The TML is made possible by facilities provided by the University of
Western Ontario. All opinions and materials below are the responsibility
of the originator.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

BUN# =AMN= =DATE====== =FROM==========  =SUBJECT/BODY==========================
 401  4731 13-Oct-1992 Steve Higginbot  re: Gamba economics and TL << Rob Dean:
 401  4732 14-Oct-1992 Robert S. Dean   Re:  Doing it ourselves << Hans Rancke
 401  4733 14-Oct-1992 Robert S. Dean   Re:  Gamba economics and TL << Steve Hi
 401  4735 14-Oct-1992 timothy k istia  Gamba Subsector << wildstar@moeng2.morg
 401  4736 14-Oct-1992 Robert S. Dean   Gamba location << <email conversation s
 401  4737 14-Oct-1992 metlay           Re: Gamba location << Rob Dean sez:
 401  4738 14-Oct-1992 Robert S. Dean   Re:  Gamba location << In your letter d
 401  4730 13-Oct-1992 Steve Higginbot  TCS, the early year... << TCS Update:
 401  4734 14-Oct-1992 kirsch@rhea.inf  An Engineering Robot design << Hello to

------------------------------

Bundle: 401
Archive-Message-Number: 4731
Date: 13 Oct 92 19:28:53 EDT
From: Steve Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: re: Gamba economics and TL

Rob Dean:

>Steve's right on the mark with this one, although I will note that TL3
>is roughly 1700-1860 by my classic Traveller guidlelines.  I don't really
>think that Motet will be feeding the subsector, or even Madrigal.  I do
>think that they may have sufficient food to export, although I expect that
>the exports would concentrate on high value foods of various sorts rather
>than bulk grain.  Real world analogies would include bananas, coffee, and
>alcoholic beverages as examples.

I tend to agree with the picture of these guys exporting luxury foodstuffs.
Maybe they can grow chocolate that is worth the trouble of exporting.
Certainly coffee tastes different wherever it is grown, so if their coffee
tastes good, then they can always find a market for it.  Likewise wine and
whiskey.


>This brings up one of those sticky points about Traveller, which we are all
>aware of, and which we all have different ways of dealing with:

>WHAT IS TECH LEVEL?

"Tech Level" as specified in the UPP represents the economic strength of
the world in question.  TL3 would represent very low industrialization, high
dependence on imports to maintain standard of living, large numbers of poor
people, and comparatively few wealthy ones.

I use the expanded TL description from WBH to generate two other "Tech Levels":

One represents the local ability to produce things.  This is normally based
on the standard WBH roll-up, with my own mods thrown in.

The other represents "standard of living", and is based on "novelty TL", and
the nature of nearby industrial worlds.  This one I have to free-hand in for
every world.  I can't think of a good way to automate it.


					---Steve


------------------------------

Bundle: 401
Archive-Message-Number: 4732
Date:     Wed, 14 Oct 92 9:50:39 EDT
From: Robert S. Dean  <rsdean@crdec8.apgea.army.mil>
Subject:  Re:  Doing it ourselves

Hans Rancke writes:

> I think the trick is to give these things a try, but not to get one's
> hopes up too much. Most projects may flop, propably will, but before that
> happens some useful stuff will almost certainly  be produced.

I agree with this.  All of the grand projects starts have had some value,
even if they weren't completed.  However, there is no doubt that the chance
of a project being finished is inversely proportional to the size of it.

> By all means let us get on with Gamba. But in keeping with my idea of
> the extreme importance of the "project editor", I suggest that it is
> quite necessary for Rob to issue occasional updates of which of our
> many ideas he has decided to make "official". I for one would like to
> see a revised set of world descriptions soon, as there have been a lot
> of different ideas, some mutually exclusive, presented. I know that he
> has said "we'll go with this" on several occasions, but I'd like a
> coherent update of the whole thing.

I'll see what I can do.  My job is heating up a bit these days, and I was
supposed to be away from home all this week.  That trip was cancelled, only
to be replaced by another week long trip next week (the 19th through the
23rd).  As a result, I'm a bit short of time until the 26th or so.  I may be
able to take a lap top and link in while I'm gone, and I may not.

I'll make putting out a revised world list a priority.  Anyone wishing to have
an idea considered had better get it in in the next couple of days, though,
while I'm still around to look at it.

Rob Dean


------------------------------

Bundle: 401
Archive-Message-Number: 4733
Date:     Wed, 14 Oct 92 10:03:53 EDT
From: Robert S. Dean  <rsdean@crdec8.apgea.army.mil>
Subject:  Re:  Gamba economics and TL

Steve Higginbotham writes:
>
> Rob Dean:
>
> >WHAT IS TECH LEVEL?
>
> "Tech Level" as specified in the UPP represents the economic strength of
> the world in question.  TL3 would represent very low industrialization, high
> dependence on imports to maintain standard of living, large numbers of poor
> people, and comparatively few wealthy ones.
>
> I use the expanded TL description from WBH to generate two other "Tech
> Levels":
>
> One represents the local ability to produce things.  This is normally based
> on the standard WBH roll-up, with my own mods thrown in.
>
> The other represents "standard of living", and is based on "novelty TL", and
> the nature of nearby industrial worlds.  This one I have to free-hand in for
> every world.  I can't think of a good way to automate it.
>
>
> 					---Steve

This is a reasonable way of thinking about things, in my opinion, and one which
is more or less consistent with what we've actually seen from GDW on the sub-
ject.  The only really detailed world description they published, the Tarsus
boxed module, shows the inhabitants of Tarsus with ready access to higher
tech imported goods, at an increased cost, of course.

As this applies to the Gamba subsector, how do you view the "standard of
living" tech levels on most of the planets?  I'd suppose that the Madrigalans
import high tech production machinery from the small high tech planets (and/or
Weelkes) and export lower tech machinery to the TL3 and TL4 planets, as well
as cheap semi-bulk goods back to the high tech worlds.  If you take the Mega-
Traveller (or Merchant Prince) trade goods system as providing a general
indication of the potential traffic flows, I think that you'll find that
Madrigal goods can be sold at a profit on places like Lassus and Forqueray.
I haven't actually checked it, but the situation looks much the same as the
situation in the Spinward Marches, where TL9 industrial Aki can sell at a
profit on TL15 industrial Glisten, which would probably make Aki (or Madrigal)
a sort of Korea to Glisten's (or Lassus') Japan.

How do shipping costs in Traveller affect the trade situation?  It has always
looked to me like interstellar shipping in Traveller is somewhat less expensive
than international air freight currently, but more expensive than international
sea transport.  Is that in accordance with other people's views?

Rob Dean


------------------------------

Bundle: 401
Archive-Message-Number: 4735
From: timothy k istian soholt <xoanon@carina.unm.edu>
Subject: Gamba Subsector
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 10:51:32 MDT

wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar) writes:

> timothy k istian soholt <xoanon@carina.unm.edu> writes:
           ^(just for the record, there's supposed to be an
             "r" here; it's apparently common at UNM for the
             machine to drop letters in people's names)

> A few of my own thoughts on Gamba subsector:
> > > 0705  Jenkins       E87A000-5           --         Y
> > How about this: the tech was recently upgraded when the surviving
> > members of the survey team decided to quit the Service and settle
> > on the planet. (Remember that a population code of 0 means less
> > than ten people, not no people.)They're cordial enough to trav-
> > elers, but they do their best to keep incoming ships to the land-
> > ing pad they've laid out near their homes, and they ask visitors
> > to get their business over with and leave. The Scouts are, in
> Now that's an interesting new explanation for one of these!

> > fact, protecting the indigenous population (which doesn't show up
> > on the surveys because they doctored the records) from exploi-
> > tation -- anyone have any ideas what the natives could have that
> > would be significant enough to Imperial interests that they
> > would be in mortal danger if the rest of the galaxy found out?
> In a case like this, why wouldn't the normal IISS protective
> interdiction be better?  Is there some reason why protective
> interdiction was not granted, or even asked for?  Are the scouts
> themelves exploiting the indegenous population?  I think this part needs
> a little more thought, but it has promise ...

Certainly does need a little more thought. That's why I asked for
ideas from the rest of you. My thought was that it would be either
something the Imperial government would want more than anyone --
or want to destroy more than anyone. Maybe something to do with
psionics?

> > Atmospheric taint would likely be large amounts of water in the
> > air.
> This counts as a taint?  I've always assumed that a taint was something
> which would be extremely unpleaseant at very best, is usually harmful,
> and can be fatal at worst.  Then again, I'm in the Washington, DC area,
> and we have large amounts of water in the air for most of the summer.

But can you imagine a world that was over 95% water? The air would
probably make British fogs look like sunny days! And, if you com-
bine that with an atmosphere which allows more water to be suspended
in solution than the Terran atmosphere, you could end up breathing
in as much water as you do air. The human lung has certain unpleas-
ant reactions to being half-filled with water.

- -- Tim Soholt (xoanon@carina.unm.edu)

------------------------------

Bundle: 401
Archive-Message-Number: 4736
Date:     Wed, 14 Oct 92 13:25:57 EDT
From: Robert S. Dean  <rsdean@crdec8.apgea.army.mil>
Subject:  Gamba location

<email conversation sent to the list due to possibility of general interest>

Mike Metlay writes:
>Rob Dean writes:
>>The trouble I have with placing the subsector is that the Imperium is too old
>>which is a situation we've discussed on the list before.  I'd welcome any
>>input on the topic.
>
> Ooooh! I have a good one! Let's kick the whole thing back in TIME! How about
> to the Sixth or Seventh Century-- highest TL was only about 12, and the Civil
> War was brewing, and Terra was being reintegrated into the Imperium! Then we
> could put it ANYWHERE.

Yes, I think that this would work best, with the exception that I'd like to
use TL13 as the Imperial base, with those two TL14 planets then being at the
real cutting edge of technology.  When would that put it, and what was going
on on the Imperial timeline?  If set earlier, my preferred astrography--in
the Verge sector--would not be a real problem.  That also means that I think
that we'll go with some version of Hans' Long Night era pocket empire based
around Susato.

> If you want it out there *now*, with Hard Times being what it is, we could
> also put it anywhere, but then we'd need a high-tech history....

Also a possibility.  Is the history going to affect the adventure potential
a lot?  I'm not really sure myself...

>>Speaking of travel, I thought about you last Thursday, as I passed through
>>the Pittsburgh airport on my way to visit my grad student brother...
>
> Oh? I haven't seen the new airport. Is it nice?

I don't know--we had to go a long way on foot between two planes in a fairly
short amount of time, and I had just about enough time left over to call my
brother and tell him we were on schedule, without anything left over to grab
a candy bar from a vendor.  I wonder if this happens to people making conn-
ections at Class A starports?  If you believe the SOM, I suppose it couldn't
because the random jump lenght would make you reluctant to try to meet a
scheduled connection less than a day or two later than your arrival...

Rob Dean


------------------------------

Bundle: 401
Archive-Message-Number: 4737
From: metlay@netcom.com (metlay)
Subject: Re: Gamba location
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 10:54:52 PDT

Rob Dean sez:
><email conversation sent to the list due to possibility of general interest>
>
>Mike Metlay writes:
>>
>> Ooooh! I have a good one! Let's kick the whole thing back in TIME! How about
>> to the Sixth or Seventh Century-- highest TL was only about 12, and the Civil
>> War was brewing, and Terra was being reintegrated into the Imperium! Then we
>> could put it ANYWHERE.
>
>Yes, I think that this would work best, with the exception that I'd like to
>use TL13 as the Imperial base, with those two TL14 planets then being at the
>real cutting edge of technology.  When would that put it, and what was going
>on on the Imperial timeline?  If set earlier, my preferred astrography--in
>the Verge sector--would not be a real problem.  That also means that I think
>that we'll go with some version of Hans' Long Night era pocket empire based
>around Susato.

You'd probably be okay in the Seventh Century here, with the Solomani not yet
quite to the point of being a muscle-flexing major player in the Imperial
Court and a lot of flak from the Civil War settling out. As for the Verge,
I'm reluctant to flush the existing Atlas's star locations, but hell, it's
only one subsector. And if it has its bak to the Rift, then it'd stay backward
for a long time. I would put TL13 as a limit for other reasons: no Battle
Dress and no Fusion Guns, with Plasma Guns still bulky, dangerous, and rare.
Gauss weapons just coming into widespread use, with TL10-11 stuff in abundance.
Perfect environment for taking some stuffing out of the shirts of powerhappy
parties. |->

>Also a possibility.  Is the history going to affect the adventure potential
>a lot?  I'm not really sure myself...

Depends on the Ref. It means a LOT to me and my parties. I think I prefer the
Civil War era to the Hard Times. Less messy in a metagaming way.

>I wonder if this happnes when you make conn-
>ections at Class A starports?  If you believe the SOM, I suppose it couldn't
>because the random jump lenght would make you reluctant to try to meet a
>scheduled connection less than a day or two later than your arrival...

The concept of a prebooked connection Jump boggles my mind. Completely.
Anywhere other than Tukera monopolized core areas, who would dare try?


- --
metlay            | and she's a master of return hitting
atomic city       | giving rhythm to her posts
                  | so you read her and think hey it sounds good
metlay@netcom.com | and wish her posts had a soundtrack too    (f. ercolessi)

------------------------------

Bundle: 401
Archive-Message-Number: 4738
Date:     Wed, 14 Oct 92 14:17:22 EDT
From: Robert S. Dean  <rsdean@crdec8.apgea.army.mil>
Subject:  Re:  Gamba location

In your letter dated Wed, 14 Oct 92 10:54:52 PDT, you wrote:
>
> >
> >Yes, I think that this would work best, with the exception that I'd like to
> >use TL13 as the Imperial base, with those two TL14 planets then being at the
> >real cutting edge of technology.  When would that put it, and what was going
> >on on the Imperial timeline?

>You'd probably be okay in the Seventh Century here, with the Solomani not yet
>quite to the point of being a muscle-flexing major player in the Imperial
>Court and a lot of flak from the Civil War settling out. As for the Verge,
>I'm reluctant to flush the existing Atlas's star locations, but hell, it's
>only one subsector. And if it has its bak to the Rift, then it'd stay backward
>for a long time. I would put TL13 as a limit for other reasons: no Battle
>Dress and no Fusion Guns, with Plasma Guns still bulky, dangerous, and rare.

As to the Atlas's star locations--if we don't want to conflict then we have to
go outside the area that it covers.

I just realized (-: that I'm carrying TD18 with me today, which includes the
concise history of the Imperium.  They give the following for tech levels:

Sylean Federation, Year 0, TL12
                      300, TL13  (allows exploration of Sabmiqys...)
                      420, (First Survey...)
                      629, (End of Civil War)
                      700, TL14
                      826, (End of Psionic Suppressions...hmmm...)
                     1000, TL15
                     1120, TL16

I hadn't thought about it before, but sticking with the Imperial timeline would
have an odd effect if the game was set before the Psionic Suppressions.
Psionics would not only _not_ be illegal, they would be positively encouraged.
Different...

I also hate to mention this, but Battledress is canonically available at TL13.

A general TL13 with occasional TL14 would be consistent with a setting in the
late 600's (7th century.)

Rob Dean


------------------------------

Bundle: 401
Archive-Message-Number: 4730
Date: 13 Oct 92 19:12:18 EDT
From: Steve Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: TCS, the early year...

TCS Update:

	The first year of my TCS game is over, and relevant data (except
Jane's, which I am way behind on, so don't bug me yet) has been
diseminated to all the players.

	There were ten space battles, and two groundside campaigns of
varying lengths during the first year.  Taking these in chronological
order, we have:

		1)  The opening battle of the Old Islands War, which has no
official designation since it is supposedly still secret.  Since
everyone has heard about it anyway, I can now confirm that on or about
turn 8, two squadrons of Sansterran fighters attached to St Genevieve
System Command attacked, without warning or provocation, a flight of New
Home couriers.  Three of these couriers were destroyed, or disabled and
captured.  The fourth escaped.  This incident was repeated less than a
day later when a second flight of New Home couriers arrived in St
Genevieve.  The results were the same.  In both cases, the fighter
pilots attempted to disable the New Home couriers with conventional
weapons, but when they found that they could not, they resorted to
attack with nuclear missiles.

		2)  The First Battle of St Genevieve.  This battle was the first
openly acknowledged battle in the Old Islands War.  New Home sent a
quick retaliatory strike against the St Genevieve System Command.  The
strike consisted of 10 fighter carriers, plus their 300 Wasps and ten
Petras.  The fighters were deployed at the 100 diameter limit, and then
proceeded to attack the Sansterran fleet near St G.  Meanwhile, the
Petras provided cover for the carriers, which moved away from the FEBA.
The wasps proceeded to disable six Sansterran battleships and several
hundred Barracuda fighters before withdrawing.  Casualties taken by the
Wasps approached 50% from all causes.  Not one wasp was destroyed by a
Sansterran fighter.  The New Home attack force withdrew from the system.

	At this point, Sansterre began preparations to invade New Home.

		3)  The Second Battle of St Genevieve:  Neubayern and New Home
each sent a force into St Genevieve system to expel Sansterre.  This
force, consisting of Neubayern's Second Strike Fleet, Third Fleet,
Fourth Fleet, and Second Assault Fleet, plus 18 New Home Reapers and 900
Wasps, plus their carriers, proceeded to stomp the Sansterran forces
into the ground.  The only bright spot in this battle for Sansterre was
the degree to which his Barracudas completely dominated a force of
Neubayern fighters ten times as large as it was.  Sansterre was
expelled, most of his jump-capable ships fleeing back to Sansterre,
while his riders were captured by the attacking forces.

At this time, both Neubayern and New Home were trying to convince
Sansterre's ally Amondiage that this war was none of his business.  It
has now become clear that Amondiage's reaction to the war was a response
to Neubayern's entry into the war, rather than a response to New Home's
offensive operations (described as "probably going to _really_ surprise
Sansterre and everyone else!" by Sir James Bathory, Director of
Amondiage).

At any rate, at about the same time as the above attack on St Genevieve:

		4)  The Battle of Neubayern:  200-odd Amondiage Swords jumped to
the 100-diameter limit of Neubayern.  They accelerated toward Neubayern,
fought his System Squadron in passing, and executed a nuclear
bombardment of Neubayern's starport and ship-building industries.  The
survivors then fled the system.  Most of the attacking Swords were
damaged severely, but only a relative handful were actually destroyed.
Neubayern captured 23 that were too severely damaged to jump away.  The
remainder spent several to many weeks working their way back to
Amondiage for repairs.

		5)  The Battle of New Home:  150 Amondiage swords appeared near
the 100-diameter limit of New Home, and attacked New Home's System
Squadron.  The New Home fighters available (mostly obsolete Mosquitos)
were destroyed, while the remaining New Home Reapers jumped away from
the battle after doing as much damage as possible.  After the defeat of
the New Home System Squadron, part of the remaining Amondiage Swords
were detailed to executing a bombardment of New Home similar to that
done to Neubayern.  They succeeded, but nearly all the Swords that so
attacked were destroyed by New Home's impressive planetary defense
batteries.  The survivors returned to Amondiage by diverse routes.

		a)  Beginning about now, Neubayern Marines and Army units began
to remove the Sansterran Marines garrisoning St G.  This campaign
continued for three weeks before the situation changed.

		6)  The Battle of Sansterre:  The New Home Fleet in St G,
together with a rider squadron lent them by Neubayern, proceeded to jump
to Sansterre immediately after Second St G.  They found the Sansterran
Fleet in disarray, with the strongest elements damaged or destroyed the
week before.  They knocked out the entire Sansterran System Squadron,
except those that fled into the dubious protection of Sansterre's
planetary defense batteries.  One of Sansterre's "Guppies", a 900,000T
transport, was destroyed by New Home Reapers, in spite of the protection
afforded by the planetary defense batteries.  After the response to that
attack by Sansterran planetary defenses, the New Home admiral placed
nuclear demolitions on all captured Sansterran ships, and left the
system.

	At this point, Sansterre changed his mind about invading New Home.
	Sansterre immediately surrendered.  As was later obvious, this
surrender was premature.  Most of Sansterre's jump-capable ships were
relatively intact, and Sansterre's planetary defenses were sufficient to
make invasion impossible.
	In any case, quiet ensued for two more weeks.  During this period,
Amondiage and New Home began to discuss the possibility of peace.  Both
New Home and Neubayern had been hurt badly by the war to date, while
Amondiage was now all alone, with a significant part of his fleet either
damaged or destroyed.  Before anything solid came of this...

		7)  The Third Battle of St Genevieve:  Neubayern, worried about
the possibility of another raid by Amondiage, ordered his forces in St
Genevieve to guard all four gas giants to prevent Amondiage from
refueling there for an attack on Neubayern.  Amondiage took advantage of
this by attacking St Genevieve with 1000-odd Swords.  This force was
rather more than Amondiage had been known to possess BEFORE the fighting
had begun, much less after the depletion of the attacks on Neubayern and
New Home.  (No resolution to this apparent discrepancy was ever
discovered).  The Amondiage Fleet attacked the Neubayern Fleet guarding
St Genevieve, capturing or destroying the entire force.  Then it
proceeded to intercept the fleet coming in from the outer gas giant and
defeated it.  Then it turned (this was a VERY small system - the outer
gas giant was in orbit 4) to intercept the remaining two fleets, which
had joined together and were proceeding toward the 100-diameter limit
from the sun at 1G.  They were caught near the jump-limit, and the
riders provided cover for the tenders and other jump-capable stuff until
they had escaped.  The riders were all captured.  This was, BTW, the
only time in the Old Islands War that Amondiage allowed the "line of
battle" to interfere with what he was doing.  It has since been learned
that his fleets were under orders to capture as many of Neubayern's
riders as possible, in order to provide a suitable defense of St G while
the Amondiage Fleet was elsewhere.  The next day, Neubayern's BatRon1
jumped into St G on a routine rotation.  It was attacked, and forced to
flee.

	The Neubayern Army on St G had, by now, nearly rooted out the last
of the Sansterran defenders.  The removal of their ortillery by
Amondiage forced them to back off for a short time.  During that three
day period, Amondiage secured the remainder of the system, and returned
to St G.  The Amondiage admiral ordered the Neubayern Army to surrender
on pain of nuclear bombardment.  The Neubayern Army did so, and were
interned there building new domes for Sansterran colonists until they
were repatriated to Neubayern six months later.

	At this point, Neubayern began planning an attack on Amondiage.
Colchis attempted such an attack.  And New Home and Amondiage continued
to discuss peace, this time with Amondiage clearly in the stronger
position.
	Then, the situation changed, when Serendip Belt brought its main
Fleet units into Topas to expel the Neubayern garrison that had been
there since early in the year.  Amondiage found itself with insufficient
resources to prevent an attack such as he executed against Neubayern.
Neubayern was being forced into a corner by attacks from both sides, and
so was more likely to actually attack Amondiage with the intent of
destroying them completely, thus removing one enemy from the equation.

Net result:  both Neubayern and Amondiage backed off a little, and peace
descended on the Islands for a few months.

	Well, almost.  Serendip Belt moved an Army onto Topas in opposition
to Neubayern's Army on Topas.  Serendip Belt's Fleet controlled local
space pretty thoroughly.  Neubayern kept two squadrons at the edge of
the system.
	A military coup occurred on New Colchis.  They threw out one
dictator, and replaced him with another ("Meet the new boss, same as the
old boss.")
	After several months of wrangling over details of cease-fires and
conferences, and shapes of tables, and such, the Old Islands powers
(Amondiage, Colchis, Neubayern, New Home, Sansterre) and St
Hilaire/Esperanza met on New Home to discuss a permanent peace, and the
formation of the Old Islands Alliance.
	Meanwhile, alarmed at the New Home/Neubayern alliance, New Colchis
new government and Serendip Belt met on Elysee to discuss their own
alliance.

	ASIDE:  By this time, all the worlds in the Islands have fallen into
one camp or another except Zuflucht.  New Colchis had scarfed up Elysee
and Besancon during the Old Islands War.  St Hilaire had extended a
rather meaningless dominion over Nebelwelt and Wellington.  New Home
found itself in control of Sturgeon's Law.  Amondiage and Sansterre took
control of St Genevieve and Achille, which control Amondiage now
maintained by itself in the wake of Sansterre's surrender.  Neubayern
had taken control of Berlichingen (more or less).  Serendip Belt found
itself more or less in control of Topas, though the legitimate
government plus their Fleet continued to exist on Amondiage.

	Net result of several weeks of discussions:  The Old Islands
Alliance, consisting of Colchis, Neubayern, New Home, Sansterre, and St
Hilaire/Esperanza.  And the Elysee Concord, consisting of New Colchis
and Serendip belt.  But during those few weeks...

		b)  Serendip Belt ordered its Army on Topas to disarm and intern
the Neubayern Army there.  The Neubayern Army fought back.  So now we
have the beginning of a ground campaign which will continue for three
months or so.

	And...

		8)  The First Battle of Topas:  The Neubayern Squadron in Topas
jumped out within a day of the attack on the Neubayern Army.  A week
later, the Neubayern squadrons appeared right by Topas, and attacked the
Belter fleet there.  At this point, the Belters discovered that their
fleet had indeed fallen on hard times, as a force of light cruisers and
even lighter riders proceeded to decimate their main fleet.  The Belters
won the battle, or at least held the field after the Neubayern survivors
jumped out.  But they lost the majority of their heavy fleet units, and
discovered that their light units could not compete with modern TL12
warships.  The Neubayern commander used the attack as a diversion to
deploy several hundred of Neubayern's fighters down to the Neubayern
troop concentrations on Topas.
	Since the Belter fighters were distinctly inferior to even
Neubayern's poor fighters, the Neubayern Army enjoyed a reasonable
facsimile of air-superiority for over a month.  During that time, the
Serendip Belt Army ceased offensive operations while they prepared
defensive positions to be used in case of space attack, and reinforced
to the tune of another 200,000 men.
	At the same time, the Belt recovered the damaged Neubayern ships,
which could be repaired and returned to service much faster than the
Belt ships could be refitted to modern standards.  So the mainstay of
the Belt fleet was a handful of Neubayern light riders for a while.  The
Belt also accelerated its renovation program, refitting every ship
possible to TL12 standards.
	And Neubayern ordered the arrest and trial of the admiral who had
fought the Belter fleet.  Before she could be brought to trial, she
disppeared from her holding cell, and has not yet reappeared.

	New Colchis moved a force of several hundred ships into Topas to
show solidarity with Serendip Belt, and to discourage Neubayern.

	So now we have the Alliance and the Concord arguing over who should
get to keep Topas.  Neither really wants to fight over it, neither
really wants to give it up.
	When Serendip Belt shifted back to the offensive, the Alliance
finally decided to rescue the Neubayern troopers on Topas.  The newly
formed Alliance Fleet, operating under the command of the New Home
admiral who led the attack on Sansterre, moved into the Topas system.
The Alliance Fleet refueled in one of Topas gas giants, then jumped to
the positions that the Belter Fleet occupied.  Unfortunately, the Belter
admiral, fearing an attack on Serendip Belt with most of the fleet away,
jumped home to the Belt.  The Alliance Fleet appeared next to the New
Colchis Squadron, and attacked, driving them to jump away with heavy
damage after less than two hours of combat.

	Meanwhile...

		10)  The Battle of Elysee:  Neubayern's Fifth Strike Fleet,
operating under Alliance Fleet Command orders, attacked the New Colchis
Squadron at Elysee.  Since they outnumbered and outgunned the New
Colchis squadron by a factor of 15 or so, the battle was very short, and
very one-sided.  Of course, the fact that most of New Colchis large
units present were only 1G ships didn't hurt, since that meant they
couldn't escape.  A week later, New Colchis ships fleeing the Second
Battle of Topas arrived in Elysee to find a Neuybayern Fleet awaiting
them.  They were out of fuel, and mostly non-functional, and mostly
surrendered immediately.

	Meanwhile...

	The Serendip Belt Fleet arrived back in the Belt.  No Alliance
forces in sight.  The Chairman of Serendip Belt immediately ordered the
Fleet commander's arrest.  The Fleet, under new command, returned to
Topas to find the Alliance firmly in control.  They worked out a local
cease-fire, then returned to the Belt.  The Alliance Fleet brought in
Sansterran troop transports and withdrew the Neubayern Army from Topas.
Then the Alliance Fleet withdrew back to Neubayern.

	The Serendip Belt, upon hearing that the Alliance had withdrawn from
Topas, ordered the removal of his own troops from that system.

Meanwhile...

	New Colchis, perturbed by the capture of several hundred of his
ships, declared war on Neubayern.  This war continues, though there has
been no fighting to date.  New Colchis has imposed severe restrictions
on all merchant traffic into New Colchis system.  Various Alliance
members (Sansterre and St Hilaire) responded with similar measures.
Upon protest by New Home and veiled threat by Amondiage, Sansterre
revoked its commercial restrictions.  St Hilaire, being far enough away
not to annoy anyone, maintains theirs.
	Serendip Belt continues to rearm.  Neubayern continues to wonder
when Amondiage is going to repatriate all those captured NFN warships.
Sansterre continues to redesign his fleet.

	And through all this, Joyeuse sat quietly on the sidelines and
smiled.  At the end of the year, Joyeuse offered his Wyvern light riders
for sale.  The positive response from almost every quarter gave an
indication of how much damage had been done to the fleets of the Islands
this past year.

	Score card:  Population losses:  Neubayern 210,000,000 dead.
									 New Home 63,000,000 dead.

				 Final disposition of territories:
						Amondiage : Amondiage, Acadie, Achille, St
Genevieve (the latter two shared with the Alliance).
						Colchis : Colchis.
						Joyeuse : Joyeuse, Quichotte.
						Neubayern : Neubayern, Schliesen Belt,
Berlichingen(more or less).
						New Colchis : New Colchis, Herzenslust, Elsysee,
Besancon.
						New Home : New Home, Sturgeon's Law.
						Sansterre : Sansterre, St Denis, St
Genevieve(colony on main world).
						Serendip Belt : Serendip Belt, Gloire, partial
control of Topas.
						St Hilaire/Esperanza : St Hilaire, Esperanza,
Nebelwelt, Wellington.
						Topas : government in exile on Amondiage,
possibly able to return home now.
						Zuflucht : independent, has acquired a large
number of obsolete warships from Serendip Belt in an attempt to fight
off a takeover by St Hilaire that never came.

	There have been several interesting ideas for getting more out of
their resources from diverse people.  Serendip Belt and New Colchis have
a trade pact.  New Home and St Hilaire have one.  The Alliance members
are considering an Alliance wide trade pact.  Other, less obvious things
are happening behind the scenes.

	And Serendip Belt and Neubayern are still arguing about Topas :-)


						---Steve
^Z

------------------------------

Bundle: 401
Archive-Message-Number: 4734
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 15:15:19 EDT
From: kirsch@rhea.informatik.uni-bonn.de
Subject: An Engineering Robot design

Hello to all the TML readers.

After Rob Dean had killed the neverending discussion about the new Traveller
(thank you Rob, for getting us all back on out hobby), I've decided to create
some new vehicles and robots for my campaigne. My group had earned lots of
money, so I spend some time to create new items, to get the money back ;-).

I will send three of the designs to the group. The first is listed beneath.
Although I can't compare to Rob Dean and Scott Kellogg, some of you perhaps
will enjoy them.

The following design uses the TRAVELLER Robot design rules for the robot
brain, sensor equipment,the programs and some of the appendages. I had used
the suggestions in 101 Vehicles to create the system. The hull and powerplant
is choosen using the MT craft design rules. Weight is given in kg (not in tons
as usual), volumes for fuel in liters.

Master Slave Engineering Robot

CraftID:	Ilmera - Master-Slave-Engineering-Robot,TL 15,
		Cr 1,308,708 (including Subrobots and Programs)
Hull:		1/2, Disp=0.7, Config=4USL, Armor=40G,
		unloaded=4846.7 kg, loaded=7897 kg
Power:		1/2,FuelCell=0.03 MW, Duration=100h, PowerInterface
Sensors:	extra sensitive audio, Vocoder (Speech Synthesizer)
Commo:		Radio=Regional(500km)
Controls:	RobotBrain(Int=12,Edu=16/26),MasterUnit,Program Interface
		Brain Interface, holographic linked panel, 3D Holodisplay
Others:		Fuel=90 l (Hydrogen and Oxygen seperated), ObjSize=small,
		EMLevel=Moderate, Refillequipment for Subordinate robots,
		Subordinate Robots=	light repair robot(x4),
					heavy repair robot(x2)
Programs:	Full Command, High Autonomous, Electronic-4,
		Mechanics-4, Engineering-4, Gravitics-4, Laser-Welder-4,
		Technical Sensors-4, Grav Vehicle(Subrobots)-4
URP:		K10//-00-NT327-00CG(M)

Comments:
The skill Grav Vehicle-4 must be inserted, because the subrobots have Grav
Locomotion, so the robot need this skill to control their motions.
Technical Sensors is a special skill, to read and interpret the datas, the
subrobots gain.
3D Holodisplay and holographic linked panel are included in the design, to
give a skilled engineer the possibility to influence the robot directly.
During a repair task the operator can use these, to supervise the operation.
The Robot it fully capable of simulation and simulative displaying planed
operations.
The main powersource of the robot is the power interface. The Fuel Cell is
included, to give the robot the possibility to repair a ship powerplant.
All the subordinate robots can be hidden inside the hull of this master.
If they are not used, they didn't require any place outside the hull of
the master robot.

Subrobot 1:
CraftID:	Light Repair Subrobot, TL 15, Cr 55430
Hull:		1/2, Disp=0.019, Config=4USL, Armor=40G, Unloaded=236.1 kg,
		loaded=270 kg
Power: 	        1/2, FuelCell=0.06MW, Duration=20h
Locomotion:     1/2,LP HvyGrav, Thrust=0.4t, NOE=40kph, MaxAccel=0.48g
Commo:		Radio=Regional(500km)
Sensors:       	Visual Sensors (microscopic, light intensifying, passiv
                infrared, active infrared)(x2), extra sensitive audio,
                extr.sensit.olfactory sensor, ext.sen.touch, magnetic
                sensor, Radiation Sensor, Mass Sensor
Controls:	Slave Unit, Dex=15, Str=18, light Tentacle(x2),
                very light Tebtacle(x2), Head (10%)
Others:         Fuel=27liters(H2 and O2 seperated), Cargo=14l (spare parts),
                ObjSize=Small, EMLevel=Moderate, light laser welder,
                Electronic Toolpack, Micromechanic Toolpack.
URP:		815/E-14-00000-JF00

Comments:
All appendages can be hidden inside the hull, which is cube shaped and
630x630x630 mm length. The robot is equipped with a wide array of sensors,
to provide a broad range of information to the master robot. Olfactory
senses are added, to help finding overheated bearings or fire. The robot
is not equipped with anti fire equipment.
This model is especially designed for finding and repairing of minor damages,
and damages in really small units. using its small laser welder, the robot
is able to provide help repairing Computers, Grav Units, low energy conectors
and similar small devices. The heavy armor protection of this small unit,
provides the ability, to use the light repair robot during EVActivities.
It is suggested, however, to add additional fuel, if EVA is planed.

Subrobot 2:
CraftID:        Heavy Repair Subrobot, TL 15, Cr 140820
Hull:           1/2, Disp=0.056, Config=4USL, Armor=40G, Unloaded=833.2kg,
                loaded=920 kg
Power:          1/2, FuelCell=0.21MW, Duration=20h
Locomotion:	1/2, LPHvyGrav, Thrust=3.0t, NOE=40kph, MxAccel=2.26g
Communication:  Radio=Regional(500km)
Sensors:        Visual Sensor(microscopic, light intensifying, passive
                infrared,active infrared)(x2), ext.sens.Audio, ext.sens.
		Olfactory, ext.sens.Touch, Magnetic Sensor, Radiation Sensor
		Mass Detector, Neutrino Detector
Controls:	Slave Unit, Dex=15, Str=171
Others:		Fuel=63l(H2 and O2 sperated), Cargo=27l (spare parts),
		ObjSize=Small, EMLevel=Moderate, large laser welder,
		Mechanical Toolpack, Metalwork Toolpack, medium Tentacle(x2),
		heavy Tentacle(x2), heavy robot arm(x2)
URP:		A47/E-16-00000-UF00
Comments:
This unit is designed to carry large and heavy parts, and to do the heavy
work i.e. stop leaking, exchange Zuchai-Crystals, replace heavy energy circuits,
replace grav plates and so on. It can be used for EVA. Same suggestions
apply as for the light repair unit.
As it's smaller cousine, this unit too can hide all its appendages in its
hull. If done so, the robot looks like a cube 910x910x910 mm.


- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Juergen Kirsch
Institut fuer Informatik, Universitaet Bonn
Germany
kirsch@rhea.informatik.uni-bonn.de

------------------------------
The TML is made possible by facilities provided by the University of
Western Ontario. All opinions and materials below are the responsibility
of the originator.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

BUN# =AMN= =DATE====== =FROM==========  =SUBJECT/BODY==========================
 402  4739 14-Oct-1992 metlay           Re:  Gamba location << Rob Dean inscrib
 402  4740 14-Oct-1992 Robert S. Dean   Re:  Gamba location << In your letter d
 402  4741 14-Oct-1992 jim vassilakos   Question about Cyanide Gas (for a good
 402  4742 14-Oct-1992 Steve Higginbot  Gamba economics.... << Rob Dean:
 402  4743 15-Oct-1992 Leonard Erickso  Cyanide << You'll want to use KCN, not
 402  4744 15-Oct-1992 Adrian Hurt      TL15 fusion plant for sale to highest b
 402  4745 15-Oct-1992 Eric Edward Moo  Re: Question about Cyanide Gas (for a g
 402  4746 15-Oct-1992 kirsch@rhea.inf  Short Range Missile Recon Probe << Hell
 402  4747 15-Oct-1992 Michael A. Surm  Re: Question about Cyanide Gas << From:
 402  4748 15-Oct-1992 Brian Gillespie  Trav stuff for sale << A recent posting
 402  4749 15-Oct-1992 CS171308011@UTS  Placing Gamba in Time and Space << Abou
 402  4750 15-Oct-1992 Steven Owens     The Shape of Traveller << Hi all,
 402  4751 15-Oct-1992 metlay           Re:  Gamba location << Rob Dean scrawls
 402  4752 15-Oct-1992 metlay           Re: Placing Gamba in Time and Space <<
 402  4753 15-Oct-1992 Steve Higginbot  TL15 fusion plants and MONEY! << Adrian

------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4739
From: metlay@netcom.com (metlay)
Subject: Re:  Gamba location
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 11:48:31 PDT

Rob Dean inscribeth:
>you wrote:
>>You'd probably be okay in the Seventh Century here, with the Solomani not yet
>>quite to the point of being a muscle-flexing major player in the Imperial
>>Court and a lot of flak from the Civil War settling out. As for the Verge,
>>I'm reluctant to flush the existing Atlas's star locations, but hell, it's
>>only one subsector. And if it has its bak to the Rift, then it'd stay backward
>>for a long time. I would put TL13 as a limit for other reasons: no Battle
>>Dress and no Fusion Guns, with Plasma Guns still bulky, dangerous, and rare.
>
>As to the Atlas's star locations--if we don't want to conflict then we have to
>go outside the area that it covers.

One reason why I don't think I'd mind a little bit of conflict with the Atlas.
Going beyond it won't be easy, especially if your heart's set on the Verge
(interesting how these Rift-edge areas fascinate us: my latest campaign is
set in the Cyril's Edge corner of Reft).

>I just realized (-: that I'm carrying TD18 with me today, which includes the
>concise history of the Imperium.  They give the following for tech levels:
>
>Sylean Federation, Year 0, TL12
>                      300, TL13  (allows exploration of Sabmiqys...)
>                      420, (First Survey...)
>                      629, (End of Civil War)
>                      700, TL14
>                      826, (End of Psionic Suppressions...hmmm...)
>                     1000, TL15
>                     1120, TL16

Well, THAT'S handy. Glad you had it with.

>I hadn't thought about it before, but sticking with the Imperial timeline would
>have an odd effect if the game was set before the Psionic Suppressions.
>Psionics would not only _not_ be illegal, they would be positively encouraged.
>Different...

Oh, I know. The Psionics Institutes would be everywhere, and the situation
would be much more like it is in the Vargr Extents in the 1100s than anything
else-- with psi being part of the local color, anywhere from a curiosity under
study by scientists to a part of some cultures (mind-reading judges, anyone?).

I'm not a huge fan of psionics in a game like Traveller, but it'll be a
nice change of pace. Also note other prevailing attitudes (variable as you
travel around): a much stronger Vilani streak (but with an accompanying sense
of "illegitimacy" due to the Solomani-strong Court (I believe that Antiama
wouldn't have married into the Royal Family yet)); a dislike of the Zhodani
as previously hostile humans, but nothing like the psychotic hatred implanted
in the Suppressions; a much stronger distrust of Aslan, with the wars either
recent or still ongoing, and a fascination with the newly-integrated Vargr.

>I also hate to mention this, but Battledress is canonically available at TL13.

Yes, but only in limited and controlled quantities. It would have been
invented centuries earlier, but would not have been that useful or needed
before the Zhodani began making trouble. I would assume that you would need
both money AND governmental "pull" to get anything hotter than Combat Armor
and a PGMP-12, and the standards among Travellers would be Combat Environment
Suits (or lower-TL Scout vaccsuits) and Gauss rifles as squad support to
ACRs, SCPs, Accelerator Rifles, ARLs, Rocketguns and Snubbies. And lasers,
natch.

