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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tom B1" data-source="post: 7949106" data-attributes="member: 6879023">Is that a hardcover of Classic or is that T5 or what?I'm a completist from back the early 1980s. I have CT, MT, Hard Times, TNE, Mgt 1.0, Gurps Traveller... pretty much as all of them as you can get (PDF and hardcopy.... I used to hunt down rarer boxed games and small press third party products - some great, some what the he** was I thinking...). I haven't done MgT 2.0 because it seems like a lot to spend for massive overlap with 1.0.I didn't do T5 or some recent multi-hundred dollar kickstarters (I did to Element Class Cruisers though). T5 was just too pricey and seemed to be too thick to be useful (as you say, too much meta). For me, Classic doesn't cut it because of the clunkiness of ship construction and a lack of variability in systems. It could work, but what I'd really like to see: BEST: A system like Brilliant Lances that actually has reasonable ways (or a enough support) to represent all of the traditional well known ships (vs. all new ones) AND that uses 2D6. The game was great for detail and some rich gameplay, but it just didn't cover any other era and it used the wrong dice for play outside of TNE.SECOND BEST: Take a page out of FASA's old Star Trek RPG - their ship combat gave every bridge crew member a set of control sheets for their job and everyone (not 100%... could have done better) had something to do in battles in a small group and the group cooperated to fight the ship. It was a *story combat system versus most of Traveller's 'combat system we'll throw in even though it barely involves player actions other than a pilot and gunner'. THIRD BEST: An abstract system using task management that can make for dynamic combat for a bunc hof different characters. As an example of another system that could make for better roleplaying: I integrated third party security, life support engineering & cargo handling skills along with more differentiation in ship system tech skills. I then created a sequence from starting up a cold ship to jumping out of a system - defined tasks all the way along for each phase of operations. I'd run it once or twice with players full so they knew what their characters would actually be doing, then i used parts of it in adventures (the other parts were assumed to be routine). <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I covered cargo stowage, loading and unloading</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">stewards and medics managing passenger loading, unloading, cold berthing (in and out), as well as security screening, and securing passengers for manouvers and handling rare zero G scenarios</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">interactions with other vessels, rules of the road, license levels for various departments for certifications, interactions with system control</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">starting up (or jump starting!) power plants, shutting them down, checks along the way on power plants and jump drives</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">jump navigation and verification</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">landing and take off in different traffic densities and different atmospheres and landing surfaces</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">fueling including gas giant skimming</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">operation of shuttles where non-streamlined ships were in play</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">maintenance operations</li> </ul>With all this, the techs often have things to do in space, so do the stewards and cargo handlers, as do the pilots and the comms people (and EW folks), and even the doctor/medic could given all the strange things coming up from any given landfall. In combat, things break lose, fires start, vacuum happens, passengers get sick or afraid or try some badness, so even the non-pilot, non-gunner types can have something to do at least in some portion of possible space combats. Scans is an important role and a skill for us too.The only parts I didn't get a satisfactory end to, but could do better now probably, is starship combat. I've just handled in in narrative, but I'd like a bit more flesh here too.I think also that there's little chance that a small trader or scout will ever survive a fight with anything over 500 tons (definitely not with anything 1000 tons or more) so the only way out is like Han landing on the Star Destroyer or allowing the ship to get tractored into the Death Star - a story solution, not a spaceship physics and combat resolution. So one can ignore bigger ships for a combat system as 'They exist, they'll smoke us if we fight straight up, full stop - they are a story feature, not an interactive thing'.</blockquote>

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