Subj: Traveller-digest V1999 #1394
Date: 11/24/99 8:37:13 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: owner-traveller-digest@lists.imagiconline.com (Traveller-digest)
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Traveller-digest Wednesday, November 24 1999 Volume 1999 : Number 1394
(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.
The following topics are covered in this digest:
Re: Slavery was Re: Ideological Warfare...
3D jump ranges - A solution
Ended the campaign?... Ended The Campaign?!?,
Empress variant URL
SEC: UNCLASSIFIED Pax Americana
Re: Tourism in the Marches
Re: Loans and Indentures
Re: Ming the Merciless
Re: Real space close to Earth
Re: Vargr (Was: Re: Weapons of mass destruction)
Re: YKYBPTMTW:
Re: Vargr (Was: Re: Weapons of mass destruction)
Re: YKYBPTMTW:
Re: 3D Imperium
Re: X-Files scenarios in Trav (the d'Alemberts)
Re: Ming the Merciless
Re: Traveller Auction Update!
Re: Vargr (Was: Re: Weapons of mass destruction)
Re: Vargr (Was: Re: Weapons of mass destruction)
OT: 49ers
Re: Re Loans and Indentures...
Barbarella?
SEC: UNCLASSIFIED Skipping
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 08:28:14 +1000
From: "Alan Bradley"
Subject: Re: Slavery was Re: Ideological Warfare...
Once again, this is a post I managed to foul up yesterday.
> From: "Kiri Aradia Morgan"
> Christians were actively campaigning against the gov't-- Rome ignored
> religion except when it interfered with government and only ever really
got
> seriously into oppressing three religions: Zoroastrianism, Druidism and
> Christianity.
Zoroastrianism was the state religion of Persia, Rome's major "civilised"
rival. A variant form, Mithraism, on the other hand, was one of the major
Roman cults.
Something similar happened after the Romans adopted Christianity in its
Catholic/Orthodox form (this is before the split between the two, of
course). The Persians persecuted Orthodox/Catholic Christians, but
tolerated Nestorian heretics, who the Romans persecuted.
> Also, the Jews were mostly born into their religion, whereas Christianity
> was spread by conversion. Hmmm... you are a large Empire, and you have a
> religion sweeping thru your society by conversion that is causing people
to
> disobey their superiors and the law generally, how do you handle it?
Unless
> you're Constantine, and can see the wisdom of taking it over and trying
to
> control it, you probably try to suppress it...
This is a possible interpretation of the effects of the Empress Wave on
Zhodani society. Essentially, you have this powerful psionic message that
could be misinterpreted as a divine revelation, and the resulting cult
could well spread its incorrect ways of thinking through Zhodani society
faster than the Thought Police can stop it....
Alan Bradley
alanb@elf.brisnet.org.au
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 00:11:46 +0100
From: Jens Rydholm
Subject: 3D jump ranges - A solution
Someone mentioned the idea of not having a J2 drive having twice the
range of a J1 one. This would (if done right) fix the problem of
reaching too many stars with an average jump drive.
I thought about this, and decided to calculate exactly how long range a
J1 (and J2 etc) drive should have in order to preserve the same
relationship between jump rating and number of possible destinations as
in canon.
First of all, I counted the number of possible destination hexes
(regardless of they contain a star or not) from one hex using different
jump ranges. For J1 to J6 drives, the number of destination hexes are 6,
18, 36, 60, 90, and 126. Thus, a J6 drive should be able to reach 21
(126/6) times as big a "destination volume" as a J1 drive, and so on.
Since a sphere with n times the volume of another sphere has a radius
that is [the cubic root of n] times that of the other sphere, it is
quite easy to figure out how big the jump ranges should be. I assume
that the range of a J1 drive is 1 parsec. If another basic range is
desired, just multiply all the ranges by the basic range (in parsecs).