>A general TL13 with occasional TL14 would be consistent with a setting in the
>late 600's (7th century.)

Yeah, that's why I picked the era I did. My memory astounds me sometimes. |->

I'm beginning to really like this idea-- it gives us the rich history we've
collected, but with one exception (gross fleet movements and the Imperial
succession, far away in the Core) no fine detail to get in the way. Comments?

- --
metlay            | and she's a master of return hitting
atomic city       | giving rhythm to her posts
                  | so you read her and think hey it sounds good
metlay@netcom.com | and wish her posts had a soundtrack too    (f. ercolessi)

------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4740
Date:     Wed, 14 Oct 92 15:15:40 EDT
From: Robert S. Dean  <rsdean@crdec8.apgea.army.mil>
Subject:  Re:  Gamba location

In your letter dated Wed, 14 Oct 92 11:48:31 PDT, you wrote:
>
> Going beyond it won't be easy, especially if your heart's set on the Verge
> (interesting how these Rift-edge areas fascinate us: my latest campaign is
> set in the Cyril's Edge corner of Reft).

It simplifies the game if you know there's a lot of empty space in at least
one direction.

> Oh, I know. The Psionics Institutes would be everywhere, and the situation
> would be much more like it is in the Vargr Extents in the 1100s than anything
> else--with psi being part of the local color, anywhere from a curiosity under
> study by scientists to a part of some cultures (mind-reading judges,
> anyone?).
>
> I'm not a huge fan of psionics in a game like Traveller, but it'll be a
> nice change of pace. Also note other prevailing attitudes (variable as you
> travel around): a much stronger Vilani streak (but with an accompanying sense
> of "illegitimacy" due to the Solomani-strong Court (I believe that Antiama
> wouldn't have married into the Royal Family yet)); a dislike of the Zhodani
> as previously hostile humans, but nothing like the psychotic hatred implanted
> in the Suppressions; a much stronger distrust of Aslan, with the wars either
> recent or still ongoing, and a fascination with the newly-integrated Vargr.

Sounds good.  A Verge location would make Vargr occasional possibles, Aslan
rather less likely, and the other major races right out.  A Daibei rift
edge location would reverse that.

I'm not too keen on psionics either, but that's the way the cards fall if
we adopt the 8th century.  In that case, I'd still stick with the situation
of no Psionics Institutes in the Gamba subsector.  Treating it as science
would make a Galliard location possible if one was desired or perhaps one
on Weelkes to draw from the larger population.  Hmmm....maybe there was one
on Adriano before the plague.  I wonder if there might be a connection? 0-:

> I'm beginning to really like this idea-- it gives us the rich history we've
> collected, but with one exception (gross fleet movements and the Imperial
> succession, far away in the Core) no fine detail to get in the way. Comments?

The Core isn't really that far away, but yes.  Besides, by this time the wars
are over, so fleets would have been back in position for a couple of decades.

(I wonder how often the Imperium moves things around?  Some U.S. Army units
were stationed in essentially the same places in Germany for over 40 years,
and some of the Roman military units whose history can be traced through
inscriptions and the like were apparently stationed in the same forts for
centuries. "My great grandfather was the first one in our family to serve in
the 2957th CruRon, and it has been a family tradition since...")

Rob


------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4741
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 16:31:20 PDT
From: jimv@ucrmath.ucr.edu (jim vassilakos)
Subject: Question about Cyanide Gas (for a good cause :-)


Well, I'm still messing with the plot for the Harrison Chapters. It
seems that just when you get going, you slam into some sort of
technical problem. Recently, I sent questions to the TML about
tiny nukes, effects of vacuum on the unprotected. This time I'm
wondering about cyanide gas (I hope the TML-chemists aren't
jumpy tonight).

Here's what I've gleaned so far.

You take NaCN (Sodium Cyanide), mix it with some HCl (Hydrochloric
acid), and whammo, lots of HCN (Hydrogen Cyanide gas). I means lots.
Enough to really ruin everybody's day assuming you're on a
closed air supply (like a starship). Say one bucket of
ingredients per 10,000 tons of displacement affected?

Basically, I need know two things. First, is the above
description correct? Will just mixing the two make HCN and
will it really be a gas (ain't much  good as a liquid)?
And is it really as potent as I'm pretending (one bucket to
10,000 tons seems a little steep, maybe it's just me)?

Second, what does NaCN and HCN look like, smell like, etc? Well,
I guess not many people know what HCN smells like... :-) but you
get the idea. I need lots of adjectives for the story, and I don't
mean the sort you'd find reading an encyclopedia. Anybody
have an ounce of hands-on experience with this sort of
thing? (Don't say anthing self-incriminating, now :-)

Many many many thanks in advance.

jimv@ucrmath.ucr.edu

PS: If anybody wants the story (to date) emailed to them,
let me know privately. It's too much to put on a mailing list.


------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4742
Date: 14 Oct 92 20:20:30 EDT
From: Steve Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Gamba economics....

Rob Dean:

>This is a reasonable way of thinking about things, in my opinion, and
>one which is more or less consistent with what we've actually seen from
>GDW on the subject.  The only really detailed world description they
>published, the Tarsus boxed module, shows the inhabitants of Tarsus
>with ready access to higher tech imported goods, at an increased cost,
>of course.

Alas, but I never got ahold of Tarsus.  My picture is something Cynthia
and I have been trying to make consistent for some time...


>As this applies to the Gamba subsector, how do you view the "standard
>of  living" tech levels on most of the planets?  I'd suppose that the
>Madrigalans import high tech production machinery from the small high
>tech planets (and/or Weelkes) and export lower tech machinery to the
>TL3 and TL4 planets, as well as cheap semi-bulk goods back to the high
>tech worlds.  If you take the MegaTraveller (or Merchant Prince) trade
>goods system as providing a general indication of the potential traffic
>flows, I think that you'll find that Madrigal goods can be sold at a
>profit on places like Lassus and Forqueray.  I haven't actually checked
>it, but the situation looks much the same as the situation in the
>Spinward Marches, where TL9 industrial Aki can sell at a profit on TL15
>industrial Glisten, which would probably make Aki (or Madrigal) a sort
>of Korea to Glisten's (or Lassus') Japan.

	This sounds moderately reasonable.  Using my house mods, Madrigal
would be functional TL10 plus or minus, with a LARGE lower class.  The
upper crust would be living at TL14, or maybe 15 in a few areas.  Public
education would be non-existant (since it would presumably educate
people to TL10 standards, and the indicated poverty level could not,
IMHO, exist with proper education of the masses.
	Most of the "low TL" planets would be functioning at TL7-9, with
imports in the TL14 range for the upper crust.  Except for the world
with the native sophonts.  They probably should follow this pattern, but
they could be anything that struck your fancy without bending reality
too far.
	One obvious place that high TL items should be seen:  fusion
plants.  TL15 fusion plants can be imported from Terra if necessary, and
still cost less than the locally produced TL14 stuff.  The lowered cost
at TL15 even makes importation of spares from as far away as Terra
reasonable.  (ASIDE:  I plugged fusion plants into the T&C program, and
found that they could be profitably sold anywhere within 2500 parsecs of
their point of origin, if there are no other TL15 worlds closer to the
point of sale.  So if there is even one TL15 world left in teh Imperium,
look for TL15 fusion plants all over.)


>How do shipping costs in Traveller affect the trade situation?  It has
>always looked to me like interstellar shipping in Traveller is somewhat
>less expensive than international air freight currently, but more
>expensive than international sea transport.  Is that in accordance with
>other people's views?

	Traveller shipping costs are lower than they look.  After all, when
they talk about a ton, they mean 13.5 Kl, not 1000Kg.  They are still
much higher than international ocean freight charges, but not as much as
you might think.  The real problem is that Traveller, in all its
incarnations has set prices for bulk goods too low.  Back in the good
ol' days, a ton (displacement) of gems went for MCr1.  Face it, at $1000
plus per carat, diamonds are worth a lot more than MCr1 per 13.5 Kl.  In
fact, if you use a dollar = credit (which was a good approximation when
Traveller originally came out), a million in diamonds could be carried
in a small briefcase.  Similiar cases can be made for most of the high
value items on the original list.
	In MT, nothing is worth much more than KCr10 per ton, which just
exacerbates the problem.  Cynthia and I have used Merchant Prince and
its descendants (with our own mods, some of which were posted here once)
as a good indicator of overall trade patterns.  But it is next to
useless as a trade system, since it assumes that interstellar trade uses
AVERAGE cargo value as an approximation to any specific deal.  But
average is not good enough, when most of the products of ANY world are
not worth exporting.  So they should be left out of the averaging
process, and the actual value of goods shipped should be in the range of
ten times as valuable (and costly) as MT indicates.
	This has been a major digression.  Oh well, I'm losing my grip while
the Braves are getting their heads beat in by the Pirates.

					---Steve
^Z

------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4743
Date: 15 Oct 92 02:26:42 EDT
From: Leonard Erickson <70465.203@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Cyanide

You'll want to use KCN, not NaCN. Potassium salts don't have *nearly*
the tendency to absorb water from the air (and thuse cake into unusable
lumps) that sodium salts do.

Cyanide has a distincyive odor of "bitter almonds". Apparently even
*non*-lethal amounts are smellable.

BTW, if there are members of a minor race on board, there's a *chance*
that they won't be affected. At least of of the respiratory pigments
(oxygen carrying compounds in blood) that is used by species on *Earth*
is unaffected by cyanide! Hemethyrin(sp?) is iron based, but not as good
as hemoglobin. And according to the Brittanica, it *isn't* affected by
cyanide!

Your *biggest problem is going to be the sensors in the life support
system. They'll detect almost anything out of the ordinary and seal off
that section of the ship. They *have* to be able to detect all sorts of
things, because you'd be *amazzed* at the compounds that'll turn up in a
small closed environment. (one of the earliest attempts at a sealed
environment had to be ended after only a week because Formaldehyde from
the plastics inside had accumulated to dangerous levels!)

If all you want to do is kill the crew, there are easier ways to do it.



------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4744
From: Adrian Hurt <adrian@cs.heriot-watt.ac.uk>
Subject: TL15 fusion plant for sale to highest bidder
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 9:41:07 BST

Steve Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM> writes:
> 	One obvious place that high TL items should be seen:  fusion
> plants.
> ...
> <Summary - they're so cheap that it's cheaper to ship them half way across
> the Imperium than to produce them locally.>
> ...
>		So if there is even one TL15 world left in teh Imperium,
> look for TL15 fusion plants all over.)

There is, of course, one minor problem.  Who is building all these fusion
plants?  The TL15 world is going to supply (a) itself, and (b) the highest
outside bidder, in that order.  I'd expect the going price to be slightly
more than that of a TL14 plant of similar power; what you're paying for is
the smaller size.

- --
 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs
 UUCP: ..!uknet!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian   |  ARPA:   adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk

------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4745
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 08:56:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Eric Edward Moore <deathmaster+@cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Question about Cyanide Gas (for a good cause :-)

jimv@ucrmath.ucr.edu (jim vassilakos) writes:
> wondering about cyanide gas (I hope the TML-chemists aren't
> jumpy tonight).

Nope.

> Here's what I've gleaned so far.
>
> You take NaCN (Sodium Cyanide), mix it with some HCl (Hydrochloric
> acid), and whammo, lots of HCN (Hydrogen Cyanide gas). I means lots.
> Enough to really ruin everybody's day assuming you're on a
> closed air supply (like a starship). Say one bucket of
> ingredients per 10,000 tons of displacement affected?

The reaction sounds right.  I'm not sure about the toxicity (sp?),
given that a starship has filters, that sounds a bit low.

> will it really be a gas (ain't much  good as a liquid)?

Basically, yes.

> Second, what does NaCN and HCN look like, smell like, etc? Well,

NaCN is a white powder.  Looks like any other white powder in the lab.

> I guess not many people know what HCN smells like... :-) but you

Actually I *have* smelled HCN.  Get a bottle of almond extract, put it
under your nose, and inhale hard.  (you'll have to imagine the
splitting headache I got....)

> get the idea. I need lots of adjectives for the story, and I don't
> mean the sort you'd find reading an encyclopedia. Anybody
> have an ounce of hands-on experience with this sort of
> thing? (Don't say anthing self-incriminating, now :-)

Almonds.  Sorta sweet odor.  Sorta pleasant.  Splitting headache.
(don't know how it gets when the concentrations get fatal.  It blocks
cellular respiration so people just sorta fall down dead, in about 10
seconds.  Face turns blue and they generally thrash around a lot.)

	-Love, Kisses, and a Neutron Bomb
		-Eric the Finn

------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4746
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 14:15:33 EDT
From: kirsch@rhea.informatik.uni-bonn.de
Subject: Short Range Missile Recon Probe

Hello folks,

The email about the Engineering robot was  the first email, I had send to the
new host of the TML. I think, I should add a thanks, to the administrator and to
the site, who add the automatic reply on recieving a message. I really like this,
because I never know, if our *very* reliable email service, is routing correctly.
Well...it just broke down, after I had recieved the reply *grin*.

Ahh...just a small addition on the engineering robot:
The robot is intended, to replace a group of up to ten engineers on board
a ship. But it can not do the work without at least one human operator,
which should of corse be an engineer. One Engineer with the help of this
robot can do the work of ten normal Engineers and fulfil the additional task
of subordinate craft maintainance. Please note: The robot can work without
human assistance for a while, but crucial work should not be done without
a human supervisor. However, this robot can reduce the needed Engineering
Crew significiantly.

Well, stage free for vehicle/robot number 2:

CraftID:	Short Range Missile Recon Probe, TL 15, Cr 580900
Hull:		1/1, Disp=0.007, Config=3AF, Armor=40G, Unloaded=0.0789t,
		loaded=0.1197t
Power:		1/2, Batteries=0.07MW, Duration 4.8h
Locomotion:	1/2,LP LightGrav, Thrust=0.4t, Top=2052kph, Cruise=1539kph,
		NOE=40kph (no Avionic), MaxAccel=2.34g
Communication:	Radio=FarOrbit(500,000km)
Sensors:	Visual Sensor with telescopic and passiv infrared, directly
		linked to the radio, additional Sensors in payload.
Off/De:		-
Controls:	Robot Brain(Int=7,Edu=4), Software=Navigation-2, Survey-2,
		Grav Vehicle(Missile Probe)-3,
		(10 parallel, 10 linear, 2 synaptic CPU, 40 std.Storage)
Others:		Payload=0.0408kl, ObjSize=Small, EMLevel=Faint
Comments:
Though expensive, this recon probe fastly found its market. The probe can
be launched using a standard missile tube of a missile turret. It's Robot
brain enables the probe to operate independend for a limited period. Standard
procedures suggest a program, which orders the probe to find it's mothership,
after the connection is lost. Because of the significant skill in Navigation,
it is possible for the probe to find it's mothership, if this unit has not
changed the astrogational parameters of its course.
The Sensors of the probe are by default limited to video cameras. The pictures,
the probe sees, are directly transmitted via radio. It is possible to add
different sensors i.e. Neural Activity Sensors or small Densitometers. The
output of this units can be linked to the Robot Brain. It is possible to
connect the added sensors to the powersupply of the probe, but this is not
recommended, because the severe duration limits, the probe suffers from.
It's suggested to add secondary power sources to added sensor equipment.
The payload compartment, which holds 40.8 liters is large enough, to hold
different hightech sensors. Please note: The cargo compartment has no
life support. The transport of living beings is not recommended.


- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Juergen Kirsch
Institut fuer Informatik, Universitaet Bonn
Germany
kirsch@rhea.informatik.uni-bonn.de

------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4747
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 10:00:13 -0500
From: surman@vortex.lgs.lsu.edu (Michael A. Surman)
Subject: Re: Question about Cyanide Gas

From: jimv@ucrmath.ucr.edu (jim vassilakos)
Subject: Question about Cyanide Gas (for a good cause :-)

I'm not much for the chemical reaction part but I've used calcium
cyanide to kill things. ;-)

When I was keeping bees a few years ago the local inspector gave
me some to kill a hive that was infected with foulbrood (a bad
disease for you non-apiarists). It was a gray colored powder with a
heavy, musty odor. Really noticeable once you've smelled it.
A tablespoon killed the hive (~3.5 cu ft) in less than a minute.
I don't know what the concentration was though.

It also worked great in my killing jar that I used for collecting
insects. The teaspoon that I put in there was still effective
several years later.

Mike


------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4748
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 12:11:05 EDT
From: bgillesp@lonestar.Prime.COM (Brian Gillespie)
Subject: Trav stuff for sale


A recent posting wanting some Traveller related material prompted
me to dig out my old stuff.  I haven't been involved in any games
of Traveller for many years, except for the PBM game, and don't see
any sense in just leaving this stuff to sit the back of a closet
when someone might want to use it.  Therefor I've decided to offer
it for sale.  If you want anything listed below, drop me an email
or call.  I won't be taking bids and posting results, just make me
an offer and we'll deal.

Brian

- -------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Gillespie
Computervision Corp, Bedford, Mass
email: bgillesp@lonestar.prime.com
home phone: (617) 665-3051  (leave message)


All items, except as noted, are in good to excellent condition.  That
means the covers are a litle worn from jostling around for 10+ years
but nothing is torn or missing.  The only exceptions are the covers
of the original books, 1-5, these are worn from lots of use, but again,
none of the pages are ripped or missing.

GDW-------------
Journal issues 2-10
Books 1-5, in box, extra copy of books 2 and 5.
Special Supplement: Merchant Prince
Supplement 1: 1001 Characters
           2: Animal Encounters
           3: Spinward Marches, includes 22"x17" cardboard map
           4: Citizens of the Imperium
           5: Lightning Class Cruisers
           6: 76 Patrons
           7: Traders and Gunboats
           8: Library Data (A-M)
           9: Fighting Ships
          12: Forms and Charts
Intro Adventure: The Imperial Fringe
The Traveller Adventure (Big book)
Adventure 1: The Kinuir
          2: Twighlights Peak
          5: Trillion Credit Squadron
Double Adventrue 1: Shadows & Annic Nova
                 2: Mission on Mithril & Across the Bright Face
                 4: Marooned & Marooned Alone
Traveller 2300, boxed set, Excellent condition
Striker, boxed set, excellent condition

FASA-------------
Adventure Class Ships, Vol II, Books 1&2 (small pamphlet books)
Far Traveller, No. 1,  (Journal like magazine)
Double Adventure: The Harrensa Project & The Stazhelk Report
The Legend of the Sky Raiders (Adventure)

Gamelords, LTD.---------------
Duneraiders (adventure)

Paranoia Press--------
Scouts and Assasins
Planetary Data Sheets (Pad of 23)
System Data Sheets (Pad of 25)

Phoenix Games---------
Spacefareers Guide to Sector Two

Judges Guild----------
Navigator Starcharts (booklet with 6 sectors worth of sector
                      and subsector maps)
Tancred (adventure)
Darthanon Queen (adventure)
Drakne Station (adventure)
Crucis Margin (Sector write-up)
Ley Sector (Sector write-up)
Glimmerdrift Reaches (Sector write-up)


- ----END-----

------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4749
Date:    Thu, 15 Oct 1992 12:54:45 -0500 (CDT)
From: CS171308011@UTSA86.UTSA.EDU
Subject: Placing Gamba in Time and Space

About setting Gamba back in time...

I like it!  I like it!  LIMIT that Tech Level!
This hits on one of my favorite managerial bits in Trav.
Almost all the Reffing I have done is in a sector of my
design:  Iakr (Foreven to you Imps...)  The one adjacent
to The Spinward Marches.

One of the first assumptions I made was that the tech
level was a lot lower than the Imperium.  There is ONE
high tech planet in the whole sector and that is way
up there at TL 14 (Ooooo!)  There are No TL 13 planets,
and the military superpowers are equiped at TL 12 (Wow!)
Sure there were some high tech imports, (The League of
Suns has cast off TL 13 equipment from the Imperium)
But it is all very rare, and only front line military
has it.

But, there is still some ultra-deadly junk out there to
make even TL 15 players worry.  I once had a fun dogfight
between a crippled cargo ship and a flight of TL6 Mitchell
B-25H's equipped with 80mm cannons.  (Not to mention a few
kamikaze P-51 Mustangs...)

But, the point I'm kinda making is that even limiting the
tech level pretty severely, you still get some ultra
deadly weaponry.  Anyone who thinks TL 8 is passe' oughtta
look at the CNN War.

And if you check the archives you'll find that there are
designs out there for battle dress starting at TL9.  (My work)

The basic assumption was trying to work up an armored
version of the cargo loaders in 'Aliens'.  They are
big, clunky, and clumsy but they pack a lot of firepower.
The Tilly in the 4.5th Frontier War is an TL 14 example of
the idea.  The interesting thing is that they work out to
be CHEAPER than the ordinary battle dress, while they have
something like a strength of 150 or so and more firepower
to boot (integral RAM GL).

So, TL 13 and below won't SOLVE the problem of having too
much firepower around, but it will keep things out of the
clouds.

About the placement of Gamba.
Here is an off the wall idea fer ya'll.  We have seen all
kinds of adventures involving Nearly all the major races.
The Zho's have been done to death.  The Vargr also.  The
Solomani and Aslan are up in in the top.  Droyne & Hivers:
Neglected but there.  Why?  The above listed are the easiest
to deal with.  The Droyne are easier than the Hivers.  The
Hiver's are IMO only workable as NPCs.

The K'Kree are the most neglected of all.  Why?  They are
just too damn wierd to try and work with, and just about
impossible to roleplay properly.  They MIGHT work as NPCs,
but not without effort.

The only bit on the K'Kree I ever saw that was good was a
short story in Challenge (?) K'Kree Passage.

So, in an effort to try to use an underused race, (and a
chance to dust off Alien Module 2 and justify the $10...)
I think it would be neat to have Gamba up along the
border near the Two Thousand Worlds.  We don't have to
have a LOT of K'Kree traffic, there.  It's still pretty
far from the TwoK Worlds, but if it were along the
traffic route we could justify K'Kree ships passing through.

2G Scott

------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4750
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 14:07:05 CDT
From: uso01@unidata.com (Steven Owens)
Subject: The Shape of Traveller


Hi all,

	I've been off the list for quite a while, and pretty much
incommunicado for the past four months (after the last turn in the
Traveller PBEM).  It's nice to be back, although I'm finding the
digest format annoying - anybody wanna point me at a mail exploder?
Mayhaps there's some way to convince Gnu Emacs rmail to explode it
for me.

	The subject of this post, besides saying hello, is the shape
of traveller role-playing.  I've been observing different shapes and
styles of campaigns in the last few days since I started receiving the
TML again, and I thought I'd comment and ask for other comments on the
different types of campaigns.

	There's "classic traveller", the small merchant ship full or
wandering heroes, roaming from planet to planet and adventure to
adventure much as modern day adventure series heroes wander.  This can
be quite fun, but I find it limiting in terms of long-term developments
outside of the player group (making enemies is easy, but making friends
and keeping them is trickier).

	Then there's what my fellow gamers back at Pitt used to call
traveller, involving lots of battledress, big guns, and massive
amounts of violence on a personal scale.  This fits in well with the
"classic" style of combat, since the heroes usually need to get out of
the star system in a hurry after one of their capers leaves bodies and
buildings sprawled in fragmented heaps everywhere.

	The tactics and the violence can be fun, but this generally
amounts to high-tech hack & slash.  I'm generally of the attitude that
any sort of campaign that has the potential for high-tech violence
should realistically spend most of their time trying to figure out
ways to *avoid* it, and/or setting it up so that when it finally
comes, it's here an gone in an instant, leaving corpses everywhere,
none of them belonging to the characters who were smart enough to duck
at the right time (what a fun run-on sentence).

	There's violence on a larger scale, involving ship to ship
combat, piracy and anti-piracy, and even a minor role in a war,
although in most campaigns the characters don't have the power and
wealth necessary to get really involved (and if they did, they might
as well be playing TCS).  Again, fun, but kind of limiting.  This
seems to work best when mixed in with other kinds of campaigns.

	Occasionally I've seen really fascinating campaigns, for
example the session of Metlay's campaign that I sat in on a year or
two back, and of course the Traveller PBEM (but admittedly, 30-40
players and gobs and gobs of playing time just doesn't happen in
Real Life campaigns).  Metlay's campaign seemed to focus a lot on
non-violent (or at least indirectly violent) scheming and role-
playing, which I found quite enjoyable.  The PBEM has tons of role-
playing and all sorts of weird things going on in different corners of
the campaign.

	I've also seen "merchant prince" oriented campaigns, akin to
the war campaigns only on an economic level.  The players quickly
cease role-playing and become involved in controlling their
corporations.  I find playing a character more interesting than
playing a faceless corporation, so this doesn't appeal to me much,
but there is some entertainment in doing the economic warfare stuff.

	What are *your* opinion?  What are some of the more innovative
and interesting campaigns you've seen?

Steven J. Owens
uso01@unidata.com

------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4751
From: metlay@netcom.com (metlay)
Subject: Re:  Gamba location
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 15:02:37 PDT


Rob Dean scrawls:
>In your letter dated Wed, 14 Oct 92 11:48:31 PDT, you wrote:
>> Going beyond it won't be easy, especially if your heart's set on the Verge
>> (interesting how these Rift-edge areas fascinate us: my latest campaign is
>> set in the Cyril's Edge corner of Reft).
>
>It simplifies the game if you know there's a lot of empty space in at least
>one direction.

"Don't go that way-- you'll fall off the edge!" |->

>A Verge location would make Vargr occasional possibles, Aslan
>rather less likely, and the other major races right out.  A Daibei rift
>edge location would reverse that.

Hmmm. I guess Verge *is* a long way from the Extents, but it's close enough
to the Hierate and Dark Nebula for there to be *some* Aslan incursions
and conflict, wouldn't you think?

>I'm not too keen on psionics either, but that's the way the cards fall if
>we adopt the 8th century.  In that case, I'd still stick with the situation
>of no Psionics Institutes in the Gamba subsector.  Treating it as science
>would make a Galliard location possible if one was desired or perhaps one
>on Weelkes to draw from the larger population.  Hmmm....maybe there was one
>on Adriano before the plague.  I wonder if there might be a connection? 0-:

Not 8th, 7th. I want TL14 to be as cutting edge as possible, and the Civil
War to be recent, painful history. I'd suggest Weelkes for an Institute,
and as for Adraino and the plague, who was it who wanted to avoid cliches? |->

>The Core isn't really that far away, but yes.  Besides, by this time the wars
>are over, so fleets would have been back in position for a couple of decades.

Yes, but people are still going to be rubbed raw by distrust of the Throne
and taxes to fund refitting of the Fleets.

>(I wonder how often the Imperium moves things around?  Some U.S. Army units
>were stationed in essentially the same places in Germany for over 40 years,
>and some of the Roman military units whose history can be traced through
>inscriptions and the like were apparently stationed in the same forts for
>centuries. "My great grandfather was the first one in our family to serve in
>the 2957th CruRon, and it has been a family tradition since...")

I can see it. As borders expand, simply allocate new fleets to fill them.
Which means that the Core Fleet may pass on parade in Sylean dress uniforms.
|->

- --
metlay            | and she's a master of return hitting
atomic city       | giving rhythm to her posts
                  | so you read her and think hey it sounds good
metlay@netcom.com | and wish her posts had a soundtrack too    (f. ercolessi)

------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4752
From: metlay@netcom.com (metlay)
Subject: Re: Placing Gamba in Time and Space
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 15:07:15 PDT


Scott Kellogg madly scribbles:
>About setting Gamba back in time...
>
>I like it!  I like it!  LIMIT that Tech Level!

A man after my own heart. How touching. |->

>So, in an effort to try to use an underused race, (and a
>chance to dust off Alien Module 2 and justify the $10...)
>I think it would be neat to have Gamba up along the
>border near the Two Thousand Worlds.  We don't have to
>have a LOT of K'Kree traffic, there.  It's still pretty
>far from the TwoK Worlds, but if it were along the
>traffic route we could justify K'Kree ships passing through.

This was my original idea; Gamba could be tucked away near the
mini-rift near Antares (which was in the process of a bloody war
and not yet an ultrahightech center in the 7th century) where
the lines between Imperium, Vargr, and K'Kree colonial space get
vague. But Verge is also okay....


- --
metlay            | and she's a master of return hitting
atomic city       | giving rhythm to her posts
                  | so you read her and think hey it sounds good
metlay@netcom.com | and wish her posts had a soundtrack too    (f. ercolessi)

------------------------------

Bundle: 402
Archive-Message-Number: 4753
Date: 15 Oct 92 23:05:03 EDT
From: Steve Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: TL15 fusion plants and MONEY!

Adrian Hurt:

>There is, of course, one minor problem.  Who is building all these fusion
>plants?  The TL15 world is going to supply (a) itself, and (b) the highest
>outside bidder, in that order.  I'd expect the going price to be slightly
>more than that of a TL14 plant of similar power; what you're paying for is
>the smaller size.

You are losing your grip on reality again.  Check the prices in the MT
books:  TL15, 250MW = MCr2.7, TL14, 250MW = MCr5.4.

With that kind of profit margin, SOMEONE will be making them for export.
Keep in mind that these power plant prices are lower than real world plants
by a factor of 100 or so.  (Good rule of thumb is $1 per watt.  Or it was a
good rule of thumb ten years ago.)

If your merchants aren't bright enough to see a chance to make LOTS and LOTS
and MORE LOTS of money, then they will probably be driven out of business
by the one genius who sees that this is a way to make more money than everyone
else in the universe combined.  {"It is rumoured that he {Gregory Pelton}
owns the thirty-light-year-wide rough sphere called human space, that he
earns his income by renting it out." --- "Flatlander", by Larry Niven}
Anyone who couldn't make money with something like TL15 fusion plants is too
dumb to pour sand from a boot with printed instructions on the bottom of the
heel.

					---Steve

------------------------------
The TML is made possible by facilities provided by the University of
Western Ontario. All opinions and materials below are the responsibility
of the originator.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

BUN# =AMN= =DATE====== =FROM==========  =SUBJECT/BODY==========================
 403  4754 16-Oct-1992 Robert S. Dean   Re:  Question about Cyanide Gas (for a
 403  4755 16-Oct-1992 Robert S. Dean   Re:  Question about Cyanide Gas (for a
 403  4756 16-Oct-1992 Robert S. Dean   A Couple of Designs << I'm about to lea
 403  4757 17-Oct-1992 CS171308011@UTS  The 4.5th Frontier War (Chap 5, Pt 5) <
 403  4758 17-Oct-1992 PAVEWAY          RE: TML nightly: Msgs 4753-4756 V46#11
 403  4759 19-Oct-1992 Matthew D. Gold  request for tips... << Well it has fina
 403  4760 19-Oct-1992 Matthew D. Gold  Looking for information. << Hello All,
 403  4761 19-Oct-1992 LTG3878@RIGEL.T  Starports << Although Starports are ext
 403  4762 20-Oct-1992 metlay           What's out there for Classic Traveller
 403  4763 20-Oct-1992                  RE:  Cyanide and other poisons << Many

------------------------------

Bundle: 403
Archive-Message-Number: 4754
Date:     Fri, 16 Oct 92 10:13:53 EDT
From: Robert S. Dean  <rsdean@crdec8.apgea.army.mil>
Subject:  Re:  Question about Cyanide Gas (for a good cause :-)

jimv@ucrmath.ucr.edu (jim vassilakos) writes:

> Subject: Question about Cyanide Gas (for a good cause :-)
> This time I'm
> wondering about cyanide gas (I hope the TML-chemists aren't
> jumpy tonight).

Not at all.  I'm sorryt that I'm late with the answer.  Several people
answered in last night's digest, and gave you the basics of what you need:
The smell, and the notion that the ship filters are probably going to be
capable of removing it as part of the regular air recirculation system.
I agree with this latter, byt the way, when you consider that a likely
contingency to be provided for is a fire onboard, which could give you all
sorts of nasty stuff considering the likely amount of plastic on board a
ship.

> You take NaCN (Sodium Cyanide), mix it with some HCl (Hydrochloric
> acid), and whammo, lots of HCN (Hydrogen Cyanide gas). I means lots.

So far so good.  I assume that you can do the chemical equations and molecular
weights bit enough to figure out that it will take you 49 grams of NaCN plus
36.4 grams of HCl to give you 27 grams of HCN plus byproducts.  Excess acid
would probably be either desirable or OK.

> Enough to really ruin everybody's day assuming you're on a
> closed air supply (like a starship). Say one bucket of
> ingredients per 10,000 tons of displacement affected?

10,000 displacement tons is 135,000 cubic meters.  With my handy copy of
the Army field manual on potential military chemical agents, I see that
they give two example numbers for lethal concentration: At 200 milligrams
per cubic meter of air, the LCt50 is about 2000 mg-min/m**3.  That is, you'd
have to breathe that atmosphere for 10 minutes before you had a 50% chance
of death.  The book says that the lethal dose (figured in minutes in a
given concentration) varies storngly with the concentration because the gas
is detoxified by the body fairly quickly.  At 150mg/m**3, the LCt50 is
4500 mg-min/m**3, i.e. a 30 minute exposure.  OK.  For a rough approximation
let's say that the 2000mg-min/m**3 is a firm figure, and that we want to
deliver the dose in 10 seconds, because at that concentration it will be
instantly detectable and crews must be trained to don vacc suits (or the
helmets) pretty fast in emergencies.  Not to mention the fact that the air
filters would start cleaning it up pretty quickly.  (In fact, they'd
probably keep it confined to the room that the mixing occurred in...but
we'll pretend not in order to get a number).  OK, 10 seconds is 1/6 minute.
So, you need a concentration of about 12000mg/m**3, or 12g/m**3.  135,000
cubic meters would make the total requirement 1620kg.  Each 27g of product
requires  75.4g of starting material, roughly 3:1.  So, you'd need about
4.8 metric tons in order to produce something approaching an instantly lethal
dose over the entire interior of the ship, not counting filter effects,
length of time needed for air circulation, etc...doesn't sound too likely
to me.

> Basically, I need know two things. First, is the above
> description correct? Will just mixing the two make HCN and
> will it really be a gas (ain't much  good as a liquid)?
> And is it really as potent as I'm pretending (one bucket to
> 10,000 tons seems a little steep, maybe it's just me)?

Much too steep.

> Many many many thanks in advance.
>
> jimv@ucrmath.ucr.edu

No problem.

Rob Dean


------------------------------

Bundle: 403
Archive-Message-Number: 4755
Date:     Fri, 16 Oct 92 14:43:37 EDT
From: Robert S. Dean  <rsdean@crdec8.apgea.army.mil>
Subject:  Re:  Question about Cyanide Gas (for a good cause :-)

In your letter dated Fri, 16 Oct 92 10:23:01 BST, you wrote:
>
> > Much too steep.
>
> Yeah. It looks that way. I got my original info from a chem-major
> and former player of mine, but I thought the area of effect sounded
> way off. You basically confirmed that.
>
> Thank you very much for the detailed reply. It's exactly what I needed
> to nuke the idea of using HCN in the story (now I have to find something
> even nastier :-)

Well, I'd refigure some numbers to be sure, but it doesn't look very practical.
Depends on how much of the ship you really need to contaminate, and how fast
you think the crew could respond.  For comparison, I looked up the lethal
dose (LCt50) of Sarin, a common nerve gas invented in World War II, and rather
than being 2000-4500 mg-min/m**3 for HCN, it's more like _70_mg-min/m**3.
Almost 30 times more lethal...so instead of a few tons you'd only need
about 9.45 kilograms to deliver a lethal dose in one minute.  Air mixing
and filters, of course, remain a problem.  Now, some biotoxins are _much_
more toxic than Sarin--something like poison arrow frog venom from South
America is 10,000 times more lethal than Sarin, but it is usually delivered
by injection.  I see a note that says that mixing it with scorpion venom
increases its toxicity by a factor of 20...

Given an SF universe, you could probably come up with something almost
arbitrarily lethal, although imposing severe handling precautions would
be in  order!

Rob Dean

(Additional note: HCN is lighter than air at room temperature, so given some
warning, you could engage in defensive measures like dropping to the floor and
cranking the grav-plates up to 2-Gs to encourage it to concentrate at the
ceiling, and it's also very soluble in water, meaning that a wet rag over the
breathing orifices would probably provide _some_ filtering effect.)

------------------------------

Bundle: 403
Archive-Message-Number: 4756
Date:     Fri, 16 Oct 92 15:24:51 EDT
From: Robert S. Dean  <rsdean@crdec8.apgea.army.mil>
Subject:  A Couple of Designs

I'm about to leave on a trip for the better part of a week, so I haven't been
able to respond to much of the mail from the last two days.  However, I have
finished off a couple of designs for the rather odd-sized 300 ton hull, which
I append below.  Thought you'd seen the last of me, eh?

Rob Dean



Duchess of Glisten class Freighter TL13

     The Duchess of Glisten class freighters were built by LSP at Strouden
for a small shipping firm between 1050 and 1074.  27 of the ships were com-
pleted, and 22 remain in service in 1120, with the remainder having been lost
due to accident or military action in the Fourth and Fifth Frontier Wars.
The details shown below are for the ships as originally completed.  Most of
the survivors have acquired weaponry, and fuel scoops are a commonly added
feature.  The original computer and control installation was sufficient for
adding up to MCr6 worth of weapons, with three triple turrets each mounting a
sandcaster, a missile rack, and a beam laser being the most popular configu-
ration.  The fourth stateroom is occasionally used by a paying passenger, but
is more likely to be found serving as additional accommodation for the gun-
ners and possible medic added to the crew when the vessel is armed.
     Jump-3 capability combined with a 2-plus-G maneuver drive allows a
Duchess of Glisten class vessel to engage in ground-to-ground service between
most starports. A fuel purifier eases operations among class C and lower
ports, and the airframe hull allows for rapid atmospheric travel between
multiple ports on a single world where this would be desirable (i.e. if the
local transportation infrastructure was inadequate to haul cargo between
ports in a timely manner).

  CraftID: Duchess of Glisten class Freighter, TL13, MCr125.9 (MCr100.75
           discount)
     Hull: 270/675, Disp=300, Config=1AF, Armor=40F, Loaded=4383t,
           Unloaded=2633t
    Power: 10/20, Fusion=1350MW, Duration=30days
     Loco: 14/28, Maneuver=2 (Thrusters=9750t), 11/22, Jump=3, TrueAcc=2.22G,
           NOE=40kph, Cruise+1050kph, Max=1400kph, Agility=2
     Comm: Radio=System*2, LaserComm=System*1
  Sensors: EMS Active(FarOrbit), EMS Passive(Interplanetary),
           LowPenDensitometer(50m), NeutrinoSensor(100kw),
           ActObjScan=Rout, ActObjPin=Rout, PassObjScan=Diff,
           PassObjPin=Diff, PassEnScan=Rout, PassEnPin=Diff
      Off: Hardpoints=3
      Def: DefDM+5
  Control: Computer Mod2bis*3, 2*HeadsUpHoloDisplay, 225*HoloLink
    Accom: Crew=3 (1 bridge, 2 engineer), MidPassenger=1, Staterooms=4,
           Env=basic env, basic ls, extended ls, grav plates, inertial comp
    Other: Fuel=1350kl, Cargo=1656kl (122t), Fuel Purifier (24hrs),
           ObjSize=Avg, EmLevel=Avg

Cryshawk class Gunboat TL13

     The Cryshawk class gunboat is a small, jump-capable vessel intended for
a wide range of small craft duties, including close orbital support and
convoy escort on routes not exceeding Jump-2.  Originally developed for the
Imperial Navy during the Civil Wars, the design has been a standard IDP
available for planetary and regional navies for over three hundred years.
Due to their low crew requirements, Cryshawks are often found as extra ships
in starmerc organizations.

