Traveller Core Rulebook by Matthew Sprange

[james_davis_nicoll]

Traveller Core Rulebook by Matthew Sprange

Comments

[nfpr2boziis]

So far my reaction to Mongoose Traveller is not bad at all but they need a better copy editor.

[viktor_haag]

They've been without one for so long, despite it being an obvious problem, that I suspect it's just not reasonable to expect they'll ever have one.

[(Anonymous)]

"This edition retains an option that has puzzled me since Classic Traveller : the air raft, which is essentially a flying car, lacks a roof."

Classic Traveller came out the same year as a movie which prominently featured a roofless air car. This movie still retains a strong hold on the popular imagination.

Alternatively: If a vehicle is open-topped, it can avoid all the safety regs on air-tightness, so it's cheaper. And they're easy to market.

Riderius

[ffutures]

And it's easier to do mid-air heroics, gun battles, etc. if you don't have to worry about hull integrity and airlocks.

[roseembolism]

Personally, I blame Andre Norton's "Star Gate, which had a craft pretty much identical in description to an air raft. It was also apparently a Leggo or Snap-Tite (tm) model, as the post-crash reassembly showed.

The Dirdir from Jack Vance's "Planet of Adventure series also evidently used open-roofed antigravity vehicles, because despite being an ancient and puissant starfaring race, the Dirdir are kinda stupid.

Whatever. It showed up in books from the 60s, so Traveller saw no reason to question ther idea.

[dwight_benjamin_thieme]

"Gee, Earl you're pretty fast" Dumarest used one in The Winds of Gath and practically every other book thereafter, so the Traveller people didn't have to look very far for inspiration

[graydon]

It's also cheaper because it's got a low top speed. Even tech 12 ought to be able to produce a supersonic air car no problem. Stick to air rafts with a top speed around 200 kph and you can sell pretty cheap stuff. (Plus the authorities are likely to prefer a lack of supersonic delivery vehicles.)

Air/Raft roofs

[(Anonymous)]

Some Air/Rafts are indeed shown as being enclosed; I believe the one in MongTrav's "Central Supply Catalogue" is shown as a van-type enclosed vehicle, which makes sense since it's designed for multiple planets including no atmosphere or exotic/corrosive ones. (What I always wondered about was the fact you could ride one into orbit, which would take the better part of a day; if it's open-topped, that means wearing a vacc suit for 9 hours or so, which would seem like it'd get really uncomfortable)

[ffutures]

"Traveller is not a game where machines left to themselves will keep functioning as designed. Poor maintenance can be an express route to adventures, such as sudden exposure to radiation or ship fragmentation during atmospheric re-entry. Sounds dull? Consider all the plot twists Star Wars ginned up from the Millennium Falcon ’s dodgy avionics."

Or consider the opening landing sequence from Serenity... "Did something just fall off?"

[gridlore]

I once opened a campaign with the player's Free Trader losing all power on approach to a densely packed starport.

[ffutures]

One of the adventures I wrote for (I think) White Dwarf had an alien ship make an emergency landing on Earth to refuel and top up on supplies after a misjump.

Trouble was, it was 20th century Earth during WW2 and the only source of deuterium they could find was in Norway...

[roseembolism]

It wasn't the Chamex Plague, was it? Because IIRC, that was the reason the PCs were stranded on the WW2 tech level planet, when it got some unexpected interstellar visitors.

[ffutures]

Don't think so. Really can't remember much about it now, it was one of the first things I wrote for Traveller. I may be wrong to say it was White Dwarf, I wrote for a lot of short-lived games magazines in the eighties.

[ffutures]

No it wasn't - pretty sure it was Green Horizon, in White Dwarf #42

The bibliography here jogged my memory, though it would be much easier if they gave author names

http://traveller.downport.com/ct/list.shtml

[graydon]

I've enjoyed several Traveller games, but have never really been able to overcome a fundamental disbelief that they'd use liquid hydrogen as proton storage.

(It does make for a lot of fun, especially if the characters have already been so rash as to get into a firefight, to have the automated ship announcements go "NOW HEAR THIS. NOW HEAR THIS. FUEL LEAKING INBOARD. FUEL LEAKING INBOARD.")

[(Anonymous)]

"I Think You’ll Like It Out In Space"

Is this a reference to the Klaatu song "Around The Universe in 80 Days"? 'Cause that's awesome. ;)