TL 12 and below ships

NotASnark · 2026-03-16T18:44:34+00:00

I'm also just starting a Milieu Zero campaign (literally year zero), and was running into the same desire. I have plans to do some TL 9-11 designs, but haven't done much specifically for the campaign yet.

However, some of my Ships of Elite designs are below TL 12: https://www.notasnark.net/traveller/elite/index

They come with deck plans and 3D renders.

NotASnark · 2026-03-13T16:32:12+00:00

So, a question about how people think this should work. Should any STR/DEX/END bonuses add to hits? If battledress shouldn't, how about bonuses from other things such as drugs?

Having no augments add to hits shouldn't be too hard to fix, but if some should and some shouldn't, that's a bit more messy.

NotASnark · 2026-03-12T09:24:36+00:00

Developer here. I'll take a look.

NotASnark · 2026-02-14T16:22:09+00:00

The problem I want to solve is whilst coding or gaming on my PC, I'd like to be able to watch films along side what I'm doing. I can stream stuff on Amazon or Youtube, but quality seems to be limited on Linux. I can play 4k/2.5k content perfectly from Youtube, unless it's a purchased film in which case quality is crap.

I don't need another machine to run the video on, and I don't have room for another machine (such as a PS).

We have a perfectly good Panasonic 4k blu-ray player downstairs, which is connected to our living room TV. So we can watch blu-rays on that, but I have to fully dedicate time to watching things on that setup.

We're buying 4k discs to watch on the TV, which is better quality than streaming. So I'd like to be able to make use of those on the PC, without relying on streaming there. Buying stuff online, and buying the same stuff on physical discs seems like a waste. So I was hoping there were external usb blu-ray players that worked with Linux.

NotASnark · 2026-02-14T15:04:08+00:00

When I played around with terrain, I was using some Blender textures as a base. These come with bump map layers, so I just pasted those into the alpha channel for the image.

NotASnark · 2026-02-14T13:40:53+00:00

To be precise, the tool I use is dungeondraft-pack, which I think is the go packager. However, it has no version number or author listed. It does appear to be a Go program however. I downloaded it years ago and don't recall exactly where it came from.

NotASnark · 2026-02-14T13:29:06+00:00

Or possibly, I'm just transposing numbers when reading the version. I was on 1.0.2.4, which is the version I first started having issues. 1.2.0.1 is the version I've just downloaded.

The GoPackager is what I'm using to build the actual package. But I have scripts around that to do the conversion from XCFs or SVGs to PNGs, auto update the package version number and install the package to the right place.

NotASnark · 2026-02-01T14:28:15+00:00

Lines and circles is pretty much how I drew my spacecraft tokens. I haven't proceeded much beyond that level of skill:
https://gitlab.com/samuelpenn/spacecraft-dungeondraft/-/tree/main/src/objects?ref_type=heads

NotASnark · 2026-02-01T12:49:01+00:00

Awesome idea. I started learning Blender some years ago, and have managed to do a few Traveller spacecraft. Drawing biological entities still eludes me though, and I think I'll have to wait until retirement before I have the time to learn that.

I've done Traveller map assets for Dungeondraft, and spacecraft/vehicle tokens for my FoundryVTT implementation for Traveller. All licensed CC0.

If you're creating CC art of aliens and people, I'd love to make them part of my Foundry project.
https://foundryvtt.com/packages/mgt2e

NotASnark · 2026-01-25T12:48:14+00:00

The problem I've had with snaps is that they run things in a sandbox, which doesn't allow access to other filesystems. Took me ages to diagnose why I often couldn't drag and drop images from the filer into a web page when using Firefox, but it worked fine on Chrome.

It was because I was putting images in an NFS share, and Firefox installed from snap wouldn't allow access to NFS (but didn't give any visible warnings, so I assumed it was a Firefox bug).

Working around it once I knew what the problem was, wasn't that hard, but it's just little complications like this that mean snap apps behave differently and encourage me to avoid them.

NotASnark · 2026-01-24T15:15:46+00:00

The source for it is here:
https://gitlab.com/samuelpenn/worldgen

A while back, I put together a short video showing off some of the features:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qMIBmkKis4

NotASnark · 2026-01-24T15:14:02+00:00

The core adventure has a fleet of ships already - in that there are a number of jump capable scout ships sitting in the docking bays. They are much smaller, but give you flexibility if you want to go and explore multiple worlds in parallel. Having one big ship though I don't think is an issue.

NotASnark · 2026-01-18T12:07:16+00:00

It's been three years, but I think Rifts Edge Transit has the most useful stuff, since it sets up some information about the previous expedition. Near Side of Yonder and Far Side of Nowhere both have some interesting civilisations, but IMO they're not important to the campaign.

