Verifying The Astrogation Task for Mongoose 2e

[Moebius]

Traveller5 Core Book 2 Starships > How Ship Systems Work > Jump. This chapter was fantastic reading. Maybe some of my favorite Traveller reading yet.

An interesting element was the Astrogation Task Verification event. Has this been talked about and depicted in the Mongoose 2e rules?

I thought I was going to find it in Highguard, didn't see it. Then I thought it might have been covered in Journal of the Travellers's Aid Society Vol 3 (for Mongoose 2e), wasnt there either. Maybe it is in one of these and I missed it? or maybe its not considered yet.

Is Verifying the Astrogation Task a Traveller5 original concept? Or has this appeared in other Traveller versions already?

Is there a Traveller5 to Mongoose 2e formula for general task difficulties, maybe?

I haven't delved too deep into Traveller5 yet. I read too far and get overwhelmed but it. Little by little. This question opened up the Traveller5 idea of Uncertain Tasks. That was interesting!

 

[Spinward Scout]

When Mongoose 1e came out, I tried putting together a list of different things to build up to a modifier that the Astrogator would have to roll against to get the right Jump vector.

Consequently, what I mostly found is that I suck at Math. Or at least building equations. It never really went anywhere.

But I might buy T5 just to see what that looks like.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Don't forget that Mongoose Traveller has chained tasks. Their Ship Operations can be mined for ideas in this matter. No math.

 

[Spinward Scout]

I saw someone posted an Astrogation Task Chain on Facebook. Looked interesting.

 

[mike wightman]

Every roll of the dice after the first in a 'task chain' reduces your overall chance of success.

Let's say I decide you need to make 3 rolls to safely plot a jump, I want you to succeed and so I set a target of 80% per roll, what could go wrong?
80% chance on the first roll, no problem.
80% on the second, a trifle
80% on the third what's the point of rolling this is so easy.

It doesn't work like that.

The probability you will make the first two rolls is .8 x .8 = 0.64 or 64% - still worth the risk - only one in three jump attempts fails.

Requiring three successful rolls is .8 x .8 x .8 or 0.51 - now half of all jump attempts fail.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

Every roll of the dice after the first in a 'task chain' reduces your overall chance of success.

Let's say I decide you need to make 3 rolls to safely plot a jump, I want you to succeed and so I set a target of 80% per roll, what could go wrong?
80% chance on the first roll, no problem.
80% on the second, a trifle
80% on the third what's the point of rolling this is so easy.

It doesn't work like that.

The probability you will make the first two rolls is .8 x .8 = 0.64 or 64% - still worth the risk - only one in three jump attempts fails.

Requiring three successful rolls is .8 x .8 x .8 or 0.51 - now half of all jump attempts fail.

Also bear in mind that to get a positive effect on the helped person you need to have a task success yourself...which is less than a 50% chance (41%) if you have an unmodified roll and just 8% for an unskilled unmodified roll. Thus most help makes things worse directly as well as indirectly. Don't hire unskilled help!

 

[mike wightman]

The best way to construct a 'task chain' mechanism is to allow every successful roll to contribute success points - in MgT this could be effect number based. A failed roll then slows thing up but doesn't cause the jump to fail.

Let's say you need 10 'points' per parsec you are jumping, and each roll generates its effect number... something like that.

 

[Condottiere]

Transfer the difference in success to the next role.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

There was a mechanism used in one of the Mongoose books (Dynasty I think) where the objective was to accumulate N effect points. Succeed in getting that number of points (by whatever mechanism) in the time allotted and the task succeeds.

I quite like that mechanism.

 

[mike wightman]

I quite like the sound of that - if you don't make your points in the time allotted you fail and have to start again.

 

[Fovean]

Transfer the difference in success to the next role.

This is how we have always played, the Effect of the first roll is a direct DM on the second, the second carries over to third, etc.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Here's the Calculations I tried to make. It looks like it might have been for T20. It's a mess. But maybe there's something here you can use.

I did some equations for variable jump durations a while back. Some folks didn't like them as they weren't canon as far as travel time (i.e. if you have a Jump-2 drive and are only going Jump-1, it cuts your travel time according to these calculations. Someone also suggested throwing in an exponential in there somewhere, but I never knew exactly where to put it. I designed this more for playability (the player playing the navigation gets to use a calculator unless the computer is down).

JUMP PLOT CALCULATION
- ((( B + G + R + C ) X P ) / D ) X F )

Base DC ( B )
- 15

Fuel Used ( F )
- 2 - Unrefined ( Cr100 )
1 - Refined ( Cr500 )

Distance Traveling ( P )
- In Parsecs

Jump Drive ( D )
- Rating of Drive (i.e. J-5 drive, J-2 drive, etc...)

Gravity Disturbance ( G )
- +15 - less than 10 diameters from gravity well
+5 - less than 100 diameters from gravity well
+0 - more than 100 diameters from gravity well

Destination Circumstances ( R )
- -5 - Familiar Destination (negates other destination circumstances)
+5 - Fringe/Frontier region
+5 - Deep Space (empty hex)
+10 - Uncharted region

Other Circumstances ( C )
- +15 - No Functioning Ship's Computer
+5 - Rushed, under fire
+5 - per month past annual maintenance
+5 - Using old Jump Tapes
-5 - Extra time taken for calculations and system cross-checks
-5 - Using a manual astrogation plotter to cross-check
-5 - Using recent Jump Tapes
+2 - Drop tanks used to fuel jump
+2 - per field repair since last annual maintenance
+1 - per major damage since annual maintenance
+1 - per rebuild of drive (as opposed to full replacement)



TRAVEL TIME CALCULATION
- ((( B + R ) X P ) / D ) - A

Base Time ( B )
- 147 hours

Randomizer Dice ( R )
- roll 6d6

Distance Traveled ( P )
- In Parsecs

Jump Drive ( D )
- Rating of Drive (i.e. J-5 drive, J-2 drive, etc...)

Astrogator's Modifier ( A )
- This is the number the Astrogator's Jump Plot check succeeds by divided by 5.