			    TRAVELLER Digest 75

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Re: Imperium	by erich@bush.cs.tamu.edu (Erich Schneider)
  2) RE: Grav belts, Imperium, PAWS, Lasers, Stutterwarp	by "Upton, Django" <DUpton@VTRNNTOV.TELECOM.com.au>
  3) Re:  Has anyone...	by Derek Wildstar <wildstar@qrc.com>
  4) Re: Has anyone...	by Bertil Jonell <d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se>
  5) Re: 3G3	by Derek Smith <Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com>
  6) Re: Has Anyone... (futility of PAWS, etc)	by Derek Smith <Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com>
  7) Re: Magic & other card games	by CyHiggin@aol.com

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

Date: Tue, 18 Oct 94 18:15:31 CDT
From: erich@bush.cs.tamu.edu (Erich Schneider)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Imperium
Message-ID: <9410182315.AA08061@ bush.cs.tamu.edu>

Glenn Goffin asks:

>I'm considering buying a copy of GDW's old wargame, Imperium, which
>simulates the N Interstellar Wars between Terra and the Vilani Ziru Sirka.

>Would those of you who've played it give me your opinions?  Is it good for
>two-person play? solo? (forget about multi-player; coordinating schedules is
>just too tough.)  Is it balanced between complexity and playability? (or I
>should ask, where is the balance drawn between the two?).

I've played the first edition of the game (in fact, mine was published
by "Conflict Game Co.", the company which had the same employees and
office building, but different street address, as GDW). It's pretty
much strictly two-player; I'm not sure about solitaire play.
Complexity is middling, from what I remember. Presentation is very
good - the map and counters look really nice (beautiful blue or green TC
counters vs. red or black ZS counters on a very colorful map). 

The problem is in balance - namely, the Vilani apparently can always
win over the long term. The game simulates the Nth Interstellar Wars;
one player is the SecGen of the TC, while the other is the provincial
governor at Gashidda (whine, bow, scrape, serve, yes, mighty
Ishimkarun). One thing you keep track of is how many "glory points",
from 1 to 9, the Vilani player has, representing their favor with the
central government. Glory points are gained and lost, among other
things, by winning/losing battles and conquering/losing planets.  The
Vilani start with 5 glory points, and there are upper and lower limits
which, if the glory total passes them, causes a Vilani victory or
loss. The limits narrow as time goes on, limiting the length of any
"war". After each "war", there is a "peace" period, where both players
do some rebuilding, and a new "war" starts. The campaign ends, I
think, when all major worlds on the map (basically Sol and Dingir
subsectors) are controlled by one player. (Note that you can just play
one war as a "one-shot".)

The problem - the Vilani player may "appeal to the Emperor" for cash,
ships, or permission to build heavy units (it's a die roll, and can
sometimes result in bad stuff). This costs one "glory point". If the
Vilani do this every turn, they inevitably "lose", but get stuff _and_
shorten the game, preventing the Terrans from making many gains.
Thus, over many "phony wars", they can build up a lot of strength and
wipe the Terrans out.

Something may have been done about this in the second edition - I'd
love to hear it, because the game has nice mechanics.
--
Erich Schneider  erich@bush.cs.tamu.edu  http://tamsun.tamu.edu/~ers0925

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

Date: Wed, 19 Oct 94 12:48:00 EST
From: "Upton, Django" <DUpton@VTRNNTOV.TELECOM.com.au>
To: tml <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: RE: Grav belts, Imperium, PAWS, Lasers, Stutterwarp
Message-ID: <2EA5AF59@msmail.trl.oz.au>


Steve Charlton writes:

 ----------------
Penultimate Item - I have been trying to design a gravbelt-like system for some
fancy battledress I have designed.  I had some trouble coming up with
reasonable numbers, so I took a step back and tried to duplicate the grav belt
from the RCEG.  I failed miserably; the resulting design was more than 10 times
too heavy.  Has anyone out there tried designing a one-man grav unit?  I don't
have the spreadsheet here to describe my methodology, but I seemed to get a
final product that was about as massive as the battledress itself.  Any help
would be most appreciated.
 ------------------------------

You don't say if you were using the grav belt design sequence or some other 
system of your own devising.