In the table below, the symbol * means "cubic root of"
Jump rating Jump range
=========== ==========
J1 1
J2 *3 (1.44)
J3 *6 (1.82)
J4 *10 (2.15)
J5 *15 (2.47)
J6 *21 (2.76)
/Jens 'Spacejens' Rydholm
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 15:13:07 -0800 (PST)
From: Glenn Goffin
Subject: Ended the campaign?... Ended The Campaign?!?,
>From: "Matthew Bond"
>
>>From: William F. Hostman
>>
>>I only did this to a PC group once... it ended the
>>campaign (They wound up confined to an imperial
>>prison world, since the noteholder was the Imperial
>>Government, and the "Tracer" was an IMOJ field
>>agent... whom they shot.)
>
>Ended the campaign?... Ended The Campaign?!?, why
>didn't you just run them through Adv 8 Prison Planet,
>it was *made* for just such an event.
I always thought Papillon would be a good setting for
a Traveller prison adventure.
I mean, role-playing games are just the sort of places
to explore experiences that you might not want to have
in real life, like prison, horrible diseases,
abduction, serious physical trauma, having your mind
read, etc. These experiences provide kind of a nice
contrast to getting rich quick and winning firefights,
which are also experiences that we don't usually have
in real life.
- --Glenn
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. All in one place.
Yahoo! Shopping: http://shopping.yahoo.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 18:17:37 -0500
From: otter@labyrinth.net
Subject: Empress variant URL
Some time ago a member of this list was nice enough to give me the URL for
their website, which had a keyed deckplan for an Empress Marava variant.
Unfortunately my bookmarks have gone bye-bye. =( If that person would
send me that URL again, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.
Otter Driver
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 09:41:59 +1100
From: "Hughes, Michael"
Subject: SEC: UNCLASSIFIED Pax Americana
Kyle writes:
perhaps we could adjust the definition of
a superpower to, "without another power's
co-operation, providing that there is no widesporead
opposition." That is, if you are a superpower, "those
who not against us are with us." To be truly neutral
and "non-interventionist" means to make the strong
stronger, the weak weaker.
I can't imagine any nation ever being powerful enough
that its enemies and rivals, united, couldn't defeat
it. But just as one bully may scare twety classmates
who, together, could easily beat him up... who wants
to be the first to step forward and say, "hey, bully!
cut that out!" And if the bully is a benevolent ruler,
only demanding you let him sell you Coca-Cola and
episodes of "Friends," well, you might put up with
him...
KA Schuant
Of course nations _can_ contest the USA's power. But
no-one does, really.
In this vein, I know this might sound dodgy, but let's face it. Pax America
is a good thing (IMHO - phew!).
It has an active bill of rights. Sure this might (and has been) ignored in
playing the game of nations (eg during the cold war) but by and large its
still a pretty good thing. This in turn influences how it behaves to others
and it is more inclined to 'go into bat' for the little people now, more
than ever with the demise of the cold war as they don't have to worry about
encroaching on Russia's sphere of influence.
It's a Democracy. Okay, so interest groups and the two party structure (like
most English speaking western countries) sometimes makes us think otherwise,
especially with two parties giving the impression of 'lesser of two evils',
but both have to behave at least semi-honourably and with a genuine intent
to better their fellow man/woman/other ( and tobacco companies...)
And of course as the wealthiest nation of all, its bread and butter is
trade. It simply can't afford to be a bogey-man 'cause the good times will
surely end. Just look at the various short and nasty trade wars that erupt
between US & Japan or US and Europe, and they're over relatively minor
disagreements.
Finally, it's not Pax Russia, China, or god forbid, France. In my book, a
good thing indeed.
As for a Pax Australia.
Shudder.
"Now yowse fulla's settle down or there'll be big smacks. Okay let's all
shake hands SHAKE HANDS. Well done Saddy, onya Koo-wate. Here's a VB, let's
chinky chinky and celebrate with juicy pork sangas . . . "
come.>
Michael
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 15:27:52 -0800 (PST)
From: Craig Berry
Subject: Re: Tourism in the Marches
> Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 15:59:35 -0500
> From: Ethan Henry
>
> Not being an astronomer, where's the peak of Sol's light output
> in the visual range and where the same peak for an A star? Presumably
> Whangan plants have their colour shifted similarly.
