T 5 Has arrived!!!!

[infojunky]

Issues with ship design rules. Or Pimp My Scoutboat.

First off, wow, what one little comment can lead to. Second these are my observations not a call to change anything within the T5 draft.

In a lot of ways I kinda still like the basics, Book2 is still a good framework for RPG scale ship construction and combat. But its traditional failing is that it is very thin in detail. Part of this was "solved" with the release of High Guard. Unfortunately High Guard was really geared towards large ship/fleet combat. And it's combat resolution was scaled towards that end as well. As well as the added weapons and other gear.

Now before you you argue on way or the other these are just my observations from running the game for 30 or so years.

I am not bashing High Guard, like many of you I have used the heck out of High Guard. I wasted many an hour in High School designing ships in class.

My list of things that bug me;

Fractional performance drives, While I can understand the need for a nice clean integer for use in the war game in High Guard, but in the vector based system in Book2 and a lot of RP situations this very useful information. And it makes for differentiation between otherwise identical designs.

Installation of multiple drives, Why can't I? I'm not asking for something for nothing. But shouldn't 3 Class A mDrive = the performance of 1 Class C? Under Book2 this was covered somewhat by the reduction of letter code which reduced performance by the potential chart and High Guard it was a direct reduction of Drive potential, but later editions weren't quite as forgiving.... I may be talking my self out of some of this.... But I will forge on.

Smallcraft, I'm not sure were to start. But first off SCALE, Small craft have always been the low hanging fruit, on shot and frequently they are gone. This Ok in a wargame, sucks massively if the pilot was your favorite PC.

On a related subject, with smallcraft a unified mechanic for weapons damage across personnel, vehicles and ship combat. Striker kinda works for this, but the list power inputs for ship scale energy weapons is off by about an order-of-magnitude, to high.

A set of what are standard specifications for civilian ships electronics. Book2 set this arbitrarily and MgT gave them specifically, other editions they where just kinda there.

Back to weapons, Sub-50 ton bays, More options for turrets and barbettes. etc.. etc... Missile options that make some sort of sense.

This all really boils down to PCs need more options.

 

[ganymede]

So what you're saying is you want to see, what, Challenge revived or something like that, so you can put in an ad to pimp your scoutboat?

Did I get that right?

 

[infojunky]

So what you're saying is you want to see, what, Challenge revived or something like that, so you can put in an ad to pimp your scoutboat?

Did I get that right?

Pretty damn close....

 

[DonM]

Pretty damn close....

I read those two posts, and was reminded of those "in-game ads" that Traveller's Digest and MegaTraveller Journal had...

TAS Presents... Pimp Your Scoutboat

I need serious clinical help... :rofl:

 

[Merxiless]

Well, I can't wait to see what all the fuss is about, I ordered the T5 CD-ROM earlier this evening.

I personally saw nothing wrong with Alternity, once I got used to it. So Xd6 isn't likely gonna bother me...I've been a gamer since 1977, starting with Classic Traveller.

 

[warwizard]

Ok I'll step in here, I'm one of the more than 10 gamers that use FF&S2 Yes I'm a way out there serious gearhead, and no I'm not on the preorder list. The production problems reported on the various scanned CD's have been somewhat offputting, and I have everything GDW ever published except perhaps for some of the europa titles and JTAS 1,2, and 3. I hated the GRUPS concept of character generation so have never bought even one grups traveller title, so only have perhaps 6 ft of shelf space used for Traveller related stuff.
Yes I'd be interested in buying a T5 FF&S, No I'd not really be interested in another Bk2 HG QSDS or other such item. Though the design bit that allows you to create conversions from the low level designs to the counters like thoes in Imperium or Fifth Frontier War for use in setting up your own pocket empire , I find the military system set forth in Pocket Empires is just a bit too abstracted.
I've had my share of trying to gather in the erratta and figure out what the tables are supposed to look like. I do have a day job and not much time for face to face gaming, so I'll wait untill we have what passes for a mostly corrected actual T5 production release and we get a review of what we'll be getting in T5.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I'm no fan of GURPS, but the background info in the GT books is excellent.

 

[Hal]

Just out of curiosity, how complete is the T5 system at present? I almost succumbed to temptation to buy the T5 cd, but held off on the chance that it was not as yet completed.

