Montca News 1: Shuttle Crash

Montca News

Dateline: 350-1105

A small shipping shuttle crashed near Pad 17. Witnesses from O'Leary's O'Lasers say the shuttle started to wobble in its flight path about 200 meters from the ground. It spiraled and crashed moments later. Fortunately, the fires were minimal due to our low air pressure. The pilot suffered a broken arm and 2 broken ribs from the crash, but all cargo was lost. The rescue shuttle was on the scene within 5 minutes of the downed craft.

The official SPA Safety Board is still investigating, but initial results appear to put the General Products Linear-M maneuver drives losing power due to an overloaded circuit. The shuttle is owned by Sweet-Carrol Lines. Pilot Kane Howe is currently at Waygin Hospital undergoing medical attention and is expected to do a full recovery in a few days with MedStar's bone regeneration system.

Further updates will be available as the story develops.

Game Notes

Over on COTI a few people are doing news stories to help move their game along, some fluff, some world building, and I assume a few game hooks in there. This encouraged me to do the same, but we'll see how long I can keep this up.

The shuttle crash came from the Party Backstory Generator. Yes, it is a fantasy supplement, so I just translated the fantasy part to fit into the Traveller game. And somewhere I know I set up the Krim has some TL-G level medical stuff but heck if I can find it now!

The shuttles are from Ryan Wolf's 0Hr stuff and dropped into AI. Not something I like to do but I have those shuttles in minis as well as the pictures and deck plans and want to use them. The ports in the League, as mentioned in a few blog posts, are based on his Port Leonis maps and images.

Finally, the Sweet-Carrol Lines comes from the BITS 101 Corporations. I have that in hard copy interestingly enough - they put out a lot of really good things. But see - I am using my toys!

And the O'Leary's O'Lasers is a small port restaurant, now located on the Gate 17 Concourse. Again, from the Backstory Generator, so that 2 of the players own this. But it is a franchise that is barely breaking even, so they may want to go ahead and sell. I do not want to tie them down, but it is a way 2 of them know each other. And the crash was witnessed from here by the other players so that they all have something in common.

Q'auntar

One of my previous games I used this system. The only thing I need to add to make it map to the Kinunir adventure is adding an Ancient site in the southern hemisphere, and throwing in the ships needed in orbit. Q'auntar is replacing Knorbes. We can keep the previous adventure there, as that all happened in the recent past. So that the people will remember what happened as it is very sparsely populated. There will be stories to tell! Sadly, I do not know what I named the mayor, though I know she chewed a cigar and spat tobacco a lot. I'll have to see if I can find the notes from that game. Pretty sure I kept them.

Previous posts (and corrected the tags finally!):

• https://traveller-ct.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-big-bad.html where we encountered the bad guy behind a few things that happened to the characters
  
• https://traveller-ct.blogspot.com/2018/11/starport-personnel-quantar.html the starport personnel
• https://traveller-ct.blogspot.com/2018/11/quantar-starport.html info about the port, what there is of it
  
• https://traveller-ct.blogspot.com/2018/11/quantar-regrouping.html small overview
  

I also asked the AI for some info which I need to stop doing: I should just either use Book 6 or get back to my software project!

But in addition to the info in those posts, Q'auntor does have an Ancient site on the southern continent. The Imperium is of course very interested in that, and Luuru patrols in orbit and the pinnace flies patrols. There is an Imperial game preserve on that southern continent is controlled by the Minister of Conservation and requires a permit to hunt the tree krakens there.

And copied from a site:

Also known as the land squid, the tree kraken (Hexapoda stren II, H. si/vans) is a 6 kg pouncer native to the planet Forboldn ( Regina / Spinward Marches 1808), but for various reasons has become distributed to many small, low gravity worlds in the Regina (Spinward Marches) and neighbouring subsectors of the Spinward Marches. (Also see the Forboldn Project).

The adult tree kraken resembles in general body form the Terran octopus (q.v.), having a central body sensory cluster and six radiating tentacle-like arms. The internal skeleton is rudimentary, consisting of a cartilaginous stiffening of the body to permit the lung sacs to function, to serve as attachment points for the muscles, and to permit leverage for the three part mandible located at the base of the arms. This stiffening appears to be an adaption to a terrestrial lifestyle.

The arms of the kraken consist of a stiffened central support structure surrounded by a muscular sheath. The arms end in from 2 to 7 (depending on species) smaller appendages. The ventral surface of the arm, and the ends of these smaller appendages are equipped with a disk-shaped sucker-like organ covered with hundreds of small, razor-sharp tooth-like structures.

The eyes are paired, operate stereoscopically, and permit the kraken to detect the faintest movement at several hundred meters. Range judgement is extremely good.

