House Rules and fixing controversial setting points IMTU

[Skyrock]

House Rules

• Edition: Mongoose Traveller 1E
• If you pick a planet within the subsector as home planet, you receive additional information about it.
• No bonus skills for Connections.
• Added childhood background skills: Steward 0
• Custom Skill Package: Astrogation 1, Broker 1, Comms 1, Engineer (Jump Drives) 1, Gunner (any) 1, Medic 1, Pilot (any) 1, Social Sciences (Sophontology) 1, Steward 1, Streetwise 1, Vacc Suit 1, Zero-G 1
• The Criminal/Pirate career refers to mercenaries and privateers instead. (Piracy is not sustainable IMTU. For an extensive argument see here.)
  
• Pirate bases in the UWP refer to bases of privately owned mercenary companies and privater fleets instead. (See above.)
• Expert programs for Jump Control don't exist. (You need a living, breathing sophont astrogator to FTL jump anywhere, and you need to protect them well if you don't want to get stuck, just as Bob Heinlein intended.)
• Alien races use the expanded racial traits from Classic Traveller (such as the combat paralysis of Hivers).

Fixing controversial setting points IMTU

• Third Imperium: (3i-) The Third Imperium is a loose, vulnerable sprawl of worlds, which by the way is no worse off than the other interstellar states.
  
• FTL Drives: (c) Well, we have jump drives, but I never had to explain them.
  
• Jump Tonnage: (jt-) Jumpships under 100t are too small, or they open too big a can of worms.
  
• Starship Automation: (au-) Starship automation doesn't work (for whatever reason).
  
• Life Support: (ls+) Life support is expensive and difficult to work on.
  
• Piracy: (pi-) Piracy is not sustainable.
  
• Drop Tanks and Tankless Systems: (ta-) Drop tank-assisted jumps are doable, but generally limited to large corporations (with in-house assistance at cost) and the navy (which can afford to blow lots of tax money for a small advantage). Cost from independent contractors is higher than in the OTU, at 1,000Cr per ton of fuel rather than 600Cr to account for transportation cost, recovery cost and high depreciation rate by drop tanks becoming fubar after use or getting dragged into jump space.
  
• Heresy: (he+) I'll diverge from canon when someone makes a convincing argument, or where canon is clearly broken.
  
• K'kree: (kk--) All K'kree should be catapulted into the sun.