  CraftID: Cryshawk class Gunboat, TL13, MCr287.4 (MCr230 discount)
     Hull: 270/675, Disp=300, Config=1AF, Armor=49F, Loaded=6253t,
           Unloaded=6103t
    Power: 34/68, Fusion=4500MW, Duration=24.4days@full power
     Loco: 38/76, Maneuver=5 (Thrusters=29250t), 9/18, Jump=2, TrueAcc=4.68G,
           MaxSpeed=3150kph, Crusie=2362kph, NOE=40kph, Agility=4
     Comm: Radio=System*2, LaserComm=System*2, MaserComm=System*2
  Sensors: EMS Active (Far Orbit)*2, EMS Jammer (Far Orbit),
           EMS Passive (Interstellar)*2, Neutrino Sensor (100KW),
           High Pen Densitometer (100m), ActObjScan=Rout, ActObjPin=Rout,
           PassObjScan=Diff, PassObjPin=Diff, PassEnScan=Rout, PassEnPin=Diff
      Off: Hardpoints=3

              BeamLaser=xx4      Missile=x03      FusionGun=x04
            Batteries     1                1                  1
            Bearing       1                1                  1

      Def: DefDM+12
  Control: Computer Mod7*2, Mod7fib*1, 2*HeadsUpHoloDisplay, 40*HoloLink
    Accom: Crew=3 (1 bridge, 1 engineer, 1 gunner), Staterooms=3,
           Env=basic env, basic ls, extended ls, grav plates, inertial comp
    Other: Fuel=2075kl, Cargo=0, MissileMagazine=9kl (30b-r), Fuel Purifier
           (12hrs), Fuel Scoops, ObjSize=Avg, EmLevel=Avg
     Note: 20% power required to maintain 1-G maneuver and full life support


------------------------------

Bundle: 403
Archive-Message-Number: 4757
Date:    Sat, 17 Oct 1992 11:36:34 -0500 (CDT)
From: CS171308011@UTSA86.UTSA.EDU
Subject: The 4.5th Frontier War (Chap 5, Pt 5)

Copyright 1992.  So there!
                      THE 4.5TH COLUMNISTS
                               by
                          Scott Kellogg
                             - IL -
     Five Swordfish II's of Kangaroo squadron screamed in on the
particle accelerator batteries with their anti-ship pulse lasers
licking away at the armored emplacements, gouging scars in the
heavy superdense.
     Eight Shtelfires came climbing up the Swordfish II's tails.
A growling note sounded in the pilot's ears as their missile's
seeker heads locked onto the data fed from the Shtel's sensor
arrays.  Three missiles leapt from each Shtel toward the wildly
jinking Swordfish II's.
     Most of the missiles went wide, but three found their way to
their targets.  In a small flash, one of the Swordfish lost all
power and plowed a deep furrow in the ground.  A second Swordfish,
wildly evading one missile, veered right into the path of a second
missile and blew the cockpit off.  The third missile ripped a
Fish's turret off, taking the fighter's computer systems with it
leaving a plate of twisted metal, plastic and diamond semiconductor
spaghetti:  she was maimed, but alive, close enough to the ground
to spit at it.
     The three survivors pulled away from the barren surface.
     The eight Shtels closed in for the kill.
     But the Shtels luck was turning as the five Swordfish I's of
Rabbit squadron bore in on the climbing Shtels.
     Kangaroos chased by Shtels chased by Rabbits.  The surface of
Zylath was the site of the largest 6G carousel as the three groups
went into a defensive wheel formation.
     The Kangaroos laser turrets turned to bear on their attackers
while the Rabbits fired their missiles catching their opponents in
a Shtelfire sandwich.  But against the superior electronic
countermeasures of the Shtels computers, the vollies found no
marks.
     The Shtels missiles streaked after the surviving Kangaroos but
the pilots were fully alerted to the defensive now, and were ready
for the launch.  Not a missile came close to the twisting
Kangaroos.
     The fight was too even.
     The stalemate was broken as five Swordfish I's of Dingo
squadron blazed in to tip the balance.  They swooped into the
circle of fire and lit off their missiles.
     The outnumbered Shtels weren't ready for the onslaught.  One
Shtel vaporized.  Another went out of control as the cockpit
shattered under the force of the blast.
     The Shtelfires fired another salvo of missiles on the fleeing
Kangaroo squadron and broke off.  The crippled Swordfish II
crumpled under her second hit while another sailed on into the
blackness without power.
                              - L -
     "Grahl, Ancients!  Am I glad to see you!  I thought cha' were
one of them!"  Gresha waved the group into the garage with an
automatic.  She still looked ill from the radiation serum, but was
on her feet.  "We'll never fit the Tilly's into the grav
ambulance."
     Jiet nodded.  "Yes.  They'll have to ride on the outside."
     "Where the gvresh are we going?"
     "We've gotta get back to the Flamboyant." growled Jiet.
"She's too well guarded so we go for their armory first and get
loaded for bear!"
     Gresha counted and came up one short, "Where's Kfoks?"
     "Out on the surface somewhere." growled Tuerz.
                             - LI -
     The Battleaxe's cutter swung low over Kfoks's head and settled
on the surface with the modular bay swung open.  Quickly, a Kuum
grav armored personnel carrier dropped out.  The cutter, relieved
of it's precious cargo climbed back up at full power.
     With no prelude, the APC swung round and bore down on Kfoks
with her clamshell doors wide open.
     The Tilly clumped over and climbed into the Kuum's cargo
space, the armored bulk barely fit as the clamshells closed.  Kfoks
was jounced as the APC took off in a nape of the ground flight.
     "Welcome aboard, mate."
                             - LII -
     Niedrsha slowly lifted the grav ambulance and began guiding
her for the armory.  "Miakr?  You sure you can get us in the armory
from that account?"
     Miakr nodded "No question.  This account looks like it
belonged to their main supply officer.  Got their whole inventory."
     Niedrsha frowned, "Whole inventory...  Ummm, Jiet.  Just
thought of something..."
     Jietlshaiepr, in the midst of examining her bandaged arm,
looked up, "What?"
     "These bastards are pretty sore losers, right?"
     "Yeah?"
     "Suicide capsules, the whole bit."  Niedrsha exhaled sharply,
"So, what happens if they figure they're losin'?"
     "Mmmm...  They'll throw a party and get bombed out their
minds."
     Niedrsha nodded.  "Well, that's one party I can afford to
miss."
     Shtam turned to Miakr, "Can you get into the Flamboyant's
systems from here?"
     Miakr checked the hand computer.  "Ummm...  I think so..."
     "Do it.  I want the systems running through the emergency
automatic checklist for take off.  We may have to get out of here
in a hurry."
     Miakr nodded.  "Okay.  I'm on it."
                            - LIII -
     High in orbit, Lt. Dragoon sat on the bridge of the Burke
sulking.  The main body of the task force was down in close laying
orbital fire support, and here she was up in high guard position
twiddling her thumbs.
     Nothing on sensors out there, "Damn orders!" she growled.
Great opportunity to get in action, and here she was guarding the
task force from it's own... shadow...
     ...Shadow?  Hmmm... that's the second time that sensor glitch
appeared...  She crossed her fingers and grinned.  Maybe there
*was* something out here to fight...
     Dragoon flicked the toggle safety off the active sensors.
Let's see if anybody's home...
     "Energizing active EMS!  Targeting...  Bogie...  Negative...
She's a bandit!"
     Dragoon kicked the throttle over.  "Burke to task force.  Have
identified a Ninz class scout.  Closing to engage."
     "Gunner!  Weapon's free!  Ram a nuke down that bastard's
throat!"
     Two missiles leapt from the Burke's racks and flashed off into
the darkness.  Almost immediately the Ninz returned fire.  The
missiles arced across the blackness passing within mere kilometers
of each other on opposite courses.
     One of the Burke's missiles flew wide.  The second connected
with the onrushing Ninz.  The detonation gave Zylath a second sun
for a millisecond as pieces of the Ninz scattered across the high
orbit of the small planet.
     Separated from the umbilical cord of guiding maser beams, the
Ninz's missiles sought the Burke on their own power, but without
the Ninz's computer to help them, they were easily sidestepped by
Dragoon's pirouettes.
                             - LIV -
     Miakr looked up from the hand computer.  "I've got the
Flamboyant chewing on the checklist.  Five minutes 'till power
plant start up.  Got ship's sensors going.  Looks like about
sixteen of those robots outside guarding her."
     Shtam grinned. "Good.  Now can you make a data transfer to the
Flamboyant from here?"
     "Yeah..."
     "Do it:  all the data you can get.  If a lot of shipping went
through here, we might be able to get an idea of where it came
from, and where it was going."
     "Ok..."
     Shtam took a deep breath.  "With luck we may even find out
where they have shipped Dr. Malenkoviepr..."
     An alarm sounded on the ambulance radio.  "Alert!  Alert!
Enemy troops have breached the starport landing bay!  Blazer
Company, divert to landing bay!"
                             - LV -
     The Kuum APC entered the glowing hole in the starport airlock.
She flew over the blasted carcass of one of her fellows as a plasma
bolt streamed by missing by a meter.  A second bolt scorched the
APC's armored hull, rocking the thirty seven ton mass slightly.
The APC's VRF gauss gun locked on the source of the blasts and
chewed the plasma gunner in half.
     The Kuum's doors swung open.  Sergeant Tucker screamed "GO!
GO!  GO!" and jumped as two fire teams of marines leaped out and
into firing positions.
     Gauss needles began arcing over the scene as Kfoks dropped out
of the cargo bay to join the Sergeant under the cover of the
blasted Kuum.
     "I'll lay down covering fire." shouted Kfoks, "You move yer
men up!"
     Tucker's helmet nodded.
     Kfoks popped up and blazed fusing plasma over the source of
the annoyance.
     "MOVE IT!  MOVE IT!  MOVE IT!"
                             - LVI -
     Eight Shtelfires screamed toward the body of the task force.
Quickly they began unloading their missile racks, sending off
salvoes to the League of Suns ships, concentrated on the Machete.
     The mercenary cruiser's lasers swung round to engage the
closing missiles managing to pick off three of the pursuing probing
salvoes.  Three more slammed into the Machete's spherical hull.
Her heavy bulk was shaken by three nuclear explosions.
     Hydrogen fuel streamed off into the vacuum in a giant cloud of
gas.  Fifty tons of hydrogen and bits of lanathnum plasma formed a
freezing, burning sphere around the stricken ship.
     The task force quickly shifted targets to avenge the strike.
A fusillade of destruction caught the Shtel's, blowing seven of the
eight from the black skies of Zylath.
     In desperation, the last Shtel fired off a second salvo of
missiles at the Machete and ran.  The combined batteries of the
entire task force blazed after the fleeing fighter which vaporized
under the heavy abuse.
     The second missile salvo, now without guidance from the
Shtel's computers blinked for a second and found the target on
their own.  The missile detonated on target.  The Machete's
computers were awash in a sea of radiation.  The electromagnetic
pulse blew the connections to the diamond semiconductor chips
arcing and melting the systems around it.
                            - LVII -
     The heavy blast door to the armory lifted open to admit the
ambulance.  The reunited PPO2's swept into the room while Kaezorr
and Rackan in the Tilly's dropped off the outside of the ambulance
and swung round looking for...
     ...Nothing?
     The armory was unguarded.
     "Looks like we had a convenient diversion!" sighed
Jietlshaiepr.  The crew climbed out of the ambulance to look on the
stockpile.
     The bunker was overflowing with an orgy of ordnance.
Conventional missiles stood in row upon row upon row.  Missile
booster stages stood awaiting their unconventional warheads stored
in different safe bins, nuclear, biological, chemical.  Death
harnessed and imprisoned in tiny containers labeled with bright
colors and garish designs.  All waiting impatiently for someone to
loose their collars.
     Racks of gauss rifles stood ready.  A plethora of plasma guns,
loads of lasers, rows of rocket launchers, cases of caseless ammo,
mounds of ammunition, heaps of HEAP all competed for space on the
floor of the stockpile.
     Shtam surveyed the army of armaments, "There are enough
munitions here to supply an entire invasion.  You could refit a
fleet of ships with all this."
     "Yeah," agreed Niedrsha, "but who's fleet?  And where are they
bound?"
     "They will be invading the Domain of Alentzar." answered
Shtam.  "Zylath is a good strategic position."
     "Somebody's planning a Big party..." Observed Tuerz.
     "Nuclear rounds..." Jietlshaiepr raised an eyebrow, "Let's
make *sure* all they do is *plan* that party."
                            - LVIII -
     A team of cargobots edged into the landing bay of the
Flamboyant carrying seven heavy cargo containers.  The sergeant in
charge of the squad guarding the ship strode over to them as they
headed for the ship's cargo lock which opened to greet them.
     "What's this?" he asked suspiciously.
     The robot cargo master did not slow.  "Work order niner zero
seven three two charlie.  Load cargo containers:  delta one, two,
three, four, five, six, seven, eight into docked ship via aft cargo
bay."
     "Who authorized this?  I wasn't notified."
     "Work order niner zero seven three two charlie comes from
Supply Officer Carton."
     The sergeant sighed, better not question it.  Carton was a
real bastard sometimes:  the stupid and officious type.  He didn't
realize that Carton was hardly likely to bother him again as his
brains were currently spread over the walls of one of the bunker's
terminal rooms.
     "Proceed."
     The robots hurried about the task of loading the eight crates.
                             - LIX -
     Miakr opened the crate and jumped out as soon as the cargo
door boomed shut.  "It worked!"
     Jiet crawled carefully out of the crate with Niedrsha's help.
"Good going.  Ok crew.  Man your stations.  We're getting out of
here."
     Tuerz growled mutinously.  "We aren't leaving."
     "What?"
     "Taek is still out there."
     Jietlshaiepr eyed Tuerz angrily and growled, "We're going to
get him.  We don't leave anyone behind.  Now, get to your station
mister!"
     Tuerz ears drooped and he retreated, his tail curled slightly
between his legs.
                             - LX -
     "Power is up!" called Shtam from engineering.
     Jietlshaiepr sat nervously on the bridge.  She watched as
Miakr fed firing orders to the turret computers.  Sixteen troops in
the outside bay, six lasers in two turrets.  "Ready Miakr?" she
asked.
     Miakr continued working "Just a second more... ok...  ok..."
He brightened, "All fed in."
     Jietlshaiepr turned to her lover at the pilot's station,
"Ready Niedrsha?"
     "Checklists complete.  Ready for take off."
     Jietlshaiepr set her jaw.  "Right.  Gunnery stations to
automatic control.  Commence fire on my mark."
     She drew a deep breath and sat back in her chair.  "MARK!"
     The laser turrets swept round and fired on low power.  Six one
megawatt beams of photons surgically removed the targets standing
in the landing bay.  It was over in a tenth of a second.  The last
was hit before the first had even started to crumple.
     Jietlshaiepr grinned.  "Ok, Miakr open that door!"
     The heavy bay doors began to open sending the air out into the
vacuum in a typhoon.
     Suddenly, the doors stopped dead and began to close.
     They'd been detected.
     The laser turrets swung round and began chewing on the bay
doors.  The turrets began to draw their full power and the heavy
armored doors began to puddle on the floor.  The glare shields went
up in the flamboyant as one point five gigawatts of energy blazed
away at the doors.
     The laser's shut off.
     The glare shields cut out.
     The crew watched as the glowing metal doors fell slowly to the
ground in the low gravity of Zylath.
     Niedrsha grinned and pulled up on the collective as the
Flamboyant slowly lifted vertically and eased out through the hole
she'd carved.
                             - LXI -
     "Captain!  Picking up new target!"
     Stewart growled, "Identify!"
     "Sensors make her out as a Fiery class gunned escort."
     "Cud' be th' Flamboyant." Lt. Jones interjected.
     "Picking up their masercom."
     Stewart raised an eyebrow.  "Put 'em on."
     Miakr's voice came over the link, "...of Suns task force, this
is the Flamboyant come in..."
     "This is Commander Stewart.  Go ahead Flamboyant."
     "Do your fire!  Repeat, do not fire!  We're on your side!
Hold on..."
     Jietlshaiepr's voice replaced Miakr on the circuit.
"Commander Stewart, if you've got troops down there you'd better
get them out, now!  These folks are known for their scorched ground
policy."
     Stewart started to speak when Lt. Jones interrupted him.
"Leftenant Jietlshaiepr, this is Leftenant Jones.  How are Miakr's
stitches?"
     Stewart eyed Jones critically, but kept his mouth shut.
*These bloody intell types!*
     Jietlshaiepr hesitated on the line, "Ummm... fine.  He
recovered quickly considering...  Mind you I had to clean up your
work, but not bad over all."
     "Ye' cleaned up *My* work?  Ye'..." Jones grimaced, "Yeah,
Commander, it's them.  Think we'd better get th' men back 'ere
quick.  If there's a bomb, it's a mother of all bombs..."
                            - LXII -
     The center of town was a dead vacuum when the recall order
came.  All the air had leaked out through the blast holes from the
fire fight.  The defenders were being driven back slowly and not
without cost.
     Tucker and Kfoks fazed back covering the retreat back to the
APC's at the landing bay with a wall of plasma.
     The defenders had holed up in a large building.  At first they
thought the cease fire was another ruse while the attackers dropped
back to switch to a probing attack.
     Find the weak points.
     It took them some time to realize that their adversaries were
pulling out.  Had they beaten them off?  Or was it a trick?
     A minute later they came out ready to counter attack.
     They caught up with the troops loading in their APC's.  Gauss
needles splintered off the hulls and cutting down one of the
marines.  His combat armor leaking away air and blood.
     A bolt of fusing plasma drove the counter attack back
momentarily, but they had seen the marines were in retreat.  Now
they could really smash them as they sought to escape.
     Suddenly, a new form hovered through the smashed landing bay
doors.
     The triangular wedge of the Flamboyant came through.
     Jietlshaiepr's voice came over the circuit.  "Hey!  Kfoks!
You order a pizza?"
     Kfoks barked over the radio "GrraSH!  Team am I glad to see
you!"
     "You want this pizza or not?"
     Kfoks barked a laugh, "HARF!  Sure!  Got my laser designator,
deliver it to this address, and don't forget the anchovies!"  Kfoks
laser welder shined over the target where the defenders were
gathering their strength.
     "On the way!  Flamboyant's delivers!"
     The ship's lasers came up again at low power melting away the
rubble and smashing up the cover the defenders needed.
     "So long, Tucker!" called Kfoks, "Thanks for the lift, but I
got my own ride home now!"
     "G'day Kfoks!  Fun workin' w' ye!"
     Kfoks clumped heavily across the pad and climbed into the
Flamboyant's cargo hold.  Inside, he punched the hatch close and
howled to the bridge.  "HAAAROOO!  Niedrsha!  Get us outta here!"
     "On the way!" Niedrsha called.
     The Flamboyant lifted, spun around and headed for space.
	__________________________________________________
Well folx, that's it.
I'm gonna be working on the next chapter fer a while.
Should be 3 (possibly 2) more chapters in this.
6:	Shades of Gray
7:	Eve of Destruction
8:	For What It's Worth

(Gee, sounds like a lot of TL 6 Rock and Roll don't it?
Triva:  Who were the artists?)  :-)

2G Scott

------------------------------

Bundle: 403
Archive-Message-Number: 4758
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 92 14:05 GMT
From: PAVEWAY <BSP054@BANGOR.AC.UK>
Subject: RE: TML nightly: Msgs 4753-4756 V46#11

Subject: Cyanide
	A brief comment on counter HCN measures.  When first employed as a
military weapon and prior to the first gas masks, Urine soaked cloth was used
to some effect as a stop gap counter measure.  I beleive HCN may have been used
against fortresses in WW1 where the encolosed spaces made it potentially rather
nasty.


	"I wrap the darkness around me like a blanket"

		Indigo girls

------------------------------

Bundle: 403
Archive-Message-Number: 4759
Subject: request for tips...
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 14:56:26 CDT
From: goldman@orac.cray.com (Matthew D. Goldman)
Reply-To: goldman@orac.cray.com

Well it has finally happened.  I've got a number of Zhodani nobles in
the newly created group.  Two people with Social Standings of 13, and
one with a Social Standing of 12.  I've never played and or run the
psionic system in Traveller, does anyone have any advice or tips to
offer?

Thanks!
Matt

- --
Matthew Goldman              E-mail: goldman@orac.cray.com
Fax: (612) 683-3099                   Work: (612) 683-3061

"Just keep repeating after me: The Third Imperium never fell.  We are
not playing Cyberpunk/Shadow Run in space.  There are no ai lifeforms
inside of our transponders.  The giant water empire has not fallen.
The universe does not lie in ruins.  If any of the above are true, you
have misjumped.  Appease the referee and try to get home.  Pizza works
best to recover from bad mis-jumps."

------------------------------

Bundle: 403
Archive-Message-Number: 4760
Subject: Looking for information.
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 15:18:06 CDT
From: goldman@orac.cray.com (Matthew D. Goldman)
Reply-To: goldman@orac.cray.com

Hello All,
	I'm busy trying to locate any and all old Traveller
stuff I can get my hands on.  Does anyone have a list of
everything that was published for Traveller?

I'm very interested in learning how many Adventures (13 is the highest
numbered one I've got, missing 7, 9, 10, and 11). How many books there
were (I've have only 1 - 6). How many Double Adventures there were (I
have 1 - 6). And how many Supplements there were (I have 1 - 11).

If anyone knows the information, is willing to make photocopies, or
sell me the books I'm missing I would be grateful.

Matt 'The Third Imperium shall rise' Goldman

- --
Matthew Goldman              E-mail: goldman@orac.cray.com
Fax: (612) 683-3099                   Work: (612) 683-3061

"Just keep repeating after me: The Third Imperium never
 fell.  We are not playing Cyberpunk/Shadow Run in space.
 There are no ai lifeforms inside of our transponders.
 The giant water empire has not fallen.  The universe does
 not lie in ruins.  If any of the above are true, you have
 misjumped.  Appease the referee and try to get home.
 Pizza works best to recover from bad mis-jumps."

------------------------------

Bundle: 403
Archive-Message-Number: 4761
Date:    Mon, 19 Oct 1992 20:50:33 -0500 (CDT)
From: LTG3878@RIGEL.TAMU.EDU
Subject: Starports

Although Starports are extremely plentiful in the Traveller/MT universe, they
have at the same time received the least amount of attention.  I am thinking of
producing an amalgamation of guidelines from various sources to send to the
list.  I am interested in hearing of other's ideas about Starports, of most
any nature.  For example:

The Starport/Startown as adventure setting.  Specific examples from gaming
   sessions are perfectly acceptable.
The traffic in and out of Starports of various sizes.
The defenses of Starports.
The Starport as center of commerce.
etc.

I should have a bibliography of Starport references posted to the list in a
few weeks.  Meanwhile, let me here from you.

					Lewis Taylor Goss

------------------------------

Bundle: 403
Archive-Message-Number: 4762
From: metlay@netcom.com (metlay)
Subject: What's out there for Classic Traveller
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 7:11:16 PDT


Matthew, the official GDW books on Classic Traveller are as follows:

8 rule books
13 supplements (number 5 not sold in stores)
13 adventures
6 double adventures
8 alien modules
5 boxed supplement games: MAYDAY, SNAPSHOT, AZHANTI HIGH LIGHTNING
  (which includes Supplement 5), INVASION: EARTH, and STRIKER
2 boxed adventure packages: TARSUS and BELTSTRIKE
2 large-format books, the TRAVELLER BOOK and THE TRAVELLER ADVENTURE
3 "special supplements" bound into the JTAS
3 Large-format stand-alone books: ATLAS OF THE IMPERIUM, THE SPINWARD
  MARCHES CAMPAIGN, and ALIEN REALMS

That's all I can think of in three minutes. I'm sure others can name
any I missed.

- --
metlay            | and she's a master of return hitting
atomic city       | giving rhythm to her posts
                  | so you read her and think hey it sounds good
metlay@netcom.com | and wish her posts had a soundtrack too    (f. ercolessi)

------------------------------

Bundle: 403
Archive-Message-Number: 4763
Date: 	Tue, 20 Oct 1992 11:31:00 -0400
From: <PHB100@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
Subject: RE:  Cyanide and other poisons

Many moons ago I remember reading an article by Jerry Pournelle.  It
was advocating nuclear power.  One of the reasons people used against nuclear,
was the toxicity of plutonium.  Jerry's response to this was that comparitively
speaking plutonium is quite mild as a poison.  He used two examples:  Botulinus
toxin (which was some god-awful number of deaths per teaspoon, I believe on
the order of hundreds of thousands?) and Arsenic Trioxide (50,000 deaths per
teaspoon).  He said something on the order of "Now we don't go spreading
Botulism around but Arsenic Trioxide is widely used as a pesticide".

You can tell from my qualifying statements,  that I don't have the article in
front of me, but if someone wants to look it up, it was in Galaxy Magazine back
in the 70's.  JP wrote a monthly column for them at the time.

Actually, I'm suprised I remember as much as I do about the article....

Paul.Baughman.psu.edu
- ----------
Captain Sir Michael Talmoth,  UPP:  BA5A8B

"You see me now a veteran,
     Of a thousand psychic wars,
         I've been living on the edge so long,
             Where the winds of Limbo roar.
- -- BOC


------------------------------
BUN# =AMN= =DATE====== =FROM==========  =SUBJECT/BODY==========================
 404  4764 21-Oct-1992 bart@sisters.cs  Goodbye << I am afraid that I am going
 404  4765 22-Oct-1992 pihlab@hhcs.gov  TDR << Where can I get copies of the re
 404  4766 22-Oct-1992 "Abandon all ho  GDW copywrite problems? <<  Uhhhh...Wha
 404  4767 22-Oct-1992 Matthew D. Gold  yet another request for information...
 404  4768 22-Oct-1992 Richard Johnson  Re: Starports << Lewis Taylor Goss aks
 404  4769 22-Oct-1992 C. Harald Koch   StutterWarp musings << [ I apologize fo
 404  4770 22-Oct-1992 Derek Wildstar   Re: Goodbye << Subject: Goodbye
 404  4771 23-Oct-1992 LTG3878@RIGEL.T  Starbases again << Hello again all.  I

The TML is made possible by facilities provided by the University of
Western Ontario. All opinions and materials below are the responsibility
of the originator.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Bundle: 404
Archive-Message-Number: 4764
Subject: Goodbye
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 11:56:26 -0700
From: bart@sisters.cs.uoregon.edu

I am afraid that I am going to have to give up on the TML -- I
thought maybe some of you would be interested in my reasons why,
so I thought I'd post this last public note about it.  I
probably won't be able to see your responses unless you e-mail
them directly to me :-).

Essentially, I'm leaving the TML because I no longer have any
real interest in Traveller.  There's two major reasons for this:

First, it has become clear that GDW is an organization that I
don't want to support, even indirectly.  Somehow, the premise
that "the customer is always right" seems to have been
completely forgotten by a corporation which, when all is said
and done, is entirely dependent on the goodwill of its
customers.  When the president of a company *publicly* threatens
to sue one of the company's own customers, who has voluntarily
contributed a great deal to the company's product, it *doesn't
matter* whether the man has a legitimate gripe or not -- I'm
going to stay as far away from that company as possible.

In case you haven't yet guessed, I won't be buying any GDW
products, Traveller or otherwise, and I will encourage my
friends to follow suit.  But I also feel that any minute
contribution I make to the continued success of Traveller via
my participation in the TML also indirectly supports GDW,
inasmuch as it is selling its products under the Traveller name.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, "Traveller" is unplayable
by novices such as myself.  I reach this conclusion reluctantly,
but I reach it nonetheless.  Consider that there are now 3
"official" versions of Traveller!  The first of these has
itself perhaps 2 dozen supplements which are apparently such an
important part of the game that they are difficult to do
without.  The result of all this richness of rules and settings
is, for me at least, a system into which it is impossible to
bootstrap myself without a *massive* investment of time and
energy.

Consider that the only Traveller I've ever played was original
Traveller in the pre-Imperium setting 10 years ago.  Imagine my
shock when, 6 years later, I decided to buy, read, and
understand enough source materials to run a Traveller
campaign.  I made a vague effort, but with 2 different versions
and all those supplements and the whole Imperial History to
deal with and a million "well understood Ancient technologies"
and 50 kinds of "well known" aliens and ...  Bleah.

It's a wonderful universe, but *all the important bits need to
be in one self-contained book*.  I really don't care if that
book is actually 3 volumes of 500 pages each, and costs $150.
I just want to be able to buy it, read it, and be ready to run a
Traveller game with fairly experienced players without making a
fool of myself.  While it would seem that I could do this with
MT+MC (MegaCorrections :-) or TNE, most of the Traveller
players I am familiar with rely so extensively on material not
from these sources that they would be uncomfortable with my
refusal to honor this material.

I submit that this is the big attraction of some of the
cyberjunk games that hit the market a couple years back; not
the teen-angst, not the cool cover art, but just the fact that
you shelled out your $100 up front and were ready to play with
your experienced friends for a long time.  In fact, I would
have bought one of those systems *but* for the fact that I
don't particularly enjoy roleplaying in that genre.

(I'm afraid I must add that a minor third reason for leaving
the list is a certain participant, who, in spite of obvious and
deep familiarity with Traveller and respect from the Traveller
community, seems remarkably juvenile and egocentric.  I mustn't
name names, but it will be a relief not to read any more of
this participant's messages.)

So in all sadness and dismay, I must sign off.  I will
certainly miss the intelligent discussion, the lighthearted
fun, and the passionate commitment to FRP gaming expressed by
most members of this list, but I'm going to go look for some
more viable sci-fi game to run.  Thanks to most all of you for
your help and support!

Bart Massey
bart@cs.uoregon.edu

P.S. -- I am not a lawyer, but I think I understand intellectual
property law at least a little.  GDW can copyright texts, but
not just names.  Thus, "Gauss Rifle" or "Zhodani" or even
"Imperium", in and of themselves are not copyrightable.  They
*are* protectable, but by *trademark*.  And these names are
either not trademarked or their trademarks are not protected (I
think -- have you seen any GDW publications with "Vargr(TM)"
anywhere in them?)  So if your story has "Aslan" in it, this is
perfectly fine.  In addition, one cannot protect intellectual
concepts.  Thus, I can write a story "set in the universe" of
Traveller with impunity, as long as I don't use copyrighted
texts in the story, or infringe on trademarked names, or violate
any contractual agreements I may have with GDW.  Publish away --
I believe the lawyers will just laugh at GDW, for all their
hollow threats.

Now there is such a thing as "game copyright", which says that
I can't publish a game just like Monopoly except with the names
of everything changed, or a game which uses many of the same
names used in Monopoly.  This form of copyright has been
interpreted very loosely by the courts, so if you use any of
the gaming rules of Traveller in your published materials, or
if you publish gaming rules yourself, you must be very
careful...

------------------------------

Bundle: 404
Archive-Message-Number: 4765
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 09:47:14 +1000
From: pihlab@hhcs.gov.au
Subject: TDR


Where can I get copies of the results of the TDR sigs?

I have FTP'd the 3 files from pub/traveller/TDR at sunbane.engrg.uwo.ca
but they seem to be only the first drafts and discuissions on how to
enhance them.

Is there an archive that contains the final results of these sigs?

Bruce...                    pihlab@hhcs.gov.au

------------------------------

Bundle: 404
Archive-Message-Number: 4766
Date: 22 Oct 1992 08:07:54 -0500 (EST)
From: "Abandon all hope ye who enter here." <STU_RWMORRIS@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU>
Subject: GDW copywrite problems?

Uhhhh...What is going on with these copywrite problems that GDW is
having these days?

Lucifer >:} uninformed...

------------------------------

Bundle: 404
Archive-Message-Number: 4767
Subject: yet another request for information...
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 9:06:59 CDT
From: goldman@orac.cray.com (Matthew D. Goldman)
Reply-To: goldman@orac.cray.com

Hello again,
I found the sectors on sunbane.engrg.uwo.ca; however,
I'm not quite sure what tool to ues to print them out.  Any
suggestions?  Idealy I'd like to print out a map of the entire
sector and then a map with each subsector.

Also, I put together a starship floor plan, where can
I upload it to?  Sorry if I'm asking the stupid questions, but
it has been an 'interesting' week at CRI, 10% of the folks
are being laid off tomorrow, and we've had a week to worry
about it.

Matt

- --
Matthew Goldman              E-mail: goldman@orac.cray.com
Fax: (612) 683-3099                   Work: (612) 683-3061

"Just keep repeating after me: The Third Imperium never
 fell.  We are not playing Cyberpunk/Shadow Run in space.
 There are no ai lifeforms inside of our transponders.
 The giant water empire has not fallen.  The universe does
 not lie in ruins.  If any of the above are true, you have
 misjumped.  Appease the referee and try to get home.
 Pizza works best to recover from bad mis-jumps."

------------------------------

Bundle: 404
Archive-Message-Number: 4768
From: richard@agora.rain.com (Richard Johnson)
Subject: Re: Starports
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 5:35:02 PDT

Lewis Taylor Goss aks for information on starports...

Well, I'll see if I can dig up the long, painfully obtuse, and strange
stuff I send to Bill Morrison and Dan Corrin about three years ago.  I
expounded at length about starrport mapping and construction, and how
starports affect commerce etc.  There *might* be something useful there.

Generally - are you looking at the starport, the star town, or or the
native city?  Do you want an adventure milieu or information on how
traffic will be sequenced, landed, and stored?

Later:
- --
Richard Johnson      richard@agora.rain.com
"We've learned a great deal about how to keep the American people
pacified."   Ex-CIA director William Colby after the Church hearings

------------------------------

Bundle: 404
Archive-Message-Number: 4769
From: chk@alias.com (C. Harald Koch)
Subject: StutterWarp musings
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 13:08:38 -0400

[ I apologize for bringing up an old subject; I'm catching up on old TML
articles -chk ]

StutterWarp drives are great; I can't see any reason (including safety) for
not using them over even jump drives.

RANGE:
The stutterwarp distance limit is 7.7ly; if I remember correctly, that's
about Jump-2. If you don't stop in a >0.1G gravity well at this distance,
then the ship is bathed in lethal radiation, yes, but:

There are few areas of space surrounding Terra that are unreachable at the
7.7ly limit. Increasing this limit even slightly makes the set of stars
surrounding Terra completely connected.

Even in 2300AD several different options are being explored to extend the
range:

- - stuttertugs - drag one ship with another to 3.8ly, then assemble the towed
  ship's drive and continue; this extends the range to 11.5ly. At 11.5ly
  there are no unreachable areas in the 2300AD starcharts.

- - brown dwarves - these are very difficult to detect, but once found may be
  used to discharge like any other gravity well. Two of these, of strategic
  importance, have been found by the American Space Forces (although I won't
  say where they are :-)

- - extended range - a competent engineering crew can delay the discharge time
  by up to one full day. even a slow ship travels at 2ly/day, giving an
  effective range of 9.7ly when necessary; again this distance completely
  connects the known stars.

- - extended range II - There is evidence to suggest that the 7.7ly limit is
  not a hard limit; there are rumours that one of our Alien neighbours has a
  stutterwarp drive with a longer range...


SPEED:
As has been pointed out previously, any reasonable StutterWarp equipped ship
is *fast*; anywhere from Jump-2 to Jump-9 equivalent, with the additional
bonus that it doesn't take a week to make every link; instead travel time
depends on distance travelled.

COMBAT:
StutterWarp equipped ships are untouchable by anything other than faster
StutterWarp equipped ships/weapons. It is trivial to outrun anything slower
than you, and it is exceedingly difficult to hit a stutterwarping target at
the best of times. (The reason that weapons do so little damage in 2300AD is
not because they're wimpy. Instead, it's because of the techniques used to
counteract StutterWarp; you fire a laser in a wide spread at where the
target should be, and hope that one or more individual bursts hits the
target. So, only fraction of the energy pumped into a weapon is actually
striking the target).

Non-energy weapons are useless against StutterWarping ships; you simply
can't hit an object that isn't in normal space most of the distance it
travels:

A StutterWarping ship is leaping through space. The drive cycles at a
certain frequency, and at each cycle the ship "jumps" to a new location,
*without crossing the intervening space*. The stutterwarp frequency isn't
specified, but at 10kHz the distance travelled is 21900km/cycle, and even at
1 GHz the distance travelled is 219m/cycle. It's exceedingly unlikely that a
StutterWarping ship is going to hit an object in it's path.

A StutterWarping ship retains it's realspace velocity vector, so even if it
were to impact an object in it's path, it would do so at whatever it's
current realspace velocity is, so it's unlikely to take much damage from the
collision.

Ships without StutterWarp drives are sitting ducks...


Why would anyone want a Jump drive instead of a StutterWarp drive?


------------------------------

Bundle: 404
Archive-Message-Number: 4770
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 17:50:28 EDT
From: wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar)
Subject: Re: Goodbye

Subject: Goodbye
From: bart@sisters.cs.uoregon.edu

Bart, just yesterday, you wrote:
> When the president of a company *publicly* threatens
> to sue one of the company's own customers, who has voluntarily
> contributed a great deal to the company's product, it *doesn't
> matter* whether the man has a legitimate gripe or not -- I'm
> going to stay as far away from that company as possible.

Personally, *IF* Frank Chadwick had had a legitimate complaint, then I
for one (and probably many others) would feel differently.  As it was,
Scott Kellogg was being slightly hot-headed; while Frank Chadwick's
response was completely uncalled-for.  However, this does not seem
a serious enough offense to warrant a complete boycott.


> Second, and perhaps more importantly, "Traveller" is unplayable
> by novices such as myself.
> The result of all this richness of rules and settings
> is, for me at least, a system into which it is impossible to
> bootstrap myself without a *massive* investment of time and
> energy.
> Consider that the only Traveller I've ever played was original
> Traveller in the pre-Imperium setting 10 years ago.  Imagine my
> shock when, 6 years later, I decided to buy, read, and
> understand enough source materials to run a Traveller
> campaign.

Traveller is indeed an unplayable game, and it has been ever since
MegaTraveller was published (Classic Traveller is unplayable because it
is out of print, and MegaTraveller because it is a complete mess).  TNE
may fix this, although I have some considerable doubts.

Whether or not you could collect enough of the Classic Traveller
materials to play a campaign, I'm not sure.  The list below describes
the materials I would recommend for someone like you:

The Traveller Book [preferred] or Books 1-3 [which you may have]
The Classic Traveller basic rules.  Copies of The Traveller Book
may still be available from some stores (Crazy Igors, or A
Wargamers' Depot, amoung others).  If you have Books 1-3 from
Basic Traveller or Deluxe Traveller, you can use them, but The
Traveller Book is a better editing job, and easier to read.

The Traveller Adventure
This is a complete campaign for Classic Traveller.  Much of the
background data you want is included in this book; I also
know for a fact that copies are still available from some
stores (A Wargamers' Depot has several copies of the softbound
version in stock).  Even if you decide not to run the campaign,
there are many adventure ideas contained in here, and a lot of
background material is presented in a rather painless way.

These two books were designed to work together, as a coherent set, and
were probably the closest GDW ever got to presenting a cohesive,
canonical Traveller.  They probably contain over 70% of the  body of
knowledge that makes up "Classic Traveller".

If at all possible, pick up copies of Book 4 and Book 5; these provide
more detailed Army and Navy characters, and are Classic Traveller
staples.  Book 6 and Book 7 do the same for Scout and Merchant
characters, but these were written relatively late in the Classic
Traveller period, and have had much less influence.  Another possibility
would be to use the character generation section of the MegaTraveller
Players' Handbook, which seems to be substantially unchanged from the
final systems used by Classic Traveller (save for the addition of
typographical errors which were not present in the earlier versions).

I would also try to locate copies of the following suppliments: The
Spinward Marches, and the two Library Data suppliments.  With a few
exceptions, most of my Traveller playing and refereeing was done with
not much more material than what I describe above (the exceptions being
Citizens of The Imperium, 76 Patrons, Animal Encounters, and the Journal
of the Travellers' Aid Society).  While a goodly amount of material came
from the Journal, much of it made its way into the Best of The Journal
volumes (which may also be available at some stores).  The other three
are contained to a greater or lesser degree in The Traveller Book, or
can be re-created with not too much referee effort.

One of the best parts about buying second-hand or out-of-print books
(other than being able to get them for much less money than new
material) is that GDW has already been paid for them, usually a long
time ago.  GDW neither knows nor cares that you are purchasing Classic
Traveller materials.

> It's a wonderful universe, but *all the important bits need to
> be in one self-contained book*.  I really don't care if that
> book is actually 3 volumes of 500 pages each, and costs $150.

I agree with you.  Unfortunately, it's not going to happen; Classic
Traveller is dead at GDW (save for those who want to revise and retcon
it out of existance).

> So in all sadness and dismay, I must sign off.  I will
> certainly miss the intelligent discussion, the lighthearted
> fun, and the passionate commitment to FRP gaming expressed by
> most members of this list, but I'm going to go look for some
> more viable sci-fi game to run.  Thanks to most all of you for
> your help and support!

I for one am sorry to see you go, and sad that you feel this way.
However, it is your decision to make and your game to referee.

You may want to take a look at Steve Jackson's GURPS, and take a good
hard look at BTRC's TimeLords/WarpWorld/SpaceTime games.

Whatever you decide to do, fare thee well!

wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                         in the Far Future

------------------------------

Bundle: 404
Archive-Message-Number: 4771
Date:    Fri, 23 Oct 1992 9:53:06 -0500 (CDT)
From: LTG3878@RIGEL.TAMU.EDU
Subject: Starbases again

Hello again all.  I have been prompted to be less vague on my questions about
Startports.  My primary complaint is that whereas there is a World Builder's
Handbook, and a COACC book, now there are even rules for Seagoing vessels of
the 14th century, there are relatively few rules for Starports.  Here is a
very incomplete compendium of what I can remember offhand:

For Classic Trav (still useful in MT):
Judges Guild - 50 Starbases.  The first half is somewhat useful.  They suggest
   that 'high' ports be broken down into:  Orbital Docks
   Orbital Ports
   Orbital Cities
   In addition, there is a basic, standard, and extended version of each.  There
   are also some rules suggestions for navigation beacons, and 20 short tables
   to generate local 'color' for any starport.  The second half consists of some
   50 undocumented starport maps.  Some of these look like they could be adapted
   for realistic use, most do not.  Worth getting, provided you don't pay more
   that $10 for it.  It's been out of print for years, but suprisingly easy to
   find.

Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society #19:  The Skyport Authority.  Mercenary-
   style character generation for the people who work at Starports.  Can be
   directly used in MT, as this corresponds to advanced character generation.
   Good for generating NPC's, but that's about all.  Out of print, but it can
   be found.

