Programmin' Part Two

Last year when I wrote the post Programmin'

a commenter said this:

Hmm, maybe allow players to make programming throws to optimize the existing code and reduce it's size?

Yes, absolutely!

Tell me again how your MacBook can run a starship. Cuz' I'm not buying it.

The run-of-the-mill Type A Free Trader (or any of the CT 'basic' starships, really) has very limited computing power. Computers are classed by Models; each Model has a rating for CPU and Storage capacity, abstracted into Slots. Each program has a Space rating which is the number of Slots it takes up, whether in CPU or Storage.

More on Space Combat - The Select Programs

"The drive signature looks familiar - like a Suleiman-class scout . . . "

The 'Selective' group of Offensive programs have long confused me as to how the results should be applied. I have just now noted the following text from Starter Traveller Rules booklet, page 41. It does not appear in Book 2 (1977) but it does in The Traveller Book, on page 77. I've just never noticed it before. As I have stated elsewhere, TTB is my rules book of reference for my games.

"If a Select program is being used to influence attacks, the firing player rolls one die for each hit inflicted. On a 1 or 2, he picks the hit location, specifying one of the following: Maneuver drive, Power Plant, Jump drive, fuel, hull, hold, computer or turret. If the roll is 3+ roll hit location normally."

I have written before about how I see Classic Traveller starship combat as a Resource Management Game. This program is a great example of what I mean.

Programmin'

Programming in the Far Future

I mentioned in my last post that I spotted a curious thing in the computer software table of the space combat rules. The even more curious thing that I discovered is that there's an aspect of space combat that I've been ignoring for years. Despite the fact that I've played Traveller since 1982, and run this blog since 2014, I still find from time to time little bits of the rules that got lost in the paperwork. Here's one of them.
 
From TTB, page 74:

"Players can and should seek out new and different programs to improve the performance and enlarge the capabilities of their spacecraft."

COOL!

Meet Royal Talaveran Navy Ensign Heidi Klune, Computer skill-4, Liaison-3. Yes, Ensign, I'd be happy to spend two months helping you write that program! Obviously.

TTB gives us rules for how to write your own versions of the existing list, as well as writing new ones. A similar procedure is found in JTAS #1, which is noted as the official rules module for Computer Programming.

Either way you go about it, writing your own copy of programs has four requirements: computer skill, a skill associated with the program, time, and a throw for success.

An example:
TARGET program:  Computer-2, Navigation-2, 10+
The programmer has to have skill-2, the programmer or an assisting character has to have Navigation-2, the programmer has to throw 10+ w/ DM for Computer skill after two months of writing for it to work. Computer skill ABOVE the required level is a +DM for the success throw.

On the Nature of Book 2 Space Combat

This is not covered under Book 2 Rules. You figure it out.

Over the weekend I refereed a Book 2 space combat engagement with my boys. In the course of the battle, I discovered something I'd never noticed before. The boys have a fancy ship, the FNS Audacity, and were chasing down two ships of the rebellion against the Federation (my sons' ATU setting), now illustrated here!

But that's not my discovery.

I realized that Bk2 is not so much a tactical game, as it is a resource management game. It's not so much about maneuvering your ship or using that cool specialty weapon, but in maximizing the efficiency of the resources you bring to the game. 

What do I mean by resource management?

Updating Classic Traveller Computers, sort of

Check out my new Model/2 computer!

New Computer Programs for Classic Traveller

Everyone likes to make fun of CT's computer rules. It's not surprising; by today's standards, the computer aboard your average Type S scout weighs two tons and has less computing power than the laptop upon which I'm typing this. 

Yeah? Well here's my new Model/2. Loser.