Cowboys and Dinosaurs II: Session 4

Switching to the old west, our characters awaken in Copper Peak on Monday. Hambone heads on down to the land office after breakfast. Clifford English, the government employee at the office shows up at 1 minute to 9, ready to start the day promptly at 9am. Opening the doors, and switching the sign to open, he settles in behind the desk facing the door. Hambone introduces himself and gets to the point.

"I do believe we should have a copy of the land plat around here Mr. Hewiggans," says the bespectacled older man. A few minutes of searching and he can provide a land plat matching the deed Hambone has.

Hewiggan's Land Plat

Not able to take this copy, Mr. English says there should be a copy in the New Haven Land Office which he can have if need be. With the land verified, Hewiggans and the group head out of town, leaving Copper Peak and the fumes of the smelter behind as the head north through the Northern Passage. Sadly, they could only find half a bag of apples for Puddin', her favorite food. I did provide a map giving an overview of where they and where they are going so that they have some context. 

kinda looks old westerny :)

During the slow ride up at Puddin' Pace, they follow the easy-to-follow road. No chance of getting lost. However, the rain constantly increases, and the random encounter rolled up was a bad weather event, flash flood. Molly, sees the rising rivulets turning into rivers up the road, so flies back, flashing her red (danger) and blue (water) kerchiefs. Recognizing the dangers ahead, the group starts moving up the mountain, following Volgol. He finds a perch and makes a rough yet serviceable landing. Archibald has a steam-powered portable cabin essentially: pulling out a big box and a flip of the trigger and a shelter unfolds itself. There is enough room for all the characters, though the dinos are getting soaked through and through. And it turns out the Lee does enjoy Hambone's chicory coffee. Which I've had in New Orleans a long time ago and really enjoyed it. May have to see about getting more at some point. 

The rain finally lets up some, but it is late so the group stays at their mountainside camp site. Next day, they get up early and finish the hike into the next town, Harmony. Because the road is a mess, they move through the woods and travel in the plains. It is a bit longer, and they get into town late in the afternoon. Way back when I was mapping out this place, I decided I did want a zealot church town. Though I'll also counterbalance that in New Haven as there is a small church there, but they are good people. My updated paragraph describing Harmony from the now 90+ page Cowboy & Dinosaur bible:

A small, very religious town - Molly will have to sleep in a “woman’s hostel” (House of St. Mary) and not in the same hotel as the men (The Good Shepherd). Rates are malleable - if you profess being a Christian, $1/night includes breakfast. Otherwise $5/night and no food. Asked: “Are you in good standing with our Lord and pray every day?” If no... There is also a mandatory prayer meeting before supper. Lee will probably get a lot of side-glances, perhaps even direct threats as a “savage Chinaman”. There are woods and areas that the group can camp outside of town if they like, though there is a ⅙ chance that the preacher will come out with some of his larger congregation. 

As they approach, Volgol getting tired from flying in the rain, the streets are empty, but the church appears full as hymns are being sung. Archibald thinks that having church on Tuesday is not quite normal church behavoir. As Molly get Volgol into a dino corral, the church doors open up and people in their Sunday best come out. The preacher, a tall older man approaching 50, large grey beard, welcomes the group. Yet glances at Molly's pants and the consternation many of the congregation are showing raises hackles in our party. 

"Are you one with Our Lord?" asks the priest, and we'll just go with the conversation did not go well. Deciding retreat was a better choice, they decide to move out. Unfortunately, Volgol is too pooped to fly much, and it is getting dark. Fortunately, we decide a stegosaurus can certainly, at least for a short period, carry a pterodactyl. The group leaves Harmony, Volgol perched on the back of Archimedes. They managed a few miles at a pace even slower than our Puddin' Pace®️ and find a good place to camp. But also decide a double watch is called for.

With valid reason - not too long and off in the distance they can see some torches make their way out of the woods. Lee disappears into the woods and sees that there are perhaps half a dozen men and the preacher, the preacher carrying an actual burning cross. Hurrying back, he tells the group what is happening. The characters spread out, ready for combat. As the priest gets into yelling range, more words are passed back and forth. The group is ready for some protective violence when Archimedes uses his telekinesis hat and yanks the burning cross from the preacher. Lee has moved up for an attack as the men decide a burning cross waving back and forth in front of them is something of the devil and decide perhaps town was a safer pace to be. The priest, fired up, did not leave but was quickly taken care of by Lee and knocked unconscious. The burning cross was pressed up on him for a bit, then removed and left next to the burnt but still alive. The rest of the night is quiet especially as they managed to move a couple more miles north, and this is where the game was left. The group may have heard some crunching from the direction of the zealot, but they are not sure. 

I gave out some XP for the game, and then we all yakked. Somewhere in the middle of this one of the players came up with prairie sharks (he did get bonus XP s we all laughed!) and I got DALL E to draw some crosses between bison and sharks, pencil style. I will have to use these in a game somewhere!

Meeting the Harpies

The characters, after leaving Susan, the now ex-cultist, and Clyde, back in the barn with Johann and Juli eyeing their boy eyeing the girl who lured him out to kill him. But - the town is desperate for families to keep the town going, so perhaps they can forgive her. As there are not a lot (or any really) other marital options in Bresselwythe. 

The halfling, Ezmirylda Rixile, shows up with some potions, and eagerly offers them to the wounded. Voilet takes one and is healed 4 points, and Hexis regains 1 point. These were my "big boy" potions I use that cost 4x as much and use a d4 in a bottle. The players need to shake the die out of the bottle though both oddly (well, to me oddly) took the die out and rolled it manually. The halfling seemed almost surprised that neither died (she used to be an expert poisoner but, to avoid arrest and probably a death sentence, she is trying to mend her ways and help people. Just don't look into that back cabinet). 

They head north a bit to see about the missing sheep. They travel a bit and find a herd guarded by two girls, around 12 or so, and at least 1 dog they see around the clearing. Talking to the girls, Dawn and Voilet, being the least threatening, try to see if they can find out what is happening. The girls say that something huge with feathered wings came down and snatched a lamb and flew back up the mountain. Looking around the two see the scuffled ground but miss the scat and anything else (both failed perception checks and no one in this group has woodsman to help with that sort of thing). Talking and planning the rest of the afternoon, they do find 1 large feather. Deimos recognizes it as probably being from harpy, and finally Marianne speaks up a bit about what she knows about them: they tend to be farther north, like living in caves where they can fly out of easily, and no one has ever seen a male harpy.  Marrianne and Sister Ishbarra walk back to Bresselwythe to collect the horses while Hexis creates a net trap (we found that the ropes in TFT are 100 yards. That is a LOT of rope!). 

