Traveller 5 vs Mongoose Traveller comparison

[saundby]

Personally I plan on dealing with the Jump issue by taking Jump out of my next game and going back to my Skylark/Triplanetary derived system of space travel. I've used Jump in the last three campaigns, and I don't like it any more than I did back in 1977. However, I think I'll keep a more standard version of ship design otherwise. The drives will just cause a different effect.

As to T5 overall, there are parts of it from Beta I'm already using (system creation, mapping, etc.) and it's likely that I'll pick up more bits with time. Several of my players have expressed interest in the various systems for making characters. We might even play a fairly straight T5 game later this year (less Jump.)

 

[nats]

It has gone to press already. Yes, it could have used real proof reading by a real copy editor. On the other hand, we amatures did what we could. I don't think that anything in the book will break the OTU.

What? You mean T5 hasnt even been professionally edited? Is that why its 650 pages long?

 

[Baltech Budapest]

Sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere and my apologies for adding this question to this particular thread. I tried to start a new thread but I don't have sufficient privilages (apparently).

Does anyone know if Traveller5 will be available to buy from from retailers?
I missed the Kickstarter by about a week.

Thanks

 

[nats]

Sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere and my apologies for adding this question to this particular thread. I tried to start a new thread but I don't have sufficient privilages (apparently).

Does anyone know if Traveller5 will be available to buy from from retailers?
I missed the Kickstarter by about a week.

Thanks

It will be eventually once all the Kickstarter issues have been sent out. I have no idea how long it would take to distribute something like T5 throughout all the gaming shops over the world? I am guessing but maybe we may start seeing some in the US maybe end of March, UK sometime in June? Dont know is what I am saying.

 

[DangerousThing]

Personally I plan on dealing with the Jump issue by taking Jump out of my next game and going back to my Skylark/Triplanetary derived system of space travel. I've used Jump in the last three campaigns, and I don't like it any more than I did back in 1977. However, I think I'll keep a more standard version of ship design otherwise. The drives will just cause a different effect.

As to T5 overall, there are parts of it from Beta I'm already using (system creation, mapping, etc.) and it's likely that I'll pick up more bits with time. Several of my players have expressed interest in the various systems for making characters. We might even play a fairly straight T5 game later this year (less Jump.)

I have also had problems with jump, but it's still in as one of the drives available. I also have hyper drive (H-Drive) and hyper sail (S-Drive). They are similar to each other in that they both use hyper space, they both can move at their drive number in parsecs per week. There is difference in tonnage and other requirements, but an H-Drive is the same cost and space of a J-Drive.

 

[Cryton]

I have also had problems with jump, but it's still in as one of the drives available. I also have hyper drive (H-Drive) and hyper sail (S-Drive). They are similar to each other in that they both use hyper space, they both can move at their drive number in parsecs per week. There is difference in tonnage and other requirements, but an H-Drive is the same cost and space of a J-Drive.

What stats are you using for the S-Drive?

 

[Baltech Budapest]

It will be eventually once all the Kickstarter issues have been sent out. I have no idea how long it would take to distribute something like T5 throughout all the gaming shops over the world? I am guessing but maybe we may start seeing some in the US maybe end of March, UK sometime in June? Dont know is what I am saying.

Thanks nats.
I know it will be worth the wait.

 

[SpaceBadger]

Will it be available as a PDF on DriveThru?

 

[rich4421972]

What? You mean T5 hasnt even been professionally edited? Is that why its 650 pages long?

It has been called a "beta" or "initial" edition since it was released in 2008. I wasn't comfortable with that, either. I don't know that professional editors exist for role-playing games other than the players themselves. With Miller's new focus on role-playing and storytelling, I think it will face a lot of criticism early on. But you're right, 650 pages is an awful lot for two writers (Marc Miller and Bob McKinney)

 

[Shonner]

Text is repeated several times throughout the T5 book. The major races are re-mentioned if a chapter talks about race language, or race biology/DNA, or race tech level, or race...

Jump Drives are talked about over and over in chapters that hint they will talk about space travel or 100D jump points or events in jumpspace. I guess the text redundancy was done to keep the reader from looking for that one page that discussed J-Drives, or task resolution, or the kind of dice Traveller 5 uses.

The book could have been 380 pages if it wanted to be.

 

[rich4421972]

Text is repeated several times throughout the T5 book. The major races are re-mentioned if a chapter talks about race language, or race biology/DNA, or race tech level, or race...

Jump Drives are talked about over and over in chapters that hint they will talk about space travel or 100D jump points or events in jumpspace. I guess the text redundancy was done to keep the reader from looking for that one page that discussed J-Drives, or task resolution, or the kind of dice Traveller 5 uses.

The book could have been 380 pages if it wanted to be.

I agree. The "initial documents" do seem rather scattered. Even the html index file drops you at separate parts of the PDF file. Each "chapter" is a separate document that is isolated from the rest of the rules. I hope they fix it, but even if they don't, it will be nice to get into a "real" book.

 

[Shonner]

Each "chapter" is a separate document that is isolated from the rest of the rules. I hope they fix it, but even if they don't, it will be nice to get into a "real" book.

It's fixed. The pre-release a month ago was all in one PDF.

 

[Vladika]

It has gone to press already. Yes, it could have used real proof reading by a real copy editor. On the other hand, we amateurs did what we could.

I really have no problem with people doing their best at anything, including Traveller. My problem is the haphazard way Traveller has been done and redone over the last nearly FOUR DECADES!

I have no problem with Marc being able to make money on Traveller.

My problem is, like with Bill Gates and Windows, is paying over and over for successive releases of a product that is full of "Errata" and is inconsistent in the way it works (or doesn't). Anyone who has read Travellers ERRATA knows its longer, collectively, than any single book they've ever published. Through multiple editions little, if any, was corrected from printing to printing.

With all that said, I still love Traveller and have been playing one version or another from its first marketing. Classic is my favorite though I like and incorporate parts of later editions.

 

[Shonner]

If the book is at the printers, the huge amount of errata that was collected from beta members for the last few weeks for it will just be a downloadable file then. Because there's no way all that errata could have been edited into the final PDF on time.

 

[rancke]

It has gone to press already. Yes, it could have used real proof reading by a real copy editor. On the other hand, we amatures did what we could. I don't think that anything in the book will break the OTU.

I'm confused. I thought the kickstarter was a spectacular success. Yet there wasn't money to pay a real copy editor to do a proper job?


Hans

 

[Shonner]

I'm confused. I thought the kickstarter was a spectacular success. Yet there wasn't money to pay a real copy editor to do a proper job?


Hans

They don't have a Sean Punch.

 

[Vladika]

If the book is at the printers, the huge amount of errata that was collected from beta members for the last few weeks for it will just be a downloadable file then. Because there's no way all that errata could have been edited into the final PDF on time.

My previous point, years in the making, rushed to print, and full of ERRATA...

 

[HG_B]

They don't have a Sean Punch.

There are HUNDREDS of copy editors out of work. I hope a book that expensive isn't going to riddled with needless errors...

 

[pendragonman]

I'm confused. I thought the kickstarter was a spectacular success. Yet there wasn't money to pay a real copy editor to do a proper job?


Hans

A real copy editor would have needed months to get it done to your version of "proper" and would still have had errors in it.

Those additional months would have pushed back delivery to well passed the current timeline, which would then open up the authors to grousing about delayed delivery of a product they paid for.

 

[lordmalachdrim]

Can you people stop bitching about the piss poor editing in a book that hasn't even shipped yet?