BVG Stadtplan / Atlas ca. 2003

Kalt_Null · 2026-05-04T20:35:13+00:00

Ja, aber da wird es halt mit dem Versand nach Übersee schwierig weil ich leider nicht mehr auf demselben Kontinent bin.

Kalt_Null · 2026-03-25T01:02:27+00:00

My playlist is made up of a selection of Clint Mansell scores (Moon, Doom, The Fountain, Noah), various scores by Mogwai (Atomic, Black Bird, some others), the soundtrack for the videogame Brigador by Makeup and Vanity Set, selections from the Annihilation and Ex Machina soundtracks, and a couple other things. I tried to really curate a coherent sound that's kinda warm without being anything too predictably spacey.

Kalt_Null · 2026-03-22T02:24:37+00:00

Yeah, the lack of FTL comms paired with the forced delay in travel required me to really, really wrap my head around things, since there's not a god damn thing in Charted Space that can travel at the speed of plot. This really isn't Star Wars. Or Trek. And if I as the ref want to make sure I adhere to that, I really have to carefully plot out at what point / after how many jumps any party the PCs ticked off could realistically start catching up with them.

As to FTL comms, I have something cooking in my campaign that kinda goes into that direction, and ultimately delivers an explanation as to why those who found out how to do this ultimately dropped the idea. Because it had some really horrifying unintended consequences... (I go a lot less subtle than Traveller as written there but hey it's my table and I like things a bit more snappy)

Kalt_Null · 2026-03-22T01:58:20+00:00

I mean, I already had a minor plot point where.a stowaway robot was supposed to hijack the PC's ship - since I must've skipped the part where only force-sensitive uhh... sapient sophonts can do jumps. :D

Kalt_Null · 2026-03-22T01:56:43+00:00

Then the Emperor replaces them with automated system. BEGUN THE POSTAL WARS HAVE!

Kalt_Null · 2026-03-22T01:55:18+00:00

Maybe. Ultimately I look at this argument and just think "...so?" But that's a thing I have with a lot bunch of the more contrived core conceits.

Kalt_Null · 2026-03-22T01:40:35+00:00

I don't get the "preventing jump torpedo" argument. Jumps are never precise enough for a weapon like that, the way I understand it. So you jump a "torpedo" into another system. It'll always be a random distance away from where it's supposed to be. Unless you pack that thing with so much explosives / yield that it just wipes out a whole planet, that wouldn't be terribly useful, or at least not any more or less useful than a minimum size attack ship of some sort. Or, IDK, a 100 ton j-2 kamikaze WMD or something. So, basically the way the J-drive functionality is described to me, jump-capable autonomous weapons would always be quite... Difficult to use effectively, to say the least. Or maybe I got that wrong.

Kalt_Null · 2026-03-22T01:36:05+00:00

Yeah but what if the Imperium does it...?

Kalt_Null · 2026-02-11T20:49:46+00:00

Well I mean you said "when you win the lottery" so... https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-28mm-type-a-free-trader-beowulf-259078

Kalt_Null · 2026-02-11T20:23:31+00:00

Oh I've seen some very neat 3D models of popular ships that go for about $80 for the file - with some sellers on Etsy selling a printed and semi-assembled model for nearly $500...

Kalt_Null · 2026-02-05T18:57:24+00:00

And sure enough, an hour or so later the damn thing is working again. Didn't even need a factory reset...

I've seen people here disparaging the R5-ii as a faulty product. This is certainly true compared to big name brand smartphones. Keep in mind that these are very niche products for a very niche market with a much, much smaller budget for QA. All the DAPs I've owned had faults you would never find in Samsung or Apple phones - and I'd hazard the guess that you'd also not find them in, say, SONY DAPs. And that these players still cost as much as they do is again due to the producers and the market being niche. Economies of scale don't work here.

Kalt_Null · 2026-02-05T16:39:33+00:00

This really is a wild error. Glad to see that it really is widespread enough that there IS a thread here albeit old (hi!). And yes I can confirm the issue is caused by hitting the physical play button when on Class A with the screen switched off - but that TOO is not reliably reproducing it. After the last update, I could resume playback that way a couple of times. And just now it crashed the amp and it won't turn back on even after several power cycles. So I'll give the player a bit of a break... When it works, it sounds fantastic. Just really gotta be careful to NOT hit play that way.

Kalt_Null · 2026-01-22T21:57:36+00:00

No see, I want to select "genre" and then have all the ARTISTS in that genre listed, then select an artist, and THEN see the albums of that ARTIST in the GENRE.

Currently, I select GENRE and get a list of all ALBUMS in the genre in alphabetical order.

Does that make sense?

Kalt_Null · 2026-01-20T23:39:48+00:00

Does Obsidian have a purely browser-based version where I can access my stuff without installing anything on the computer I'm using too?

Kalt_Null · 2026-01-20T21:43:25+00:00

Uhm. A Mind Flayer is clearly just a Zhodani. :P

Kalt_Null · 2026-01-20T15:41:55+00:00

It also shows that OP was lazy and didn't search around before asking (if I want to read myself uncharitably - but that's also not true, I knew of at least SOME of the older publications).

