Subj: Traveller-digest V1999 #1479
Date: 12/11/99 8:45:12 AM Pacific Standard Time
From: owner-traveller-digest@lists.imagiconline.com (Traveller-digest)
Sender: owner-traveller-digest@lists.imagiconline.com
Reply-to: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com
To: traveller-digest@lists.imagiconline.com
Traveller-digest Saturday, December 11 1999 Volume 1999 : Number 1479
(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.
The following topics are covered in this digest:
Re: Well guys, there goes our salvage...
Re: Well guys, there goes our salvage...
Re: Paintball is not a real gun, much less a light crew served weapon
Re: OT-Soviet Death Stars(sorta)
Re: Superpowers
Re: The Rise and Supposed Decline of the RPG Empire
Re: Prize vs Salvage
Re: Munchkins
Velocity/Vector
Re: Deserts
re: Munchkins
Institutional Memory
Re: Munchkins
Re: Inst. Mem.
Re: Mass communication, the nobility and epistemology (LONG)
Re: Mass communication, the nobility and epistemology (LONG)
Re: Superpowers
Re: Munchkins
Re: The Rise and Supposed Decline of the RPG Empire
Re: Velocity/Vector
Re: Paintball is not a real gun, much less a light crew served weapon
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 23:06:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Terry Mixon
Subject: Re: Well guys, there goes our salvage...
- --- Walter Smith wrote:
> I think the confusing part was when civilian ships were
> mentioned as taking prizes while a state of war did not
> exist. I think it was pretty clear that if you're at war
> with the Senlis Foederate, and one of their DE's captures
> one of your Subsidized Merchants, you're not getting it
> back with a lawsuit.
>
> You might, however, get it back with a treaty.
In Eris's PbEM, the characters have inherited a ship that was
seized years ago from a foreign government as a prize by a lawful
privateer, if I remember correctly. That governemnt or the former
tried to have the courts return it when we were claiming it.
I bet the foreign government would see it as legal if the
former owners "stole" it away from us later.
So to sumarize, be careful where you travel in your new ship
or you might have it taken away.
Any guesses where we will *NOT* be going?
Terry
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. All in one place.
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------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 02:58:38 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch"
Subject: Re: Well guys, there goes our salvage...
On 12/10/99 at 11:06 PM, Terry Mixon said:
>In Eris's PbEM, the characters have inherited a ship that was seized
>years ago from a foreign government as a prize by a lawful
>privateer, if I remember correctly. That governemnt or the former
>tried to have the courts return it when we were claiming it. I bet
>the foreign government would see it as legal if the former owners
>"stole" it away from us later.
>So to sumarize, be careful where you travel in your new ship or you
>might have it taken away.
>Any guesses where we will *NOT* be going?
Any guesses where the "big score" is going to be located? No, I
wouldn't put it *inside* the territory of that foreign government
now would I?
The McGuffin in my game for the first two years was "the ship." Now
that they've found it, there will have to be another McGuffin out
there to draw them on. Frankly, I'm not sure what that's going to
be, but there are plenty of "minor" plot threads that could develop
into something major. See, I'm a big believer in setting up several
pushes and pulls, then letting the characters plot their own course,
and that includes NPC characters. Let's see what have the
characters got to work with...
Why was Akus Moby murdered? Did he have something, or know
something, that he couldn't be allowed to pass on, and if so where
is it now? Does someone still want it...how much?
Why were the lawyers dragging their heels so much? Were they in
league with the government, the Spacer's Guild, that loan shark
Pele 'Pickaxe' Hiiki, someone else...or just incompetent?
What does the local intellegence agency want from them? Is it in
their interest to play along, and could they *not* play along even
if they wanted not to? How about these two new characters that have
joined them, are either of them agents? For whom?
Why was an unknown group trying to hijack the Mae Lee when they
arrived on the scene? Why was a squadron of SDB's in just to right
spot to stop the hijacking? Why did those hijackers *all* commit
suicide when the ship was boarded...or did they?
What happened to Colin David, the missing engineer? His brother's
body was found, but not his. And what's the deal with those
artifacts they found in David's duffle bag? Do they have anything
to do with anything?