Not (necessarily) so. Sol's peak output is in the green part of the
spectrum...the precise part that chlorophyl *reflects away* rather than
uses. On Earth, it happened that the best sunlight-capturing chemical
evolution came up with had this disadvantage; it made up for the problem
by being more efficient at using the photons it did absorb, being
'cheaper' to synthesize, less prone to chemical attack, and so forth.
An A star's peak output is in the blue-violet part of the spectrum, but
(like Sol's) it's a very broad peak. It would appear "harsh blue-tinged
white" to the eye. Note that brightly-colored stars are a rarity; normal
stars are simple black-body radiators with broad spectral peaks. So an M
star isn't the glowering blood-red fireball we've seen in too many
illustrations; instead, it's pretty much the same color as a 100
watt lightbulb running at about 50 watts of input power, a sort of
brownish-reddish-yellowish-white.
- --
| Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
--*-- http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
| "They do not preach that their God will rouse them
a little before the nuts work loose." - Kipling
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 15:47:43 -0800 (PST)
From: Craig Berry
Subject: Re: Loans and Indentures
> Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 13:53:31 -0800 (PST)
> From: Anthony Jackson
> Subject: Re: Loans and Indentures
>
> Craig Berry writes:
>
>
Woo hoo, my minor finally pays off. :)
[snip argument leading up to...]
> If you make a 100 T ship actually normally weigh in the 100T range
> (which means, depending on version, a 5-10x reduction in volume) it
> becomes a lot less unreasonable; drop the electronics correspondingly,
> and you start seeing prices which are only in the few millions; still
> expensive, but much more believable than the 20-40 million for a free
> trader. Actually, a 5x reduction in volume makes things like staterooms
> come much closer to real-world sizes.
Dropping electronics is a question of what you think can be dispensed with
safely (or safely enough to satisfy potential passengers, freight agents,
starport authorities, and crewmembers). Dropping volume, though, comes
straight off the bottom line; smaller ship equals smaller hold and
passenger quarters equals smaller revenue. It does little good to reduce
ship payments by a factor of 10 if you also cut operating revenues by a
factor of 10. In fact, it will hurt; certain fixed costs become more
relatively important when the volume is small.
To put it another way, one could express the business environment of a
ship in terms of its fixed expenses (e.g., crew salaries) and an
expected net revenue per dton of hold and passenger quarters. The latter
is what you get when you subtract the revenue you expect to obtain by
using that dton for commerce, minus the costs of operating that dton
during the period (life support, etc.) Note also that the size of the
debt payment will scale with the size of the hold/quarters; for
simplicity, let's call it linear. So we derive
P = V * H - V * D - F
where P is net profit, V is the ships's volume available for commerce on
some arbitrary scale, H is the expected net revenue per dton of commerce
volume, D is the debt payment per dton, and F is the ship's fixed
expenses. Simplifying gives us:
P = V * (H - D) - F
That H - D term simply tells us that if each dton can't earn enough
revenue to pay for itself, we're hosed from the start. Note, however,
that in the limit of zero volume, the ship loses F credits per period. As
V increases, we hit some breakeven point, and as V increases further, the
ship becomes profitable.
Which just reiterates what we all know already: Economies of scale exist.
Large ships are more profitable per dton than small ones. Small tramp
merchants are screwed if they try to compete with the big guys. And
Anthony's super-small tramps will have to find even more specialized
niches where not even 'normal'-sized tramps can operate.
To put it yet another way: Nobody ever gets rich doing standard book-3
trading in a Type S, and you don't even need to make payments on those. :)
- --
| Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
--*-- http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
| "They do not preach that their God will rouse them
a little before the nuts work loose." - Kipling
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 15:48:21
From: "Douglas E. Berry"
Subject: Re: Ming the Merciless
At 01:51 AM 11/24/1999 -0800, you wrote:
>You should know that, in my Traveller universe, Ming the Merciless may
>properly be addressed as "Your Protuberance."
My current real-world landlord is refered to as Ng the Merciless (actually
quite a nice guy). Before that we had Mr. Limmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......
swear to God that's how he said it.
- --
Douglas E. Berry gridlore@mindspring.com
http://gridlore.home.mindspring.com/index.html
"I created the universe; give ME the gift certificate!!"
