Traveller: Part 5 - Spacecraft Operations

Part five of my series on Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition (MGT2). Today we go over Spaceship and Jump rules.
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Guest starring Jack the NPC

[@johnf.kennedy5454]

We once had a bad misjump. Tried to fix it, but only made it worse. So we climbed into the hibernation coffins.😴 Hoping that someone finds us. That was 25 years ago in real world time and STILL haven't been found....⏰

[@errantepoch350]

Send me a list of your characters names, descriptions, and personalities and I’ll have my PCs find them.

[@andyhart358]

@@errantepoch350 I'd check the contents of the hold first, see what needs 'rescuing'.

[@Scanner9631]

@@andyhart358 Carefully preserved organs can get a good price on the black market. 😁 Face and fingerprint transplants can be useful it the donor doesn't have a criminal history.

[@richmcgee434]

Boy, this edition really added some complexity to the ships you got as mustering out bennies. The ship shares and "owns an off-camera ship and gets paid for it doing stuff" thing is a little fiddly but it sure does give the GM some plot hooks to use. "What? My free trader's been reported as lost to space piracy? Get your guns lads, we're going pirate hunting. *Nobody* steals one of my ships!"

[@archonfett]

that line sounded like Jack in my head

[@erikhanseisenheber]

@@archonfett It actually is in one of Seth's Traveller videos

[@archonfett]

@@erikhanseisenheber that’s why

[@SergioLeRoux]

That's fine, those holes in your ship are in the 75% that you don't own.

[@Alex-tx7ih]

This reminds me of the ship in The All Guardsmen Party, where they buy a giant ship and find handwritten signs on lots of the doors. Stuff like "WARNING!!! KROOTOX. DO NOT OPEN" or "IMPROV PLASMA VENT FOR ENGINE 4, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY"

[@itmademesignup9508]

We all know the best ship would be that which combined the strange and unique layout of the Annic Nova, slammed together with the ship AI having the personality of The Bonesaw. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Peanut Head."

[@NefariousKoel]

'Let me tell you the story about this one time, when I sawed a Patrol Corvette in half. Through the bulkhead!!'

[@Tony-dh7mz]

Secrets of the ancients and signal GK,

[@nordicmaelstrom4714]

I feel that the ship computer's voice needs to be Joe Pesci's. If you're going to have a wiseguy ship you may as well have the best wiseguy of them all voicing the ship!

[@itmademesignup9508]

@Max Wylde Did they open THE DOOR willingly, or did it take a bit of goading?

[@nordicmaelstrom4714]

@Max Wylde Now that sounds like a psycho ship!

[@ratholin]

scott brown in space!

[@NefariousKoel]

The Scott Brown Reclamation Company in... "The Repo Man Cometh".

[@spacedinosaur8733]

@@NefariousKoel "Get the **** out! I got a showing!"

[@DavidComsay]

They've grown too powerful...

[@bossman4799]

I am absolutely dead tired and was about to go to sleep. I check my subscriptions quick and see more Seth. I cannot sleep now, I must watch first.

[@ModernJedi83]

That makes two of us. Man of culture /tips hat

[@Pioootr]

Same here, it's almost 5 am, was watching the Umbrela Academy than finished Old review by Seth and notice that there is a new traveler vid and I just say I do not need sleep right?

[@theophilusarenz3015]

Living in Germany the video came out right on saturday morning, therefore I prepared an oppulent breakfast for my wife and me and watched it as part of the weekend celebrations. But I totally understand your impulse.

[@reuvengritters2983]

Hot dog! Mr. Skorkowsky delivers again. I'm really enjoying this Traveller overview series; it's helped give me the gumption to finally take the plunge and run Traveller for myself. I'll be starting up a Session 0 next Sunday! Here's hoping it'll work out and thanks you sir.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Good luck. Hope you and your players have a blast with it.

[@reuvengritters2983]

@@SSkorkowsky Much obliged!

[@alexgoodwin2419]

@@reuvengritters2983 go for it. @Seth Skorkowsky ended up convincing me to run a Mongoose Trav game and I've been having an absolute _blast_.

[@Rapman21]

We say the scout ships are maintained and fueled at scout bases for free. Part of being “on loan” and the Scout service being able to send them on a mission as reserves when they don’t have spare Scout ships (resources) available. Some missions can be quite sketchy.😉

[@edlaprade]

A really good overview of the basics. And next up: Space Combat! Glad you mentioned that the GM doesn't have to make the players roll for every little thing. That works great at the beginning, but gets tedious after a while. Stay safe!