Respiration is accomplished by 3 to 8 (varying with species) lung-sacs located in the body mass. Each sac has its own connection to the atmosphere. To function, the inner lining of each sac must be kept moist, requiring the kraken to remain in regions of high humidity, such as marshes, swamps, or jungles. Tree krakens have a closed circularory system and are endothermic.

The kraken attacks its prey by leaping upon it from a height, usually a tree, but often a cliff and occasionally a roof. The arms wrap around the prey, immobilizing it and the disk-shaped structures abrade the skin and other tissue into small fragments which are then conveyed to the mouth.

After feeding, the tree kraken climbs to a high place for protection from other predators, and goes into a digestive torpor, from which it emerges several hours later.

Krakens are hermaphroditic, and reproduction is accomplished by budding. During the six week mating season, two krakens will meet, and exchange genetic material by means of two tubelike structures located above the eyes. After fertilization, these structures swell to several times their normal size and grow arms, eventually (after eight to twelve weeks) becoming fully developed miniature krakens. When fully developed, the young detach themselves and go their own way. This is accomplished when the parent is in a state of torpor after feeding, otherwise the krakens would eat their own young.

Zo

Zo is my MTU replacement for Pixie from the Kinunir. It's UWP is: B100595-9. Meaning:

• Starport B - a good facility with refined fuel and capable of starship maintenance
• Size 1 - a very small planet, with just 0.122 G
• Atmosphere 0 - a vacuum world
• Hyrdographics 0 - no standing water
• Population 5 - 80,000 people call this place home for some reason. 
• Government 9 - Captured government. Another Imperial operated place, primarily because of the Gash in orbit above
• Law Level 5 - personal concealable weapons prohibited
• TL 9 - early interstellar.

A good question is: where does the fuel come from as the system has no gas giants, planetoid belt nor any liquid oceans? We're going to lean into deep ice caves under the crust. A large chunk of the population deals with mining. Another TL-9 system, so we'll have some next-gen domed habitats, and maybe cave dwellers. The advantage of underground ice deposits is we can also use that as the source of air. TL-9 is not that much more advanced than us. 

The starport has a mix of above ground pads and elevator pads. Similar to Space:1999, there are smaller pads that can take ships and shuttles up to 100 tons below the surface.

Worlds without atmosphere nor liquid oceans are a bit difficult to map. I used the mars coloration after trying a few variations. Dust plains or something like that, and some small elevations. I've added 1 other planet to the system, just a tad larger than Zo itself. The habitable zone for a K9 star is in orbit 12, which is 307 AU out! The math works out to 1 year on Zo = √307^3 / 5 = 2405 years! Not that I use jump shadows in MTU, but if I did it would not really change much for any visitors.

made the background sort of match the world at least

Xyman

Xyman is a planetoid belt system (and replacing Shionthy from the adventure). From the Pilot's Guide:

Xyman consists of a single gas giant and a planetoid belt that has a surprising amount of antimatter planetoids. The population of just over 8000 people lives on several stations, and the entire system is mostly run by the Imperium. The TL 9 stations have early grav plates. Xyman Station is a class C port that only supplies unrefined fuel. There are 4 interior berths for ships up to 1000 tons, a dozen shuttle bay sized bays. Many ships just move to a station keeping orbit and use shuttles. There are also several smaller stations scattered about, such as the Lochlyn 9 station that is run by the League of Planets.

Some spacers swear they have heard defunct military radio codes being broadcast here, but exploration is dangerous due to the contra-terrain planetoids scattered throughout the ring.

The small Scout waypoint station houses about 30 Scouts and is posted in the L4 Trojan of the gas giant, Geron. The Trio Hab is a large industrial station owned by Ling-Standard Products that processes the contra-terrain a safe distance from the port. It is run at TL A with some equipment at higher tech levels.

 

I'm using a couple 0Hr stations as well. The small Imperial Scout Station is Waypoint 39 and the League asteroid station is the Lochlyn 9. Sadly, we are not at a table so if we actually get here, I can't just set out a few rocks and the minis to make the scene. I may do that anyway for myself and take a picture.

Additional background for Xyman. It is on the border of the League of Planets but has a captured government: the Imperium is using this to mine anti-matter. Being outside the League borders, but a source of potential energy, the League has established the Lochlyn IX station. It is a few hundred kilometers from the Imperial Trio Hab which is processing the antimatter. It is both a research station for antimatter as well as keeping an eye on the Imperium. As such, there are two megacorporations at play here: General Products (previously outlined) and Ling Standard which is in charge of the Trio Hab:

Ling-Standard Products: Originally a mining firm (and still very active in that area) LSP currently engages in a wide spectrum of activities including (but by no means limited to) manufacture of electronic equipment of all sorts, ground and air vehicles, starships and starship armaments systems, drive systems, power systems, computer systems and software, small arms, and a variety of other items. Concerned to a small degree with banking, insurance, and other activities, LSP maintains mining and manufacturing facilities throughout the lmperium and beyond.