The characters wait that night, but after the flock leaves (and the wee shepherdesses think it is funny that these adults don't know that sheep are a flock and not a herd. Adults are funny...) Somewhere along here Deimos summons the bear, who eats the fish and does not seem overly happy. I am giving +1 each time he does this, and soon as the player can roll a 12+ on 2ds, the bear will like him. Yep - using the classic Traveller reaction roll. Been using that since early 80s!) Marrianne and Sister Ishbarra return, horses collected. Axe (and still not spelling it correctly) has stayed with Ceteern Gur, the goblin head of the small village. They have things, Goblin things, to discuss. That and the player could not show up.

Deimos had cast an illusion of a bleating lamb, which wandered over the netting all night long. The next day the flock did not return as they were grazing elsewhere. But late afternoon, a dark-winged harpy swoops down and attempts to grab the lamb! Hexis pulls the trap and the harpy is caught!

"Mine! Mine!" the harpy cries out, clutching the illusionary lamb in her talons. While Dawn attempts to explain that the lamb and sheep belong to the people. the harpy is very resolute in that the lamb is hers. I was trying to channel those seagulls from Finding Nemo. Eventually they do tease out of her that she and her flock are here because food at home is becoming bad. But Laura (an odd name for a harpy perhaps but it is what I thought of at the moment!) cannot bargain for her flock - they must see Screea (which is a much better name for a harpy I think). As Deimos dispells the lamb, Laura is saddened but willing to lead the group up to the cave where her sisters are living.

the harpy cave and the "big boy" healing potion

Screea, an orange-winged harpy with a bit more sense than Laura, comes out surrounded by several other harpies. Our group finds that these creatures are from the north, but their normal food and environment is slowly getting poisoned. There is this crystalline growth that is moving from the Terror Lands and the Wizard's Mount. The Mount is at a nexus of ley lines, and one runs south through the Terror Lands towards Edge City, though it stops almost a hundred miles north of that city. But it became corrupted a few years ago, and bad magics are happening. Screea can "smell" magic, a sort of inborn detect magic similar to the gargoyles built-in levitation spell allowing them to fly with wings that are far too small for their dense bodies. She can smell the magic on Deimos. 

After discussing things, she agrees that if the group can do something about the ill magic, the harpies could return to their home and leave the human settlements alone. She is willing to send one of her sisters with the group north. And as it is the same direction as Stubboon's Final Stand, it works out well for them (amazing coincidence, right? 😁)

Being late, the group decides to wait until the morning. The first watch is quiet, but in the 2nd watch, the howling of wolves causes Dawn, who was on shift, to waken the others. 4 wolves attack the group, 2 of them heading towards Hexis, one to Marrianne and another to...dang. I did not write it down or take a picture! 

Dawn shoots an arrow and wounds one wolf, Marianne had moved out too far to be able to shoot her crossbow, Sister Ishbarra was making casting motions with her hands, Voilet was moving to the group and grabbed a burning branch from the fire. Dawn shoots again, as the wolves had charged and none had quite gotten to anyone other than our healing cleric. Whose magic failed her. Dawn shoots and kills one of the wolves attacking Hexis, and Hexis easily kills the other with a single blow. Marianne gets a shot off and kills the wolf attacking her. But Sister Ishbarra gets attacked and takes damage! Voilet throws the branch (and even gets double damage!) and while she hits the wolf, unfortunately the thick fur prevented the wolf from taking damage (and in hindsight, it would have taken 1 point of damage as there is a minimum damage of 1 if I recall). Sister Ishabarra now has her shield and hammer up as the wolf attacks again, causing more damage. But Hexis has pivoted and kills the wolf with a single strike again. The player was happy - like me he tends to roll badly but this time he did well! Deimos attempted to throw Noodles (her staff to snake) at the wolf, but failed and Noodles ends up 6 hexes behind Deimos, and never gets into the game until all the wolves are dead. Throwing spells...

The wolf is dead, Sister Ishbarra is now at half-strength. And she is the only one with any healing capabilities, but I've ruled in my house rules she can only do this for others. And of course no one has any health potions. They also notice that the wolf has some green crystals growing out of it, which may explain why the wolves attacked. Normally, outnumbered as they were, wolves will not attack groups. Screea comes out, and says yes, this is the green corruption that they are running from. Sniffing at Sister Ishbarra, she does not think she is infected. While they clean her wounds, they cannot heal her. 

And that is where we left the game. I gave out 150 XP for the afternoon play. I think people enjoyed the game, and I've made the stakes a bit bigger now. 

Behind the curtain

I am bringing in parts of a supplement (the green crystal growth and the corrupt ley lines). Going to have to re-read that and probably bring in more of it if I can make it work organically. And interestingly this is around where I put the Woodfall town, at the edge of the Terror Lands, so eventually they may find that on their journey to find the Orc's Fist. Which they may have forgotten about...

And I'll have to figure a way to get them some healing potions - I do have a travelling goblin merchant that shows up at opportune moments. Funnily enough the mini I based that character on is the one we are using for the goblin in the game.

And the corruption and rise of the cult are linked together: that corruptions has weakened the barriers between this world and the demon planes where Indhyna is from. Fix one and it may fix the other. Though I do need to re-read what I wrote, and make sure it all can fit together like I thought in the middle of running the game.

And I need to get Marianne's background and character set up. She showed up as I had just painted her, and the damage she was doing was 2d6, so I went with a light crossbow. As she was using it every round, she has at least DX of 14. But I have no idea what race she even is - she is a 5' rabbit!

Marianne

Cowboys & Dinos II: Session 4

It was mostly single encounter that took a bit longer than expected. Still wish we could play this face to face - I'd buy a bucket of those cheap dinosaurs and probably use Lego minifigs :)

 Anyway: the evening goes well, and other than the noises of scavengers working on the downed T-Tex almost a mile behind them, nothing happened overnight. It was a cold, cloudy night. Hambone salted some of the T-Rex meat, and they had roasted T-Rex steaks for dinner once it was dark enough so that the smoke would not be visible.

Before the break of dawn, leaving their dinos (and Smitty's mule) back at the campsite, they attempt to sneak up on the cabin in the dark. Only Lee, the martial artist, managed this, with two characters rolling 20s (which is a critical fail. I've been a little haphazard with rolls but will explain my logic at the end of the post). I indicated that this as far enough away from the cabin that they are being sneaky enough at this distance. I need to handle fail forward a bit better, but I punted.