As it was, I had to bite my knuckles to avoid purchasing a copy of Pocket Empires from Drivethru as a PDF. I've had this dream that someday I'd sit down, and set up a Pocket Empires game for the Island clusters, and then convert the RIU into currency values, and then tell players for the Island Clusters campaign that they can build what ever fleet they can come up with via HIGH GUARD, subject to all the fun stuff in PE. <sigh>

 

[infojunky]

Just out of curiosity, how complete is the T5 system at present? I almost succumbed to temptation to buy the T5 cd, but held off on the chance that it was not as yet completed.

Define complete Please?

As it was, I had to bite my knuckles to avoid purchasing a copy of Pocket Empires from Drivethru as a PDF. I've had this dream that someday I'd sit down, and set up a Pocket Empires game for the Island clusters, and then convert the RIU into currency values, and then tell players for the Island Clusters campaign that they can build what ever fleet they can come up with via HIGH GUARD, subject to all the fun stuff in PE.

Why would you need T5 for that?

 

[Hal]

Defining complete: A product that has been published with the expectation that all work has been completed on that particular project. In the days of dead tree products (aka books), there were a given number of pages contained within the book, a given number of chapters contained within the book, and everything was finalized such that the book could be printed without having to revise the book within 1 month by adding a new chapter, reworking an old chapter, etc - and having to reprint the revised edition.

As to why would I need T5 for an old dream? I don't <g>. Someday, if I get things done that I'd like to, I'd like to actually run a PE version of a HG based naval battle and economic battle and diplomatic battle etc - based solely upon the Island clusters region. That would make for a fun and interesting project I think - regardless of whether it was done with CT, T4, T5 or even GURPS TRAVELLER (as I've not seen Mongoose Traveller, I can't comment upon that).

 

[robject]

Just out of curiosity, how complete is the T5 system at present? I almost succumbed to temptation to buy the T5 cd, but held off on the chance that it was not as yet completed.

If you need it to be complete right now, then hold off. But, if you'd like to join the 400+ other people who are testing chargen, combat, guns, armor, vehicles, starships, worlds, trade, psionics, and aliens, then buy it and let Don know so he can give you access to the playtest forum... and you'll get the updates as we go. Otherwise, hold off.

Here's another way to decide: if you post to COTI a few times a week, then you may have enough time to spend with playtest. Otherwise, hold off.

Don can say more about its completeness, maybe.

As it was, I had to bite my knuckles to avoid purchasing a copy of Pocket Empires from Drivethru as a PDF. I've had this dream that someday I'd sit down, and set up a Pocket Empires game for the Island clusters, and then convert the RIU into currency values, and then tell players for the Island Clusters campaign that they can build what ever fleet they can come up with via HIGH GUARD, subject to all the fun stuff in PE. <sigh>

[/quote]

I loved Pocket Empires, back in the day. But, it turned out to be too much number crunching for too little gain, for me. The nicest thing about it, though, was how it laid out the process of improving your little empire's worlds via tasks.

 

[Jamus]

I have to disagree with this. OTHER than the Xd6 skill mechanic.

And ACS is so NOT FF&S to me. It's NOT HG either, but...

Let's face it... T4's QSDS was not Book 2, and never would be. T5's ACS is very solidly a Book 2 descendant, and not related to QSDS.

And I have to ask how much of the real T5 (the CD) you've seen to make that comment (and because your name isn't on the pre-order list).

TBH i never used anything but LBB2 until MgT came out and kind of felt a bit of pity for those who did.

The actions of the game during play are determined by a very T4 mechanic. ship building and stuff like that is for people who need to play the game more and worry about every cubic gram of a ships lavatory less.

 

[dean]

TBH i never used anything but LBB2 until MgT came out and kind of felt a bit of pity for those who did.

The actions of the game during play are determined by a very T4 mechanic. ship building and stuff like that is for people who need to play the game more and worry about every cubic gram of a ships lavatory less.

Or, maybe due to constraints of time or place, can't play more but would like to; thus worrying over how every cubic centimeter is allocated is a form of playing for them and is Traveller.

I'd say you might wish to put yourself in their shoes before making that kind of blanket assessment. YMMV.

 

[robject]

ACS is so NOT FF&S to me. It's NOT HG either, but...

Let's face it... T4's QSDS was not Book 2, and never would be. T5's ACS is very solidly a Book 2 descendant, and not related to QSDS.

Okay, the drives are extended and adapted from Book 2. But the resemblance ends there.

Everything else, it seems, is different. Fuel usage is closer to High Guard, I guess, or MGT. Sensors and weapons and defenses remind me more of MegaTraveller than anything else. Armor reminds me of T4, sort of. I don't know what to compare the computers with.