I'm just surfing the gaming forums and I'm seeing a lot of people who have recently been exposed to Mongoose Traveller extolling its virtues as a game. I like it, and am a Traveller whore, but I haven't seen this kind of positive response about a game without it being some kind of viral marketting scheme. Its nice, kind of odd, but nice.

I think there's been sort of a delayed response to Traveller--not a whole lot of buzz when it first came out, but I think a lot of cautious folks ended up finally picking it up, and were pleasantly surprised at the nice job Mongoose had done.

This is sort of what happened with me.  See my old entry here.

Quote from: jeff37923;276041I'm just surfing the gaming forums and I'm seeing a lot of people who have recently been exposed to Mongoose Traveller extolling its virtues as a game. I like it, and am a Traveller whore, but I haven't seen this kind of positive response about a game without it being some kind of viral marketting scheme. Its nice, kind of odd, but nice.

Heh. I consider it pretty decent in a lot of ways.

In a recent (current?) thread over at TBP, there were a few folks stating how broken MongT is. After a little digging, two of them were revealed to be, pretty much, CT zealots with arguments like "presenting the careers on the same page makes them superior and the fact that MongT doesn't do this is an unforgivable failing."

So far I am very pleased with the new version it cleans up the rules a bit and adds some needed flexibility to character generation, but I am not a CT grognard so I have no attachment to the older versions. I haven't purchased the High Guard rules yet so I do not know if or how they improved the ship building rules.

It's a combination of Traveller being a good product and folks being a little surprised by that. Mongoose has kind of a more miss than hit reputation.

I'm a Classic Traveller player/fan. I've been very impressed with Mongoose Traveller. It is "close enough" to Classic Traveller to be easily compatible with my CT stuff and most of the changes made in Mongoose Traveller seem to be for the better.  I haven't seen High Guard yet, but if they do as well with High Guard as they have doing, I expect to like it.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;276055Heh. I consider it pretty decent in a lot of ways.

In a recent (current?) thread over at TBP, there were a few folks stating how broken MongT is. After a little digging, two of them were revealed to be, pretty much, CT zealots with arguments like "presenting the careers on the same page makes them superior and the fact that MongT doesn't do this is an unforgivable failing."

What are some of the complaints about the system - the ones that seem legitimate, that is?

By the way, I know you were a fan of Traveller d20. How does it stack up now against Mongoose's version, play-wise?

Has there been any substantial 3pp support?  I'm planning on releasing at least one adventure in 2009 through Tricky Owlbear.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;276141What are some of the complaints about the system - the ones that seem legitimate, that is?

The artwork in the character creation section is horrible, I mean really bad. I understand that it is being changed in later printings (and the Pocket Traveller book) but I haven't seen the new artwork yet. I don't think it can be any worse.

I also can't say that Traders & Gunboats is worth the money. I bought it and wish I hadn't. While the numbers in each design seem to make sense, the design philosophy behind each design does not always make sense*. Aesthetically, for my taste, the artwork is very hit or miss (the misses being an agony to look at) and the deckplans seem forced into the spaces created by the bad artwork**.



*A mine which costs MCr 15.23 to build and is less effective than a bomb-pumped laser warhead missile left to drift. A suicide drone which costs MCr 21.95 to build and is as effective as a launched torpedo which costs at least 100 times less. The modular skiff which doesn't use standard cutter modules. The space surveillance craft which is larger and costs more than a throwaway probe and has substandard sensors. I could go on....

**Asymmetric ship design only works if the ship appears balanced in volume or mass and the maneuver drive can thrust through the center of mass for the design (otherwise you are thrusting off-axis and tumbling).

The Millenium Falcon got away with it because the starboard cockpit looks balanced by the portside sensor dish and the Leonov gets away with it by having the big dorsal communications antennae balanced by the ventral airlock and probe/pod hanger. Both designs have the maneuver drives in the back thrusting through the center of mass.

I don't want to see another maneuver drive stuffed into an off-axis space just because it was an afterthought.

End of peevish rant.

Quote from: Napftor;276149Has there been any substantial 3pp support?  I'm planning on releasing at least one adventure in 2009 through Tricky Owlbear.

Spica Publishing has Career Book One out, which is excellent. That's about it for now, Comstar Games/Avenger has One Crowded Hour and Golden Age Starships One: Fast Courier out which are compatible with Mongoose Traveller even though they were not written for the game (the creative team which was writing Traveller material for Comstar Games/Avenger is now working directly with Mongoose Publishing).

Quote from: jeff37923;276151**Asymmetric ship design only works if the ship appears balanced in volume or mass and the maneuver drive can thrust through the center of mass for the design (otherwise you are thrusting off-axis and tumbling).

Reactionless Drive, gravity and inertia control, means that many impossible designs are now possible.

Quote from: estar;276156Reactionless Drive, gravity and inertia control, means that many impossible designs are now possible.

Granted, but it doesn't work aesthetically for me.

Lemmee explain, even though we can build vehicles today with engines off-axis connected to the drive train by transmissions - it is inefficient because the amount of extra machinery required to mount the engine away from drive train increases the mass of the vehicle and consumes excess interior volume. So there is a common engineering design of having the engine as close as possible to the drive train while keeping it along the axis of motion. I believe that this would carry through into the future.

There is also maintenance to consider. If drives are stuffed into odd corners, then that makes them difficult to conduct maintenance on because parts of the machinery will be jammed against a bulkhead and hard to reach for simple repairs or prevention. Harder to access means harder to maintain.

Finally, while a drive is in operation then it will most likely be giving off noise of some kind. So if it is off-center then you will have a noise generated at that point that can interfere with the ship's sensors from electromagnetic masking or simple vibration. If that noise generator is along the center of mass and along an axis (preferably to stern), then it can be compensated for without interfering with bow pointed sensors.

Admittedly, this is all subjective and comes from my Navy years as an engineer. Will the far future be like those days? No. But I'd bet that similar situations will occur in the far future as have done in the past.

But you are ok with Psionics?

Quote from: jeff37923;276151The artwork in the character creation section is horrible, I mean really bad. I understand that it is being changed in later printings (and the Pocket Traveller book) but I haven't seen the new artwork yet. I don't think it can be any worse.

Mongoose is pretty hit-or-miss in general with the artwork in its books. The Lankhmar and Nehwon books were the absolute pits when it came to art, and kept me from buying them due to how off-putting it was. Almost as bad was the first RuneQuest book. It was some of the least inspiring art in a core RPG rulebook I've ever seen. I'd have been much more pleased with no art at all.

Quote from: RockViper;276169But you are ok with Psionics?

Depends on the setting for a lot, the OTU is pretty acceptable to me that way. I like how the psionics in Traveller don't completely abandon the Laws of Physics and are not treated like magic spells.

Not trying to be sarcastic, but I'd have to say that since I haven't had any experience with psionics in real life, it is easier for me to suspend my disbelief about them. That's one of the common problems with science fiction over fantasy, its harder to create a suspension of disbelief with science fiction because you have the science part (as encountered in real life) to restrain you.