The cabin has a light on, and the smell of bacon is wafting through the air. I let them roll again as now they are in sight of the small cabin and can see the outhouse behind it (which while I marked on the map, neglected to let anyone know what that box was). The roll was nearly identical, including Molly making a 2nd critical fail if I recall. She managed to walk through a spiderweb, and the spider was crawling across her face. Never a pleasant experience but worse when you can barely see the tree in front of you!

not exactly right but close enough!

Alerted, Clem comes out of the cabin, an oil lantern in hand, looking out into the woods. Lee makes an immediate attack, and so our side gets initiative as the people in the cabin were surprised. Brandishing his staff he knocks poor Clem down, who immediately drops the oil lantern. Which breaks and a small fire gets started underfoot. Hambone is getting closer, and Molly, Archibald and Smitty hang back but are still moving forward. Next round, Clem does not land a punch on Lee, but a rifle has broken through the window right next to the fight. Hambone sidles around the side of the house, inadvertently next to the outhouse. But there is no marshal inside, nor does he blow it up with dynamite. Lee gets shot at 3 times, twice getting hit but only once actually hit has he made his saving roll. He has a martial arts talent that allows him to save against ranged attacks. A critical save (this time a 20...yes, it gets a bit confusing!) means he actually gets a free action to move and attack. But he took a shot to the shoulder giving several points of damage. He also kills Clem, having moved to his "iron fists" which do more damage than his staff. And the fire grows a bit. 

The other window breaks out, and Archibald attempts to pull the rifle from Wanda (the 2nd rifle bearer). He missed his roll, so between the distance, the darkness, and seeing only part of Wanda and the rifle, he could not yank it from her arms. She fires blindly towards Hambone but misses all three times (she was rolling at a disadvantage between the dark and the ruckus in front). Somewhere along here Hambone yells at them to give it up quietly but they did not want to. 

Lee, after killing Clem, leaps through the window and succeeds in knocking down Bart. Hambone is moving around to the back of the cabin as there are no windows on the side he is on. Molly starts moving up to calm the horses, Smitty moves to put out the fire, and Archibald gets a bit closer. Lee and Bart are tussling, and Wanda decides that shooting into a melee combat may not do well for Bart. Hambone breaks into the back window but finds that it is a bedroom, and no visibility to anyone in the cabin. Molly gets a bucket and water from the trough and aids Smitty in putting out the fire. 

Eventually Lee gets Bart knocked out (he was using non-lethal force). Wanda is about to shoot when I think at this point Hambone got into the cabin and has his shotgun on her. The smell of burnt bacon fills the cabin.

They managed to get everyone all tied up, and Hambone is disgusted by the waste of bacon. They get back to their patient dinos and then back to Copper Peak. Along the way they pass a badly wounded triceratops. It was not tee same one as before. Deciding that it was too hurt for them to actually be able to heal it, and not wanting to use all his healing potions, they decide to let nature take its course. Then we remembered Lee was wounded, so rewound to get the first aid in. Archibald was willing to give a potion to heal him, but Lee can channel his chi once a day and do some healing. He was quite insistent on that. Dropping off the two living and one dead person, the collect a reward as they were all wanted. Most of them gave their money to Archibald to help him with his inventions, and they still had plenty from the last time they got bounties.

And that is where we left things.

How I am handling the rolls

Apex has a few rolls, and I seriously doubt I am doing it even remotely correctly. But what I do is that a roll that can be used against an attribute (remembering something, being sneaky) I use a "roll under the appropriate characteristic" so you want to roll low for that. Action checks (leaping through a window, and yes, there is a lot of overlap here!) uses the action roll which is a d6 and generally 4+ succeeds. There are some modifiers from traits or attributes. So there is some confusion on me asking them to sometimes roll low for something on a d20 vs having them roll high on a d6. And of course, fighting is a d20 roll and you need to roll above the armor class defense stat. 

How I am handling the NPCs

Not well. Not great (or even mediocre) at accents, and a bit overwhelmed with running the game to get the NPCs to do more than barely be there. Going to have to re-read those chapters in the several books I have for running games on techniques to improve that. I've got one NPC they will probably meet in a session or two, but poor Smitty is barely an outline of a character. 

And speaking of overwhelmed...

Running games, even with friends I know and trust, still causes me a bit of anxiety. I want to run a good and fun game and feel I really don't succeed well, and then there is this feedback loop from that. *sigh* And I think I am getting worse at social anxiety, which is related, but not sure if it is really something or just me being a hypochondriac. Which is another feedback loop! It is not helping that I had a conversation with my boss, who is fighting to not lose anyone in our department. Which is already running far too lean. And I managed to drown my work Mac laptop - knocked my tea all over it. And I use travel mugs when near computers for that very reason! But it had just been topped off, and I had not closed off the top. So, I have guilty feelings about that. But I did tell him what happened. He does say I have a "brutal honesty". Can't help it...As I told my coworker: the advantage of getting older is that some of the filters do come off. the disadvantage of getting older is that some of the filters do come off.

Yes, sometimes I am a mess! A self-aware mess at least. At least I think - wonder what I am missing about myself?!

Anyway, I'll try & cover the next section of the T5.10 Book 2 soon. Though we may have a Fantasy Trip game this weekend at my house. I do have a few things ready that should take up the afternoon we get to play, as I mentioned in a previous post. Using stuff I have! 

Game Prep: Cowboys and Dinos and The Fantasy Trip

Running two games, for me at least, presents some logistical issues. Fortunately, one game is every other week at the most, and as I am no longer running the weekly Fantasy Trip game for reasons, I just have the 2 games for the moment. 

Cowboys And Dinos

I have something mostly prepared for the next Cowboy game, at least an encounter. But I also recognize I need to expand it a bit, and get some details mixed in there. The diary, the MacGuffin piece, actually has more than just some salacious notes: she has notes on things that could bring down a number of people in Copper Peak. And am I worried about my players reading my game notes: not really as they only read the blogs when I post the game recaps and I point them to that. Could be wrong, and even if I am, they are also good RPG players and can separate what they know vs what their characters know. I also have to see about that week journey north-west to New Harmony: do we want to do a day at a time, run random encounters, or just "a week later you find yourselves at the outskirts of town". I have an entire book, Wondrous Expeditions: Forests (and wonder if they will ever do any more in that series) but as much as my group loves getting game books, they really don't seem to want to use any of the mechanics for things outside the core processes. I have a lot of books as I like books, but if I don't use them and barely read them, I have to wonder at myself a lot. Of course, I say this same thing every few posts as well! Anyways - figure that the cabin in the woods will take most of the next game night, so I need to plan a bit more beyond that. It is a Saturday, and they will investigate either late Saturday night or Sunday in daylight, and then whatever happens, back to Copper Peak probably Sunday. They are wanting to visit the land office to check on Hambone's land, so I need to have some potential dialog and ideas there.

