On 18/7/20 10:59 pm, Rupert Boleyn wrote:
> <snip>
> Most of these are little personal niggles, but it adds up and for me
> makes MgT unplayable. In no particular order:
>
> Colonists find it practically impossible to learn to use guns.
The connection rules between PCs can help here, and I can strongly vouch
for doing PC generation as a group.  I don't require each PC involved to
get the _same_ skill - eg J. Semirandom Colonist might get Guns (NRG)
out of the same incident that Danny Dodgie gets Recon.  There's also the
skill packs that you can use to fill in skill holes.
>
> Fusion Guns do radiation damage.
Isn't that sort of implied by ... umm... fusion?
>
> The Far Trader is presented as being a Free Trader hull with bigger
> drives and fuel tanks installed. Gone is the classic double-hull and
> glazed noses.
The Empress Marava ?  p116, MGT2 High Guard.
>
> <snip>
>
> From MgT2's High Guard (playtest version only, so this stuff might've
> been changed:
>
> Jump drives no longer use the 1% + 1% per Jn volume that's been
> standard since the original HG. Instead they use 2.5% per Jn. The
> minimum jump drive size is pretty huge, too (10 DTons). There is no
> reason for this change that I can see.
So this didn't just go up my nose sideways? I ended up channeling Foul
Ole Ron, yelling something about hand and shrimp, and switching back to
the non-MGT J-Drive volume, ditching the minimum volume, while keeping
the MGT2 costs.
>
> Some of the scaling rules for moving from small ship combat to large
> ship combat seem likely to result in different outcomes depending on
> the scale chosen.

Not thinking through even first order implications seems to be an MGT
favourite.  J-8+ ships, anyone? 20%+ of volume going to J-Drive, 80%+ of
volume going to fuel tankage.  Bugger luxuries like power.

As Jeff Z (maybe he should be also known as INS _Indefatigable_ ?)
pointed out in his review of the MGT2 Reft sector book
(https://freelancetraveller.com/features/reviews/mongoose/trav2reft.html):

"A surprising omission in this volume is any discussion of the two
deep-space stations constructed by the Imperium to make it possible for
Jump-4 ships (or Jump-2 ships with double fuel) to cross the Rift
through this sector. A trade route across the Rift here would have
significant economic ramifications (a friend actually worked this out
for GURPS Traveller—though he actually proposed four stations, bringing
the route down to Jump-3), and those stations would be critical in
making it happen."

As a side note, Da Famous Jeff Z spun me right out - I was surprised to
learn I qualified as a friend.  Trying to port my GT efforts to MGT1
killed any desire I had to continue with the project he mentioned.

>
> Quite a few escort and cruiser ships now do 9-G.
None that I could find in HG, but I'm not looking overly hard, so take
your word.
>
> There are some rules for making better or worse ship's systems that
> are quite reasonable, but it doesn't discuss which would be unsuitable
> in the standard Traveller setting, and indeed uses one in a couple of
> ship writeups (to make the jump drives smaller).
The primitive/advanced spacecraft chapter?  Another opportunity lost to
the "Sounds cool, bugger the implications" approach.  Whether those
gubbins are suitable in a standard Trav setting (or for us IW-using
weirdoes) would be considering the low-order implications, and
<sarcasm>we _can't have that_</sarcasm>.
>
> I don't like the way they've done Black Globes.

Can't say I'm a fan of MGT2 black globes, either.  (That whole "not
thinking-through-low-order-implications" again).  Why can't at least
some of that 30 MW power demand can be met by discharging capacitors? 
At the very least it stretches the time until unplanned explosive
disassembly.

As it's very clearly implied (if not outright stated) ships have
internal power grids (otherwise Jump dimming gets tricky), where in
blazes is any gubbins about running energy weapons, ship power needs, or
Jump drive off absorbed dakka?  It's a flippin' capacitor bank, its not
like drawing energy out over time counts as _power_ or anything...

If the above stunts are impossible, where in blazes does the power
arising from capacitor discharge _go_ ?  Boiling the crew and lighting
the hull up like an exploding sequin factory?

>
> I'm sure there's more, but that'll do for now. For some reason this
> stuff irks me more than changes between the older systems did.
>
I've found the lack of general mechanical polish, and casual inattention
to low order implications, somewhat grating in PA:VT - I kept calm and
got dangerous because it was an MGT2 game and the players were having a
_blast_.  I ended up house ruling Jump operations and J-Drive sizing.

I did try porting the _Indomitable_ class battlewagon from GT:IW to
MGT2, but gave up.  Might try that port again with the J-drive houserule
I mentioned above.