Adventures of the BLACK LOTUS Part 4. (Cliffhanger)

Traveller: Adventures of the Blacklotus  First Game session: ch. 1 & 2: CLIFFHANGER  

Art Credit: Quiet Among the Stars by http://doommetal101.deviantart.com/

Captain's log, First Voyage on record.... Heaven help us....

Our crew was asked by special messenger to go to Liege World to visit the fifth in line in the house of lords to take on a diplomatic milk run. 
They were hired by Lord Balentine to take on a diplomatic pouch from Zobah,  the fifth moon of Liege/Blakeworld system to Akira System, Main planet,  diplomatic hall.    Seems pretty simple. After they left the meeting, they discovered that Lord Balentine  was involved with running the cloak and dagger committee  for Liege.
As they exited jump space to Zobah and encountered a weird Gravity phenomena which was felt a full moon orbit away from Zobah. Upon reaching the planet: they
witnessed a few things:
      #1 a tremendous gravity well at the north axis of the moon.
      #2 one of the moons power plants had been disrupted to the point that it destabilized and exploded.
They were assigned a gold channel communication and given a flight plan to approach the moon.  While on final approach around the moon they discovered thenorth and south defensive systems were now open and showing and all weapons were running *HOT*.
They landed and received a hearty welcome. The ship was refueled,  and re-provisioned as a courteous  of the Liege World Government. They gathered some interesting rumors about a local Second-in-command pirate being held in detention. Also they got a lead on another job in the future: to track down the notorious Lorem Quo, was wanted for something fairly heinous.
They left Zobah after about 3 hours of R&R and start off for the jump point. They were stopped En route and by the Allegiance Cruiser Nashua.  Ex-American Patriot Now Captain of the cruiser asked the crew of the Black lotus to dock for security reasons.
They left the diplomatic box on board and were detained for some 4 hours until.... Alarm klaxons!!  The Nashua was ATTACKED BY AN UNKNOWN assailants!! The main bay door was melted to slag! "Scramble the fighters. This is not a drill!! THIS IS NOT A DRILL" Radiation warnings! a main bulkhead burst! life pods scrambled!!! 2 workmen were sucked out of the bay as it explosively de-crompressed! and finally the most dreaded... order to.... "abandon ships!" The Nashua was doomed!
The player made their way thru melted metal and radio active debris.  They managed to blow the remain bay door and escape into....
A howling battle... fighters exploding in the cold silence of space. At the center, an odd alien looking craft, like a giant metallic ice cream cone with vision distorting Gauss fusion exhaust...

TO BE CONTINUED....That is of course if you are interested.:)
 Enhanced Lotus - Free Trader Class A
Designed by: Ling Starships
Statistics:
150-ton Hull (Flattened Sphere) - Streamlined
AC: 8 (6 vs. Meson Guns)
AR: 0 SI: 100 Initiative: -2
Starship Size: Medium
Cost: 60.275 MCr (75.343 MCr without discount)
Model/3 (PP: 42/12) Computer
Avionics: Less than 600-ton
Sensors: Medium Range Communications: Short Range
Cargo: 16.0-tons
Extra Ship's Stores: 4 person/weeks of Luxury Stores,
20 person/weeks of Standard Stores,
Annual Maintenance = 6.028 KCr (3.014 KCr if routinely maintained)
Routine Maintenance = 1.507 KCr/Month (15.069 KCr per year)
Performance: Jump-2 (enough fuel for 2x Jump-2)
Acceleration: 2-G Agility: -2
Power Plant: TL-10 Fusion (4 EP output, enough fuel for 2 weeks)
Fuel Scoops,
Active Defenses:
Weapons:
Hardpoints: 2
2x Single Beam Laser Turret TL-10, +1 To Hit, 1d8 (20/x1), Range: 30,000km
1x Single Sandcaster Turret TL-10, +3 AC, Ammo: 3 sand canisters
Ship's Vehicles:
1x 2-ton vehicle hangar
Accomodations & Fittings:
2x Single Occupancy Stateroom (2 People)
6x Single Occupancy Small Cabin (6 People)
2x Low Berth (2 People)
3x Small Craft Couch (3 Crew)
1x Airlock
Crew Details:
1x Pilot
1x Astrogator
1x Engineer
1x Medic
3x Gunner
Description:
Cut down free trader

Adventures of the Black Lotus Part 1

Adventures of the Black Lotus Pt 1

Art Credit: Quiet Among the Stars by http://doommetal101.deviantart.com/

Adventures of the Black Lotus is a sci-fi compaign that I started about 5 years ago.

I spent alot of time setting up the background, the mysteries and conspiracies. And its a sandbox game with 20 minutes of introduction. 

