tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7913319789564397699.post583038567292404211..comments2024-03-28T08:17:07.009-05:00Comments on The Other Side blog: Review: 2300 AD Traveller: 2300 (1986)Timothy S. Brannanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02923526503305233715noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7913319789564397699.post-70662295393836969382022-05-18T10:31:39.954-05:002022-05-18T10:31:39.954-05:00@Steven "Tim would actually like to get back ...@Steven "Tim would actually like to get back to a hardcore sci-fi setting again."<br /><br />Man, that would be great if it happened. 2300 (by any name) is still my preferred "reasonably hard" scifi setting, even with all the shiny "semi-hard" transhumanist games that have come out since. Dick McGeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14521293874696659063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7913319789564397699.post-5606167340880058622022-05-17T20:11:10.992-05:002022-05-17T20:11:10.992-05:00Dick McGee is correct. I’ve discussed this with Ti...Dick McGee is correct. I’ve discussed this with Tim Brown, one of the designers, and it is intended as a sequel to the original Twilight 2000, hence the name change for the update to 2300 AD. Tim would actually like to get back to a hardcore sci-fi setting again.Stevenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16037057636590960708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7913319789564397699.post-47996418663104436462022-05-17T10:30:24.441-05:002022-05-17T10:30:24.441-05:00@Dick McGee, THANKS for all the clarifications. A...@Dick McGee, THANKS for all the clarifications. As these reviews move on I have less and less practical experience to draw on. And with Traveller 2300 none at all.<br /><br />@ParMar, thank you for that link!<br /><br />@Crouchback, yes it is a nice change.<br /><br />@Ingolf Schäfer, I have been meaning to check out Mongoose's version.<br /><br />@JB, the system in T2300 is interesting, but I think for my money I would stick with Classic.Timothy S. Brannanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02923526503305233715noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7913319789564397699.post-43951346076428168582022-05-16T22:39:57.562-05:002022-05-16T22:39:57.562-05:00I got the game when it came out but never got cha...I got the game when it came out but never got chance to run it. I'm a little disappointed the Mongoose version made it alternate history rather than reworking the back story. I always enjoyed France as the leading future power - it was a change from the usual suspects. Crouchbackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02633154359317901331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7913319789564397699.post-16577666948740786602022-05-16T19:02:47.262-05:002022-05-16T19:02:47.262-05:00Depending on how you feel about being stuck in hyp...Depending on how you feel about being stuck in hyperspace for a week every time you jump you might like the stutterwarp more or less than jump drives, but in 2300AD it's your only interstellar option and your main way to move around inside a system. There's no magic-tech "thruster plate" maneuver drives in 2300AD. Realistic conventional drive systems are slow and need reaction mass so they're largely for orbital maneuvering, docking with things, and landing or taking off from planets. Stutterwarps are both fast and controllable enough to let you move around between planets at STL speeds. Their cyclic speed drops off sharply as they near a gravity well though, and they won't work at all at some point (IIRC something like .5g?) so you can't (say) land on a planet with them. That's why most starship carry landing shuttles, while a few bother with having conventional drives that will let them land under their own power.Dick McGeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14521293874696659063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7913319789564397699.post-74845268194596218492022-05-16T19:00:38.605-05:002022-05-16T19:00:38.605-05:00"The stutterwarp is travel mode of choice to ..."The stutterwarp is travel mode of choice to get to distant stars. There are limitations. The drives of these ships can travel great distances but have to jettison their spent radioactive fuel in the gravity well of a system. This process takes some time. So there is a limiting factor on how far a ship can practically travel."<br /><br />There's no "radioactive fuel" involved here, nor is there a "radiation buildup" the way many synopses state. The FTL drive core is partly made of tantalum, which (while the drive is active) slowly builds up molecular distortions that will eventually lead to a sudden, catastrophic decay into hafnium, which releases a blast of radiation that will cook the crew and onboard electronics. That happens after traveling about 7.7 light years, regardless of the drive's cyclic speed. The only known way to reverse the distortion is to get the drive core into a gravity well of at least .1g and leave it "idling" while the tantalum re-stabilizes. That's the "drive discharge" some sources talk about - it's not bleeding built-up radiation, it's preventing a disastrous decay cascade.<br /><br />And yeah, that's all pretty much technobabble, but at least it's canonical.<br /><br />Reset times for your drive are about 6 hours for every light year traveled, so you're back to your max 7.7LY cruising range in a bit under two days, max. Travel times between stars are based on distance and the cylic speed of your drive, with more advanced/powerful ones cycling faster and therefore making more microjumps per second and covering more distance in a given period of time. It's way the hell more trouble to calculate travel times than with Traveller jump drives (where it's always ~121 hours no matter what, barring misjumps) but you also never leave real space, so you can change course, fight other ships, look around with your sensors, etc.Dick McGeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14521293874696659063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7913319789564397699.post-49691395098099682132022-05-16T19:00:11.995-05:002022-05-16T19:00:11.995-05:00"Now I have no way of telling, but I think th..."Now I have no way of telling, but I think this is basically the same history as GDW's other game Twilight 2000. It certainly feels the same. I never played the game myself."<br /><br />Traveller:2300/2300AD is explicitly a continuation of Twilight:2000 (the GDW version, not the modern remake) and the Twilight War (a limited nuclear exchange in the year 2000) is the same event in both games. The 2300 setting is what the world of Twilight rebuilds itself into after the war. Neither have anything to do with the timeline that leads to the Third Imperium setting that the other Traveller treats as a default.<br /><br />"Tasks and Combat are largely the same sorts of sections, with combat a special case of task resolution. Clue #2 that this is not your father's Traveller: 1d10 for task resolution and not a 2d6."<br /><br />The game engine here is most similar to the one used in MegaTraveller, although there are enough differences between the two that knowing one is arguably detrimental to learning the other. You wind up tripping over the little variations hidden in the overall similarities more than if the two systems were radically divergent.Dick McGeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14521293874696659063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7913319789564397699.post-27951714202439554282022-05-16T18:16:23.821-05:002022-05-16T18:16:23.821-05:00Very, very interesting. I own T2000, but haven’t h...Very, very interesting. I own T2000, but haven’t had the opportunity to run it, and I can’t recall much of the system off the top of my head…though this sounds fairly similar.<br /><br />Gritty sci-fi within the Sol system *does* sound pretty awesome.<br /><br />Could you use this for an “Enterprise” style game…man’s first steps into intergalactic federations and whatnot?<br /><br />Would you compare the new system favorably to CT?JBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03263662621289630246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7913319789564397699.post-43817396850575115292022-05-16T15:22:32.097-05:002022-05-16T15:22:32.097-05:00You refer to "The Game" as a combination...You refer to "The Game" as a combination of Traveller and Twilight 2000. This is not exactly true, though (because these are both RPG and "The Game" was not).<br /><br />"The Game" was a large military/political simulation (i.e a Wargame) that was never released but was designed and played by GDW staff, and was used to define the backstory of Traveller:2300.<br /><br />More details here: http://www.waynesbooks.com/TheGame.htmlPaMarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10531178856693978202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7913319789564397699.post-57832738577461736622022-05-16T14:24:18.018-05:002022-05-16T14:24:18.018-05:00I was running a couple of 2300 AD Games in the las...I was running a couple of 2300 AD Games in the last two years, based on the Mongoose version that uses the Traveller mechanics and it was a very nice and neat game. The setting is much more relatable than Travellers Imeprium and the grittier tech was much fun. Among other things we played a modified version of the Beanstalk module and it never felt much like retro scifi. <br /><br />I Ingolf Schäferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01076471727269004700noreply@blogger.com