			    TRAVELLER Digest 437

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Re: TRAVELLER digest 436 by shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
  2) Re: Regency Sourcebook is here! by Shalom Zaidfeld <yu145850@afep.yorku.ca>
  3) Re: Regency Sourcebook is here! by Scott and Vivian Nolan <nolan@dgsys.com>
  4) Surface area of starships by myhre@oslonett.no (StarWolf)

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Date: Tue, 03 Oct 95 21:32:21 PDT
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 436
Message-ID: <msJFcD1w165w@krypton.rain.com>

E.Watters@Queens-Belfast.AC.UK writes:

> I've always had a soft spot for the Balduris, so I'll give detailing
> the Baldur system a try. If there are any Chemists on the list, criticism
> of my attempts at a Fluid ocean and an exotic atmosphere would be appreciated
> 
> At the moment I'm thinking of having a high percentage of Chlorine in the 
> atmosphere, weather processes (lightning) giving rise to some HCL, though in
> small, dilute amounts. The ocean will have quite a chlorine taint, and sulphu
> from underwater volcanoes and vents, but be composed largely of H2O.

Well, you *won't* have a high percentage of chlorine for long. It
reacts with oxygen, and with *water*. The chlorine oxide is rather
reactive. The "chlorine water" is a "solvent" on a par with aqua regia!
(it's the chlorine released by mixing HCl and HNO3 that makes aqua
regia so corrosive). 

So among other things, if there's enough chlorine around for it to
exist as more than a trace atmospheric component, it will have a
*major* effect on the planet. For one thing, many sorts of rock won't
exist. Silicates will be moderately attacked. Carbonates (limestone
etc) will not exist, as they'll be too soluble. Figure that silicate
rocks will be about as stable as carbonate rocks are on earth (ie,
badly honeycombed by water channels, and very eroded unless protected
from groundwater). To give you an idea, gold and platinum will be
attacked by rianwater/seawater on such a planet!

You are going to need a process (almost certainly biological) to keep
putting chlorine *back* into the atmosphere. You are also going to have
to consider the fact that the amount of chlorine required means that
elemental abundances on this world are *not* anything aproaching
normal. How you justify this (and what other elements are more/less
common) will be up to you. I can't think of any guidelines to help on
that. 

The "sulfur" from volcanic vents is going to be an interesting problem.
The "black smoker" type vents we find on earth deposit large amounts of
metal sulfides around themselves. With the high anount of chlorine you
need, these may be more soluble. I'm not sure if the sulfur would
precipitate out, or wind up bound to chlorine. The metals would likely
wind up as chlorides dissolved in the oceans.

The oceans are going to have *huge* amounts of dissolved metal
chlorides. This may be enough to justify dealing with the highly
corrosive (by our standards) atmosphere/hydrosphere. It'll be easy to
run seawater through a refinery and get out metals.

Odds are that free *oxygen* will be rare, simply because if the oxygen
wasn't locked up in water and rocks, it'd have displaced the chlorine.
So figure on chlorine replacing oxygen as the "oxidizer" in biological
processes. This means local animals would take in food material
(carbohydrates?) and chlorine, and the result would be carbon
tetrachloride and water. Plants would use sunlight to reverse the
process. 

Animals would *not* have calcium carbonate as the base for their
skeletons, as it's just too soluble. Silica would be about right. So
that means that "bone" would be more like a sort of fiberglass (a
composite material of silicon dioxide and some sort of organic binder).
It'd likely be as strong as our sort of bone, likely *stronger*. This
means you do *not* want to get into an argument with the local
wildlife. Something half your size might be able to teat you into
little pieces. And any "armored" critters (like armadilloes, or other
critters that have "bony" plates as a form of armor) are going to have
to be counted as having *real* armor. 

If the above seems unreasonable, compare the strength of bone with the
strength you'd expect from some sort of "hi-tech" composite using chalk
and an expoxy resin. Then consider that our fiberglass is as much
waeker than what these critters use as bone as that "chalk/epoxy" mix
is compared to bone (which, btw is stronger than steel).

Oh yeah, one "trick" that "old-timers" may show "greenhorns", is taking
a (plastic) bucket of the local seawater and dropping a chunk of iron
in it. You'll be able to *watch* as the iron is exchanged for copper,
silver, gold, etc dissolved in the water. (refs can "duplicate" this by
taking some copper chloride solution and dropping in a nail)

The precipitated metals may be valuable (and look rather pretty), but
the corroded *mess* that is left of the piece of iron should get the
idea across. You *don't* take unprotected metal outside. Teflon is the
order of the day.

Leonard Erickson	           leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com
(aka Shadow)			    shadow@krypton.rain.com (preferred)
FIDO:   1:105/51	  Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org 


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Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 12:04:37 -0400
From: Shalom Zaidfeld <yu145850@afep.yorku.ca>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Regency Sourcebook is here!
Message-ID: <199510041604.MAA26687@comoro.yorku.ca>

At 12:40 PM 10/2/95 -0400, you wrote:

>     *** SPOILER ALERT:  Do not read this if you don't want to know 
>     anything about the RSB ahead of time. ***

are there any adventures in the source book, or is it just a source information?


       -Shalom Zaidfeld
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Email: yu145850@afep.yorku.ca                                 Toronto, CANADA
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Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 14:38:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: Scott and Vivian Nolan <nolan@dgsys.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Regency Sourcebook is here!
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.951004143159.9433B-100000@DGS>



On Wed, 4 Oct 1995, Shalom Zaidfeld wrote:

> At 12:40 PM 10/2/95 -0400, you wrote:
> 
> >     *** SPOILER ALERT:  Do not read this if you don't want to know 
> >     anything about the RSB ahead of time. ***
> 
> are there any adventures in the source book, or is it just a source information?

The book (I have it here) is 96-pages (I would have preferred 128).  
There are no adventures, but it is well-done considering the demands that 
have been placed on it.  The first 34 pages are background, history and 
politics.  The next 42 are the UWP data for all 800+ worlds (both 1117 
and 1202).  There follows 6 pages of "Library Data" and "For the GM 
Only".  The remainder is 9 starship designs, inlcuding RQS cutters, and 
(my personal favorite for "Testosterone-Pilot of the Year") a 10-ton 
ship's launch welded to a 10-ton partical accelerator!

The book is interesting, and well worth the read, even if you are an RC 
fan.  There needs to be much, much more, however.  I can't see how GDW 
can adequately cover both the RC and the Regency.  Quick, somebody start 
demanding coverage for your favorite Pocket Empire!

Scott

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Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 20:17:52 +0100
From: myhre@oslonett.no (StarWolf)
To: GDW.support@genie.geis.com, hiwg-list@fwe.com, traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Surface area of starships
Message-ID: <199510041917.UAA12479@hasle.oslonett.no>

I have run into a problem, or rather several. I and I would appreciate that 
GDW could answer this. Both privately, and CC: this list.

The problem is surface area. 

The rules states that the SA is equal MV*100. Also this is modified by hull 
form. How much? Shall I use the MVM modifier on the hull form table?

The Players' Forms (PF) book states that SA equals FMV*100. While I also got 
a letter from GDW where I asked about this before PF was released, and they 
answered that hull thickness does not affect the SA value. But as it stands 
in PF it does so.

What is right? I'm currently working on a spreadsheet for starship design, 
and would like to know before I finish the thing off.


--------------+-------------------+-----------------------------------
Roger Myhre   | myhre@oslonett.no | http://www.oslonett.no/home/myhre/
HIWGmember 142| Some people have one of those days, I got one of 
              | those lifes.
--------------+-------------------------------------------------------


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End of TRAVELLER Digest 437
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