Most of Xyman is TL9: the League is stretched a bit thin at times, and so the stations are kept to a lower TL than they could be to simplify maintenance. Grav plates are in use at all stations, though there may be a ring station that rotates for gravity.

Interestingly enough, antimatter has a few conflicting use cases according to various sources. The Wiki says: 

By TL–9, most cultures can make great quantities of antimatter, though at great expense, and by TL–10 most cultures can store it for extended periods of time. Since it is extremely useful for a number of different applications, it likely exists in any TL10+ culture to some extent for various uses. Due to its inherent danger in sufficiently large quantities, most sensible cultures will do their antimatter research and production operations in specialized orbital containment facilities and highly regulate both its production and use. 

Yet the chart shows antimatter as an energy source at TL 17! T5 has it as an early tech at TL 16. Anyway, that Ling-Standard Products station is not actually part of the adventure per se, but it could be. It is an Argos class station:

Orbital mechanics wise, the gas giant & Scout Station are going to have some interesting travel times. Ended up asking an AI as, while I really should do the math, I fear I am getting lazy. Based on the belt being about 1.5 AU out, and the gas giant at 4.5 AU out, the closet they get is 3AU, the furthest 6 AU.

Travel times between the Scout base and Xyman Port is actually not nearly as bad as one would think. Having a constant, unlimited acceleration really changes things for space travel! Which means the Scouts could visit the station to get a break from their smaller station, or if need be, theplayers may get to the Scout Station. I know one character is a Scout.

Accel (g)	Accel (m/s²)	Min distance (3 AU) time (days)	Max distance (6 AU) time (days)
1 g	9.81	≈ 4.95 days	≈ 7.01 days
2 g	19.62	≈ 3.50 days	≈ 4.95 days
3 g	29.43	≈ 2.86 days	≈ 4.05 days
4 g	39.24	≈ 2.48 days	≈ 3.50 days
5 g	49.05	≈ 2.22 days	≈ 3.13 days
6 g	58.86	≈ 2.02 days	≈ 2.86 days

Traveller Game - The Kinunir: Some Game Prep

I'll be running a Traveller game in a few weeks! Mostly classic but a few bits and pieces from other versions. I'm running the Kinunir adventure in MTU, meaning I need to map worlds from the Imperium to the D'Arlee Quandrant. I've read through the rumors and the basic (very bare bones!) adventure and have mapped the worlds as below. Not an exact match by all means, but good enough for this game.

• Regina => Montca 1107 A639997-C (note that is a non-Imperial world, but "reasons"). This is where we are starting.
• Pixie => Zo 0414 B100595-9
• Efate => Iac 0403 A551301-B
• Shionthy => Xyman 1003 C000316-9
• Helfry => Arn 1307 A233699-9
• Knorbes => Q'auntar 0501 D668122-6 
• Menorb => Finnigan's Beta A568201-B
• Boughene => Euipites 0417 C348333-A
• Forboldn => Nix 0310 C896610-5
• Alpine => Des Plades B2008A9-A

There may a be a couple I am missing, but I should have some time to fill in the blanks. Some of these systems, such as Montca, I've detailed already and I'm just using that. There is a word cloud off to the right of this blog and I usually add labels. So, the players (and my readers!) can search for systems I've detailed out already. 

I'm tagging this game as Kinunir so we can find the recaps and notes as we go along. And as I am still unemployed (or is it early retirement?) in theory I have time to do all the prep. We are starting on Montca, but I will be dealing with the rumor matrix which is why I needed to get all the systems at least initially replaced so I am not searching at the virtual table. 

The Kinunir is actually, like many Traveller adventures, more a framework. There are some broad strokes and goals, but the majority of the details are left the referee. Fortunately, I have plenty of maps and things as needed for the game. I just have to make sure I have them set up ahead of time.

I even have the T5 Kinunir deckplans, though this is not the face-to-face group, so I sadly cannot lay out the posters at the table. But as those are also barebones, I'll probably be dropping them into the virtual tabletop as needed. 

As mentioned at the start, this is mostly Classic Traveller. Combat will be more Snapshot focused I am thinking, but I need to re-read those rules. I also have At Close Combat I think and of course may end up using the Striker wound system instead. One of my weakest parts in running games is combat. I know I don't want to use the armor matrix from Classic even though there is something to be said for that abstraction. I'll see if I can come up with a mix that will work for this group and will post those rules in the nest post, I hope. That way it will be a reference for both me and the players!

