Wil's MegaTraveller Fixes

by William F. Hostman. This document (c)1997-2005 by William F. Hostman. Traveller is a Trademark of Far Future Enterprises/Marc W. Miller, and is used with permission.

Dusty asked me

Happy to oblige; these bring MT to T4 semi-compatability:

First, and foremost, I modified the task system.

Target numbers by difficulty, all on 2d+mods

Skill Aquisition Changes:

Background skills: (Edu/2) level 0 skills of choice; these can trade 2 level 0 for one level 1.

Medical vs First Aid: When Medical is recieved, roll 2d for 8+ to recieve medical, otherwise get first aid. Stabilization of injuries, battlefield medicine, etc are First Aid; all long-term or surgical activities, including drug use are Medicine

Skill Aquisition Rates:
Per year of service: 1 skill roll
Starting career (1st term): Service skills OR 1 extra roll
Careers without ranks: no extra per term skills, but still use "bonus skills" rule for Special Duty
Careers with ranks: No bonus skills earned. Promotion and Commission/Position still gain 1 skill roll each.
Failed Survival: Short term (as per MT rules), but term is now 1d3 years long, and no rolls for position/commission or promotion or special duty.

Changing Careers: First change of career follows leaving 1st by any means, and requires task roll to seek second career: Formidable, Determination, instant, fateful. Further changes are +2 levels of difficulty each.

Drop the limit on number of skills.

Change AT's to one per 92 days maximum.
Change required roll to improve using AT's to 15+, DM+ AT's only. may roll once per month to improve, rather than than once per session.

Attributes:
Sleepiness track:
Range<End <1 1/3 <1 2/3 <2 <2 1/3 <2 2/3 <3 <3 1/3 <3 2/3 <4 <4 1/3 <4 2/3 <5
Penalty0123456789

Combat:
Use following for Morale for Basic career system characters:
Combatant careers: 1d6+#terms+#SplDuty
Non-Combatant Military/paramilitary: 1d6+ (# Terms/2)+ #Spl Duty
Civilians: 1d6+(#SplDuty/2)
All:+1 for any level of 1+ in any of the following skills: Demolitions, Recon, FwdObserver, Jac-o-a-T, Intrusion, Stealth, Tactics
All: +1 if has brawl or a non-ranged weapon skill at level 3+ (Max +1)
All: +1 if has any ranged weapon skill at 3+ (max +1)

Space Combat:
resolve in 3minute turns using Fire-Control to-hit table; Gunners get Gunnery and Computer Model number as task DM's to hit. (assume a predict program is running at full level of computer; may be lower DM if Predict program not available; I limit to DM+6 in the imperium).

Scale is 3000 km per hex, 3 minutes per turn, 1G is 1 hex per turn of vector change. 2 counters per ship (ship and vector), 1 extra counter for resolving movement.

Space Combat Turn Sequence

  1. Movement: For each ship, in some order of GM's choice
    1. count distance and direction from ship to Vector marker
    2. Count same distance and direction from vector marker, and put extra marker there
    3. move ship to vector marker, picking up vector marker
    4. put vector marker where extra marker sits, pick up extra marker
    5. adjust vector marker** for thust used.
    6. repeat for next ship.
  2. Fire: Fire can be done with interrupts as normal, even during movement. Ranges
    Starship RangeNormal RangesDescription
    SS ClRegional or less Mutual consent in same hex. Use full pen
    SS ShContinentalsame hex or adjacent hex Use Half Pen***
    SS MedPlanetary2 hex- 16 hex range. Use half Pen***
    SS LongFar Orbit17 hex to 166 hexes range Use 1/4 pen.***
    SS ExtrExtreme Orbit167-1666 hexes range Use 1/4 pen.***
    Interplanetary1667+ hexes, no fire allowed.
    *** This assumes using Energy Weapons; Missiles Move as ships, are launched at firing step of firing ship, and begin to move the next turn; they do not count the turn launched towards endurance, only the turns they move in. They have 10 turns of endurance, 6G accelleration, and do damage as a 10cm RAM grenade. They have AV8, 1/1 hits. If they end turn in same hex as target ship OR a gunner is guiding and they cross with another ship they want to hit, Roll to hit: Average, DM+ Gunnery(Missile). Flights of missiles hit one missile per point by which roll was made, to maximum in flight. Sandcasters may fire at all missiles coming through same hex-side with a can of sand, task is Formidable, computerUSP, Gunnery (Sand). Casters carry limited ammounts of sand at CR1000 each; I use 2x TL as number of canisters per caster mounted.
  3. Sensor Phase: Locking a sensor is a task:
    Difficult+: ComputerModel orSensor Ops, Tgt Sig
    For each range band past sensor's range, +1 difficulty level
    For less than half the range bands out, -1 difficuty
    If just rolling to detect, -1 difficulty
    If rolling to ID specific vessel, +1 difficulty, and must have previous ID results.
    If upgrading previous detect to lock, -1 diff
    if upgrading previous lock to ID, -1 diff.
    if maintaining previous lock, ID, or detect, -2 diff.

    Tgt Sig is Sum of mods for size, Emmission level, and highest sig from fired weapons during the turn.

