Remember that SFU did not spring forth whole-cloth, but rather grew over time. A lot of what was said early on doesn't make as much sense in view of what came years (decades) later. Still, ADB does a pretty good job of incorporating all data into a cohesive canon. Yes, some things are a bit harder to explain than others, and I'm sure SVC would love to change a few items form the early days, but it's still much better than the TV show the game is based on.


P.S> Shawn: The enter-key is your friend. Please break up long paragraphs up into two to four line bites. Makes it a lot easier to read.


Garth L. Getgen

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - 01:48 pm: Edit

I did kinda ramble, sorry.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - 07:23 pm: Edit

Didn't mind the rambling, just the lack of line-breaks. You made several good points, so it was worth reading it all.


Garth L. Getgen

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - 08:39 pm: Edit

Just use SFB for the space combat. Let traveller handle the people level stuff...

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - 09:09 pm: Edit

The people need ships and deckplans to explore if maybe a derelict and fight on if they own it or are trying to take it over.
In Traveller ships have a mass and a displacement. A ship laser in Traveller takes up the same amount of cubic space whether it is mounted on a fighter or a Dreadnought.
By Traveller standards, if a PF has five phasers and is one tenth the size of a police corvette, the police cruiser could have fifty phasers. A Fed CA has six phasers and four torpedoes and is how much bigger than a PF?
So by Traveller ship design standards the PF seems over-gunned and cruisers seem severely under-gunned.

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - 09:52 pm: Edit

Givens:
Unit A and Unit B both mount their own versions of "The Weapon"
Both versions of "The Weapon" operate under the exact same principles, therefore are considered the same weapon for discussion and tactical purposes. It just operates better (somehow) in Unit A
Unit A is vastly larger than Unit B
The number of "The Weapon" mounted in Unit A does not scale with it's size relation to Unit B. Unit A has quite a few less of "The Weapon" than it's size leads you to believe

Things that can explain a mass/volume change that an object requires to be properly mounted:
One version has it's maximum range capped below the theoretical maximum.
One version can handle more power than the other, requiring more size but giving better performance
Slow down rate of fire
Make it less durable to damage
Make it so it can be fired fewer times before breaking (or needing a recharge, or needing to cool down, or needing to swap out a part)
Make it so it might burnout whenever used
One version is a recent breakthrough in miniaturization, while the other has been in service for decades. There generally would not be a program to replace the large version with the small one (even to future construction) because it requires a full redesign of those areas of those units fielding the old version. (Redesign the struts holding the equipment, upgrade software to handle the new characteristics, deal with whatever carry-over effects that the old piece might have caused or solved, and so on. Engineers work heavy magic in this area, and simple ideas for you cause them headaches to implement)

Missing safety features might explain any of the above.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Thursday, May 22, 2014 - 01:37 am: Edit

I originally wrote something that became too long.

SFB ships will look weird compared to Traveller counterparts. Too many differences in universe assumptions to be otherwise.

Both Traveller and SFB allow smaller craft to be much more dangerous for their size. Traveller has alternate design sequences for fighters and SDBs can be devoted to weapon bays instead of fuel and jump drives. SFB inspired construction mechanics can do the same with fighters and PFs.

By Shawn Driscoll (Shawndriscoll) on Thursday, May 22, 2014 - 01:43 am: Edit

Michael Grafton said, "Just use SFB for the space combat. Let traveller handle the people level stuff..."


That kind of defeats the purpose of producing a Traveller Prime Directive book though.

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Thursday, May 22, 2014 - 11:11 am: Edit

Just use SFB for the space combat. Let traveller handle the people level stuff... and Victory By Any Means for the Empire-level stuff.

If you're going to use multiple systems, why not go whole hog?

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, May 22, 2014 - 11:33 am: Edit

"Just use SFB for the space combat. Let traveller handle the people level stuff..."

This is one of the most common complaints I hear about the various Prime Directive systems. Most RPG players do not want to stop playing the RPG to dig out a war game, particularly if they do not normally play war games.

This is often seen as not an effort to produce a new game, but as a ploy to sell more SFB/Federation Commander. If you are going to the effort to license a system like Traveller why not make it fully compatible, so that people are more likely to want to play it, and, more importantly for ADB, BUY it.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, May 22, 2014 - 01:02 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

By Traveller standards, if a PF has five phasers and is one tenth the size of a police corvette, the police cruiser could have fifty phasers.