And running a cowboy game is a bit hard for me - I am not personally a fan of westerns. They are okay, but just not something I have a lot of experience with. But one of the players loves the old west and rarely gets to play in those games, and I do like to make people happy.

Character Art Diversion

And the image above brings to mind a discussion we've had playing. I have one player who prefers photos of real people for his characters and NPCs. I prefer art and not real people. Part of it is, I think, is that art allows for more imagination, similar to why I prefer the old-line drawings for RPGs. A real person, an actor or whatever, is a real person and I feel very uncomfortable using a real person in a game. Even if we are just using the image, it is a photo of a real human being and it just feels wrong for me to "use" someone, even if it is harmless and more a reference than the actual person. One of these days I may have to dig into why I don't like using real people as characters and NPCs. Could be some nascent social anxiety I fear I may have (what, a gamer with social issues, say it ain't so!)

The Fantasy Trip

I've laid the seeds for the next few sessions honestly. And fantasy is a lot easier to run for me. I've actually re-read The Adventurers Guide to the Yol'Najj Forest and will be borrowing parts of that. They need to finish questioning the cultist, who now has eyes for our hapless Clyde. Who may have eyes for her even though she was willing to sacrifice him to the demon. Neither of these two are particularly intelligent. But while at the village of Bresselwythe, the village head, a Goblin named Ceteern Gur, has mentioned that not only are young men going missing thanks to the cult as we've found, but also goats seem to be getting stolen by the harpies up the mountains a bit. And how this feeds into the overall arch: some of the harpies are getting odd crystallin growths and they start acting odd. The forest at one time I thought I placed south of Edge City, but as I never used it, it is now below the Wizard's Mount up in the Terror Lands. Bad magics are corrupting things as far south now as Bresselwythe. I need to re-read it a bit more and take some notes as there are a host of NPCs and plots I can use as the group gets closer to Stubboons Last Stand, where they hope to find the Orc's Fist (if they have not forgotten the reason for the current quest already!) And weave that into the various plot lines as well. And how they handle the harpies is open to a lot possibilities. And harpies as for some reason I have a lot of harpy minis and actually have painted them (yes, sometimes I do finish a project!)

Sadly, I moved the software for Campaign Cartographer and some of my older maps no longer load correctly. So I no longer have the ability to update this map. And I really need to take the time and follow some tutorials so I can get better at maps.

Traveller 5.10 Overview

I'll continue that series as well. Hopefully someone may find it somewhat useful. And I am thinking about getting the Mongoose World Builder book. Even though I swore off of Mongoose, it has had some pretty good reactions over on COTI. Do I need it - no. Will I use it - maybe? It is just so expensive: one of my gripes with Mongoose is the sheer cost of their stuff and to me the lack of quality in their physical books. However, that is pretty much what all books cost now, as there is a lot of work that goes into making a book regardless of it being a PDF or actual physical book. Even though I think Mongoose basically copies a lot of existing stuff and then passes it off as their own for Traveller (some of their books are straight-up copies of earlier books so not as much work getting those done). Same with the JTAS which sadly I have also purchased - more than half is just a reprint of the original stuff. And I did back the last set, and I've not even read the previous volumes yet. And do NOT get me started on what they consider Aslan look like. Lipstick? Really? Really?! And to paraphrase a member of COTI: I don't mind changes, but I don't like the Bobby Ewing approach (reference to a season of Dallas they essentially said was all a dream so did not matter). Meaning Mongoose is completely rewriting things and making wholesale changes. Which honestly is okay as you can still get the original stuff, but it really changes a lot of Traveller and not well in my opinion. But I am old, and I am not the target audience. 

Traveller 5.10: Book 2 Part 3

Book 2 Part 1, Part 2

Book 1 is reviewed here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

Of course, the big news is that Marc Miller sold the rights to Traveller to Mongoose Publishing. On the one hand, I am glad that there is a "succession" of sorts laid out so there won't be a lot of confusion when the inevitable happens. On the other hand, while I really like the 1st edition of Mongoose. I'm not really happy with where they are taking it for a few reasons. But in the end, it really does not make a lot of difference to me: I have most of the old stuff, and I am no longer the target audience of the new stuff. And while I do pick and choose some of the new stuff, my rare play is still mostly CT.

And while I am still doing an overview of the T5.10 books here, pretty sure they are a dead end for a number of reasons as well at this point (okay, pretty much since 5.10 came out). I still think there is a game in there somewhere, but the editing, organization and sheer volume make finding that game more complicated than it should be. But, as per my signature over on COTI, I will continue to pick and choose the rules I like. As pretty much all RPGs are homebrew in some sense as groups tend to gravitate to their own interpretation of things. 

And moving on to my continued and somewhat opinionated review of T5.10.

Starship Design and Construction

We start off with a lot of useful definitions of the things we are going to use for our ACS (Adventure Class ships, 100 to 2400 displacement tons) and, harkening back to LBB2, uses "drag and drop" components from tables rather than percentage based as per the as-yet-to-be-written BCS (Battle Class Ships). We have the same components as most editions of Traveller: hull, armor, drives, sensors, weapons, defenses, operations, controls and crew and payload. Yes, we do get a bit more detailed than LBB2. And we also put to rest the whole quandary of building ships of a higher tech level than is available:

The Building World’s base Tech Level constrains the capabilities of the shipyard constructing the ship. Unless otherwise specified, all mechanisms on the ship will be at the base tech level. 

Imported Components

Some components and mechanisms can be imported from neighboring shipyards with the appropriate tech level. Standard mechanisms at TL +1 are available and can be imported at their standard cost plus 10%. Early, Prototype, and Experimental mechanisms are available locally.

In a mapped situation (where the local subsector or sector is mapped), player characters can import any higher tech level mechanisms they find in the course of play. 

Tech Level Limits 

Within the Imperium, the maximum shipyard Tech Level is 15. Within this ship design system, the maximum available Tech Level is 21.

And we have more Fillform things. Which I've yet to really try and test: I think I tried before but got confused (and as I can figure out dependency injection in xunit tests for work, think I just did not try hard enough!). But the overall process consists of the checklist to design the ship, the missions or purpose of this ship, and oddly an "understanding starship missions" is yet another chart. 

