Errata?

[jaymin]

Is there any errata for Cepheus Engine? I don't see a version number of my copy (whose providence I can't remember), but the (c) date is 2016.

I'm encoding the rules in Java, starting with ship building. I'm having trouble reconciling my encoded rules to the sample ships. Doubtless I have plenty of bugs in my program. But there do appear to be some things wrong in the written documentation.

A very simple example is in the TL9 Raider: "It mounts jump drive M, maneuver drive D, and power plant M, giving a performance of Jump-1 and 4-G acceleration." Clearly it means jump drive D and maneuver drive M.

So, before I get into deep debugging, I just thought I'd ask if anyone has composed an official eratta for CE, or if there is a more up-to-date version I should be using.

Thanks,

Jo

 

[Golan2072]

Are you referring to Cepheus Engine Core/SRD or to Cepheus Light (which has been significantly re-written)?

 

[jaymin]

SRD

Looks like I'm looking at the SRD. Should I be using light? What was the reason for it being re-written?

 

[Golan2072]

Cepheus Light has been streamlined for faster play and designed with new players in mind, which means that we've taken liberties in writing its rukes; it is generally compatible with CE SRD/Core and with the Mongoose SRD but some rules (such as vehicle and ship combat) are quite different. Cepheus Engine SRD/Core is closer to the old Mongoose SRD.

For a taste of Cepheus Light, you can get its even lighter version, Cepheus: Faster Than Light, for free.

 

[jaymin]

Too lite

Grr. I posted a long reply, but it seems to have gotten swallowed somewhere. Trying a less verbose version of the epic I typed...

After bad experiences with T4 and Traveller-AR I took a break and focused on my own IP instead. But now that these open source licenses have come up, things may be tenable again. Most recently I have been writing Audio Apps for Amazon Alexa and Google Home. I have quite a substantial one done called "Six Swords" based on OSRIC, the open source version of 1st Edition D&D. Unfortunately only blind people play them, so they haven't been the commercial success I would have hoped. But Amazon has tweaked their payouts recently and I'm now up to making a pittance on them. Someone pointed me at Cepheus Engine and, since I have considerable experience writing Traveller software, I thought with this new license it might be worth it. (Talked to Jason Kemp to confirm I was interpreting the license right. I'm also posting the non-app-specific parts of the code open Java, Github)

One of the difficult things in audio apps is feature discovery. Since you can say anything at any time, no one know what to say when. One of the techniques I've developed for dealing with that is "Method of Loci", which, essentially maps your feature set to a geography. In this case the functions of the game are accessed by navigating around the starship using fore/aft/starboard/port/dorsal/ventral.

So that's the background.

I looked at faster-than-lite and it doesn't have ship construction. Since the layout of the ship is important, and I already have basic level code from the past to convert volumetric data to floor plans, I was looking for that as part of the package.

I can change my approach (and just use the static plans in Faster Than Lite), or I can pull down Lite, or I can stick with Engine. I don't expect to draw many tabletop players to the audio game. But if you have time to give an opinion about the relative popularity, engagement or suitability of these different approaches I would be glad of your advice.

Cheers,

Jo

 

[Timerover51]

To the best of my knowledge, there has been no errata published or mentioned regarding the Cepheus Engine System Reference Document. I am in the process of rewriting sections of it for my own sector, similar to what was done for the Clement Sector. In my humble opinion, the ship construction rules in the SRD have way too many extra things if you are talking civilian ships, and even military ones. But that is just my opinion.

 

[Golan2072]

I looked at faster-than-lite and it doesn't have ship construction. Since the layout of the ship is important, and I already have basic level code from the past to convert volumetric data to floor plans, I was looking for that as part of the package.

I can change my approach (and just use the static plans in Faster Than Lite), or I can pull down Lite, or I can stick with Engine. I don't expect to draw many tabletop players to the audio game. But if you have time to give an opinion about the relative popularity, engagement or suitability of these different approaches I would be glad of your advice.

FTL indeed has no ship construction or world generation rules. Cepheus Light itself has them and is Pay-What-You-Want - so is quite affordable. You can also stick to the engine. Both are good games.

In any case, if you use Cepheus Light and find errata, please send it to golan2072@gmail.com so that I can correct the PDF (and the upcoming second printing of its PoD version).

 

[jaymin]

Looking at Light

Thanks for the info. I was only hesitant about getting Cepheus Light because I had already invested a bunch of time into Cepheus Engine. But my wife bills my time out for this project at $200/hour and it was only $10, so I just bought it. We can probably even put it down as a business expense. We just get caught up in that sort of thing because because the finance is very bad for audio apps. $10 is half a month's income from our leading app.

Anyway, I had a quick skim of the ship design rules. They look substantially similar so I don't think I'll have a problem adopting my code. I bought the editable version of the rules so if I find things I think are off, I'll turn on track changes, note them, and send them to you. If I run into similar problems trying to get my code to generate the sample ships I'll chime in here with specifics.

For general interest, I plugged in the (fairly primitive) floorplan generating logic I have, and tweaked the output to bundle a shipyard file into a zip file of the various exports. I've attached my first (very rough) draft of the Cepheus Engine ships here. It is far from perfect, but if you have comments on the general utility and direct, let me know.

Cheers,

Jo

 

[jaymin]

Low Berth typo?

It's going well so far. I think I have found a problem with the sample ship.
In the section on Low berths it says "A low berth displaces 0.5 tons and costs MCr0.05."
But in the sample ship section it says "the low berths displace 0.5 tons each and cost MCr0.1, so all the berths together displace 10 tons and cost MCr2."
The table for the sample ship reflects the prose.