    Size
    Emmision Level (for Neutrino, EMS only) Weapon Sig:
    • Tiny (up to 10 tons) -1
    • Small (up to 100 Td) -0
    • Avg (up to 1000 Td) +1
    • Large (up to 10,000 Td) +2
    • Huge (up to 100,000 Td) +3
    • Monstrous (up to 1,000,000 Td) +4
    • Planets and up (Size+1) x5 EMM vs Radar or ActEMS -1
    • None: -2
    • Faint: +0
    • Moderate: +2
    • Strong: +4





    • nil +0
    • lo +1
    • med +2
    • hi +4





Extending the Fire Control Tables
Treat Imp entries as Tasking, 1st two dashes as Imp, next two as Ridiculous-1, next two as ridiculous-2, etc.
Reduce difficulty by 1 level for each type of sensor locked on, R2 reducing to r1 to Imp to Tasking to Form....
Reduce difficulty by -1Diff if you hit same target last turn.

Gunners get DM+1 if HUD or Holo-HUD used.
Spinal Mounts use lower of Pilot's Pilot skill or Head Gunner's Gunnery skill.

Firing a battery: Diff mod reduction is equal to Sqrt(#guns)-1, round normally; for each 2 points by which the to-hit roll is made, double number of weapons hitting; dead on or +1 means 1 weapon hit. Also, The first one hits for Full bonus to pen, each additional weapon hitting uses pen as if to hit roll was two points lower than previous one.

Maximum shots per turn equal number of gunners +1 (for bridge crew)

Firing at anything past your own hex requires a locked sensor.

Note that ships in combat have use of multiple computers: 1 is running the ship, and is not useable for any computer mods. The other two can be, unless the ship is plotting a jump, in which case only 1 is available. If this makes no sense, ignore.

This ship combat system is untested, but all parts have been separately tested... it completely replaces the MT ship combat system. Use the vehicular system for determining damaged locations, and note that the vehicular damage system is identical to the personal combat system, so now we have a way to use the weapon stats and damage point totals in the UCP.

Also, for on-board actions
Bulkheads: Ship's Hull AV.
Components: AV=TL when maintenance covers closed, 1/2 that when covers opened. (Just in case boarders decide to pump handgun fire into that nice new jump drive....;-)

Also note that the bridge should be 1 ton per bridge crewman, +1 if there are command crew required. Bridge space comes from Computer, control panels, and stateroom tonnage; the control panel add-ons are added to bridge space.

Also, no more than one control-panel add-on should be used per crewman.

Oh, one more thing... when in doubt, ignore everything except the task system, including previously defined tasks. The task system is the key to the whole game; let it guide you. Use the rules when they DON'T get in the way.

I have an expanded set of tables for ship weapons in Vehicular Comabt stats (every TL for each type) in another file: travswt.html Ship Weapons Table Expanded. These tables are extrapolations. I'm working on tying Striker weapons design into MT. Jens Maksus is trying to do a MT-FF&S type item. When he gets it done, a link will appear. If I get mine done first, I'll post it here.

Just so you know what I think is Essential to run MT:
Players and Ref's Manuals, Imperial Encyclopedia, Ref's Companion
Strongly suggested:
SS Operator's Manual, World Builder's handbook (or Grand Census), Vilani & Vargr, Solomani & Aslan, Hard Times, 3g3 (Guns, Guns, Guns), T4 rulebook for Psionics system only.

Keep notes of tasks you create, put them into a notebook divided by type of activity. Also put the combat tables into the same notebook.

Have fun!

And PLEASE, let me know how you like my mods. Feel free toss questions at me, these are all rough drafts; I have used the skill fixes.


I posted to the TML

to which Dusty asked

Damage is applied in the exact same manner as in vehicular combat, except for meson guns.

In short, look up the pen and atten and damge stats from the MT PM pg 80. Figure the damage taken just like you would for personal or vehicular combat (keeping in mind that there is errata that says the hits capabilities generated by the craft design system need to be multiplied by 10). So you check attenuation, find effective pen. Compare pen to AV to get multiplier:

Find success level on to hit task to get success level mods
Made by 01248
DamMult0.51248
minimum final damage00124

Multiply base damage by both damage multiples (from pen level and th task success), and rais to minimum if needed. Note: Many choose to apply the sequence slightly out of order: BsDmg x TH Multiple, raise to minimum, apply pen multiple.

also, the weapons list for starhip weapons only shows certain key TL's (which differ from the key ones in the design sequences), but can be easily figured for the interveneing steps.

Meson Guns should use a much different result system. Increase to hit task by one diff level.
Roll made by:01246810
Dice to roll for mishap:­1d2d3d4d5d6d
In addition, all hits will do a proportion of the damage points. a minimal hit (no dice to roll) should do about 1d6 dp per factor. For better hits, roll on mishap table, using the indicated number of dice. on superficial, 1d6% dp loss. Minor, 1d6 * 5% of DP lost. Major 1d6 * 10% loss (which with high rolls will run you out of DP on a first hit), and Destroyed results get you 2d6 x 15%. All percentage losses are rolled per system with DP's anmd are based upon total DP's (both sides of the slash) of the UNDAMAGED unit.