Steve Posted January 5, 2007 Report Share Posted January 5, 2007 In my seemingly never-ending quest for creating a Star Hero campaign, I've been digging out my old Traveller stuff and considering how best to mix it with Hero Universe alien races and empires. The Terran Empire for the Hero Universe is... okay, but there's a depth to Traveller's universe (and the multiple Imperiums it has had) that just can't be beat IMHO. That being said, I do like several Hero Universe races like the Malvans and Thorgons and am looking for ideas on how to integrate them into Traveller's Third (or maybe Fourth) Imperium. Anyone done any mix and match like this? I know Traveller Hero looms on the horizon, so that's part of why I've been looking over Traveller stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starwolf Posted January 5, 2007 Report Share Posted January 5, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe We kind of have a mix N match campaign going over in the Star Hero\Gemini Ascendant thread. We have been playing weekly since about june 2006. The campaign is a sort of Star Frontiers set in the early days of the TE. So we have Drasalite, Vrusk, and Yazarian, and have not yet met up with the regular TE alien races... but they are out there... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted January 5, 2007 Report Share Posted January 5, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe That being said' date=' I do like several Hero Universe races like the Malvans and Thorgons and am looking for ideas on how to integrate them into Traveller's Third (or maybe Fourth) Imperium.[/quote'] Obvious questions: How much territory do you want them to control? Where would your game be set? Are you planning on setting your game in one of the "standard" published sectors - the Spinward Marches or the Solomani Rim - or somewhere else? If you want the Hero Universe races to feature prominently in your game you would probably want them to be geo-, err, astrographically close to where your game is set. The Marches would probably be better than the Solomani Rim for this, as there is little canonical detail for some areas close to it, and what there is can be easily ignored. Basically, you can put anything you want in, say, Beyond sector and nobody will notice the difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowcat1313 Posted January 5, 2007 Report Share Posted January 5, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe mixing Traveller and SH/TE is doable, its really going to depend on how much work you want to put into it. one of the biggest areas where your going to have to make changes/decisions is tech wise. 1. Traveller uses the jump drive, whereas TE uses Hyper and displacement drives, the difference in speed/distance traveled is going to put a whole different dynamic on things. 2. Traveller has no FTL communications, whereas TE does 3. Traveller does not use forcefields to protect starships, except at high tech levels, and they dont work like a TE forcefield. where this will probably make the most difference is with the higher tech races. you can handwave some of the really high tech stuff as ancient tech, and call some of the races children of the ancients, but then how did they survive the final war? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowcat1313 Posted January 5, 2007 Report Share Posted January 5, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe looking at the Interactive Atlas of the Imperium there are several sectors towards the bottom center of the map that have never really been populated per se. another option might be to look beyond the known traveller universe to somewhere along the Zhodani Core Route. its been completely mapped now, and theres plenty of room for new races and empires along that axis. I think the idea has considerable merit, as far as looking at what can be done to integrate some of the TE races to the known traveller universe. gimme a couple of days to get some draft material finished for the good folks at Com-Star, and if you want to discuss this further, I would be very interested in looking at this further. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted January 5, 2007 Report Share Posted January 5, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe looking at the Interactive Atlas of the Imperium there are several sectors towards the bottom center of the map that have never really been populated per se. another option might be to look beyond the known traveller universe to somewhere along the Zhodani Core Route. its been completely mapped now' date=' and theres plenty of room for new races and empires along that axis.[/quote'] The problem is that locations like these are a really long way away from anywhere else. That's why I suggested Beyond, since it is adjacent to an area that was intentionally designed to be a microcosm of the whole setting. Placing new races in more remote locations is easy, but it is difficult for PCs to interact with them. Some of the standard Traveller races (the K'kree in particular) have the same problem. Ultimately, you can either set a campaign in/near the Imperium or in/near K'kree space, but you can't do both, unless it is OK for your campaign to involve a multi-year long space journey. Which is actually isn't a problem, if you have enough encounters along the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted January 6, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe 1. Traveller uses the jump drive' date=' whereas TE uses Hyper and displacement drives, the difference in speed/distance traveled is going to put a whole different dynamic on things.[/quote'] Traveller's jump drive seems to me like it works pretty much like TE's hyperdrives do. Depending on the jump drive's power, it can go one to six parsecs in a week's travel time. I'm a little rusty on my Traveller-fu, so does that mean the ship literally takes one week in jump space to go that distance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted January 6, 2007 Report Share Posted January 6, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe I'm a little rusty on my Traveller-fu' date=' so does that mean the ship literally takes one week in jump space to go that distance?[/quote'] Yes. One jump takes one week, give or take a few hours, and ignoring misjumps which can take longer. In that time it is possible to travel up to 6 parsecs, depending on the capabilities of the drive. (Most ships can only travel up to one or two parsecs in a single jump.) It is possible to jump less than a single parsec (ie in-system), or even no distance at all (returning to your original position). I will leave it up to you to determine whether or not the latter can ever be useful. Note that the "one week" figure doesn't include sublight travel time. It is quite easy to spend another week travelling to and from the starport, refuelling and so on. One jump every two weeks is a good average figure for long distance travel. But even that is fairly single minded, with no long breaks on-planet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowcat1313 Posted January 6, 2007 Report Share Posted January 6, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe yep, one rule that Hero doesnt use is fuel tankage, which is a big restriction on traveller ships. 