- Lisa Simpson, Overachiever
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 15:52:01
From: "Douglas E. Berry"
Subject: Re: Real space close to Earth
At 11:41 PM 11/24/1999 +0100, you wrote:
>Is there a website somewhere with some general information about the
>stars closest to us? It would be especially nice if the page included
>coordinates of some kind, so that I can use them to make a 3D-map of our
>surroundings.
There's a good software package called Redshift out there, pretty cheap and
has oddles of good information.
- --
Douglas E. Berry gridlore@mindspring.com
http://gridlore.home.mindspring.com/index.html
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 16:02:12
From: "Douglas E. Berry"
Subject: Re: Vargr (Was: Re: Weapons of mass destruction)
At 05:14 PM 11/24/1999 +0000, you wrote:
>At 7:59 -0500 24/11/99, "Douglas 'Penguin' Berry"
wrote:
>>You know, I'm beginning to have nightmares that twenty years from now I'll
>>be a famous game designer, and people will still come up to me at GenCon
>>and call me "The Penguin Guy."
>
>Well, I did argue with Andy Lilly to keep them in as you asked....
A *small* bit of humor in what are, IMNSHO, the best personal combat rules
ever written for Traveller!! *sob* Why doesn't anybody mention the
grappling rules? The detailed rules for opening doors?
>The really surreal thing is that when I was a small kid I used to
>call nuns 'penguins'.
Who doesn't?
Douglas Berry
penguin@penguin.net
http://emperor.penguin.net/trenchcoat/Leon.html
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 16:07:44
From: "Douglas E. Berry"
Subject: Re: YKYBPTMTW:
At 05:54 AM 11/24/1999 -0600, you wrote:
>(I hear that, after the Rams beat the 49ers for the second time this
>season [the first time since 1980 that the Rams have swept the 'Niners],
>the 49ers decided to replace the "SF" on their helmets with "GK.")
Yeah, we were just missing our starting quarterback, halfback, half the
offensive line, several key secondary players.. can't figure out why we're
losing...
Forever Faithful, Red and Gold. NINERS!!!
- --
Douglas E. Berry gridlore@mindspring.com
http://gridlore.home.mindspring.com/index.html
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 20:06:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Kenji Schwarz
Subject: Re: Vargr (Was: Re: Weapons of mass destruction)
On Wed, 24 Nov 1999, Douglas E. Berry wrote:
> grappling rules? The detailed rules for opening doors?
Really? They don't use half-dice, do they? I might be interested after
all. I have problems with this task a lot.
> Douglas Berry
> penguin@penguin.net
> http://emperor.penguin.net/trenchcoat/Leon.html
Hey... there's no such URL! You're -- you're -- YOU'RE PULLING OUR LEGS!
Knock it off! This is a SERIOUS DISCUSSION LIST.
Kenji
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 20:30:37 EST
From: KenRoney@aol.com
Subject: Re: YKYBPTMTW:
As for me, I knew that I was playing to much traveller when I'd pull up
behind a truck at a stoplight, look at its license plate, and then think
something like "Now that would be an interesting world to run an adventure
on."
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 12:59:24 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Re: 3D Imperium
Dear Folks -
Steve said:
>according to a quick web search, the central bulge
>of the milky way is about 100,000ly in diameter, and
>http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/MilkyWay/structure.html
>
> would suggest that the disk itself is what, about 40-50kly "thick"?
Gee, I thought it went:
"The Galaxy itself contains a hundred million stars,
It's a hundred thousand light-years side-to-side,
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our Galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding Universe!"
"The Galaxy Song", Monty Python.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 13:05:54 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Re: X-Files scenarios in Trav (the d'Alemberts)
Dear Folks -
Frankie replied to Mike thus:
>>One other bit of trivia, the copies of the books I have (that I now HAVE to
>>dig out) didn't have Foss covers, but originals that coinsided with the
>>stories. Were yours published in Europe by any chance?
>
>The one's I read had Foss covers, and they were published by Panther, as
>part of the seventies reprinting of all of Smith's work
>Definitely European
Mine are published as "Panther Science Fiction" by Granada Publishing Limited,
UK. They must be reprints, then.