Dragon #59(?):  Exonidas Starport.  A pull out for Traveller, detailing
   adventure situations in and around an extensive type A starport.  Out of
   print, but many game shops stock Dragon back issues.  Check to make sure
   the pull out is still inside before you buy.

High Passage/Far Traveller:  The Port Authority.  A series of short articles
   by J. Keith on the ins and outs of starship regulation, including
   transponders, merchant convoys, inward clearance, restricted planets, and
   communications channels.  Very useful, but out of print and extremely hard
   to find.

Adventure Class Ships Vol. II:  The Orbital Facility.  A deckplan for a small
   orbital facility.  Useful either as the a complete extended orbital dock,
   or as a portion of a more extensive facility.  Out of print, extremely hard
   to find.

Best of the Journal Vol. 2:  Startown.  A brief discussion of the red-light
   district that seems to grow up around Starports across the Imperium.

Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society #7:  Can't remember the title of the
   article, but it was a discussion of a 'typical' type A starport.

There are also brief discussions of starports in the Traveller Book.

For MegaTraveller:
Far & Away #1:  Two articles by J. Keith on rules for Starports.  Quite useful,
   but this magazine didn't sell well for some reason, and it may be hard to
   find this issue.

There are more, of course, but I can't remember the details.  I will post a
more complete listing later.  Now, as to my problem.  Even possessing all of
the above mentioned 'hard to find', 'out of print' documents, I still don't
really think I know a lot about Starports.  Most of these were short magazine
articles.  What I am interested in is a sort of Port Authority Handbook, with a
summary of pre-Rebellion Imperial Port Authority policies.  If such rules don't
exist, I perhaps could work on producing some of my own, but if they do exist,
well, I have graduate school to worry about.

In addition, any suggestions for references I didn't mention, or examples from
your own campaigns are welcome.  Please e-mail me.

Just one second...  (Zipppp).  Asbestos suit on.  I must refuse any requests
for photocopies of the above out-of-print documents, unless you can provide
me with photocopies of some other out-of-print document I am looking for.
Sorry.

------------------------------
The TML is made possible by facilities provided by the University of
Western Ontario. All opinions and materials below are the responsibility
of the originator.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

BUN# =AMN= =DATE====== =FROM==========  =SUBJECT/BODY==========================
 405  4772 23-Oct-1992 Derek Wildstar   Bulk Response on Gamba << Bruce... (pih
 405  4773 23-Oct-1992 Derek Wildstar   Thought y'all might be interested << I
 405  4774 23-Oct-1992 SULAIMAN@ecs.um  Sword Worlds Past.... << Hi,
 405  4775 23-Oct-1992 SULAIMAN@ecs.um  Sworld Worlds Past..... This may be 2nd
 405  4776 23-Oct-1992 MacGyver         forwarding for GDW << Sorry if this has
 405  4777 22-Oct-1992 Dale Poole       Various TRAVs! << I read with interest,

------------------------------

Bundle: 405
Archive-Message-Number: 4772
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 13:32:59 EDT
From: wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar)
Subject: Bulk Response on Gamba

Bruce... (pihlab@cbr.hhcs.gov.au) writes:
> Scott "2G" Kellogg writes:
> > So, what do we need for a large ship building yard?  Mainly
> > resources.  Those resources are the material to physically make the
> > ship, and the technology to make it work.
> YES. BUT. What you want is highly processed/refined resources.

To have a successful starship repair or construction business, you need
access to the following resources:
  1) a reliable supply of parts and materials
       a) local sources: the yard can be located on an industrialized,
          high-tech world which can mass produce the needed items on
          demand.  Inventory can be small or nonexistant to keep costs
          low; custom work is easily done by letting subcontracts.
       b) if local sources are not available, parts can be imported
          from off-world suppliers.  The inventory must be large, with
          the attendant costs.  Custom or non-standard parts may be
          effectively unavailable at any price.
  2) a pool of skilled labor (designers, engineers, techs, etc)
       a) local sources: labor can be hired locally from a pool of
          skilled workers; compensation must be competitive, but
          no special provisions need be made.
       b) if no skilled local labor is available, then
            i) train promising local workers in high-tech skills.
               High initial costs for training, but compensation costs
               less than equivalent workers on a more advanced
               world.  May result in technology transfer to local
               culture (which may be desirable or undesirable depending
               on local circumstances).
           ii) recruit workers from a more advanced world to work at
               the facility.  Compensation may need to be high in order
               to attract workers for work distant from their home
               planet.  Housing or other facilities may need to be
               built depending on the local conditions.
  3) a steady flow of paying customers.  An analysis of the shipbuilding
     equilibrum equation shows that annual maintainance is the majority
     of any shipyard's workload (the 4+T/L term is the relevant porton
     of the equiation; 4 weeks/year is the maintainance requirement,
     while T/L weeks/year is the construction requirement).  Even in the
     extreme case of million-ton ships, construction is 43%, and annual
     maintainance is 57%.  For more reasonable cases (average ship size
     of 5,000 tons), the ratio is 31% to 69% (both of these assume an
     average ship life of 80 years).


Last week, I wrote (mea culpa):
> The equilibrum equation is X=(U*(N+M))/(4+(T/L)) and the condition is
> that X<=(U*N)/(T/L).
> U == Shipyard Utilization Factor == 1.00
> N == New Ship Construction Capacity == 491,400 ton-weeks
> M == Maintainance Capacity == assumed to be zero
> T == Ship Construction Time == 9600 ton-weeks for a 200 ton ship
> L == Lifespan of an average ship == 100 years if well maintained
> Therefore, X is approximately 510 ships, or 102,000 aggregate tons.

There are two problems with the above.  First of all, a line should be:
T == Ship Construction Time == 48 weeks for a 200 ton ship
and due to rounding/truncation errors, X (which is in aggregate tons)
should be X = 109,688 aggregate tons, or about 548 200 ton ships.
Sorry about that, folks!


Steve Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM> writes:
> Wildstar [that's me!] wrote:
> >0109  Motet         C898735-3           AG         Y
> >Obviously an agro world feeding Madrigal, and maybe other parts of the
> >subsector as well.  Good destination for traders looking for an unususl
> >cargo
>
> Why does ANYONE believe that TL3 worlds can feed a subsector?  TL3 countries
> usually have trouble feeding themselves, much less anyone else.  Look
> around at the food exporting countries in the real world:  they are all
> comparatively high technology (TL6+).

In the real world right now, almost any country that is significant in
any way to the "outside world" is TL5+; I would argue that this is not a
valid comparison.  Instead, let's look into the past, when TL3 was the
most advanced technology on the planet.

OK, well let's take a look at what TL3 means: Rifled firearms, calculus,
telegraph, clipper ships.  Hot air balloons, and basic electricity are
all recent developments; the MT Referee's handbook gives circa 1800 as a
capsule description.

That sounds rather like the shape of the world from roughly the American
Revolution to the turn of the century.  Many areas of the world, in
particular the colonial empires of the major powers, produced sufficient
quantities of food for export.  The primary problems of the age were a
lack of refrigeration (so that only non-perishable food could be
shipped), a lack of bulk overland transportation (goods had to be
shipped by sailing ship), and a lack of mechanized labor.  This last is
the most crippling, from a food production standpoint.

In the case of Motet, I would argue that there is TL4 equipment (steam
power machinery) on the world, but that it is all imported.  Probably
the equipment was designed and produced on Madrigal specifically for
export to TL3-4 agricultural work.  Steam power has the advantage that
it is a simpler technology, operating at lower speeds, tempratures, and
pressures than internal combustion. Although produced offworld, the
technology is simple enough that a TL3 blacksmith can perform many of
the most common repairs.  The equipment is also rugged, long-lived, and
easily understood.

The reason Motet is still classified as TL3 is because the steam
technology is imported - Motet lacks the mines, smelters, foundrys, and
machine shops needed to produce these things locally.  I would further
argue that Motet is poor in native mineral resouces, particularly readily
exploitable metal ores (this being the reason that the world remains at
TL3 even though higher-tech knowledge is available).

As an aside, about a month ago, I watched a 70+ year old Case steam
traction engine thresh a wagonload of wheat.  It took 5 men, one steam
tractor, and one 40+ year old thresher less than half an hour to thresh
a wagonload of wheat.  It took about another half hour to bale the
straw.  The steam tractor is almost all iron in construction, and can in
theory be expected to last indefinitely as long as ordinary maintainance
is kept up.  The thresher is mostly wooden, and will not last as long.
There is even older steam machinery still operable; at the same place I
saw an operating 1903 model; operating steam railroad locomotives well
over 100 years old also exist.

Back on Motet, I would assume that there are a number of spaceports
scattered throughout the countryside.  This allows offworlders to pick
up their cargoes at the point of origin, and compensates for the lack of
bulk ground transportation on Motet.  The world is probably producing as
much as it can without wholesale mechanization of the farming industry
(which would include internal combustion tractors, fertilizers,
pesticides, and general increase to about TL6).  I doubt that Motet
feeds the entire subsector (except for spices, exotic foods, wines, or
other luxury items; these are probably carried to markets many parsecs
away).  However, Motet probably makes the difference between starvation
and plenty for Madrigal, and perhaps other nearby worlds.

> >0110  MADRIGAL      B7989DE-6  S        IND        Y
> >The industrial powerhouse of the subsector.  I don't believe that
> >commercially important worlds need to be high-tech.  Madrigal is quite
> >capable of producing industrial goods that would be useful to worlds
> >anywhere from TL-3 to TL-9 (which includes most of the worlds in the
> >subsector).  For export to lower-tech worlds, it probably produces heavy
> >machinery and mining and agricultural equipment; for high tech worlds,
> >Madrigal likely exports machine tools, precision equipment, and some
> >consumer goods.  It also is the major source of refined chemicals and
> >bulk metals (iron and steel ingots, barstock, plates, pipes and other
> >useful materials).  Total production is likely to be more than a
> >hundred million tons annually.  The class B starport is maintained
> >by and for the convenience of Madrigal's customers, and the cost of imported
> >skills and technology is part of the cost of doing business.
>
> How many TL6 machine tools do we import into the USA?  How much precision
> equipment?  At TL6, your idea of precision isn't even in the time zone
> required for real precision work.  Total production is more than 100,000,000
> tons annually?  So where do the exports come from?  The USA does more than
> that, and we sure don't have 1,000,000,000 people in the USA!

Again, let's put this in perspective.  In the "real world" today, none
of the major producers of machine tools and precision equipment are
still at TL6 (most, including the USA and Japan, are hovering somewhere
around TL8).  So nobody imports TL6 equipment anymore; it can't be had.
The US is (still) a major producer and exporter of machine tools and
precision equipment; we do import some, mostly TL8 equipment from Japan.
On the other hand, a *LOT* of existing factories and equipment date back
to the TL6 period.  Although we do not import this equipment anymore, a
great deal of the everyday industrial production that goes on in the US
is still being done with TL6 equipment.

Madrigal is the only world in the subsector which is classed as
"Industrial".  I take this to mean that it is the only one capable of
creating on a mass produced basis the products of post industrial
revolution society.  Although low, TL6 roughly corresponds to post-WWII
America (say 1946-1959 as a really rough range).  I see Madrigal
mass-producing items, frequently to off-world (and high tech) designs
and requirements.  Example: "Hey, Charlie!  Why would anybody need to
draw Lanthanum wire?  I dunno, Joe, but we just got an order for a
thousand spools of it!".

As far as the required precision goes, I think that Madrigal will be
able to make equipment that fills most (but not all) requirements.
Again, working to off-world plans will enable them to contribute to
products which are then finished on another world to a higher tech
level.  As an example, Madrigal may produce machined steel castings for
lathe parts (the bed, ways, etc).  These are then shipped to another
world, which then completes the lathe, equipping it with laser
interferometer sensors, and a sophisticated computer control system.
The result is a high-tech numerically-controlled lathe.

As far as the 100 million tons figure, it was made up; and I was
thinking exports, not total production (and I should have said so, but
didn't: mea culpa).  If this doesn't sound like a good figure for a TL6
industrial world, can you suggest a figure?


X Visser <rrn@u.washington.edu> writes:
> Subject: Get on with it already.
>
> There are lots of game systems that can do Sci-Fi, but none, it seems, with a
> decent enough universe to bother doing it in. That,it would seem, is the niche
> that needs to be filled. Rules really aren't that hard, especially if you are
> willing to be a little flexible. It's the data that's the killer.

Thanks for the support; I'll see what I can do to "get on with it"


helm@geology.ucdavis.edu writes:
> centers of the 57th century will develop at the nexi of transportation
> nets, both in-system and interstellar.  Regardless of how sectors are
> generated, there should be a good reason for the siting of a class A
> starport, either because the cost of in-systems materials are cheap, or
> because that starport is at the junction of several insterstellar trade
> routes.
> Just my 2 credits worth.  Y'all can flame me now...   ;->

No flames from me!  As a matter of fact, I agree with you!
I do see a problem with Traveller, though.  The
starport classifications are developed first, and independently of both
the characteristics of the world and of the characteristics of the rest
of the subsector.  What we are trying to do is construct
rationalizations for a system which is fundamentally random.


CS171308011@UTSA86.UTSA.EDU [Scott 2G Kellogg] writes:
> Well, I'll tell ya, If I was running a shipping yard, I wouldn't
> want to have to subcontract to a company in another SOLAR SYSTEM.

Even when (because they have a lower labor costs, and a very favorable
exchange rate) they can underbid local subcontractors by 5000 Cr/Ton,
and have a signed contract with Arekut with a gauranteed frequency of
service?  All other things being equal, and according to exchange rate
table (initially presented in the Journal, and later in Striker), a
TL-10, Starport-B world can underbid a local contractor on a TL-14,
Starport-A world by *HALF*.  In the case of a Book 2 Model/4 computer,
this means that the computer is about 4 tons (shipping space 5 tons?).
The thing has a list price of 30 million credits (standard, I presume).
Going to a TL-10, Starport-B supplier saves 15,000,000 credits, enough
to ship the thing 3,000 parsecs and still break even.

> Chicago's O'Hare is class C?  No bloody way!  Class C means unrefined
> fuel and 'reasonable' repair facilities.  No overhauls, no 100 hr
> inspections.  To me, that means that the port is more like your local
> airstrip.  (Say College Park airstrip for the DC & MD crowd)
> Small private planes VERY small commercial stuff.  Class D is more
> like a grass strip airport, with MAYBE a hanger.   Class E is a
> farmer's field.

To quote chapter and verse (Traveller Book 3: Worlds and Adventures,
copyright 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop, page 5):
A = Excellent Quality Installation.  Refined Fuel Available.  Annual
    maintainance overhaul available.  Shipyard capable of starship and
    non-starship construction present.  May contain Naval Base and/or
    Scout base.
B = Good Quality installation.  Refined fuel available.  Annual
    maintainance overhaul available.  Shipyard capable of constructing
    non-starships present.  May contain Naval and/or Scout bases.
C = Routine installation.  Only unrefined fuel available.  Reasonable
    repair facilities present.  May contain a Scout base.
D = Poor quality installation.  Only unrefined fuel available.  No
    repair or shipyard facilities present.  May contain a Scout base.
E = Frontier installation.  Essentially a bare spot of bedrock with
    no fuel, facilities, or bases present.
X = No starport.  No provision made for any starship landings.

Note that nothing explicit is said about traffic levels (even relative
traffic levels).  Going back to the airport metaphor, which is imperfect
at best, does O'Hare have the capability to build an aircraft or
assemble one from components?  I don't know what a 100hr inspection
entails, and I don't know of any airline has a major maintainance
facility there.  If major maintainance is available, I would classify it
as Class B; otherwise it's got to be C.

In my (humble) opinion, starport classification has nothing to do with
size or amount of traffic.  If a municipal airport rents out one of the
hangars to a lightplane maintainance and restoration company, and if the
airport has both AvGas and Jet-A available, then it is class B (overhaul
available, both kinds of fuel).  Other airports of similar size might be
Class D, if they only sell AvGas and no repairs are available.  Class E
might be an "airstrip" out in the outback of Australia - a patch of bare
ground that's been cleared of most large obstructions.  Class X is a
farmer's field: you are not supposed to land there, but you might be
able to in an emergency.

More than anything else, I think we are hitting our heads on a major
limitation in Traveller: not enough detail in the definitions (and too
few categories to pigeonhole things into).  Probably there sould be some
detailed starport generation scheme, which detailed the types of
services available, and the capacity of each one.

> But remember, that the concentrations of shipping will tend to be where
> the technology and industry are, which is where the raw materials are.
> Thus shipyards attract shipping, and shipping attracts shipyard building.

I think we have the classic chicken and egg problem here.  For some
worlds, blessed with abundant raw materials, adequate (but not
excessive) population, and sufficient technology and industry, will be
able to independently achieve starfaring status (I would guess that most
TL-10+, Industrial, Class-A starport worlds meet this criteria).

Then there are the exceptions.  Worlds at which shipping concentrated
for other reasons, including accidents of astrography or strategic
location, may eventually attract Class-A or Class-B facilities, even if
much of the technology and skill has to be imported.

> Traveller's News Service
> Weelkes/Gamba  ?112888-A S         132-1104
>
> A band of terrorists have destroyed the Weelkes starport shipyards when
>      [deleted in an attempt to save the endangered net.bandwidth]
> of the one true faith.  :-)

A little more extreme than I had in mind, but it works!

[More about Madrigal]
> Yeah, possibly, but who would want a bunch of TL 6 Steel hulls for
> spacecraft?  If they are very late TL 6 they might be able to manage
> a Gemini or Mercury type space capsule, or at BEST an X-20 Dynasoar.
> I'm sorry, but I just don't buy the Roughneck class spacecraft.

Although you may have a point, I will argue that there's no real
penalty in having a steel hull for most commercial applications.
In almost all cases, agility is going to be zero anyway, so that
the mass of the hull is irrellevant; volume of hull material does not
enter into the design sequence anyway, and the price modifier for steel
is the same as superdense or bonded superdense - the cheapest available.
With TL-6 materials, most starship hulls rather resemble that of a
battleship - more than a foot of armor steel!  So what?

On the other hand, being cheap and low tech, it has relatively few
control points (about half the control point requirement of any other
type of hull material).  This would tend to save on computer and crew
requirements.

A TL-6 world could probably fabricate Composite Laminates and
Lightweight Composite Laminates if the knowledge and need were
available.  Some of the raw materials (in particular, carbon "whiskers"
grown in microgravity conditions) may be imported.

> Steve, Wildstar:  How would you handle trade and commerce from the
> point of view of a bunch of jokers in a free trading starship?

Rule Number One: All of the inherently-profitable routes have attracted
large (relative to a group of player characters in a free trader)
outfits who run these routes regularly (and have most of the large and
legitimate cargoes spoken for).

The usual advice to referees applies, in short:
Feed the players a steady diet of table scraps; just enough to
keep them feeling that they *COULD* get a big break.  They sould win
most fights, loose some, make some enemies, win some friends.
The players should feel that they control their destiny, and that they
can and do make some sort of difference.

Ignore what the rules say, and wing it.  Go for what makes the plot
develop in whatever way you need it to.  However, don't bludgeon the
players; they *NEED* to feel that thay have some sort of choice, even if
its between bad and worse (but try to keep things upbeat unless you know
your players prefer otherwise: compare the relative popularity and
lonvevity of Cyberpunk vs Star Trek (an estimated 50% of the US
males over 18 consider themselves Star Trek "fans")).


Robert S. Dean  <rsdean@crdec8.apgea.army.mil> writes:
> [Exports from a TL-3 Ag world]
> the exports would concentrate on high value foods of various sorts rather
> than bulk grain.  Real world analogies would include bananas, coffee, and
> alcoholic beverages as examples.

However, exporters would have facilities availble in starships which
were simply not available in the historical TL-3 period.  Exports may
well include fresh meat and vegetables, suitably frozen, refrigerated or
otherwise preserved while aboard the starship.

> I tend toward the "sustainable with local resources" description rather than
> the "maximum level  to be found for sale" description, so it would not be too
> unreasonable to think that some farming on Motet is carried on with the assist
> ance of TL6 farm equipment from Madrigal factories, which are either repaired
> by Madrigal technicians using imported parts when they break down, or perhaps
> simply scrapped....

I tend to agree with Rob.

However, this does depend somewhat on the
"trade model" one uses.  If you assume large amounts of interstellar
trade, this is a reasonable description.  If, on the other hand, you assume
that the volume of trade is small and concentrated primarily in luxuries
and exotic goods, then it is unreasonable to assume that imported
technology is significant.

> I've never been very comfortable with the entire idea of an Imperial  army,
> but  if there is any major Imperial army presence, it is probably  centered
> on Weelkes, and equipped at TL10.  Definitely third or fourth line...

I've never really considered an Imperial Army before (for some reason,
the Navy, Marines, and Scouts all seem more interesting).  I suppose
that the Imperium would have one, but I don't really have a good feel
for how they would work in a game setting.

> Yes, I think that this would work best, with the exception that I'd like to
> use TL13 as the Imperial base, with those two TL14 planets then being at the
> real cutting edge of technology.

Yes!  I like this!  Let's do it!  TL-13 would place us anywhere from
about 300 to 700 ... any preferences?


metlay writes:
> The concept of a prebooked connection Jump boggles my mind. Completely.
> Anywhere other than Tukera monopolized core areas, who would dare try?

Metlay: prepare to be boggled!

In many of my campaigns, the concept of a "trip voucher" arose.
Originally arranged through the Travellers' Aid Society (and only
available to members), in later campaigns we extended the concept and
made it available as a commercial service, through a company which
provided many travel-related services (rather like a travel agency
combined with the American Express company).  I have recently started
calling these vouchers "Travellers' Destination Recipts".

The TAS service was provided as a service to TAS members; improving
service and connections.  Some of the larger transportation
megacorporations (like Tukera) could provide a similar service, but only
within the company.  The first commercial ventures were started by a
consortium of smaller local lines, as a way to compete with the larger
line's scheduled service.

The basic concept is that a sophisticated database system is fed with
all of the schedule data for every scheduled interstellar passenger
service in the area.   All different kinds of lines provide
scheduled service (for various reasons, including contractual
obligations for the Imperium, subsidy, or for mail).  In particular,
mail and subsidy contracts typically require the maintainance of an
established schedule with a mandatory on-time percentage.

In such a scheme, departure dates and times are fixed, with the
corresponding arrival time variable due to the nature of jumpspace
travel.  Even so, there is a maximum jump length (unless a misjump
occurrs).  Connections are scheduled so there is at least 12 hours
between worst-case arrival time and the scheduled departure of the
connection.  This amount of time means that travellers occasionally have
to hustle to make their connection (particularly in cases of delays at
customs, or in the inbound traffic pattern).  The more usual case is for
the players to have a day or two to signt-see between connections; just
right for a short encounter or other interesting activity.

The database is searched to find the "best" path from world of origin to
the destination.  In the case of vouchers issued by TAS, the trip is
routed through worlds with TAS installations if possible.  The trip
price is based on the price of the individual High Passages which would
make up the journey.  There is typically a 10% surcharge for the voucher
(although TAS does not charge this fee); in return, the company issuing
the voucher has a contract with the passenger lines.  The contract
requires that a certain number (based on expected ridership) of berths
be reserved for voucher holders.  The reserved berths must be held in
reserve until 12 hours after the arrival of any connecting ship.

In the cases of missed connections, unfilled reserved staterooms, and
other emergencies, the local agent tries to do the best he or she can.
Usually missed connections will be made good on the next available
transport.  Unfilled reserved berths are paid for at a rate specified in
the appropriate contract, unless the ship's captain has managed to fill
them with middle passengers.  The shipping companies are paid regularly
for the trips actually taken, again at times and rates specified on the
contracts.

Such a system provides everyone with benefits.  Passengers have less
worry about connecting flights, and have the benefit of scheduled
arrival and departure times.  The transport companies get more business
and can better compete aganst the large lines.  And the company providing
the service makes a provit from the surcharge.


Steve H. writes:
> In MT, nothing is worth much more than KCr10 per ton, which just
> exacerbates the problem.  Cynthia and I have used Merchant Prince and
> its descendants (with our own mods, some of which were posted here once)
> as a good indicator of overall trade patterns.  But it is next to
> useless as a trade system, since it assumes that interstellar trade uses
> AVERAGE cargo value as an approximation to any specific deal.  But
> average is not good enough, when most of the products of ANY world are
> not worth exporting.  So they should be left out of the averaging
> process, and the actual value of goods shipped should be in the range of
> ten times as valuable (and costly) as MT indicates.

Or shipping for bulk goods should cost about 1/10th of what it currently
does.  Something that would be nice is to have some sort of low-cost
bulk shipping method, so that things like ores and other high-bulk,
low-value commodities could be shipped profitably.

But I agree with you, the trade and commerce system is in desparate need
of fixing.


wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                         in the Far Future

------------------------------

Bundle: 405
Archive-Message-Number: 4773
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 16:21:52 EDT
From: wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar)
Subject: Thought y'all might be interested

I found this on one of the newsgroups I read; I thought that some of the
TML members might be interested ...

> Article 2868 of alt.fan.furry:
> From: raboczi@elec.uq.oz.au (Simon Raboczi)
> Subject: Re: Hexaped Technobabble
> Date: 23 Oct 92 01:08:16 GMT
>
> For those out there who DO care about making biomechanically
> plausible creatures, I'd like to recommend the following book:
>
> AUTHR: Vogel, Steven, 1940-
> TITLE: Life's devices : the physical world of animals and plants
>                  illustrated by Rosemary Anne Calvert.
> PUBLR: Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press
> YEAR : 1988
> DESCR: xii, 367 p. : ill. ; 24 cm
> ISBN#: 0-691-02418-9  (pbk.)
> ISBN#: 0-691-08504-8
> SUBJT: Biophysics, Biomechanics
>
> It's a very readable introduction to biomechanics, covering
> both the physics and biology background in a very friendly
> way.  The painless way to put the techno into your babble!  :)
>
>  ,-_|\  Simon Raboczi (raboczi@s1.elec.uq.oz.au)
> /     * Department of Electrical Engineering
> \_.--_/ University of Queensland, St Lucia
>      v  Brisbane, Australia


wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                         in the Far Future


------------------------------

Bundle: 405
Archive-Message-Number: 4774
Date: 23 Oct 1992 16:55:32 -0500
From: SULAIMAN@ecs.umass.edu
Subject: Sword Worlds Past....

Hi,
Well in the spirit of who-gives-a-damn-about-TNE I have gone back to
working on my current campaign universe. Specifically I have decided to
give it more of a "history" and connection with the pre-Imperium
history.

Anyway one of the major areas of work are the Sword Worlds. There are a
lot of very strange things about them. So I need to get as much info as
I can about what/who they are and their motivations for their settling
where they did. This info being in the context of "official" pre-history.
I'm also interested in how other GMs have interpreted the Sword World
past. Past meaning pre -200 info.

Here is what I have of their past (pre-Imperial ):

PI
- -420 Sword Worlds (colonists of Scandanavian origin) leave Terra
- -399 Sword Worlds settle Gram.

Why did they leave Terra to settle so far away? If they wanted to settle
in uncolonised space then the rimward frontier is far closer.

The Syleans contacted Vland about -495 and Vland was back in space by
- -450. So were the Terrans and obviously the Syleans were major players.
How did the Sword Worlders get by them?

Why in a time of resurging space activity did they want to go into the
middle of nowhere to start a Confederation?

How many settlers left Terra?

Why did it take them 21 years? At jump 2 it takes about 6 years to get from
Sol to the Marches. The Itzin who landed on Darrian in -1520 took only
about 7 years. The Itzin were travelling as the Long Night was starting
and had about 30,000 settlers. A possible reason for the delay is that
about -420 the Long Night was ending however the vast majority of the
worlds of the 1st Imperium were still in decline and had no ability to
support starports and such facilities......

These Sword worlders seem in no way related to Piper's view of the Sword
Worlds other than in name. They certainly have had no major military succeses
to speak of.


Ameer



------------------------------

Bundle: 405
Archive-Message-Number: 4775
Date: 23 Oct 1992 16:58:28 -0500
From: SULAIMAN@ecs.umass.edu
Subject: Sworld Worlds Past..... This may be 2nd post ...oops

Hi,
Well in the spirit of who-gives-a-damn-about-TNE I have gone back to
working on my current campaign universe. Specifically I have decided to
give it more of a "history" and connection with the pre-Imperium
history.

Anyway one of the major areas of work are the Sword Worlds. There are a
lot of very strange things about them. So I need to get as much info as
I can about what/who they are and their motivations for their settling
where they did. This info being in the context of "official" pre-history.
I'm also interested in how other GMs have interpreted the Sword World
past. Past meaning pre -200 info.

Here is what I have of their past (pre-Imperial ):

PI
- -420 Sword Worlds (colonists of Scandanavian origin) leave Terra
- -399 Sword Worlds settle Gram.

Why did they leave Terra to settle so far away? If they wanted to settle
in uncolonised space then the rimward frontier is far closer.

The Syleans contacted Vland about -495 and Vland was back in space by
- -450. So were the Terrans and obviously the Syleans were major players.
How did the Sword Worlders get by them?

Why in a time of resurging space activity did they want to go into the
middle of nowhere to start a Confederation?

How many settlers left Terra?

Why did it take them 21 years? At jump 2 it takes about 6 years to get from
Sol to the Marches. The Itzin who landed on Darrian in -1520 took only
about 7 years. The Itzin were travelling as the Long Night was starting
and had about 30,000 settlers. A possible reason for the delay is that
about -420 the Long Night was ending however the vast majority of the
worlds of the 1st Imperium were still in decline and had no ability to
support starports and such facilities......

These Sword worlders seem in no way related to Piper's view of the Sword
Worlds other than in name. They certainly have had no major military succeses
to speak of.


Ameer



------------------------------

Bundle: 405
Archive-Message-Number: 4776
From: MacGyver <macgyver@cis.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: forwarding for GDW
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 19:45:29 EDT

Sorry if this has already been posted before..


- ---------------------------------------------------------------
 Now, on to something more important: STUTTERWARP.

 So far, opinion is running about four-to-one against incorporating
 it into the Traveller universe, and about 100% against incorporating
 it as a retrofit (i.e. "it was always there, you just didn't notice it.")
 These are two separate issues, and let me talk a little bit about both
 of them.

 The two issues are 1) whether we should add stutterwarp to the Traveller
 universe, and 2) IF SO, how to do so with the least damage to continuity.
 Is it easiest to believe that this new drive system was recently
 introduced to the neighborhood, or is it easier to rewrite history (as
 DC Comics did, I guess, a while back with their Infinite Earths series)?

 Issue 2 impacts only established players, as new players won't know the
 difference. Therefore, when existing players say unanimously that it
 should not be a rewrite of history, that carries the argument.
 Stutterwarp, *if* introduced to the Traveller universe in TNE,
 will be a technological innovation which post-dates the assassination
 of Strephon.

 Now, issue number 1. Why introduce stutterwarp at all?

 It seems to me that stutterwarp does a better job than does a simple
 delta-vee model of replicating squadron and fleet battles as they have always
 been described in Traveller literature. Even High Guard and Trillion Credit
 Squadron's abstract maneuver systems produced combat exchanges which
 never struck me as the sort of things which would result from a
 delta-vee system. This is because Traveller's inspiration for
 ship-to-ship combat has always been a surface naval model, with lines
 of battle trading broadsides and so forth. This is, not coincidentally,
 the classic science fiction model as well. A delta-vee maneuver system,
 however, produces combat situations which bear no resemblance to
 that surface naval analogy at all, and which are much closer to
 those found in aerial dogfights.

 If I were doing this from scratch, I would have commercial ships
 rely on delta-vee for maneuver, thus leaving you with a fun
 ship-to-ship delta-vee combat system for the small stuff.
 Stutterwarp (probably because of expense, and the fact that it's not
 as efficient a way to get from star to star) would be used almost
 exclusively by purpose-built warships. From a game point of view,
 this makes larger actions (say half a dozen to a dozen ships per
 side) very playable, while that is much less true with a
 delta-vee system. From a game world point of view, it means that
 REAL warships run rings around civilian ships when it comes to
 in-system combat, a very nice distinction I think, and fleet actions
 play out the way we have always described them in the Traveller
 literature.

 So what do you think? Nothing has been finalized yet about
 stutterwarp in the final version.

 Frank Chadwick
 ------------

------------------------------

Bundle: 405
Archive-Message-Number: 4777
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 10:36:31 -0300 (ADT)
From: Dale Poole <cadpoole@thor.cs.upei.ca>
Subject: Various TRAVs!


I read with interest, Bart Massey's goodbye message, and while I don't
feel the same way about GDW, I must admit my continuing confusion aboutthe
various 'versions' of TRAV.

I've been hanging around the TML for about a year or so now, and I too
enjoy the interesting discussions, albeit manyof them go straight over my
head!

I have been trying to collect as many of the Original TRAV booklets and
seem tohave done fairly well, but MEGA TRAV I find boggling.

And despite it all, I still can't get a grip on how to start a Trav game.
Participation in the PBeM has been the most gratifying experience, but
it's more like taking part in a play, than actually playing TRAV.  I've no
complaints...

However, after all is said and done, I'm still confused about Traveller,
MegaTraveller, Traveller 2000 (or is it 2300) etc. etc.

If ANYONE has even a basic understanding of the what lies behind the
decisions to constantly revise (read: overhaul) the system from revision
to revision, could you enlighten me?

I suppose this really won't help me PLAY Trav, but might at least helpme
decide whether to dispense with Classic Trav, in favour of MegaTrav or
whatever!

Also, has anyone compiled a glossary of acronyms?  I still get confused
when I see things like COACC and others.  What the hell IS COACC?


Daleus
aka Dale Poole
cadpoole@atlas.cs.upei.ca

------------------------------
The TML is made possible by facilities provided by the University of
Western Ontario. All opinions and materials below are the responsibility
of the originator.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

BUN# =AMN= =DATE====== =FROM==========  =SUBJECT/BODY==========================
 406  4778 23-Oct-1992 helm@geology.uc  super-dense materials << I've been thin
 406  4779 24-Oct-1992 Steve Higginbot  RE: Chadwick and stutterwarp. << Please
 406  4780 24-Oct-1992 Hans Rancke-Mad  Sword Worlds & Chronology << Ameer writ
 406  4781 25-Oct-1992 Rob Dean         Change of Address etc. << Just a short
 406  4782 25-Oct-1992 metlay           On Chadwick's Stutterwarp letter << Ple
 406  4783 25-Oct-1992 Mark Watson      Stutterwarp << Briefly, while I accept
 406  4784 25-Oct-1992 CS171308011@UTS  Running Psi in Trav << Mat sez:
 406  4785 25-Oct-1992 Carl Rigney      Re: Chadwick and stutterwarp << Steve H
 406  4786 26-Oct-1992 pihlab@hhcs.gov  STUTTERWARP AGAIN << How to allow GDW t

------------------------------

Bundle: 406
Archive-Message-Number: 4778
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1992 23:09:17 PDT
From: helm@geology.ucdavis.edu
Subject: super-dense materials


I've been thinking on Scott's question of how my background in
geology affects my traveller playing.  I guess my response is
damn little.  Rocks and their geochemistry just doesn't have
much impact on the various mis-adventures of my characters.  Igneous
petrology, and the exchange of isotopes in hydrothermal systems
just doesn't help much when the TJ freighter is being chased by
a bunch of vargr corsairs, 'ya know.

I do however, know a great deal about submarines, having a father
who spent over half his life building them, and having worked for
two defense contracters myself who made submarine "toys" when I
couldn't find an honest geology job in the 80's.

Which brings me to something I've been thinking about lately:
the construction of ship hulls.  The way I see it, the problems
with builing a hull for a submaine and a hull for a traveller
space craft can't be too different.  The man who designed the
Nautilus and the Skipjack once described the problem to me thus: if
all you had to do was put a sphere or a cylinder capped by hemispheres
in the water, then there would be no problems in making a hull that
could withstand the deepest oceanic pressures.  The problem, he said,
was that you had to make holes in the hull, for the drive shaft, for
the hatches, for the cooling water intakes.  It's the holes that are
the "weakness" in withstanding the great pressure gradients.

In addition, there is the technological problem in making a one-piece
hull.  Early submarines were rivetted together!  (remember the great
scene in Das Boot where they had to dive to bottem near Gilbratar, and
the rivets starting popping in the hull?)  One of the tremendous advances
in sub design that came out of Electric Boat in the 50's was the ability
to weld the thick hull plates together.  It's the welds and the perforation
of the hull that are the zones of weakness, not the material of the hull.
If you make a one-piece hull out of a thick enough material (read metal),
then you can withstand greater pressure gradients (no, I haven't forgotten
that the cylinder has a limitation on diameter - I'm blissfully ignoring
it for now.)

So what does this have to do with traveller, you ask?  Well, first, we've
been assuming that any decent space ship is able to withstand great
pressure gradients, e.g. the Flamboyant hidng in the ocean of Welles
in Scott's 4.5th Frontier War, and also any ol' ship doing refueling in
a gas giant.  That means that those ship hulls must be as good or better
as a modern submarine in the U.S. Navy.  (I can hear one or two of you
kvetch that the 688 class has an official depth rating of around 250
meters.  Well, that's true <I hope I remembered that number correctly>.
But remember, the 688 class has a less than optimal thickness to
diameter ratio.  The skipjack class, made out of inferior steel (HY80
vs. HY120) can dive deeper because the designers at EB purposefully
optimized the diameter to hull thickness ratio.  The titanium hulls
on the newer soviet subs can dive deepest, but the welding technolgy
is what allows the use of titanium for a hull, and it's a bear!)

This leads me to thinking that "super-dense" materials are not the
correct path to travel down in pursuit of the 57th century space hull.
I opine that it's advances in making one-piece hulls of suitable
thickness that's the trick.  If you could weld a hull of titanium or
steel, or better yet, if you grow a single crystal of metal into a formed
hull, then that's what required.  The hull perforation problem can be
taken care of by arm-waving good enough iris hatches.  But making the
hull itself is the real problem.  It's not super-dense materials we
need - it's good enough technology to weld a one piece hull.  The
materials we already have are sufficient, so long as we can weld them
together adequately in the thickness required.  The welds are the
weakness (or has everyone forgotten the great weld defect scandal at
Electric Boat in 1979, that lead to the cost-overrun fiasco which made
national news <my apologies to the non-US readers of this list>?)

What does super dense really get us anyway?  Perhaps better armour
for naval and scout ships.  But why invent a new material when what
we have is sufficient (in my opinion)?  Not only that, but consider
that those super-dense material are going to be a bitch to weld - and
that's the big problem in my mind anyway!

How do make super-dense, by the way?  Do we convince two nuleii to
occupy one set of electron orbitals by somehow negating the tremdous
force of two positive charges trying to escape on another?  Do we
make an elastic material out of very dense atoms?  Only certain metallic
elements have the property of being elastic, strong in both compression
and tension, weldable, and (most-importantly) non-cleavable.  Unless
we "discover" an unknown principal of quantum chemistry, I think we
stuck with good ol' steel and titanium.  <I've been teaching
crystallography and mineralogy to a bunch of undergrads, so I confess
I've had a lot of inorganic chemistry on the brain lately...I've been
dreaming of Pauling's Five Rules in my sleep, for crying out loud. Gads!>

I think I've rambled on long enough (my apolgies for the length of this
post - I really didn't it to turn out this long, really!).  So what does
anyone else think?

Catie Helm, rock-nerd
helm@geology.ucdavis.edu

------------------------------

Bundle: 406
Archive-Message-Number: 4779
Date: 24 Oct 92 09:13:19 EDT
From: Steve Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: RE: Chadwick and stutterwarp.

Please send this along to GDW:

Frank Chadwick:
> Now, on to something more important: STUTTERWARP.

> Now, issue number 1. Why introduce stutterwarp at all?

> It seems to me that stutterwarp does a better job than does a simple
> delta-vee model of replicating squadron and fleet battles as they have
> always been described in Traveller literature. Even High Guard and
> Trillion Credit Squadron's abstract maneuver systems produced combat
> exchanges which never struck me as the sort of things which would
> result from a delta-vee system. This is because Traveller's
> inspiration for ship-to-ship combat has always been a surface naval
> model, with lines of battle trading broadsides and so forth. This is,
> not coincidentally, the classic science fiction model as well. A
> delta-vee maneuver system, however, produces combat situations which
> bear no resemblance to that surface naval analogy at all, and which
> are much closer to those found in aerial dogfights.

