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Post by Terry Mixon on Jul 30, 2021 13:25:27 GMT -5
Cyril is nearly useless, but he's willing. Eris also said we can tweak characters and even add a secondary character. These things can be addressed. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jul 30, 2021 14:27:56 GMT -5
Casca also has the best Ship's Boat skill and from what I have been reading, it sounds like that will definitely be needed. If Eris approves me to play, I would like to be more specialized in combat, but I am open to whatever you need. It seems to me that a captain should be a more experienced player for a smoother running game, but if no one wants to do it, I could be talked into it. I think that qualifies as "volunteering". JR  so it does. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jul 30, 2021 14:28:37 GMT -5
Should I go ahead and work on character creation and do you all have suggestions?
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Post by joertexas on Jul 30, 2021 15:48:52 GMT -5
Should I go ahead and work on character creation and do you all have suggestions? A military command background would be helpful. |
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Post by erisred on Aug 1, 2021 16:40:29 GMT -5
Well, I said the first of August...
I'm going to try to start getting back to the game(s), now, but I still have a lot of administrative tasks to deal with. Things are going to be slow for a while more.
Folks, thanks for your prayers and kind thoughts. I appreciate it.
Eris
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Post by Terry Mixon on Aug 1, 2021 16:52:11 GMT -5
Well, I said the first of August... I'm going to try to start getting back to the game(s), now, but I still have a lot of administrative tasks to deal with. Things are going to be slow for a while more. Folks, thanks for your prayers and kind thoughts. I appreciate it. Eris We’re here for you man. And we’ve been busy plotting out a pirate hunting campaign, so we’ve entertained ourselves.  |
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Post by erisred on Aug 1, 2021 16:52:40 GMT -5
I'm sorry for missing that, my bad. I read about his family troubles and he was going to be gone and moved to next item. I like where the conversation is going, maybe ill switch around some skills, like gunner instead of FO. eric
When he returns, Eris apparently intends to fast-forward the game to the point where we already have the new ship and are setting out with it. ateno , I don't have any idea how far it is from where we "are" to where the RIA will interview us. But I assume it will take a while to get there. We could say that Peng spends the transit time training your PC in how to use ship weapons.  Well, almost. I am going to fast forward y'all back to Patagonia. Delgado will still want you to deliver their people to the systems out to the Mantan system, but they now think a much more armed ship might be in order and are willing to talk about swapping Clear Sails for something else. Romanian Naval Intelligence, Samantha's bosses, are going to "debrief" you and want to talk to you about undertaking "a mission" for them, that might involve a Q-ship, that they could help fit out. I'd rather keep the number of crew down somewhat as we don't have a huge number of players and I don't want to NPC any more than I have to. I'd rather keep as much of the focus on PC's as possible. BTW, I have the Armed Merchant...somewhere...I can't quite lay my hands on the book at the moment, but I know I bought that book a decade or so ago. As for the corsair, maybe, but I think that would demand too many crew. |
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Post by erisred on Aug 1, 2021 16:53:45 GMT -5
I have no objections and would welcome you. Thank you! Seconded from me! The more the merrier! |
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Post by erisred on Aug 1, 2021 17:05:02 GMT -5
Okay. First off: Eris, I am so sorry to hear about your mom. However difficult this has been, you have been there for her and with her and that is what's important. Everything about the game is secondary to these moments. My thoughts are with you and those who knew her. Take whatever time you need. I lost my mom to Covid at Christmas, and was unable to visit. I know this is hard, and a chalenging time. Second, thank you Terry for the post in the IC thread; I had missed this whole discussion. Thanks Tophocles. Mom was 2 months short of 101 when she died. She had been declining with dementia for several years. I kept her at home until the end, because that was what she had said she wanted. Over the years she lost her ability to speak, then to walk, and toward the end often didn't know me...or anyone who visited her, but she always had a smile for people and would squeeze my hand. A couple a months before she died she had enough wits about her to mock slapping my bottom when I leaned over to pick up something near her chair, and then grin about it when my sister called her on it. She went down very fast in the last month of her life, going from being about to sit up a bit and eating and drinking to being completely bed-ridden, being feed by hand and taking water through a syringe. Eventually she was unable to swallow anything, she had forgotten how to swallow. Home Hospice had her on morphine the last few days, so she was comfortable, but it was still heart breaking to see her fade away. |
