Classic Traveller sounds more like a Dystopia?

Recently playing a character with Str 2 and Dex 3 in Traveller, I realize the importance of the prosthetic exo-skeleton for the handicapped. When the Japanese exo skeleton prototype first came out It was harder to appreciate until I realized that the alternative is a wheelchair and a need for help.

Funny that in Classic Traveller they hate prosthetics and cybernetics and robots but are mostly made up of entrepreneurs with belters spacers and various self made people??? so once someone gets crippled and cyberware and exo-suits can solve their problem they are pariah :D lolz. its like criminalizing or making socialized health care taboo lolz. Rules made to consider normal people, failing to consider marginalized people. :P

Ironic is that there are so many dangerous professions and its sink or swim...I'm not an actuarial but at present Mining and Mariner professions are one of the more dangerous professions in the world. I think with such a set up, the default CT is actually Dystopic lolz.

The only way you can sustain such an economy is overpopulation and using the poorly educated population to fill factory floors, belter mines and spacer ranks. Who cares about cripples, causalities and fatalities. lolz!

Lucky for my character I'm a Baron. Like Tyrion its my social status is what prevents a Cripple like me being cast out into the cold in Classic Traveller lolz.

Simple Suit Creation Process (any system);

Very Simple Suit Creation process because its mostly hand-waving and light math.

Just look at the following benchmarks

• Human Surface area 1.5sqm or about 15sqft (includes head, neck, and extra space for flexibility). 
• Surface are for just clothing (exposing extremities like head, hands, feet) 1sqm or 10sqft
• Torso is about 0.5sqm or 6sqft to get the full suit just x3. (the wife and my mother sews, and I got some sewing books) It takes as much material to sew a jacket as pants. It takes almost as much material to sew long sleeves as to sew a vest (but who wears vests?) 
• Weight of a Full Space (Orlan Space Suit 130-250lbs or 60kg to 120kg) 
• Weight of a Full Plate 60lbs or 27kgs

with the given surface area you can work backwards from various historical benchmarks

Sq-Cubed rule thingy magic. Increase the size by double increase the weigh by x8-x10 or increase the size by 50% x2.8-x3 the weight.


Cost is about the Infrastructure and Economy 
Cutting edge 2MB was millions when it was first introduced and now just $20 and you can get 32GB flash disk (then there is resitive ram that promises Terrabyte flashdisks) Platearmor was about the cost of fair's ransom or about 20-30% a knights annual revenues, but with machining tools as cheap and available a full suit can built at a fraction of what it used to cost counting inflation.
Cost of a pinnacle dragon scale ballistic armor is around $5k (if you make it full body its going to be around $15k)
Cost of a Space Suit in their era is about $2M but mass produced and an economy geared towards the use of this would make its cost go down. pretty much the value of a car and all as much variety, with standards, and common features.

Same rules can be used to make armor, clothing, and life support suits.

re-learning 3d Graphics again :P

Relearning 3d again. Its much easier now than when I first learned it in 2007 but in blender instead of 3ds Max. Before I was in denial that I can learn game design without learning programming and I have finally accepted all the work that is going to be needed. 

What's its relationship to gaming? I've been frustrated building ships with game rules and I want to just use the existing infra others have built and just make a freaking way to bring my imaginations to reality. 

I'm frustrated making hardware for GURPS cause after playing around with the ballistics spreadsheet I've hit a wall and I can't get my ship combat off the ground implementing the some well known "hacks" that screw up standard ship combat doctrine. 

Relearning this skill has brought back some memories of long nights, several burn-outs, and overly-naive-and-ambitious projects. My training as an analyst and a manager should put some strategy in learning much faster and plugging as many hours in this.

Oh well, hopefully by sept I can get back to full skillset (being able to do basic modeling projects at realistic or clean renders)... whoah i'm getting flashbacks lolz.

Captain's Log 96-1105

We made a killing yesterday, almost $3M of profit. It was a hard two months of dry business. Tukera is eating up all lots in the minor and branch routes in Aramis Subsector and it will appear that indies like us, the March Harrier, are going to have to fly further into the frontier to find business.

$3M is not a lot, its just about 6 months of expenses (even after half of net goes to the Imperial backers), out of our remaining 6 months of free-enterprise before we go back to the assigned lines.

Not so long ago we were living off "small favors" and trade for business. In Panitir we moved cargo for spare change relative to our operating expenses. We got our break in the next stop, Psyandi, with the Hoewoood. There were other opportunities, but we ran out of space.

$3M deal is the first time I had such in this new life of mine. Prior to this, Multi-million credit deals were another day in the as assistant director in General Products back in Regina. Talk about an easy million, but the crap I had to deal with and the assess had to kiss, not to mention the psychos I had to play ball with had driven many already to suicide and ruin... after getting the skills I ran the hell out of there and got myself into this business in the first place.  But that was a lifetime before my lifetime in Merchant shipping. Its been nearly 20 years "clean" of dirty business since.

