BITS - British Isles Traveller Support
http://www.bits.org.uk/
I'm happy to announce that the Power Projection website...
http://www.powerprojection.net/
...has been updated with new materials for download in addition to the recent
FAQ changes. These files include:
1) Planetary SSD - for recording Planetary Defenses and orbital
movement rates.
2) Detailed System Map - for strategic games. This gives orbit
locations for a complete system and could be used with any edition of
Traveller (for example a Trillion Credit Squadron game) in addition to Power
Projection: Fleet.
3) Revised Countersheet 2 - the second countersheet (originally used
for Power Projection: Escort) was revised for Power Projection: Fleet,
removing the original ship counters and replacing them with more nuclear
detonations and improved missile salvo counters. The PP:E version also remains
on the website.
4) Ship Bit files - graphics files to allow you to build your own SSDs
using the rules in Power Projection: Fleet. These are in a number of vector
and bitmap formats (vector AI, EPS; bitmap TIFF).
Enjoy, and a Happy New Year from BITS.
> On Wednesday, December 31, 2003, at 11:01 AM, Dom Mooney wrote:
BTW, anyone want me to forward the review of PP:f that was posted on
Traveller_FullThrust?
cheers,
Yep, It would definetly be of interest.
Regards,
Matt Tope
[quoted original message omitted]
> On Wednesday, December 31, 2003, at 11:36 AM, Matt Tope wrote:
> Yep, It would definetly be of interest.
As requested...
From: theSea <starbase459@...>
Date: Tue Dec 30, 2003 10:21:03 PM Europe/London
To: Traveller_FullThrust@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Traveller_FullThrust] Power Projection Fleet - some (long)
thoughts
Hi--
This is basically a re-cap of the post I made over at
COTI -
<http://www.travellerrpg.com/cgi-bin/Trav/CotI/Discuss/
ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=000489#000003>
Since I spent the time writing the thing I thought I'd post it to this list
and get a few more miles out of my sorry prose. Apologies to anyone irked by
the duplication.
If you like PP:Escort then PP:Fleet is a 'must have.' PP:F is twice as long as
PP:E. "Fleet" recapitulates most (if not all) of the rules from "Escort" as it
is a rules set of its own rather than an 'expansion' of the earlier book. For
those already familiar with
PP:E, this material still bears careful re-reading as
there additions, addendums and corrections interspaced throughout the rules.
One thing that PP:F does not have is most of the small ship SSD's from PP:E.
This is in keeping with the new book's emphasis on fleets and capital ships.
So no Broadsword, but you do get the Tigress so I'd say it's a trade up.
Some thoughts on what's new:
--There is some nice intro material, including
designers notes, which gives some insight into some of the choices that were
made in designing the rules for
PP:F - specifically as relates to the lack of specific
sensor and ECM rules - these are abstracted into a
'relative computing power' factor based on tech level. In all, it seems that
the rules are strongly slanted towards speed and playability with the vector
based movement system providing a good dose of reality.
--Next up are the new Command and Control rules -
which relate to how many ships can be in a task force and the effects of the
Task Force and Fleet flagships on C&C.
--Crew Quality is new - crews can be Green, Regular,
Veteran and Elite - with the expected die modifiers.
Crew quality is mostly there for the campaign level game and can safely be
ignored for skirmishes, as it was in PP:E
--This is followed by the above mentioned restatement
of the combat and movement rules. new and interesting here are gravitational
effects, rules for fighters and rules for spinal mounts.
----The gravitational rules seem to be pretty much
derived from traveller Book 2, which I'd say is a good thing. There are
several methods of applying the gravitational effects presented, ranging from
relatively simple to 'needs a calculator.' I guess it depends on how much of a
Newtonian stickler you want to be. Note that gravity effects both movement and
weapons fire (as was briefly noted in PP:E).
----The Fighter rules are, like the missile rules, a
departure from the vector movement system - fighters
have a base movement factor equal to their M-drive
rating and their agility and they can move mostly unrestricted within that
movement rating. This seems to be another case of playability trumping
'realism' and I want to get out there and push some counters around before I
pass any kind of judgement.