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oscar
Prospector
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Post by oscar on Aug 1, 2021 20:04:07 GMT -5
Cyril is nearly useless, but he's willing. Eris also said we can tweak characters and even add a secondary character. These things can be addressed. How about reworking Cyril as medic? I have no idea what skills he'd need beside medic, though. |
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Post by erisred on Aug 1, 2021 22:46:35 GMT -5
Eris also said we can tweak characters and even add a secondary character. These things can be addressed. How about reworking Cyril as medic? I have no idea what skills he'd need beside medic, though. That's doable. To be the ship's medic, Cyril would need to add Medic-1, that's all that's needed to "qualify" him as able to do basic medical tasks and to run the AutoDoc machine which would do most of the actual work of healing injuries. Medic-2 would rate Cyril as "competent" and would be better, of course. I'd rather tweet Cyril to give him that skill than drop him...I like Cyril. Anyway, that leads me to... Ensemble Play: I think I broached this subject earlier, but looking back I don't think it made it to the list. The idea of ensemble play is the players can run two PC's each. One would be mostly shipboard skilled crew and the other would be mostly non-shipboard skilled. The two PC's wouldn't directly interact much. If you're thinking about going pirate hunting then you might want to consider this idea. The shipboard PC's are the crew and mostly stay aboard flying and fighting from there (Navy/Scout/Merchant backgrounds), while the other PC the player runs would be boarding party, ground attack types (Army/Marines/Other backgrounds). If one of the player's PC's dies he's still in the game while he/she creates a replacement PC for the other role. The two roles wouldn't need to intersect all that much and it might help keep everyone involved in *some* action all the time. A ship's crew on a Q ship doing trading and trying to lure pirate/slaver/reavers to their doom, with a squad of marines in their own section of the ship, maybe, pretending to be passengers. The ship could still carry a few real passengers and some cargo to make themselves a target...but a target with real teeth. I don't know if you'd be interested, but think it over. |
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Post by Terry Mixon on Aug 1, 2021 23:13:12 GMT -5
How about reworking Cyril as medic? I have no idea what skills he'd need beside medic, though. That's doable. To be the ship's medic, Cyril would need to add Medic-1, that's all that's needed to "qualify" him as able to do basic medical tasks and to run the AutoDoc machine which would do most of the actual work of healing injuries. Medic-2 would rate Cyril as "competent" and would be better, of course. I'd rather tweet Cyril to give him that skill than drop him...I like Cyril. Anyway, that leads me to... Ensemble Play: I think I broached this subject earlier, but looking back I don't think it made it to the list. The idea of ensemble play is the players can run two PC's each. One would be mostly shipboard skilled crew and the other would be mostly non-shipboard skilled. The two PC's wouldn't directly interact much. If you're thinking about going pirate hunting then you might want to consider this idea. The shipboard PC's are the crew and mostly stay aboard flying and fighting from there (Navy/Scout/Merchant backgrounds), while the other PC the player runs would be boarding party, ground attack types (Army/Marines/Other backgrounds). If one of the player's PC's dies he's still in the game while he/she creates a replacement PC for the other role. The two roles wouldn't need to intersect all that much and it might help keep everyone involved in *some* action all the time. A ship's crew on a Q ship doing trading and trying to lure pirate/slaver/reavers to their doom, with a squad of marines in their own section of the ship, maybe, pretending to be passengers. The ship could still carry a few real passengers and some cargo to make themselves a target...but a target with real teeth. I don't know if you'd be interested, but think it over. You did mention it and we’ve been talking about it. I think the response has been pretty positive to doing the two character setup with separate ship and fighting crew. We’ve even found a sweet ship we might try to sweet talk you into. |
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Post by erisred on Aug 2, 2021 22:12:56 GMT -5
You did mention it and we’ve been talking about it. I think the response has been pretty positive to doing the two character setup with separate ship and fighting crew. We’ve even found a sweet ship we might try to sweet talk you into. You mean a ship like this?  |
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Post by Terry Mixon on Aug 2, 2021 22:23:47 GMT -5
