So, we finish off the Special Situations section. The Ship's Locker is next; my first thought was that a Locker would be like an Armory, carrying additional hand weapons and such. But this Ship's Locker carries survival gear, including cold-weather gear for when you land on Hoth. You can include weapons in it if you like, but they aren't standard issue. Basically, the Locker can be customized to suit whatever needs you think you might have. Be prepared, and help an old starship cross the system to earn your merit badge.
Finally, there's Strategic Movement, which just says that interstellar movement (jumps) will be dealt with in the next book. Okay, then.
Ah, an encounter table! There's nothing that says 'old-school' gaming quite as clearly as a random encounter table. So, when a ship first enters a new system, there's a chance you'll run into another ship. Could be merchants, could be pirates; the dice will determine your fate. The roll is on two dice, but the table results go up to 18; there are modifiers, my friends. The better the quality of the starport, the higher the roll. I think this is the first mention of starport classes; I can't remember if they were mentioned in the first book, but I don't think so. Anyway, the starport classes are A through E, and X. If your roll is 8 or less, you are all alone. 9-11 is a Free Trader, 12 is Pirates, 13 and 15 are Subsidized Merchants, which is a new term, 14 and 18 are Patrols, and 16-17 are Yachts. So, rich people get to drive their own ships in space. Because of course they do; that's part of the genre.
Anyway, Type A ports give you a +6 on the roll; Type X are -4. Which means that if you're in a Type X system, you're guaranteed to be alone; 12 - 4 = 8, which is no encounter. If you're in a Type A, you have company on anything other than a 2. Patrols and Pirate ships will be Type S Scout/Couriers (6 or less on 2 dice), Type C Cruisers on an 8 or more, and Armed Type Y Yachts on an exact roll of 7. Armed Yachts as patrols? That's just ostentatious.
Free Traders and Subsidized Merchants can be sources of local information; Patrols might be 'official' pirates, exacting tolls and such from passing ships.
The next section is just called 'Comments,' and I see that it also takes up half of the next page, ending this section of the book. So, I'm going to cover them both today.
So, Dimensions is first. We get a note that space combat in Traveller is handled in two dimensions; three would be much more complex. In fact, the word 'trigonometry' is thrown in to scare people away from trying to add three dimensions. Alright, then.
On to page 37, and Optional Acceleration Effects are next. You can make a more realistic acceleration vector by splitting the movement in half; the first half happens during the turn acceleration is applied, and full effect happens on the next turn. Meh, combat is abstract enough that this won't be an issue, I think.
Non-Miniature Battles are the final point in this section. It's the first time I've seen miniatures mentioned in the game; were there Traveller starship minis available back in the day? That would be cool, but the customization would make it difficult to account for the multiple variables.
If you really want to simplify starship combat, skip over the movement requirements, and just have the referee decree that X number of shots can be made before the range is too great. That's a bit too simple for me, but some games might warrant it if the focus is on a ground mission instead of a space battle.
Finally, you can just plot the progress of the battle on paper without bothering with miniatures. Yeah, I figured as much. Then you get to keep a permanent copy of the battle, in case you want to remove all doubts that you're a gamer geek. Sounds good to me.
Okay, so that covers two pages; tomorrow (I know, I know) we'll talk about...Drugs. No, not that kind. Medicinal stuff. Or so it says.
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