Solo Traveller 4: The High Cost of Cheap Fuel

[@caleb-hines]

Gonna have to rename this channel to The Joy of TPK's.

[@agrayday7816]

great job! Thanks for letting us ride. Its always good to start in the middle of a blank map, never the corners. :)

[@TheFirstIcon]

There is nothing explicit in the rules to help you, but there are some ambiguities you can lean on. First, what is in hex 0201? The world occurrence role failed, but what does that actually mean? Per Book 3 (1977) page 1, "There is a basic one-half chance that a world (and its attendant stellar system) will be in a hex. Systematically check [...] indicates that a world is present, otherwise leave the hex blank." So there is not a world in 0201, but the rules seem vauge on whether or not there is a star there. Second, per Book 2 (1977) page 1, "Once a starship moves to more than 100 planetary diameters from all worlds, it may activate its jump drive and move to another star system. Jump drives transfer ships from one star system to another in about 1 week per jump." This suggests drives move from star system to star system, implying a star must be present in 0201. Third, the wilderness refueling rules on Book 2 (1977) page 35 discuss the presence and absence of gas giants in the context of "star systems", not "worlds". Therefore, if it please the court, I move that the rules imply a star system is present in hex 0201 and therefore the crew of the Blackraven are entitled to one (1) two-dice throw to determine the presence or absence of a gas giant before they are abandoned to their fate.

[@timchapman3484]

I second this motion, and would add the possibility of frozen hydrogen asteroid belts, and of a comet someone else here suggested, and possibly even the Scout Service on an astrocartography charting mission -- maybe I'm grasping at straws, but it seems an ignominious end to Magic Space Baby & co.

[@MrGeneralPB]

Okay, survivability of the crew is high enough, they are on an A to B j2 route, there will be ships that have fuel for 2 jumps but only jump one parsec at a time, rig up the reactor to run on minimum power (the low berths and the beacon would be the only systems active), set a distress beacon and put the crew in the low berths if there are any available, monk-e might not even need to go as he is robotic and can technically defrost the crew if their beacon gets picked up - what this means is that they are likely to end up on ice a few weeks to months, at the very worst then their beacon will be picked up in 3.2 years at one of the stations

[@BryceByerley]

Does the Black Raven have Low Passage Berths? As a Hail Mary they can set a distress beacon and freeze themselves in the Low Passage Berth. You can then roll a chance of the beacon being heard and investigated until the power runs out in the ship and the low passage unfreezes. Alternately, they could power up the M-drive and set it for the next hex while they are in freeze...but you'lll have to set up a campaign for them when they arrive 75-100 years later. A harsh reminder of what happens when you cheap out on the fuel.

[@btrenninger1]

Exactly. They've got a robot to keep watch while they are in cold sleep. And four weeks of maneuver drive fuel. So, two weeks at 1g to get to about 4 percent light speed. Wait 80 years. Two weeks deceleration at the end.

[@btrenninger1]

And, after 80 years, who really owns the paper on the ship's loan?

[@jeremyherndon2974]

It does have low passages it is just a free trader reskinned. But they have to repair the M-drive as well and then they have to remember there is no FTL communications so any beacon would have to wait for that amount of time to reach a world that could send help. They have a very slim chance like maybe 10% I would guess of someone stumbling on to them!

[@jeremyherndon2974]

@@btrenninger1the original person who you took the loan from or who ever insured the loan much as how it is here in the real world!

[@btrenninger1]

@@jeremyherndon2974 In the real world in 2008 there were a lot of bundled mortgages. In 2009, after catastrophe, there were a ton of mortgages where no one was certain who held the note. That's in one year. After 80 years? Who knows?

[@ThatBeMike]

I am reminded of A New Hope: "Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, farm-boy!" There is an adventure for the RPG Mothership called "Dead Planet" where the crew ends up in a weird pit of space where the titular planet sucks in ships and such like the Bermuda Triangle. They can escape if they're lucky, but even just the Bermuda Triangle angle works for this sort of thing.