You did mention it and we’ve been talking about it. I think the response has been pretty positive to doing the two character setup with separate ship and fighting crew. We’ve even found a sweet ship we might try to sweet talk you into. You mean a ship like this? You peeked! As a matter of fact, exactly that ship though the plans were in a different format. |
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Post by raikenclw on Aug 2, 2021 23:27:33 GMT -5
Looks like a nice ship! I assume it must be very nimble, since half the armament appears to be lasers in fixed forward-arc mounts. As to "ensemble play," I'm okay with that. Peng would definitely be crewside, as boarding is just soooooo much work. For my Away Party PC . . . is there a minor non-human race that's native to Mantan Subsector? I'm thinking he/she/it would be from the old "Other" career, a character like the A-Teams Face who would be a "native guide" to the fringes of starport society. |
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Post by joertexas on Aug 2, 2021 23:39:55 GMT -5
Ensemble Play: I think I broached this subject earlier, but looking back I don't think it made it to the list. The idea of ensemble play is the players can run two PC's each. One would be mostly shipboard skilled crew and the other would be mostly non-shipboard skilled. The two PC's wouldn't directly interact much. I'd like to stick with the Aslan, although they do come as a set, and would rarely leave the ship alone. That said, Takheal is a competent warrior, and Tokheletoi can ably defend herself, if needed. |
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Post by joertexas on Aug 2, 2021 23:44:16 GMT -5
You peeked! As a matter of fact, exactly that ship though the plans were in a different format. Can we mount the pulse lasers in a barbette, instead of using the fixed armaments? Also, a particle accelerator weapon would be much more useful than a plasma weapon at space combat ranges. |
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ateno
Traveler
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Post by ateno on Aug 3, 2021 5:05:02 GMT -5
Ekhunoz would be a boarding character, primarily engineering specialist, if SOMEONE would print him a Vargr laser rifle... Still thinking of a secondary character.. |
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Post by Terry Mixon on Aug 3, 2021 8:15:29 GMT -5
You did mention it and we’ve been talking about it. I think the response has been pretty positive to doing the two character setup with separate ship and fighting crew. We’ve even found a sweet ship we might try to sweet talk you into. You mean a ship like this? The map we were tossing around earlier.  ![]() |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Aug 3, 2021 8:38:16 GMT -5
I know I am a complete rookie here, but one thing I have always wondered about (since I saw my first movie space combat) is why guns are not mounted to provide a 360 degree range of fire (or at least one pointing behind you to get the guy chasing you) with the gunners getting a substantial computer assist?
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Post by joertexas on Aug 3, 2021 9:58:51 GMT -5
I know I am a complete rookie here, but one thing I have always wondered about (since I saw my first movie space combat) is why guns are not mounted to provide a 360 degree range of fire (or at least one pointing behind you to get the guy chasing you) with the gunners getting a substantial computer assist? In Traveller, space combat turns are 30 minutes each. So, there is lots of time to orient the ship to bring all the weapons to bear. The whole system is abstract, dated, and horribly simplistic, but it gets the job done without a lot of fiddling with the game mechanics. Traveller The New Era does a much better job with correcting some of the mistakes, but it takes much more time and attention to detail to game out a battle. As one example, a laser emitter is a two-meter parabolic mirror with a powerful grav node projected in front of it. The coherent light beam is squished down to a point as it's projected outward, which helps explain the range it gets (see the Inverse Square Law). That means there are no such things as "triple" laser turrets. When you're hammering out 150Mj of energy and can punch five feet of armor plate, while firing multiple times during each turn, you only need the one emitter per turret. |
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Post by raikenclw on Aug 3, 2021 10:49:38 GMT -5
When you're hammering out 150Mj of energy and can punch five feet of armor plate, while firing multiple times during each turn, you only need the one emitter per turret. I always imagined the multiple cannon per turret as a rif on the World War II era Oerlikon cannon [ animated youtube clip]. E.g. spray enough fire into the right general area and you may get a hit. IMTU, I use the Casaba Howitzer as the basis of military scale direct-fire ship weapons. ACTUAL physical cannon - complete with substantial recoil - except that shells are shaped-charge nuclear bombs. The same tech which magically protects fuel skimming Traveller ships from the MASSIVE radiation pumped out by gas giants serves to direct all radioactive byproducts downrange at the target. Civilian ships only rarely (legally) mount such weapons, being instead restricted to relatively-short-ranged, relatively-low-damage Gatlin lasers. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Aug 3, 2021 11:08:30 GMT -5