Moving along to sections 4 through 6, we choose the hull. Hulls are available in 100 -on increments (apparently you cannot trick the system with a 149-ton ship). This also closes off some loopholes that a lot of people over on COTI exploit, sticking to the letter of the law but not really (in my opinion) paying heed to what the rules are trying to do. But then, I've never been a min-maxer type of player, nor a rules lawyer. However - there are notes on over-tonnage and under-tonnage, so that you may end up with a 343-ton hull. There is a little chart indicating how this affects agility, stability and the impact on power plant fuel suage. Which is pretty high for over-tonnage, so you can see the rules do NOT want you to do this sort of thing. It is also noted that over-tonnage does not allow more hardpoints. Sorry, Gazelle class! Letters designate the hull size, and I assume without checking that these are the same codes from 1977. 

We have our 7 types of letter-based hulls, a bit of variation from LBB2 but not a whole lot. Costs are based on tonnage, configuration and structure. Wait - what is structure? Ahh, a sentence later we discover we now can have organic and charged structures for the hulls. So, our alien living hulls are now canon!

And while poking later in the chapter to find the hull costs, it turns out that the section I am reading through is a summary or preview of the sections later on. I must have missed this all along, and it does make reading through the rules a bit easier to understand. 

Moving on, we cover pods (< 100 tons) and subhulls (>= 100 tons). Which also puts into the rules things that the very verbose Spinward Flow on COTI mostly home rules or has a creative interpretation of the rules. We also describe the various configurations and what charged and organic mean. And we also have even more structures: frame and plate, shell, polymer, FeNi (aka asteroid), organic and charged. And cover the difference between a hardpoint and a firmpoint (which are available for small craft). And we have a lot of room for major customization: any gun < 500kg created in the GunMaker can be added to a firmpoint. 

We have the expanded list of hull fittings that have been detailed in other versions: landing skids, wheels, wings, flotation hulls, that sort of thing. Some more detailed summaries of airframe vs streamlined vs lifting body with notes on how that affects things like flying in an atmosphere of 2+, so they do take into account at least a little the density of the atmosphere. Though oddly enough, years ago I was talking to a helicopter pilot (I was replacing my wife in an adventure race and we had found out she was pregnant, and this was hot August in Atlanta, so I became the 3rd wheel to replace her). Anyway - temperature also affects agility: apparently cold air is easier to maneuver in as it is denser. If I remember that correctly. But that is probably below the resolution of the game. 

Then a quick overview of armor and drives. Armor can be layered, generates AV values against various threats, and may affect agility. Nicely enough, polymer is self-healing. Way back I had the eternity chip in my 200 ton Scout ship... And also, apparently the fission plant is safe to be around in a short-sleeve environment, but the maneuver drive is not (though to be fair, could be in the middle of battle and it is safer to depressurize a ship in that instance).

We cover the various drives and power systems, and whether the systems are centralized or dispersed. And centralized has a backup emergency power for TL minutes so that if you lose your power plant, a TL-12 ship has 12 minutes of emergency power available. Which is a nice touch. Dispersed systems may be self-powered: hello Mr. Fusion! Or at least fusion+ which is the same thing: compact cold fusion modules. We also cover types of power plants - collectors are now defined so we can recreate Annic Nova by the rules. We have 3 types of m-drives which have been covered in various iterations previously. But we also now have more jump drives: the traditional jump drive for 1-6 parsecs (possibly 1-9), the Hop drive starting at TL-17 and can cover 10-90 parsecs, the Skip drive at TL 20 100-900 parsecs, and the NAFAL drive which, see you next century old Not As Fast As Light drive. Think colony arcs or perhaps even the ship from Silent Running, just coasting along. Other than NAFAL, all drives take 168 hours +/- 10%, and also have relative accuracy. Using a hop or skip drive better bring along the next lower jump drives as you could end up parsecs away from where you want to go! And I appreciate that we finally have technologies above TL-15 that really don't break the Traveller universe. 

the Valley Forge from Silent Running

A quick overview of fuel requirements, sensors, weapons, defenses, operations, controls, payload, crew (somehow not rolled into operations), and evaluating the ship and giving a definition to the QSP, or quick ship profile, which is very reminiscent of LBB5's USP, Universal Ship Profile. And is basically what I used for the first part of the Imperium's ship ID that gives the basic info about the ship. 

And before we get into the very detailed explanations and usage of all the stuff we covered in the last dozen+ pages, there is a chart for performance based on letter of the component and the letter of the hull size. There is a stage effects table as well, though IMTU I'll probably do the "you really cannot get this higher-TL ship maintained at this lower TL world" which does put a limit on some things. But not all things as I also have Makers so that the ship can manufacture a lot of the smaller parts, and the computers would have the complete catalog of those parts. Depending on the ship, it may even have the complete guide to repair and maintain the ship in the library. In which case, it may be possible to have a lower TL fix your ship, but the costs go way up!

Then we have 3 ship fillforms that in theory help you design your ship. And they are begging for an automated process to do all that. Hmm, if only I had copious free time!

Page 67 gives a 1-page checklist of everything you need to do, all 27 steps. Then pages 68-93 give 1 or two pages per section to get into the nitty-gritty of that particular ship aspect. There are also a LOT of icons, which while pretty, also seem to be begging for a computer or board game to use all those icons. 

In the end, for me this is a lot like the old LBB5: I may create a lot of ships that make no real sense because I like to do that sort of thing. And the sensors and all that do play into the (to me at least) complicated rules around all that. Most RPG players, at least in my experience, really do not want to get into this level of detail. They want to know if they can see that ship out in the dark and can they shoot it. And while the rules do give that, it takes a lot of reading and calculations to figure all that out. Though I think, as per the personal cards and things. that can all get summarized down fairly easily but it just takes work to get from the rules to a final "roll this many dice and roll below this number to succeed". Which is what all these rules really boil down to. It just takes a lot to boil down to that end result!

Cowboys & Dinos II: Session 3

Our adventurers have a good night sleeping at the Dusty Boot, though with all the rain it may be the Muddy Boot. Next morning, they get up and resupply for the trip. At the land office, to check on the status of Hambone's wife's land up inn New Harmony, they find to their dismay that it is closed. It is Saturday and office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 to 4. With an hour off for lunch. Wish I had that schedule...

They find Smitty up at the Grey Stables, sleeping in the loft above Bessie, his mule. Waking him up with coffee and breakfast, they head out towards Fuente's cabin. And this is where I confused the players I fear: this cabin is NOT the 40 acres he sometimes stays at when trying to get away from the wanted posters. Those 40 acres possibly being Hambone's 40 acres in New Harmony. This is a cabin Fuentes sometimes is at when in the Copper Peak area. It is more of a safe house for this area for him. New Harmony is about a week north-north-west of Copper Peak at Puddin' Pace. Maybe a day or so at Volgol pace. One of these days I really need to get all that figured out rather than relying on the speed of plot!