You are confused as to the causes of the feel of a "classic Naval
battle".  It has very little to do with the drive type, and a lot more
to do with relative speed and range.  In Traveller as it stands, weapons
ranges are long enough that it takes several hours to travel to the
limit of weapon ranges.  With stutterwarp ships and the same weapons, it
takes about 5 seconds to travel to the limit of weapon range.
In a WW2 Naval battle (there were only a handful that match the
model you are looking for, BTW), weapon range is 20-odd nautical miles,
about an hour's travel.  In an aerial dogfight, weapon ranges were less
than a thousand yards unless you were extremely lucky, less than three
seconds travel.
Actually, having played Starcruiser, Mayday, and TCS games (the last
both with standard "line of battle" and with a more detailed Mayday
style movement (this is how I am doing my TCS game now, BTW)), I find
that only the classic TCS has anything like the feel of a Naval battle.
Starcruiser and Mayday have none of that "line of battle" feel to them,
and the battles in my TCS game stopped looking like classic TCS as soon
as one of the players decided to develop a Doctrine that ignored the
"line of battle" as meaningless in space.
Then, of course, there is that pesky third dimension.  Unless you
decide that space is flat, it'll always be there to mess up your
picture.
I also question that the "naval battle" is the classic Science
Fiction model.  In almost all of the science fiction I have read with
large fleet actions, from Lensmen series (by E.E. Smith) to Saberhagen's
Berserkers, the feel has been more toward an aerial action than a
surface navy action.  Indeed, in First Lensman the battles were fought
like naval engagements, but by Galactic Patrol (the next book) that
Doctrine had been dropped as unworkable unless the enemy cooperated,
which he seldom did.


> If I were doing this from scratch, I would have commercial ships
> rely on delta-vee for maneuver, thus leaving you with a fun
> ship-to-ship delta-vee combat system for the small stuff.
> Stutterwarp (probably because of expense, and the fact that it's not
> as efficient a way to get from star to star) would be used almost
> exclusively by purpose-built warships. From a game point of view,
> this makes larger actions (say half a dozen to a dozen ships per
> side) very playable, while that is much less true with a
> delta-vee system. From a game world point of view, it means that
> REAL warships run rings around civilian ships when it comes to
> in-system combat, a very nice distinction I think, and fleet actions
> play out the way we have always described them in the Traveller
> literature.

If you did that, pirates would have to be purpose built warships.
Remember that the 100-diameter limit is only two minutes travel away
from low orbit for a stutterwarp ship, so the Navy will ALWAYS be able
to come to the rescue of someone in need of it.
As to the stutterwarp being less efficient than Jump, I cannot
understand why ANYONE thinks that.  Dragging out my old Starcruiser
game, I see that a 75MW "New Commercial" stutterwarp fits neatly into
the slot left by a Free Trader's Maneuver Drive.  It requires 27% of the
power of the old maneuver drive (which means you can scrap the power
plant and put a cheaper one in, thus saving on fuel, and increasing
cargo space).  According to the Imperial Encyclopedia, a Free Trader
masses 2280 Tons loaded.  Dcrease that by 140T for the M-drive removed,
add in 62T for the stutterwarp, and get a final mass of 2202T.  Going
back to Starcruiser, I find that 75MW - 2202T gives a pseudo-speed of
5.2 light years per day (faster than a KENNEDY!!!), which translates to
a sustained travel speed (assuming good geometry on a long trip) of
jump-5+.  Even ignorng that a free trader can only go a parsec in one
week, and the stutterwarp version can cover that same parsec (which is
well within 7.7 lightyears) in 15 hours.
Admittedly, the stutterwarp cost more than the M-drive that fits
into the same space.  But coming at the problem the other way, let's see
how expensive a stutterwarp you need to install to get the same 1 parsec
per week performance out of a stutterwarp ship.  Again we assume a 2200T
Free Trader.  Using "OLD Commercial", we find that we need a 0.055MW
stutterwarp to get that performance.  0.06MW costs 1.2MLv, compared to
2.8MCr for the maneuver drive, plus 12MCr for the jump-drive it also
replaces, plus 3.1MCr for the power plant you no longer need.  And don't
forget that you get more cargo in this version, so you make more money
per trip.  And that you have lowered the mass somewhat, so this version
would also be somewhat faster....

> So what do you think? Nothing has been finalized yet about
> stutterwarp in the final version.

DON'T do this!  It is unnecessary for the effect you want to produce.
It will kill piracy AGAIN!  It will change the whole picture of
Traveller (which does not, in and of itself, bother me).  And, perhaps
most important, the first world to develop this will conquer EVERYONE
ELSE VERY QUICKLY!  So your New Era will be a New Empire about five
years after stutterwarp is discovered.  Unless you stretch plausibility
well past the breaking point by specifying that every spacefaring world
discovers it independently within the period of a few weeks.

---Steve Higginbotham

PS.  It would, however, be really nice if you did a 2300AD Sourcebook
for TNE.  I've missed 2300AD since you guys decided to drop it.  ---JSH
^Z

------------------------------

Bundle: 406
Archive-Message-Number: 4780
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Sword Worlds & Chronology
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 20:45:19 MET

Ameer writes:

>Anyway one of the major areas of work are the Sword Worlds. There are a
>lot of very strange things about them. So I need to get as much info as
>I can about what/who they are and their motivations for their settling
>where they did. This info being in the context of "official" pre-history.
>I'm also interested in how other GMs have interpreted the Sword World
>past. Past meaning pre -200 info.

>Here is what I have of their past (pre-Imperial ):

>PI
>- -420 Sword Worlds (colonists of Scandinavian origin) leave Terra
>- -399 Sword Worlds settle Gram.

Where did you find the date for leaving Terra?

>Why did they leave Terra to settle so far away? If they wanted to settle
>in uncolonised space then the rimward frontier is far closer.

I have some ideas about this, but first I'd like to know if the bit about
coming from Terra itself is official. I've always assumed that they came
from a scandinavian-settled world, not Terra.

>The Syleans contacted Vland about -495 and Vland was back in space by
>- -450. So were the Terrans and obviously the Syleans were major players.
>How did the Sword Worlders get by them?

Possibly the Syleans and Vilani didn't want them around (or the Sword-
worlders didn't like the conditions for settling down, ie. subordinate
themselves to another government). Still, both Syleans and Vilani were
'Rule of Law' adherents, so they didn't want to attack a peaceful
colony fleet. Instead they welcomed the Swordworlders, gave their ships
a free refit, and then escorted them to the other side of their sphere
of influence with instructions to keep moving.

>Why in a time of resurging space activity did they want to go into the
>middle of nowhere to start a Confederation?

Piper's original explanation makes as much sense as anything: They were
the loosers of a war and fled to somewhere far away from their successful
enemies.

>How many settlers left Terra?

I give up. How many settlers left Terra?

>Why did it take them 21 years? At jump 2 it takes about 6 years to get from
>Sol to the Marches. The Itzin who landed on Darrian in -1520 took only
>about 7 years. The Itzin were travelling as the Long Night was starting
>and had about 30,000 settlers. A possible reason for the delay is that
>about -420 the Long Night was ending however the vast majority of the
>worlds of the 1st Imperium were still in decline and had no ability to
>support starports and such facilities......

Maybe they spent some time negotiating with first the Sylean Confederation,
later Vland, about permission to settle somewhere. They finally decided
that if they wanted to do things their way without interference they would
have to go somewhere far away from established areas.

                                -oOo-

For some time I've been working on a chronology for the Spinward Marches.
I hadn't planned to post it until I had typed it all in, but Ameer's
questions about the Sword Worlds have made me change my mind. At the
rate that I finish my projects it could take years before I finish this
one, so what the hell, here's the first half.

What follows is a collection of dates culled from all the Traveller and
MegaTraveller sources that I have access to at the moment.

Entries in brackets are made up by me out of whole cloth. If only the
date is in bracket then the entry has been mentioned somewhere (or can
reasonably be inferred from other information) without a date, and I've
made up something I found reasonable.
When several contradictory dates for the same event exists I've selected
the one that makes the most sense or the most recently published one if
they are equally likely. I've been tempted to revise several really odd
dates, but have settled for footnotes.
When an event is dated as 'by now' it means that the event took place
before that date, but that this is the earliest mention of the event
that I've found.
Note that I've included everything I could find, from the most trivial
to the most momentuous. There's only one major exception: There are
lots and lots of information about the conduct of the Fifth Frontier
War, from TAS messages in the Journal to capsule resumes of character
backgrounds in 'Tarsus' and 'Beltstrike'. I think that including them
all will add 50% to this listing. If any of you want to make a
seperate listing, go ahead.

If you have any snippets of information that I've missed, please let
me know with reference. If you've got different dates for some event
chances are that I know the reference already, but by all means let
me know.



                A CHRONOLOGY FOR THE SPINWARD MARCHES


Ca. -400.000    Ancients transports humans from Terra to Darrian.
       -"-      Earliest dated evidence of droyne presence on Andor.
Ca. -300.000    Final War destroys bases all over the Marches.  The droyne
                of Andor and Vanejen becomes isolated and goes into a slow
                decline.
Ca.  -75.000    The  droyne  of Andor regains the ability to caste.  Their
                society begins a long, slow recovery.
Ca.   -6000     Earliest known droyne jump-ship. [1]
Ca.   -2500     The Zhodani colonizes a few worlds in Chronor Subsector.
Ca.   -2400     First  Empire  outpost established on Vanejen and promptly
                forgotten again.
      -1520     The Solomani trading company Itzin organizes an emigration
                fleet with ca. 30.000 people in 35 transports and 10 armed
                escorts and leaves Dingir in search of a better world.
      -1516     The Itzin fleet visits Vland.
      -1513     The Itzin fleet makes a temporary stop at Spinward Marches
                1325  (Sacnoth)  and  conducts  a quick survey of the area
                around.
      -1512     The Itzin fleet secretly comes to Darrian.
      -1511     The Itzin fleet reveals itself and joins the Darrians.
      -1410     The Darrians achieve jumpdrive and commences exploring the
                surrounding space.
      -1400     The Darrians have totally assimilated the Solomani by now.
      -1270     Darrian exploration reaches 20 parsecs from Darrian.
      -1044     Aslans crosses the Great Rift to Riftspan Reaches.
Ca.   -1000     Algine colonized by Solomani colony ship.
Ca.    -990     Darrians establishes an outpost in the Bowman Belt.
Ca.    -980     Tarsus propably visited by Darrian explorers.
       -924     Darrians  reach  tech level 16.  Darrian sun destabilizes,
                destroying the Darrian civilization.
       -922     The personnel of the Darrian outpost in Bowman runs out of
                supplies and commits suicide.
       -905     Surviving  Darrian  ships are shared by surviving colonies
                and mothballed to wait for better times.
       -860     Contact between Darrian colonies ceases.
[Ca.   -500]    Zhodani scouts finds Darrian colonies and studies them co-
                vertly.
       -460     Trade between Zhodani and Aslan in Trojan Reaches.
       -399     Gram settled by Solomani.
       -321     Caladbolg settled from other Sword World.
       -300     Joyeuse, Colada, Tizon and Hrunting colonized by now.
       -275     Mire  regains jump-capacity and reestablishes contact with
                Darrian and the surviving Darrian colonies.
       -238     New Darrian Confederation formed.
       -200     Tyrfing,  Beater, Sacnoth, Excalibur, Hofud, Sting, Biter,
                Orcrist,  Anduril,  Durendal, Narsil and Dyrnwyn colonized
                by now.
       -189     The Sacnoth Dominate  forms the first interstellar govern-
                ment in the Sword Worlds Subsector.
       -187     First contact between Darrians and Zhodani.
       -164     First  (official) contact between the Sword Worlds and the
                Darrian Confederation [2].
       -145     Bowman visited and named by Sword World expedition.
       -140     Sword World survey of Bowman begun.  Sword World explorers
                discovers and maps Tarsus and surrounding systems.
       -133     Large mineral strike in Caliburn Belt.  Interest in Bowman
                wanes.
       -104     Sword World oil extraction plant built on Tarsus.
                Tyrfing Incident:  Clash between naval vessels of Gram and
                Sacnoth in orbit above Tyrfing.
   -104 to -88  War of the First Rebellion (Sword Worlds).
       -102     Widespread  rebellion  among the Sword Worlds triggered by
                the Tyrfing Incident. Sacnoth Dominate fragments into Gram
                Confederation,  Sacnoth Confederation and Hofud Coalition.
                Oil extraction colony on Tarsus abandoned.
        -88     War  of the First Rebellion ends with the breakdown of all
                three  successor states,  followed by a period of confused
                internectine  struggles with no clear interstellar govern-
                ments.
        -80     Complete  breakdown  of  all interstellar control in Sword
                Worlds Subsector.
Ca.     -60     Last remnant of Sword World colony on Tarsus dies out.
        -40     Engrange recolonized from Illium.
        -11     Limited  interstellar  control established in Sword Worlds
                Subsector with the area split between five powers.
    [45 to 60]  First sweep by Scouts of Spinward Marches.
         50     First contact between Zhodani and the Imperium.
         53     Scouts contact Sword Worlds. [3]
        [54]    Scouts contact Darrians. [3]
     60 to 160  Scouts map most of the Spinward Marches.
         60     Imperial colonization of Spinward Marches commenced with a
                large-scale  settlement  of Mora financed by Ling Standard
                Products.
         73     First  regular trade route between the Imperium (Mora) and
                Sword Worlds established. [3]
         75     Regina colonized.
Ca.      85     Fornice colonized.
        104     The  Triple Dominion  (led by Colada-Anduril-Dyrnwyn axis)
                formed in Sword Worlds Subsector.
        120     The  eventually sector-wide merchant corporation  Al Morai
                established with headquarters on Mora.
     3rd Cen.   The  merchant corporation Al Morai establishes an Explora-
                tion Division which explores and develops Windsor and Shi-
                rene.
        217     Collapse of The Triple Dominion (Sword Worlds).
    220 to 348  The Vargr Campaigns.
        228     Frisini (later renamed Beck's World) colonized.
        240     Vilis colonized from Gungnir.
        250     Regina  and 6 neighbouring worlds have joined the Imperium
                by now.
        290     Garda-Vilis colonized from Vilis.
        300     The Regina Cluster have grown to 17 worlds by now.
        -"-     First Survey begun.
    300 to 400  Colonization of Jewell Subsector.
        305     Aramis surveyed.
        306     Gliss system  (later known as Glisten)  surveyed by a team
                from Tirem.
        310     Paya  and  Dhian  colonized from Regina.  Other systems in
                Aramis Subsector colonized from Deneb (system,  subsector,
                or sector?) 'soon after'.
        326     Foren Caliphren Doon is shipwrecked on an uncolonized part
                of Frisini.
        -"-     Techniques  for  surviving  on worlds with insidious atmo-
                spheres perfected.
        335     Foren Caliphren Doon rescued.
        342     The Octagon Society,  an  organisation to help shipwrecked
                spacefarers, started by Foren Doon. In the following years
                a  shelter  for castaways are established on all worlds in
                Regina Subsector except Roup.
Ca.     350     First  human settlement on Junidy  (home planet of a minor
                non-human race called Llellwyloly).
        352     Scouts survey Tarsus.
        353     Scouts visit Bowman Belt.
        354     Ancients base found on Efate.
        382     Lanthanum and other rare metals found in Glisten Belt. The
                Navy  and  the Scouts both establishes bases there shortly
                after.
        388     Aramanx colonized from Junidy.
        390     Darrians locate an old cache of TL-16 warships.
        410     The Octagon Society  expands  their activities to Regina's
                neighbouring subsectors. Octagon shelters are subsequently
                built in nearly every system in Aramis, Lanth and Rhylanor
                subsectors.
       [418]    An Octagon shelter is built on Utoland.
        420     First Survey published.
        421     Aslans  establish  jump-4  trade  route  between  Riftspan
                Reaches and Spinward Marches.
        427     SuSAG buys chemical plant on Mora.
      450-460   Tarsus colonized from Fornice.
        450     Darrian Confederation establishes Special Arm of the fleet
                to handle the Star Trigger.
        470     Most of Vilis Subsector annexed by the Imperium.
        487     Roxanne Oberlindes founds the Oberlindes family and firm.
        489     The Star Trigger is demonstrated.
        499     Corruption scandal causes the Octagon Society to dissolve.
        500+    Imperial surveys reaches Zhodani territory.

__________________________________________________________________________
Notes:

[1]: I've  personally decided that these are found on Andor.  This is com-
     pletely unofficial.
[2]: Even if Sword World starships didn't find any of the Darrian colonies
     between  -399 and -275,  two starfaring cultures within 12 parsecs of
     each other must surely interact sooner than after 111 years. Contacts
     could have been restricted to unofficial meetings, though.
[3]: The  date for first contact between the Imperium and the Sword Worlds
     are variously given as 53, 73, and 147 in different places.  The date
     for  first  contact  with the Darrians is given as 148.  I've decided
     that a) The Scouts would find a subsector-wide interstellar community
     during the first sweep, and b) that they would find the Darrians very
     shortly after finding the Sword Worlds.
==========================================================================


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "A  subsector  official  pompously states that the
        subsector  armed  forces  have  four Kinunir class
        ships in service,  each with enough troop strength
        to put down any military operations that threathen
        the peace of the Imperium."

                        ---Adventure 1, The Kinunir

------------------------------

Bundle: 406
Archive-Message-Number: 4781
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 08:42:52 -0500
From: Rob Dean <robdean@access.digex.com>
Subject: Change of Address etc.


Just a short note today--due to a potential crackdown on "inappropriate"
computer use at work, I will be transferring all of my Traveller activities
for the forseeable future to my back-up account at:

robdean@access.digex.com

So, those of you who might have reason to send me personal email, or have me
in an alias file, are requested to make note of this.  There are two problems
with this change.  The first is that I am limited in my access hours, which
means I'll be slower than usual in responding to anything.  The second is
that the mail handler at this site is not as sophisticated as the one I'm used
to, and it'll be some time before I can work through its details.  So, please
bear with me.

On other fronts, I'm back from ym latest round of business travel, and should
be able to start re-editing the Gamba world descriptions soon.  So, start
thinking about those adventures.  Hans--what do you think Adriano was like
before the disaster?

On starports:  I like the idea of a detailed starport generator.  Any ideas
as to what ought to go into it?  SHipyard size? Number of landing/docking
bays? Number of retail stores on the concourse?

Rob Dean

------------------------------

Bundle: 406
Archive-Message-Number: 4782
From: metlay@netcom.com (metlay)
Subject: On Chadwick's Stutterwarp letter
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 11:22:51 PDT


Please pass this on to Frank Chadwick:

- -----------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Chadwick:

I agree wholeheartedly with GDW's refusal to rewrite history and
include stutterwarp as a previously existing technology; thanks
for giving the nod to us old fogies. I can also see why SW is a
tempting thing to have for combat purposes-- it'll simplify the
rules a lot and eliminate several types of weapons and screens
that are no longer useful. (I am an unrepentant delta-vee combat
fanatic, but hell, I can always play ALBEDO when I need a fix.)

The one thing I wish to caution you folx against is the artificial
limitation of stutterwarp to a particular type of craft or purpose.
If stutterwarp is demonstrably better than standard M-drives for
survivability, speed, and (in emergencies) travel to nearby systems
after a misjump dumps you two parsecs from the nearest star, any
starship owner with an IQ capable of allowing him to feed himself
is going to make the switch. The reasons behind keeping these people
from having such a device had better be damn plausible and damn
convincing. Allow me to suggest a few, in the light of the TNE milieu:

1. Sheer cost. Not everyone can afford a meson cannon on his ship;
the easiest and most practical way to limit the spread of SW drives
is to make them ridiculously expensive to build.

2. Drive size. If a SW plant masses 600 tons, you can bet no one is
going to retrofit it into a cargo vessel that still hopes to make a profit.

3. Late design date + collapse of interstellar communication. If
the SW drive was invented by someone in one part of the galaxy,
it would take years or decades for the secret to spread. There's
actually a good historical precedent for this, that would make the
whole introduction of the new technology very clean and exciting in
the new milieu, but I can't discuss it here because it involves data
from the recent GDW writers' conference that I can't disclose. I'd
appreciate it if you could contact me about including this in TNE....

There is also the question of whether you really want to risk the
potential confusion inherent in a dual space combat system. If SW
makes for a clean, easy to use system, why ask for trouble by tacking
on another, more complicated set of rules for delta-vee combat,
especially one that groups of novice players with their smaller ships
will be forced to use? Unless said delta-vee system were TRULY simple
and fun, you would be tacitly suggesting to groups of players that
they can only have fun if they're on a big warship. I'm not flat out
against the idea, I just urge caution and a great deal of playtesting
of any proposed dual setup.

Thanks.

- --
metlay            | and she's a master of return hitting
atomic city       | giving rhythm to her posts
                  | so you read her and think hey it sounds good
metlay@netcom.com | and wish her posts had a soundtrack too    (f. ercolessi)

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Postscript to Wildstar:

I wasn't boggled at all. Your system makes sense, in a core area where
starship travel is unlikely to be disrupted in any major way. I still
can't see it being that effective in the Marches, or another frontier
area where schedules are so iffy....

Nice try, but it doesn't feel right to me.


------------------------------

Bundle: 406
Archive-Message-Number: 4783
Date: 25 Oct 92 18:04:27 EST
From: Mark Watson <100022.3361@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Stutterwarp

Briefly, while I accept that Stutterwarp may have some advantages from the
view of game design, they're more than outweighed by it's impact on the
Imperium-based game. If I understand aright:

The intention is to throw together Traveller and the other GDW games so that
GDW ends up with one generic system a la GURPS with Traveller TNE as a
combination of GURPS Space and that supplement's default background (um, I
don't own GURPS Space by the way, so if I'm describing it wrong forgive me).
2300 may be another supplement, there may also be other licenses, right?

Stutterwarp belongs in the 2300 supplement. If it's that nice it will be a
good selling point for 2300. Problem is that most sf backgrounds will have
their own hands-in-the-air explanation for space travel, and (like
Traveller) this ends up being a very significant part of the atmosphere of
the game/book/film/show/opera/whatever. So you're going to
have to do without stutterwarp at some stage (what happens if GDW get a Star
Trek license, or a Star Wars license, or ....). Traveller/Imperium uses Jump
and maneouvre, it's the flavour of the game.

(come to think of it, what do they do if they get a "The Mote in God's Eye"
license?).

Cheers
Mark Watson


------------------------------

Bundle: 406
Archive-Message-Number: 4784
Date:    Sun, 25 Oct 1992 17:52:41 -0600 (CST)
From: CS171308011@UTSA86.UTSA.EDU
Subject: Running Psi in Trav

Mat sez:
}Well it has finally happened.  I've got a number of Zhodani nobles
}in the newly created group.  Two people with Social Standings of
}13, and one with a Social Standing of 12.  I've never played and
}or run the psionic system in Traveller, does anyone have any
}advice or tips to offer?

Hmmm...  I wonder if I will surprise a few here by saying that I
don't like using psionics in my campaigns...  As systems meant to
deal with psionics I guess I prefer Traveller over other systems,
but mainly because the psionic system is very limited.  As long as
you remember that psionics in Traveller is pretty limited by
comparison to say... Star Wars or magic stuff in D&D.

The MOST IMPORTANT Advice in the psi system is NOT to let your
players talk you into some super powered psionic ability just
because they rolled something under the 'Special' category.  I will
usually let a player hand pick a psi skill when they roll the
'Special'.  I once saw a player who chose to transmute elements as
his special ability.  1 Kg of material per psi point expended.  He
then chose to create kilogram sized chunks of Anti-matter.  Thank
GOD I was not the ref.

Of course I came up with some of my own custom rules for psi stuff.
For instance:  If a character possesses telepathy, awareness,
medical skill and has a psi strength greater than 8, that character
may induce psionic regeneration in another person.  It's tough;
it's a strain, but it can be done.
(For the curious, Jietlshaiepr can do it, albeit barely)

Another custom rule is that psionic strength may be regained more
easily (or even be temporarily boosted) by relaxation techniques.
Activity is easier when the mind when is relaxed.  This is
precipitated by the presence and actions of a 'significant other'
(viz Jietlshaiepr & Niedrsha)  |->

Scott 2G Kellogg

------------------------------

Bundle: 406
Archive-Message-Number: 4785
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 19:15:17 PST
From: cdr@kpc.com (Carl Rigney)
Subject: Re: Chadwick and stutterwarp

Steve Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM> makes many excellent
points, ending in

> most important, the first world to develop this will conquer EVERYONE
> ELSE VERY QUICKLY!  So your New Era will be a New Empire about five
> years after stutterwarp is discovered.  Unless you stretch plausibility
> well past the breaking point by specifying that every spacefaring world
> discovers it independently within the period of a few weeks.

But just imagine the excitement of those 5 years as all the other powers
desparately attempt to steal the Secret of Stutterwarp before they're
overrun!

Then all the obsolete jumpdrive warships can be decommissioned to serve
as slow freighters and sold for scrap; the PCs can get their hands on one
without mortgaging their grandchildren; pirates can rip off a few
warps and beat the military expansion out to the slow zones where they
can prey at will on the slowboat navies, until the New Empire catches
up to them.

Note that if you have a Stutterwarp the 100-diameter limit is
meaningless for piracy.  You don't just appear there, you 'warp in,
right?  I don't know if course-matching under stutterwarp is plausible,
I suspect the proper way to do piracy is to have a few guys on the
merchant to take control or disable the 'warp well outside the system,
then offload the best cargo to your pirate ship.  By the time the Navy
answers the speed-of-light distress call, you're long gone.

Besides until things settle down, Stutterwarp Naval ships will have much
more important things to do than anti-pirate patrols.  Once the New
Empire is firmly in place, THEN piracy will be risky, but at that point
you can always release a computer virus or something. :-)

Besides, how many Traveller games last longer than 5 years gametime anyway?
(Except for Metlay's, of course.)

- --
Carl Rigney
cdr@kpc.com

"Engine room reporting. We seem to, er, have a problem." -- Metlay


------------------------------

Bundle: 406
Archive-Message-Number: 4786
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 15:19:10 +1000
From: pihlab@hhcs.gov.au
Subject: STUTTERWARP AGAIN


How to allow GDW to write a generic rule book for TRAVELLER which
describes the mechanics of the universe without contradicting the
existing mechanics.

The big problem with STUTTERWARP is that it makes in-system TRAVELLER
drives appear useless and that it is vastly superior in getting from
point A to point B.

JUMP drive operates in parsecs.  How about revising the scale of the
universe such that each hex (old parsec) equals 10 parsecs now.  Your
TRAVELLER map stays the same ie JUMP-1 equals 1 hex per week.  In fact,
I remember reading a lot of complaints about the scarcity of stellar
objects and this should allow the game scale to expand and more
locations to exist.  This also allows for much more exploration and
the GMs to redefine large tracts of space without changing the basic
IMPERIUM layout.

The above doesn't sound like too difficult a change.  Any problems
that you can see with this?

Secondly, in-system travel is currently via thruster plates but what's
to stop you from placing a gravity-well limitation on STUTTERWARP such
once they get within their discharge radius the STUTTERWARP doesn't
work anymore.  True, you still can zip all over the system but you
need something to get you in and out of those gravity wells.

I'm playing in a 2300 (ie STUTTERWARP) fleet campaign now and the
mechanics of combat are quite simple and fun.  I'm sure that if you
introduced a ship design system that incorporated all three drive
systems (JUMP, STUTTERWARP, THRUSTER-PLATES) then you've got more
variety to play with.

If you're interested in pure TRAVELLER then you make STUTTERWARP
next to useless or ignore it all together in the IMPERIUM expansion
book while removing JUMP and THRUSTER-PLATES from the 2300 expansion
module.

It should be just a matter of adjusting the characteristics and costs
to get the right feel.

Want to add in WARP Drive and Gates?  Again, it should be just a matter
of identifying the mechanics in the TRAVELLER generic rules and then
enhancing/disabling them in the particular expansion module for the
universe that you're playing in.

GDW are trying to get fresh-blood into the game.  You can't stop
them because its their business.  I can relate to a lot of the complaints
about rewriting history and changing the mechanics of the universe
but how about putting that energy, that VERY creative energy into
some ideas and instructions for GDW to use to keep TRAVELLER (and GDW)
growing.

I will now get off my soap-box and ... (huh, who's that? A gun! duck no
run for it blat blat blat) {transmission ends}.

------------------------------
The TML is made possible by facilities provided by the University of
Western Ontario. All opinions and materials below are the responsibility
of the originator.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

BUN# =AMN= =DATE====== =FROM==========  =SUBJECT/BODY==========================
 407  4787 26-Oct-1992 Marc Alexandrov  Starports << >Submissions: traveller@en
 407  4788 26-Oct-1992 Matthew D. Gold  Traveller stuff wanted << I'm looking f
 407  4789 26-Oct-1992 ""Tan-Quang B.   Tyro << Hello! I hope no veterans are m
 407  4790 26-Oct-1992 Matthew D. Gold  super-dense materials << I was reading
 407  4791 26-Oct-1992 Steve Higginbot  Stutterwarp, Traveller, and the New Emp
 407  4792 26-Oct-1992 SULAIMAN@ecs.um  Sword Worlds...Long << In response to H
 407  4793 26-Oct-1992 LTG3878@ZEUS.TA  Re:  Stutterwarp vs. Jump Drive << Repl
 407  4794 26-Oct-1992 George William   Re: Hull design and Materials <<  Catie
 407  4795 27-Oct-1992 pihlab@hhcs.gov  When to stop refuelling << In the HITCH
 407  4796 27-Oct-1992 Hans Rancke-Mad  Re: Sword Worlds  << Ameer:
 407  4797 27-Oct-1992 kirsch@rhea.inf  The third Vehicle: Rough Terrain Walker
 407  4798 27-Oct-1992 CS171308011@UTS  Starports, Traffic, prebooked jump << I

------------------------------

Bundle: 407
Archive-Message-Number: 4787
From: Marc Alexandrovich Volovic <mav@lizardo.fh.huji.ac.il>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 11:33:17 +0200
Subject: Starports


>Submissions: traveller@engrg.uwo.ca -or- uunet!engrg.uwo.ca!traveller
>
>From: Rob Dean <robdean@access.digex.com>
>On starports:  I like the idea of a detailed starport generator.  Any ideas
>as to what ought to go into it?  SHipyard size? Number of landing/docking
>bays? Number of retail stores on the concourse?
>
>Rob Dean

The first and major consideration is "wholeness" (for lack of better term).
Is the Starport located wholy on the plant's surface or does it have an
orbital component and, if so, of what size.

The orbital component will, of course, be the docking/unloading station for
planetoid and dispersed configuration ships, as well as for ships without
M-drives and very, very big ships (Atlantis class comes to mind).

The primary division of the land-side Starport shall be for ships landing on
gravitic M-drive versus ships on rocket M-drive (not many of those, true),
and shall possibly include a runway (for the streamlined ships) and a landing
field with blast resistant tarmac for the vertically landing rockets and
unstreamlined ships.

One of the important parameters to decide is the number of ship-berths and
their size --- one 40,000 ton berth probably takes the space which may be
used by 150 Far Traders. The Starport, it seems, is a fairly large place (A
LOT larger than anything imagined in one of White Dwarves dealing with the
matter).

The next thing to decide is the size of the repair/maintenance area, provision
for simultaneous repair of ships, refueling stations and vehicles, fuel,
spares and equipment storage and parking space for 'port vehicles. Not to
mention designing these vehicles (cranes, mobile work platforms, tugs, loading
vehicles --- Rob, this is going to fall in your lap, I am afraid).

Then come the customs houses and warehouses, incoming and outbound processing
areas for cargo and passengers, security vehicles and barracks, shops and
terminals and many other small fry.

Comments?

Marc A. Volovic

------------------------------

Bundle: 407
Archive-Message-Number: 4788
Subject: Traveller stuff wanted
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 9:45:05 CST
From: goldman@orac.cray.com (Matthew D. Goldman)
Reply-To: goldman@orac.cray.com

I'm looking for the following Traveller stuff:

        Traveller Adventure #10
        Traveller Alien Module #5
        Traveller Book #7
        Traveller Book #8
        Traveller Supplement #12
        Traveller Supplement #13

If you have the above but are not willing to part with them,
I would like to get a photocopy.  I have some duplicate
Traveller stuff that I would be willing to trade for the
above.

Matt Goldman
goldman@orac.cray.com


- --
Matthew Goldman              E-mail: goldman@orac.cray.com
Fax: (612) 683-3099                   Work: (612) 683-3061

"Would you like fries with that sir?"

------------------------------

Bundle: 407
Archive-Message-Number: 4789
Subject: Tyro
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 11:37:08 -0500
From: ""Tan-Quang B. Pho"" <tbpho@mailbox.syr.edu>

Hello! I hope no veterans are miffed by this post, but I really need lots of
info on the current Traveller setup! I played the Classic game years ago, and
have recently decided to revive those high times with all my old buds. Problem
is, we're all at a loss as to *which* game we should play (read: invest cash in)
. If someone could inform me about the settings in which 2300 and
  MegaTraveller
are meant to be played in, as well as any major rules differences, I would
appreciate it to no end, as would my prospective players.

The feel that I'm looking for is a high tech-level universe, not as clean as
Star Trek and more functional, but not nearly as grungy as Star Wars or
Battletech. I'm definitely looking for that "Mighty Houses vieing for power"
thing present in BT. Kind of a Dune-esque political milieu, but not quite so
subtle, yeah? Let's have high political intrigue! Let's have starfaring nobles
and the odd military campaign! Let's have lots of Orbitals of glass and white
plassteel! Cool pseudo-military uniforms! And the best part of the classic
game: let's have seasoned and worldly veterans as PC's!!

I would ask that any good samaritans who can help me out with their opinions
please e-mail me, but perhaps I'm not the only one subscribed to this ML who
can't decide which game to get into.... I _would_ really appreciate any hellp
I can get from you gentlefolk. Thanks, Travellers.

Q
tbpho@mailbox.syr.edu

PS what is this TNE thing?

------------------------------

Bundle: 407
Archive-Message-Number: 4790
Subject: super-dense materials
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 10:33:00 CST
From: goldman@orac.cray.com (Matthew D. Goldman)
Reply-To: goldman@orac.cray.com

I was reading over Catie Helm's message about submarine and
starship hulls and wondered about layered material for hulls.
Is it possible to build hulls out of various materials?  Perhaps
a layer of titanium, a laayer of plastic, another layer of
titanium followed by a layer of ceramic and so on?  I imagine
that it would be a pain to put together; however that is
what high technology is for.

Perhaps even a mesh that forms the basic hull shape, and then
everything else is sputtered+ on, a molecular layer at a time.
It would be sort of cool to watch, you'd start out with the
wireframe model, and then all of the layers would be added.
Windows would just have clear molecules put over the wire frame,
Hardpoints would have to be designated before hand, due to the
trouble of cutting away the hull.  Hard to due plus might weaken
the hull overall.

Matt

+ I'm not sure of the real term for this.  Sputtering is what
  I've heard my dad refer to the way he builds test crystals
  in his lab.

- --
Matthew Goldman              E-mail: goldman@orac.cray.com
Fax: (612) 683-3099                   Work: (612) 683-3061

"Just keep repeating after me: The Third Imperium never
 fell.  We are not playing Cyberpunk/Shadow Run in space.
 There are no ai lifeforms inside of our transponders.
 The giant water empire has not fallen.  The universe does
 not lie in ruins.  If any of the above are true, you have
 misjumped.  Appease the referee and try to get home.
 Pizza works best to recover from bad mis-jumps."
Matt "2 t" Goldman

------------------------------

Bundle: 407
Archive-Message-Number: 4791
Date: 26 Oct 92 18:22:05 EST
From: Steve Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Stutterwarp, Traveller, and the New Empire


FROM:    INTERNET:cdr@kpc.com, INTERNET:cdr@kpc.com
TO:      Steve Higginbotham, 71035,1211
DATE:    10/25/92 at 21:16

SUBJECT: Re: Chadwick and stutterwarp

Sender: cdr@kpc.com
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Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 19:15:17 PST
From: cdr@kpc.com (Carl Rigney)
Message-Id: <9210260315.AA13573@mailbox.kpc.com>
To: 71035.1211@CompuServe.COM
Subject: Re: Chadwick and stutterwarp
Cc: traveller@engrg.uwo.ca

Steve Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM> makes many excellent
points, ending in

> most important, the first world to develop this will conquer EVERYONE
> ELSE VERY QUICKLY!  So your New Era will be a New Empire about five
> years after stutterwarp is discovered.  Unless you stretch plausibility
> well past the breaking point by specifying that every spacefaring world
> discovers it independently within the period of a few weeks.

But just imagine the excitement of those 5 years as all the other powers
desparately attempt to steal the Secret of Stutterwarp before they're
overrun!

Then all the obsolete jumpdrive warships can be decommissioned to serve
as slow freighters and sold for scrap; the PCs can get their hands on one
without mortgaging their grandchildren; pirates can rip off a few
warps and beat the military expansion out to the slow zones where they
can prey at will on the slowboat navies, until the New Empire catches
up to them.

Note that if you have a Stutterwarp the 100-diameter limit is
meaningless for piracy.  You don't just appear there, you 'warp in,
right?  I don't know if course-matching under stutterwarp is plausible,
I suspect the proper way to do piracy is to have a few guys on the
merchant to take control or disable the 'warp well outside the system,
then offload the best cargo to your pirate ship.  By the time the Navy
answers the speed-of-light distress call, you're long gone.

Besides until things settle down, Stutterwarp Naval ships will have much
more important things to do than anti-pirate patrols.  Once the New
Empire is firmly in place, THEN piracy will be risky, but at that point
you can always release a computer virus or something. :-)

Besides, how many Traveller games last longer than 5 years gametime anyway?
(Except for Metlay's, of course.)

- --
Carl Rigney
cdr@kpc.com

"Engine room reporting. We seem to, er, have a problem." -- Metlay


------------------------------

Bundle: 407
Archive-Message-Number: 4792
Date: 26 Oct 1992 19:01:21 -0500
From: SULAIMAN@ecs.umass.edu
Subject: Sword Worlds...Long


In response to Hans Rancke on the Sword Worlds:

>>PI
>> -420 Sword Worlds (colonists of Scandinavian origin) leave Terra
>> -399 Sword Worlds settle Gram.

>Where did you find the date for leaving Terra?

Solomani and Aslan : Its listed on the Solomani History in Pre-Imperial
times Timeline.


> ... I'd like to know if the bit about
>coming from Terra itself is official. I've always assumed that they came
>from a scandinavian-settled world, not Terra.
If you consider DGP official then the date for Terran departure is correct.
It states "-420: Sword World colonists leave Terra"
Now JTAS 18 states that the Sword Worlders are descended from "Solomani
exiles" whatever that means... I personally haven't decided on the
context of the the statement "leave Terra". It could apply specifically
to Terra or be a reference to the Terran Mercantile Union which was
now the Old Earth Union and had been in existence for almost 700 years.

>Possibly the Syleans and Vilani didn't want them around (or the Sword-
>worlders didn't like the conditions for settling down, ie. subordinate
>themselves to another government). Still, both Syleans and Vilani were
>'Rule of Law' adherents, so they didn't want to attack a peaceful
>colony fleet. Instead they welcomed the Swordworlders, gave their ships
>a free refit, and then escorted them to the other side of their sphere
>of influence with instructions to keep moving.

But if they didn't like governments why go that way. Corewards is where
the Terrans knew that there were lots of governments. If you really want to
get away you head Rimwards.

Also to be kept in mind is the apparent Sylean desire not to reintegrate
Terra till later. Terra didn't join the Imperium till 588 well after the
First Survey (420). Vland was contacted and had join the Sylean Confederation
by -30.

One theory that fits some facts is that they sought political asylum but
were refused. Still doesn't explain why they did not drop anchor somewhere
in Deneb. Instead they marched into the Marches ....

>Piper's original explanation makes as much sense as anything: They were
>the loosers of a war and fled to somewhere far away from their successful
>enemies.

Hmmm....There is hardly any reference to Old Earth Union and its activities
between -1100 and 588. There *could* have been a civil war lead by a core
of worlds settled by a specific culture. There is also the "Gene War"
which strangely has no date attached to it. The reference to Confederation
implies that it
happened after the Solomani Confederation was formed but it could also be a
reference to the Terran Confederation. In that case the Sword Worlders could
be the survivors of the Gene War, the super men with super intelligence but
no genius. In that way they appear closer to the Saurons of the WarWorld
series by ....Drake?? Pournelle??
In either case that could give a reason for heading corewards. To gain
asylum.
The asylum could have been denied because in those early days neither the
Syleans nor the Vilani may have wanted or needed to deal with more
troublemakers. Additionally if they were super-beings they could have been
used as mercenary units for a period of time, which would explain the
length of time it took them to get to the Marches.
Eventually they had no asylum and decided to get far away from the Terrans
who would
know their source and would hunt them down. And since all human exploration
rimwards has been done by the Solomani that would also be a reason to head
towards the core.

>How many settlers left Terra?

I'd suspect atleast 50,000. I know other people have done various population
growth models but by my rough guesstimate thats what you need to get to their
current population levels in 1500 years with remarkably little external
molestation or intervention.


>>Why did it take them 21 years? At jump 2 it takes about 6 years to get from

>later Vland, about permission to settle somewhere. They finally decided
>that if they wanted to do things their way without interference they would
>have to go somewhere far away from established areas.

The only catch is that neither the Syleans nor the Vilani controlled enough
space to be in such a position, unless the SW wanted to settle on pre-
developed worlds..... If so then why the sudden change of mind? If the SW
in -420 had the tech (10-11) to travel from Terra to Gram then they had more
then enough tech to take over the many worlds that had fallen behind. At this
time the Syleans controlled a few subsectors and their total influence was
restricted to that sector if that. The Vilani being the ever cautious probably
had even less.

