The sector maps were 2D. I honestly don't recall what localized movement was like, but the smaller maps I recall seeing for Traveller were also 2D.

3D space movement is really only relevant if you have more than three ships or other bodies involved. Three or fewer will always have a definable plane connecting them. Two bodies are always connected by a line segment.

It is a changing plane relative to absolute space, but it is always a plane.

Classic Traveller did have vectored movement for ships. IIRC this was changed to range bands in the fleet level supplement. The Mayday boxed game used hexes.

Quote from: DavetheLost;8549703D space movement is really only relevant if you have more than three ships or other bodies involved. Three or fewer will always have a definable plane connecting them. Two bodies are always connected by a line segment.

It is a changing plane relative to absolute space, but it is always a plane.

Classic Traveller did have vectored movement for ships. IIRC this was changed to range bands in the fleet level supplement. The Mayday boxed game used hexes.

If your game has facing, inertia, and/or seeking weapons or other objects (debris, shuttles, spacewalkers...) with their own vectors, then you get more than 3 relevant points even in situations with only 2 ships...

Quote from: Omega;854804Star Frontiers was actually fairly hard SF. There is no FTL, (ships hit a specific speed and drop into some sort of hyperspace) no anti gravity  (ships are towers). There are laser guns, and a few other exotic weapons. (But they stay fairly within plausible limits.) No psionics.

Then the so-called "fans" started fucking it up more than Zebs Guide did.

Albedo is even more hard SF. No FTL (An incredibly dangerous hyperspace), no anti-gravity, no lasers.

I don't think I've ever heard someone call hyperspace either hard science or 'not ftl.' Interesting.

Well, I think it's a good game, possibly a great one, including mechanically. The lifepaths are, I admit, my favourite part of it, as they help in actually creating characters and are a happy medium between point-buy and random rolling, with the added benefit of the final characters already being tied to the setting:).

The ease of doing sandbox games is just icing on the cake for me;).

Quote from: Willie the Duck;855076I don't think I've ever heard someone call hyperspace either hard science or 'not ftl.' Interesting.

Current science is leaning to some sort of hyperspace or other state as about the only way to get from point A to B without taking a few generations. Albedo's jump drive was incredibly dangerous to use. A hard jump could leave the crew with radiation poisoning, or dead.

Quote from: AsenRG;855078Well, I think it's a good game, possibly a great one, including mechanically. The lifepaths are, I admit, my favourite part of it, as they help in actually creating characters and are a happy medium between point-buy and random rolling, with the added benefit of the final characters already being tied to the setting:).

The ease of doing sandbox games is just icing on the cake for me;).

Traveller hit a-lot of the right buttons and it was effectively the first to try things like the life path concept. Combined with its semi-hard fiction setting and you have something that just clicks for some players.

Whereas Megatraveller seems to have hit a few of the wrong buttons.

Quote from: Skarg;855057If your game has facing, inertia, and/or seeking weapons or other objects (debris, shuttles, spacewalkers...) with their own vectors, then you get more than 3 relevant points even in situations with only 2 ships...

I specifically said three or more bodies require more than three points. Three or fewer will define a plane, more than three will not.  Facing and inertia do not change the fact that any three objects will define a plane. The plane may change (relative to a fixed arbitrary X,Y,Z axis system), but its existance will not.

So seeking weapons, shuttles, spacewalkers, debris, et al. are covered in my original post.

I still remain unconvinced that tracking 3D motion is worth the extra work for game play. And, yes, I have played table top miniatures games with several systems of 3 dimensional movement.

Honestly I think, if they'd put a bit more of Survival Margin into Megatraveller.  If we'd seen the human side of the faction leaders as the metaplot rolled along, it would have softened things.  A little cleaner technical material would have also helped.  But most of all: better covers, those things sucked.

Quote from: DavetheLost;854970The Mayday boxed game used hexes.

I remember one of the earliest iterations of Mayday suggested using blacking scratch-art paper (white paper with wax blacking) to track vectors of ships, missiles, etc.

I was 10 or so at the time, so it's fairly vague, but I recall never trying it for lack of players.

Better covers?  The Classic Traveller black covers were masterpieces of minimalist design. The most instantly recognizable RPG line ever.

Now the interior art and some of the colour covers for later editions... MegaTraveller, well, let's just not go there, it was better than T4, but not as good as Classic.

Yeah, the Megatraveller covers are the ones I meant.  Though it would also have been nice if advanced character creation was simply forgotten.

Quote from: Bren;854908The sector maps were 2D. I honestly don't recall what localized movement was like, but the smaller maps I recall seeing for Traveller were also 2D.

You mean you never stacked Traveller maps? I'd just stack them and add z-axis jump routes to create 3d space.

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;854641It has a very narrow focus: You play middle-aged military vets in a relatively low-tech...

Huh? Not sure what game you are playing, but Traveller has much much more than that. We simply added our own classes... In my current Traveller game you can play the standard CT core classes and the add-on Navy, Scout, and Merchant prince Classes.

The Other class was just kind of a vague mismash where all the other classes were given a generic pool of skills and abilities and you could play what you want with the emphasis on roleplaying.

We still made up our own classes though. In my Traveller games you can play;

A detective
A cop or police officer
A scientist
A construction worker
Member of a religious order
Emergency service technician
An engineer
An architect
A servant
An entertainer
An artist
a paid companion
A professional athlete
A media personality or broadcaster
A member of the underworld

just to name a few...

Here's just a small sample of additional homebrewed character classes;

http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/rules/chargen/index.html

Quote from: GameDaddy;855194Huh? Not sure what game you are playing, but Traveller has much much more than that. We simply added our own classes...

Traveller is not like something because you homebrewed from it? I'm confused.

I'm pretty sure his point was, because of the character creation process, most characters started the game in the 35-45 year old range. Most of the original careers were military (other than straight up merchants, which makes sense for a sci-fi alagory to age of sail fortune-seekers).