[@docartemis2878]

Always glad to see another video from you in my feed.

[@theophilusarenz3015]

Dear Seth, your videos on Traveller are so effectively inspiring that I find myself in an awkward position: on the one hand I used your videos to understand Traveller and to run my first Traveller campaign after 15 years of staying true to my own system; on the other hand the obsession struck me so hard that at this point in time my knowledge surpassed your video making, and I am currently struggling with space combat (which ironically again will be perdue when your next video on Trveller comes out). Anyways, I love your work and over the last years you heavily influenced my activities as GM and system creator - Thank you for that!

[@manfredconnor3194]

Watching this again, I am totally impressed at how many times you said "ship shares" without slipping up and saying something else! Hats off.

[@mxplixic]

Not to mention all the times he said "Jack's Ship". 😊

[@TheRealSonBae]

Perfect timing as I am starting the “The Pirates of Drinax” campaign which promises to have a bunch of space activity. Your other Traveller videos have been invaluable to this point.

[@JulianSildenLanglo]

I'm playing in that campaign and I can confirm that there's a bunch of space activity available.

[@OomaGooma]

Looking forward to becoming addicted to Traveler, exactly like Seth getting me hooked on Call Of Cthulhu.😸😸😀

[@PJKP82]

I've always been intrigued by the pen-and-paper TRAVELLER, every since I raided freighters near Efate, in MegaTraveller: The Zhodani Conspiracy, at the beginning of my own 0-18 life path term, before the dice messed things up. The sheer amount of number crunching is a little intimidating, though...

[@SSkorkowsky]

There is certainly more number crunching than most modern games, but the majority of that is done during slow periods or pre-game (like character/ship creation) when you can take your time. Combat the crunching hasn't been a problem for us, which is when it's the most important. The only time the math has slowed us down is Trade/Passengers, but we've employed some house rules and cheatsheets to speed that up so the game doesn't lose steam.

[@michaelfoye1135]

"Earth, where you probably are now." Rarely has a t-shirt been so instantly in demand.

[@gratuitouslurking8610]

I meanwhile went 'heh, nice future proofing.'

[@lukajovanovic8923]

Jack: „Scott Brown in Space!“ I just can‘t - To good

[@errantpursuits4249]

I've bought two editions of this game and never got a chance to play, well...yet. I'm living the dream vicariously through this series...ish.

[@snakeoi1sean]

Staring our 2nd episode of Traveller today, surprised at how many of my players who were opposed warmed up to it after character creation.

[@Frivolitility]

I actually ran the second episode of my first Traveller adventure on Thursday. It's a fabulous game.

[@richmcgee434]

It helps when they find out the "died in character creation" thing is a joke these days, rather than a highly likely occurrence. Also something hypnotically appealing about owning a starship, even if you owe massive debt on it.

[@robertharlan5654]

Q-Tips... an important part of "anything else that keeps you alive"! Keep up the good work Seth

[@myownmusic8182]

Yes! Another video! Next, you should review GURPS! I really love the system, but there's a few concepts I don't fully understand. Either way, keep it coming.

[@beencybouncyburger]

I wanted my players to start with a ship in an interesting way, so I ran the Marches adventure "High and Dry". This, coincidentally, matched up with what my players were interested in getting and what they'd priced out and rolled for before I made that choice. So now, the scout ship in the adventure of indeterminate age also had the support hardware and most of a double pulse laser left in its turret waiting to be fixed, had its age clearly stated, and some very old hull damage. Nice. The ISS gives the crew a one year free lease from the adventure, but that doesn't hinder applying ship shares toward a mortgage commencing afterward, which they did.

[@tabletopgamingwithwolfphototec]

💕 for making this series . Love to have more of these ( any game system ).

[@jimhall1294]

Great job again Seth. I love your format and in depth analysis. Am I having a senior moment or does dividing ship payment by 240 equal 20 years not 40 as you mentioned. I just want to know if I am missing something (which happens too often)? Thank you again for the enjoyment and insight you bring!!.......NEVER MIND! James T seemed to fill in the missing piece. Thanks to you BOTH!

[@yossiharr]

i was wondering about that myself. did James T answer this on this thread? what was the answer please

[@Toriatrix]

Looking forward to seeing you explain passengers, cargo and mail and trade..

[@Frivolitility]

Thank you for making these videos. I just started reffing a Traveller game, and I haven't been this excited about an RPG since I picked up Mage: the Ascension in 2005.

[@ledlogic2]

"Earth, where you probably now"... Y10K compliant video!