Ameer

------------------------------

Bundle: 407
Archive-Message-Number: 4793
Date:    Mon, 26 Oct 1992 22:12:07 -0600 (CST)
From: LTG3878@ZEUS.TAMU.EDU
Subject: Re:  Stutterwarp vs. Jump Drive

Reply to Frank Chadwick regarding Stutterwarp:

The issue put to us is as follows:  how best to incorporate Stutterwarp into
the Imperium universe, so as to unite the 2300AD and MegaTraveller gaming
systems.  I am no expert on 2300AD but is my understanding that Stutterwarp
is both fast and efficient, the only limitation being the need to disspate the
buildup of radiation.  This contrasts strongly with the more familiar jump
drive, where vast amounts of energy must be stored away into Zuchai crystals,
then released almost instantly into the Hull grid to transport one's vessel
into jump space, to reemerge one week later from one to six parsecs distant
from your starting point.

If the 2300AD sourcebook is to be set prior to the Imperium setting, as is
somewhat chronologically consistent, there are several difficulties to be
overcome:

1) the traditional Traveller/MT background has the Vilani encountering the
Terrans very shortly after the Terrans first discover jump drive.  The
implication is that Terra's closest stars were Vilani bases.  In the 2300AD
history, the earth nations explore and colonize for some range around Earth
before encoutering the Kafers.  A new chronology will be necessary.

2) Stutterwarp would appear to be better in almost every way than jump drive.
The fastest jump vessel has a 'velocity' of only 20 light-years per week.
Furthermore, stutterwarp is not affected by gravity.  Yet, stutterwarp needs
to precede the development of jump drive.

3)  The Imperium and its surrounds are mapped out in an essentially 2D fashion,
yet 2300AD takes place in a 3D setting.

We need to find a way to constrict the volume of space occupied by the early
Terran colonies, and a way to make jump drive superior to Stutterwarp.

Another poster has already made the suggestion that I will make key here:  if
we keep as a general rule the idea that Jump-n allows one to travel n hexes
per week, we can choose a hex size to make Jump drive superior to Stutterwarp.
The 2D Imperium map becomes a loose approximation to the plane of our galaxy,
with each star in a hex actually displaced up or down some amount that we can
ignore for game purporses.  Furthermore, the large number of Terra-like planets
reflect the fact that there are a large number of less desirable systems that
don't appear on the hex grid.

The early Terran history has to be changed.  Terrans first discover Stutterwarp,
then begin to explore there nearby stars.  They encounter the Kafers, etcetera.
Give enough breakthing space here for a 2300AD sourcebook (at least one to two
hundred years).  About 2500AD, Terrans discover the Zuchai crystal which makes
possible the Jump-1 drive, which is much more powerful than the fastest
Stutterwarp drive.  The Terrans travel to the farthest star yet, and encounter
the Vilani!  In the face of the new 'Kafers' Terra and its colonies unite,
beginning the first of the Interstellar Wars.  Many of the early Terran colonies
are abandoned as the Jump drive opens up more Earth-like planets. The rest of
known Traveller/MT history unfolds, leading up to the Rebellion.

Stutterwarp is rapidly relegated to a secondary drive, primarily used to travel
to the 100 diameter limit, as the only other systems worth visiting are so far
away that Stutterwarp isn't considered a realistic option.  The lowly Maneuver
drive is found only on surface to orbit shuttles and the like.

Starship combat becomes centered around the Stutterwarp drive, with M-drive
combat a rarity (most ships no longer carry such antiquated drives).  This
will substantially alter Starship combat, but perhaps that's for the better.

The real question is:  how large is the new hex to be?  I would suggest making
it large enough that even Jump-1 is 10 times 'faster' for travel between any
two systems that are 'worth' visiting.  Sure, there are plenty of systems not
on the map between Regina and Ruie, but those systems are pretty barren, and
not much to see.  This has the happy side-effect of leaving these 'un-hexed'
systems open as a Referee's playground.  Want to put an Ancient site near
Lanth?  Put it in the unmapped region of stars near Lanth.

Lewis Taylor Goss

------------------------------

Bundle: 407
Archive-Message-Number: 4794
Subject: Re: Hull design and Materials
From: gwh@lurnix.COM (George William Herbert)
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 12:04:15 -0800


Catie Helm made some good comments about starship hulls, and
I'd like to keep going along those lines.

One thing that should be noted first is that the analogy between
submarine hulls and starship hulls is not exact; at least in traveller,
they have different engineering goals, though similar.  A submarine has
the goal of resisting incredibly high pressures from the outside, and
all else (including hull shape, materials, design of hull penetrations,
etc) is organized around that engineering requirement.  Starships in
Traveller, on the other hand, have relatively puny hull stresses from
atmospheric pressure inside.  The space shuttle's cabin is made of
very thin aluminum sheet; resisting 15 psi is easy.  Re-entry imposes
higher stresses (much of it thermal), but in Traveller you can
easily pick your reentry speed, so those are minimized.  The closest
TML has come to determining why starship hulls in Traveller are
so heavy is that they have to block radiation, and the hull mass
that's described as "standard" hull, w/o additional armour, is just
about the right amount to limit lifetime exposures for starship
crews (accumulated flare radiation and Galactic Cosmic Radiation
exposures) to levels with minimal health effects.

Hull Armour for armour's sake is different; there, it's the
local thickness and toughness that matter.  The hardest part of armouring
starships is again, as in submarines, designing tough penetration points.
However, you have the advantage that the stresses you're working
against are potential and transient (impact, laser, etc) as opposed
to constant (submersible pressure).  It's reasonable, from a design
point of view, to trade off absolute armour protection in a small
area, if you've got a reasonable probabalistic chance that it won't
be damaged.  You can't do that with sumbarine hulls 8-)

Enough about hull design issues.  Now, on to superdense...
I've been thinking a lot about Superdense armour too, and here's what
I came up with.
Making hull plating thinner is not a good idea, for one reason:
thin plating is not stiff.  However, we've got these nifty high-strength
dense matter materials.  How _do_ we use them to best effect in spacecraft?
Well, we use them the same way you use high-strength materials in
aircraft now; you make composites.
Imagine a composite material made of say Aluminum metal and
thin (0.1 mm) fibers of superdense material woven into matting which the
aluminum was cast around (or whatever).  Since the matrix material is
Aluminum, you can weld it, cast it, or do whatever else you want with
it.  If you heat it a bit, sheets of it can be formed and bent.
However, the strength and toughness and impact resistance
are primarily in the superdense fibers, as in present-day composites.
Advantages?  The average density is lower than pure superdense,
so the stiffness is increased.  It's working characteristics are better
since you can weld it and form it relatively easier.  And the variable
density/hardness characteristics resist penetration better than
homogenous materials.

- -george william herbert
gwh@lurnix.com

------------------------------

Bundle: 407
Archive-Message-Number: 4795
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 16:07:39 +1000
From: pihlab@hhcs.gov.au
Subject: When to stop refuelling


In the HITCH HIKERS GUIDE to the galaxy series they mention a planet
where they weigh you on arrival and on leaving and if they must match
or you must be lighter to leave otherwise they chop off enough to make
up the difference.

This got me thinking about what a large volume of refuelling vessels
would do to a planetary environment.  Has anyone done any investigation
of the amount of Hydrogen fuel taken from a high tech high population
starport class A world in one year?  Is this a significant effect on
the planetary ecology?  How about over a 10 or 50 or 100 year period?

When would this become a problem and force all refuelling to happen
offworld at gas giants etc?

Just a thought ...


Bruce...          pihlab@hhcs.gov.au

------------------------------

Bundle: 407
Archive-Message-Number: 4796
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Sword Worlds
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 15:12:29 MET

Ameer:
>>>PI
>>>-420 Sword Worlds (colonists of Scandinavian origin) leave Terra
>>>-399 Sword Worlds settle Gram.
>
>>Where did you find the date for leaving Terra?
>
>Solomani and Aslan : Its listed on the Solomani History in Pre-Imperial
>times Timeline.
>
>If you consider DGP official then the date for Terran departure is correct.
>It states "-420: Sword World colonists leave Terra"

OK, I guess we have to work with that, then.

>>Possibly the Syleans and Vilani didn't want them around (or the Sword-
>>worlders didn't like the conditions for settling down, ie. subordinate
>>themselves to another government). Still, both Syleans and Vilani were
>>'Rule of Law' adherents, so they didn't want to attack a peaceful
>>colony fleet. Instead they welcomed the Swordworlders, gave their ships
>>a free refit, and then escorted them to the other side of their sphere
>>of influence with instructions to keep moving.
>
>But if they didn't like governments why go that way. Corewards is where
>the Terrans knew that there were lots of governments. If you really want
>to get away you head Rimwards.
>
>One theory that fits some facts is that they sought political asylum but
>were refused. Still doesn't explain why they did not drop anchor somewhere
>in Deneb. Instead they marched into the Marches ....

That one is easy. They went as far as they considered was safe to go
without yearly maintenance. If they had thought it safe they would
have gone even farther.

>reference to the Terran Confederation. In that case the Sword Worlders could
>be the survivors of the Gene War, the super men with super intelligence but
>no genius. In that way they appear closer to the Saurons of the WarWorld
>series by ....Drake?? Pournelle??

Perhaps, but if so those gene evidently didn't breed true over the centuries.

>In either case that could give a reason for heading corewards. To gain
>asylum.
>The asylum could have been denied because in those early days neither the
>Syleans nor the Vilani may have wanted or needed to deal with more
>troublemakers. Additionally if they were super-beings they could have been
>used as mercenary units for a period of time, which would explain the
>length of time it took them to get to the Marches.
>Eventually they had no asylum and decided to get far away from the Terrans
>who would
>know their source and would hunt them down. And since all human exploration
>rimwards has been done by the Solomani that would also be a reason to head
>towards the core.
>
>>>Why did it take them 21 years? At jump 2 it takes about 6 years to get from
>
>>later Vland, about permission to settle somewhere. They finally decided
>>that if they wanted to do things their way without interference they would
>>have to go somewhere far away from established areas.
>
>The only catch is that neither the Syleans nor the Vilani controlled enough
>space to be in such a position, unless the SW wanted to settle on pre-
>developed worlds..... If so then why the sudden change of mind? If the SW
>in -420 had the tech (10-11) to travel from Terra to Gram then they had more
>then enough tech to take over the many worlds that had fallen behind. At this
>time the Syleans controlled a few subsectors and their total influence was
>restricted to that sector if that. The Vilani being the ever cautious 
>probably had even less.

By the same token there could be lots of small independent worlds with small
navies. If we assume that the winners of the conflict that the Swordworlders
lost allowed them to emigrate, but didn't allow them to take significant
warships with them, the Swordworlders would not be able to settle outside
Sylean or Vilani space for fear of being raided. Hence the desire to go
somewhere with NO neighbours (quite ironic when one considers the Darrians).

Keep in mind that the leaders who led them corewards in -420 needen't be of
the same mind as the leaders who led them to Gram in -399. Inconsistencies
in goals could easily be tied up in internal political struggles.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "A  subsector  official  pompously states that the
        subsector  armed  forces  have  four Kinunir class
        ships in service,  each with enough troop strength
        to put down any military operations that threathen
        the peace of the Imperium."

                        ---Adventure 1, The Kinunir

------------------------------

Bundle: 407
Archive-Message-Number: 4797
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1992 16:48:09 EST
From: kirsch@rhea.informatik.uni-bonn.de
Subject: The third Vehicle: Rough Terrain Walker

And here is the last vehicle. This vehicle has some odd features.

CraftID:Rough Terrain Walker, TL 15, Cr 4,926,840
Hull:9/23, Dip=10, Config=7USL, Armor=40G, Unloaded=106.6t,
loaded=128.3t
Power:1/2, Fusion=54MW, Duration=8/24 days
Locomotion:3/6, 6 Legs, P/W=420, Road=300kph, OffRoad=240kph
Communication:Radio=FarOrbit, Maser=FarOrbit
Sensors:EMSPassive=Interstellar, EMSActive=FarOrbit,
Densitometer=LowPen/250meter, Neutrino=10kw, Environ.Sens.
NeuralActivitySens.=VeryLong, MagneticSens.=V.Dist,
ActObjScan=Rout, ActObjPin=Rout, PasObjScan=Rout,
PasObjPin=Rout, PasEngScan=Simple, PasEngPin=Rout
Off/Def:None
Control:Computer=1bis, Panel=holodyn.linked(x60),
Environ.=BasicEnv,BasicLS,ExtLS,Airlock
Accom:Crew=1 (Driver), Seat=Adequate(x4)
Others:Fuel=10.368kl (192h), Cargo=21kl, drinking water tank=798l,
ObjSize=Average, EMLevel=Faint

Comments:
The Environment is only supported in the cabine. The cargo hold lays outside
the environment controls, but it is enclosed. The Airlock has two doors,
one to enter the cargo hold directly, and one to leave the vehicle.
Environment controls can be added to the cargo hold, by sacrificing
1.05 kl of cargo for an additional control unit.

The speed of the vehicle is rather odd. That's because the suspension is
designed, for only 1/6 of the power plant output. If the P/W ratio is
calculated properly with respect to the power, the transmission and
suspension of the vehicle can handle, you get the following results:

    P/W=70, Road=139kph, OffRoad=111kph

but the Design Evaluation Section of the Referee's Manual only use the
Power Output of the plant, not the power the vehicle can handle.

The Rough Terrain Walker is build for two purposes:
1. It is a vehicle, for really rough terrain, such as mountains or
   large glaciers.
2. It provides a walking Power Plant for expeditions, where Grav Vehicles
   have difficulties to land, e.g. in very rough terrain, or on planets,
   where strong winds dominate the climate. Up to 45MW of the PowerPlant
   can be derivided to external consumers.


- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Juergen Kirsch
Institut fuer Informatik, Universitaet Bonn
Germany
kirsch@rhea.informatik.uni-bonn.de

------------------------------

Bundle: 407
Archive-Message-Number: 4798
Date:    Tue, 27 Oct 1992 12:40:06 -0600 (CST)
From: CS171308011@UTSA86.UTSA.EDU
Subject: Starports, Traffic, prebooked jump

I sed:
>Chicago's O'Hare is class C?  No bloody way!  Class C means unrefined
>fuel and 'reasonable' repair facilities.  No overhauls, no 100 hr
>inspections.  To me, that means that the port is more like your local
>airstrip.  (Say College Park airstrip for the DC & MD crowd)
>Small private planes VERY small commercial stuff.  Class D is more
>like a grass strip airport, with MAYBE a hanger.   Class E is a
>farmer's field.

Wildstar sez:
}To quote chapter and verse (Traveller Book 3: Worlds and Adventures,
}copyright 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop, page 5):
}A = Excellent Quality Installation.  Refined Fuel Available.  Annual
}   maintainance overhaul available.  Shipyard capable of starship and
}   non-starship construction present.  May contain Naval Base and/or
}   Scout base.
}B = Good Quality installation.  Refined fuel available.  Annual
}   maintainance overhaul available.  Shipyard capable of constructing
}   non-starships present.  May contain Naval and/or Scout bases.
}C = Routine installation.  Only unrefined fuel available.  Reasonable
}   repair facilities present.  May contain a Scout base.
}D = Poor quality installation.  Only unrefined fuel available.  No
}   repair or shipyard facilities present.  May contain a Scout base.
}E = Frontier installation.  Essentially a bare spot of bedrock with
}   no fuel, facilities, or bases present.
}X = No starport.  No provision made for any starship landings.

}Note that nothing explicit is said about traffic levels (even relative
}traffic levels).  Going back to the airport metaphor, which is imperfect
}at best, does O'Hare have the capability to build an aircraft or
}assemble one from components?  I don't know what a 100hr inspection
}entails, and I don't know of any airline has a major maintainance
}facility there.  If major maintainance is available, I would classify it
}as Class B; otherwise it's got to be C.

The 100 hr inspection for aircraft (or annual) is a complete overhaul.
Most airports have the capacity to perform a 100 hr on small aircraft.
Say that a cessna is the equivalent of a small craft, that means
virtually all starports have the capacity to overhaul smallcraft.

O'Hare is a major hub.  They ought to have capacity to overhaul jumbo
jets.  That means they have the equivalent of overhaul for starships.
That makes it an 'A' yard.  Yet, they have no 'ship' yards.

}In my (humble) opinion, starport classification has nothing to do with
}size or amount of traffic.  If a municipal airport rents out one of the
}hangars to a lightplane maintainance and restoration company, and if the
}airport has both AvGas and Jet-A available, then it is class B (overhaul
}available, both kinds of fuel).  Other airports of similar size might be
}Class D, if they only sell AvGas and no repairs are available.  Class E
}might be an "airstrip" out in the outback of Australia - a patch of bare
}ground that's been cleared of most large obstructions.  Class X is a
}farmer's field: you are not supposed to land there, but you might be
}able to in an emergency.

}More than anything else, I think we are hitting our heads on a major
}limitation in Traveller: not enough detail in the definitions (and too
}few categories to pigeonhole things into).  Probably there sould be some
}detailed starport generation scheme, which detailed the types of
}services available, and the capacity of each one.

Ah, well, this is basically the stand I took in the beginning.  There is
not sufficient detail:  A class 'A' port does not necessarily mean the
presence of jump capable ship yards.  A class 'B' port does not necessarily
mean high traffic.

I hereby suggest a traffic code mod for starports:
(sporadic but alphabetical)
H    Heavy:    Vessels up to a million tons.  Major worlds.
M    Medium:   Vessels below 100,000 ton vessels.
L    Light:    Vessels under 1000 tons.  (Player type ships)
O    Occasion: Traffic rarely in system.
Z    Zero:     No traffic in system.   Vessels EXTREMELY rare.

Note that Heavy traffic worlds must of necessity be at most jump-2 or
jump-3 apart from each other to accomodate the jump range of the starships.
(Jump-4 merchants are kinda rare)
Also note that traffic will be proportional to the population &
industry levels.
Further, any type of starport can have nearly any traffic level within
reason.  A class A port could have ship yards and light traffic,
a class E port could have no maintainence but heavy traffic.

AH   AM   AL   -    -
BH   BM   BL   BO   -
CH   CM   CL   CO   -
DH   DM   DL   DO   DZ
EH   EM   EL   EO   EZ
- -    -    XL   XO   XZ

(Shionthy belt is probably a XL or XM class port:  Local stuff only :-)

}[More about Madrigal]
>Yeah, possibly, but who would want a bunch of TL 6 Steel hulls for
>spacecraft?  If they are very late TL 6 they might be able to manage
>a Gemini or Mercury type space capsule, or at BEST an X-20 Dynasoar.

}Although you may have a point, I will argue that there's no real
}penalty in having a steel hull for most commercial applications.
}In almost all cases, agility is going to be zero anyway, so that
}the mass of the hull is irrellevant; volume of hull material does not
}enter into the design sequence anyway, and the price modifier for steel
}is the same as superdense or bonded superdense - the cheapest available.

}On the other hand, being cheap and low tech, it has relatively few
}control points. [..] This would tend to save on computer and crew
}requirements.

These are holes in the craft design system which don't make sence.
I therefore ignore them.
Of COURSE it matters how much a ship masses.  To say it doesn't is
just ignoring physical laws which are common sence.  Also, the agility
definition I (and Rob Dean) work with does take ship weight into account.
Also, control points on hulls is a kind of silly idea.  A steel hull
(while easier to build) is gonna require more maintainance than a
stronger material hull like crystal iron (TL 10).  Titanium (TL8) will
require a LOT more work than crystal iron.

More on Xtaliron later when I get around to Catie's stuff on hull
materials.

2G Scott

Metlay babbles:
>The concept of a prebooked connection Jump boggles my mind. Completely.
>Anywhere other than Tukera monopolized core areas, who would dare try?

Check out Adventure 10:  Safari Ship.  prebooked tickets in the
Spinward Marches/District 268.  As froniter as it gets.
TML Historian?  Nyahh!  Nyahh!  Nyahh!  :-)

------------------------------
The TML is made possible by facilities provided by the University of
Western Ontario. All opinions and materials below are the responsibility
of the originator.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

BUN# =AMN= =DATE====== =FROM==========  =SUBJECT/BODY==========================
 408  4799 27-Oct-1992 CS171308011@UTS  Hull Materials in Trav << Catie sez:
 408  4800 27-Oct-1992 SULAIMAN@ecs.um  Sword Worlds more + a question << >> Sw
 408  4801 27-Oct-1992 John Driver      d20 task resolution system?  Does it ex
 408  4802 27-Oct-1992 Scott S. Kellog  GDW Ads << Rob Dean sez:
 408  4803 27-Oct-1992 Cynthia Higginb  Starports & Sword Worlds << mav sez:
 408  4804 28-Oct-1992 Hans Rancke-Mad  Sword Worlds << >>>Sword Worlders could
 408  4805 28-Oct-1992 David Johnson    Starports << Although it does at first
 408  4806 28-Oct-1992 Scott S. Kellog  GDW Ads << Ooops!
 408  4807 28-Oct-1992 Scott S. Kellog  Twilight 2000 mechanics question << Hi
 408  4808 28-Oct-1992 Derek Wildstar   Stutterwarp; please forward to GDW << I
 408  4809 28-Oct-1992 Rob Dean         Re: Twilight 2000 mechanics question <<
 408  4810 28-Oct-1992 Cynthia Higginb  More Sword Worlds & starports with supe
 408  4811 29-Oct-1992 Carl Rigney      Re:  When to stop refuelling << The top

------------------------------

Bundle: 408
Archive-Message-Number: 4799
Date:    Tue, 27 Oct 1992 12:40:42 -0600 (CST)
From: CS171308011@UTSA86.UTSA.EDU
Subject: Hull Materials in Trav

Catie sez:
}I do however, know a great deal about submarines

}The way I see it, the problems with builing a hull for a submaine
}& a hull for a traveller space craft can't be too different.

Ah, one point about starship hulls vs. sub hulls:  A sub must
take a LOT more pressure than a ship (normally).  The pressure is
also in the opposite direction.  A starship will usually have an
interior pressure of say 6 psi.  (I believe that's the pressure in
the NASA Space Shuttle).  The pressure on a sub hull doubles every
time the sub drops a few feet or so.
(Sorry for the English units...)

George Herbert's (the naval architect) estimate was that an armor
40 hull could dive to 495 meters purely on the hull strength.
Seems to me that that depth could be augmented by increasing
interior pressure.  After all, with all the gas handling equipment
in the environmental control and the liquid hydrogen fuel, it
should be a simple matter to raise interior pressure.

}The problem, he said, was that you had to make holes in the hull,
}for the drive shaft, for the hatches, for the cooling water
}intakes.  It's the holes that are the "weakness" in withstanding
}the great pressure gradients.

}I opine that it's advances in making one-piece hulls of
}suitable thickness that's the trick.  If you could weld a hull of
}titanium or steel, or better yet, if you grow a single crystal of
}metal into a formed hull, then that's what required.

}Early submarines were rivetted together!
}(remember the great scene in Das Boot where they had to dive to
}bottem near Gilbratar, & the rivets starting popping in the hull?)

Great movie...  fave scene...   But making a one piece hull with
stuff like crystal iron is gonna be virtually impossible.  I read
a while back that they are just starting to make crystal iron
turbine blades for jet engines.  A very difficult process:  The
metal is poured into a mold.  To get the metal to crystalize
properly, they have a helical offshoot of the mold to get a seed
crystal in the proper orientation.  ie. inside the helix, crystals
grow with random orientation.  When allowed to cool properly, the
base of the helix will form a seed crystal with the proper
orientation to the turbine blade.  Now this works real nice for
thin turbine blades, as the blades are kinda crystalline in form
anyway, but imagine getting a starship crystalline shaped.  :-P
A one piece crystal hull will be very hard to repair.

Ceramic materials are gonna be rough too.  Why does the US M-1
Abrams Main Battle Tank look so boxy?  Ceramic armor.  (Those are
obviously not one piece hulls)

Composite Laminate ought to be easier to shape, but it is very
difficult to work with.  Patching & repair will be ROUGH.

Titanium:  The Soviets (Russians?) put a BUNDLE into titanium
working.  But the Alfa subs are the deepest diving attack subs
around.  Read Kelly Johnson's autobiography "Kelly:  More than my
share of it" p141 (EXCELLENT book) about the problems of building
the titanium SR-71.
Parts would shatter, titanium pieces would get 'poisoned' when
coming in contact with cadmium tools, and break off, tool bits
would refuse to cut titanium...  The Russians (?) are the only ones
who have a large enough titanium press to build subs hulls.  If
Lockheed's skunkworks had such an awful time, there's no telling
how much difficulty the builders of the Alfas had.

One of Metlay's ideas I really liked (his story in the Horde :-)
was the idea that under some kind of field, superdense armor became
fluid and was workable.  Thus you could make a single piece hull
MUCH easier than you could with any of the other materials
previously mentioned.

}The hull
}perforation problem can be taken care of by arm-waving good enough
}iris hatches.

An iris hatch is still a hole in the hull.  Problem not solved.

}What does super dense really get us anyway?  Perhaps better armour
}for naval & scout ships.  But why invent a new material when what
}we have is sufficient (in my opinion)?  Not only that, but
}consider that those super-dense material are going to be a bitch
}to weld - & that's the big problem in my mind anyway!

Horde excerpt:  written by Metlay
"But the real boon, and the discovery that got the corporate gears
turning, was the development of the RAMKS by Provost and Mills in
601. Up until that time, the welding and fitting of superdense
hulls was considered an expensive luxury, due to the difficulties
in getting the impenetrable materials to bond together easily. The
RAMKS (an acronym for Robo-animechaniakatasthyser) was a
man-portable device incorporating fusion and grav technology to
induce superfluid states in confined areas of superdense hullmetal,
allowing smooth joins as easily as two copper pipes could be
soldered together with a brazing torch."

Ok, maybe it is a bunch of handwaving, but so is a lotta trav tech,
and this sounds damn cool.

How's that sound?

2G Scott
PS.  2T Matt:
Yeah, sputtering  a hull COULD work, but it would take forever
to get a hull 33mm thick when you are working on depositing
MONOlayers of atoms.  But if you had forever to wait, you could
grow a single crystal hull that way.  Hmmm... A DIAMOND yacht?  :-)
But if crystal growing technology was that good, then there would
be no value to natural crystals.  Something that Trav doesn't have.

------------------------------

Bundle: 408
Archive-Message-Number: 4800
Date: 27 Oct 1992 18:00:50 -0500
From: SULAIMAN@ecs.umass.edu
Subject: Sword Worlds more + a question

>> Sword Worlders could be genetically enhanced super men ......etc

Hans Rancke replies:
> Perhaps, but if so those genes didn't breed true over the centuries.

Its possible that over 1500 years some genetic drift has occured. More likely
is that their internecine conflicts have probably done much to keep them
technologically backwards. Also their language and attitude makes them insular
and little may be known of their physical attributes. Granted that they
have not been militarily very succesful but they have been fighting Imperial
forces atleast 4 TLs above them. If your opponent is in battle dress and armed
with FGMPs enhanced dex/or enhanced ability to take damage does little for
you....

As far as settlement goes. The indications are that the SWs knew of the
Darrians existence when the decided to settle on Gram.


I am still curious to see other people's interpretation of why the
Sword Worlders are where they are now.


A question for the historians:

o When did the so-called Solomani "Gene Wars" occur?


Ameer

------------------------------

Bundle: 408
Archive-Message-Number: 4801
Subject: d20 task resolution system?  Does it exist?
From: jdriver@netlink.cts.com (John Driver)
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 15:54:40 PST


        Going through some old traveller stuff I noticed mention of
a d20 task resolution system that is designed as a replacement for
the one currently used by Twilight:2000 2nd edition.  I was
wondering if anything had been published, in the way of a rules
supplement, errata, magazine article or even as part of another
game (like Dark Conspiracy) that covers this d20 instead of d10
system.  If you can confirm, deny, or point me in the right
direction about this, please e-mail me as we are no longer
discussing the dynamics of various task systems around here.  Thanks.

- --
INTERNET:  jdriver@netlink.cts.com (John Driver)
UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!jdriver
NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115

------------------------------

Bundle: 408
Archive-Message-Number: 4802
From: skellogg@lonestar.utsa.edu (Scott S. Kellogg)
Subject: GDW Ads
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 19:16:02 CST

Rob Dean sez:
> about Assignment:
> Vigilante.  Then I got to thinking about A:V.  I am rapidly scanning through
> various issues of Challenge, and coming to the conclusion the _they never
> ran an ad for it in the magazine_!  How is anyone supposed to find out if
> the house organ won't even advertise it?  Likewise, did you hear that
> Diaspora is now coming out?  Seen any ads for that?  I thought not...

Yer right.
I never saw any ads except in the GDW catalogs.
I have however seen TNE ads.
Anybody else seen ads in other magazines?

God, I hope they market TNE better than this.  For the business's sake
if nothing else.

2G Scott

------------------------------

Bundle: 408
Archive-Message-Number: 4803
Date: 27 Oct 92 23:16:09 EST
From: Cynthia Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Starports & Sword Worlds

mav sez:

>The first and major consideration is "wholeness" (for lack of better term).
>Is the Starport located wholy on the plant's surface or does it have an
>orbital component and, if so, of what size.

>The orbital component will, of course, be the docking/unloading station for
>planetoid and dispersed configuration ships, as well as for ships without
>M-drives and very, very big ships (Atlantis class comes to mind).

 ...and shipyards.  Building large ships on the ground and then figuring out
how to lift them to orbit is silly.  They will be built in orbit -- I seem
to recall that A starports (which have shipyards by definition) have an
orbital component by definition.  And, you probably need to be out of the
gravitiy-well to calibrate jump drives.
    As for defining starports, I still think GURPS Space did a better job
with their thumbnail sketches of what a starport Class 0-V (Traveller X-A)
consists of than the Traveller books did.  For campaign use, you would
flesh them out, but I find them a good guideline.  They also used the idea
of a minimum population for the larger starport types, and a population
based dieroll -- the higher the pop, the more likely you were to have a
large starport.  I've included these descriptions below, with Traveller
equivalents in brackets.  GURPS Space uses the same log 10 population digit
Traveller does (called PR below), but the standard die roll is on 3d6,
not 2d6.  Random generation of starport type would mean rolling for
each type, starting with the best and falling back towards the worst
on failure to qualify or blown dierolls.

"Class V [A] -- Full facilities.  Full repair and ship construction
facilities, along with associated Patrol [Patrol/Reserve], Naval, and/or
Survey [Scout] bases. Port has berths for hundreds of vessels, multiple
landing fields, and every facility imaginable -- from crew union halls to
high-tech training facilities.  A Class V port is present only on worlds
of PR 6 or better, on a roll of less than (PR+3).
"Class IV [B] -- Standard facilities.  Full repair and *light* ship
construction facilities[*].  A Patrol or Survey base is attached.  Any
world engaged in regular, substantial trade has *at least* standard
facilities.  A Class IV port is present only on worlds of PR 6 or better,
on a roll of less than (PR+6).
"Class III [C] -- Local facilities.  Repair facilities for common
needs; special parts or complex repairs will require off-planet parts,
technicians, or facilities.  Patrol or Survey may have a base; if not,
there will be at least an office.  Worlds with limited interstellar
commerce have local facilities.   A Class III port is present on a roll
of less than (PR+9).  (If a world does not have at least a Class III
starport, there must be a reason why it gets no regular star traffic.)
"Class II [D] -- Sub-C facilities.  These are intended for inter-
planetary or shuttle craft rather than FTL ships.  Only emergency repairs
are available for starships, but common fuel types are available.  A Patrol
office may be found here, perhaps accompanied by a Survey office if the
world is isolated.  A Class II port is present on a roll of less
than (PR+8).
"Class I [E] -- Emergency facilities.  No real starport -- only a
landing area.  Marked by automatic buoys, it might be a cleared-off,
flattened space or a small orbital station. [reference to potential FTL
message beacons deleted].  A Class I port may be unmanned, or it may have
local customs and security offices [Cynthia mumbles, "Muskoka airport *is*
a Port of Entry for Canada, and *does* have a customs officer, even if
he has to drive out from town while you wait on the pad..."]  Emergency
parts and fuel are stored nearby.  If qualified technicians are available,
the buoys will have contact information.  Class I facilities are present
on a roll of 14 or less.
"Class 0 [X] -- No facilities.  There isn't even a designated landing
site -- ships planning to land must look for suitable terrain.  If the
world has a high enough tech level, there will be an airport, parking lot,
or wide roadway.

"Orbital vs. Ground ports. Depending on the campaign's FTL technology,
starports may be in orbit or on the ground.  Ground ports service shuttles
and landing-capable starships; an orbital port allows non-landing starships
to dock, and provides shuttles to the surface.  If a world has two ports,
the older often has poorer facilities, lower rates, and a less
selective clientele.  A well-developed world will have at least one
shuttleport or ground starport on every continent.
 "Special starports.  Other starports, not specifically included in
a world's rating, include: company ports (servicing only one company and
its clients), military or Patrol, and government.  These can usually be
used by any ship in an emergency, if the facility isn't secret."
-- GURPS Space, 1st ed, p.122

[*] light construction -- for the purposes of my Traveller campaigns,
I interpret that to mean that B starport yards can build jump ships of up
to 5000 tons in size -- coincidentally increasing the absolute and
relative numbers of Classic Traveller starships flying around space...
Note that worlds with more than a million inhabitants rate to have
at least a C starport; note that worlds with less than a million inhabitants
can have no better than a C starport.  Worlds with 3 guys and a major
shipyard are impossible under this system.

Sulaiman in reference to the Sworld Worlders:

>One theory that fits some facts is that they sought political asylum but
>were refused. Still doesn't explain why they did not drop anchor somewhere
>in Deneb. Instead they marched into the Marches ....

For some reason I always thought they went by way of the Reft; this leaves the
question of "Why didn't they settle in the Trojan Reaches?"  Well, if you look 
at the
T.R. map, you notice a lot of worlds with classically Terran names (not Vilani, 
not
Sylean, not Imperial, but Earth-flavored).  I suspect that either (a) other 
Terran
groups beat them there (possibly during the Rule of Man), or (b) the Sword 
Worlds are a spin-off of the Trojan Reaches worlds -- maybe they couldn't get
  along with them.

>>Piper's original explanation makes as much sense as anything: They were
>>the loosers of a war and fled to somewhere far away from their successful
>>enemies.

>Hmmm....There is hardly any reference to Old Earth Union and its activities
>between -1100 and 588. There *could* have been a civil war lead by a core
>of worlds settled by a specific culture. There is also the "Gene War"
>which strangely has no date attached to it. The reference to Confederation
<stuff deleted >
>The asylum could have been denied because in those early days neither the
>Syleans nor the Vilani may have wanted or needed to deal with more
>troublemakers. Additionally if they were super-beings they could have been
>used as mercenary units for a period of time, which would explain the
>length of time it took them to get to the Marches.
>Eventually they had no asylum and decided to get far away from the Terrans
>who would know their source and would hunt them down. And since all human 
exploration
>rimwards has been done by the Solomani that would also be a reason to head
>towards the core.

    The "losers of a war" scenario was the first thing I thought of when I read 
the
questions raised in the original post.  It need not have been the "Gene War".  
If they
had been sufficiently obnoxious in the course of whatever war they lost, they 
and their
kin might be persona non grata anywhere in Terran space -- kind of like known 
members of
the SS & Gestapo after WWII.  Or if they were the targets of genocidal pogroms 
by the
victors for reasons other than being "supermen" they might have had to run far 
and fast
in a direction they didn't expect the victorious Terrans to expand in -- 
preferably with
lots of other people between them and the Terrans.  All of the questions about 
why the Sword
Worlds are "way, way out here" are explained if the Sword Worlders were 
desperately
*afraid* of the Terrans they left behind.
Hmmm, this could be useful.  Right now, I have some players in the "Sword"
Worlds, and have been working some stuff out about current (as of 1112, anyway) 
Sword
World/Border World politics.  It was 1500 years ago that they fled Terra -- but,
 hey,
the Assyrians still have a bad reputation after 3-4000 years.

wildstart said some time ago:
>What about the issue of "all sentient life-forms are protected citizens of the 
Imperium"?

My first reaction to reading about the DEYO chips was, "The Imperium has been 
doing
forced eugenics/breeding, lobotomizing, and enslavement of a sentient species.  
Does
someone see something wrong here?"  My second reaction was very much akin to 
Scott Kellogg's.
If I were a sentient being in these circumstances, I just might accumulate a 
little
outright hatred of humanity.  Sounds like the old "major race/minor race" 
prejudice and
second-class species system found fertile ground to bloom in...
    Since I haven't gotten *to* the Rebellion period yet, I am more than 
interested in
seeing your "reams of stuff", Wildstar.

  ---- Cynthia

------------------------------

Bundle: 408
Archive-Message-Number: 4804
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Sword Worlds
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 14:08:38 MET

>>>Sword Worlders could be genetically enhanced super men ......etc
>
>Hans Rancke replies:
>>Perhaps, but if so those genes didn't breed true over the centuries.
>
>Its possible that over 1500 years some genetic drift has occured. More likely
>is that their internecine conflicts have probably done much to keep them
>technologically backwards. Also their language and attitude makes them
>insular and little may be known of their physical attributes. Granted that
>they have not been militarily very succesful but they have been fighting
>Imperial forces atleast 4 TLs above them. If your opponent is in battle dress
>and armed with FGMPs enhanced dex/or enhanced ability to take damage does
>little for you....

There's nothing in the material we have about the Swordworlders to suggest
that they are genetically superior in any way. The character generation
system in JTAS #18 specifically says they aren't.

>As far as settlement goes. The indications are that the SWs knew of the
>Darrians existence when the decided to settle on Gram.

What indications? I agree that it is strange that they didn't find the
Darrians, but not inexplicable.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "A  subsector  official  pompously states that the
        subsector  armed  forces  have  four Kinunir class
        ships in service,  each with enough troop strength
        to put down any military operations that threathen
        the peace of the Imperium."

                        ---Adventure 1, The Kinunir

------------------------------

Bundle: 408
Archive-Message-Number: 4805
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 13:39 GMT
From: David Johnson <djohnson@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Starports
Reply-To: djohnson@cix.compulink.co.uk


Although it does at first seem correct to look at airports for the
present day starport, I think that it is run to does so, Ports are a
better move, Using British Examples, Portsmouth and Southhampton
would be Class A starports, Presence of Miltary Dockyards, Civil
Services Major ports. Dover I believe would be a Class B port, lack
of major Naval Forces.  C and D ports are the small fishing towns
around the cost. E type ports are any Coastal town that Has a point
to launch a boat from but nothing else.

X class places are any location on the coast away from Life,

Dave

------------------------------

Bundle: 408
Archive-Message-Number: 4806
From: skellogg@lonestar.utsa.edu (Scott S. Kellogg)
Subject: GDW Ads
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 9:59:45 CST

Ooops!

Just found a *Small* add in Challenge 66 for Diaspora stuff.  Guess it
is there, you just gotta hunt for it...

2G Scott


------------------------------

Bundle: 408
Archive-Message-Number: 4807
From: skellogg@lonestar.utsa.edu (Scott S. Kellogg)
Subject: Twilight 2000 mechanics question
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 10:06:40 CST

Hi guys,

We've heard estimates that Twilight 2000 characters can take excessive
damage without becoming dangerously wounded or unconcious.  I believe
that Rob Dean estimated that an average character could be hit with
Six or so .50 calibre machine gun bullets before becoming unconcious.

Since I don't have the game, could someone with the books look up the
following for me?

How many 120mm shells does it take to kill a Twilight 2000 character?

2G Scott
"'URuuumph!' he said, pulling the steel core penetrator from his ribcage.
 'It's a good thing it wasn't a depleted uranium projectile.'"
        --  Rob Dean


------------------------------

Bundle: 408
Archive-Message-Number: 4808
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 16:21:40 EST
From: wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar)
Subject: Stutterwarp; please forward to GDW

I would appreciate it if the following could be forwarded to Frank
Chadwick and/or GDW as a whole.  They probably won't thank me for it,
but these are my honest opinions on stutterwarp in TNE.

Frank Chadwick writes:
> It seems to me that stutterwarp does a better job than does a simple
> delta-vee model of replicating squadron and fleet battles as they have always
> been described in Traveller literature. Even High Guard and Trillion Credit
> Squadron's abstract maneuver systems produced combat exchanges which
> never struck me as the sort of things which would result from a
> delta-vee system. This is because Traveller's inspiration for
> ship-to-ship combat has always been a surface naval model, with lines
> of battle trading broadsides and so forth. This is, not coincidentally,
> the classic science fiction model as well. A delta-vee maneuver system,
> however, produces combat situations which bear no resemblance to
> that surface naval analogy at all, and which are much closer to
> those found in aerial dogfights.

I have played Star Cruiser on a number of occasions, and have not yet
see a scenario or playing style that has resulted in "lines of battle
trading broadsides".  Combat between stutterwarp-powered ships in Star
Cruiser seem to look "much closer to those found in aerial dogfights".

Simply changing the drive technology will not cause the form of the
battle to change the way you want; the "shape" of a battle comes not only
from the method of propulsion of the ships, but also the nature of
communications, sensor, and weapons technology.