I have to say this beats freight shipping, but is so damn risky I get ulcers thinking about the numbers. Last time I earned 90% it was dirty margin designed to padd the wallets of my bosses, but an honest 90% margin - really taking a risk and the market is really willing to pay that much just shows how much there is a need for people who do make an honest living getting what people need at the price they are willing to pay. Whoah, I'm an existential loop contemplating this.

Anyway, back to reality. We made this money but its really not 90% margin. To get here we had to go Zila and Carsten. Thats about 4 parsecs on a 1-jump ship. Thats makes the total expense getting here 400,000 + 250,000 at around 80% margin and the same amount of expenses getting to make a near good killing. We may need to go to Junidy or some place at about 4-6 parsecs away and ending in a main route to sell the goods at a fair profit.

If there was a way to earn $220,000 in every jump then the trip would pay for itself.

But thats another worry for another time. The men all deserve a chance to splurge and stretch their legs. I don't mind getting some paid company, I got to make sure all my parts are working. Tonight I'm treating the men out and paying for berth for the whole ship ($40k) and tuck all of that as an expense.

Oh yeah, Computer remind me to buy gifts about $500 worth each as much as 6 of the prized goods here in Armarx. I better use the new resources to open more doors and project some business confidence with future clients. Also, computer,  download for me the JTAS for news of business in the neighboring star systems and charge the data as an expense.

Captain Risk Out

IMTU to IMSU (In My Sci-Fi Universe)

It was recently I was introduced to the existence of "In My Traveller Universe" Setting Codes. Then there is the really cool GM badges. I guess one's GM style and setting can be sumarized quickly in codes that would fit a small space in the Profile and Blog. 

I've realized I've been speaking so much Traveller heresy with H+ I'll just say IMSU instead as I shift towards an open Sci-Fi setting. To give me more time to study coding and Blender, i'll be posting some notes. When I do come up with some skills, I'll try to make time to teach them (as a way to test my understanding maybe on-air to serve as video notes). By next week if Jtas doesnt' notice or approve my article I'm moving forward to publishing it on my blog. the content is enough to fill up probably 11 days of posts.  

+ is pro
- is anti

Since there is a spectrum of variants one can put us much emphasis or + or - to a concept. I guess people who really want to focus in a particular element can have it, above all others, have the most + or - (if the emphasis is Anti or lack of something). 

Sci-Fi reveals a lot about a person's political and philosophical stances, sadly. One can just be willfully ignorant about the choices regarding sci-fi elements and leave matters gray or ambiguous (I think not asking to much questions is best to maintain healthy relationships lolz). 

Transhumanism.  Anti Transhumanism is just Humanism or Human-Centric. 

Aliens. Will there be alien life forms, and its emphasis. Spectrums of "Anti" would range to non-sapient to simple organisms to life only comes from earth.
Trade. This is a playing style more than setting style. greater emphasis means greater focus, one can look at the present day with the emphasis of Free Trade emphasize on it.
Dystopic/Utopic. Depends which one you use.
Cyberpunk. nuf sed

Cinematic/Gritty.  A style choice that affects the setting.
Robots. Robots as characters would require at least a + here. ++ would be that robots as characters are common enough. - up to  - - - would relegate them only as "smart" tools to very very unreliable tools.  Which is unusual for a Sci-fi but these "codes" can be used in the game.
AI. I guess it would be under Transhumanism if AI is seen has "Self Aware" or "deserving" of rights.
Military. as much as for style or setting focus.
Imperialism - or basically a united government and its effectivity. Some settings don't think it as effective.
Ships. If the focus is on ships.
Cowboys. nuf sed
Noir. and any kind of Genre (Hardboiled, Opera, etc..)
Science (specify)  it can be in general, those heretical scientific method pushers and assholes of intellectual integrity.
Technology or Gearheaded ness OR emphasis that technology seen in present affected the Sci-fi setting in some way.
Speed of Travel Communication -  a notation more of an emphasis, but if this barrier is strictly enforced
Social Commentary - GM's who want to take Real World baggage and inject it to the game as a point of drama like that annoying topic of transhumanism, equality, fairness, social responsibility, rights, obligations, sovereignty, nationalism, ideology, etc.. (I guess a healthy - - - would be a good sign lolz). 

I got published in JTAS!

Wife had good news today and today, I got my good news!
They had to break it down because it was too long it was broken down to parts. I'll post one character who didn't make it in time to be submitted and fairly challenging to integrate into a group in a future post.

What you will find:
Back story with origins.
Detailed Load Out and Augmentation List - Complete with Page reference, Costs, and Notes
Playing Notes has some hooks and simplification of what the abilities can do.
Note: inspired by Ghost in the Shell, where many characters have basic cybernetic load out.

My favorite part is the Quirks. I tried to not make it "Throw-away" quirks and dig deeper. I was trying to choose quirks that showed up all the time, basically like Character "Color".