[@dirus3142]

Good video on space travel in an RPG. Brought back memories of playing WEG Star Wars, a Firefly campaign, and many battletech source books. From what I get with Seth's videos on Traveler it really lines up with Star Wars Tramp freighters, and Platt's Smuggler's Guide. The Jump Drive works like a more detailed version of the hyper drive.

[@EricVulgaris]

I'm gearing up for an upcoming traveller campaign and your channel (and this video series in particular) have been extremely helpful. thank you!

[@zombietotseater3894]

I love your videos Seth. You are hilarious and you teach the game. Keep up the great work - You to Jack

[@jkl1110]

the repo man idea is the best

[@talon12020]

"The life of a repo man is always intense!"

[@jkl1110]

@@talon12020 indeed. it is definitely one of those "why do they always run" jobs

[@kensvideos1]

Love your work! Inspirational.

[@master_ace]

Oh hell yes! Finally, i was so waiting for this!!!

[@hariszark7396]

Yes!! I've been waiting for this video!

[@theredsoldier26]

Glad to see you got the shirt Seth, really fits.

[@vicmarriott4849]

Another great Traveller Video, always enjoy your reviews.

[@wolf1066]

Our Free Trader campaign under old GDW Traveller was tons of fun. We're on Planet X, they have tons of A. Planet Y is short of A but has lots of B going cheap. Planet X doesn't give a rat's hairy arse about B, but Planet Z can't get enough of it and they have C, which *does* fetch a pretty good price on Planet X and Planet Y (both of which are in range of our ship's J Drive) so we can fill up with A, sell at a profit on Planet Y, buy literal tons of B, sell it at a profit on Planet Z, grab a hold full of C and it's our choice whether to go back to X and sell the C to buy more A or just go to Y and get more B... In between making ourselves filthy rich, we'd have all sorts of fun adventures on the worlds we went to... like damned-near getting killed in a brawl on a mining planet where the locals don't like "Spacers" much...

[@jhonviel7381]

man people need series like this for living life! lol thanks for being thorough.

[@SgtReuster]

Every time I see one of your videos I save it to watch later. I refuse to miss them. Also, these Traveller videos are awesome

[@Dorian_sapiens]

The talk of patrons and passengers and cargo and cash flow reminds me of the novel Ports of Call. I wonder if Traveller is another RPG influenced by the work of Jack Vance.

[@richmcgee434]

It was, Miller acknowledged as much way back in the 80s in at least one interview. H Beam Piper and EC Tubb were also enormous influences, particularly the latter - the Dumarest books loaned abunch of terms to early Traveller. However, Ports of Call was written in 1998, around two decades after Traveller came out, so not that particular book. The Alastor Cluster, Demon Princes, and Tschai books were mostly around back then. I can even recall a Space Gamer magazine that statted up a bunch of Tschai stuff for Traveller.

[@Dorian_sapiens]

@@richmcgee434 That's awesome, thanks for the history. Sounds like more things I'd enjoy reading. I've read a bit of Piper. Not sure about Tubb. I'll look him up.

[@richmcgee434]

@@Dorian_sapiensTubb's mostly known for the Dumarest of Terra series. Pretty much every book in that run could be a Traveller adventure with a little conversion effort to allow for different tech assumptions about starflight. If you find you like authors from that general period I'd also heartily recommend Murray Leinster, James White, James Schmitz, and Keith Laumer.

[@Scarletpooky]

The houserule my group just used for PCs gaining different ships was to allow everyone to cash out the value of their 25%s, and ship shares, and it all got put towards a new ship that was designed, allowing us to overspend so we'd still have a mortgage. (ie it came to a total of ~70mill and we had a ship designed for ~100mill)

[@MyklCarlton]

Great series, very useful. Thanks Seth!

[@heidisuszko353]

One personal difference for me is, the fuel skimming is *always" fully rolled and played out because the consequences of a failure there are loss of ship and crew. It is the equivalent of Naval aviators on "Blue Water ops" where they are too far from land to get to a runway so the only option is to find and land on their carrier, only, do they have enough fuel to make it there before they run out and go for a swim? Skimming a gas giant, you have strong gravity and heavy radiation bands to fly thru. You really need to be sure you can pull this off before you commit. If your scoops or processors fail, you don't have enough fuel to climb back out into a safe parking orbit. You burn up or drop below crush depth. Adventures ensue.

[@richmcgee434]

That seems reasonable. Gas giant fuel skimming isn't a safe process at the best of times, even with High Imperial tech levels. OTOH, if there's a world in system with surface water, any jackass should be able to set teh ship down and run out some hoses. The problem there is less piloting and more refining time and dealing with any local lifeforms that live in that water.