Wasn't it awfully unlucky that the ship's extremely hightech jump
sensor was reduced to a slagged wreak during the attack? Is what
they found in forward engineering really the remains of that sensor
at all? How will they know until they spend some time trying to
reconstruct it?
Do the PC's have the "Maltese Falcon" in their possession without
knowing it? You know how many people want that black bird...
...and we haven't even scratched the surface of plots. It'll be
interesting to see where the game goes from here.
Eris
- --
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 01:12:48 -0800
From: "Kelly St.Clair"
Subject: Re: Paintball is not a real gun, much less a light crew served weapon
On Fri, 10 Dec 1999 18:52:52 PST, shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard
Erickson) wrote:
>I recall seeing a cartoon *somewhere* that had an officer "plastered"
>to a jeep, with the remains of a basketball-sized paintball on his
>chest. There was a tank on the opposite side of the panel. I think the
>caption was "after testing, it was decided that paintball rounds for
>tanks wouldn't work..."
Tank-scale (well, actually mecha-scale) paintball rounds appear in the
anime MACROSS PLUS. It's an amusing bit, too: two rival "test pilots" in
prototype giant robots/fighters are competing against each other in a
training exercise, set in a mockup of a city. Their rifles carry paintball
loads.
At one point, an enemy mecha pops up with a friendly mecha held in front of
it, human-shield style. The disciplined mecha-jock only hits the enemy's
head, while the "maverick" sprays paintballs over both enemy and hostage...
Oops.
(To quote another movie that came out about the same time, on this side of
the Pacific: "Take the hostage out of the equation.")
- --------------
Kelly St.Clair "The Jigglypuff's trilling seems to have a
kellys@efn.org tranquilizing effect on the human nervous system.
Fortunately, I am... immune..."
-- Mr. Spock, THE TROUBLE WITH POKEMON
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 04:50:54 -0500
From: Steve Noe
Subject: Re: OT-Soviet Death Stars(sorta)
Luther Martin wrote:
>
> Wow. How much does it cost to lift 1 pound to orbit? That's some expensive
> paranoia.
> > Hi Guys,
> > >
> > > I came across a little interesting trivia while reading the book "Space
> > Power
> > > Theory"[snip]
> > > Ken
> >
And what about m1v1 = m2v2 ?? Did anyone ever fire this suckah??
Steve Noe, a newbie in Indianapolis
fusilier@mindspring.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 23:30:41 +0000
From: Martin Hardgrave
Subject: Re: Superpowers
In message , Simon Early
writes
>> >Not dust, but combustion gases.
>
>Dom was right - it was coal dust, not combustion gases that were the problem
>at Sellafield. I remember an article in New Scientist on the subject. The
>problem was due to coal dust settling on surfaces near the detectors, which
>gave off enough radiation to trigger the sensors.
>
>The extra radioactive CO2 in air would never be concentrated enough to set
>off the sensors due to plume dispersion from the flue gas stacks.
>
>Simon
>
>
The guide at the THORP plant said that they couldn't build a small coal-
fired plant because the radioactivity released on burning would have set
the sensors off. The carbon itself shouldn't be radioactive (too many
half-lives).
- --
Martin Hardgrave
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 10:19:16 +0000
From: SD Mooney
Subject: Re: The Rise and Supposed Decline of the RPG Empire
At 22:07 -0500 10/12/99, "David L. Pulver" wrote:
>_First In_ is not a worldbook, of course -- it's a sourcebook, and one with
>a broad appeal far beyond Traveller, so it should do very well. I've been
>recommending it to my non-Trav sf gaming friends.
I'd have thought that 'Far Trader' and possibly 'Star Mercs' have
similar chances of selling beyond the Traveller SF gaming segment?
'Far Trader' is one of the best treatments of trade in SF that I've
seen beyond CJ Cherryh or Andre Norton's Solar Queen stuff.
Hmm. A CJ Cherryh Alliance/Union sourcebook for GURPS - now that I would buy!
