Suggestions Wanted for traveller ruleset

[Noctuary]

I have been checking out Mongoose Traveller 2nd ed, but before I made the purchase, I wanted to ask you fine gentleman on your opinions on your favored ruleset.
My gaming group is pretty new to RPGs in general so an easy to pick up rule set is ideal but not a deal breaker.
Thanks gang,
Noc

[Momotaro]

Mongoose Traveller is a good ruleset.  I don't have 2nd Edition, but 1st Ed is a solid game that underpins a universe that has been badly served by wonky rules, badly thought out reboots and mountains of errata over the years.  Definitely the best Traveller IMHO.

The 2300AD game that Mongoose publishes uses the same rules, but is set in a harder SF universe.  There's a lot to do, but you're less likely to own your own spaceship.  No anti-gravity, a different kind of FTL drive, and lasers/plasma guns are for the military, not scruffy PCs.

Blue Planet is the best worldbuilding in SF gaming - set on a world that's 99% ocean and written by an oceanographer, it's somewhere between the Wild West and the movie The Abyss.  It would slip into the 2300AD game universe perfectly too.

Savage Worlds has a number of SF settings.  The game engine concentrates on minimal book-keeping and fast action, with the option to scale up to small-unit actions.  There's Interface Zero for Cyberpunk, Flash Gordon style adventure in Slipstream, Necropolis 2350 for "doomed humanity's last stand on a distant world" which rips off 40k and Warzone.  There's also a SF Companion, which allows you to build your own setting.

On the miniatures skirmish-game side, Fringe Space by Two Hour Wargames and Clash on the Fringe by Nordic Weasel are both great.  FS can be played same-side, and attempts to replicate the Traveller experience, with rules for space combat, trading, exploration as well as occasional small-scale fights.  CotF is a more traditional skirmish game with a ton of customisation options.  Nordic Weasel also makes Five Parsecs From Home, which is basically a huge set of campaign tables - loot, encounters, missions, everything.

Couple of hints for SF gaming:

1)  Read about different planets in our solar system and make the most of them... planets with 200mph winds, planets that keep one side permanently to their parent body, planets that are in darkness for half the local year.  Then let your imagination go wild - low-grav planets with mile-tall trees, thick atmosphere worlds where you can get the bends if the ski lift ascends too far too quickly.

2)  Technology.  Think of how many movies from before the past 10 years would be wrapped up in 10 minutes if the protagonists had a mobile phone!  Star Trek is especially bad for resolving things with high tech (and coming up with excuses why it won't work).  Try to think of the obvious tech solutions and account for them, but allow the players to come up with smart tech-based ideas - in the words of The Martian, let them "science the shit out of the problem".  Also, don't do a Star Trek where the transporter breaks every episode to prevent the obvious answer...

Which all raises the question - what do you want from a game?

Have a great time!

[Noctuary]

Thank you @Momotaro! The tips are greatt and the overview is appreciated.

I'm looking for a system that handles ship progression and character building mostly. I plan to run a "sandbox" style of game. I want them to be a ragtag group who got their hands on a small ship. We currently play in a d&d campaign so I want them to have the feeling of not being incredibly powerful, along with each reward feeling well earned.
I'd like a little bit of space combat and exploration, as well as on planet objectives. This will be my first time running a space campaign so any other tips are appreciated.

[Momotaro]

I would not presume to tell you how to run a sandbox, I will merely suggest two more links.

Stars Without Number has a free edition (there are also paid-for versions and supplements that cover spaceships, military campaigns etc in more detail):

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/86467/Stars-Without-Number-Free-Edition

It's a D&D retroclone, but the real gem of the game is the sandbox campaign system.  It allows allows you to create not just planets in a  sector, but points of interest, political organisations, etc  It's set after a collapse, so the the game is about exploration, rediscovery, negotiation, and trade... and conflict.  The generated campaign sandbox is game-system neutral too (I find Traveller's world status codes a real pain to remember).

The second link is a complete map of the Traveller Third Imperium universe, right down to individual planets and trade routes.  Just keep zooming in then click on a planet:

https://travellermap.com/

Traditionally, Traveller games have concentrated on the Spinward Marches sector, right at the boundary between the Imperium and the opposing Zhodani Consulate (a race of psionic humans).  There are many independent or uninhabited and dangerous worlds and minor empires between the two, with Vargr (uplifted Earth wolves) raiders and Aslan (a catlike alien species) settlers looking to claim booty and land respectively.

[Noctuary]

Thank you for the links, that map will be incredibly useful.
I say sandbox but I guess what I'm getting at is more like a free roaming world. If the players gun down a military ship, they will be pursued followed by consequences.
Do these systems rely on heavy in game world knowledge because I'm completely knew to the traveller universe?

[Momotaro]

Honestly, very little.  As a setting, it has grown vast and bloated with history, options and alternatives over the decades (a problem it shares with Runequest's Glorantha fantasy setting).  Start with the core rulebook and if you get into military campaigns or trading or exploring then maybe you want to buy one or more supplements.  Find your own level.  I personally prefer that the players make discoveries for themselves about how things work rather than feeding them books full of "knowledge" before they start.

You'll want the players to know the basics: starship operations like how to perform a FTL Jump, refuel in the wilds or the different weapons and defensive systems available to a small trader/explorer; what tech, armour and weapons are available at different Tech Levels (and which Law Levels allow them to be carried).  There's no FTL communications, so news is carried by ships, and there's a ruling Imperial aristocracy backed up by scary big ships and scarier Imperial Marines.

Beyond that - up to you.  Planets in the Third Imperium generally have a great deal of independence: pay your taxes, don't use nukes in your little local skirmishes and the Imperials won't be paying you a visit with a trillion-Credit battlefleet.  Half the fun is the GM interpreting the numbers to come up with.  Why, for example, has a perfectly habitable high-tech world only 2000 people living on it - a Mega-corporation's research station, the Sector Duke's hunting reserve, or is something incredibly dangerous caged there?

There are arguments that have raged for literally 40 years about the Traveller universe.  Is piracy a practical option, are Vargr or Aslan actually viable as starfaring alien species?  Your universe, your call.

[Steelwraith]

Don't forget, Paizo is releasing 'Starfinder' later this year, so there will be a d20 game in space.

If you want to go 'old-school', there is GURPs, but find the old 3rd edition books, in which case you can build your own world, or use their licensed 'Traveller' line of books. You can literally build any character in GURPs, so long as you have the points to work with. There's also 'Mekton Empire' which is a 'mecha-centric'  anime galaxy at war.

[zemjw]

There's also the main Traveller forum - http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/

Well worth a wander around it, as it covers all the versions