Smitty

Smitty's mule. not everyone rides a dinosaur!

Once that got straightened out, they head up the hills to the northeast of Copper Peak. It is a mining trail, used by miners up in the mountains, and it is an easy ride even as it starts to climb into the mountains proper. A few hours into their journey, they hear the distressed calls of a baby ankylosaurus. Checking ahead, Lee sees a mother has been caught by deadfall, and the baby looks like an easy snack for the T-Rex. And roll for initiative!

The battle takes a few rounds, and to their dismay, with a protection of 6, most of their bullets just glance off the dino's thick hide. No one wanted to risk their dinosaurs into a confrontation with the T-Rex though from a mechanical viewpoint, that triceratops and other ankylosaurus were the only things that could take down the beast. But this group is protective of their mounts and companions. The T-Rex is taking a bite out of the downed ankylosaurus, Hambone misses more than he hits, and Lee, even at close range, misses a few times and does little damage. And Smitty, armed with just a Bowie knife, stays back and tries to keep his mule calm. Which ain't easy with a T-Rex nearby! At this point, seeing guns were not being very useful, Archibald uses his hat of levitation and manages to jam a log into the T-Rex's mouth. Which does cause some real damage finally but makes the dino a bit angry. Leaving the downed ankylosaurus and baby, it charges Molly and snaps at her, fortunately missing. Seeing as the fight would not end well, Archibald, again utilizing his hat of levitation, took a lit stick of dynamite from Molly and attempted to put into the T-Rex's mouth. A bad roll and then a grit point and good roll, and Molly is covered by T-Rex brains and blood.

battle scene

yay, we won! as posted by Molly's player

Hambone manages to stitch up Mama, and with the aid of Puddin', get the logs off the wounded dinosaur. Who bleats a thank you and limps off with her child to escape the carnage.

baby anklysaurus

They manage to cut a good chunk of T-Rex meat for processing later and head away, knowing that carrion eaters and others will be attracted to the carnage. They find a good place to camp later, and Hambone scales a tree and spots chimney smoke in the direction of the cabin, indicating that the cabin would appear to be occupied. 

And this is where we ended this chapter. 

Cowboys and Dinos II: Session 2

Travelling northward, the pace is dictated by the Puddin ' Pace as an ankylosaurus is rarely in a rush as well as being loaded down with Hambone's camping and barbering paraphernalia. Molly and Volgol head to Copper Peak, the letter from the caravan leader, Carl, in hand. She gets there late afternoon, winds from the south helping Volgol fly a bit faster. Getting her flying dino set up, she checks in at the post office to find Anaconda Mining, where Marcus Daly (not yet the Copper King), has his offices.

An officious Reginald let's our heroine know he is at the smelter, checking on the copper output but would be back at the office about 6. Not willing to leave the letter with an underling, she indicates she will be back with the letter to properly deliver it. Moving about town, she gets rooms at the Dusty Boot, a small hotel that is right in the middle of pricing. She reserves spaces in the stables (and dino stables are really large!) and awaits the group.

Which is finally approaching, Puddin' taking the occasional bite of grass as he plods along, Pachy and Lee just about dizzy from going back and forth while scouting ahead, and Archibald and Archimedes keeping Hambone and his dino company. The rain is starting to hit pretty hard as they find Molly, who now makes arrangements to get Volgol off the water tower eyrie and into a covered barn. It takes a bit longer than they expect, and Molly is a bit late to the mining offices. Marcus Daly is still in, so she hands off the letter. Marcus reads it, harrumphs a few times and asks about the raiders. After explaining how they helped out, he thinks they could make a good team for guarding the copper caravans. They are getting hit a bit more often, and a flying scout as well as well-armed guards may well be warranted. Molly hands him a business card, and she leaves.

The group meets up with Sheriff John Watson. Lee is wanting any information on Fuentes, the bad guy he is after. The sheriff knows of him but does not know anything about him passing through. He does know that Mason Fuentes was a sharpshooter in the Civil and is an ace shot: can shoot the wings off a fly at a hundred paces". Though he does know Smitty, and Smitty is a source of a lot of information the sheriff can use. He is usually at the Rusty Pickaxe on Fridays, so the group heads there along with the sheriff to see if they can get any info. Hambone lets Molly wear is very heavy bear fur coat as it will keep the rain out. Sheriff Watson thinks Hambone is a find father and no one corrects the impression.

Sheriff John Watson

The bar is a bit more empty than normal for a Friday, what with the rain. Molly takes off her coat and takes a seat at the bar where she can watch. Sheriff Watson finds Smitty at the bar, and he, Lee and Archibald take a table to talk with the snitch. Lee offers a beer and $2, a rich haul, after Smitty at first cannot recall anything. With the aid of a beer and cash, he recalls that Mason Fuentes has a place outside of New Harmony - some plot of land that a woman bought almost 20 years ago but never showed up to claim. Despite another $1, Smitty does not know who the woman was.

Hambone meantime, noticing that one lone customer seemed to be showing a bit more interest in the conversation, wandered over and started a conversation. Which ended up in a few hands of poker, which Bruce, a heavy-set man, thought Hambone was cheating at. Reaching for his gun, Hambone sets Betty, his sawed-off shotgun, on the table. Roll for initiative...

the Rusty Pickaxe (not sure where I found this map)

Bruce gets initiative but manages to roll a 1 on the d20 (traditional d20 to roll high. I get a bit confused as the previous game was roll low for better results. Why the Traveller 5 dice pool thing still confuses me!). His shot goes really wild, shattering the window behind Hambone. Yet the piano player plays on...

Lee, seeing this, moves extremely quickly and manages to both disarm and lock down Bruce before Hambone gets a shot off, and the sheriff is still moving from the table. His arm about to break, Bruce admits to working sometimes for Fuentes. He does say that there is a cabin up in the woods that Fuentes stays at when passing through, but he is not there. Sheriff Watson takes Bruce to jail to wait for the travelling judge for pulling a gun and attempting to shoot Hambone. 

All this time, a well-dressed woman on the stairs watched, and finally comes down the table. Introducing herself as Juanita, she is glad that Bruce is getting locked up. He has been rough with her girls before and is no longer a customer of hers. But Bruce or Mason had managed to steal her diary, and she believes it is up at the cabin. She offers a reward for the diary, with the caveat that she does not want anyone to read her personal notes.