[@johnwhite2412]

Great instructional video. Thanks. Looking forward to your cargo and trade video.

[@westcoastavengers1]

Good video.

[@lovecraftianguy9555]

Finally watching this one.

[@StarlasAiko]

27:45 - 29:20 So, basically... Firefly...

[@michaelcraft7358]

This is coming at a great time for me. I was just looking into Traveller when I came across this series. It’s been really helpful, so thanks! Looking forward to the next video!

[@MonkeyJedi99]

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

[@Grimthot]

Super boulot j'adore !

[@marktownsend2198]

Loving this series. You've definitely sold me on this system. I will be picking up the book soon.

[@disembodiedvoicek]

Love the T-shirt!

[@18foxtrot7]

Seth!! Legendary product placement my man!! Ibenus book 3 of the Vadlucan series... Awesome work mate

[@photon8935]

Another excellent descriptive video, thanks. Given the technology of today, in reference to the ton of spare parts, wouldn't a ship have a fabricator to make the spare parts it needs through additive manufacturing?

[@SSkorkowsky]

The Traveller groups bring that up a lot. The big agreement comes to the ship would need a workshop installed just to house a printer large enough to create hull plates or whatever else. Workshops take up some tonnage (About 6). There's also the tonnage required for raw materiel to 3D print replacement parts. Maybe not as much tonnage as having a big ol' pile of parts, but spools and vats of base and exotic materials ready to be printed. In game terms, a Workshop gives a +2 to any Mechanic rolls, but saying a workshop also halves required spare parts tonnage would make sense as a houserule.

[@photon8935]

@@SSkorkowsky Sounds good, thanks

[@clockworkpotato9892]

23:39 Crewmate: is that your final answer? Invader: Yes (slaps button) Crewmate: Wha...*AHHHHH*

[@AyebeeMk2]

The Starport fee's; in an older edition the initial cost would be 2d6 x 10 cr for the first week then the same amount per extra day, so 20cr is hardly worth bothering with till you have to wait a few months for a spare part to arrive in system: or, as per the adventure ' The Argon Gambit ' if it's not fixed soon it will be declared a hazard to navigation and will be removed by the authorities..... Also life support supplies can be like a passive ( but ticking time ) bomb in the background; not important till you are just entering jump and only have 4 days of oxygen supply......

[@protonneutron9046]

LOVE your CT centric shirt

[@evilscientistrecords]

14:14 "Earth, where you probably are now..." Assumptions, assumptions!!

[@joanhelenak]

Jack was my favorite part of this. My main takeaway is a GM can make the ship as big a part of the adventure as they want, the Traveler system is very robust. It seems the creators thought of every little question

[@sergentharker7182]

Ah yes, the new shirt, excellent

[@jameshenderson4876]

I just love Traveller 2D deck plans. Probably my favourite RPG "tool" ever. I even still have the physical Azhanti High Lightning deck plans...need to buy the PDF version to use on Roll20 sometime...

[@southron_d1349]

Bob Shaw's "Ship of Strangers" could make a good basis for a campaign - especially with that "mis-jump". My copy of Traveller is on its way through jump-space.

[@richmcgee434]

If you'd like one example of a campaign going gonzo due to a misjump, check my blog post over here: brokenstarsburningships.blogspot.com/2019/01/full-thrust-ergovore-crusader-squadron.html

[@southron_d1349]

@@richmcgee434 Very cool.

[@MaxWriter]

Nicely done, as always.

[@wolf1066]

One of our games, we were operating a Free Trader and going through _The Traveller Adventure_ - an old Classic Traveller adventure book. We were having tons of fun just going to and from nearby systems, selling whatever cargo we had, buying new cargo and then selling it elsewhere. There's a world that our GM suggested we went to but our ship's Purser/Accountant PC disagreed - there wasn't any point going there: they wouldn't give us top dollar for the cargo we had and they didn't have much valuable stuff to buy (TL4, mostly agricultural world)... if we went *_here_* instead, we could sell our current cargo for a good price, pick up *_this_* which we could then take *_over here_* and sell for an absolute bloody *_fortune_* The GM kept trying to push this system and our Purser/Accountant kept digging his toes in and saying "Nuh-uh, it's not worth it." In the end, the GM caved and gave up trying to sell us on going to *_Pysadi_* ***SPOILERS FOR **_THE TRAVELLER ADVENTURE_** AHEAD - in case anyone was planning on going through an old Classic Traveller adventure...*** Later we found out that if we had gone to Pysadi, we would have encountered cute little animals called anolas that we'd want to take with us as pets and would slowly start robbing us of our INTELLECT.. And that was how our Purser/Accountant saved the whole crew!

