Real life

Real life has been kicking my ass for the last few months, but that should be changing "Real Soon Now". Stuff should be posted here again soonish.

Ships and craft design in the pipeline.

Design pipeline

• A 7,500 dTon "Dreadnaught"


• 30 dTon Torpedo boat


• 50 dTon LAC


• 1000/2000 dTon LAC Carrier (1000 dTon core.  Carries 20 LAC)

Small Ship Traveller Universe

A Small Ship Traveller Universe -  A Bit of Handwavium to explain it.

In Mongoose Traveller, Capital ships (i.e. those over 2k dTons) are required to be in section. The largest one that can be done in just 2 sections is 7,500 dTons, which, as it happens in MTU, is the largest volume that a TL 15 anti-gravity field can support. Jump drives need A/G fields to make jump bubbles, so that also limits how big a jump capable ship can be. A/G fields affecting volumes of space, not mass, also explains why space ships are sized in dTons and the mass of the ship doesn't matter or affect how many G's acceleration it can pull. Due to the rather massive drop in both size and cost of spinal mounts, even meson guns up to Type C (the largest being D) could be mounted in a TL 15 craft.

This was first posted to the TML, but this is the "official" blog of My Traveller Universe, so I'm putting it here so it is  made official and stuff.

Mongoose Traveller Core Rulebook MGP 3800 Part 9 Psionics.

Psionics

Use the Force....

Psionics is the optional 7th characteristic, rolled the same way, but with a -1DM per terms served up to that point. Values under 0 are 0 and mean you have no psionics at all. Your current PSI characteristic is also the number of psi strength points you have to spend on powers.

Once you have found out you raw amount of skill, assuming out side of character generation¹ you need to be trained. This takes 4 months and 100,000 Cr. This boils down to making a series of psi skill checks to find which talents you know. If you are still in CharGen when you get psions, training happens as part of your skill rolls.

There are 5 talents, which are (in reverse order of ease of learning)

1. Teleportation


2. Awareness


3. Telekinesis


4. Clairvoyance


5. Telepathy

If you make you skill checks in that order it's a flat roll plus your modifier to beat 8 to get the talent. Doing them out of that order has some DM's based on the talent and the number of rolls you have made. The DM starts at +0 for Teleportation and ends at +4 for Telepathy, with a -1 DM per roll made to learn a talent.

Each talent is also treated as a skill, in that you gain levels in it, assuming you take a term or so in the Psionic career. Each talent is also broken up into smaller powers

Telepathy

• Life Detection


• Telempathy


• Read Surface Thought


• Send Thoughts


• Probe


• Assault

Clairvoyance

• Sense


• Tactical Awareness


• Clairvoyance


• Clairaudience


• Clairsentience

Telekinesis

• Telekinesis


• Flight


• Telekinetic Punch


• Microkinesis


• Pyrokinesis

Awareness

• Suspended Animation


• Enhanced Awareness


• Psionically Enhanced Strength


• Psionically Enhanced Endurance


• Regeneration


• Body Armor

Teleportation

Unlike the other talents it doesn't have any powers under it, just it gets more and more difficult the farther you attempt to 'port and how much you are taking with you. They still have Classic Traveller's change in gravitational potential being a bad idea when teleporting, just for what it's worth. The psi drugs are listed, and few pieces of psionic technology.

The Psions Career

Like the other careers it's broke down into 3 assignments, Wild Talent, Adept and Psi-Warrior.

Luke, as a random possible psionic character, was a Citizen colonist who rolled a 12 on a his first life event then spent a bunch of terms as a psi-warrior, if you get what I mean, and I think you do.

I am iffy about psionics. If you are running in Foreven (or the Spinward Marches) you have to pay some attention to it, because of the Zhodani and, to a lesser amount the Droyne. In MTU it's going to stay rare for PC and be mainly used by NPC/monsters, unless, like Luke, it comes up during character generation via events. I'm not going to allow PCs to pick it up post CharGen

¹Several events can lead to getting to roll psionics strength, most notable a 12 on the life event table, which all careers have a chance at rolling on.

The Challenge Class 2k dTon Cruiser

The Challenge Class 2,000 dTon Cruiser¹

The Challenge class cruiser is designed to be "laser proof" and very hard to hurt with any thing less than 100 dTon class bay weapons.

Component	Displacement tonnage	MCr	Notes
2000 dTon Hull (Class L)	2K	220	Streamlined
Full RSTHR Hull skin	N/a	1100	Reflect (+3 Armor vs Lasers) Self Sealing Stealth(-4 DM vs sensor lock) Heat Shielding Radiation Shielding (+6 vs Rad)
12 points Crystal-iron Armor	300	120	15  Vs Lasers 18  Vs Radiation attacks
Jump Drive R	85	160	Jump 3
Jump Fuel	600	-	Jump 3
Maneuver Drive U	37	76	4 G Acceleration
Fusion Power Plant Class U	58	152	Rating 4
Power Plant Fuel	32	-
Bridge with Very Advanced sensors	45	14	-
Computer MK IV and software	-	27.3	Rating 20 Software loaded Library Maneuver/0 Jump Control/3 Evade 2 Fire Control/4 Auto Repair/2
Weapons and Screens
5 X Large Particle Bay	500	200	9D6 plus crew hit
7 x Triple Turrets	7	35	Particle Beam (3D6 damage, plus crew hit)
8 x Triple Turrets	8	24	3 x Beam Lasers 1d6 Used for point defense.
2 x Nuclear Dampers	40	60	-4d6 Damage, No crew hit from radiation attack
2 x Meson Screens	40	120	-4d6 vs Meson weapons
Crew and Misc.
17 Statesroom	76.5	10.2	Crew Commander XO Piloting Officer Navigation Officer Chief Engineer Medical Officer 3 x Engineering Crew 2 x Screen operators 20 x Gunners
	Each states room has an escape pod. All the rooms, other than the commander's are dual bunked.
Repair Drones	20	4
Full Hanger or Cargo Space	150	30	Can carry 105 dTon of craft will full access
Totals	2000 dTon	2,132.5 Mcr	This is a rather expensive ship, but over half the cost is the hull and it's skin. With just normal armor and skin the cost is 1,032.5 Mcr

