Will T5 be here by the end of the year?
- Thread starter poi
- Start date
Perfect bound, probably. (Are there still problems with this?) About 300 pages, right?
And you're spot on - the CD-first is for review and redaction. Then the print and a revised CD. And R-Man is probably right about the timing -- it'll depend on what revisions get put in.
There is a lot to test, and there are nooks and crannies to poke. And there are lists to generate... the weapon description system makes me want to build guns instead of starships, which is a first for me.
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Have we mortals ever seen this weapon description system?
It's an intricate system; when you hear people here talking about tables and tools in disgust, that's because there's a lot of moving parts.
At the same time, though, the tools and tables produce playable values rather than abstract numbers. And, to a large extent, these values were inspired by classic Traveller and are largely compatible with them. And, most importantly, the more commonly used tools are simpler than the less common ones.
At the same time, though, the tools and tables produce playable values rather than abstract numbers. And, to a large extent, these values were inspired by classic Traveller and are largely compatible with them. And, most importantly, the more commonly used tools are simpler than the less common ones.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Robject,
This news on the weapon design system in T5 is the first thing I've heard about T5 that has made me say, "Hmm...that might be interesting." Up until now, I've seen nothing that intrigued me and much I dislike.
Finally...something that makes me want to look at T5.
Thanks for that.
The date has been pushed back to March 1st.
I'm hoping.
Something that's always welcomed in a game is a generous equipment list.
So far, Marc has produced a system where you pick the basic weapon type, a subtype, a couple of modifiers (like "Advanced", "Combat", "Snub", "Portable" -- he took cues from Traveller's weapons themselves), and you get a weapon code, name, range, mass, damage, and price.
Then as an example, he used it to model the weapons used in Mercenary. I then tried to reproduce the ten TTB firearms, and came up with some variable tweaks, which he applied back to the draft. Now it looks like it can reproduce TTB and Mercenary close enough to be worth the effort.
It produces most weapons needed in a Traveller game. It can take alien grips into account. It may also produce a Reliability modifier, in some rare cases.
I was slightly worried, because these kinds of systems sometimes produce "generic" weapons. But, it looks like this does model game effects for Traveller, easy enough for people like me to design and use, deep enough for people who care about mass and boundary cases, and flexible enough to produce a shopper's catalog.
Here's a subset of the examples Marc created.
Code:
Model Weapon Rng Cr B Kg H1 H2
LtMg-6 Light Machinegun 4 4500 0 5.6 3D Bullet-3
AR-7 Assault Rifle 4 750 0 3.2 4D Bullet-1 Blast-2 Bang-1
AcR-9 Accelerator Rifle 5 900 0 2.4 3D Bullet-3
PGMP-12 Plasma Gun Man Portable 4 10000 1 22 9D Blast-6 Burn-3
FGMP-14 Fusion Gun Man Portable 5 30000 1 20 11D Blast-7 Burn-4For my edification, here's a high-tech fusion weapon I designed myself. Took about 5 minutes. That's the way I like it.
Code:
Model Weapon Rng Cost B Kg H1 H2
ModVlFG-17 Modified VLight Fusion Gun 6 72000 1 11 8D Heat-4 Burn-4I could plunk this down into CT with little or no fuss.
How 'bout something else... let's see if a heavy plasma Cannon looks ok.
Code:
Model Weapon Rng Cost B Kg H1 H2
HPCV-12 Heavy Plasma Cannon Tank Mounted 12 80000 -7 650 11D Heat+6 Burn+5Seems a little cheap, don't you think? And only 11D of damage -- is that enough? Needs tweaking, maybe. The range on that thing is ridiculously high. Ah, and its Burden rating is dismal. Maybe it's not worth more than KCr80... so I suspect I'd have to game the system a little to get the burden lightened, the damage increased, and perhaps it doesn't need such a range.
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Looks good, robject.
Just out of curiousity, what is the H2 column?
-Fox
There's two ways to do damage. The H1 column is for people like me, who generally just want to blow things up. The H2 column breaks down the damage into categories, for times when it's important to know -- like fragmentation, which probably could cause area damage, or burn, which could be mitigated with asbestos long underwear or something like that.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
That's pretty much exactly the way I'd do it. I'm getting jazzed by this...
He's also applied that concept to battledress and combat armor design. Which sounds like overkill to me, but as long as he's on a roll...
On a roll is right. The more I hear of it the more I like it. My bonus stuff arrived yesterday afternoon, Hoot! That is not bad, 8 days from the US. Mind you, it was a letter which is likely to come a bit faster than a parcel.