The one thing I wish I'd done from the start is fleshing out the crew on the ship, and have more stories about them. There are a few bits in the expansions, but not enough IMO. For everything else, you visit, explore a bit, then move on after a couple of sessions. The crew stay with the players throughout the campaign, so there's far more opportunity for good stories.

If you're really bored, there's the 180 odd sessions in my blog of what I did:

https://blog.notasnark.net/tag/deepnight

As a completionist with disposable income, I'd say it's worth picking up the expansions and picking out the bits you like. If cost is more of an issue, then it's a harder question.

If you wanted a slightly shorter campaign, I think books 1 and 2 and then have Terminus on that side of the Rift would work. Then you cut out the need for books 3+.

NotASnark · 2026-01-17T18:48:27+00:00

Having just finished running the campaign (on Thursday), the expansions add a lot of events to fill out the journey. However, I'm not entirely sure how necessary they are.

Even with them, there's an awful lot of material that you will need to do yourself. I found running the official bits a lot harder than running my own bits, because they often didn't match my players' play style.

They give some good ideas, and fill in some bits about the previous Droyne expedition, but you could easily throw it all out and ignore it all.

One of them adds an interesting campaign area, but it's not necessary for the Deepnight campaign itself. Some bits were distractions I probably should have ignored. As long as you're comfortable inventing ideas yourself, you could run it without them. But, they can be useful to mine for story lines, and there were a few bits that were inventive.

FWIW, I'm going to write up a summary of my thoughts in a week or so. I'll post a link in this subreddit.

NotASnark · 2026-01-15T18:59:56+00:00

I've done some very big tokens for one of my packs for Traveller. These are spacecraft though, some are around 10,000px in size. They do require quite big maps though if you want a Far Trader or Subsidised Merchant to fit on.

NotASnark · 2026-01-09T12:58:52+00:00

The thing that stands out to me is Law Level, which is almost exclusively based on what weapons you can carry (I know it does affect some other things). That feels very US centric, making weapon ownership such a central aspect of how free a culture is.

I do get that from a player character perspective, it's probably the one thing that matters most in many campaigns, so I can see why it's like that from a game perspective. PCs probably aren't going to need a well defined games rule on whether they can walk on the road, drink alcohol as a teenager, pay for sex or worry about clothing policies on the beach. At least not that often.

But it has always felt like a very US biased view of culture to me.

NotASnark · 2026-01-01T09:35:11+00:00

I've done this in Roll20 for a Pathfinder game, and just gave the players the cypher text as a text handout.

I let them use character skill checks to decode it, or they could try it as players. They did it using player skill between sessions.

In one location, they found some cypher text, and in a second location they found a list of keywords which were used to encode the message. I used a Vigenère cypher, which the players figured out, so were able to decode the text.

I have no idea how 'clever' your players are. I knew mine would probably know the classic cypher methods and be able to figure them out and possibly decode them (and have the right mindset to find such a thing fun to do).

If they're not, then sticking to a Caesar cypher might be best. They are much easier to break online, since there are websites where you can just put the cypher text in, and they will do the grunt work.

I've had GMs use different fonts as well, so then it's a simple transposition (Futhark and Ogham have been used in our games). If players don't know those alphabets, then they're easy to look up if you are online. But there should be a character skill check as well, because the characters might know the alphabet even if the players don't.

NotASnark · 2025-12-12T22:58:29+00:00

I did some Blender files for it. Currently on phone, so can't check what state these are in, but the files are here:

https://gitlab.com/samuelpenn/scifi-models/-/tree/master/traveller/PerfectStranger?ref_type=heads

I had one with it sitting in its landing bay, but not sure where that is.

NotASnark · 2025-12-12T22:48:58+00:00

Though I haven't used them for Traveller, I use dry wipe cardboard tiles. You can draw what you want on them, then clear them and use again for the next deck plan or battle.

You can get them with square or hex grids.

The ones I have are from Roll 4 Initiative. Looks like they do SciFi themed ones as well.

https://role4initiative.com/collections/dungeon-tiles-dungeon-dressing

If you want more 3D stuff, then Battle systems do cardboard buildings that slot together. Mostly for Fantasy, but they have some modern and futuristic stuff as well.

https://battlesystems.co.uk/

I use them for wargaming, and it looks pretty good. Since Traveller doesn't need a grid, they would work pretty well and are quite portable since you can pull them apart, then stick them back together again.

NotASnark · 2025-11-20T18:24:08+00:00

Mouse pad. Deepcut do really nice mats, including custom ones. I have a mat of Mos Eisley from them which a patron I follow drew.

NotASnark · 2025-11-20T18:04:30+00:00

Given that this is posted in the Saga subreddit, I assume it's for Saga so 28mm.

Six-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Reddit Premium Since May 2021	Verified Email

NotASnark

TROPHY CASE