[@troyimlach1453]

As I listen to this video I keep thinking, "Like in that episode of Firefly."

[@TavisTrivett]

Scott Brown in space really made me chuckle, too bad I was also drinking some peach tea and choked. I'm good now, but it was way more funny than it should have been.

[@dbensdrawinvids8390]

I say waive maintenance/mortgage costs and just assume the characters are smart enough to have added up their average monthly bills and to charge their clients accordingly. This means the money everybody gets for a job is really what's left after all the operating costs of the ship. I only bust them on starship cost if they say they're overfilling the ship with people (putting extra strain on life support) or if they flat out decide to neglect their mortgage payments.

[@JB-ym4up]

There is a voyager short fan film where they make it home and the main screen says 8,431,237 updates required, reboot ship to continue.

[@bedeodempsey5007]

Damn. Now I am interested in Traveller again. Had MegaTraveller and TNE back in the day. Sold it all long ago. I always end up buying everything in a system.

[@SgtReuster]

Oh and I’m really looking forward for the space combat video

[@snakeoi1sean]

Also, I noticed a few differences on the stats for ships from Highguard to the Core book. I assumed HG was the most recent, so I've taken to it for my campaign default.

[@santinotartaglia1154]

I know it shouldn't be annoying, but at about 11:00, when the table for Transit Time was being shown, I found the way it treated hours/days/units inconsistent. Like, in the lower right hand corner we see 2.9 days, but in the left column we see 166.7 hours. I just can't figure out why anything above 24 hours wouldn't be converted to days. I see that they tried to keep the unit dedicated to a row, and probably wanted a single unit across for easy comparison across a row... but why wouldn't they upgrade the unit to reduce the numbers? The second row, going from 2000 seconds to 816 seconds is a wild decision, considering we are pretty much at about ~13 minutes.

[@aldotolino3700]

Great video Seth. Loving your Traveller series. Question. When a ship makes a jump, and it goes into "jump bubble", where transmissions cannot go in or out, it sounds like there is no way to track a ship when it has jumped, like in other sci-fi stories. Is there a mechanism in Traveller to track a ship that has jumped? Maybe a tracking device sends a ping out analyzing a ships trajectory a split second before they make the jump? Just curious. Thanks.

[@SSkorkowsky]

In one of the Journal of the Travellers Aid Society books (Vol 1 or 2. I can't remember) it does mention that with good sensors and a good skill check a ship can read the burst of energy as a jump bubble opens and gauge where the bubble is going to. Don't recall all the specific details, but yes it is possible.

[@brianpembrook9164]

One thing i do for life support is to do an engineer (power or life support) check to turn off the stateroom/low birth. We rarely handle passengers so 90% of the time over half the staterooms are empty. It's a way to shave a thousand off the top and feels more hard sci fi -ish

[@ancapftw9113]

I think I'll say that the life support is fully regenerative, unless you overload the system (fires, venting, too many people,etc.). Extra people can be fixed with being under capacity, but the others require payment.

[@lucasbobo22]

I do not know if you like animes, but there is one called kanata no astra that can really give some ideas for a misjump campaign (the story is basically a group that was forced to misjump an now they need to travel back to earth)

[@wahlex841]

10:32 - would you say that... space is vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big?

[@seileurt]

That chair looks comfy.

[@jesternario]

Yeah, I kinda wrap life support costs into maintenance too. It just makes it easier. Just have the players payer for their monthly lifestyle cost, which is used when off ship, and on ship that’s just paying for supplies for maintenance. And food and air.

[@jeffeppenbach]

"Yeah, well YOUR ship needs to stop blowing holes in OUR ship first!"

[@Tony-dh7mz]

We've all been there, Holes = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[@timbuktu8069]

What the heck does " Vessel contains disturbing psionic echoes." even mean? (Spacecraft quirks line 5) For now I'm treating it as "haunted"

[@SSkorkowsky]

"Haunted" is how we interpret it. Or at least "haunted-ish". Maybe voices or crying being heard in some part of the ship, or maybe an apparition that seems to be re-living some terrible incident. I'm also a fan of this only happens while the ship is in Jumpspace because I feel Jumpspace should already be kinda weird.

[@timbuktu8069]

@@SSkorkowsky I just rolled it up. The Scout ship has been named Moaning Myrtle. Cemetery fog rolls through the corridors, unnatural lights flash in empty cabins small objects fly through the air and the crew just put up with it. Passengers on the other hand....

