T20 Traveller 3 Vs 3.5 Srd

[Psion]

Psion: See to me that is a problem though. I shouldn't need a spreadsheet to play an RPG.

Why? What makes not using a tool so sacrosanct?

FWIW, the system is pretty much a clone of high guard, which we used years ago with scratch paper, but it admittedly number-crunchy (but ain't got nothin' on CORPS VDS or GURPS Vehicles... or Megatraveller, for that matter.) The spreadsheet just makes it easier.

 

[tjoneslo]

Starship Construction System

RPG construction systems are a hobby of mine.

If you find the T20 system too large I can suggest some others. I find the T20 system just about right. I don't need a spreadsheet, though I find a calculator helpful.

D20 Mecha is heavier than the D20 future system, but not quite to the T20 level. It takes a little imagination to fit the system into building starships however.

Neo's DragonStar Ship Construction Rules is a free download for a ship system designed for Dragonstar. It is a touch lighter than the T20 system, and since it is designed for Dragonstar, you may need to excise a fair portion.

Blood and Space is a PDF. These rules are only slightly above the D20 Future set.

I haven't seen the Star Wars rules, but that pretty much it. A few of the PDF D20 publishers have starship design rules, but they are all in the D20 Future / Star Wars range of detail.

 

[TDRandall]

Quite a list, tjoneslo! Your bookcases must really creak if all those "yes" correspond to books on a shelf somewhere! Is the CX a complexity rating or a personal review type rating for fulfilling what it is supposed to do? (I notice you don't have a CX rating for Construct Mechanus - is that just an oversite or a work in progress?)

I was surprised to not see Delta Vee by SPI on the list. At least, I've always been under the impression that that was how to create your own ships for the Universe game but I never could get my hands on a copy of it. Ah, that brings back some good memories - and one sad one since I lost that beautiful map of stars within 50 (100?) LY of earth that came with it.

edit: the nostalgia pushed me to look into what I could find about Delta Vee on the internet. Everything I find says it was focused on combat for Universe. While I know that was part of it, I really thought there was supposed to be a way to expand the paltry list of ships given in V2 of the game (the book only with pull-out map). Probably nothing extravagent (although the character creation rules were rather extensive for the time, IIRC) more like fitting modules into various hull types. Shoot, I was really looking foward to creating the "Bassoon" to go with that Piccollo and Flute! (I also remember there was Trewillicker something or another and another grouping - started with a C? like a company name?).

Guess I'll stop rambling now!

 

[Pagan priest]

MegaTraveller was the version that needed a spreadsheet. T20 can be done wthout such a tool, but if it is available, why not use it? That is a little like using a rock to pound in a nail when there is a hammer in the toolbox.

I should say that the spreadsheet version that I used had a small flaw, having a boat in an external bay ended up putting certain information in the same column used to check the energy available, and would give increadible amounts of "free" energy to a ship. I created a yacht with a suspiciously high agility.

 

[Ashrum the Black]

Psion: Its not that I mind using a tool if its there, and it is useful, but I do mind when an RPG gets so complicated that it requires one. I DM pretty much exclusivly in my group and this eats up a lot of my time in making up star ships and things to use. I far prefer working on story plots and npc's to interact with the PC's. But without a well thought out backdrop, that is internally consistent, then the NPC's are really only me talking in a funny voice.

I guess ultimatly the issue, for me, is since there wasn't much predesigned in the T20 book for spacecraft, I'm left feeling daunted by what needs to happen to create a number of new vehicles. That of course is only half the battle because after that I still need to give the item a reason to exist. Why was it built? What makes it different from a hundred other frieghters? etc.

Please, don't think I hated the T20 system. I honestly do love it and plan to use a great deal out of it to help me make up my sci fi setting. I think my expectation was to have a little more background than what I got when I purchased it. Then I got intimidated by the level of detail in there to breathe life into what I wanted.

-Ashrum

 

[jasper]

The lack of background was/is one of selling points of Traveller. You could either pick up the various splat books to help. Or design your own. Also having little background meant your TC(traveller campaign) could be doing Star Wars with dash of Flash Gordon, while my could be a combat heavy war sim with pulser darts at five paces.
Slide over to the QLI site for more information and downloads. I been running off and on for 6 months. The amount of detail I found on the web is overwhelming. Now some don't mesh with T20 but if all I worry about is map of ship I have no problems with grabbing ship designs from other versions. My players won't notice the sucker punch fighter does not work according to rules or the cruiser liner is off by 40 tons.

 

[tjoneslo]

Is the CX a complexity rating or a personal review type rating for fulfilling what it is supposed to do?

The CX rating is a personal evaluation of the complexity of the design system.
The scale goes from 1 (requires only a few simple additions) to 5 (requires a scientific calculator, spreadsheet or dedicated program).

I was surprised to not see Delta Vee by SPI on the list.

I do have a copy of the game, its sitting on a shelf with the wargames. I'd forgotten all about it. I'll go check it out and update the list.

 

[DMScott]

I was surprised to not see Delta Vee by SPI on the list. At least, I've always been under the impression that that was how to create your own ships for the Universe game but I never could get my hands on a copy of it. Ah, that brings back some good memories - and one sad one since I lost that beautiful map of stars within 50 (100?) LY of earth that came with it.

2300 AD (which I believe got its start as Traveller: 2300) also had a really nice near-star map, and is probably easier to find, if you're looking to replace it. Of course, both maps are sadly out of date - IIRC they were both based on the same dataset of late 1960s star data, and astronomers have both corrected old data and discovered new stars since then. If you're interested in that sort of thing, a good site to check out is Winchell Chung's 3-D starmap site:

http://www.projectrho.com/starmap.html

... which has links to a bunch of starmaps (both real and science fiction), links to software that can be used to create such maps, lots of good info on 3-D mapping, etc.

 

[DMScott]

MegaTraveller was the version that needed a spreadsheet.

Not really - I used to design MegaTraveller ships without a spreadsheet, and didn't find it any harder than High Guard. Fire, Fusion, and Steel for Traveller: New Era was the one that looked to me like a spreadsheet would be good, but I never really played around with it.

Nowadays, I've gone back to using the Book 2 rules from the original Traveller set, with some additions stolen from various house rule systems (such as the ones on Freelance Traveller, http://www.freelancetraveller.com/index.html). Those aren't so good for wargame-quality naval ships, but they're darn good for a group of adventurers tooling around in a free trader. I also prefer the "small ships" feel since it means PCs won't automatically be outclassed by any military ship they see, which makes them more likely to do something entertaining.

 

[tjoneslo]

I was surprised to not see Delta Vee by SPI on the list. At least, I've always been under the impression that that was how to create your own ships for the Universe game but I never could get my hands on a copy of it.

Double check complete. Delta Vee has neither a starship constuction system nor a near star map. At least my copy doesn't. Delta Vee has 12 ships some of which have pods you can swap for different weapons. I suppose you could derive a real design system from the ships given, but it would take some work. I think the map was part of the 2nd edition Universe core rules.

If you are interested, someone is apparently selling PDF's of the entire Universe rule set. No comment on the legaity of this process.