So what's the copyright date on your originals, Mike?
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 20:35:39 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch"
Subject: Re: Ming the Merciless
On 11/24/99 at 01:51 AM, "Glenn M. Goffin" said:
>You should know that, in my Traveller universe, Ming the Merciless
>may properly be addressed as "Your Protuberance."
Has a long nose, eh?
We'll be doing stats for Barbarella before you know it.
Eris
- --
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 13:38:11 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Re: Traveller Auction Update!
Dear Folks (and Scott) -
Just wanted to publicly say "thank you" to Scott Spieker, who recently ran a
Trav auction of his material.
I bought "Signal GK" from him a few weeks ago. He emailed me last Thursday (18
Nov), saying he posted it and it should arrive within a week. Well, I'm happy to
say that I picked it up from my PO Box yesterday evening (Wed 24 Nov)!
It was sandwiched between two nice thick cardboard sheets and therefore received
no damage while en-route. The book looks near-new to me (no I *don't* know the
official quality codes ;-) which is excellent for something that is 15 years
old.
Thanks again, Scott!
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 20:42:55 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch"
Subject: Re: Vargr (Was: Re: Weapons of mass destruction)
On 11/24/99 at 03:06 AM, "Douglas E. Berry" said:
>>At Close Quarters - Doug Berry's detailed combat rules for Traveller,
>>famous for Penguins.
>You know, I'm beginning to have nightmares that twenty years from now
>I'll be a famous game designer, and people will still come up to me
>at GenCon and call me "The Penguin Guy."
>Also, ACQ was co-written by James Lindsay, who is only partially
>under the influence of the penguins.
Of course, not! Penguins are partial to the *south* pole. James
would be under the influence of polar bears.
Eris,
not telling under what influence, am I
- --
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 20:50:02 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch"
Subject: Re: Vargr (Was: Re: Weapons of mass destruction)
On 11/24/99 at 02:14 PM, Phil Kitching said:
>>>At Close Quarters - Doug Berry's detailed combat rules for Traveller,
>>>famous for Penguins.
>>You know, I'm beginning to have nightmares that twenty years from now I'll
>>be a famous game designer, and people will still come up to me at GenCon
>>and call me "The Penguin Guy."
>You noticed. ;-)
>What's the list's view on this?
>I mean, can secret conspiracies to associate someone with penguin
>throwing still work once the victim realises what's happenning?
It's much too late for Doug, The Penguin Boy. His fate is already sealed. Muhahaha!
Eris,
the heretic <--see I've already *got* a nickname ;->
- --
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 19:58:29 -0700
From: Erwin Fritz
Subject: OT: 49ers
"Douglas E. Berry" wrote:
>
> At 05:54 AM 11/24/1999 -0600, you wrote:
>
> >(I hear that, after the Rams beat the 49ers for the second time this
> >season [the first time since 1980 that the Rams have swept the 'Niners],
> >the 49ers decided to replace the "SF" on their helmets with "GK.")
>
> Yeah, we were just missing our starting quarterback, halfback, half the
> offensive line, several key secondary players.. can't figure out why we're
> losing...
On the other hand, you have Jeff Garcia, who last year was the
quarterback for my beloved Calgary Stampeders, leading us to the Grey
Cup!
Go Stamps!
- --
Erwin Fritz
Gilbert Laustsen Jung Associates Ltd.
http://www.glja.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 13:43:40 +1000
From: "The Roc"
Subject: Re: Re Loans and Indentures...
- ----- Original Message -----
From: Frank Pitt
To:
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 1999 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: Re Loans and Indentures
>
> Heck, if I lose my job, the bank will pay the mortgage for me for three
> months, and if I'm still not working , put the mortgage on hold for up to
> twelve months, and I only have to live in the house for part of the year.
>
> Also, the bank is quite willing to wait for it's mortgage payment if we
hit
> a "temporary cash flow problem" as it were.
>
> Sounds like William really needs to get a better bank.