[@marlinperkins6910]

I’ve always found ship expenses too high. Monthly payments, plus maintenance costs, are ruinous. It might be fairly realistic, but having to spend all your time buying and selling commodities, is more like actual work. That of course assumes you have a merchant ship. Making a living with a yacht, lab, or safari ship, becomes really tough. In my experience, players will follow the path of least resistance and become pirates.

[@fran3ro]

Wtf is that dislike? Who dares? This seems a job for the Bonesaw. No but seriously, wtf?

[@NefariousKoel]

Every video with a decent amount of views gets them. Just the usual net trolls. Ignore them.

[@Tony-dh7mz]

@@NefariousKoel Thats true, just trolls/psychopaths use to make up around 10% doesn't matter the content, trolls gonna hate

[@richmcgee434]

@Jimmy De'Souza "Never ascribe to malice what may simply be a misclick" right? :)

[@fran3ro]

@@NefariousKoel True. My surprise came because I saw the video about 10 min after being posted and already had a dislike. Just 10 min.

[@nordicmaelstrom4714]

There are two victims for the mighty Bonesaw to go straight to the bone!

[@benoitlabrecque4513]

Q-tips, and all other things that keeps you alive XD

[@tooawesomepeoples1]

"The agent then broke down the airlock door and just started shooting. Yelling 'Scott Brown Motherfucker. Get the fuck out. I've got a showin!' The whole time."

[@LoneEagle2061]

Standard occupancy is one per stateroom - double occupancy costs significantly more. As Staterooms are a fixed value for the ship, and the number of characters in the group is relatively stable (sometimes) they should be very simple to manage cost for; Jack's S-Class has 4 Staterooms (4000CR) so if there are three Travellers in the crew the life support cost is (3000CR, 7000CR total), just tack it onto the maintenance cost (increasing it to 10064CR/mo). If someone dies it's fairly simple to handwave that they didn't turn off the scrubbers in their quarters... With passengers (where you can only think about one or two), the additional lifesupport cost can be simplified to 250CR per JDrive rating (assume that the Jump, plus the 100Ø at each end is 1/4 of a month - if you're generous you can even say that the guy wanting to go 1 parsec in middle passage actually pays 6450CR, the number in the book is what the crew sees after deducting life support - otherwise just let them know that each jump they make costs 250CR per passenger off their profits. Fortunately the errata on the same Mongoose page as the 2D deck plans confirms my conclusion that freight payments are /tonne - so I don't feel bad about pushing players to factor in every cost; the profits they can make in their downtime are big enough already (Unless they're trying to buy BattleDress or something similar - in which case I think I want that to take a good little while :-) ).

[@Frostfly]

Airlock interrogation, done best by Kiva Lagos in The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi.

[@richmcgee434]

The only time I can see life support costs being important enough to bother with is if the players are trying to set up a liner or tour service where you might have a lot of passengers at once, or alternately where empty staterooms can be mothballed to skimp on operating costs. Not my idea of a fun campaign but I've seen PCs decide to do weirder things to make money in the game.

[@DapperestDave]

14:14 Location compromised

[@davidbrennan660]

Missile lock!.......

[@litlclutch]

I have a questions only just getting into Traveller and a character rolled getting a Free Trader with 1D quirks and roll 5, only 3 of them were the #8 Double Maintenance costs. seems crazy to make the maintenance cost be 8x normal but even 4x normal seems excessive. Thoughts?

[@SSkorkowsky]

I'd re-roll 2 of the 3 Double Maintenance Costs results.

[@litlclutch]

@@SSkorkowsky yeah, prolly a good idea. Thanks for replying. Oh and love the videos.

[@SSkorkowsky]

No problem at all. Sometimes we all need a second opinion on a ruling. Hope you and your group have fun with Traveller.

[@arglebargle17]

You don't know Jack's Ship. heheh

[@nordicmaelstrom4714]

Hey Seth have you had a chance to take a look at The Great Rift and Behind the Claw material?

[@SSkorkowsky]

Just started our Rift campaign last month. Gonna be using Islands in the Rift as a backdrop as they travel through the Reft Sector doing adventures. I love the Rift setting books. I have Behind the Claw, but haven't looked at it much, as it arrived just as I was gearing up our Rift game.

[@nordicmaelstrom4714]

@@SSkorkowsky I've been fascinated with the Great Rift since I first started getting into the game about a year ago. Just ordered the box set and behind the claw off of ebay today. I had been procrastinating about getting the material as I was just going to create my own setting but that proved quite a daunting task. I was fortunate enough to find two really good deals on ebay today and now I have to impatiently await their arrival. Do you have any plans to put up any videos on the Rift?