----Then there are the spinal mount rules. I'm sure
many PP:E fans will be buying PP:F just to get at these goodies;) Spinal
mounts do 1D6 damage for each weapon factor. For reference, the AHL class ship
carries a factor 6 PAWS and the Tigress carries a factor 7 meson gun. With the
threshold check and catastrophic damage rules, spinal mount weapons are
going to be 1 hit = 1 kill against most non-capital
ships. Probably against some of the capital ships as well. Luckily they can
only fire every other turn.
PP's combat rules are.... well, they're vicious and unforgiving. Ships die. A
lot. Which is rather the point, I'd say and definitely realistic in my book.
You really get that 'hammers vs. eggshells' feeling. Of course that's just the
reason that PP is not particularly suitable for playing out PC level ship to
ship engagements in an RPG setting. Ask me about the time a long range 'hail
mary' laser shot took out the bridge on my Sloan class escort on
Turn 1, sometime. Blasted lucky Zho-bastage
With the addition of the spinal mounts they're vicious and unforgiving in a
big way now.
--We also have Black Globe rules - pretty much
straight from High Guard. Not essential - but nice to
have.
--There are some fairly abstract rules covering
boarding actions which will be appreciated by some of those flying the
'flaming eye' out there.
--These are complimented by rules covering the effects
of psionics on ship to ship action and boarding actions, so the slimy Zho's
will now get their due.
--We get extensive rules covering jump operations ,
again pretty much straight out of Classic Traveller.
--There is a whole section on ship vs. planet combat
which is going to come in handy for the campaign game. These rules include
planetary bombardment and assaults. Yes Virginia, there are deep meson sites
and it does indeed look as though they will be quite formidable.
--This brings us to the scenario generator. There are
two sets of missions - one for the 'intruder' and one
for the 'native' (gee sounds like CT book 2 again!). Each side chooses a
random mission with corresponding buy points and victory conditions. This
means that, going into a scenario, you won't know what size force you are
facing and you won't know what their victory conditions are. Victory
conditions also vary depending on whether you have more or less buy points
than the opposition - so it's possible to get mauled
in a lopsided fight and still 'win.'
--Sounds like a lot - right? Well that's just the
warm up. Now that you can fight with fleets, attack and defend planets and
systems etc. you're ready for the strategic game. There are three versions of
the
Strategic game - each more complex than the last. All
appear to be based on a combination of Trillion Credit Squadron and Fifth
Frontier War.
----The Tournament game is meant as a one off - you
each get a trillion credits to form up a fleet
- additional parameters come off of an annual table
that runs from 1981 to 2010. Sound familiar? It's straight out of TCS. You
then get to fight it out via the scenario generator.
----The mid tier strategic game is called 'Clash of
Empires' and looks to be your basic TCS campaign set up along the lines of the
'Island Cluster' campaign in TCS. Note that no specific setting is given
anywhere in
PP:F - you will need Traveller or at least some
supplements to provide a battleground.
----Finally there is the full on 'Pocket Empires'
strategic game - which looks to be a combination of
5FW and TCS rules. The strategic game is played in one week turns and uses
written orders. How far in advance the orders must be written is affected by
C&C lag determined by fleet tactics skill. There are rules for ship
construction, maintenance and repairs, determining crew quality and logistics
such as fuel and ammunition. What there is not, is a lot of guidance on how to
do the record keeping etc. for all of this work. But we're all big boys and
girls around here, so I think we can figure it out. It's just good to know up
front
that a lot of the 'nitty-gritty' of the strategic game
will be left as an exercise for the student.
--Power Projection does not include ship design rules
- it even says so on the back of the book. It does
include rules for converting ships designed in High Guard, MegaTraveller or
T20 to PP ships, so you can use your favorite rules set (unless your favorite
is
TNE or GURPS - then you're going to be doing some
guess work).
High Guard is the standard - and there are plenty of
SSD's included for those who'd really rather not roll their own. As there are
a great number of canon ships in existence (cf Traveller's Aide #7 for
starters), I don't think that PP:F is especially handicapped by not having a
'built in' design sequence. Besides, you've
got High Guard - what else could you possibly need?