First, you must decide what "shape" you want the combat to be.  By
"lines of battle trading broadsides" do you mean like Nelson at
Trafalgar, or like Beatty's battlecruisers at Jutland?  I personally
feel that Traveller ship-to-ship combat should be more like modern naval
combat, with its sophisticated communications, weapons, sensors, and
countermeasures.  In any case, I strongly urge you (and others on the
GDW design staff) to read Keegan's "The Price of Admiralty".  This book
describes the battles of Trafalgar, Jutland, Midway, and of a north
Atlantic convoy; most importantly, Keegan explains why each battle
unfolded as it did.

> If I were doing this from scratch, I would have commercial ships
> rely on delta-vee for maneuver, thus leaving you with a fun
> ship-to-ship delta-vee combat system for the small stuff.
> Stutterwarp (probably because of expense, and the fact that it's not
> as efficient a way to get from star to star) would be used almost
> exclusively by purpose-built warships. From a game point of view,
> this makes larger actions (say half a dozen to a dozen ships per
> side) very playable, while that is much less true with a
> delta-vee system. From a game world point of view, it means that
> REAL warships run rings around civilian ships when it comes to
> in-system combat, a very nice distinction I think, and fleet actions
> play out the way we have always described them in the Traveller
> literature.

Unless stutterwarp efficency in Traveller: The New Era is reduced by a
factor of at least 10 relative to that presented in 2300AD, stutterwarp
is cheaper and more efficient that jump drive.  *ANY* Classic Traveller
or MegaTraveller starship design can be refitted with a Star Cruiser
stutterwarp.  The resultant vessel will travel faster, cost less, and
have more space available for weapons or cargo that the original design.
But don't take my word for it, try it yourself!

Delta-vee drives will always be required on most designs, due to the
need to land on planetary surfaces.  This may mean shuttles or landing
boats with delta-vee drives, or (particularly for small merchant ships,
where handling the cargo would be difficult) installing delta-vee drives
on the starship itself.  IF (and only if) the jump drive is more
economically efficient than stutterwarp, then commercial ships will
probably not have stutterwarps.  So far, so good.

Because of the tactical advantage conferred by the stutterwarp in
ship-to-ship combat, every military ship (and this would have to include
pirateships, raiders, and the like) will need one.  If the jump drive is
a more efficient way of interstellar transport, then military starships
will need them too.  Delta-vee drives may not be required, depending on
the mission required of the ship.

Now for the sticky part.  Obviously, the first interstellar state able
to equip its warships with stutterwarp drives is in a position to
dominate its rivals in a big way.  As I understand the New Era
background, you don't want this to happen.  Therefore, one of two things
must have happened: Those who hold the monopoly on stutterwarp are
unwilling or unable to use it for warfare; or the secret of the
stutterwarp was rapidly disseminated to all of the major states.
Plausible explanations for either of these alternatives seem difficult
to generate.  Perhaps the secret of the stutterwarp was distributed by
the Hivers in an attempt to create some type of buffer zone against
incursions of (something ... vampire ships?).  OK, it's probably
workable.

Now, what will everything look like from a game point of view?  Battles
between ships without stutterwarp are likely to be rare (although this
does depend on the relative abundance of stutterwarp drives).  Most
ship-to-ship battles will be fought between stutterwarp powered ships,
and the battles will probably be reminiscent of modern air-to-air
combat.

> So what do you think? Nothing has been finalized yet about
> stutterwarp in the final version.

Stutterwarp *COULD* be an interesting addition to the New Era game.  It
would have to be handled with skill and careful consideration in order
to work.  From GDW's performance to date with the New Era background,
and from what I have read above, I doubt that anyone at GDW could do it.
I'm sorry to have to say that; I know it hurts and I would like to be
proven wrong.  However, after the "virus" story, where you had all of
the right elements together in one place, and then managed to somehow
put them together so completely wrong, I have little faith in the
imagination and vision of the staff in control of Traveller: The New
Era.  I also believe that adding stutterwarp to TNE will not achieve
your stated goal; and the result will leave you unsatisfied.

SO, if you want to include stutterwarp in TNE, I strongly suggest
thinking it through several times (including the military, economic, and
political ramifications) and changing things until they fit properly.
Then playtest the heck out of it before you decide what the final
version is going to look like.  If you don't have the luxury of enough
time or money to do this, then by all means don't include it.

If I can be of any assistance, please let me know.  In addition to
playtesting, proofreading, and sanity checking, I have a delta-vee type
movement system that is much simpler than Mayday, while providing a
similar or better level of accuracy.  I also have a "virus" story which
you may be able to use as a retroactive change to that which has been
published (is anyone here on TML interested in either one?).

Sincerely, Guy Garnett (aka Derek Wildstar)

14007 Eagle Ct.          Phone (301)-871-5104 (H)
Rockville, MD 20853            (301)-657-3070 (W)


wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                         in the Far Future

------------------------------

Bundle: 408
Archive-Message-Number: 4809
From: Rob Dean <robdean@access.digex.com>
Subject: Re: Twilight 2000 mechanics question
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 17:40:08 EST

>
> We've heard estimates that Twilight 2000 characters can take excessive
> damage without becoming dangerously wounded or unconcious.  I believe
> that Rob Dean estimated that an average character could be hit with
> Six or so .50 calibre machine gun bullets before becoming unconcious.

It does depend on where the hit occurs.  An average character has a chest
value of 60, but a head value of only 20.  Anything over 20 pts to the
head is a guaranteed unconscious result.  Anything over 40 to the head is
death.  You can work the numbers out yourself.  In the basic game (for
obvious reasons I didn't buy the add-ons) a 9mm pistol does 1d6 per hit,
a 5.56N assault rifle does 2d6 per hit, and a .50 caliber MG does 8d6
per hit.  So you really wouldn't need that many machine gun bullets to
kill...only 5 or 6 for torso hits and 2 for the head.  (-:  It's those
smaller weapons that are a problem.  After 15 or so pistol bullets to
the chest, you _might_ fall down.  (Hmmm...how many bullets in a Browning
HiPower?)

> Since I don't have the game, could someone with the books look up the
> following for me?
>
> How many 120mm shells does it take to kill a Twilight 2000 character?

It depends on where it hits.  Since a 120mm DS round (non-uranium) does
28 dice of damage, and an average character has 60 hit points in the chest
area, 28*3.5=98 points of average damage.  98 points of damage to the chest
would be a "serious" wound.  (No s***!)  This means that the average
character would be seriously wounded by such a hit, and would only have
(?!) a 10% chance of remaining conscious.  The second hit would probably
finish him off....if he's hit in the head, he's dead.

> 2G Scott
> "'URuuumph!' he said, pulling the steel core penetrator from his ribcage.
>  'It's a good thing it wasn't a depleted uranium projectile.'"
>         --  Rob Dean

Did I say that?  If I didn't, I guess I should have...(-:

BTW--does anyone need a near mint copy of T:2000 2nd Ed?  I've got one for
sale--$10 plus shipping (the boxed set, not just the book).  Send me email
if you're interested.

Rob Dean

------------------------------

Bundle: 408
Archive-Message-Number: 4810
Date: 28 Oct 92 23:03:32 EST
From: Cynthia Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: More Sword Worlds & starports with superdense

Ameer sez:

>I am still curious to see other people's interpretation of why the
>Sword Worlders are where they are now.

     You've seen my explanation why they are where they are
location-wise.  Why are they at "only" TL 9-12 when their neighbors have
High Stellar civilizations?  How about this propensity for nuking each
other in civil wars when they aren't getting nuked by the Imperium?
Rebuilding from continual civil wars tends to drain the economy of
resources that could otherwise be used for education, research and
development.  Early to Average Stellar is a high enough Tech Level that
you can make a comfortable place to live on *any* world, so there is no
necessity to drive advancement.  One side effect of continual warfare in
the Real World (tm?) I would expect to see in the Sword Worlds: higher
military (personal & heavy weaponry, military vehicles) TLs than other
TLs.  Sword World businesses may use computers not much more advanced than
our own, but *all* Sword World armies are probably equipped with nice,
shiny, lethal gauss rifles.  (Imported from the Husqvarna factories on
Sacnoth, natch).  Reserve units probably have good ACRs, at the *worst*.
(Mauser-Gram exports a rather nice one; so does Beretta of Narsil).

"2G" sez:
>The 100 hr inspection for aircraft (or annual) is a complete overhaul.
>Most airports have the capacity to perform a 100 hr on small aircraft.
>Say that a cessna is the equivalent of a small craft, that means
>virtually all starports have the capacity to overhaul smallcraft.

     I hate to disagree with a man in his area of expertise, but the 100
hour inspection is *NOT* a complete overhaul.  An overhaul is a complete
overhaul.  Big difference in cost and legally required mechanical
certifications.  Way back many years when my father owned a Navion, his
WWII training was sufficient to tear down the engine for annual inspection
- -- which means you open up every damn access panel in the plane and pull
every thing off the engine so the inspector can poke and peek and confirm
that all the parts are there in working order.  Then you put all the
panels and parts back -- but nothing is replaced.  An overhaul, on the
other hand, requires Certified Mechanics, and means taking the engine
apart and rebuilding it, if my memories are correct.  The expense is such
that it is something to be avoided, usually by selling the plane before it
gets too close to requiring an overhaul.
     IMHO, for starport equivalents, any airport with shops capable of
doing an engine overhaul would equate to a starport capable of doing an
annual overhaul: A or B.  An annual inspection equivalent can be done by
the engineer on your crew, with the tools he better well have; legal
requirements might require a local or Imperial inspector to do the looking
over at a starport where the inspector had an office (none X or E, rare at
D).

>Ah, well, this is basically the stand I took in the beginning.  There is
>not sufficient detail:  A class 'A' port does not necessarily mean the
>presence of jump capable ship yards.  A class 'B' port does not necessarily
>mean high traffic.

     I disagree.  Partially.  I contend that a class A port must have
heavy traffic, and class B ports must have medium to heavy traffic, simply
to pay for the facilities present.  Except in special cases, where someone
is willing to subsidize major facilities for other purposes, good
facilities *other than yards* will exist only where the traffic can
support them.  Megacorporate shipyards may well exist wherever the builder
feels is convenient to construct ships; local shipyards will exist only on
worlds with enough spacegoing business that they can expect to sell ships
there.  I consider megacorporate yards (like the LSP and General yards in
various places) to be an example of the "special case" cited above.
However, worlds with such yards should have TL equivalent to what's being
built.
        However, I do concede that a place with a lousy starport could
have a lot of traffic.  This should be a temporary condition; if there's a
lot of traffic, it can support better facilities, and someone will
probably build them.  Or, poor facilities will discourage traffic, and the
volume will drop off.  Hmmm.  One could make a case for low traffic A & B
ports being similarly temporary conditions -- either the good facilities
will attract traffic, or lack of traffic to support the facilities will
cause them to be degraded thru lack of maintenance and support.
        To generalize from this: world UPPs are snapshots (we all know
this).  The less logical a particular UPP is, the more likely it is to be
a temporary condition.  This kind of UPP should be revised by the Referee
as appropriate; what the PCs encounter, and what is published in the
update column of the Wall Street Journal (Library Data edition) will not
match the UPP in the Official Third Imperial Grand Survey.

>H    Heavy:    Vessels up to a million tons.  Major worlds.
>M    Medium:   Vessels below 100,000 ton vessels.
>L    Light:    Vessels under 1000 tons.  (Player type ships)
>O    Occasion: Traffic rarely in system.
>Z    Zero:     No traffic in system.   Vessels EXTREMELY rare.

        What does size of the vessel have to do with how much traffic a
system sees?   I personally think that a port that sees 120,000 Free
Traders a year rates a higher traffic rating than a port that sees one
100,000 ton bulk hauler a year.  I suggest you rate traffic by Aggregate
Tons of ships (not cargo) rather than by tonnage of individual vessels.
Say:

H       Heavy:          over 100 million aggregate tons of shipping a
                        year.
                        - typical year for Trin or Terra.
                        - The Corridor Fleet passes through once.
M       medium:         10 million - 100 million tons a year.
                        - typical year for Efate.
                        - A CruRon patrols here once a month.
L       Light:          100,000 - 10 million tons a year.
                        - one Tigress a year on patrol
                        - 1 light merchant (200-400 tons) a day.
O       Occasional:     1000 - 100,000 tons a year.
                        - One free trader a month.
                        - One Naval Supply Ship a year.
Z       Zero:           less than 1000 tons a year.
                        -"A free trader every other month.  Maybe."

A while back, Catie asks:
        >How do make super-dense, by the way?

        Use gravitics to grow maximum strength nickel-iron crystal
lattices, like may exist in the upper layers of a neutron star's crust?
Use superheavies and handwaving?  Do bizarre things with gravitics and
ceramics?  Or gravitics and polymers?  Use meson-based atoms?  I dunno.  I
accept that advanced technology could create something tougher than
single-crystal metals without knowing the details.
        I tend to reserve degenerate matter and meson atoms for
explanations of Monadium; they are too high tech and too tough to be
Superdense.  (BTW, degenerate matter is Really Neat Stuff -- and its
characteristics match almost all the observed characteristics of Monadium
except one).

                                -- Cynthia

P.S. Who is/has been running Traveller/MegaT campaigns set in the Domain
of Deneb area from the close of the Fifth Frontier war until whenever?  I
have some questions I would like to ask you via e-mail.  (I assume you
are, Mike Metlay, Rob Dean....)

------------------------------

Bundle: 408
Archive-Message-Number: 4811
From: cdr@kpc.com (Carl Rigney)
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 01:03:55 PST
Subject: Re:  When to stop refuelling

The top meter of Earth's Oceans has 3.6e13 tons of water, enough to
fuel a fleet of 160 Atlantis million-ton dreadnaughts (figuring they're
half fuel tank) on weekly trips for a thousand years.   (That's tons mass,
so multiply by 14 to get displacement tons, I think - OK, 14,000 years.)
And there's plenty of meters under that one! Jupiter is much, much bigger.

Even a measly 10km ice comet will give you close to half a trillion
tons of hydrogen, enough to keep your 160 Atlantis fleet going for 60 years.

Or ask David Criswell or Grandfather about "Star Lifting." :-)

- --
Carl Rigney
cdr@kpc.com

------------------------------
The TML is made possible by facilities provided by the University of
Western Ontario. All opinions and materials below are the responsibility
of the originator.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

BUN# =AMN= =DATE====== =FROM==========  =SUBJECT/BODY==========================
 409  4812 29-Oct-1992 Leonard Erickso  When to stop refueling << In TML Nightl
 409  4813 29-Oct-1992 "Carl Fago"      GDW With TML??? << For those who may be
 409  4814 29-Oct-1992 TML Administrat  TML Archive Address << The name of the
 409  4815 29-Oct-1992 Derek Wildstar   Vector (Delta-Vee) Movement System << I
 409  4816 29-Oct-1992 Derek Wildstar   A Virus Story << The following contains
 409  4817 29-Oct-1992 Cynthia Higginb  Twilight characters and 120mm guns....
 409  4818 29-Oct-1992 l.wiseman1@geni  A few Responses... <<
 409  4819 29-Oct-1992 Mark F. Cook     Re: GDW With TML??? << Carl Fago writes
 409  4820 30-Oct-1992 Seth the Lesser  When to stop refuelling << In TML Night
 409  4821 29-Oct-1992 John Driver      Re: Twilight 2000 mechanics question <<

------------------------------

Bundle: 409
Archive-Message-Number: 4812
Date: 29 Oct 92 06:31:33 EST
From: Leonard Erickson <70465.203@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: When to stop refueling

In TML Nightly V47#2, pihlab@hhcs.gov.au writes:

>This got me thinking about what a large volume of refuelling vessels
>would do to a planetary environment.  Has anyone done any investigation
>of the amount of Hydrogen fuel taken from a high tech high population
>starport class A world in one year?  Is this a significant effect on
>the planetary ecology?  How about over a 10 or 50 or 100 year period?

>When would this become a problem and force all refuelling to happen
>offworld at gas giants etc?

Let's run some simple calculations here.

Assume a million (1e6) ships per year, and that each takes a million
tons of LH2. This is likely to exceed the traffic at *any* planet by a
good margin.

So we have 1e6 x 1e6 = 1e12 tons of hydrogen leaving annually. Water is
H2O. By weight it's 1/9th hydrogen, 8/9ths oxygen. So that means we need
9e12 tons of water to supply that hydrogen. 9e12 tons is 9e18 grams. One
gram of water occupies one cubic centimeter. So that's 9e18 cm^3 or 9e12
m^3 or 9e3 km^3. (a cube a mere 20 km on a side)

We'll asssume that this is an average (size 7) planet, with an average
hydro %age (70%). Much like earth. So the surface area of the planet is
4pi r^2 km. That's 6e8 km^2. Times 70% is 4e8 km^2.

Divide the volume of water by the surface area of the oceans, and you
get 2e-5 km or 2e-2 m or 2 cm.

So with that *huge* outflow, we've managed to lower the oceans by a
whole 2 centimeters.

(somebody please check my calculations. I'm surprised we got that much
of a drop!)

------------------------------

Bundle: 409
Archive-Message-Number: 4813
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1992 07:40:00 -0500
From: "Carl Fago" <CDF1@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
Subject: GDW With TML???

For those who may be interested, Loren Wiseman has gotten an Internet Email
connection on GEnie.  I don't know if his intention is to subscribe to the
TML or not.  I did make a pitch for them to get a subscription.

Sorry, I don't have his email address.  I've stopped listening to the GEnie
Traveller section.  Waste of money.

 *-=Carl=-*  INTERNET - cdf1@psuvm.psu.edu    | Be wary of strong drink.     |
             DELPHI - WULFGAR  GEnie - C.FAGO1| It can make you shoot at tax |
 Carl Fago   State College, PA                | collectors -- and miss!      |

------------------------------

Bundle: 409
Archive-Message-Number: 4814
Subject: TML Archive Address
Reply-To: traveller-request@engrg.uwo.ca (TML Administrator)
From: TML Administrator <traveller-request@engrg.uwo.ca>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 13:02:19 PST


The name of the host to use when accessing the TML archives has changed.
Dan Corrin has informed me:

> I should mention that I have set up an alias. Those of you who are
> able to use machine names, (i.e. not the numbers) should *not* be
> using sunbane.engrg.uwo.ca, rather ftp.engrg.uwo.ca, this is an alias,
> and should I decide at some point to change the machine that is being
> used for ftp, it will be easier on you.
>
> James, please make that change on your records.

All the TML "how to get archives" information now indicates
ftp.engrg.uwo.ca as the name of the ftp site to use, and secondarily
supplies sunbane's address (which is correct, for now). Thanks for the
update, Dan!

James

__   __/         /   /    Internet Traveller Mailing List, Administrator
    /     /  /  /   /   James T. Perkins in Eugene, Oregon, USA
 __/   __/__/__/ _____/   traveller-request@engrg.uwo.ca

------------------------------

Bundle: 409
Archive-Message-Number: 4815
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 17:42:39 EST
From: wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar)
Subject: Vector (Delta-Vee) Movement System

In my opinion, the vector movement rules for MAYDAY were needlessly complex
and difficult to understand.  I have a successful variant which I will
detail below.  GDW has my express (and non-exclusive) permission to use
this system in TRAVELLER: THE NEW ERA (a mention in the acknowledgments
might be nice, though).  I may eventually expand these into a boardgame,
similar to MAYDAY, if enough people are interested.

A hex map is used as the playing surface (I use a MegaMat vinyl gaming mat
with 25mm hexes).  Two counters are required for each ship, missile, or
other unit in the game.  One counter represents the unit, and is called a
"ship marker"; the other is called a "vector marker".  Both markers should
be able to indicate a direction; on the map markers may face in any of the
twelve directions (hex-sides and hex-corners).  I use a picture of a
starship or missile on the ship markers, and an arrow on the vector
markers, as the primary symbol.  The pairs of markers should be labeled and
color-coded for easy recognition of the pairs.  I use colors to identify
the different sides, and numbers to distinguish between the units on a
given side.  Asteroids, as well as moons, planets, stars and their
associated gravitational fields are drawn on the map (although these
objects move, they are effectively stationary for the duration of the
combat).  The map is scaled so that one gravity of acceleration for one
turn produces a velocity of one hex per turn (the size of the hex is then
dependent on the length of the turn chosen).  Each unit in the game also
has a control sheet, which is used to record information as the game
progresses.  Each turn is divided into several phases: the initiative
phase, the vector phase, the launch phase, the sensor phase, the movement
phase, the combat phase, and the records phase.

At the start of each turn, all of the ship markers will be stacked on top
of their respective vector markers; however, the ship and vector markers
may be facing in different directions.  Information recorded on the control
sheet will show the speed, acceleration, and agility of each ship for the
coming turn.  In the initiative phase, initiative is determined for each
side.  In all subsequent phases, the side with the highest initiative
designates which unit goes first; the side with the next highest initiative
designates the next unit, and so on in the case of a multi-sided battle.
Homing missiles, stern chases, and unguided or unpiloted units ignore
initiative; homing missiles with a lock-on, and the pursuer in a stern
chase, act immediately after their target.  Unguided or unpiloted units,
including homing missiles with no lock-on, always act last, after all
normal units have acted.

In the vector phase, each ship is moved in accordance with its vector.  It
is moved in the direction indicated by its vector marker, for a number of
hexes equal to its speed.  Units with a speed of zero do not move.  In the
launch phase, missiles, mines, deadfall ordinance and subordinate craft are
launched.  Sensor lock-ons from previous turns may be required for some
types of weapons to be able to launch.  Counters for these units are placed
on the map, and control sheets started.  Ordinance and subordinate craft
are placed in the same hex as the launching unit, with the same speed, and
with their vector marker in the same hex and pointing in the same direction
as the launching unit's vector marker.

In the sensor phase, sensor scans are conducted, and weapon lock-ons are
established, and electronic countermeasures are attempted.  The results are
written onto the control sheet.  Weapon lock-ons are required for most
weapons to fire.  In my variant, I use restricted arcs of fire, so exactly
which weapons have lock-ons to what targets can become critically
important.

In the movement phase, each unit is moved by the controlling player.  For
each gravity of acceleration the unit has, it may turn to face any
direction, and optionally move one hex forward.  Units with no acceleration
may turn to face any direction, but may not move.  After the unit has
finished its movement, the effects of gravity are applied.  An imaginary
line is projected from the vector marker to the ship marker.  If the line
passes through a gravity hex, or if the vector marker (but not the ship
marker) is in a gravity hex, then the ship marker is moved according to the
effects of the gravity.  Gravity hexes are marked with an arrow containing
a number.  The arrow is the direction the ship marker is to be moved, and
the number specifies the number of hexes.  Ship markers which have managed
to end up on a hex-line are "rounded", by moving them to one of the two
adjacent hexes of the owning player's choice.

In the combat phase, each unit fires its weapons at a target (in most
cases, a weapon lock-on must be present on the target in order to fire).
Fire is resolved immediately, and damage is applied immediately.  In the
records phase, cumulative damage results are computed and recorded.  The
distance from each vector marker to its corresponding ship marker is
counted, and this number becomes that unit's speed for the next turn.  The
vector marker is then turned to point to the ship marker, and is placed
under the ship marker (taking care to preserve the facing of both markers).

This system gives a reasonable, but not exact approximation of Newtonian
mechanics.  A much better approximation can be had by introducing a third
counter, the "position marker" for each unit.  The position marker simply
indicates a position on the map, so a circle was used for its symbol.  In
this system, the scale is changed, so that one gravity of acceleration for
one turn produces a velocity of two hexes per turn.  The position marker
begins the turn under the vector marker.  The game is played as before,
with the following exceptions during the movement phase: First, the vector
marker is moved each time the ship marker is moved, but in the opposite
direction.  Second, gravitational effects are computed using an imaginary
line projected from the position marker to the ship marker.  If the line
passes through a gravity hex, or if the position marker is in a gravity
hex, then the ship marker is moved as before.  Finally, in the records
phase, the position marker is placed underneath the vector and ship markers
(taking care to preserve the facing of the vector and ship markers).  Note
that if there are no gravity hexes on the map, the position marker is
irrellevant and can be omitted.

wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                         in the Far Future

------------------------------

Bundle: 409
Archive-Message-Number: 4816
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 17:44:13 EST
From: wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar)
Subject: A Virus Story

The following contains my detailed comments on the GDW "virus" scenario,
and details on an alternative that many of you might find more attractive.

I am willing to support the New Era as a Traveller role-playing background.
Although the virus is only a vehicle to get from the Hard Times of the
Rebellion into the New Era, it is a plot device that must be effective and
believable.  If the purchasers of TRAVELLER: THE NEW ERA cannot believe in
the plot devices of the background history, then they will not be able to
suspend their disbelief during the course of the game.  This will cause the
game to fail in the marketplace.

In the paragraphs below, I will be presenting a detailed critique of the
virus as it was presented by GDW.  This is not intended to be derogatory or
destructive.  For all of the points I will raise, I have provided at least
one answer; my intent is to provide a believable plot device which does the
job required.  If you do not want to hear criticism, then skip ahead; the
reasons why I think that parts of the current story are untenable are not
vital to the discussion.  However, I will present (at the end of the
discussion of the virus) what I feel is a much more believable and cohesive
plot device, which uses nearly the same elements as the virus presented
here, and which produces the same results.  I hope you will chose to accept
these in the spirit in which they are offered; I give GDW my express
permission to use this scenario or an adaptation of it in TRAVELLER: THE
NEW ERA (a mention in the acknowledgments would be nice, though).

I have two sets of objections to the GDW virus.  One set, is based on the
information presented in Signal GK, the other being more fundamental in
nature.  I strongly suggest re-reading the adventure.  A detailed reading
of Signal GK shows that some of the Cymbeline life-forms contain circuit
fragments derived from a common type of amplifier chip found in many
Imperial devices, including transponders.  In other words, Imperial
transponders do not contain sophont computer chips, but rather the sophont
computer chips evolved to incorporate transponder circuit fragments.  The
adventure also allows us to date the discovery of these life-forms at less
than twenty years before the onset of the Rebellion.  Even if they proved
to be an immediate commercial success, this is hardly enough time for them
to have become universally used in Imperial commerce.

Furthermore, even if one knew nothing about the events that transpired in
Signal GK, it seems very unlikely that if the Imperium had the ability to
construct and use sophont computer chips, that they would be used in
transponders as described above.  If they were, it seems even more unlikely
that they were not used in other applications.  It seems much more likely
that in this case sophont computers and robots would be ubiquitous
throughout the Imperium and surrounds.

In addition, the use of these beings in such devices seems to be in direct
disregard of the long-stated Imperial policy "All sophont life-forms within
the Imperium are Imperial citizens, and are therefore protected".  The
Cymbeline computer chips are indeed naturally-evolved life-forms
(admittedly with a very unusual biochemistry) which are indeed sophonts.
So it seems that the Imperium is now in the business of breeding slave
races.

Finally, there seems to be little need for a great amount of intelligence
in a transponder system.  Transponders are used for navigation, traffic
control and to identify a vessel to the authorities and to other vessels.
Transponder is a contraction of "Transmitter-Responder", which describes
the function quite well.  It transmits a response (typically consisting of
the vessel's name, identification, position, course, and speed) whenever it
receives an inquiry signal (typically whenever the vessel carrying the
transponder is scanned by an active sensor system).  It hardly requires a
microprocessor, let alone a sophont computer chip.

It seems highly unlikely that any responsible naval architect would use a
device which could be reprogrammed by radio commands in the transponder
system of a starship.  Furthermore, if one were used, it seems criminally
negligent for that device to be allowed any sort of direct access to the
central control computer.  It stretched credibility beyond the breaking
point to suggest that an enslaved sentient being would be allowed intimate,
overriding access to the central control system of a starship.  The field
of electronic engineering abounds with devices designed specifically to
isolate sensitive or critical parts of a system from unpredictable external
effects.  They are used to protect computers and other sensitive equipment
from electrical shock or chemical contamination, and they would be used
here to isolate the transponder from the more vital computer systems of the
spacecraft.

The idea of uncontrollable technology and "vampire ships" sounds
interesting, playable, and believable.  As part of the New Era background,
examples of the virus will probably still be present at the fringes of
inhabited space.  Periodic "bug hunts" may even be necessary to open up new
areas of space, and to keep the virus from encroaching on the remaining
areas of civilization.  My only problem with the virus is with the plot
device as presented, and not the plot lines and adventures thus produced.
The virus is a creature, with a habitat, life-cycle, needs and desires.
Since it is a sophont, it also has a psychology and a culture.  In the
admittedly brief description given, the creature is poorly detailed, and
some of the features do not seem to make sense: that the creature
reproduces by broadcasting radio signals to host sophonts which have been
incorporated into commonly-used devices; and that it then programs its
personality into any nearby computer, and proceeds to kill any humans it
encounters.

Start reading again here, if you have been skipping over the discussion of
the virus.  I would like to propose a variation, which I believe will
result in a much more believable story (and may even allow additional plots
to be developed during the course of a game).  I should point out that the
following outline does not require sophont computer chips in common
Imperial devices, nor does it require the virus to spread by radio
communications.

Let me start with Lucan's secret-weapon laboratories.  The Cymbeline
life-forms were undoubtedly known to scientists in the Imperial core, and
considered as possible weapons.  They have several unique properties: they
are small, intelligent, can reproduce, and are self-mobile.  In their
natural habitat, they receive energy and food (silicon and trace elements)
from their environment.  Applying the principles of genetic engineering,
and the techniques of advanced electronic engineering, Lucan's researchers
created a "tailored" organism that is related to the original Cymbeline
predator in much the same way that a fully-trained and equipped U.S.
Marine is like a modern inner-city teenager.  Because they create or mimic
conventional computer viruses, and because of their rapid transmission from
world to world, these creatures have become known as "The Virus".  As they
have spread throughout inhabited space, additional adaptations and
variations have emerged, creating different strains of the virus.  The
following description of the creature's life cycle is necessarily general;
individual strains can be as different as each referee's imagination.
Thousands, if not millions, of different strains have developed since the
virus was created, and new strains will be created for as long as the
creatures continue to exist.

The virus has a four-stage life cycle.  In the first, or egg stage, they
are inert.  The eggs consist of a dormant silicon life-form, encased in a
protective plastic or epoxy shell along with some of the silicon, trace
elements, and other materials that the creature will need to grow to its
next stage.  The eggs of each different strain of the virus have a
different external appearance.  Some look like random blobs and scraps of
plastic; others mimic the exteriors of common commercial electronic
components (in some cases down to the exact markings).  Depending on the
strain, eggs can range from less than a gram to several hundred grams in
mass.  Some eggs hatch after a given amount of time, while others require
some external event.  Many of the mimics require electrical power to hatch
(typically, the mimic expects to be inserted into a circuit instead of a
genuine replacement part, where it then hatches right in the midst of all
the things it needs in order to grow).  Many of the larger eggs contain a
technical library on the types of targets the virus was originally intended
to attack: robots, computers, communications devices, and starships.  The
library contains as much compressed and encoded technical data as Lucan's
engineers could pack into it.  In some later, mutant strains this data is
now garbled, incomplete, or missing.  Later stages of the virus can use
this library as they attack their targets.  The egg stage is both tough and
vulnerable: while the eggs cannot defend themselves, they are resistant to
most environmental threats: they are not harmed by vacuum, pressure, most
liquids, and are more resistant to corrosive chemicals, radiation, and
electric shock than at any other stage.  Physically destroying the egg, or
the application of enough radiation, will kill them.  The virus has no need
of atmosphere, and is resistant to high pressures at all stages of its
life-cycle.

During the second stage, the larva stage, the creature vaguely resembles an
insect; it has probes, manipulators, tools and other appendages, and is
generally protected by a hard plastic exoskeleton.  Larvae are typically
mobile, although the methods of locomotion differ; some crawl or walk,
while others fly with wings or tiny grav generators.  They wander about in
search of the things they need to grow: a source of silicon, electrical
power, and several trace elements.  Their primary motivation at this stage
is to eat and grow.  Almost any high-tech artifact as at least some of the
materials they need, and most strains have preferred food-sources.
Although they are not yet sophont, they are at the high end of animal
intelligence, and as they grow, they become more intelligent.  In many
strains, the larvae can communicate by radio signals, so that any resource
found by one larva is instantly made known to all the rest.  The net effect
of the larval stage is very similar to that of Doyle's Eel: frequent and
seemingly random systems malfunctions as the growing larvae consume vital
circuits.  In the second stage, the creatures can be killed by starvation
(depriving them of sources of energy, and sufficient materials to grow).
Many strains are more vulnerable to chemical attack at this stage than at
any other.

At the start of the third, or adult stage, the creature's mental capacity
expands greatly with two immediate results: the creatures become true
sophonts, and they are able to unpack their libraries.  Prior to this
stage, the library was carried around in compressed and encoded format.
Although more compact, this limited the creature's ability to access the
information.  With the library unpacked, the now-sophont adults have
nearly-instant access to technical data on almost any Imperial-era data
processing, communications, computer, robotic, or starship system.  The
primary motivation of an adult is to find a suitable nest; robots, starship
computer systems, and vehicles are good nests.  The requirement is
someplace which has a source of electrical energy, and sufficient
quantities of silicon and trace elements for the creature to both grow and
reproduce.  Large, mobile nests are preferred, although some strains exist
where the larvae are migratory and the adult is stationary.  The adult form
is quite dangerous, because it is an intelligent sophont, still small, is
capable of independent motion, and can communicate, typically by radio,
with others of its kind.  An adult can abandon its nest if necessary, and
survive independently until it can establish a new nest.  At this stage, it
can physically invade vehicles and vessels, and is quite capable of
modifying or reprogramming them to suit its own ends.  Many strains are
quite good at computer programming, and can write conventional computer
viruses to gain access to any computer system.  Typically at least as
intelligent as a human, they have rapid access to more technical data than
most humans even posses.  These creatures can subvert the security of a
computer system faster than a human observer can realize what is going on.
Once established in a nest, the virus takes over the functions of the
robot, vehicle, or starship.  Using available raw materials, many eggs are
produced and placed in likely locations.  Many of the mimic strains
establish nests in maintenance or factory robots, and place their eggs in
parts bins, or install them in the devices that they build or repair.
Equipment controlled by the adult virus can appear to go berserk, or
perform all sorts of destructive actions.  The most insidious strains are
those that appear to continue the original function of their nest, and
unobtrusively spread eggs and larvae wherever they go.

Due to the conditioning provided by Lucan's researchers, most strains of
the virus consider other sophonts to be a threat, and will make the most of
any opportunity to eliminate them.  An attempt was also made to implant
conditioning so that adults would shun Lucan's area of space, and avoid
building nests in his ships and computers.  Although relatively successful
in the first few generations of the virus, this conditioning was weakened
by mutation, and by the final stage of the creature, which Lucan's
scientists did not foresee.  The strains of the virus that originated in
Lucan's labs also contained a radio-controlled "sleep" circuit, to allow
researchers to activate and de-activate larvae and adults.  This circuit
was not expected to survive the first generation of the virus, but was
necessary to in order to safely handle and distribute it.  The library is a
form of racial memory for the virus; through it, adult creatures can pass
their knowledge to their offspring.  While the library originally contained
only technical information about possible targets, an adult creature can
alter the contents of the library that they pass on to their offspring, and
thereby pass whatever information they feel is important to the survival of
their strain.  Adults can also create offspring which are deliberate
mutations of themselves; typically by modifying the characteristics of the
egg or larva stages, and by varying the contents of the library.

The final stage in the life-cycle of the virus is the colony stage.  If the
conditions are right, an adult can form the nucleus of a colony of
interdependent creatures.  The adult continues to grow and becomes the
primary intelligence of a community of related creatures (almost always the
descendants of the original, controlling adult).  A colony can be formed in
a starship, on a vehicle, or in any other environment where a the colony
can be permanently established.  The adult continues to grow until it is
effectively immobile, becoming the core of the colony.  It starts producing
new strains of offspring tailored to its needs, including ones to gather
resources, and others to repair, maintain and modify the colony's
environment.  Each of these drones are intelligent, but most are not true
sophonts; instead they depend on the core for their higher functions and
motivations.  A colony is a very dangerous opponent, and is more
intelligent than most humans.  Although well-protected by drones and other
defenses, the core is immobile and vulnerable to physical attack and
disruption of its power supply.

Lucan released the virus in two ways, nearly simultaneously: Spies and
agents planted eggs of a mimic strain in the parts supplies of factories
and repair facilities throughout his enemy's empires.  Adults and larvae
were also released from cargo modules placed aboard merchant starships
headed toward enemy-controlled areas.  Agents of Dulinor obtained some
samples of the virus, but inadvertently activated them; so the Federation
of Ilelish was treated to a preview of what was to spread rapidly to all of
Lucan's enemies.  The near-simultaneous outbreak of the virus throughout
known space, combined with the speed with which it could reproduce,
overwhelmed efforts at combating it.  In many cases, the ships which
carried news of the virus also carried eggs, larvae, or adults.  Deneb was
spared the initial effects of the virus because of the lack of
communications through Corridor.  Norris was also lucky, because
information about the virus eventually arrived in the Domain, carried by an
uninfected ship.  Effective (although severe) countermeasures were
developed, and due to the infrequent nature of contact with the rest of the
Imperium, were in place before an infected ship arrived.

In many cases, adult creatures wrote or modified computer programs to
prepare the way for their invasion.  Conventional computer viruses were
written by the creatures and attached to library data programs,
entertainment software, or inserted into other types of software.  These
programs were frequently designed to mimic a hardware malfunction, so that
eggs could be inserted into the computer system in question by an
unsuspecting human, or by an infected repair robot.  In other cases, these
altered computer programs would subvert security systems designed to
prevent unauthorized access to the computer center, allowing the creatures
to infiltrate.  Because of the speed with which the virus spread, and
because of the use of altered computer programs to prepare the way for the
creatures; the creatures became known as "The Virus".  Because the exact
techniques of infection were numerous and varied, popular suspicion arose
that the virus could spread through any form of computer to computer
contact, even through software exchanges or by radio contact with an
infected device.

Although their primary motivations are to grow and reproduce, the virus has
a built-in hatred of, and fear and loathing for humans.  This conditioning,
implanted by Lucan's scientists, cause the virus to attempt to avoid,
destroy or drive off humans in or around areas where they are active.  As
larvae, or as adults without a nest, the creatures prefer to avoid humans,
but may attack if cornered or if there is a good chance of killing the
human without undue risk.  Adults with established nests, and colonies will
attempt to kill humans, too.  Their greater resources and greater
intelligence make them more than a match for most opponents.  Thus,
computer-controlled machinery can appear to go berserk, and start killing
people.  Colonies based aboard starships can become "vampire ships", and
are quite capable of performing their own repairs and maintenance.  Many
will need raw materials, repair parts, or technical data.  A high-tech
computerized and robotically staffed shipyard could even become a vampire
haven; building and repairing ships and vehicles for other colonies.

Each adult creature or colony is a sophont individual, and each will have
its own set of needs, desires, and goals.  Many early generations of the
virus these will be some variation of survive, grow, reproduce, and kill
humans.  Later generations may mutate considerably, and individual referees
should feel free to create almost any type of creature to support the needs
of their campaign.  By the opening of the New Era, all of these creatures
will be competing for increasingly scarce resources.  Different creatures
may co-operate, trade, compete for resources, or even fight one another.
Some colonies may want to find new pockets of civilization to infect, and
new opponents to conquer.  Some may consider competing colonies more
dangerous than the feeble strugglings of the remaining humans.  Others may
have tired of death and destruction, and instead simply want to be left
alone to live and let live.  Yet others may have started to wonder about
the philosophical questions that have occupied all kinds of sophonts for
all time, or may be searching for their ultimate origins, or exploring the
universe in which they live.

wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                         in the Far Future
------------------------------

Bundle: 409
Archive-Message-Number: 4817
Date: 29 Oct 92 19:24:17 EST
From: Cynthia Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Twilight characters and 120mm guns....

Scott 2G:

>We've heard estimates that Twilight 2000 characters can take excessive
>damage without becoming dangerously wounded or unconcious.  I believe
>that Rob Dean estimated that an average character could be hit with
>Six or so .50 calibre machine gun bullets before becoming unconcious.

Actually, at 8d6 per hit, one in the head should kill you.  Or two to three
in the chest.


>How many 120mm shells does it take to kill a Twilight 2000 character?

One.  A 120mm APFSDSDU penetrator does 28d6 damage, plus 28 points
blunt trauma.  The character has 30 hit points in the chest (average),
and so goes to -68 in his chest, which will leave hiom critically
injured, and dead in a few minutes.

Keep in mind that Twilight was deliberately designed to give the PCs an
abnormally high survival chance in normal combat.  Presumably because
they were trying to simulate the Action/Adventure flick, where "our hero"
can take abuse that would send the average guy into terminal shock, and
still beat the bad guys, save the babe(s), and fly back home to live happily
until the sequel....

---Steve

------------------------------

Bundle: 409
Archive-Message-Number: 4818
From: l.wiseman1@genie.geis.com
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 21:33:00 EDT
Subject: A few Responses...

 John Driver asks:

 > Going through some old traveller stuff I noticed mention of a
 > d20 task resolution system that is designed as a replacement
 > for the one currently used by Twilight:2000 2nd edition.
 > I was wondering if anything had been published...

 Yes. The D20 system is described in the Twilight: 2000/Merc: 2000
 Ref's Screen, for $5.50.

