood of 10 G-Turns: this puts most of the fleet below "bingo" fuel, and basically eliminates any evasive maneuvers. This is not CT where "venting J-fuel" means that you only have 4 weeks of maneuver left, this is TNE, where such a move would give high-G ships (like warships) 1-2 hours of maneuver.

As for the "smaller fleets"... from Page 57 of the draft version

The Imperial Battlefleet reached the rendezvous point on 320-1244. Thousands of ships were waiting there...

TNE was about building the future, not watching the future drive over you: the mere presence of this type of fleet means that players are once again watching from the sidelines.

Remember that TNE (The Dawn League) starts with exactly thirteen relic ships: most of the scenarios from the early RC days are modified free traders and scout ships, suggesting that this is what they had to work with. An armed expidition of *6* presumably hastily converted merchant vessels is sent out to look for these lost vessels, and in the process one of these vessels (or at the outside a group of 6) conquers a world

We go from this (where PC's with a ship have the potential to become planetary overlords, or saviors, or...) to a universe where they are once again "on the sidelines" unable to affect the course of empire.

The original TNE went back to where the resources of a WORLD were vast and potentially limitless, especially if given enough time to recover and grow. The World Tamers Handbook was explicitly set up for players to build new worlds. The mere *presence* of large fleets of starships basically dooms all of these "startups" to being minor colonial pawns: as a player why would you bother putting in this effort if you know (metagame) that it's all going to become consolidated under one of the "great powers" again, and that on this scale you're either powergaming or playing with sandcastles.

Scott Martin

 

[Michael Taylor]

Quote from Scott: "If the ships vented just enough fuel to be unable to jump (so all but 9.9% of fuel volume) that would leave them with somewhere in the neigbourhood of 10 G-Turns: this puts most of the fleet below "bingo" fuel, and basically eliminates any evasive maneuvers. This is not CT where "venting J-fuel" means that you only have 4 weeks of maneuver left, this is TNE, where such a move would give high-G ships (like warships) 1-2 hours of maneuver."

Actually. 1248 is not TNE. It is systemless. You can use whatever Traveller ruleset you like with it. If you use TNE, it doesnt fit. If you use CT, MT or T20 is does.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Michael Taylor:
Actually. 1248 is not TNE. It is systemless. You can use whatever Traveller ruleset you like with it. If you use TNE, it doesnt fit. If you use CT, MT or T20 is does.

Michael,

Actually, that statement makes no sense whatsoever. If it is systemless then it should fit all systems.

Or is it "Systemless except for Item A where you can't use CT, Item B where you can't use MT, Item C where you can't use T20, etc., etc., etc. instead?

You've got a fleet numbering in thousands in a 'small ship' universe and you've got a fleet fighting to save the universe that just dumped 90% of their maneuvering fuel.

Any explanations?


Bill

 

[Malenfant]

I think there's always going to be people who just want to bicker over details - if you want to find reasons why you won't like 1248 then you're probably going to find plenty. That seems to be the curse of the Traveller fanbase, people are just way too detail obsessed sometimes.

Personally, I couldn't give two hoots about jump fuel numbers or big or small ship universes or whether it agrees with setting axioms from before - it's a jolly good yarn with lots of epic stuff going on in it, and it sets the scene for a lot of potentially good adventuring.

Either take it as it is, or pick it to pieces. If you take the first option then you're more likely to enjoy it, if you just want to pick over details then you're more likely to just dislike it more and more.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Scott Martin, well your take on the meta game of 1248 is accurate to a point, and one I understand, truly.

But beyond the RC (post Dawn League era of 1192-1200) things begin to change. which this era also is besides a 1-ship makes a difference, and backed by 12 complete worlds of nearly 1billion sophonts from TL-2 (Spires) to TL-12+ (Aubaine). Looking at Path of Tears pages 36-38 we know the following

Point 1 (correction)there were Twelve ships, not 13..
*DLS Aube & Aurora,(both 100dt S),DLS Balder, Brilliant, Dawn, Dammerlicht, Helios,& Ra(All 200dt A2's); DLS Apollo, & Reine Soleil (Both 400dt Donosev's); DLS Eos, & Horus (both 600dt Bastien-class
Sub. Liners) By 1199 all were MFU.

The year 1200 11x rescue vessels of the missing 12 under the RCS titles were the following:
*RCS Trigger (300dt Fiery-class CE); RCS Lady Elise, Mary Ellen Carter, Taylor the Bruce, (All modified 400dt Petty-class Sub freighters); RCS Ligishkunan, & Ridgerunner (both 400dt Valor-class Msl Corvettes); RCS Angor Wat (a Stellar-class EMMC 600dt liner ); RCS Ashtabula, Caloosahatchee, Missinewa, & Patuxent (All 800dt Broadsword Merc carriers).

