       TRAVELLER Digest 64

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Traveller #75 by alvin plummera <plummera@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca>
  2) Re: Challenge #75??? by John V Banagan <jbanagan@uclink2.berkeley.edu>
  3) Re: Traveller #75 by John V Banagan <jbanagan@uclink2.berkeley.edu>
  4) Briliant Lances / Battle Rider by merrick@RT66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
  5) Space Ship Design & Sensor Operations by Paul Harris <100073.77@compuserve.com>
  6) More StutterWarp Stuff by "KMCCARTHY" <KMCCARTHY@qmgate.osc.hq.nasa.gov>
  7) re Traveller Digest 63 - tax and TCS by nicklaw@cix.compulink.co.uk (Nicholas James)
  8) FTP sites by Joshua Holmstrom <jholmstr@violin.aix.calpoly.edu>

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Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 16:54:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: alvin plummera <plummera@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Traveller #75
Message-ID: <Pine.3.05.1.9410071651.A3204-9100000@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca>


Re: Glenn Myers' question about Challange #75.....

I asked my neighbourhood RPG dealer for 75, and an order was put in for a
few weeks.  This Tuesday, however, he said that GDW has stopped publishing
Challange Magazine, at least for now...

Is this true?


Alvin Plummer
(And now, back to our sponsers....)


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Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 15:14:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: John V Banagan <jbanagan@uclink2.berkeley.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Challenge #75???
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9410071500.A29090-0100000@uclink2.berkeley.edu>


I don't think Challenge 75 came out yet (not atleast Games of Berkeley, 
CA). 

Since this was brought up, does anyone have any critiques they'd like to 
share about Traveller related zines?

I cam across one called Traveller Digest (they're up to number 6). Looks 
like it's stuff for TNE. I don't know that much about it, so I won't give 
a critique. 

John

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

Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 15:21:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: John V Banagan <jbanagan@uclink2.berkeley.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Traveller #75
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9410071542.E29090-0100000@uclink2.berkeley.edu>



On Fri, 7 Oct 1994, alvin plummera wrote:

> I asked my neighbourhood RPG dealer for 75, and an order was put in for a
> few weeks.  This Tuesday, however, he said that GDW has stopped publishing
> Challange Magazine, at least for now...

I hope it's not true. According to Challeneg 74, it's supposed to be the 
BIG Traveller issue.

John

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

Date: Sat, 8 Oct 1994 01:29:12 -0600 (MDT)
From: merrick@RT66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM (traveller)
Subject: Briliant Lances / Battle Rider
Message-ID: <9410080729.AA29019@RT66.com>

Howdy,

This post is partially a test (anyone hear me :) 

I used to play Traveller (classic) quite a bit (GM as well), but haven't
in a while. A guy I work with still does, and we both play BL and BR.
There seem to be a number of problems with both systems, but we both
like both of the games...  any comments or house rules to patch
problems?

Anyone else notice that military ships(fleet elements) have no need of
passive sensors?  In BL you have bogey counters, unless you start the
scenario with a side hidden... when do you have an idea the guy is a
bogey in the first place?

well, back to a rousing game of doom :)

-Merrick

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

Date: 08 Oct 94 06:02:05 EDT
From: Paul Harris <100073.77@compuserve.com>
To: traveller <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: Space Ship Design & Sensor Operations
Message-ID: <941008100205_100073.77_BHJ68-1@CompuServe.COM>

Hi All,

I would be very intrested if anyone could help me out with the sequence of the
way in which the starship design rules for FFS should work as the sequence in the book
does not seem to work correctly. Also when using sensors on a starship how can you get a
visual image of the ship you are looking at with your sensors.

Many thanks

------------------
Paul Harris at  CIS 100073,77


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

Date: 8 Oct 1994 10:55:27 U
From: "KMCCARTHY" <KMCCARTHY@qmgate.osc.hq.nasa.gov>
To: "New TML Broadcast" <traveller@MPGN.COM>,
Subject: More StutterWarp Stuff
Message-ID: <199410081457.KAA10079@Mithril.MPGN.COM>

                       Subject:                               Time:9:56 AM
  OFFICE MEMO          More StutterWarp Stuff                 Date:10/8/94
Edward_Swatschek@mindlink.bc.ca (Edward Swatschek) wrote about FFS
StutterWarp
in TRAVELLER digest 62:
   
>With a power plant putting out 0.5 MW per displacement ton (what you'd
>install for a 1 g HEPlaR drive), you get a stutterwarp speed of 6.26
>parsecs, or 20.4 ly, per day.  You'd want to play with the figures a bit to
>use it in a 2300AD campaign.

I did a quick review of the 2300AD StarCruiser Naval Architect's Manual and FFS
regarding Stuuterwarp Efficiency.  It quickly becomes apparent that the
greatest variation between the 2300AD and FFS is that FFS uses Parsecs and
2300AD uses Lightyears.  

In 2300AD each tactical space combat hex was 600,000km and each turn was 1
minute.  Brillant Lances scale is 30,000km and 30 minutes.  In 2300AD ships
moved at twice their StutterWarp Efficiency in hexes per minute. 

