First Impressions of Traveller Hero

[Ternaugh]

I've just spent a couple of hours skimming through the new Traveller Hero rulebooks, and have a few observations.

 

The Good:

 

Character creation. The information here is excellent. Included notes and Packages look and feel appropriate for the Traveller universe. Additionally, most of this material could be used in a non-Traveller universe without excessive tinkering.

 

Conversion notes. Detailed enough to convert from T20 and CT variants of Traveller into Hero. Formulae seem to be straightforward and workable.

 

Psionics. Detailed Psionics rules cover the subject from multiple ruleset variants. Seems to capture the feel of the Traveller and TNE systems well.

 

Handguns. Most are logically thought out and detailed in Hero. One nitpick: TLs are not mentioned for most of the projectile weapons.

 

Maps! That's right, there are deckplans for the Free Trader, Subsidized Merchant, and Scout Ship designs in the back of Book 2. This is a really great addition.

 

The Nitpicks:

 

General technology rules. There's a note that items above TL12 are usually restricted, though this really doesn't fit canon (except for T4--where that was considered the highest TL). There's a "Compatibility" matrix, which could have been simplified to "Technology is most compatible with users of the same race as the builder. Partial compatibility is assumed when the race of the user and the builder differ." There's also what appears to be an "orphan" at the end, where a small equipment list appears, though the main equipment lists are another dozen pages away. Note that I wouldn't mind a full equipment list like the small one (bulleted items with simple descriptions), because it's more like CT, and might be easier for new players. I don't mind the full Hero descriptions, but there's something to say for simplicity.

 

Computers. These are handled in different ways in different parts of Book 2. Standard computers are listed in the Ship Design rules, and additional computers are listed in a section of their own. Unfortunately, there's a chart which lists capacity, which is already outdated (my computer exceeded the TL10 threshold about 4 years ago). Note that this is a problem not limited to Traveller Hero; it pops up in many games, from GURPS, to 2300AD. The CT rules attempted to avoid this by having a generic CPU/Storage model, which suffered from assuming that Mainframes would rule.

 

Vehicles, Robots. In general, there's no direct list of prices (or TL) for these items. Sure, there's a chart earlier in the book which gives basic guidelines, but it would be nice to have the cost near the writeup.

 

Ships. Okay, I must admit that I'm not a fan of the Hero format for starships and small craft. I think that it's clunky, and doesn't really translate well to the feel of Traveller. For ease of use, I really prefer High Guard. I don't think that the added complexity pays off in gaming potential. There are also several problems with the rules, most notably with construction times. And once again, there is missing TL information, which is most glaring on the hull materials chart, and the Jump Drive table.

 

Summary

 

In general, I'm very happy with my purchase. While both books are useful, my personal tastes will most likely mean that Book 1 will get a bit more mileage. Even given the nitpicks above, I would recommend this for Traveller and Star Hero fans.

 

JoeG

[shadowcat1313]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

I have started an errata list and a list of things that got left out, your input is greatly appreciated.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

Ships. Okay, I must admit that I'm not a fan of the Hero format for starships and small craft. I think that it's clunky, and doesn't really translate well to the feel of Traveller. For ease of use, I really prefer High Guard. I don't think that the added complexity pays off in gaming potential. There are also several problems with the rules, most notably with construction times. And once again, there is missing TL information, which is most glaring on the hull materials chart, and the Jump Drive table.

 

I have a couple of ideas for a short ship form that werent quite ready when we sent things to print, they will be ready for Grand Fleet Hero, and I will set all the TH book 2 ships in that format for folks if they want them

[shadowcat1313]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

Heres a rough draft of the short form sheet I was working on.

 

Fierey Class Close Escort

its a gazelle variant without drop tanks

 

 

Short Form Traveller Hero Ship data sheet:

 

Ship Name: Raygun Sally Ship Class: Fiery Close Escort

 

Size: 17

Body: 27

Defense: 8

Armor: 12

Dexterity: 21

Speed: 4

 

Engineering:

Jump Drive: 4

Manuever Drive: 4

Flight Speed: 60

NCM: 16,284

 

Powerplant:

END: 300

REC: 300

Backup System:

END: 50

REC: 50

 

 

Fuel Purification Plant: Yes

 

 

Tactical Section:

Fire Control: +2

ECM: 10

EW: 4D6

 

Weapons systems:

NAME: Damage: OCv; RM: AMMO: ROF: NOTES:

