On 26/9/21 3:27 am, Timothy Collinson - timothy.collinson at port.ac.uk
(via tml list) wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, 21 Sep 2021, 21:18 Jim Vassilakos - jim.vassilakos at
> gmail.com <http://gmail.com> (via tml list), <xxxxxx@simplelists.com
> <mailto:xxxxxx@simplelists.com>> wrote:.
>
>
>     To Phil & Timothy, I promise I'll get back to the game ASAP.
>
>
> Really, no stress on my part.  This is my busiest time of year and,
> unsurprisingly I've caught some bug (not Covid) off the returning
> students or my wife's new class of kids, or my daughter visiting on
> way home from a crowded holiday park... (no way I was going to
> escape).  So, I'm glad of the break.
>
> I should say, by way of advertising?, that if nothing else what we've
> done so far has made me engage with the Element Crusier books and
> plans which I wasn't ever banking on doing more than adorning my
> shelves.  So, very glad of that. Cheers!
>
>
>     I just wanted to get these questions out there to see if anyone
>     had any ideas on how to interpret T4's FF&S sensor rules or how to
>     solve these problems some other way that would presumably conform
>     to reality. Honestly, I can't believe Traveller is like 40+ years
>     old, and reasonably comprehensive, reality-based sensor rules
>     still don't seem to exist.
>
>
> I've puzzled over that.  I don't want anything complicated but a rough
> idea at a kind of Mongoose T level of rules would do me.  However the
> discussion here seems to reveal that anything even roughly accurate
> would mean that ships (etc) are either really obvious or really
> difficult to find and there's only a narrow window where skill
> matters, so I suspect I'll stick with either not going there overly
> much or only stressing at the speed of plot.  
>
> But thank you all for the analysis and tips.
>
> tc
>
Collision,

Under my suggestion, a contact that's automatically detectable at (say)
1,000 km stays (at least in game-mechanic principle, based on
limitations of sensors) detectable out to ~2 million km.  The snarky-git
part of me wants to ask "if that's your idea of a _narrow_ window, what
qualifies as a _broad_ one?"

If we pull in some character skill levels (after adding in all equipment
mods and sods), we end up with (assuming GURPS skills):

Starman Apprentice Tim Beaumont, with Electronics Operation (Sensors)
skill of 10.

Leading Starman Barry Mainwaring, with EO (Sensors) skill of 14.

Sensor Technician's Mate 1st Class Ronald Jones, with EO (sensors) skill
of 16.

Senior Chief Sensor Technician's Mate 2nd Class Annette Serafina, with
EO (sensors) skill of 19.

Assuming no prior contact or pointers, said contact would be detectable
90% of the time (net kit-modified skill roll of 14) at the following ranges:

Beaumont - 10,000 km;

Mainwaring - 46,000 km;

Jones - 100,000 km;

Serafina - 300,000 km.

For 50% chance of detection, those ranges expand to:

Beaumont - 46,000 km;

Mainwaring - 210,000 km;

Jones - 460,000 km;

Serafina - 1,460,000 km.

I'll need to think a bit on mapping this example across to MGT2 and the
rules I proposed - namely, how the GT skill levels would map across.

Alex