>
>
> Frankie
>
>
On of the best deals I heard about was that of my sister in-law and her
husband. If either of them were put in a situation where either of them
could no longer work, the loan was automatically paid off by some kind of
insurance that was part of the finance deal! I might add, that this was
some 20-odd years ago and the deal is no longer available from what I have
heard, but it paid off just recently with both of them being put in just
that situation... and the house only having a few grand left after this
time... but still, better than nothing.
- -- The Roc
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 14:19:52 +1000
From: "The Roc"
Subject: Barbarella?
- ----- Original Message -----
From: Eris Reddoch
To:
Sent: Thursday, November 25, 1999 12:35 PM
Subject: Re: Ming the Merciless
>
> We'll be doing stats for Barbarella before you know it.
>
Yes please :^)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 13:54:15 +1100
From: "Hughes, Michael"
Subject: SEC: UNCLASSIFIED Skipping
William Hostman wrote:
IMTU, it's fairly simple: Banks won't finance J5 or J6 ships. Period. J4's
will only be financed when there is a viable collateral OTHER THAN THE SHIP.
J3 ships require a good buisiness plan, and while anything put in can be
removed or replaced, if you can't outrun the news, you'd better keep the
payments in line. Most of the "Pirates" (by cgen career) are actually skip
tracers most of the time, starmercs when needed, and privateers when
available. The banks tend to send J-4 messages when a ship makes it's
payments, to all payment acceptance stations within 2 months hard travel
from point of payment. Most worlds maintain lists of ships in the area; if a
ship is more than two months out by local computations, they prepare a skip
alert... Not that they announce the ship has skipped, but that customs needs
to check for papers (if the law level allows) or the bank hires a skip
tracer to "take a look"; most (almost all) ship financing allows the banks'
local agent to inspect or authorize inspection by their deputy as "part
owner". If the agent finds proof of payment, fine, he's got to leave.
Otherwise, including if the crew refuses access to the papers and/or ship
after seeing appropriate credentials, the agent may reposess the ship "On
suspicion". I only did this to a PC group once... it ended the campaign
(They wound up confined to an imperial prison world, since the note holder
was the Imperial Government, and the "Tracer" was an IMOJ field agent...
whom they shot.)
Since I use the "pirates" as skip tracers, it gives reason for banks to
subsidize or even finance pirate vessels... field authorizations! And a
letter or Marque and Reprisal, with clauses allowing inspection of records
of vessels financed by a given bank, or government, and siezure if not able
to prove current payments. That, and the pirates keeping tabs on skip
reports.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
IMTU I handle payments thusly;
If a vessel has payments remaining, the vessel has to go to a Bank branch
every payment date to get the running codes for the ship (codes for the next
two years are X-boated to branches once the papers are signed). If this date
is missed by more than two weeks (and vessel is not in Jump, has not
suffered a malfunction preventing one or is not empty of enough fuel for a
jump), then jump drive will be disabled and 'registered' weapons be not able
to fire. This is designed to prevent the vessel from skipping.
However, banks do give permission for those with payment's owning, to
receive codes in advance, if they are going to be outside the interstellar
state where the bank is located (such as the 'outback', for a Sylean M0 or
over the frontier for a M1120 Imperial ship). Obviously there has to be a
good reason and the vessel's owner's have to give a proposal (many
'regional' bank officers ask for a 5-7% commission on any profits made on an
'outside' trip . Some even might send a clerk to keep an eye on things).
There are some rogue independent worlds (such as Class A or B star ports
with low pop and govt. but high tech far from interstellar states) that
offer 'code' cracking or re-configure services, but these are likely to be
very expensive and are highly illegal (look, an adventure!)
Re-payments are made every month. The cost is 1/240 of the cash price (new)
for the ship. If extra payments are made, then the monthly payment is
reduced concurrently (work it out on a spreadsheet or something). Banks
require proof of ability to finance re-payments, so this might make non
merchant vessels a tad tricky to fund ("So you want to buy a patrol cruiser.
How will you be funding the payments?" . . . "I'm going to . . . er . . .
become a pira . . I mean an escort, yeah, an escort . . . matey!")
Michael
------------------------------
End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1394
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