[@alexgoodwin2419]

@@SSkorkowsky - watch out, deliberate jumps into deep space are _nasty_ in MGT2.

[@SSkorkowsky]

I'd considered a Game Diary for it, but since we'll be doing several scenarios as well as home-grown stuff all interlaced, it doesn't work for the normal diary/review format where I review one long campaign adventure. I'll review any scenarios individually, and depending how it goes, I might make a diary series without the review aspect because right now, between the characters and the adventures I have planned, this should be a blast. When I first started playing Traveller, one of the first scenarios I picked up was Islands in the Rift and I told my players then that it was the scenario I wanted to run the most, but didn't want to until we were all proficient in the game. Now that we are, I'm finally ready to tackle it. I've made a few aggressive changes to it and I think they'll enjoy it. Deliberate Deep Space jumps aren't too terribly bad themselves, as much as the repeated jumps through deep space, which they'll have to do.

[@nordicmaelstrom4714]

@@SSkorkowsky Id imagine there is a lot of room for adding in things to the Rift especially. I have to take a look at the Rift adventures. I've never run a Traveller game so when I started to work on my own setting it was way too daunting but this time around I will definitely use the setting provided and start with one of Mongoose's adventures just to get our feet wet. How does the game run with only a few players?

[@genericpersonx333]

My way to get a ship was to be the ship's captain, but most importantly, be the unwanted 12th child of one of the most powerful families in galactic finance and someone the family wanted as far away from the Board of Directors as possible, hence a stupendous stipend and ship with all the amenities. However, being the 12th child of a woman with Custom-Made-Planets kind of wealth also means a need to keep a very low profile lest someone think they can get a Custom Planet as ransom. Made for a fun character.

[@RichardKurbis]

GM's... It's important to know, the ship is YOUR control factor in the game.

[@richmcgee434]

And an excellent source of plot hooks on the rare occasions that the players can't get in enough trouble on their own.

[@orcbane100]

What page is the table at 20:53 at? I can't seem to find it.

[@ProfBoggs]

I never thought about this when I played Traveller in the 1980s, having no clue as a teenager about mortgages, but does this version of Traveller provide any backstory on how monthly payments on a ship work in a universe with no FTL communication? I mean, if I am jumping around from system to system, how long does it take my payments to make it to the bank? Or does the Imperium centralize this payment infrastructure? I suppose this information --- i.e., who is and is not in arrears, and payment history --- might be included in the updates to the ship's databanks.

[@SSkorkowsky]

There's a bit of handwaving, but the book does explain some of it. The ship has an account on it that the PCs can pay every month (I imagine this like some ATM in the corner) and the ship holds the payment until it reaches a Class A or B starport and then automatically transfers it to some Imperium banking network or some such. I think skip tracers can pretty much access this too if they find a ship that's late on payments, scan it with the right codes, and then the onboard ATM transfers the funds because the delinquent ship just hadn't been by a Class A or B in a while and was holding onto 5-6 months worth of payments.

[@Xplora213]

Bank employee here. Very normal for your bank account or credit cards to have money taken away but not actually processed. You could easily have your funds set aside and inaccessible. In addition, I’d suggest the computer software to handle such database work would be so crazy locked down and multi level secure that it would be truly worthless to spend the time trying to hack the system. This mortgage is linked to someone who can switch off your life support remotely…. This wasn’t quite so nasty to imagine In the 80s but recent activity with FBI and CIA makes me think things could be much more crazy than we think.

[@ProfBoggs]

@Xplora213 Thank you!

[@malcolmcampbell3912]

I want my group to play Traveller so bad.

[@billharm6006]