SUGGESTED FFS RULES ERATA:
FFS p. 43: I suggest that a FFS rules fix should be to retain the 2300AD rule
of StutterWarp Efficiency  equals travel distance of LY/day.

The conversions for Brillant Lances movement are as follows, FFS p. 43:
Forty
times (i.e., 2  * 20) warp efficiency per MINUTE.  Multiply this by THIRTY
for
BL time scale in hexes per turn.  If only StutterWarp Ships are involved
divide
each BL turn into TEN 3 minute segments.

I wonder if GDW will publish a 2300AD source book for T:TNE?  Any comments
Loren?

Kevin Mc Carthy



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

Date: Sat, 8 Oct 94 19:02 BST-1
From: nicklaw@cix.compulink.co.uk (Nicholas James)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM, nicklaw@cix.compulink.co.uk
Subject: re Traveller Digest 63 - tax and TCS
Message-ID: <memo.564643@cix.compulink.co.uk>

Les Howie wrote:
>Generating a half dozen subsectors, say 200 worlds, I found a significant number
>of rules with base naval tax rates in the trillions of credits per year 
(worlds >with pop 9 or 10, high pop multipliers, and good exchange rates)

Nick Law writes:
My friends know better now than to mention TCS tax rates in my presence; 
it has been one of my pet obsessions for many years. I was always 
convinced that the budgets in TCS were too high, and that the guidelines 
given in Striker were more realistic (I wonder what Striker II will say 
on the matter). Below are some notes that I wrote on the subject some 
time ago, which I hope will be of interest:

Striker says that the per capita GNP for a world of average tech level 
(B/C) is Cr15,000. It also says that military spending will average 3% of GNP, or Cr450 per person.
The military budget has to be spread between:
1. The Navy
2. The Army
3. Planetary Defence Forces (Striker says jointly run by the Army & Navy)
4. COACC
5. The Marines
6. The Scouts and other government para-military organisations
7. The wet Navy
Once you have taken out the PDF funding, the Navy should be lucky to get a third of the budget: Cr150.
Of the naval budget, at least a third will go on administration, pensions, intelligence, 
communications, R&D and construction and maintenance of naval bases &c, leaving Cr100 to be 
spent on the ships themselves, instead of Cr500 as in TCS.
If, as it says in TCS, maintenance of ships costs one tenth of their price to build, and navies can 
have ten years-worth of build available as initial forces, then it follows that maintenance and 
construction will be equal sums within the budget i.e. Cr50 each per capita, with initial forces of 
Cr500 per capita. I imagine that after every ten years service, a ship is either scrapped, 
mothballed, given to a client state or the reserve service, or else it undergoes a refit of the Star-
Trek-The-Motion-Picture-comes-out-looking-like-a-different-ship-altogether variety, which is pretty 
much the same as building a new vessal. 
In support, I have included figures below for 1978 US defense spending which go to show that only 
a small part of the budget goes to build ships. It has been broken down by the Pentagon three 
times, under the headings Budget, Component and Program:

1978 PERSONEL
Army,  778,547,  37.5%
Navy,  526,527,  25.4%
Marines,  188,845,  9.1%
Airforce,  581,236,  28.0%
Total,  2,075,155  

1978  BUDGET, $m, 
Personnel, 27,586, 22.9%
Pensions, 9,056, 7.5%
Operation & Maintenance, 35,140, 29.2%
Procurement, 32,209, 26.8%
R&D, Testing, 11,875, 9.9%
Foreign Assistance, 1,028, 0.9%
Everything Else, 3,480, 2.9%
Total, 120,374, 

PROGRAM, $m, 
Strategic Forces , 10,619, 8.8%
General Purpose Forces, 42,035, 34.9%
Intelligence & Commo, 8,239, 6.8%
Air & Sealift, 1,657, 1.4%
Guard & Reserves, 7,112, 5.9%
R & D, 10,816, 9.0%
Central Supply & Maint., 12,016, 10.0%
Training, Medical &c, 24,387, 20.3%
Support of Other Nations, 2,235, 1.9%
Administration, 1,258, 1.0%
Total, 120,374 

COMPONENT, $m, 
Shared, 15,918, 13.2%
Army, 29,595, 24.6%
Navy*, 40,132, 33.3%
Air Force, 34,729, 28.9%
Total, 120,374, 
*incl Marines



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

Date: Sat, 8 Oct 1994 12:54:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joshua Holmstrom <jholmstr@violin.aix.calpoly.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: FTP sites
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9410081206.A134476-0100000@violin.aix.calpoly.edu>

Are there any T:tNE FTP sites around? If so, what is the sites address?

Thanks,

-Josh

==================================================================== 
|  Josh Holmstrom                   | Todays kids hardly know      |  
|  Freshman, Mechanical Engineering | what an envelope is. If it's |  
|  CalPoly, San Luis Obispo         | not on the Net, what do they | 
===================================== care?                        | 
|            | 
|      From the short story "Detritus Affected" by David Brin      |  
====================================================================

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End of TRAVELLER Digest 64
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