Low in Posts
This is great, especially since I had to pull a whole series of posts because I was double checking them against Douglas Coles' calculations. There are legit numbers and they look scary too high. I beginning to like the numbers I made up at root of 4 energy.

Trying to Accommodating  the Following in GURPS Traveller Ship Combat

• UT Lasers (not compatible)
• UT Missiles (not exactly compatible; like where does the 1 hour constant accel endurance come from?) 
• Scaling rules for the weapons. 
• High Initial Velocity Missiles (cannon launched gyrocs or gauss launched missiles of 100mm and up)
• Allowing for KE ballistic weapons (small gyrocs 25mm up to 100mm) use. I realized that some KE balistic weapons can alter trajectory being effective non-laser.  
• and summarizing it all in Doctrine Notes. Initial Verdict - it gets more complicated for me, but after summarizing it and simplifying it as Best Practices it is simplified. Gauss Launched Missiles (like in Honorverse) can work in GT ship combat, it can even replace doctine if I build it into the ship builder spreadsheet and rebuild all the ships with these weapons. The tweaks have to curtail rules that lead to very dangerous repurcussions.    

Example: Active Sensor Targeting with Xray laser gives it Accuracy 24+24. with target's ship size +11 to 15, and average gunner skill of 12-15. The safe stand off range is 48+15+15 = 78 which is about several Light Hours away... I have to keep combat with in Light Seconds or about 30 hexes.

I figure I may have an easier time studying Blender Game engine and Burster (a web tool that ports Blender Game engine into a Browser) than plugging this hole and building a Ship Combat game from scratch (which I keep in mind while I study). Plug it in to Roll20 and WHAM a ship combat game where the whole party is involved.   

Here are my Spreadsheet Notes it was originally used to calculate distance of a missile traveled in one GT combat Turn. Double checking if the damage scaling didn't have any bugs. leave a comment here if you see anything wrong with my math.

Douglas Cole's Blog and Post

DC's old Pyramid Article

"Self Reliance" is a personal philosophy and a game theme

``Albert Einstein - "Never memorize something that you can look up."

Socrates on Writing - "[It] destroys memory [and] weakens the mind, relieving it of…work that makes it strong. [It] is an inhuman thing."

What is "Self Reliance" in light of Tools and Technology, especially in this day and age. GM's can punish and reward based on their personal beliefs, and his definition of Self Reliance may be something of a touchy subject.

What is your GM's view of Self Reliance? Where does the character end and the gear begin? 

Lockpicks, The Sword, Armor etc.. are tools and expected in Fantasy Characters. Sci-Fi Characters have portable computers, fire-arms, cybernetics, augmentation etc... What is Self reliance when gear come into play? better yet, is it "Wussing Out" when I pay money to have a stat increase, like in a Real World Education?

Need vs. Want
There was an argument about Traveller 5E and the lack of Index, and there some who said this was not a problem (for them). I follow the frugal reddit thread, and this question of "what I need" vs "what I'm comfortable with" is something of a recurring theme there as well, and very much related to Self Reliance.

if you want to go Platonic and have real defined categories... you're going to have a bad time when you are Defining Need and Want.

Then we have the mess Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs.

Is money counted as gear? 
The funny thing about this discussion is What is MONEY relative to a person, let get broader and ask what is material resources vs what makes up a "Character". in Biotech you buy augmentation with points in BT169 which strikes me odd and again "What is Self Reliance?" in regards of tools and abilities.

Personal Note
This is a hard question to ask for something as trivial as an RPG but it matters when you consider your child's education and if you are fighting market obsolescence. Its funny when I put fighting obsolescence sounds like we are in dystopia (regardless if I like the genre or not lolz).

What is weird is when we pay for education, and a character pays for a stat increase, some might punish the Character for the "Munckining" while rationalize it easily for people who are fighting obsolescence??? How about people who are very well off and paying for stat increase??? ugg...

The problem of Categorizing this strictly is basically one is making an Ethical or Moral judgement on something, punishing or rewarding based on their views, when its really a situation we have very information/time to process.


Things to consider. The economic cost of the skill, and what results matter.

Gear and Characters.
Weapons are extensions of characters? But we can upgrade to better weapons and armor... I can say the same thing with skills - we can upgrade from Accounting to Finance, from Spreadsheet to Programming, from Drawing to 3d Graphics, etc...

we all began from crappier but fundamental skills, then we forget them and use higher utility skills. Is dependence of Civilization and its Perks something to punish or deter in a game?

"what are you without the armor" was that funny line from Captain America in the Avengers movie. I mean "So what" you can say the same thing about Capt. with the super soldier serum lolz. I guess this is a bigger problem when people dont have matching expectations.

Wow, I can even go into the economic or game theory about this, but its really something that may get in the way of having a good time - having different expectations and setting these up.

I considered if I should censor myself because this is an uncomfortable topic, but what the hell.