When you're hammering out 150Mj of energy and can punch five feet of armor plate, while firing multiple times during each turn, you only need the one emitter per turret. I always imagined the multiple cannon per turret as a rif on the World War II era Oerlikon cannon [ animated youtube clip]. E.g. spray enough fire into the right general area and you may get a hit. IMTU, I use the Casaba Howitzer as the basis of military scale direct-fire ship weapons. ACTUAL physical cannon - complete with substantial recoil - except that shells are shaped-charge nuclear bombs. The same tech which magically protects fuel skimming Traveller ships from the MASSIVE radiation pumped out by gas giants serves to direct all radioactive byproducts downrange at the target. Civilian ships only rarely (legally) mount such weapons, being instead restricted to relatively-short-ranged, relatively-low-damage Gatlin lasers. I don't recall ever reading anything about radiation and gas giants, that is a fascinating topic. |
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Post by joertexas on Aug 3, 2021 11:20:32 GMT -5
I always imagined the multiple cannon per turret as a rif on the World War II era Oerlikon cannon [ animated youtube clip]. E.g. spray enough fire into the right general area and you may get a hit. IMTU, I use the Casaba Howitzer as the basis of military scale direct-fire ship weapons. ACTUAL physical cannon - complete with substantial recoil - except that shells are shaped-charge nuclear bombs. The same tech which magically protects fuel skimming Traveller ships from the MASSIVE radiation pumped out by gas giants serves to direct all radioactive byproducts downrange at the target. Civilian ships only rarely (legally) mount such weapons, being instead restricted to relatively-short-ranged, relatively-low-damage Gatlin lasers. I don't recall ever reading anything about radiation and gas giants, that is a fascinating topic. If you want a good read on space combat, pick up David Weber's Honor Harrington series. He uses some handwavium, of course, but most of his stuff is accurate and well thought out. He talks about grav-lens beam weapons, and bomb-pumped x-ray laser warheads for missiles. Regarding gas giants - yep, they really put out the radiation. Jupiter isn't a nice place to visit: astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2020/02/what-is-the-source-of-jupiters-radiation |
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Post by raikenclw on Aug 3, 2021 11:46:47 GMT -5
I don't recall ever reading anything about radiation and gas giants, that is a fascinating topic. If you want a good read on space combat, pick up David Weber's Honor Harrington series. He uses some handwavium, of course, but most of his stuff is accurate and well thought out. He talks about grav-lens beam weapons, and bomb-pumped x-ray laser warheads for missiles. I loved the first several books (even though his tongue-in-check references to French Revolution individuals and events - "Rob S. Pierre" as a major antagonist? Come on! - were rather painful). However, once Honor moves into politics I sort of lost interest. Although I must admit that some of the newest novels (which largely focus on the now-teenage children of major protagonists) are starting to win me back. Oh, yeah. You might as well live in a microwave. ObTrav: To my knowledge, there is only one minor mention of this in early Traveller. In "Beltstrike," a space station orbiting the gas giant Bowman Prime is reported to have lost it's "shielding" due to incompetent maintenance, with the resulting loss of several hundred lives. I'm pretty sure that this was added as an adventure seed, since said space station is chronically short of labor even though the new management ASSURES prospective employees that the issue has been fixed . . . |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Aug 3, 2021 12:03:36 GMT -5
I don't recall ever reading anything about radiation and gas giants, that is a fascinating topic. If you want a good read on space combat, pick up David Weber's Honor Harrington series. He uses some handwavium, of course, but most of his stuff is accurate and well thought out. He talks about grav-lens beam weapons, and bomb-pumped x-ray laser warheads for missiles. Regarding gas giants - yep, they really put out the radiation. Jupiter isn't a nice place to visit: astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2020/02/what-is-the-source-of-jupiters-radiationI have only read one of those so far, but loved it! Thanks for the link! |
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oscar
Prospector
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Post by oscar on Aug 3, 2021 20:12:31 GMT -5