Pressed into service as RCSA Government couriers for the two subsctor scattered systems of the RC were the following 4ships: RCS Fairfax (A 200dt Baltimore yacht J-4) for the Secretary General; RCS Balthasar Victrix (400dt Solomani Sloop J-3); RCS Vivid (A Bastien 600dt liner J-3); & RCS Crepuscle (Modified Petty-class 400dt with J-3). "These were in use till the clippers came online in late 1201, grdually to be phased out."-PoT, page 36.

Pressed into RCES/RCN service in mid 1201 were the 16 following leftover Solomani Navy 400dt J-3 or J-4 Victrix-class Sloops:
Norfolk-V; Kulkulan-V; Mirabilis-V; Brannamar-V; Coral Sea-V; Riggins-V; Muan Gwi-V; Bellerophon-V; Cymbelline-V; Marathon-V; Ember-V; Jayhawk-V; Vaeleria-V; Sulieman-V; Kelley-V; & Schalli-Victrix, with hulls laid for another six (due out in 1202).

Also by mid 1201 the Type I Clipper (whose base hull was 600dt before modules were added) RCS Aurora too the field. By 001-1202, six months later, she was joined by the Type II's RCS Eos, Apollo, & Aube. Spring of 1202 she was joined by the Type III's RCS Thunderchild, & Immanuel Kant having J-4 recovered engines. Later in 1202 (midsummer) the Typ IV base 700dt hull Clippers appeared with J-5 enginesRCS Maggart, & Karlsruhe took the field by years end. In the slips were another 6x Type III's, (page 37, PoT).

And the 400dt Manta-class Fuelers, there were six in service before the Type IV's took the field, with another 6 in the slips building.(page 37, PoT)

As well building in 1202 were 4x 2500dt Fusilier class Frigates; 4x Lancer-class 2500dt frigates; 1x 2500dt Exploratory cruiser; and 4x 10kton Assault transports. Not to mention in smallcraft they had 3x 100dt orbital tugs, 19x 50dt modular cutters, 18x 15dt Wildbat Fighters, 22x 20dt assault landers,9x 30dt ship's boats/ slowboats; & 3x 10dton gigs(page 38, PoT).

Of course by 001-1202, they had lost in action, or MFU the following:
*the 12x Dawn league ships (of course)-100% casualties
* they'd lost 4x of the 11 Rescue ships (2x 400dt Petty's & 2x 800dt Broadswords)-45% losses
*They'd lost 4x Victrix Sloops of the original 16. (25% casualties)
And they lost 1x clipper off the planet of Nike Nimbus when a Vampire struck there, driving it off after kiling 30,000 folks with its spinal mount. (1 of six lost).

All of this ship building however portended that the RC was going to get bigger, and take back the wilds, Jim. The handwriting was on the wall.

To be fair, you can ignore the metagame plot line, and keep your RC campaign as is. But eventually, the RCSA governing body as it takes in new member worlds, and associate member worlds, gets cumbersome in size, and has to change.

Several of us TNE-heretics forsaw that, and are writing adventures where such events propel that future. They're still 1-ship, 1-crew, making a difference, so Richard Perks, Matt Ashley, and I hope you look at them at least when they see light of day.

But all those 1-ship, 1-crew events don't happen in a vaccuum. They add up, dude...and get you into a future.

Or else your still struggling with an omnipotent Virus enemy--which it isn't. But, you do it your way, and keep your gamer's happy.

And best of luck to you. That's my take. & Thanks for being civil too. One thanks moderators being present again too!

As ever was,

Daniel Hammersley
Pyromaniac of 1248, OoTD

 

[Michael Taylor]

Bill, what I meant was that TNE's ship design system does not fit the bill when it comes to venting Jump Fuel, as Scott pointed out. But it does fit with all the other Traveller ship design systems that have ever been created in the last 25 years.

Quote from Bill: "You've got a fleet numbering in thousands in a 'small ship' universe and you've got a fleet fighting to save the universe that just dumped 90% of their maneuvering fuel."

There was never any definition from MJD on the composdition of the fleet in terms of sizes of those ships. I gather most would have been small. That's my impression. The fleet came from every polity in charted space, so it is not inconceivable that 100+ ships came from the Hierate, 50+ from the Terrna Cwth, 50+ from the Zhos, etc. They aren;t all going to be ships of the line. My impression is a handful would have been 50,000 tons or more. Remember that "dreadnought" in 1248 terms is the same size as a Heavy Cruiser in 3I terms.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Michael Taylor:
Bill, what I meant was that TNE's ship design system does not fit the bill when it comes to venting Jump Fuel, as Scott pointed out.

Michael,

Understood.

But it does fit with all the other Traveller ship design systems that have ever been created in the last 25 years.

Understood again. However, that does mean in this case the material isn't systemless.

There was never any definition from MJD on the composdition of the fleet in terms of sizes of those ships. I gather most would have been small. That's my impression. The fleet came from every polity in charted space, so it is not inconceivable that 100+ ships came from the Hierate, 50+ from the Terrna Cwth, 50+ from the Zhos, etc. They aren;t all going to be ships of the line. My impression is a handful would have been 50,000 tons or more. Remember that "dreadnought" in 1248 terms is the same size as a Heavy Cruiser in 3I terms.