I really wanted to run a travelleresque game, but I didnt know the Traveller rules very well so I ran it as a straight hero system game. But, I didnt have the right group. Some players were very transient / unreliable. Others, didnt know the system.  But really the way I run an rpg game, I try to make the rules as transparent as possible, while still keeping the mechanics there for people who enjoy it.  And as you might know, HERO GAMES has tons of mechanics. Id say, its almost cultish. On the downside, these very finite mechanics also slow the game down and suck the flavor out of the game. 

Since only one person beside myself knew the mechanics of hero games, I instructed the players to say AGGRESSIVE, Normal, Defensive, and I applied the appropriate modifiers thus unburdening the players. I also stripped out the segment chart, and STUN. 

So where are we now? Well I think for now I will stay with my cut up version of Herogames for combat. One of the new players has made some squeaking sounds about playing it in Traveller. I will Have to think that over.  I have a real suprise coming up for you TFT fans. But I dont want to spoil it. 

So tell us about the Sandbox Universe.

About 500 years ago Earth finally masters Jump technology. They sent out seven waves  of colony ships. It became a great corporate race to find a star. There was a low percent. None ever returned. They were assumed gone. 

Then again 400 years ago, another colonization wave took place. Some thirty jumps out from earth they found a grouping of colonizable systems, and set the flags down to extend humanities grasp.  All was not perfect. The first colony was ravaged by misfortune. it grew for a hundred or so years before they could restock and re-colonize the 19 closest star systems

 There was quiet among the stars. And progress.  Humanities greatest quality  is its resilliance.

Next up?  The map, The races. The mysteries, conspiracies and cat people who are still human.

Mongoose Traveller With Starmada Starships.

Mongoose Traveller RPG. This is second most recent version of Traveller RPG. It's considered Version four.  Version Five is the 100 dollar book put out by Mr Miller on kickstarter. I regretfully reclined.  I have a been a Traveller fan for years.

Starmada is put out by MJ12GAMES.com   Thats Majestic12Games. Good name. The author is a good guy and very accessible. I applaud his hardwork over the last 17 years. I hope he keeps going.

I am not crazy about traveller ship combat, and I dont want to go back to Mayday ship combat so I have decided to do some hacking and trimming. Therefore I am employing Starmada Admiralty edition as a means.

The Traveller problem: Traveller does not use shields. Starmada does. Armor plating wont cut it for me, although it sounds very tempting. So shields represent a tougher hull.

So here are some Hacks to get Traveller to work with Starmada or is that the otherway around?

Hulls represent 20ktons of ship. this could be a problem for 1000kton traveller ships, but I dont anticipate playing with ships that big.

To make things a bit more heroic I am thinking of ditching the ODD rule for enemies. Realize that I want to have the players survive some firefights. Input?

Also on the ship design I wasnt sure if i should make it (AB) (AB)
or rate of fire 2. I think a dual laser should be ROF, since they both need to target one weapon.
correct me if im wrong (AB) (AB) means i can target 2 different enemies?

Another problem is skill levels, so I am going to use 2 OCV levels per +1 starmada modifer
For dueling pilots ill do a Skill lvl minus Skill level, and apply the +/- difference as a starmada modifier.

This OCV stuff comes from hero games. Im doing Hero games science fiction with traveleresque skills/ground combat, using starmada combat.

Heres a Basic Traveller Trader 100 ton,
Two hardpoints.
(88) Trader-class Alliance FreeTrader
Hull: 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: 6 5 4 3 2
Shields: 2 2 2 1 1
Weapons:
1:X 2:X 3:Y 4:Y 5: 6:
X: Hardpoint Dual Laser: 4/8/12, 2/3+/1/1; [AB]
Y: HARDPOINT Missle Launcher: 5/10/15, 1/4+/1/2; [ABCDEF]; Ammo: 6
Special: Cargo; Fire Control; Hyperdrive; Countermeasures


Heres a FAR FRIGATE 200 Ton; Three Hardpoints;
(163) Frigate-class Alliance FAR
Hull: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: 6 6 5 5 4 3 3 2 2 1
Shields: 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1
Weapons:
1:X 2:Y 3:Z 4: 5: 6:

X: HARDPOINT Tracking Laser: 4/8/12, 2/4+/1/1 [AB]
Y: HARDPOINT Pulse Cannons: 3/6/9, 2/3+/1/1; Anti-Fighter; [ABCD];
Z: HARDPOINT Missle Rack: 5/10/15, 1/4+/1/2; [ABCDEF] ; Ammo: 6
Special: Cargo (6); Fire Control; Hyperdrive; Countermeasures

Enemy Pirate Escort.
(38) Escorts-class Pirate Free
Hull: 2 1
Engines: 4 2
Shields: 1 1
Weapons:
1:XY 2:XY 3:XY 4:X 5:X 6:X

X: Fixed Combat Beam: 3/6/9, 1/3+/1/1; [AB][CD]
Y: HARDPOINT Missle Launcher: 5/10/15, 1/4+/1/2, [ABCD]; Ammo: 4
Special: Point Defense; Countermeasures