That's doable. To be the ship's medic, Cyril would need to add Medic-1, that's all that's needed to "qualify" him as able to do basic medical tasks and to run the AutoDoc machine which would do most of the actual work of healing injuries. Medic-2 would rate Cyril as "competent" and would be better, of course. I'd rather tweet Cyril to give him that skill than drop him...I like Cyril. Anyway, that leads me to... Ensemble Play: I think I broached this subject earlier, but looking back I don't think it made it to the list. The idea of ensemble play is the players can run two PC's each. One would be mostly shipboard skilled crew and the other would be mostly non-shipboard skilled. The two PC's wouldn't directly interact much. If you're thinking about going pirate hunting then you might want to consider this idea. The shipboard PC's are the crew and mostly stay aboard flying and fighting from there (Navy/Scout/Merchant backgrounds), while the other PC the player runs would be boarding party, ground attack types (Army/Marines/Other backgrounds). If one of the player's PC's dies he's still in the game while he/she creates a replacement PC for the other role. The two roles wouldn't need to intersect all that much and it might help keep everyone involved in *some* action all the time. A ship's crew on a Q ship doing trading and trying to lure pirate/slaver/reavers to their doom, with a squad of marines in their own section of the ship, maybe, pretending to be passengers. The ship could still carry a few real passengers and some cargo to make themselves a target...but a target with real teeth. I don't know if you'd be interested, but think it over. You did mention it and we’ve been talking about it. I think the response has been pretty positive to doing the two character setup with separate ship and fighting crew. We’ve even found a sweet ship we might try to sweet talk you into. |
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oscar
Prospector
Posts: 97
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Post by oscar on Aug 3, 2021 20:16:25 GMT -5
Medic-2 for Cyril is the best offer I've had so far this week.
For the other, if I can't have Sgt Schlock, how about a plain vanilla marine? Something like a 2 term lance corporal?
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Post by Terry Mixon on Aug 3, 2021 20:49:01 GMT -5
Ensemble Play: I think I broached this subject earlier, but looking back I don't think it made it to the list. The idea of ensemble play is the players can run two PC's each. One would be mostly shipboard skilled crew and the other would be mostly non-shipboard skilled. The two PC's wouldn't directly interact much. If you're thinking about going pirate hunting then you might want to consider this idea. The shipboard PC's are the crew and mostly stay aboard flying and fighting from there (Navy/Scout/Merchant backgrounds), while the other PC the player runs would be boarding party, ground attack types (Army/Marines/Other backgrounds). If one of the player's PC's dies he's still in the game while he/she creates a replacement PC for the other role. The two roles wouldn't need to intersect all that much and it might help keep everyone involved in *some* action all the time. A ship's crew on a Q ship doing trading and trying to lure pirate/slaver/reavers to their doom, with a squad of marines in their own section of the ship, maybe, pretending to be passengers. The ship could still carry a few real passengers and some cargo to make themselves a target...but a target with real teeth. I don't know if you'd be interested, but think it over. If we're tweaking characters, Charlie can navigate but we need a backup pilot. Maybe get him some skill in that? As for the secondary character, I think an enlisted marine would be good. Not a senior guy as someone else needs to run that show as I'm acting as the shipside captain. Got to share the love! |
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Tophocles
Prospector
Last Guy in the Airlock
Posts: 85
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Post by Tophocles on Aug 4, 2021 13:52:02 GMT -5
Mom was 2 months short of 101 when she died. She had been declining with dementia for several years. I kept her at home until the end, because that was what she had said she wanted. Over the years she lost her ability to speak, then to walk, and toward the end often didn't know me...or anyone who visited her, but she always had a smile for people and would squeeze my hand. A couple a months before she died she had enough wits about her to mock slapping my bottom when I leaned over to pick up something near her chair, and then grin about it when my sister called her on it. She went down very fast in the last month of her life, going from being about to sit up a bit and eating and drinking to being completely bed-ridden, being feed by hand and taking water through a syringe. Eventually she was unable to swallow anything, she had forgotten how to swallow. Home Hospice had her on morphine the last few days, so she was comfortable, but it was still heart breaking to see her fade away. This sounds very familiar, and I see it as a good thing that you were able to look after her, and you have these memories of caring for her.
I too was dealing with dementia, and so appeared to her sometimes as a stranger, sometimes husband, sometimes a father. But being able to offer a reassuring presence, holding her hand, was a gift.
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so it does.