Dom
- ----------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com------------
MiB - Marines in Battledress
"Protecting the Imperium from the Scum of the Galaxy"
Rob Prior's Mac software @ http://www.bits.org.uk/
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 02:34:48 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Prize vs Salvage
In mail you write:
> Also IMTU stolen propery is stolen property. If you find a
> ship in space with all hands dead and it turns out that the
> ship had been hijacked years ago then the ship is still stolen
> property and belongs to the original owners or their heirs,
> unless paid of by insurance. In that case, the insurance
> company owns it. The finders are still entitled to a prize
> fee of 10% of the vessels appraised value. If the old owners
> cannot pay, then the vessel must be sold and the prize paid.
> The remainder goes to the owners or their heirs. If the vessel
> had been stolen so long ago that no owner or heir can be found
> in a reasonable time, as determined by the Admiralty court, then
> it becomes the sole property of the finders.
That's rather different than current Admiralty law. If it's been "lost"
for long enough (say 100 years) then the rights of the original owners
have lapsed. And the wreck belongs to whoever finds it.
- --
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 02:38:00 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Munchkins
In mail you write:
> James Lindsay wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>> Anybody who tries *that* level of "rules lawyering" in a campaign *I*
>> am running will get shown the section of the rules that states the GM
>> is free to alter or interpret rules any way he chooses. If that doesn't
>> work, he or she will be shown the door.
>
> Question: Why don't rules lawyers ever remember *those* particular rules?
> Selective memory, I would think.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> I think it's appropriate for a player to take the rules as written,
> until the GM tells her otherwise. Yes, the "GM has final say" rule
> trumps any other text in the book, but a player can't make *any*
> character or piece of equipment without being able to trust the
> applicable rules. Now, if the GM hasn't been clear about which
> particular rules are applicable...
True. Though usually, it was someone trying to tell me (or the GM if I
was a player) that some rules clearly indicate as "optional" or
"unofficial" *had* to be used.
Beyond that, *I* try to keep people aprised of "house rules". And I'm
not too proud to start a game by telling the players "Ok, X is getting
to be a *real* problem. If it isn't toned down, it's going to really
screw up the campaign. So I've altered the rules governing it a bit.
Here's the way it works now. Any questions?"
And that *usually* works. Sometimes folks will suggest handling the
problem a bit differently. Sometimes I'll agree. Sometimes I won't. But
once we are done discussing it *that's it*. We have a new rule. Only
somebody who wasn't at the session gets to argue about it.
BTW, it's odd, but I can't *ever* recall the *players* telling a GM
that a rule or power or gadget needed to be "toned down". Funny how
that works...:-)
> Writing that, I've seen GM's who never even let a player *see* the
> rulebook, much less allowed them to make something rule-tweaky with
> it. "How can I get a faster starship?" - "You
> ask Feldzarr the Engineer NPC, he says your ship is as fast as you
> can get." "Why?" - "Your character blows his
> Engineering roll, you don't know why."
I know a couple of people who can run a good *interesting* campaign
*without* a rulebook. Both are natural story tellers and really fair
about things. And they started doing this in the early 80s, long before
the "story teller" type games arrived on the scene.
- --
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 06:20:21 -0500
From: "Josh W. Spencer"
Subject: Velocity/Vector
Hello.
This is probably considered an easy question: Does any ship maintain its
original velocity and vector when exiting jumpspace?
- --
Josh
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 06:06:44 -0700
From: cos 90
Subject: Re: Deserts
><< While I'll agree with you on the mosquito nets, don't most deserts
> get pretty chilly at night?
>
> Or is that just North Africa? >>
>
>Get's pretty f*****g cold here in Vegas at night in the winter...:-)
Please define "pretty f*****g cold". I'm going to be spending a week
in Vegas this coming March, and wouldn't mind knowing what kind of weather
to expect. :)
(My definition of "pretty f*****g cold": when it gets down to -40, as it
usually does at least once during the winter up here. That's *really*
f*****g cold!)
:-D
Glenn St-Germain § Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
cos90@powersurfr.com § http://plaza.powersurfr.com/glenn
"There is no longer any normal to be"
-- Gary Numan
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 23:20:32 +1000
From: "Alan Bradley"
Subject: re: Munchkins
> From: Walt Smith
> It's a matter of expectations, of course. I recall seeing a Champions
> (superhero RPG) campaign planning sheet, which gave new players a
> combination of hard & fast character creation rules ("no one can
> have defenses that make their hero perfectly immune to normal bullets")
> and campaign expectations ("the heroes will be relatively unknown
> vigilantes in a city where corruption and crime are rife, morality
> of the stories will be in shades of grey..."). I really liked that
> idea, and stole (er, "expanded") it for use with other kinds of
> campaigns as well.
