Originally Posted by
Dalton Calford
Hi Dale,
I have always been happy with your products and look forward to purchasing them as they are released.
The difficulty I have with MGT2 on VTT is the lack of VTT useful maps and accessories.
Some examples
(1) Currently your star backgrounds are pretty, BUT, they are very large for download, yet are small for tactical/strategic gaming. A large map that has the same generic 1000pixel/1000pixel star field as a background tile on it, would mean the end user would download one 1000x1000 pixel png image, while it covers a huge area (I have such a map that covers over 1,000,000x1,000,000 pixels using FGU. This also reduces memory footprint on the client. With a 100pixel hex grid, the players could play an extremely large game of mayday or brilliant lances (showing my age here) using the VTT.
You could have as layers (kept in separate folders in the image) various planets, gravitational grids etc. (I am in the process of building all this and you are welcome to join me in a video chat so I can show you what I mean). I am using a 500km/hex resolution so planets and their gravitational fields feel more like MGT2/CT than what later Traveller space combat games went with. You could even have semi-transparent nebulas etc that are kept invisible in sub-folders to be turned on by the referee for their particular needs.
(2) Ship images. Top, Bottom, both Sides, Front and Back, along with a iso view. These could be placed onto VTT battle maps showing landed ships, or, they can be used as the "ground" itself as combat takes place outside the ship. They would need to be in 100pixel/square or 150 pixel/square resolution, so they are not small images. Sweet talk Ian Steed to get him to just render his entire library in the various views and package it up so I can throw money at you. We can even get them as good looking 150 pixel top down icons for use in the above space combat maps.
(3) Deck Plans. A single consistent style. No furniture, just consoles. The furniture/beds/chairs/tables etc could be separate images in a separate folder (separate layer for those not using the FG image terms) that are visible or invisible. Tables should be able to be moved, chairs thrown. Food should be able to be put on the table etc. One ship drawing, with the various "pretty" elements as sub-images instead of a single bitmap, would allow the DM to layout the same drawing in multiple ways for the adventure instead of telling the players to ignore the nice pretty layouts on the map of the crashed spacecraft.... The isomorphic deckplans that MBM is limited to providing us from the source books, are far from what we need as a VTT map.
(4) Geomorphs - Grab the creative commons starship geomorphs and turn it into vtt friendly packs in the same manner as the deck plans. This would allow the design of space ports/space stations/high ports etc. Expand it with support books that have names of various stores/establishments/characters so that a referee can pull up a geomorph, load a module from you and be ready to play a patron encounter on the fly.
(5) Ship Crews - Detailed ship crews and ships, The universe is big and the players are not the only travellers - most referee's are limited on time to build up a full universe to interact with. Having a series of modules of ships and their crews, along with standard characters for Port personnel, local merchants, local brokers etc., with pictures, gives depth to the setting and makes a referees life so much easier.
(6) Top down icons of Traveller characters - sure we can hobble together a bunch of modern and shadowpunk icons to be placeholders, but, it is better if we have top down battlemap images of Aslan, Bwaps, Hivers etc. Along with top down images of all those beautiful animals you are coming out with in the Creatures of Distant Worlds.
(7) Ship designs and variants. We have seen alot of different versions of the scout ship, from a single deck design to a three deck design. But, very little has changed stat wise over the various versions of traveller. How about a TL 9 Type A trader - TL10? TL 11? TL 15? Anyone of the various standard designs will change as new technology is released. Either as a standalone series of modules or, as a part of the various Starship Deckplan modules.
(8) Foreeven in MGT2 format - I loved MGT1 but, as I game with and use MGT2, I find that the later is a far better system overall. It is more than presentation and gloss - the underlying mechanics are beautiful in operation but very subtle, which MBM is finding when trying to see how to get them automated in FG. There are slight different ways to approach, both in concept and design, the material for MGT2 that result in significant differences in the work/style of play for the referee and players. You can not just say "compatible with", without expecting the referee to need to do a whole series of extra work.
I am so pleased to see you doing this and I will support your endeavours as they make my own gaming so much more enjoyable.
best regards
Dalton