[@dartmart9263]

No way they’re gone! No way! They end up close to a derelict ship floating in space. Full of fuel (or with a signal amplifier) but with a serious alien critter infestation

[@TheJoyofWargaming]

There are solutions that will keep them alive and available for a Five Parsecs campaign, bit I think their Traveller tale is over. 😕

[@dartmart9263]

@@TheJoyofWargaming The Modiphius 5PFH sounds very survivable and yet fun. I don’t think it has the chaotic (odd) battle sequences that we saw in some of the Blackraven episodes.

[@vicmarriott4849]

Put the meat sacks in Low berths after the engines are fixed, then the 2 "Robots" collect fuel from Ice in the Black, Might take a few weeks but they can survive, Travel of Owners of starships in not restricted to Commerce lanes, those are more for Individuals looking to travel from world to world as Passengers. Book 3 under Route Determination:, potential passengers or Players looking for Passage off the Lanes would need to charter or wait for someone to make that run and advertise Staterooms and an adjusted Price. So Possible to keep them just takes time, how much Ice they can collect and how much time it would take is totally random since it is an Empty hex, and it could have a small chance of a rogue Gas Giant, Brown dwarf to skim. Facing a Mis-jump again but not out of the campaign. There are no provisions in the rule for it, it would be a Referee thing, yet when playing Solo you do wear both hats. Also, I would have liked to see where you ended up with an 18 hex mis-jump, maybe closer to Chad, maybe not. As far as not having generate, have the Navigator take a skill stab at plotting a Course, Since you have the coordinates of at least 2 worlds and should be able to chart the stars from only one hex away, he could do it.

[@Vegas7.62]

What says anyone is dead? I figure theyre are just darelect in space. Shouldn't you roll random encounters until they run out of supplies? I feel like they should have a bonus if they're broadcasting a distress call to their encounters table. Plenty of interesting SCIFI is about floating in the doldrums. You said there was no rules in 1971 for gas giants. But maybe we should find a way for there to be a nebula or gas giant to get more unrefined fuel?

[@toddcarlson5324]

Use a Hero Point to reroll!! 🤣 Really enjoy watching your solo adventures even though the dice are not your friends...at all. Take care.

[@BryceByerley]

Heh! I think even if there were Hero Points the dice would still screw them. They certainly didn't want the Black Raven in the campaign.

[@steveyoungwork]

Brilliant! Really loved this session! I think you could easily add a emergency transponder to call for help in 6d weeks? Just an idea! Though this might cost them!

[@jeremyherndon2974]

There is no faster then light communications in Traveller so that transponder would be traveling at the speed of light through the full parsecs before being heard by anything. That is why people pay ships to take your messages from planet to planet in the game. Many time did my crew have to act as the sectors Pony Express!

[@steveyoungwork]

@@jeremyherndon2974 True by someone could be flying by or doing a Jump 2-6 and might get a ping, maybe from a x-boat?

[@jeremyherndon2974]

@@steveyoungwork yah maybe about a 10%chance it would Really depend to what type of worlds lay to the east of where they were stranded because the worlds to the west are not sending anything out that way for any real reason.

[@turbonerd6552]

Missed this ep by 5 mins 😢

[@Harkwind]

I'm sorry my namesake sector ruined the run of the Black Raven. Traveller deaths comes very fast, or very slow, but almost never by old age. 😢

[@turbonerd6552]

You could do. Everyone jumps in a berth. 100 years later you crash land on 1 of the planets you've mapped

[@mightyeroc7284]

How about a deep space encounter- A comet they could scoop fuel from and roll for a misjump again, hope the get somewhere civilized. Alien first contact, get possible aid?

[@steveyoungwork]

Missed it by a hour!

[@dartmart9263]

Misjumps sound scary. You could end up in the middle of a star, couldn’t you?

[@BryceByerley]

I heard it was like dusting crops!

[@turbonerd6552]

Game over man. Game over 😢

[@mega-bustershepard5537]

This is so cool. I wish I had a copy.

[@caleb-hines]

I think the first jump of our Traveller game ended up with us popping out near a black hole. Almost ended our campaign real quick. Or that may have happened in an older d20 Star Wars game, I can't recall.

[@thomaswilliams5005]

I love that every adventure ends with the party dead

[@TheJoyofWargaming]

I might not be very good at this game yet.

