We've just played through the Calixcuel Incident Trojan Reach adventure set in the depth of an ocean on a water world. Despite the extensive preparation that included underwater-themed movies, double read-through the adventure text and its review by omnipresent Seth, I still have a feeling it was somewhat messed up. And I think I have an idea why.

^ Seth Skorkowsky's review of the module in question

At a first glance, the adventure text reads smooth. A half a day job for the party's Engineer is suddenly complicated and the stakes raise dramatically. The clumsiness of the opening hook is mitigated easily by the outcomes of the adventurers' previous endeavor: I made it a story of industrial espionage by inhabitants of another world where the heroes already have good reputation. Thus not only the main reactor of an underwater city must be launched ASAP, but its schematics secretly obtained and smuggled off-world. The ends seemed to match.

^ HUD madskills with PlanarAlly meant to depict both spacecraft controls and submarine interiors

It is the execution that suffers from traditional Traveller's printed adventures' design. Providing blocks of text - a LOT of text, TONS of it, the layout lacks meaningful schematics and hints that would aid the improvisation. The top-down maps of the starport will barely find their use, while the scavenger's floor would greatly benefit from a map - and does not have any. The adventure has some explanations on what would it mean to operate in the ocean's depths but very few examples of real challenges for the player characters. And yes, the fusion reactors - however fictional - should not explode when underpowered, at least in general. Ease of shutdown is in their very design principles.

^ custom design of the Scavenger's Floor map. In real watercolor. Its potential barely played at 50%

Therefore the detailed encounters with Scavengers and Workers together with flooded sections Hazards, all become the GM's mental exercise. The bulky printed text provides a feeling of weight but fails to provide aid when needed.

In the end we had fun, and over three sessions instead of just one (the duration of the sessions shortened because of time-zones mismatch, but I don't think it to be bad). Providing, most of the time we all were staring at this side-view plan of the City Tower, with theater of the mind playing in the backs of our skulls.

^ maybe I should've made the HUD more... vertical?

I guess the majority of the printed material for Traveller has this flaw of being weakly comprehensible flow of text. The amount of effort for consistently playing e.g. Pirates of Drinax grows exponentially. Modern day OSR modules (looking at you, Mothership!) might not have this depth, but they win by far with their helpful layout and schematics.

That proves that time has come to try Traveller/Cepheus (or something else) in a simulationist style, ditching the pregenerated scenarios. Maybe as another sign, this week my virtual copies of ACKS II Imperial Imprint hit the mailbox! With me having zero ideas of when to find time to read them through.