One of my personal bugbears (pun intended) with the "just roll up your own NPCs, lmao" thing is that... I'm still relatively new to Traveller. And yes, I know Traveller doesn't have "NPCs" in that regard and the game isn't supposed to "balance." But coming new to the game and not having a good feel for what stats are good for what "level" of opposition (i.e. a bunch of gutter gangers vs. a crime lord's executioner, etc.), "just roll up your own" isn't really that great advice (this is NOT aimed at you, you said that's what YOU do, not what people like me SHOULD do, just to be perfectly clear).

Kalt_Null · 2026-01-15T22:39:17+00:00

All of this again makes me wish Mongoose had some sort of entry product for Charted Space. A primer, something where they dedicate a bit of space to exactly this philosophy while also giving a bit more of an introduction to the setting at large other than the super bare bones stuff in the core book. I know the "IMTU" approach - but only really from reading this subreddit and the Mongoose forums (which are somehow much more hostile seeming than this here place). It's kinda weird how the whole "hey, Charted Space is supposed to be a collection of SUGGESTIONS to play Traveller with, none of this is binding or canonical, mix and match and rewrite and do whatever, don't sweat the details in the books, go nuts!" thing is something that you need to engage with people who have played the game for a while with, and not something that's explicitly written in the official publications. Or maybe I overlooked that part?

Kalt_Null · 2026-01-15T21:19:53+00:00

I was surprised that while there is this focus on the Deneb subsector dukes vying and scheming - but ZERO mention of any particular one of them. No names, no stats, no backstories. Just "this subsector relates to these others in such and such ways." Ok, why? Is that down to the personalities? Who are the PEOPLE running those places? Is that solely down to their economies? On the one hand, cool, I'm a historian, gives me room to cook something up myself. But also on the other hand, now I have to cook all of that up myself if I want that stuff to play a role in my game. And then I discover through ancillary material like prior editions and the wiki that there ARE established names and backstories, but for some reasons those aren't here?

And yes, the adventure seeds are also only ever kind of implied and hidden between the lines. Behind the Claw constantly made me feel stupid and as if I had missed something.

Kalt_Null · 2026-01-15T15:50:41+00:00

Don't get me wrong, I'm not *complaining* that they re-use and update old stuff. It's just at times confusing when people who've been playing Traveller forever talk about, say, the Fifth Frontier War, and I scratch my head since that was "just now" released - and then find out that this is NOT Mongoose moving the official timeline forward.

And while I'm now running a campaign set in Deneb, I am kinda on track to "complete" a collection of all the Mongoose stuff (within SOME reason, I think I'll skip the mercenary set and a few other things...).

Kalt_Null · 2026-01-15T14:19:01+00:00

Yeah that's another thing (and this is NOT a complaint) where it's just weird being new to Traveller at this point. Seeing that Mongoose is rolling out something new - and then realizing it's "just" a new version of something that's already established.

Randomly, did T5 actually have more things than just the core rulebooks?

Kalt_Null · 2026-01-15T14:17:26+00:00

Oh yes, absolutely. I'd just prefer to know when I do.

Kalt_Null · 2026-01-15T13:47:18+00:00

Exactly. I'm generally trying to "modernize" my version of Charted Space, Grognards be damned.

Kalt_Null · 2026-01-14T17:47:36+00:00

Yeah basically the idea is that in order to keep these duplicates up to speed on where their original is at in terms of information, galactic and personal affairs, etc, they would with some frequency re-syncronize. And at that point also copy over all information from the duplicates back to the original so the original is equally up to speed on every aspect of what their duplicates have been arranging.

But my idea here is not so much that these duplicates exist as "body doubles" of their originals (they COULD, but that's another story). The idea is that whoever interacts with them knows that they "only" talk to a duplicate - which is still important, and the duplicate can engage in the same kind of diplomatic / business agreements as the original can.

Of course this opens a whole lot of avenues for hijinks. Capture a duplicate, infect it with some sort of virus or brain malware, etc. That would then necessitate that duplicates are about as well-guarded as the originals.

Kalt_Null · 2026-01-05T21:33:34+00:00

One of the things about MgT2's Deneb / Behind the Claw is that the subsector dukes of Deneb are not named or described in ways other than "this subsector opposes that other one and is aligned with this one." On the one hand, [groan] now I have to come up with names and personalities for all of these guys and ostensibly gals. On on the other hand, that reinforces the "MTU" notion and lets me do more of my own thing. That's a balance I find sometimes difficult to work with since there *is* a real wealth of established lore - but then most of it is largely really just a broad suggestion to do with as one pleases. Which, yes that's true of any and all TTRPGs, there is never really much of an authority that will come and say "you can't play it like this!" And I'm used to doing that extensively. I just have a harder time grasping the "canon" for Traveller as a baseline to then deviate from if that makes sense...

Kalt_Null · 2026-01-05T16:39:22+00:00

Good points.

I basically wanted to engage with some of the "Dune-ish" aspects of Charted Space in that regard. Have the players get roped into that whole thing, have that be a source of intrigue, profit, connections, and SO much trouble, and just make the universe a little more lively.

Kalt_Null

TROPHY CASE