A couple of quick OT comments, before I get on to Traveller stuff:
> "no one can have defenses that make their hero perfectly immune to normal
> bullets"
Yuck. I always liked playing bricks in Champions. (Bricks are the tough,
strong guys, for those who don't know.) I played other characters too,
but...
I played other Hero games too, though, so I could cope with not being
bullet-proof, but still...
OK, with that out of my system:
Introducing new players to the OTU can be a bit of a worry. There's a
whole lot of "stuff" out there, and it takes a long time to assimilate.
Because I've got my new game starting soon, I'm trying to work out what is
necessary for people to know to make sensible decisions about character
generation, and so on.
How do people deal with that? I don't really care what game you are
playing: how do you go about introducing new people to a complex, and
unfamiliar setting? I have to admit that I originally used to just wing
it, but the games I tended to run weren't particularly coherent, and this
time I'm trying to focus on a small astrographical area and a very intense
power struggle.
(I should have been starting my game tomorrow, but the club (Brisbane
Independent Gamers - mostly a miniatures club) I'm running it at has an
open day on, and I'm going to be pushing panzers instead.)
Alan Bradley
alanb@elf.brisnet.org.au
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 20:34:39 -0800
From: Rob Dean
Subject: Institutional Memory
> From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
> Subject: Institutional Memory
> Just out of curiouslty, who here remembers the controversy that erupted when
> I first signed up to TML?
Well, I was here and very active at the time--would that be the discussion over
whether having a company rep would have an inhibiting effect on the discussion,
or are you referring to the wider controversy over the desirability of the move
to TNE which erupted sometime around then?
Rob Dean
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 10:22:26 EST
From: GaryBartz@aol.com
Subject: Re: Munchkins
In a message dated 12/11/99 1:43:10 AM Eastern Standard Time,
owner-traveller-digest@lists.imagiconline.com writes:
<< > > Coax them gently, and they tend to come around. The stubbornest I've
met,
> > however, was a man who was the non-gamer to his avid-gamer wife. He
became
> > a rules lawyer from HELL. So bad, in fact, that no one wants to game with
> > him. And he'll only play AD&D 2nd, and only FR or DL settings, and won't
> > tolerate even the minorest of house rules, deviations from print, or
> > interpretations which conflict with his (unless backed up in Dragon).
>
> Anybody who tries *that* level of "rules lawyering" in a campaign *I*
> am running will get shown the section of the rules that states the GM
> is free to alter or interpret rules any way he chooses. If that doesn't
> work, he or she will be shown the door.
Question: Why don't rules lawyers ever remember *those* particular rules?
Selective memory, I would think.
>>
Ummmmm.....guys?
May I point out that you are quoting a rule to justify your failure to follow
the regular rules?
Finding and using loopholes, who is the better rules lawyer?
And what's wrong with lawyering? I had a character once who was a lawyer in
D&D, there were no courts in the wildreness area we were in, so when ever we
were attacked and captured one or more of them I would call for a court, we
would select a party member as a judge, and I would present my case for
killing or enslaving the attacker for his crime. In or near a village we
would bring them for law. It was okay, but some of the group got tired of the
procedure, so strangely the jurisdiction of the local towns grew out quite a
bit.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 10:29:58 EST
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Re: Inst. Mem.
In a message dated 99-12-11 01:43:10 EST, you write:
<< > Just out of curiouslty, who here remembers the controversy that erupted
when
> I first signed up to TML?
I can't remember what I had for breakfast. Give us a clue. >>
Well, without getting too involved, there was a small but highly vocal core
of people who thought that I, as a GDW rep, should be _banned_ from
participating in the TML lest I somehow inhibit free discussion.
I was welcomed by the majority, however.
