I messed up a bit. Kosmic is their brand of Cepheus, basically the rules. The setting is called Solis people of the Sun.
This is the blurb:
This Book contains accurate star maps to 15 parsecs around the Earth. With 30 star maps detailing 521 star systems, plus 31 planetary maps, and expanded star systems.
This is us, the Sideralis, and Solis People of the Sol system, Humans. The date 2271, and it is a new day with new people, the future is unwritten. [...]
Traveller is half the galaxy, millennia into the future. Solis is a couple hundred years from now, and a much smaller chunk of the galaxy. It's a different vibe.
Hostile is the retro-future, like the Alien films, Outland, etc.
There isn't a default Cepheus setting. It came to be after Mongoose changed licensing terms for Traveller. So Cepheus is a fork of the OGL content for MgT1. A lot of third party publishers had material for that, and pivoted to Cepheus to continue their line.
Kosmic is A Cepheus setting (not The), but you can also have Hostile and Orbital from Zozer, etc. Just search for Cepheus on DTRPG and you'll find plenty. They each have their own twist, so read their elevator pitch.
Not really, no, just full fledged settings with rules. Trying to keep a concise list. You're welcome to start a post for those, though. It would definitely fit the community.
Zozer Games has a few solo Traveller books that are well regarded.
There's one aptly named Solo for general traveller adventures, there's Hostile Solo for an Alien / Aliens feel and some really cool squad mechanics. I think there's a third supplement, but I'm not sure.
Edit: aha! The third book! Classic Traveller style, I'm guessing by the price there's minimal artwork.
I was looking into the skill list of Bulldogs, one of my favorite sci-fi Fate creations. Things I like about the changes they made:
no Lore, not setting appropriate.
no Notice: players will use any skill related to what's being noticed. A good burglar is better at detecting plain clothes cops and break in weaknesses, for instance.
Academics is broken down into setting appropriate skills (they used science, and systems).
replaced Resources by Haggle, with a simpler mechanic. You may want to ditch this entirely since buying and selling doesn't mesh that well with T2.
no Investigate: it's an action RPG, Science can be used for general deductive reasoning, otherwise another specific applicable skill (i.e. Systems to investigate a hack, Larceny to investigate how the safe was broken into, etc.)
Notes:
if you fragment skills, you make it harder for someone to progress along that field (needs more advancements to raise it all), which may be what you want.
The opposite for coalescing skills.
A skill list smaller than 18 will make your characters stronger, bigger than 20, weaker (they start with 10 trained skills out of 19 existing on the default list).
keep in mind characters have only 6 starting skills at +2 or above.
There is something to be said about non combat focused accessories. Water reclamation & filtration system. Air purification, I can see a vacuum rated suit that has the air storage and CO2 scrubbing as an installable module to reduce weight in breathable atmosphere missions. Jetpacks. Battery pack, with standard connectors so not only it powers the suit for an extended time, it can also power your energy weapons and tools. A grappling hook/winch.
And, not an accessory, but hook points all around the suit to haul crap around in satchels and the like. Logistics is paramount for war.
Have it be modular, so you can build platoons of armored soldiers. An long range comms/EW module, a belt fed grenade module, a heavy weapons ammo/power supply module, zero G jetpack module, etc.
It's lifted straight up from the source material. As far as seventies series go, S: 1999 took itself quite seriously, in a good way. It's still sort of zany and the science isn't there in the plot, but the models and the casting more than make up for it.
I got sidetracked for a while, but here are some answers from that chat:
Ideally you just swap planets. Whatever you have set up for them on planet one is now surprise on planet two.
[in response to the above] This is the default solution for story focused games. The story continues to the next act, the players dictate how.
“I hadn’t thought of that! I don’t have anything prepared. Why don’t we just pause things here for now and chat. I’ll have it ready next time.”
I guess the question is how far off the path? Jump 1 away or Jump 6? GM completely unprepared? Or not as prepared as you’d like?
As a Traveller GM I’ve got
The notes for every planet and system within range of the PCs ship x2. I.e. for J2 every system within 4 parsecs.
A list of 100+ random NPC names
A couple sentences about each system
Same for the two to five largest factions in my setting
So if the PCs wander I’ve usually got enough material for one night’s worth of material
An easy delay is simply to go into more detail. For example, have them go through the steps of Customs at the new starport, or notice something interesting about another ship, etc. It adds texture to the game, is interesting, and gives you the extra time to prep.
For my group (not sure if it will work for every group) i just leveraged their completionist mindsets. I told them "here are 15 jobs" and the first thing they did was plot an exact course to hit all of them, so they prevented themselves from wandering.
The last one is my favorite of this bunch, because as a player I'd fall for that hook, line, and sinker.
I messed up a bit. Kosmic is their brand of Cepheus, basically the rules. The setting is called Solis people of the Sun.
This is the blurb:
Traveller is half the galaxy, millennia into the future. Solis is a couple hundred years from now, and a much smaller chunk of the galaxy. It's a different vibe.
Hostile is the retro-future, like the Alien films, Outland, etc.