About Library Data: I use the X-Boat system and say that data moves around known space at the speed of the X-Boats. Upon arrival in the system, the X-Boat's library is checked against the system's central library and visa-versa. Uploads and downloads are made as indicated to synchronize their data catalogs. If the system has an X-Boat Tender--and most systems with X-Boat service will--then the X-Boat Tender will have a current copy of the system library, enhanced by any newly arrived information that has not been downloaded to the system's central library (in rare cases, the X-Boat Tender's library will be the system's central library). System having X-Boat service can--and will--generate new information. Information authorized for release (of course) is uploaded to X-Boat--probably via the X-Boat Tender--before the X-Boat departs. X-Boats may arrive in system from different origin points. Each arrival will carry unique information. Each arrival will have unique data voids. Some levels of classified information may be couriered in this manner, though most sensitive material will be explicitly addressed rather than generally distributed. Highly sensitive material will likely be transferred via special courier, thereby avoiding any risk of compromise and decreasing the delivery time associated with the X-Boat system's more generic data routing. Systems not serviced by X-Boats must rely upon newly arrived vessels to carry the most updated information. Such systems will have rules requiring newly arrived vessels to download their generic library data and, perhaps, to accept data uploads to be, "carried back to civilization." Ships generally update their library upon arrival in system (there may be pertinent new "Notice to Mariners" postings that the vessel needs to be apprised of). Ships also generally update their library immediately prior to departure. Of course, such connection to official upload/download points registers the ship's presence (arrival and, probably, departure). Thus, repo operators, "private detectives," law enforcement, etc. can use the records to aid in tracking or in establishing prior presence in the system (obviously, researching other data sources could yield the same data, but I assume that the library's check-in record is not highly secured, while other sources of equivalent information probably are more secure). One final related item: Accessing the data. I assume that the core data are in a very standard format and are accessed through a minimal standard query interface. The base system includes standard translators for all known languages. Various commercial software packages are available that supposedly improve the "clunky standard interface" (which isn't really so "clunky," but it is common to disdain all things readily available). Additionally, a skilled programmer can write a program, or just a query (think: Crystal Reports), that can be rerun at will to filter and select certain items from the vast, ever-changing, Database of Known Space (handy when arriving in a new system while on a hunt). Some elements of the above occasionally add flavor or opportunity to a campaign.

[@madsam7582]

I'd usually lessen the 100 diameters a bit. The 100 diameters means that you need to travel the width of the planet you're leaving, to jump, but the envelope of other planets also could drag you out of J space, Jupiter is 139,820 km in diameter That means you need to get 13,982,000 km away from it to stay in J space. It also means that if you are trying to jump to earth from outside there is a bubble 27,964,000 km that you can't jump through. I know space is big, but so are those numbers, and jumping blind, towards a planet with a massive anti jump bubble like that is kinda tricky. I'd say 10 diameters at most. Gravity wells at 100 are much less powerful to the point where a ship with its grav plates on would be able to pull you out of J space.

[@richmcgee434]

If you really want to get physics involved, the gravity of a planet is tied to density (which isn't addressed at all in the rules AFAIK) and certainly increases far more slowly than planetary diameter does. Jupiter, with a diameter around 11 times that of Earth, only exerts about 2.4 gees at its surface. So yeah, the jump limit should realistically be based on something other than just planetary diameters - but this is a game not a physics class, and we're already talking about magical gravity-control tech and FTL drives here. Handwaving in favor of playability seems the way to go.

[@alexgoodwin2419]

In that case, why are you only worrying about 100D limits of _planets_ , then? Sol's 100D limit is so close to 1AU it's not funny, so inbound jumps to Earth/Terra would drop out at 1 AU during the southern summer and have to then cover the open space to the planet.

[@SSkorkowsky]

I was actually surprised the Sun's 100-diameter limit didn't even reach Earth (though it does get damned close). Before I started doing the numbers, I'd just thought that jumping would have to be way out in the solar system away from the sun and wherever the major planets are in their orbits. There was a lot of, "holy crap space is huge" when I started doing the math.

[@alexgoodwin2419]

@@SSkorkowsky , I was trying to account for Terra's orbit not being circular - thus the 3rd Rock From Sol would be masked by Sol around perihelion (southern summer) and not-quite-masked around aphelion (northern summer). It's slightly off topic for this video series, but Traveller5 introduces higher-order jump drives (hop, skip, leap, bound, vault, etc) that multiply both the base jump length by a power of 10, and the 100D limit by the same amount. Frinstance, a leap drive jumps in even units of 1000 pc and imposes a 100,000 D limit (for Sol, around 1,000 AU - is that far enough out for you?).

[@richmcgee434]

@@alexgoodwin2419 Yeah, the system primary will usually be the main limiter unless you're trying to jump near a gas giant (which is pretty common for refuelling, honestly). With some stars the entire habitable zone may be within the 100-diameter limit of the star, while Sol only forces to drop out of jump before getting near Venus or Mercury. Red giants will have gigantic exclusion zones, and binary systems will have ones that significantly change what planets (if there are any, that is) are in or out of 100 diameters.

[@zeedar412]

One of my players rolled a lab ship as one of her mustering out benefits. Amazing! Oh it's only 25% paid off... And it consts 400k+ just to pay the mortgage every month! But the players love the idea of using a lab ship as a non-suspicios smuggling ship, so they are keeping it. I guess they'd better start chasing down some high-paying jobs.