[@crapphone7744]

As a hook to maybe get your crew rescued, consider this. That one planet has only 10 people on it in a hostile atmosphere. They must get regular resupply. If the resupply ship is a puny little ship like yours it would have to do the two jump thing to get there and it might well stop at the same spot you ended up marooned in. If you set up a distress beacon it's possible the resupply ship might come in time and might hear your beacon and might come and help you. Of course the way you've been rolling, none of that might happen😅

[@timchapman3484]

Another thought: at some point, won't the bank to which all the money is owed for the ship send some bounty hunters to find and repossess the missing asset; i.e., they don't care about your crew, but that IS a gajillion-credit loss floating somewhere out there without even one payment having been made on it yet, I'm sure someone will badly want it back -- at which point the robots should still be "alive" as well as perhaps some or all of the rest of the crew if the low berth strategy posited by some of the clever folks here is used (and could Magic Space Baby use psionics to go into a state of suspended animation?) -- not quite a rescue, because the remaining crew would likely have to fight the bounty hunters and win in order to commandeer their ship and/or fuel...

[@turbonerd6552]

How about a new anthropomorphic crew on a ship named the righteous indignation 😂 just a thought

[@elohimalpha]

Echoing the gas giant point above. Put all the organics in cryo, and let the robots do their thing

[@TigerJLM]

Ugh, yeah with the misjump mechanics starting in the corner of map puts you between a rock and dead space. Should maybe stick with the original roll Dir5Dis1 and hope to land on planet in next subsystem over.

[@carlburks887]

The crew are toast. You set the bar really high by randomly generating systems as you go. The typical worlds generated randomly are as you found them, low population, average starports. The dice are stacked heavily against you.

[@jeremyherndon2974]

I asked in episode two if there was anything out there between the north east and south west and he said not that we know of yet we have to find it and I was like oh man there are going to be no Mains and those two groups are going to have a hard time meeting!

[@elohimalpha]

Also, what are the odds of pirate/rebel activity in the sector? Its sparsely pooulated, but there's still a decent military presence - why? Maybe the Blackraven gets picked over for illegal salvage and gets a big surprise from Cobalt 15?

[@paulswales9891]

Not dead yet merely stranded in deep space, Stargate universe got a full two seasons out of that. Is there any maths in game for how much food, water and oxygen you have left? Can Magic Space baby do anything like telepathic call for help? What's the range on teleport?

[@GodOfMoxie]

really cool, convinced me to try traveler.

[@chiragasnani3437]

I didn't understand why you had the General tell them to go back to Harkwind, after you spent last session going into why it was super unprofitable to go backwards and you had to keep moving southward. Did you roll for that for some reason?

[@An_RPG_Abstractionist]

Why not get a second blank hex map sheet, roll to see if there was a planet in the original hex your ship should have ended up, and roll up the planet between sessions? Of you relroll until you get a desired result result, is there even any point in rolling at all, why not just say they end up where tou want them to end up? I thought you said that once the dice are rolled its canon?

[@1973Washu]

Have you considered using something like "Mythic" to simulate a DM and make random encounters more random?

[@An_RPG_Abstractionist]

I visited the Githyanki Dispera Traveler blog that you suggested people go look at, but I wasn't able to find the crew roster sheet that you suggested was useful. Can you please share a link to the page where its possible to download it?

[@TheJoyofWargaming]

githyankidiaspora.com/classic-traveller/

[@AyebeeMk2]

third jump = miss-jump! lol ! don't you just love this game.... "I am willing you to turn to book 3" there is nothing the lbb's that says it is an easy game.....

[@TheJoyofWargaming]

@@AyebeeMk2 Brother, ain't that the truth!

[@AyebeeMk2]

@@TheJoyofWargaming I know I am late for the party, however going back to page 4 of book 2, before you roll for miss-jump (10+3), that 10 should have been applied to "using contaminated fuel"; and as it was the first use of such fuel a roll of 10 would have been ok, THEN you should have rolled for the jump which would have succeeded 26 times out of 36 (odds on),... so the Magic Space Baby still lives, if they are still alive instead of waiting 80 years, they have spent the last few months correcting a navigational error...