A 3I heavy cruiser of the Rebellion Era, according to FSotSI, can range in size from 20K dTon to 80k dTon. Nothing in that range can be said to be a small ship or 'player scale' no matter how much you squint or spin.

Hmmm... Zhodani from the Marches, Terrans from the Rim, Aslan from beyond Dark Nebula, and all those sectors of Wilds to cross. The idea that large numbers of ships of any size can suddenly cross the 'blasted heath' without any sort of logistical trail is a question that should be left for another day.

Good attempts at explanation and none of this should stop anyone from buying OotD. I've had the materials via playtest for some time now and I'll repeat what I've been saying for years; It will sell like hotcakes. It's what the Hobby has been waiting for for years.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[jfetters]

The issue about the ship sizes was never a big deal to me - I figured that over time, the RC would be able to salvage a few big honking ships - not to mention re-infect a few with Sandman variants.

Add to that the capital ships that still exist in the Regency and you have yourself a decent fleet.

However, I can't argue with the deus ex machinae used in the sourcebook because, really, how else is a "rag-tag" fleet going to defeat a fairly large TL15/16 fleet? I mean there is strength in numbers, but when your cap ship can vaporize most of the sub-1000 ton ships at each firing, it is only a matter of time...

 

[MJD]

What's this business with ship sizes?

Did I somewhere say this was a small-ship universe? Did I sign up to a faction somewhere?

No, I didn't

I tied up the horrendous mess that was several versions of Traveller leading into a storyline I was handed, and I did it the best I could. I spent ten years getting it published.

You might notice that most of the remaining real-big ships in Charted Space were destroyed at 2nd Gateway.

But one thing. I never set out to create a small-ship universe (what's one of those anyway?). There will always be huge warships available to great powers. One bloke in a fighter only makes a difference in Star Wars.

Course, you want a small ship universe, well, I just blew up all the big ones for you.

It's a detail of history, that's all.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Originally posted by MJD:
I tied up the horrendous mess that was several versions of Traveller leading into a storyline I was handed, and I did it the best I could. I spent ten years getting it published.

I just bought PDF last night at 1:00 AM and just finished skimming it

First I was OMG

then
then
then OMG
now Congrats and Thank you!
Talk about tying it all together! I never know how Virus would be addressed/removed/enhanced for a new setting. Thank you!

For an encore will you do Heat Death of the Universe? Please?

 

[Badbru]

Sigh...

This topic has progressed exactly as I thought it would.

Half a dozen or so guys would say "Yay great product" (And it probably is based on the 1248 playtest draft I have), but sooner or later someone would say "but it's just not TNE".

And they'd be right.

So, yes Scott, I agree with you. There are elements within the body of the text that make it difficult to reconcile with the TNE rules set.

Here's the thing though, it's not supposed to be TNE. Nor is it supposed to be CT, or MT, or T20, or even GURPS.

IT'S JUST TRAVELLER.

Modify it suit yourself. Personally I think it's the most maluable setting yet created for our beloved game. There's enough goodness in there for us all to get something out of it. Afterall isn't that what we've all been doing for the last 20+ years anyway?

(Sad post script. I also suspected MJD would come on in and defend himself. Sad that he feels the need. Sad that criticism has built up so much over the years he appears now to be thin skinned over it. Sadder still that it distracts him from finishing his Road to Sufren adventures.
I also suspected that Mal would come in with his usual whinge at any whinger and post his usual cure-all advice: "If you don't like it don't buy it but just stop whinging about it". Saddest still is he'll probably read this as a personal attack and refute it for the next 3 pages of posts.)

Sigh...

 

[Malenfant]

(Sad post script. I also suspected MJD would come on in and defend himself. Sad that he feels the need. Sad that criticism has built up so much over the years he appears now to be thin skinned over it. Sadder still that it distracts him from finishing his Road to Sufren adventures.
I also suspected that Mal would come in with his usual whinge at any whinger and post his usual cure-all advice: "If you don't like it don't buy it but just stop whinging about it". Saddest still is he'll probably read this as a personal attack and refute it for the next 3 pages of posts.)

Sigh... [/QB]

So what you're saying is, is that you're pretty sad about a lot of things? (is it sad that you had to write all that too?) But still, the one thing you failed to predict was your own post!

And the only reason I give out my 'usual cure-all advice' is because it's true. Complaining about how things aren't the way you wanted things to turn out isn't going to change what was written in any way at all. Once you're in a position to write your own rules and sell them then you can decide how canon should be. Until then though, you have three choices - accept it and take it as it is, or take it and change it to what you want it to be for your own game (which I imagine most people would do), or just ignore it completely. Complaining about it is optional but not likely to get a result that you want. That may not be advice that people want to hear, but it doesn't change the fact that this is what it all ultimately boils down to in the end.

 

[MJD]

Nathan... did you know that there was once a planned Traveller setting dealing with the heat death?

Of course, I prefer to end it all with a humongous bang but hey...