10% of the ships hull is used for fuel per jump# the ship is capable of. there are a couple of ways around this 1. bladder tanks in cargo, that take 10% of the normal tankage when collapsed, but arent armored, and are only stressed for 1.5G 2. Drop Tanks, external drop tanks, usually custom fitted 3. Internal Bay Tanks, regular tanks that are fitted in cargo, no g restrictions for most merchants, bladder tanks give a lot of extra flexibility, for instance a Jump-1 ship can now make two jump-1s without having to refuel, and keeps the extra cargo space for a short heavy haul if needed I have built several hundred traveller ship designs over the years, and have never used anything but bladder tanks for extra/upgraded tankage, except for 2 ships, and those were built as modular merchants, that used external tank modules that are hard coupled to the ship. one other important thing is refined/unrefined fuel, using unrefined fuel is a bad idea if you can avoid it, it leads to extra maintenance and possible misjumps depending on how often you use it. refined fuel can be expensive, but a fuel refining plant, and scoops for a streamlined ship, are a great investment if you can afford it, and they dont take a lot of space even scooping your own fuel can lead to all kinds of entertainment for the GM's, be it gas giant or ocean refueling Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted January 6, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe Well, a jump drive's fuel could be done as charges or a separate END Reserve, I would presume. I think fuel efficiency could also be jimmied into things by adjusting the number of charges available. Say one ship's jump drive has 8 charges available, and another has 12. What's kind of funny under Hero rules is that jump drives able to go 3 parsecs or 6 parsecs are the most point efficient, since you can build them with one level higher of Megascale on the Teleport power (ie one or two inches of 10 LY/inch Teleport as opposed to buying it at 1 LY/inch). Instead of going with the strict parsec description, I might vary that to fit better into Hero's scale and say it's "about a parsec per inch" instead. I don't recall seeing it in the Traveller rules, but is there an explanation as to why a parsec is the measure used for jump drive power instead of light year or some other scale? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowcat1313 Posted January 6, 2007 Report Share Posted January 6, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe interesting question, beyond the space map hexes being 1 parsec/3.2 Light Years, I dont know if there is an answer I will run this by the Traveller Mailing List, and Marc Miller if needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted January 6, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe I haven't played Traveller in almost twenty years, so I might have known the answer at one time in the past. Travel at a maximum of 20 LY/week would certainly give an Age of Sail feel, especially with no FTL communications available. The TE would take several years to cover from one end to the other at that pace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted January 7, 2007 Report Share Posted January 7, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe I don't recall seeing it in the Traveller rules' date=' but is there an explanation as to why a parsec is the measure used for jump drive power instead of light year or some other scale?[/quote'] Convenience. It fits well with the hex maps Traveller uses. Seriously. That's why jump lasts a week too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted January 7, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 7, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe Is there anyplace online to get a good map of the Third Imperium? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted January 7, 2007 Report Share Posted January 7, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe Is there anyplace online to get a good map of the Third Imperium? More than you can poke a stick at. A bit of Googling will find you lots of relevant sites. http://www.travellermap.com/ is pretty, although not the most useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowcat1313 Posted January 7, 2007 Report Share Posted January 7, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe the best site for traveller specific maps is this one, at least in my opinion http://www.utzig.com/traveller/iai.shtml plenty of data on the planets where it was available, and one of my favorite traveller sites overall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted January 7, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 7, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe the best site for traveller specific maps is this one, at least in my opinion http://www.utzig.com/traveller/iai.shtml plenty of data on the planets where it was available, and one of my favorite traveller sites overall Whoa! Rep to you for pointing me to this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted January 7, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 7, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe More than you can poke a stick at. A bit of Googling will find you lots of relevant sites. http://www.travellermap.com/ is pretty, although not the most useful. I like how you can zoom in on this one. It is definitely pretty to look at. Rep to you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Ofeelya Posted January 15, 2007 Report Share Posted January 15, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe And to help make your campaign feel even more Traveller like go to the Zhodani base and try this little application. http://zho.berka.com/goodies/lbb_render.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted January 15, 2007 Report Share Posted January 15, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe And to help make your campaign feel even more Traveller like go to the Zhodani base and try this little application. http://zho.berka.com/goodies/lbb_render.html Yes. A great site. Rep for bringing it up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted January 17, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 Re: Mixing Traveller and Hero Universe And to help make your campaign feel even more Traveller like go to the Zhodani base and try this little application. http://zho.berka.com/goodies/lbb_render.html That's just cool. Rep to thee! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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