"Glenn M. Goffin" <sudet@well.sf.ca.us> writes:

 ------------------------------
I'm considering buying a copy of GDW's old wargame, Imperium, which
simulates the N Interstellar Wars between Terra and the Vilani Ziru Sirka.

Would those of you who've played it give me your opinions?  Is it good for
two-person play? solo? (forget about multi-player; coordinating schedules is
just too tough.)  Is it balanced between complexity and playability? (or I
should ask, where is the balance drawn between the two?).
 -----------------------------

Imperium is a 2 player boardgame which uses the same system as the later 
Dark Nebula. There is no special problem in playing it solo ( no move 
plotting etc. ) but 2 players would provide a better game. It tends towards 
the playable end of the spectrum to the extent that a full campaign can get 
boring after a while.
If you are interested I could post some info on additional units and rules 
that I have.


michel_v@cpx.Prograph.Com (Michel R. Vaillancourt; ACP) writes:

 --------------------------
"Upton, Django" <DUpton@VTRNNTOV.TELECOM.com.au> wrote:

>>Derek Smith <Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com> writes:
>>
>>3)  Done any of the above work and NOT come to the conclusion
>>(in the specific case of Particle Accelerators)  that EVEN SPINAL
>>MOUNTED PAWS are a waste of space...??? (And Mass, and Energy, and
>>Money, and TIME...)
> --------------------
>
>I agree that PAWS appear to be a complete waste of time against warships.
>A PAWS will produce more damage in a target with armour less then half the
>value of the PAWS's penetration than a laser of equal output energy. The
>laser will however be much more useful against a more heavily armoured
>target.

  I would disagree about your first statement.  Lasers are the fall-back
weapon.  Every ship carries them, and almost no one carries sufficient
defense against them.  Due to the way the armor tables work, you only need
to be able to score two points on your outter range band to break your
target in BR.
  However, at closer ranges there is a good arguement for using PAWs and
MSGs as range-band:1 or 2 weapons.  Smaller hulls require getting down to
"point-blank" ranges to fight effectively unless they are all power-plant.
In either case, they don't have alot of room to pack screens and armor
into.  This is where PAWs and MSGs come in;  you can't let a 400 ton PCru
get into firing range for missles and his laser, or he *will* break you.
So, set your MSG's to "Slow Simmer" and fry him.  Leave the lasers for
picking off missles and dealing with the capital ships that *do* have too
much armor and screens to be effectively hassled by PAWs and MSGs.
  I think a better assesment would be to say that PAWs and MSGs are
generally ineffective against *larger* warships.  Of course, when you take
his screens down through laser fire....
 ------------------------------

Hmmmm... you seem to be ignoring FF&S which allows you to design very big 
lasers which will slice through just about any amount of armour. My 
definition of a warship is something with lots of weapons and armour that 
will be untroubled by converted merchants and the like. There is a general 
classification for the ships PCs are likely to have......... targets!

Edward_Swatschek@mindlink.bc.ca (Edward Swatschek) writes:

 --------------------------
   I agree that bay mounted PAWS (and MGs) are usually useless, but the short
range is what I disliked.  Spinal mounts, however, are useful if you want a
lot of damage from a single weapon.  There are limits to how far you can
scale up lasers, especially if you don't like focal arrays being thicker 
than they are wide.
 --------------------------

Yes I have already come up with a limit, see below.

 --------------------------
> No one has answered my question about the Critical Hit table in the TNE
> rule book.  IS having _Penetration_ Value across the top a mistake?  IS
> replacing _Penetration_ Value with _Damage_ Value the propere correction?