Juanita

And that is where we left the game.

A few things: Archibald needs some attention here, and I need to figure out how to make sure he has things to do as well. And I have some ideas about that diary in fact - may be more than a simple MacGuffin. And I feel I am stumbling in running this game as well. I could blame work, which is always an issue, especially as I was on call that evening so had to check on things. I feel I am good at background and setting up things, not so much actually running them. Some games run well, I know, but I felt this session was not particularly good. 

Anyway - need to see about a cabin in the woods, and I have a couple ideas there for that as well. Some of this was based on a site for generating random wild west game plots (which I can no longer find. For whatever reason I rarely bookmark stuff anymore. as I can usually just find it) While it said AI, I really feel it is probably like most generators and a list of words and combinations to apply to those words. 

Cowboys and Dinos II: Session 2

Going with this is session 2 as the 1st session did see some action and was not just session 0. 

Staying at the Pony Express Station, they met up with Sally and Daisy. She had just come back from a long run from Bliss Springs, having passed off the mail to the next carrier. Our group gets their dinos settled in, and they get some beans and ham from Cookie at the station. There are about a half dozen riders there, as the pony express is on the way out with the introduction of the telegraph and the expansion of the railways. 

Looking for any rumors, they hear that Copper Peak is a rowdy town, and not a fitting place for women. The copper smelter up there is starting to pollute the river it is on, and there are some folk not happy about that. Further up the pass, Harmony is a bit of a cipher. Most of the riders think it is just a religious community, and they do not get a lot of mail. And the copper caravan is running a bit late: every week or so the brontos haul down a huge load of processed copper to get loaded on the train at Aurora. Hambone manages to pull a rotting tooth from one of the riders, utilizing his barbering skills.

Next morning, Molly heads out to deliver the 2 packages to Copper Peak, and the rest of the group head out at Puddin's pace. It only take her maybe 2 hours to get there and drop off the package (we got a bit squirrely in getting the times all correct, but as a pterodactyl can fly at a pretty good clip, Volgol can cover the ground a lot faster). The walkers encounter a Utah raptor chowing down and give it a wide berth safely. There was some discussion on game mechanics: the martial artist wanted to send his pachycephalosaurus back to the group while he kept a rifle on the feasting dino. As his class was not a dino rider, he does not get the tricks that the dino riders have, so gave it a good chance Pachy may not actually head back but instead decide freedom was his calling. He decided losing his ride was not a good choice, so headed back to let them know about the raptor ahead.

Returning, Molly sees a dead brontosaurus and a cart on the road back to the express station, and fortunately sees her companions coming up the road. She whips out a handkerchief to alert the group, and then we have a very brief battle. I had asked that the group establish their communications ahead of time just so we had it in place. This is a long time before cellphones or even radios were a thing!

1.RED Bandana - Danger, get armed 
2.BLUE Bandana - Water ahead or camp area 

3.BLACK Bandana- Stop, do not move on 

4.WHITE Bandana - All Clear, keep moving 

5.YELLOW Bandana - Move stealthy, possible trouble

We used Owlbear.Rodeo for the battle and it went...okay. I still do not have good timing in running battles other than the Fantasy Trip (and that game is easy as the battle is a board game with specific rules and all that. Apex also has nonsensical movement rules, so we had to ad lib what to do. I will have to think that through a bit and figure out a better way of handling that). I did a vague mass combat for the raiders against the caravan, and the caravan kept rolling better so most of the raiders ended up getting killed. 

Lee, our martial artist, used Pachy to ram other horses (well, a Pachycephalosaurus does have a really, really thick skull! And while he is not a dino rider, I did allow him ramming speed as that is a natural thing for them). He managed to knock over two horses and missed his attack rolls horribly so flew over the rider. Fortunately, he remembered he has the luck skill, so can re-roll 1 d20 a day. He managed to hit the rider but only managed 1 entire point of damage. Though being a level 4 martial artists he has quick blows so could attack again, this time bloodying the raider's nose. Meanwhile Archibald was moving up and shooting. Having a rate of fir eof 3, he gets off a fair number of shots, sorely wounding several of the raiders. Hambone is moving up slowly but does finally get a shot off late in the combat, but misses. Molly was swinging wide and put in the killing shot for one or two of the raiders. 

In the end all the raiders were killed except for one. They tie him up, and the caravan will take the prisoner to Aurora with a note from Deputy Soung. They eat a bit after burying the bodies to the side of the road, and, as it was getting late, that is where we left things. 

I gave the players 150 (or was it 250?) experience points. Really should review the XP as I used the default Nazi soldier for the mooks, even though they have some pretty good bonuses which bummed out one player as they were about on par with him in terms of some things. But hey - you knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred!

I did get most of the Owlbear set up with tokens for all the people. I just forgot to make tokens for the players! I sued a handy token maker which works well. I am so appreciative of all the free tools that people put out there for various games.

Apex Mentalist

I know, not the January Character Challenge, but I am thinking I want a mentalist in the game for some reason to yet be determined! And I found this image which sort of fits with what I was thinking. 

from ArtStation - Wild Frontier Game Characters

Mannix "Dragon" Durango tends to acquire things that are not necessarily his, but only from people who can afford to lose those things. He has a preternatural ability to sense extraplanar creatures and has used this in seances for those who can afford his services. He also has the ability to project his thoughts and to read thoughts, which, in the guise of his seances, manages to find where the family jewels may be hidden.

Though his last caper he was almost caught in the act of opening the safe, having read the combination from the town's councilman. And feeling that the extraplanar creatures are beckoning him to the north, he is headed to the badlands to see if he can discover what they want of him.

Our group may meet him in any place, but probably closer to New Dawn, perhaps even past Fort Talon. I'll add random characters to my random encounter tables. Which I have added a few new entries. I hope to get the dino table to a d20 eventually. And finish the initial table, though now I will add the random character to that one!

An attractive man who is older than he appears, he is well-dressed and seems to always have cash on hand for what he needs. He has a bit of a Southern drawl, and he comes across as quite cultured and learned. He admits to being a bit of a self-made man, but also admits that he has also been quite lucky. Always open for a game of chance, he routinely beats the house and there are a few establishments where he is no longer welcome. He always seems to know when to hold them and when to fold them. It helps that he can read minds, of course. 

tables!

character sheet!

Cowboys And Dinos II: Session 0

We finished up the Battletech game, and our mechs are getting repaired and some new stuff getting added. Of course, I rolled badly for most, but eventually my little Locust mech will be a bit better!