Loren Wiseman
GDW Emeritus,
SJ Games Emigre
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 19:14:22 -0500
From: Robert Prior
Subject: Re: Mass communication, the nobility and epistemology (LONG)
>>> What, he argues *against* quality television shows???
>>
>>It depends on what you mean by "quality".
>
>>He's not arguing against a better Power Rangers, he's arguing against any
>>sort of Sesame Street at all.
>
>I knew Postman was out to lunch, but this really confirms my viewpoint...
He's got a point. I can generally tell which of my kids watched a lot of TV
when they were younger: they're the ones with shorter attention spans.
Sesame Street does tend to encourage snipping learning into small chunks.
It certainly hasn't lived up to the early promises made for educational TV.
(Which were made for movies, and which are being made now for computers and
the internet. Le plus ca change...)
>This does not appear to have happened in Canada... I get the impression
>that candidates down on your side of the border have to show what good
>moral character thay have, by showing that they are stable family men.
>Someone who is single, or divorced without being remarried, doesn't stand
>a chance in many venues. Up here, we don't care.
Well, so far the majority of voters don't seem to care. The local Reform
party types are trying to make this an issue.
>>Having been the recipient of email bombs sent by kids who don't like to have
>>their points argued against on Usenet (points which, coincidentally, smacked
>>of television slogan-mongering). Having been in a class where a student,
>>upon receiving a cellphone call, argued with the teacher that he was a
>>paying customer, and as such had some sort of moral right to receive calls
>>whenever they came in, whether or not those calls were distracting to the
>>class.
>
>Any kid who tried that up here would immediately have their telephone
>confiscated.
You're in Edmonton, right?
Here in Toronto, we have a "no cell phones and pagers" regulation. The
school administration won't enforce it, because many of those phones are
encouraged by parents.
(The cell/page companies are pushing this as a way of talking to your kids.
Now you don't have to feel guilty about getting home late, because you sent
the kids a page telling them to order a pizza for supper.)
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 09:44:46 -0600
From: "Thomas Vickers"
Subject: Re: Mass communication, the nobility and epistemology (LONG)
>Here in Toronto, we have a "no cell phones and pagers" regulation. The
>school administration won't enforce it, because many of those phones are
>encouraged by parents.
Here in wonderful Texas where I teach, we also have a NO cell phone or pager
policy.
It is very strictly enforced. Possession causes confiscation and the device
will only be returned to the parent after a fee is paid to the campus
police. Of course for my particular part of the school district its not rich
parents trying to get in touch with kids, its fellow gang members paging
their buddies, which led to this policy
TV
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 08:01:06 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Superpowers
In mail you write:
> In message , Simon Early
> writes
>>> >Not dust, but combustion gases.
>>
>>Dom was right - it was coal dust, not combustion gases that were the
> problem
>>at Sellafield. I remember an article in New Scientist on the subject. The
>>problem was due to coal dust settling on surfaces near the detectors, which
>>gave off enough radiation to trigger the sensors.
>>
>>The extra radioactive CO2 in air would never be concentrated enough to set
>>off the sensors due to plume dispersion from the flue gas stacks.
>>
>>Simon
>>
>>
> The guide at the THORP plant said that they couldn't build a small coal-
> fired plant because the radioactivity released on burning would have set
> the sensors off. The carbon itself shouldn't be radioactive (too many
> half-lives).
Sure, but coal has a *lot* of impurities (just ask anybody that's ever
used it for heat about all the slag you have to shovel out). And many
of those impurities contain harmless amounts of radioactive materials.
But the emmision limits for nuclear plants are *so* strict that the
*natural* levels of radioactivity of things like coal (and especialy
the slag and "fly ash" produced by *burning* coal) is enough to set off
the alarms.
We really are overly catious about some aspects of nuclear energy.
- --
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 08:05:56 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Munchkins
In mail you write:
> Introducing new players to the OTU can be a bit of a worry. There's a
> whole lot of "stuff" out there, and it takes a long time to assimilate.
> Because I've got my new game starting soon, I'm trying to work out what is
> necessary for people to know to make sensible decisions about character
> generation, and so on.