   The Brilliant Lances rule book says damage value; the table says remaining
penetration value.  Take your pick. :)  (I'd use damage.)
 --------------------------

I agree totally.

 --------------------------
   Note that the laser's focal array is 6.4 m thick and masses close to 1000
tonnes.  I'm considering limiting the focal array's thickness to 20% of its
diameter (haven't decided on the effects of high ROFs).  The above laser
would thus be limited to 1900 Mj (a mere 1/35-109 at all ranges).  Any
thoughts?
 -----------------------------

Lasers: It seems silly to me that a laser can be constructed at ANY discharge
energy for a given area of focal array as a sufficiently high energy will
damage the reflective/refractive parts of the focal array no matter how much 
extra mass is added !

The following formula accounts for increasing efficiency at high TL while
limiting lasers to a penetration of nil on their own focal arrays:

MAX discharge energy < Non grav eff (%) x Area of focal array (cm^2) x 0.390625

e.g. a TL 9 laser with 10 m^2 focal array has an absolute max discharge energy
less than:

0.3 x 100000 x .390625 = 11718.75 MJ


"KMCCARTHY" <KMCCARTHY@qmgate.osc.hq.nasa.gov> writes:

 ----------------------------
"Upton, Django" <DUpton@VTRNNTOV.TELECOM.com.au> wrote in TD 68 regarding my 
proposed StutterWarp fixes for FFS:
>Yes an almost perfect fix!
>Also try:
> - Use actual mass instead of "10D" in the efficiency formula.

Actual mass was used in 2300AD formulas.  While I mentioned the greatest
difference between FFS and 2300AD Stutterwarp was Parsecs vs. LY for
efficiency, the mass, cost, crew sizes and volume requirements are VERY
different.  For example, 2300AD powerplants were much more massive than
comparable FFS powerplants.  Unless GDW releases a 2300AD Sourcebook, and 
FFS supplement to support it, I suggest using all FFS mass, cost (one Cr. = 1.5Lv),
crew sizes and volume requirements be used for simplicity.  2300AD ships would
have to be backward engineered to retain appropriate charactoristics.
 -------------------------------

I suggest using actual mass for the following reasons:
 - the "10D" was originally devised in order to give reaction mass ships 
integer G ratings.
 - it did this by assuming that all ships mass 10 tonnes per 14 m^3.
 - as you point out 2300 AD uses actual mass.
 - the "10D" factor is cube rooted producing a non-integer ( in most cases).
 - so many other things in the design sequence have changed that it cannot be

used with 2300 AD designs anyway.

 --------------------------------
> - Charge build up range limitation= TL^(1/3) parsecs (= 7.665 ly @ TL 13 )

Interesting idea for a non 2300AD Campaign but in 2300AD the range limitation
was a fixed value.  StutterWarp discharge was required after 7.7LY to prevent
explosive radiation release i.e., death to humans.  If I recall correctly one
more  LY could be squezed out by an Impossible engineering task. Anyway the
near Earth 3D stellar geography requires a 7.6(?) LY leg to explore portions
the French Arm that occured at TL 10.  Therefore, this proposed fix would only
work in non 2300AD campaigns.
 -------------------------------

My range limitation is intended to add a little variation into the lives of 
the PCs. :-)
Also note:
 - I intended this to be used with a parsec mapping system ( 2d or 3d )
 - rounded to the nearest parsec range = 2 at TL 9-15, 3 at TL 16+
 - range at TL 10 = 7.023 ly ( + a bit for eng rolls?)
 - 2300 AD Tech levels do NOT correspond to Traveller TL.
 - as so much else has changed from 2300 AD to TNE any TNE stuff introduced 
would automatically make it a non 2300 AD campaign!

Django.