Heavy Laser Barb 9.5 +2 +2 19E 1/T

Triple Laser Turret 8.5 +2 +2 51E AF3 2 Triple Mounts

HE or AP Missile Rack 6.5 +4 +2 36 AF3

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magazine Space: 36 Missiles

 

 

 

Defensive Section;

Point Defense: 2 Slaved to Laser turrets

ECCM: 10

Hardened Systems: 10

Decoys: 8 Chaff and Flare rounds

EMM: -2 Radar and IR

 

 

Operations Section:

Computer: Model 4

Flight Controls: +2

NaviComp: +2

 

Active Sensors:

Range: 300,000

RangeMod: +12

Perception: +4

 

Passive Sensors:

Range: 150,000

RangeMod: +4

Perception: +4

 

Special Sensors:

Neutrino

Densitometer

 

Commo:

Radio: 1,000,000 range

Laser/Maser:

Meson

 

 

Personnel Section:

Staterooms: 13

Low Berths: 4

Sick Bay: 1

Cargo: 2 Tons

Other Accomodations:

 

 

Small Craft:

Gig

 

 

NOTES:

[Inu]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

Do older characters start with more points?

[Eodin]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

Nope, just more mustering out benefits

[tancred]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

If you roll up a character by Traveller rules then use the Traveller Hero conversion rules to turn him into a Hero character, an older character may have more points than a younger one, due to more skills. Of course, his Characteristics are likely to be lower due to aging.

 

Was that what you meant?

[TheRealVector]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

But is there a good chance my character dies during the creation process?

 

If not then it's not true Traveller! LOL

[TheRavenIs]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

I remember the first time I played Traveller. It took the GM and I three hours to get one past term 4, they all had died at this point, if I remember it was like 8 or 9 that died. The C I ended up with was a scout that servived for almost 2 yrs RT and 30 yrs GT. It was a good thing that he was trapped on a planet with a natural antigathic, man he found that out and figured away to grow them off world, needless to say he became a very wealthy man when he returned to space.

[Publius]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

I'm making a ship for a little project of mine, and I've noticed that the Jump Drive costs are out of whack with the Jump Drives given in the original game. I don;t have my copy of High Guard with me (I'm trying to find it now, trust me) but I think that the drives are about double what they should be in terms of tonnage.

 

Unless of course the numbers in the rulebook are for hexes (thus you have to divide by two) or the more dense Jump Drives take up less hexes than standard... (still the tonnage would be off, but the hex limitations for the hull type would be correct).

 

Or maybe I'm missing something, I am a bit rusty.

 

1000 ton vessel

Jump 3, 2 G Man. Drive and a P3 Powerplant

 

In Old Traveller this would be a Q-Jump and Powerplant and a K Manuever drive. Q-Jump is 80 tons of Mass, Q Power Plant is 46 tons and a K Manuever drive is 19 tons

 

In your rules, a 1000 ton vessel needs to allocate 150 tons for the Jump Drive, and that is 300 Hexes (which is the maximum capacity of the vessel all by itself) , the Manuver Drive and the Power Plant track pretty well however.... (Manuver drive is 20 tons, the Power Plant is 45, both within 1 of the original values)

 

I noticed also that many of the Samples have drives that would do this as well (The Sample Subsidized liner, 600 tons has a 90 ton Jump engine, which btw maxes the drive section, while the classic has a 50-ton Type J, again about 1/2 the size of your version +/- 5 tons).

[Ternaugh]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

I'm making a ship for a little project of mine, and I've noticed that the Jump Drive costs are out of whack with the Jump Drives given in the original game. I don;t have my copy of High Guard with me (I'm trying to find it now, trust me) but I think that the drives are about double what they should be in terms of tonnage.

 

Unless of course the numbers in the rulebook are for hexes (thus you have to divide by two) or the more dense Jump Drives take up less hexes than standard... (still the tonnage would be off, but the hex limitations for the hull type would be correct).

 

Or maybe I'm missing something, I am a bit rusty.

 

1000 ton vessel

Jump 3, 2 G Man. Drive and a P3 Powerplant

 

In Old Traveller this would be a Q-Jump and Powerplant and a K Manuever drive. Q-Jump is 80 tons of Mass, Q Power Plant is 46 tons and a K Manuever drive is 19 tons

 

In your rules, a 1000 ton vessel needs to allocate 150 tons for the Jump Drive, and that is 300 Hexes (which is the maximum capacity of the vessel all by itself) , the Manuver Drive and the Power Plant track pretty well however.... (Manuver drive is 20 tons, the Power Plant is 45, both within 1 of the original values)

 

I noticed also that many of the Samples have drives that would do this as well (The Sample Subsidized liner, 600 tons has a 90 ton Jump engine, which btw maxes the drive section, while the classic has a 50-ton Type J, again about 1/2 the size of your version +/- 5 tons).