Then we rolled into the 2nd game for Cowboys and Dinosaurs. We have 1 player who left, so Jack Looking Horse has gone back to his tribe, herding their triceratops and other dinos. Let us look at the characters we have so far. 

Hambone Hewiggans has been outlined here already in the player's own words.

 

Lee Soung, Martial Artist

Molly Slade and Vogel, Dino Rider

and our newest recruit, 

Archibald and his triceratops Archimedes

I thought there was to be 1 more player, but think he is ghosting us now. So I had to actually run the start of the game earlier than expected as I had been working with the new player over the week to get him mostly set up. A few questions, and a lot of help from the other players, including a recap, and we were ready to go. 

Fortunately, there was a lot of banter back and forth. I had Hawbone's wife, who died 17 years ago, buying 40 acres up in New Dawn. The letter finally caught up from him from his newly discovered sister-in-law Millie. Along with the deed. Hawbone gets Molly to read the letter as he is not good with reading. After discovering he is a land-owning farmer, they decide that they should go to New Dawn to see what is there. Lee, currently a deputy, needs to see if he has some time he can take as well as check for any warrants in that area. As they discuss this, the train on the BB Grappler line shows up, and Archibald and Archimedes gets off. The group is astounded at the load on the triceratops: used to Puddin's collection of sacks, bags, shovels and tools, the gadgets and tools on that dino. Some brief introductions, and they discover they are heading to the same place: New Dawn!

I need to get better at making fake newspapers!

Lee finds a bounty in that area and gets permission from the sheriff to take some time and go up there to see about getting that bad man

Leaving early the next morning, they start their slow trek (thanks Puddin'!) to New Dawn, a journey of a week or two. They encounter a wounded chasmasaurs, and Hambone slowly approaches the critter. With his animal affinity and an excellent roll, he gets close enough to pet the beast and feed it an apple (Puddin's loves apples, and he has a large sack of them) and notice that there are tribal markings from Walking Horse's tribe. Archibald gets one of the apples and puts one of potions from his alchemist bandolier in it, and Hambone feeds the poor dino. He is amazed at the bleeding stopping, and the wound itself knitting back together. The dino wanders off, no longer limping. They head on and get to the Pony Express Station to stay the night.

Chasmosaurus

And that is where we left the session: everyone met up, we had one encounter which could have gone a lot differently, but the player had the maximum best roll, so we played it that way. I even used my random encounter charts from the last game! And funnily enough the players remembered more of my world than I did. 

I still need to re-read the rules and familiar with its version of save and action rolls, grit points, and how combat will work. And re-read more on the next destination, Copper Peak. As they are heading northwest to where the New Dawn township is.

game map from 1st game

game map for game 2!

I have a week to come up with more details and ideas. I've already started the game 2 bible, and it has several possible game ideas. I just need to get them into place. And have things printed out for immediate reference.

Traveller 5.10 Book 2: Starships

Book 2 Part 1

Book 1 is reviewed here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

And yes, a bit of a gap here, but work had a few incidents in the last month, so I've been busy. Plus starting up another game of Cowboys and Dinos. Obviously, you can expect my game recaps from that. And yes - it means I am running 2 games, though one only meets once a month or so.

Starships Overview

Ahh, spaceships! And each version of Traveller does it a bit differently. And there is this very lengthy (and often bordering on belligerent) conversation about mixing Classic Book 2 and Book 5 over on COTI. I never did: it was one or the other as for me, they are just different systems. And I like the crunchiness of Book 5 but as I never had space battles, and the ships were mostly just a means of getting from A to B it was not all that critical. We have some people on the forum devoting a LOT of work to something that I feel only he really cares about to that depth, but hey, we all have our rabbit holes!

Anyway, T5.10 Book 2, starting on page 30, gets into spaceships. First, we have an overview of exactly what is a spaceship. And one cannot argue that a "starship is essentially a Hull containing everything necessary for it to move, communicate, carry a payload and (if necessary) defend itself or attack others." It then very briefly covers in-system versus interstellar engines, power systems, sensors, weapons, defensive systems, accommodations and payloads. And that they have to be very tough to withstand the rigors of both space and the infinite number of worlds it may travel to.

We break down the various maneuver drives, from the Classic Maneuver Drive capable up to 1000 diameters of a gravity source (hmm, just what is the diameter of a black hole?), the Gravatic Drive good to 10 diameters (and I want to say that is a MegaTraveller thing but that is just a vague impression as I never read those rules - it came out after I stopped playing Traveller). These first 2 pages are just a summary of the details and plethora of tables to come.

We also get a formal definition of Adventure Class Ships (ACS), Battle Class Ships (BCS) and Fleet Ships. ACS are 100 to 2400 tons, and appropriate for PCs. BCS are 2400 to 100,000 tons. And of course, Fleet Ships are 100,000+ tons. And I wonder if they will ever get a BCS book similar to Classic Book 5. There has been a bit of discussion that lends me to think they are thinking about it. Of course, I am still waiting for the T5 Players Book. It has only been a decade or so...

the Classics

Pages 32 to 49 cover the classic ships. And they mostly maintain the original 1-2 letter classifications. While I miss the starship profile (I used to have that almost memorized and tended to use the 1st section as part of the ID of the ship), it has been replaced partially by the QSP, Quick Ship Profile. Which for the life of me I could not find the actual definition: the index lists a bunch of pages, and I must just be missing the definition (like so much of T5, a bit of cross-referencing would have helped greatly as stuff is just scattered all over the place so I guess, unless you have either wrote the books or read them a few dozen times, expect to get lost). Anyway, looks like it is the classic ship type, a dash, then 2 characters for ship size and hull configuration, then maneuver and jump drive range. So mostly the same as the 1st part of the Book 5 code. And those tables show up much later of course: we get a lot of info but it is not explained until later if you are lucky. And yes, I do like T5 but sadly, the organization and editing are sorely lacking for making this something you can actually play in my opinion. Still using bits and pieces of it when we do play Traveller, but I just wish it had been better edited by someone who had not read it a lot and made a lot of assumptions. 

We have a few pages of 2 ships per page in a sort of summary view, followed by several pages of each ship fully detailed out. And there is a lot of detail - each ship gets a 1 page of text followed 1 page of a LOT of detail.

I really need to actually read all that to see if it makes sense or not. But I miss the brevity of Book 2. Heck - I even got the reprint of Triplanetary as I do like vector space even if I've sadly never been able to play it in any of my Traveller games. But I remember back when I got the deluxe box, I think I made a few planetary templates just to see if I could figure things out.