---

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Thursday, May 22, 2014 - 01:59 pm: Edit

First, we have heard complaints from RPGers who do want a ship combat system built in. They don't want FC or SFB.

Traveller PD will have a ship combat aspect. It is being playtested now. We have warned people that mixing the SFU with Traveller ships may result in the instant annihilation of the Traveller ship unless some fiddling with things happens around the game table. Our goal is to have the feel of the SFU and the feel of Traveller.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, May 22, 2014 - 11:44 pm: Edit

I'm sure whatever ADB comes up with will remain true to SFU and still fit kind of sort of into Traveller.

Reminds me of the arguments of who would win between Star Trek ships and Star Wars ships.


Garth L. Getgen

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Friday, May 23, 2014 - 02:43 pm: Edit

Remember that tri-video episode where the interepid explorers found a planet with a Nazi culture? Her you go, MGP Traveller is way ahead of you- http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/130207/German-Vehicles-of-World-War-II

By Mike Bennett (Mike) on Friday, May 23, 2014 - 09:37 pm: Edit

Intrepid explorers? More like enterprising explorers.

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 01:54 am: Edit

Just as long as they Kirked some Nazi's rear end before leaving...

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 12:22 pm: Edit

Ohhh Myyy.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 03:24 pm: Edit

I have already deleted two responses I was going to make, both of which were going to be far too long.

The issues are:
- Even if you make a perfect ship construction system that works flawlessly with itself and has no openings for abuse, it won't be able to make SFU ships. Effectively, you would end up creating a whole new fleet, thus invalidating every ship that currently exists.
- Ignoring different sizes of the weapons, you still have one ship (Fed FF @ 5,000 dton) that is a quarter the size of another (Fed CA @ 19,000 dton) that has half the weaponry, not a quarter. That makes scaling extremely hard.
- Even if you make three versions of every weapon ("fighter", "gunboat", and "ship" versions), you *will* get people shoving the "wrong" size weapons into vehicles.
- Once you publish "official" construction rules, you will have people crawling out of the woodwork demanding (yes, demanding) that these ships have to be "real" and therefore need SSDs and ship cards.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 03:30 pm: Edit

As for starship combat, yes, we are putting a starship combat system in to Traveller Prime Directive. Basically, SFU ships will be expressed in Traveller terms so that the existent Traveller starship combat can be used. The numbers are big a ludicrous, but they should work. The big thing we are doing now is fine-tuning the weapon damage to work right.

The reason for this is as Jean states: RPG players do not want to be told to pull out a game they might not even own to resolve a bit piece of their game session. Plus, the SFB and FC, there is no real direct contribution for players; in the Traveller combat rules, there is.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 08:21 pm: Edit

We certainly are not going to invent a ship construction system that generates SFU ships. (One compatible with Traveller would not work anyway as the concepts behind the two games are irresolvable.) We will have some kind of customization system, such as the ability to replace photons with a list of other systems.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, May 29, 2014 - 06:40 pm: Edit

I wasn't trying to push for a ship design system, i was only trying to help rationalize how and why thing works the way they do in Traveller and the SFU. In games of Traveller the GM is going to do want they want regardless of the rules in order to have fun. That being said, I think the players should be allowed to modify ships they own and since it would be very unlikely they would own anything other that a workboat all they would be able to do was swap a system or two. I would find it very unrealistic for the characters to own a Fed CA and try to get gatling Phasers for it. Now if they were playing Orion pirates and owned shares of a CR, maybe.

Again not pushing for a construction system, the government build the ships a certain way and that is all.

By Bob Stusse (Lincolnlog) on Wednesday, September 10, 2014 - 09:27 am: Edit

Is PD-Traveller still be developed? There hasn't been a peep in months here or in the FC forums.

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Wednesday, September 10, 2014 - 10:01 am: Edit

Yes. I just need about three weeks of time that is not spent on other projects, and that must include Steve Cole time.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, September 10, 2014 - 11:55 am: Edit

We're trying to schedule that, but it's complicated and since I can't predict how long any given project will take, I can't predict when the next three or four would be finished.

By Bob Stusse (Lincolnlog) on Thursday, September 11, 2014 - 12:07 pm: Edit

Jean & Steve, thanks for the quick answers. Glad to know this is still moving forward.