¹Built with Mongoose Traveller's High Guard rules.

Real life

Real life, in the form of needing to make calls on the big white phone due to a dumb dinner idea kicked in.  Will post ship designs Sunday morning.  I hope.

Mongoose Traveller, Space Combat, Part II

On The Traveller Mailing List (tml@simplelists.com, subscribe by going Here if you are not a member. Go on, do it. If you are reading this you need to be on the list. I'll wait) the viability of small combat craft got brought up as a reply to my statement about not liking masses of massive ships, with the Classic Traveller High Guard rules about size of ship vs power of weapons as an example of why you want big ships.

This is not about Classic Traveller, so it's rules are only slightly important here, and only where they differ from Mongoose Traveller do they get brought up.  I haven't gotten to High Guard yet, so the difference between it and CT High Guard combat hasn't been a subject, yet.

Yes, I know Fighters in Traveller is flame bait subject, but I'm going to look at it any way.

I agree, 10 dTon fighters are damn close to useless, other than against smaller (say sub 400 dTon or so) and lightly armored space ships.  No arguments there. On the other hand, I think a 50 dTon Honor Harrington style LAC can be made that will as difficult to damage with non "capital" weapons (read a bay weapons or bigger) and that will be a threat, if only for a single volley or so, against major ships (i.e. not another small craft),  A 50 dTon LAC style craft could carry, for example 1 Torpedo and one laser (for use as point defense or vs smaller targets), which would make it a threat, if only for a single volley, against most ships.  A basic non-nuke torpedo does 4d6 damage, which, is going to penetrate most armor on an average roll, and all armor on a just slightly over average roll, just using rules as written.

Page 99 of High Guard has a 40 dTon, armor 10, 10G torpedo boat that carries 2 torpedoes. It's fairly close to the HH style LAC as it stands, but isn't self escorting and can be hurt by a laser or a missile. Maybe.  If they roll real high on damage.

Armor is very important in space combat in Mongoose Traveller and is fairly cheap, both in tonnage and credits.   With Rules As Written, 6 points of armor makes you invulnerable to a pulse lasers (or beam lasers if you apply the High Guard changes) and 12 points makes you beam laser (or a pulse laser with HG changes)¹ lasers proof. Not going to stop a Particle Beam or a Meson weapon, but you are using turret sized lasers and non-nuke missile? I laugh at you and call you a silly person.

In MTU, I use the personal level combat rule that the effect of the to hit roll (the amount over 8 rolled, after modifiers) is applied as damage on that attack. Any effect over 6 means that 1 point of damage gets through, regardless of armor. This makes good and lucky (defined as skill level 4 and rolling a to hit of 12) gunner gets +8 damage, which against an armor 6 craft is going to do at least 3 points of damage and could do 8, assuming it's only a 1d6 weapon, which translate to either 1 single hit, or 2 single hits, which, could, in theory, blow a fighter out of space. On the other hand, if you roll a 7 on location both times, all you did was reduce the armor by a total of 2 points.  Of course that will make the next hit do more damage. You want 6's or 8's if you want to kill it. Other non 7 results will result in possible "mission kills" I'll grant, but not that expanding ball of plasma.

As my project for the day, during breaks from "Project Clean the House" I am going to design a 50 dTon LAC that is "self escorting", an 30 dTon torpedo boat (which might no be as easy, despite 30 dTon being a sweet spot in small craft design and a 2,000 dTon 4G Jump 3 ship. The 2K ton ship would be a "Light Cruiser" in a Large Ship Traveller game, but would be a "Battle Ship" in a Small Ship Traveller game.

My Traveller Universe is a "Small Ship" game. Capital (i.e. ships over 2Ktons) are very, very rare, even in the Imperial Navy. Mongoose Traveller's "Barrage" based combat doesn't make this a bad as it could be. Granted it does eliminate spinal weapons, but a "large bay" comes damn close for a smaller ship. Not having capital ships also cuts down on the 9 to 37 (!) pages of tiny type ship's maps.

Rant. Mongoose needs to stop doing that. The maps, for large ships, are too small to read and damn near useless for a 'dungeon' map, and in some books, just plain ugly due to the software used to draw them. Waste of book pages, In My Arrogant Opinion

¹They reversed which one does 1d6 vs 2d6 in High Guard, but made pulse lasers have a -2 DM to hit. Why? I don't freaking know.