>
> How do people deal with that? I don't really care what game you are
> playing: how do you go about introducing new people to a complex, and
> unfamiliar setting? I have to admit that I originally used to just wing
> it, but the games I tended to run weren't particularly coherent, and this
> time I'm trying to focus on a small astrographical area and a very intense
> power struggle.
One thing that works is to use some "canned" scenarios from supplements
or magazines as a way to let people get familar with the system and
background. Sure, this means the first week or three will be devoted to
the scenario. But once they've been through that, and you've cleared up
any worries ("Yeah, I *know* the setup in the enemy HQ was *stupid*,
but that's the way the scenario was set up and I didn't want to waste
time rewriting everything. Don't worry, I'll be sneakier." :-) *then*
you can start them generating their characters.
Or let them borrow rule books between sessions of the "training
scenario" to let them try to design something and have you look it over
next session.
- --
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 08:27:09 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: The Rise and Supposed Decline of the RPG Empire
In mail you write:
> At 22:07 -0500 10/12/99, "David L. Pulver" wrote:
>>_First In_ is not a worldbook, of course -- it's a sourcebook, and one with
>>a broad appeal far beyond Traveller, so it should do very well. I've been
>>recommending it to my non-Trav sf gaming friends.
>
> I'd have thought that 'Far Trader' and possibly 'Star Mercs' have
> similar chances of selling beyond the Traveller SF gaming segment?
> 'Far Trader' is one of the best treatments of trade in SF that I've
> seen beyond CJ Cherryh or Andre Norton's Solar Queen stuff.
>
> Hmm. A CJ Cherryh Alliance/Union sourcebook for GURPS - now that I would buy!
I'd rather have one for the area the Chanur stories take place!
- --
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 08:12:21 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Velocity/Vector
In mail you write:
> Hello.
> This is probably considered an easy question: Does any ship maintain its
> original velocity and vector when exiting jumpspace?
Actually, it's the source of a lot of arguments, because the rules
don't *say*, and Mark Miller gets a bit vague about details when we
ask. :-)
Personally, I say yes. You maintain your velocity as determined by
refernce to whatever object you used before the jump. Both magnitude
and direction.
Others say it keeps the vector *relative* to the local star. That is
you enter jump with a certain vector relative to the star you are
jumping from and leave jump with the same magnitude and direction
vector, but relative to the *destination* star. My question is, that's
fine for velocity towards or away from the star, but if you've got any
"sideways" velocity, what determines what direction *it* is in?
And then there are those who point out that the rules seem to suggest
that it's preferable to have a "low velocity" when entering jump, and
then say you enter jump at rest, and leave it at rest. And of course, I
come back with "at rest relative to *what*?"
Retaining your original vector does the least damage to physics, and
with a typical Traveller ship, it doesn't take all the long to kill
even 200 km/sec relative velocity carried over from the previous
system.
It also gives a reason for ships to prefer certain "lanes" depending on
their planned destination. Make a run to jump such that it helps match
your velocity vector to that of your destination. That means that from
any given planet, and any given time, there's a "preferred" direction
to boost in on your way to the 100 diameter limit. Going in any other
direction means there will be a bigger mismatch in velocities when you
arrive and thus, higher fuel consumption.
It's not *critical*, but it makes a difference. Sort of like modern jet
airliners preferring altitudes where they'll have a tail wind over ones
where they'll have a headwind. It's not that they can't make the trip
even against a headwind. It's just that they'll save a *lot* of fuel if
they get the tailwind. :-)
- --
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 11:39:42 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans"
Subject: Re: Paintball is not a real gun, much less a light crew served weapon
From: Kelly St.Clair
> Tank-scale (well, actually mecha-scale) paintball rounds appear in
>the anime MACROSS PLUS. It's an amusing bit, too: two rival "test
>pilots" in prototype giant robots/fighters are competing against each
>other in a training exercise, set in a mockup of a city. Their rifles
>carry paintball loads.
In one of the Battletech equipment supplements they introduce the paint
sprayer, not for mechs, but for engineers and maintenance types. One little
bit that was interesting was that these types of people would settle their
duels and disagreements with paint sprayers.
ObTrav: At the starport the party is visiting a local engineer challenges
the party's engineer to a duel... with paint sprayers.
------------------------------
End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1479
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