 

Book 2 CT designs were often more efficient than the Book 5 designs, especially at higher tonnages. It's one of the reasons that the Imperiallines Type TJ Frontier Transport has never been built properly in any of the other rulesets.

 

Book 5 formulas would require your 1000 ton vessel to have 40 tons of Jump drive, 50 tons of Maneuver drive, and between 30 and 90 tons of Power Plant (depending on Tech Level).

 

Because later systems went to a more linear model for thrust, your maneuver drive volume should be less under Traveller Hero. M-2 is 20 Tons displacement. And when we turn to TH Jump drives, we should have one that's about 4% of the ship for J-3, and we have one that's 150 tons, for 15% of the ship. Whoops.

 

Okay, that's broken. If we were building a J-6 1000 Td ship, we'd need 300 Tons for the J-6, 90 Tons for the P-6, and 660 Tons of Fuel for 1 J-6 and Power Plant operation for 4 weeks. That gives us a total of 1050 Tons for our 1000 ton hull, and we don't even have any Bridge or accomodations yet. This should be changed to the Jump Drive Tonnage=M(Jn+1) formula.

 

Hmmm, it also looks like powerplant fuel is not based upon size of hull by the formula. That's another, separate break. If we're using Book 5 as a guide, then fuel should be based upon "energy produced", which, at TL 15 would be 1 Ton of fuel per Ton of Power Plant for 4 weeks operation. There's no mention of TL with the plants, so I can't assume that higher TL results in smaller plants. The TH value of 1.5 tons per 100 tons of vessel per drive number would place the efficiency as an average between TL 13-14 and TL 15 powerplants.

 

You're right, the Jump Drive sizes are broken.

 

JoeG

[Eodin]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

I've reviewed my spreadsheets for this, and yes, it's broken for the Tonnage of each.

 

This will have to go in the errata.

 

Oh oh.

[Publius]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

Gosh fellas, I didn't mean to break your game or anything.

 

Say, I sent a PM to Polaris, but it doesn't seem like he's been online since the 27th. Should I resend to one of you fellows? It was regarding formatting. Nothing big, just a sample.

[Eodin]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

Send me a copy of the message, and I'll forward it on through the development team mail to Polaris and the rest of the team.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

I missed this ooops too... and I should have caught it

 

one of the headaches with traveller, you have CT Book 2 designs, High Guard Designs, Megatraveller designs, TNE Designs, T4 designs which are mostly simplified CT book 2 designs. not even counting D20 and GT. the same ship done in each system doesnt always come out quite making sense.

[tobbilla78]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

Thats good

[Publius]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

Trust me, I publish myself (thought presently on a very small scale), it is really easy to do. Didn't mean to be flippant or anything. Any time you take on a task like this that sort of thing is bound to happen.

[Polaris]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

Hi Publius,

 

If I knew how to 'rep' someone, I would do it for you! Thank you for pointing this problem out.

 

I contacted the printer, and we are going to repay for set up to get it corrected prior to printing (so the print books will be delayed by just a couple of extra days, but I thought it would be better to have it right in the print book rather than just have people have to check online for a correction).

 

Thanks again for pointing this out...

 

William

 

PS: I am going in to read and respond to the PMs I have gotten... sorry for the delay.

[Publius]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

Hi Publius,

 

If I knew how to 'rep' someone, I would do it for you! Thank you for pointing this problem out.

Little Scales in the right corner big guy I also accept cash and major credit cards. Or co-eds. I like co-eds.

 

No Problem, as I say I have done the same many many times. Thankfully for my favorite work there is an angel (the kind that smites. not the Victorian cherub) on my shoulder who watches when I mis-spell things (thank you Steve). As I mentioned, with work that involves so much intricate stuff (tables, charts etc.) there is bound to be something.

 

I have sent you both a PM and a email (the email has my contact info) as well as a little something you might be interested in

[tytalan]

Re: First Impressions of Traveller Hero

 

things like that is why I fell inlove with the mega construction rules. they also made more sence to me with the affects of tec changing more in a steady line than a curved one.