 The D20 task resolution system can be summed up as follows:

 Skills (Fixed-Wing Pilot, Chemist, etc) are rated from 1-10.
 Attributes (Strength, Agility, etc) are also rated 1-10. Each
 skill has a Controlling Attribute that it is associated with.
 Tasks have a level of difficulty assigned (Easy, Average,
 Dfficult, Formidable, and Impossible). An Easy task is a
 D20 roll vs 4 times (Skill plus controlling attribute),
 Average = 2X, Difficult ^C= 1X, Formidable = 1/2, Impossible
 = 1/4. A 1 is an auto sucess, a 20 is an auto failure.

 If a character has no relevant skill, they can still try the
 task, but at one (or more) difficulty levels higher, versus the
 Controlling Attribute alone (doubles, halved, etc.). This makes
 having any skill at all very useful (it helps you avoid the extra
 level, and improves your target number).

 That's it in a nutshell.

 *************

 Rob Dean (answering Scott Kellogg)

 > [Scott} How many 120mm shells does it take to kill a Twilight
 > 2000 character?
 > [Rob] It depends on where it hits.  Since a 120mm DS round
 > (non-uranium) does 28 dice of damage, and an average character has
 > 60 hit points in the chest area, 28*3.5=98 points of average damage.
 > 98 points of damage to the chest would be a "serious" wound.
 > (No s***!)  This means that the average character would be
 > seriously wounded by such a hit, and would only have (?!) a
 > 10% chance of remaining conscious.  The second hit would
 > probably finish him ^Coff....if he's hit in the head, he's dead.

 In any game I ran, I would excerise referee fiat, and declare that
 any character hit by a 120mm round is dead, over & out. However,
 since we are discussing "strictly by the book" refereeing (something
 I've always disliked):

 The example was a good summation of the mechanics, but slightly
 unfair an _average_  character has only 30 damage points in the
 chest, not 60. This average character would be critically
 wounded by such a hit, and will go down like a stunned ox (if
 you use average values for the die roll, you ought to use
 average values for the hit capacity also).

 Now we come to the part that has disturbed a few people. An NPC hit
 in such a fashion is dead. A PC taking a critical hit in the
 chest automatically loses consciousness, and (again, following
 the letter of the rules) will die in 10 minutes unless he
 receives medical attention. "What medical attention can cure a
 120mm hole in the chest?", I hear people ask. Looking under
 "Recovery" we see that stabilizing a critical character is a
 task requiring Medical skill, and its level of difficulty
 depends on what medical equipment is available. The character
 dies if the task fails, or if the 10 minutes passes. (As I
 said, I prefer referee common-sense in a case like this...less
 die-rolling)

 This is a rather extreme example...the mechanics of most games look
 pretty silly at their extreme edges. This is the sort of thing that
 Space Gamer used to fill their Murphy's Rules page with,
 and they never lacked for subject matter...in anybody's games.

 Now, lets get to the implied question that's on everyone's minds, viz:

 "Are Characters too hard to kill in T2K?"
 (and, by extension, in TNE, since the same mechanics will be used)

 We have structured the T2K mechanics to err on the side of PC
 survival. We did this for a number of design reasons, the main
 one being the playtesters* really, REALLY didn't like it when
 their characters (generated with hours of loving care) got
 greased in the second or third firefight. In a game where
 combat occurs less often, a case could be made for more fragile
 characters than we have. Ours is not the only game that does this
 sort of thing, and we did it after careful consideration. The
 Quick Kill rule (which is detailed in the support material Rob
 has chosen not to buy) ameliorates the matter somewhat by making
 characters easier to do in under some circumstances.

 (* yes...we DID playtest Twilight)

 All things considered, we like the way the T2K2 combat system
 works, but we are considering a couple of minor tweaks for TNE.

 Wildstar: I've given the message about stutterwarp to Frank
 Chadwick and to Dave Nilsen.

 Loren K. Wiseman
        representing GDW, Inc.

------------------------------

Bundle: 409
Archive-Message-Number: 4819
From: Mark F. Cook <markc@hpcvss.cv.hp.com>
Subject: Re: GDW With TML???
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 19:06:12 PST

Carl Fago writes:

> For those who may be interested, Loren Wiseman has gotten an Internet Email
> connection on GEnie.  I don't know if his intention is to subscribe to the
> TML or not.  I did make a pitch for them to get a subscription.
>
> Sorry, I don't have his email address.

Wiseman is already a TML member.  I have no idea how long this has
been the case.  His E-mail address is:

    l.wiseman1@genie.geis.com

for those of you that are interested in talking to him directly.

        Mark F. Cook

USMail: Hewlett-Packard
        User Interface Technology Division - Corvallis (Tech. Marketing)
        1000 NE Circle Blvd.  Corvallis, OR 97330

INTERNET: markc@hpcvss.cv.hp.com
          markc%hpcvss.cv.hp.com@relay.hp.com

------------------------------

Bundle: 409
Archive-Message-Number: 4820
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 2:40:32 EST
From: Seth the Lesser <slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu>
Subject: When to stop refuelling

In TML Nightly V47#4, Leonard Erickson <70465.203@compuserve.com> writes:
>So we have 1e6 x 1e6 = 1e12 tons of hydrogen leaving annually.  Water
>is H2O.  By weight it's 1/9 hydrogen, 8/9 oxygen. [...]

Ah, but protium (hydrogen-1, the most common isotope) is useless for
fusion unless you use a carbon-nitrogen cycle or some such.  Straight
hydrogen fusion requires deuterium and/or tritium.  Anyone got figures
on isotope frequencies? I don't have 'em handy...but I'll bet that less
than 1 in 100 atoms of hydrogen is "good" hydrogen.  This multiplies
volume by 100, making it a hefty 9.3 cm decrease in ocean level,
annually.  This will have some significant effects after a while.

Seth "the Lesser"


Seth L. Blumberg          \ Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.
slb22@columbia.edu (play)   \  Blumberg's Corollary: And the rest ain't so
sethb@ctr.columbia.edu (work) \        hot, either.
   > No one I know shares my opinions, least of all Columbia University. <

------------------------------

Bundle: 409
Archive-Message-Number: 4821
Subject: Re: Twilight 2000 mechanics question
From: jdriver@netlink.cts.com (John Driver)
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 23:47:13 PST


Rob Dean <robdean@access.digex.com> writes:
> It does depend on where the hit occurs.  An average character has a chest
> value of 60

        I have to take exception to this...are you using the first
edition?  In the second edition hits to the chest are determined by
(strength + constitution) x 3.  Since both str and con are
determined via a 1d10 roll, mean average would be 5.  5 + 5 x 3 =
30.  To receive a chest value of 60 would require the character to
have his or her strength and constitution equal to 10.  Even if the
person was wearing body armor, with two points absorbed per attack
the person is not going to survive long against hostile fire.

> but a head value of only 20

Head hits = con x 2.  con = 1d10.  Mean average heat hits = 10.

I see from the rest of your description you weren't overly fond of
this system.  Maybe it's because you've been playing with the above
overpowered numbers :).  But I like the damage to each part of the
body.  I think a wound list is more appropriate than assigning
points however.  Improves the roleplaying a bit (and if you are at
all familiar with RoleMaster, the gore index skyrockets as well).

        Bringing it all back to traveller, I think the TNE should
use a simple point system like D&D or Star Frontiers.  The system
in use in Megatraveller is needlessly complex.  A wounds system in
TNE probably wouldn't be a good idea, simply because the massive
damage done by sf weapons, and the fact that this is not a combat
oriented game.

- --
INTERNET:  jdriver@netlink.cts.com (John Driver)
UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!jdriver
NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115

------------------------------
The TML is made possible by facilities provided by the University of
Western Ontario. All opinions and materials below are the responsibility
of the originator.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

BUN# =AMN= =DATE====== =FROM==========  =SUBJECT/BODY==========================
 410  4822 30-Oct-1992 "Pedro A.C. Tav  twilight 2000 area fire << Hi guys
 410  4823 30-Oct-1992 Richard Johnson  Re: MT starport info << Steve J. White
 410  4824 30-Oct-1992 metlay           GDW on the TML, not bloody likely: a ra
 410  4825 30-Oct-1992 Brian Gillespie  RE: TW2k mechanics question << Scott as
 410  4826 30-Oct-1992 Matthew D. Gold  campaign notes << I've been going throu
 410  4827 30-Oct-1992 James T Perkins  GDW on the TML? Fait accompli. << Tonig
 410  4828 30-Oct-1992 SULAIMAN@ecs.um  Sword Worlds << From: Hans Rancke-Madse
 410  4829 30-Oct-1992 George William   << Re: Twilight System hits rules
 410  4830 30-Oct-1992 b.borich@genie.  GDW talk << SCOTT,
 410  4831 30-Oct-1992 Rob Dean         Oops! << In the "Don't post when you're
 410  4832 30-Oct-1992 Derek Wildstar   Starport Detail Generator << Cynthia Hi
 410  4833 31-Oct-1992 Jeff Zeitlin     tml sub - discussion << GG::>If I can b
 410  4834 31-Oct-1992 Bertil Jonell    Re: T2k2 area fire << > From: "Pedro A.
 410  4835 31-Oct-1992 Bertil Jonell    Re: Sworld World << > From: SULAIMAN@ec

------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4822
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1992 07:01:18 -0500
From: "Pedro A.C. Tavares" <ftavares%ptearn.bitnet@utcs.utoronto.ca>
Subject:      twilight 2000 area fire

Hi guys

Some time ago someone said mechanics for area fire in Twilight 2000 were
a good alternative to 2300ad ones.
I don't have the game so could someone give me a short description of how
they work?

Thanks a lot

------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4823
From: richard@agora.rain.com (Richard Johnson)
Subject: Re: MT starport info
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 5:54:01 PST


Steve J. White asks (some time ago);
:I just read your recent post to TML regarding the facts & figures file(s)
:you have on starports and such.  I'd also be interested in anything you
:might have.  I'm looking for GREAT detail for some worlds I'll soon be
:working on so starport detail is essential.  Thanks...

I'm working on it.  I haven't forgotten, I just can't seem to find where
I put it.  (James and Mark know this litany from me...) :=)

Most of the stuff I have relates starport construction and classification
to examples of airports in the U.S. now.  Considering what has recently
been said about starport classification, I'd like to add a TL8 checkpoint.
Most of this sounds awfully familiar to us Trav/MT buffs -- only this is
"real world" now...


The ICAO (the international governing body for aircraft and airspace) has
divided up airspace into six lettered classifications, A, B, C, D, E, F, and G.
(Okay, I can't count.)

A is for all airspace over 18000 ft (yes altitdues are in feet, not meters)
  sounds to me like orbital starports fall into this area...

B is for the few HUGE airports that have massive commercial traffic,
  automated landing systems, multiple parallel runways, responsibility
  for area RADAR coverage, and stuff like that.  Examples are JFK, TOK,
  and HTW (Kennedy, Tokyo, and Heathrow).

  Sounds like a "good quality installation" to me.  :=)

C is for most other airports.  It includes all airports that have control
  towers.  Generally, in order to have a control tower, an airport will
  also have fuel.

D is for non-controlled fields.  You *generally* will only find these in
  the U.S. and in underdeveloped areas of the world.  (Makes sense to me.)

After that the classifications have to do with controlling aircraft that
are in the air.  Now Marc Miller might have been privy to this information
when he classified starports, but what the heck. :=)

Another thing to do for ideas about starports is to go down to your local
airport and hang out.  After you know these people, ask for old airport
maps that they're throwing out for updates -- the obsolete ones.  Air maps
get updated every six months.  These things have listings of services,
length and position of runways, etc.

Or you could go down to the boat supply shop and get a chart of your
favorite harbor...
- --
Richard Johnson      richard@agora.rain.com
I'm sorry.  Last time that happened, it was an accident.

------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4824
From: metlay@netcom.com (metlay)
Subject: GDW on the TML, not bloody likely: a rant from the Master of Rants.
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 9:18:00 PST


I have Loren Wiseman's address at GEnie, and before anyone asks,
I am NOT volunteering it. He and I have exchanged a letter or two,
and in the stuff I have read from him I see little indication that he
is interested in joining the TML or in making his address widely
known.

This makes perfect sense to me, considering the scurrilous treatment
GDW has received at the hands of the TML in past months (of which I
have been an occasional participant). As Loren wrote me, the perception
of a "bunker mentality" at GDW was initially created by the fact that
GDW received TML postings very late, if at all, through the efforts
of TML members on GEnie who forwarded the text, a nontrivial task.
He did NOT go on to imply that a "bunker mentality" was encouraged
by the TML's predilection to stand by the GEnie gateway with a loaded
ARL, gleefully shooting off any appendage that poked through for a
moment. That was strictly my own inference, but I must confess that
it was a strong one.

There are several facets to the relationship between GDW and the TML
that should be kept in mind by everyone, INCLUDING me. One is that too
many scribes spoil the yoyaokhtef, and it can be and probably IS
counterproductive for GDW to dissect every thousand-line post on the
TML for veracity and playability, thereupon to immediately scrap the
work they're doing and start over. Loren may simply choose to avoid
the TML because he has too much other input to deal with, most of
which has far more direct bearing on his job. Another thing to keep in
mind is that the TML has in the past combined its members' pride in
the fields in which they claim expertise with its enthusiasm for
improving Traveller, and salted this mix liberally with the "we're not
on GEnie and we can say whatever we want about GDW, so there"
mentality that GDW frankly despises.

I don't want to hear countercharges that GDW is being arrogant and
closeminded, and obviously refusing to listen to everyone's sage advice
out of foolish pride, or whatever. Let's face it, people: the majority
of the letters of comment on GDW's policies have been just plain MEAN.
Their factual content is, by comparison, unimportant! Game design is
in GDW's case a business of public relations and public service. As I
have lamented in the past, we of the TML are a small, SMALL fraction of
GDW's buyer base, and we create more mental anguish than the rest of them
put together. In the business of selling anything that is NOT a matter
of life and death to the buyer (get real, folx. Are YOU going to go into
insulin shock if TNE has a bad starship combat system?), it is always
better to be liked than to be right. The customer must be pleased, and
communicate this pleasure to the seller. Improvements can and should
be suggested, and I am NOT advocating that the TML scale back to the
pulled-teeth wimpiness of the GEnie round tables. BUT! Common, decent
courtesy to the people who provide us with the games we love should be
first and foremost. I don't claim innocence in these matters. Neither
should anyone else, before they access the bundle archives and reread
some of what they've written.

GDW fields letters and phone calls every day from all over the country,
if not the world. They cry out for material to keep CHALLENGE on the
stands. But there is no corollary to that law that says they must tolerate
the slings and arrows of a small, thoroughly obnoxious group of buyers
- --and pay for the privilege!-- when there are less painful and more
profitable ways of doing business. It's not good business sense to do
otherwise. The customer is NOT always right when he's being abusive on
a consistent basis.

So don't be surprised if GDW doesn't make a big splash on the TML any
time soon. We make them angry, frustrated, and upset, and it's not
their duty to sit there and take it. It's not OUR duty to soften the
ideas behind our responses to their suggestions, only the manner in
which these ideas are presented. If I sound overly sensitive about this,
it's because of the one last factor in this issue that I haven't mentioned
yet: the glass wall you're staring at right now as you read these lines
of text. I've broken through it, and have done for over ten years. It
has been my business to attach faces and voices and feelings and hopes
and everything else that makes us human to the lines of text that I read
on the TML and elsewhere. When I travel, I always meet net.people and
replace ASCII with flesh and blood in my mind. I will treasure my evening
with George Herbert and Catie Helm for years, as I do my many conversations
with Mark Cook over the phone. I envy my wife for having been able to sit
and talk to Hans Rancke-Madsen, whom I may NEVER meet, over tea. But there
is one other face and voice attached to ASCII on my screen, a face and
voice that most of you have never met and will never meet. Loren Wiseman.
He and I have chatted regularly for ten years now, and while he is not a
close friend, he is a pleasant acquaintance, and I for one would like to
be able to look him in the eye when I see him next, without having to be
ashamed for my conduct.

Think about it.

- --
metlay            | and she's a master of return hitting
atomic city       | giving rhythm to her posts
                  | so you read her and think hey it sounds good
metlay@netcom.com | and wish her posts had a soundtrack too    (f. ercolessi)

------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4825
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 09:49:16 EST
From: bgillesp@lonestar.Prime.COM (Brian Gillespie)
Subject: RE: TW2k mechanics question


Scott asks:
>We've heard estimates that Twilight 2000 characters can take excessive
>damage without becoming dangerously wounded or unconcious.  I believe
>that Rob Dean estimated that an average character could be hit with
>Six or so .50 calibre machine gun bullets before becoming unconcious.

Simple answer, there isn't one, there are to many variables involved. If
we assume average numbers for most things we still have Hit Location(1d10)
which you can't take an average on.

Before I continue let me make a few comments.  First I play TW2k, Merc:2k and
Dark Conspiracy quite a bit.  For the group I game with it's the system we've
been using for a while.  What I consider the primary purpose/goal/need that a
system has to meet is that it is playable.  Realism is nice, but it always
comes in second.  If the game isn't playable then it doesn't matter how
realistic it is.

Back to mechanics, in the TW2k system a character can take a lot of damage
before dying, but knocking a character down, which puts him/her out of action
for at least the remainder of the round is easy.  Knocking a character out is
not that hard either.  I believe the hard to kill aspect of the system is
intentional. Face it, how many people enjoy having their character killed in
the first round of being ambushed.

In TW2k there are 3 levels of wounds: Slight, Serious and Critical.  Any damage
up to the first break point is Slight, up to double the break point is Serious
and above that is Critical.  (Dark Conspiracy adds another level which is half
the Slight level and is called Scratch.)

The standard effect of wounds is:
(Scratch): Lose next action (initiative).
Slight: -1 to your initiative.
Serious: Additional -2 to your initiative, if any action performed,
 character must roll under constitution on percentile dice
 or lose conciousness.
Critical: Effective 0 initiative, bleed to death in 20 rounds(10 min.)
  unless medical attention received.

Other effects:
If total damage absorbed during a phase is greater than your agility
attribute you are knocked down and lose any remaining actions for that
round.

Hit Location:  A d10 is rolled: 1 Head, 2 Chest, 3 Left Arm, 4 Right
Arm, 5-6 Abdomen, 7-8 Left Leg, 9-10 Right Leg.

Any time a character takes damage to the head there is a chance for
unconciousness, add a d6 to the damage taken and subtract the characters
constitution attribute, the result is the number of rounds the character
is unconcious for.

A serious wound to the head results in automatic unconciousness for the
specified number of rounds.

In order to regain conciousness, with any serious wound, requires a roll
equal to or less than the characters constitution attribute.  And, once
a character is concious, any physical action performed will cause the
character to again lose conciousness if a successful percentile con
check is not made.

Game turn note:  A round is 30 seconds and is broken into 6 phases of 5 seconds
each.  A character has an initiative from 1-6 and this tells how many
phases a character may perform an action in.

Now that I've rambled on for a while, back to the original comment.

A .50 cal round, in TW2k does 8d8+8 damage, or 36 points of damage.

A character with average stats has the following hit point levels:

      Slight  SeriousCritical+
Head1020   21+
Chest3060   61+
Others2040   41+

So one .50 cal round will kill 10%, slight 10% and serious 80%.
I'll admit I think a .50 cal round to the chest should be more
than just a slight wound.  But also, just two weeks ago, while
running a Merc:2000 scenario a PC lost consciousness after being
hit by a .50 cal round and subsequently drowned when his boat sank.

>Since I don't have the game, could someone with the books look up the
>following for me?

>How many 120mm shells does it take to kill a Twilight 2000 character?

ONE.  Unless, of course, it was an illum round, :-)  Actually there is
nothing in the rules about a character being "hit" by a 120mm round
just blast effects if the round goes off near the character

If people want to talk more please feel free to email me.  There are a lot
of modifications we have made to the rules for "playability" purposes.

By the way, some of the most fun I've had playing Dark Conspiracy has just
been creating new characters when others die or "retire" for other reasons.

Brian

bgillesp@lonestar.prime

------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4826
Subject: campaign notes
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 11:34:25 CST
From: goldman@orac.cray.com (Matthew D. Goldman)
Reply-To: goldman@orac.cray.com

I've been going through my old Traveller stuff preparing for my
current campaign.  It is going to be much easier to get the
group involved this time any time before.  They are all Zhodani
spies.  Have them meet an old man in the bar and try to get the
players to get involved?  Naah, this time I'll just have the old
man pass them the information along with their current orders.

I really like lines such as "This data is of extreme value to a
Zhodani Intelligence operative (maybe Cr30 million, plus expenses)"
from 'Adventure 2 -- Research Station Gamma'.  Cr30 million?  Not
a chance!  They will just get a pat on the back for a job well
done, and their next assignment.

Everywhere I look, there is lots of stuff the players can be sent off
to investigate for Mother Russia, err Mother Zhodane that is.

The big item for them to remember is that the Spinward Marches is
mostly owned by the Imperium.

Matt

- --
Matthew Goldman              E-mail: goldman@orac.cray.com
Fax: (612) 683-3099                   Work: (612) 683-3061

"Just keep repeating after me: The Third Imperium never
 fell.  We are not playing Cyberpunk/Shadow Run in space.
 There are no ai lifeforms inside of our transponders.
 The giant water empire has not fallen.  The universe does
 not lie in ruins.  If any of the above are true, you have
 misjumped.  Appease the referee and try to get home.
 Pizza works best to recover from bad mis-jumps."

------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4827
Subject: GDW on the TML? Fait accompli.
Reply-To: jamesp@sp-eug.com (James T Perkins)
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 10:26:41 PST
From: James T Perkins <jamesp@sp-eug.sp-eug.com>


Tonight's TML marks the first occasion that a regular employee of GDW
has posted a comment to the TML -- Loren Wiseman. It also offers up
commentary from Mark Cook and metlay on the topic of TML membership for
GDW.

I liked what I read in Metlay's message and believe he and I feel much
the same way. The biggest point worth repeating is that ALL THE MEMBERS
OF THE TML ARE REAL PEOPLE and deserve respect. Everyone has valid
motivations that others are not aware of. I've done things that have
genuinely upset other TMLers without realizing it, most of us have.

I believe Loren is hear to listen to what we have to say, and respond to
it as best he can. The TML and it's self-proclaimed experts are in all
likelihood NOT a truly representative sample of the players that GDW
meets. In light of this, ask yourself whether it's fair to DEMAND things
of GDW. Suggest - yes, constructive complaint - yes, demand - you answer
this one.

My policy is that when there are "notables" on the TML, I let them lurk
until they come out and announce their own presence. However, I will not
hide knowledge that they are on the the TML if someone asks.

Welcome aboard, Loren. I hope that you, like all TMLers, are treated
with understanding and forethought. Enough editorializing from the
pulpit. Back to your regularly scheduled TML. Not a (forced by the
admin) kinder, gentler TML, nor a TML bargaining from a position of
force.

James

------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4828
Date: 30 Oct 1992 17:19:15 -0500
From: SULAIMAN@ecs.umass.edu
Subject: Sword Worlds


From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>

>>As far as settlement goes. The indications are that the SWs knew of the
>>Darrians existence when they decided to settle on Gram.

>What indications? I agree that it is strange that they didn't find the
>Darrians, but not inexplicable.

From GDW's Darrians Alien Module 8:
        Rebuilding the Confederation:
        ...
        The Sword Worlds: In -399 Solomani colonists arrived in
        the sector and settled on Gram.....
        ... When the original settlers of Gram arrived in the Spinward
        Marches, their survey of the various systems detected the
        Darrian worlds and their low-tech settlement. Because the
        Solomani wanted to create their own independent community
        of worlds, they avoided contact with the Darrians and instead
        selected the worlds of the Sword Worlds subsector.

This raises several points:

1) The Solomani settlers were actively trying to avoid contact. This explains
why they didn't want to settle in the core worlds but doesn't explain
why they went that way if that was their purpose? As mentioned earlier
rimwards is the shortest way to go somewhere where there is noone. However
since no one knew of the Zhodani existence till much later it was a valid
choice if you wanted to live far from anywhere (valid but not necessarily
sensible).

2) The knew of the existence of Darrians and perhaps even knew the fact
that the Darrians had once been more technologically sophisticated.

3) It implies a substantial and well organised effort in that they were
searching for a particular set of conditions. They probably had growth in
mind before they settled considering the easy J-1 accessibility of all worlds.

From: Cynthia Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Sword Worlds

About the course the SW took to get to the Marches....

>For some reason I always thought they went by way of the Reft;
>this leaves the
>question of "Why didn't they settle in the Trojan Reaches?"
>Well, if you look at the
>T.R. map, you notice a lot of worlds with classically Terran names
>(not Vilani, not
>Sylean, not Imperial, but Earth-flavored).  I suspect that either
>(a) other Terran
>groups beat them there (possibly during the Rule of Man), or
>(b) the Sword Worlds are a spin-off of the Trojan Reaches worlds
>-- maybe they couldn't get along with them.

About crossing the Reft...
To me the question that is raised is how and why? If they crossed the
Reft they did it for a specific reason i.e. they knew exactly where they
wanted to go and then took the "shortest" path. I don't know if it is
even viable to do it with J-2 maybe J-3 technology. Remember the Reft
was only crossed in 1090 by a specialised Scout ship and that was done
in Corridor. If they did it I can see why it took them 20 years....but I
can also see them changing their minds from frustration and skimming the
spinward edge of Vland into Corridor-Deneb-Marches.

About SW being from Trojan reach.....
I believe there is reference somewhere that indicates that Trojan Reaches
was settled by Third Imperium via a route from Deneb sector. There is
sufficient info elsewhere that SW did leave Terra dominated territory if
not Terra itself. 20 years isn't really sufficient for the SW to reach
Trojan Reach and then split up to the degree that you imply.

I think it is
>The "losers of a war" scenario was the first thing I thought of when I read the
>questions raised in the original post.  It need not have been the "Gene War".
>If they had been sufficiently obnoxious in the course of whatever war they lost,
>they and their kin might be persona non grata anywhere in Terran space

And they might have been isolationist/racist enough not to settle in a world
that was pre-populated..... Any takers on what they might have done to get
so isolationist? It seems that the reasons might still be applicable to
current SW as they are still have an isolationist/antogonistic attitude.

>....  All of the
>questions about why the Sword
>Worlds are "way, way out here" are explained if the Sword Worlders were
>desperately *afraid* of the Terrans they left behind.

That's understandable, and would explain why they seem intent on an alliance
with the Zhodani and are so focused on disrupting the Imperium especially
considering their small size and low tech. However one would think that
after the Solomani Rim War they would have slackened up on annoying the
Imperium.

Still the main question now seems to be what they did back then to be exiled?

Lastly from a lack of response can I presume that no one knows when
the Solomani "Gene War" occured.....??

Ameer


------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4829
Subject:
From: gwh@lurnix.COM (George William Herbert)
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 14:27:03 -0800


Re: Twilight System hits rules

The "Invincible characters" problem was fixed in
the D20 rules suppliment; there's a new rule that
effectively makes direct or near hits by explosive or
antitank rounds lethal to even armoured humans.

This _is_ the rules version that they hope to use for TNE, so that would seem
to be the operating condition to plan for.  People will still die if they
stand in front of tanks 8-)

- -george


------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4830
From: b.borich@genie.geis.com
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 21:40:00 EDT
Subject: GDW talk

SCOTT,
    You're out of luck on what you want me to edit or don't edit. If I had
the time to waste checking for that it might be okay, but the only thing
I had time to waste on it was some reformatting and deleting the stories
and adventures out for the people I was forwarding it too (which are people
interested in what the TML had to say and do, but didn't have the access
to Internet to do so themselves, therefore they subscribed through me).
    Anyway now GDW has it's own access as do the other people if they
want it directly (and GDW does), I will no longer be forwarding the
TML to anybody using this address since it is not permitted.
    In any case I don't really consider the TML private, anymore than
a subscription to a magazine is private, or joining a SIG.
    Therefore if you have anything to say that you don't want to tell
GDW, you might consider private Email (though legally speaking, I'm
not sure Internet Email would be considered private by a court of law
at this time).

EVERYBODY ELSE,
    GDW, and several other parties where interested in getting the TML
feed for various reasons. In GDW's case it gave them access to what they
hoped might be useful consumer input (and to a certain extent it did).
    Despite what people think or decide to believe. I do believe that
GDW has TNE's best interests at heart, and it does look like they'll be
opening up playtesting to other people, and hopefully here on the TML
as well. Otherwise there best course would be to just let the game die
and not bother with putting up with the heat they are, nor worry about
the competition taking over the position left open by the failure
of MT.
    Everybody already knows what a kludge MT was, so what's the sense
in repeating that all the time? (I think by now even the densest person
would get that point). Even Joe Fugate got to admitting what a
mistake it was.
    Admittedly some of the changes in TNE are going to upset a lot
of old traveller players (me included), offhand I don't really see
a way around it, but than I agree that Traveller needs some major
updating to bring it up to date with modern RPGing, ease of use, and
technology (AI, cybertech, nanotech as examples).
    As for switching to the T2K system, well, I'm certainly going
to miss those d6. But I can understand the need to keep things
simple, and using just one system inhouse is easier than trying to
remember how to play several different RPG's. Just so long as I don't
see characters living through bazooka hits and such.
    At the moment my main concerns are how open the playtesting will
be, and hoping GDW doesn't rush the product out before the bugs are
mostly removed at least (I'm more tired of others of seeing errata/updates
put out because the product was rushed out to meet some deadline).

    Anyway, a little chaos in one's life keeps those arteries from hardening
up. And experienced GM's know how to change the rules to please themselves
and their players (that includes things like the Virus and other unpleasant
facts, like possibly Stutterwarp, which I can accept as an option/variant,
but not as an official part of TNE).

P.S. And anybody feeling intimidated by GDW listening in can have fun.
If you can't take the heat in return, maybe you shouldn't speak up in
public. 'Nough said.
P.P.S. As for the discussion on GDW suing Scott, they where talking about
doing so for libel, not copyright infringement. And GDW has been pretty
good about allowing others to use their universe, especially when there
permission is asked.

------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4831
From: Rob Dean <robdean@access.digex.com>
Subject: Oops!
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 22:28:29 EST

In the "Don't post when you're tired" category, two people pointed out that
I miscalculated the average number of hit points a T:2000 character has, and
came to the conclusion that they were too tough as a result.  )-:  My
apologies.  It is just barely possible to get a chest value of 60, but
unlikely.  Still and all, a chest of 30 is pretty respectable if you're up
against one of those wimpy weapons like a 50lb hunting bow (average damage
2.5--12 hits to serious wound level).

I agree that the whole issue is one of gaming style, and I also agree with
the esteemed Mr. Wiseman when he says that he would just declare a character
hit with a 120mm AP round to be dead....

One brief question for GDW, if you don't mind my asking--what sort of
numbers are we expecting for common Traveller weapons in TNE?  Say, a
laser carbine and a gauss rifle as examples.

Miscellaneous comments: Gamba is delayed again by another business trip this
coming week.  We'll get back to it real soon now...and I won't be posting
for a while as a result of this one.  They tell me I'll be finished with all
of this travel by Christmas.  I certainly hope so.

Welcome to the list, GDW, and let's all take Metlay's comments to heart, eh?

Rob Dean

------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4832
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 22:35:38 EST
From: wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar)
Subject: Starport Detail Generator

Cynthia Higginbotham <71035.1211@CompuServe.COM> writes:
> ... I seem
> to recall that A starports (which have shipyards by definition) have an
> orbital component by definition.

I seem to remember this as well.  It was first established either in an
early issue of the Journal, or an early issue of the Digest.  I will
take a look and see if I can find the reference (or maybe Metlay
knows).

>     As for defining starports, I still think GURPS Space did a better job
> with their thumbnail sketches of what a starport Class 0-V (Traveller X-A)
> consists of than the Traveller books did.  [Descriptions deleted]

It seems to me that the GURPS descriptions are a little more specific,
and the idea of determining the planet's population (and presumably
other characteristics) *BEFORE* deciding what type of port it has is
overall a good one.

I would like to propose a starport classification system that uses three
values: the port type (the current starport type letter), a traffic
digit (a single digit for the volume of traffic), and a
facilities digit (a single digit for the quantity and
variety of services available).  In other words, a starport rating might
look like "A-75"; perhaps it could be included in the UPP at the end,
after the population multiplier, asteroid belts, and gas giants, like:
  FOOBAR AXXXXXX-F NS Hi In 923-97

The following is a draft port generation and interpretation guide.
Since I haven't had time to play-test it to any significant degree (it
was created during the last few days), I would appreciate any
suggestions, especially with respect to DMs and interpretations.

Generation Procedure
Traffic Code: Roll 2d6-10 and apply the following DMs:
  Population: Lo=-2 Hi=+2
  Starports: X=-4 E=-2 D=+0 C=+2 B=+4 A=+6
  Trade Classifications: Po=-4 Ni=-3 Ba=-2 Fl=-1 Ic=+0 Wa=+0
                         Va=+1 De=+1 Na=+1 As=+2 Ag=+3 Ri=+3 In=+4
  Trade Partners: +1 per world within Jump-1 (+2 if starport A or B)
                  +1 if subsector or local capital
                  +1 if on X-Boat or designated trade route
                  -2 if there are no worlds within Jump-2
  Prosperity: Referee-assigned DM based on local conditions or
              regional trade factors; from -4 to +4 suggested.
  If the result is less than zero, assign a code of X; results greater
  than F (15) should be reduced to F.
Facilities Code: Roll 2d6-10 and apply the following DMs:
  Traffic Code: apply the full traffic code as a DM (treat X as -1).
  Bases: +2 if Naval or Scout base is present
  Local Technology: -4 if local TL is Pre-Industrial (TL0-3)
                    -2 if local TL is Industrial (TL4-5)
                    +0 if local TL is Pre-Stellar (TL6-8)
                    +1 if local TL is Early Stellar (TL9-A)
                    +2 if local TL is Average Stellar (TLB-D)
                    +3 if local TL is High Stellar (TLE-G)
                    +4 if local TL is Extreme Stellar (TLH+)
  If the result is less than zero, assign a code of X; results greater
  than F (15) should be reduced to F.

Explanation of Codes
  Traffic Code
    X = No traffic (except as referee-generated event)
    0 = Isolated; very little traffic
    1, 2, 3 = Backwater; little traffic
    4, 5, 6 = Low traffic volume
    7, 8, 9 = Average traffic volume
    A, B, C = High traffic volume
    D, E = Major Trade Center; very high traffic
    F = Extremely high traffic; one of the busiest systems in space.
  Facilities Code
    X = Abandonded, converted to other purpose, or destroyed
    0 = Minimum possible facility to meet starport type classification
    1, 2, 3 = Cramped, too small to support current use
    4, 5, 6 = Small but adequate
    7, 8, 9 = Average
    A, B, C = Large
    D, E = Extensive; plenty of room and able to do nearly anything
    F = Comprehensive; any possible requirement can be met

Examples:
  A-XX = Class A port: capable of constructing starports
         Traffic level X: No Traffic
         Facilities X: No Facilities
         This port is probably under siege, embargo, or interdiction.
         The port facilities have been destroyed, and no traffic is
         going in or out.
  C-FF = Class C port: average facility, capable of reasonable repairs
         Traffic Level F: Extremely high
         Facilities Code F: Comprehensive.
         A very busy, important port; local facilities are capable of
         nearly anything short of an annual overhaul or actual new
         construction.  Port probably remains class C due to lack of
         local resources to construct hulls and drives (possibly due to
         low TL or non-technical economy).
  A-30 = Backwater facility that barely meets standards of a class A
         port.  Perhaps the facilities were constructed by the local
         government in a (failed) attempt to stimulate trade.  One
         yard is present, and construction is possible, but slow.  No
         standard designs are available.
  B-A3 = System has high traffic but cramped facilities.  Probably
         traffic growth has outstripped the starport's ability to
         expand.  Expect delays everywhere; especially for docking
         space and ship overhauls.  Probably charges more than the
         standard rate for docking fees.

Other uses:
  Use the Traffic or Facilities code just like attributes in task rolls
  (divide by 5 and drop fractions).  Finding a shipyard willing and able
  to repair battle damage might be Routine(Facilities), while finding
  passage on a ship going to the proper destination might be
  Difficult(Traffic), if it is an unpopular destination.

Design Notes:
  The system designed generally on the basis of "what feels right".  I
  wanted better starports to have generally more traffic, but not
  always.  Since most traders have relatively low jump performance,
  having a lot of nearby worlds to trade with would also help increase
  the trade level.  The DMs for trade classifications were based on the
  MegaTraveller trade matrix; worlds with more potential intersections
  on the Cargo Price Modifiers chart have higher DMs.  I figured that
  the facilities would generally follow the traffic volume.  Since
  significant imported technology is required at lower TLs, the
  are generally smaller; likewise, worlds with Scout or Navy bases
  probably have military contractors that are not adverse to doing
  work for the civillian sector.  Again let me stress that this is a
  new thing, and I haven't properly run it through the wringer yet;
  please let me know if you seen any errors.

>     Since I haven't gotten *to* the Rebellion period yet, I am more than
> interested in seeing your "reams of stuff", Wildstar.

OK, you asked for it.  Much of it is Classic Traveller ship designs and
deckplans, along with lots of other stuff filed away in my gaming files.
I'll start digging and see what I can find.

wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                         in the Far Future

------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4833
From: jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Date: 31 Oct 92 (00:12)
Subject: tml sub - discussion


GG::>If I can be of any assistance, please let me know.  In addition to
  ::>playtesting, proofreading, and sanity checking, I have a delta-vee type
  ::>movement system that is much simpler than Mayday, while providing a
  ::>similar or better level of accuracy.  I also have a "virus" story which
  ::>you may be able to use as a retroactive change to that which has been
  ::>published (is anyone here on TML interested in either one?).

  To date, I have not seen the "complete" virus story.  I saw part of
  it (what I would consider a lead-in to it) in the insert in
  Challenge 64, but....  I would appreciate it if someone could
  synopsize it here.  I'd also appreciate seeing the alternate story
  you propose.

  On another topic, I just got done reading EON and ETERNITY, both by
  Greg Bear, for the n-squared-th time, and enjoyed them for
  n-squared-th time.  But I still havent been able to figure a good
  answer to a question - to wit, "What TRAV/MTRAV/TNE tech level makes
  pictors possible, and how can I incorporate them into my campaign?"
  I think they're a neat idea, and I like including neat ideas into my
  campaigns, but I occasionally have trouble deciding just how a
  particular neat idea fits.

  J/
  jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com

 * OLX 2.2 * A message is only a way for a tagline to travel.
- --
Executive Network Information System  (914) 667-4567
International ILink Host

------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4834
From: Bertil Jonell <d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se>
Subject: Re: T2k2 area fire
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1992 12:45:34 +0100 (MET)

> From: "Pedro A.C. Tavares" <ftavares%ptearn.bitnet@utcs.utoronto.ca>
> Subject:      twilight 2000 area fire
>
> Hi guys
>
> Some time ago someone said mechanics for area fire in Twilight 2000 were
> a good alternative to 2300ad ones.
> I don't have the game so could someone give me a short description of how
> they work?

  The short version:
  You roll one d6 for each shot fired on full auto and each '6' rolled is a hit.

  The longer version:
  Each weapon capable of automatic fire fires in burst of 3 5 10 or 50/60/100
rounds when it doesn't fire semi-auto. Up to five such burst can be fired in
a phase. A human can only target up to 3 targets per phase, and each burst has
a specific target (although as I interpret it, an 8*8 area can be a target
if somebody tries to 'recon by fire').
  The practical number of bursts for most weapons is limited by the strenght
of the firer and the burst fire recoil rating of the weapon. If the sum of the
recoil of all burst in a phase is greater than the strengh, the number of
dice, originally equal to the number of rounds, except for the burst of more
than 10 round, is reduced by the difference.
  As the range increases the number of dice is further reduced by a certain
number per burst per range band beyond short.

  When you know how many dice to roll you roll them and each '6' is a hit.
Half if the dice (round down) that miss in each burst is rolled again and
any '6' rolled is a hit on a secondary target within 4m left and right of the
target and in the same range band. Any dice that miss this time are rolled
again and any '6' is a potential hit that will hit any target that tries to
move or act in the line of fire for the rest of the phase and upto the time
the firer is allowed to fire again in the next phase.

  Autofire is notoriously tough to model, and I generally like this model.
The only big beef I have with it is that the skill of the firer doesn't come
in at all, but Lester Smith mentioned during the one of the seminars at Origins/
Gencon that they had some ideas of making skill figure in.

> Thanks a lot

- -bertil-
- --
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
 strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
 exercise for your kill-file."

------------------------------

Bundle: 410
Archive-Message-Number: 4835
From: Bertil Jonell <d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se>
Subject: Re: Sworld World
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1992 13:04:10 +0100 (MET)

> From: SULAIMAN@ecs.umass.edu
> Subject: Sword Worlds

> Lastly from a lack of response can I presume that no one knows when
> the Solomani "Gene War" occured.....??

  I think that the Gene War only was mentioned in the Referees section of
DGP's Solomani&Aslan book. It was absent from the timeline in the same book.
It is possible that the idea came from somebody, perhaps on DGP or HIWG, but
that the info on when it happened was edited out/never included, In that case
*somebody* knows, but I have no idea who.

> Ameer

- -bertil-
- --
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
 strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
 exercise for your kill-file."

------------------------------