So should low berths be MCr0.05 each or MCr0.1 each?

Oh, also, excessively minor, the price column doesn't add up.
13.2+2.4+12+24+30+1.5+0.29+4+2.5+1.75+1.6+0.4+4+2 = 99.64, not 99.62

 

[Timerover51]

It's going well so far. I think I have found a problem with the sample ship.
In the section on Low berths it says "A low berth displaces 0.5 tons and costs MCr0.05."
But in the sample ship section it says "the low berths displace 0.5 tons each and cost MCr0.1, so all the berths together displace 10 tons and cost MCr2."
The table for the sample ship reflects the prose.

So should low berths be MCr0.05 each or MCr0.1 each?

Oh, also, excessively minor, the price column doesn't add up.
13.2+2.4+12+24+30+1.5+0.29+4+2.5+1.75+1.6+0.4+4+2 = 99.64, not 99.62

I figure that the price is your call. The System Reference Document can be edited and changed, and you have the editable version of Light. What makes the most sense to you?

 

[Golan2072]

It's going well so far. I think I have found a problem with the sample ship.
In the section on Low berths it says "A low berth displaces 0.5 tons and costs MCr0.05."
But in the sample ship section it says "the low berths displace 0.5 tons each and cost MCr0.1, so all the berths together displace 10 tons and cost MCr2."
The table for the sample ship reflects the prose.

So should low berths be MCr0.05 each or MCr0.1 each?

Oh, also, excessively minor, the price column doesn't add up.
13.2+2.4+12+24+30+1.5+0.29+4+2.5+1.75+1.6+0.4+4+2 = 99.64, not 99.62

Thanks for the input! I will correct this in the coming 2nd printing (a month or two, hopefully) and the PDF, of course.

 

[Golan2072]

Anyway, I had a quick skim of the ship design rules. They look substantially similar so I don't think I'll have a problem adopting my code. I bought the editable version of the rules so if I find things I think are off, I'll turn on track changes, note them, and send them to you. If I run into similar problems trying to get my code to generate the sample ships I'll chime in here with specifics.

Thank you very much!

 

[SpaceBadger]

LOL! :rofl: That was a joke, right, spelling errata as eratta in the thread title? Good one!

 

[middenface]

Some Errata was addressed in the Moon Toad POD Version

'Prospecting skill added, this is missing in the SRD
Spinal Mount skill - added a line about saying Spinal Mounts would be covered in a future supplement
Vehicle cascade skill list- better organised - ground vehicles now belong to a sub cascade group
Vehicle List - this now matches the CE Vehicle SRD
Ship Design - minor clarification about software and computer capacity.
Under Sciences skill description, changed "types of planetary transportation" to "areas of scientific study"'

Also:-

Aerospace System Defense is now Aerospace Defense
Maritime System Defense is now Maritime Defense
Surface System Defense is now Surface Defense

Also the TLs for the armour types, the text is correct, the table is not.

 

[jaymin]

What makes the most sense to you?

A price of 50,000Cr would be the same as in Cepheus Engine. I'm all about consistency. I know I can edit the document, but for this case I'd much rather follow rules verbatim rather than make up my own stuff. So I'm happy to take your lead.

 

[jaymin]

Support Crew

Next questions. Under crew it says:

"Military ships often carry marines, as well as flight crew – one pilot and one support crew per small craft on board."

First question: the rules don't define "support crew" anywhere else. Should there be another entry under "Crew Salaries" defining this? Or should it be one of the ones already listed?

Second question: normally "small craft" is defined as non-jump spaceships less than 100t. That would then mean that you need a pilot position for every air/raft and atv on a ship. Should there be a lower limit? Like 10t for the pilot requirement?

 

[whulorigan]

I do not have the rules in front of me at the moment, so I apologize in advance if I say something that doesn't make sense in light of the CE ruleset.

Next questions. Under crew it says:

"Military ships often carry marines, as well as flight crew – one pilot and one support crew per small craft on board."

First question: the rules don't define "support crew" anywhere else. Should there be another entry under "Crew Salaries" defining this? Or should it be one of the ones already listed?

Support Crew would normally be mechanics, technicians, and/or engineers.

Second question: normally "small craft" is defined as non-jump spaceships less than 100t. That would then mean that you need a pilot position for every air/raft and atv on a ship. Should there be a lower limit? Like 10t for the pilot requirement?

Air/Rafts and ATVs are not "Small Craft", as they are not spaceships. Neither Air/Raft nor ATV uses the "pilot" skill for the vehicle. (They likely utilize something like "Flyer (Grav)" or "Driver").

 

[jaymin]

Computers are very literal

Support Crew would normally be mechanics, technicians, and/or engineers.

If I was just running a game, all this would be easy. As described earlier in the thread I'm writing software for the ruleset. And software is very literal. If the code is going to enforce the Support Crew rule I need to be able to map that back to a defined crew allotment.

It might make sense to add to the ruleset a "Technician" crew role with a required "Repair-1" skill.

Air/Rafts and ATVs are not "Small Craft", as they are not spaceships.

As above, I know what they are and why they don't need a pilot. I'm looking for a distinction in the game definition I can use so my software knows. I guess I can tag it "unmanned" like I do for drones.

(FYI: for the software all these ship components are being defined in a big JSON file. That's probably the most re-usable part of what I'm doing, if anyone else is looking at any software projects around Cepheus Light.)

 

[atpollard]

LOL! :rofl: That was a joke, right, spelling errata as eratta in the thread title? Good one!

Fixed spellin'

"Never trust a man that only knows one way to spell a word." - Mark Twain