I even made a quick and dirty map of the General Products shipyards on Montca. This is the junkyard part of things, so ships that are scrapped or incomplete. Kinunir from Ian Stead (and yes, I have his deck plans as well, and I think at least 3 other deck plans for this ship. But the T5 are the simplest and will work for us best I think)

Terrain painting

Finally getting around to seeing all the stuff in the Archon Caves stuff I got a few months ago. I've been doing just a simple wash & dry brush since there is a lot of terrain. What is nice is that they have curves now, and I've started putting together some of the functional gates. Which I may glue some of those, as I did with some of the curved pieces as it looks like they should be based on the edges. 

There are also elevations and a few things like that, so we're moving from flat 2D to something we can set up for some more nuanced terrain. Not that most of the games we play seem to take height into account (though now I think I need to re-read TFT as there is something there tickling my brain).

And 2 styles of columns for the doors: stone and demonic. Still painting!

Anyway - just a random post as I noticed my desk is currently covered in plastic. In between applying for jobs (243 so far! Of which many are not real. We live in strange times indeed!) I've been trying to get a bit of the grey pile of shame whittled down. Bad news is the Porthaven KS is starting to ship, so there will be another giant pile showing up in the next few months. 

Now to get this stuff on a table for some face-to-face adventures!

Boardgames: Monster Slaughter

Deciding that we should really try other games, my weekend game/gym buddy & I broke out Monster Slaughter. It is sort of a reverse Scooby Doo game: you play the monsters attacking those meddling kids in the cabin. I've had this game since the Kickstarter about 8 years ago and so finally got around to playing.

I did watch a couple play through vids, though they were not entirely helpful. But first thing was setting up the game, which uses the box as the cabin. It gets a bit complicated and I messed up on the cards a bit. Next time we'll do a bit better. The rule book is fairly small, but also fairly incomplete in terms of explaining a few things in a clear manner.

almost set up

I picked the 1st scenario, so used the classic kids: the jock, the party dude, cheerleader and a couple of geeks. We picked the werewolves and the golems (aka Frankenstein) as monsters. And I missed shuffling in all the cards correctly to the decks. 

Each room gets a pile of cards, with a victim in theory either buried or on top of the deck - I got mismatched interpretations there! There is a time limit, and the moon gets moved forward 1 hour after everyone has played one of their monsters. The game ends either at 8am or when all the victims are killed. You get points based on a few things, and part of this becomes a social deduction game. 

You pick both your favorite meal (aka, which victim you want to kill and eat) and if you kill them, you get a brain (brains!). And you also have the order you think the victims will get killed in. These are hidden from the other players. You can help the victims, and a few times of doing that you start to figure out those things a bit. For instance, one of the victims was the 3rd in my order, so I actually played cards to help her out. At that point, the other players can realize that this character is not your first in your list. 

Anyway, it moves fairly quickly, and there are only 6 options to deal with. One of them did not make sense until you realize that someone may be trying to kill a victim for extra points. Scaring a victim allows you to move them, so you can thwart the other players.

Each hour there is a new twist to the game as you flip over the moon cards.  Remembering those temporary changes can be a bit challenging. The other part I've not figured out is the victim wound tracking. In theory the minis are on a space with a colored cube indicator, and that cube is on the wound track. But, ince you flip over a victim card, the character moves to the room. Keeping track of the color cube with the mini missing becomes difficult. But, d'oh, just realized: we have the character tokens we use for our kill order. There are enough of those for 5 or 6 players, so we can just use one of those sets. Next time we play that will take a bit of cognitive load off!

in play

In the end, we had a pretty good time. Next time we play, with a different set of monsters, it should go a bit better. It is not a particularly complicated game, but there are some nuances that make it a bit more social deduction. I think it would play better with 3 or more players, and I may try & see if my weekend group would like to switch for a game. Or not - I think we're having fun with the Dolmenwood game so far. 

Tree Creature

Finally got around to finishing another mini, now to figure out where to use it. It was one of those from a Kickstarter that has been sitting in a box for a few years now, I think. Between unemployment and having enough already, I should be good to go to not get more minis! Although I've had 2 recruiters reach out on the same day I got a record 5 rejections! My ego is both hurt & happy - such a dichotomy!

Anyway - happy Saturday to everyone who reads this (and even those who don't as the reading list is pretty small). 

And in Traveller news - I have decided I am going to move the Kinunur adventures to MTU. I need to re-read the adventure and move the planets to those inside my universe. Fortunately, the way the earlier adventures were written, just some general matching to the UWP is good enough for most stuff.

Now to start mapping how this will fit into MTU. I'll try & keep this updated with that as I go along.

And re: the system generator. I'll get back to that but after seeing what others are doing, it does make it hard to continue. But, as a poster at the gym says, the only person you have to be better than is the person you were yesterday. See - I read motivational posters!