--The back page of PP:F includes a handy 'cheat sheet'
for converting Traveller star systems for use in PP -
basically it gives kilometer to movement unit conversions and defines the
various gravity bands... so you don't have to.
--There are plenty of new counters and SSD's. There
are two pages of color counters featuring Jesse Degraff's artwork printed on
card stock and some 14 pages of counters and SSD's printed black on yellow as
with PP:E. Lots of new SSD's for ships ranging from
5,000dt to 500,000dt - for the Imperials and Zhodani.
The new color counters are very nice, but I would recommend downloading the
PDF of the color counter sheets from PP:E from the Power Projection website
and printing those on nice cardstock for such things as sand and nuke
detonations. You *will* need a lot of sand counters.
eek!
That was *a lot* of thoughts on what's new. Well I guess I'll wrap things up
with the following opinions.
If you like spaceship miniatures battles like Full
Thrust etc. and/or you enjoyed PP:E - PP:F is
definitely worth the price of admission.
I'm not a 'fleet engagement' type of guy - 400 missile
salvos on the board at a time does not sound like fun to me, more like work.
Give me a tense little battle between a few small task forces any time... but
there is a lot in PP:F to recommend it even if you never plan on broaching the
Tigress, Lurenti or Idlev class SSD's.
The strategic game has some definite potential -
perhaps even as a PBE-mail and just meet to fight out
engagements as needed. I can see some brave souls out there breaking out their
copies of Imperium and figuring out conversions for the Vilani and Terran
counters already. I'm sure five or six close friends could stay plenty busy
for the next ten years or so fighting out the Rebellion.
Dom - when are we going to get the symbol sets to make
our own SSD's? I've got some ships I'm looking to
convert. Sure, sure - you actually want to *rest* ?!
--michael
_
Traveller_Full Thrust Group email addresses:
MMMMMMMMMMMMMM, sounds tasty. I re-call some copies of PP:F were printed
up
for a pre-christmas convention, but is there any word on when the main
batch will be available (from BITS, GZG etc).
Regards,
> On Wednesday, December 31, 2003, at 01:31 PM, Matt Tope wrote:
> MMMMMMMMMMMMMM, sounds tasty. I re-call some copies of PP:F were
> batch
I'm not sure when they'll be out properly in the UK (still sorting out with
Esdevium) but Warehouse 23 and Mystic Station Designs in the US have ordered
now. This means that they should have stock sometime in January 2004. I guess
UK supply will be around the same time. Gnometrader may have some copies (I
think I posted here a copy of their details) but they only took 4 in total and
I know of 2 that have gone. Once the main batch is printed I guess GZG should
get copies pretty soon after.
Cheers,
> MMMMMMMMMMMMMM, sounds tasty. I re-call some copies of PP:F were
I'm still waiting news on us getting some, Matt (I picked up just one sample
copy at Dragonmeet). As soon as we have stock to sell, I'll let everyone know
and it'll be up on the webstore.
> On Wednesday, December 31, 2003, at 03:10 PM, Dom Mooney wrote:
> I'm not sure when they'll be out properly in the UK (still sorting out
> with Esdevium) but Warehouse 23 and Mystic Station Designs in the US
> gone. Once the main batch is printed I guess GZG should get copies
BTW, the reason for the 'guess' is that I live ~200 miles from Andy Lilly and
he deals with all the distribution side of things. I just
wrote it ;-)
TTFN
> MMMMMMMMMMMMMM, sounds tasty. I re-call some copies of PP:F were
***
And, is Steve Jackson onboard for dispersal in the colonies? I've just noticed
they've run out of Power Projection: Escort. (I have to spell it out every
once in a while or I'll get confused, and can't do a proper
web-search)
***
Just saw the answer is yes; in deep anticipation!
It's nice to hear my PP:E is still considered worthy of having; I'd have to
say that I'm with the author of the review in preferring somewhat smaller
ships and actions. However, I'm a fatal completist, and even if I wasn't
impressed with Power Projection in it's own right, I'd HAVE to have the
material as part of my FT collection.
And, of course, Jon can be a bit tardy about giving me opportunities to add to
my hoard... (*hint hint*)
The_Beast