OK, maybe not the best skill ever. But useful.

I have noticed today that Vacc Suit skill, as described in Classic Traveller (1977 and 1981) is a classic example of the skill description being poorly worded and thus a little confusing.

So, Vacc Suit. It should say “Vacc Suit Proficiency and Operations” or something, but that’s kind of a mouthful.

In addition to allowing you to use Battle Dress at all, it allows you to have skill when using other protective suits.

So when wearing a Vacc Suit, an unskilled character is at a -4 penalty to do difficult things. So if the required roll to do the thing, like perform a task in Zero-G in a Vacc Suit, or do a diffiult task when wearing a radiation suit, is 10+ (according to the Vacc Suit skill description) the unskilled character needs a 14+. This makes sense. Anyone can put the suit on. It takes skill and practice to do hard things while wearing it. The person with the skill is at + 4 to do the same thing fore every level of Vacc Suit skill. So the person with Vacc-1, rather than an 10+, needs a 6+.

In the section on Other Skills/Default skills, Marc writes that the Referee may declare certain default skills that all the PCs have at Skill Level 0, including Vacc Suit. This avoids the massive non-proficiency penalty but goes not grant a bonus. The character is not skilled, but is familiar enough to not be at a disadvantage.

The implication here seems to be that anyone can put on a Vacc Suit. That makes sense. Why couldn’t they. Maybe they need some help hooking it all up, but they can wear it. They are going to suck at doing anything in it, but that’s another issue.

However, page 41 (1981 Book 1) confuses that matter by saying that at least Vacc-0 is required to use it at all. But if this were the case, why would their be a penalty listed for non-skilled use? I think given the entire text of the book, the “anyone can wear one, badly” case is correct.

Now, there is no Zero-G Combat skill in Books 1-3. I think it makes sense that Vacc Suit skill kind of substitutes. Is shooting a gun and keeping control and not spazzing out in Zero-G hard? I’ve never done it, but it sounds hard. So -4 to a character who has no Vacc Suit skill. Because certainly Vacc Suit skill includes - GASP! - wearing the suit and doing things in space! So if you apply that -4 to the to-hit roll of a pirate in Zero-G with no Vacc Suit skill, suddently they are at -4 to hit. Their Submachine Gun-3 skill is now at -1. The person with Vacc-1 is now at +4 to hit, with no gun skill, because they know how to move in Zero-G in a suit, and the other person is a sitting duck. There are a lot of ways you could implement this stuff.

So Vacc Suit is not just putting on some clothes. It’s a whole set of skills, like a lot of the skills in Classic Traveller.

Like I said, it is not well-worded in the book. You have to piece it together. I have made some assumptions that I think are fair, based on Vacc-1 being something learned over a 4 year span. Maybe someone else would not make the same decisions.

Note: I know that Zero-G Combat skill is covered in Book 4: Mercenary. In purpose here is not to review all the books, but to explore the intentions in the 3 LBBs. They incorporated the Zero-G Combat rules from Mercenary into the Traveller Books years later.