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

Date: Tue, 18 Oct 94 23:40:59 -0400
From: Derek Wildstar <wildstar@qrc.com>
To: Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com, gdw-beta@quark.qrc.com,
Subject: Re:  Has anyone...
Message-ID: <9410190340.AA19842@qrc.com>

Derek Smith <Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com> asked:
> [Three questions relating to the utter futility of PAWS in FF&S/BL]

The best answer any of us can come up with is to limit the total power for a
laser to some amount determined by tech level.  One technique that would
work very well is to assume that the biggest lasers listed in the available
rules and suppliments ARE the largest available at that tech level.

Therefore, for example, that 300Mj barbette is the largest power laser that
can be constructed at TL-14.  If the designer needs more penetration that
then the limits of technology force you to go to a PAW or Meson Gun, no
matter what the inefficiency of the device.

Considering that a 60,000-ton Imperial cruiser could easily have armor
levels over 1000, wespons with higher penetration would be desirable.

> The PAWS requires something in excess of 50,000 displacement tons.
> The Laser requires 6 displacement tons.

You forgot that the PAWS requires a truly large number of crew to keep it
happy, while the Laser can be operated by a crew of one or two.

> 4)  Corrected what appears to be a critical [literally] error on
> the Critical Hit table in the Space Combat section of the TNE Rulebook?

The space combat rules in the T:TNE rulebook (at least, the first printing,
which is what I have) are broken and are, for all intents and purposes,
unplayable (anyone who disagrees with me can attempt to play one 800-ton
Mercenary Cruiser against two 400-ton SDBs using the rules and ships as
printed).

Substantially better rules are part of Brilliant Lances; use that instead.


wildstar@quark.qrc.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        "Terrorist on the
TML"

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

Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 11:45:36 +0100 (MET)
From: Bertil Jonell <d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se>
To: wildstar@qrc.com (Derek Wildstar)
Cc: Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com, gdw-beta@quark.qrc.com,
Subject: Re: Has anyone...
Message-ID: <199410191045.LAA17511@katoof.dtek.chalmers.se>

> Derek Smith <Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com> asked:
> > [Three questions relating to the utter futility of PAWS in FF&S/BL]
> 
> The best answer any of us can come up with is to limit the total power for a
> laser to some amount determined by tech level.  One technique that would
> work very well is to assume that the biggest lasers listed in the available
> rules and suppliments ARE the largest available at that tech level.

  3G3 does this:)

  There is a maximum energy density for lasers in atmosphere, giving a
minimum diameter dependent on discharge energy, and a minimum (but larger)
diameter for 'design purposes', also dependent on discharge energy that
holds in space too. This will limit the damage since damage is energy
per diameter, making insanely large lasers possible but not very efficient
unless you absolutely positively have to have them.

  The equivalent minimums for "Plasma/Fusion" are smaller, making them
more efficient at high energies.

> wildstar@quark.qrc.com

-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."

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

Date: 19 Oct 94  7:24:22 ES
From: Derek Smith <Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com>
To: traveller <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: Re: 3G3
Message-ID: <9410191117.AA19293@internet1.lotus.com>

Previous non-answer to my question:
>>The best answer any of us can come up with is to limit the total
>>power for a laser to some amount determined by tech level.  One 
>>technique that would work very well is to assume that the biggest
>>lasers listed in the available rules and suppliments ARE the largest
>>available at that tech level.

d9bertil @ dtek.chalmers.se (Bertil Jonell) followed with:
>3G3 does this:)


Ok, I'll bite.  What's 3G3?

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

Date: 19 Oct 94  7:11:50 ES
From: Derek Smith <Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com>
To: traveller <traveller@MPGN.COM>, gdw-beta <gdw-beta@quark.qrc.com>
Subject: Re: Has Anyone... (futility of PAWS, etc)
Message-ID: <9410191117.AA19301@internet1.lotus.com>

the following is the reply of wildstar @ qrc.com (Derek Wildstar)
to my questions...

>The best answer any of us can come up with is to limit the total power
>for a laser to some amount determined by tech level.  One technique 
>that would work very well is to assume that the biggest lasers listed
>in the available rules and suppliments ARE the largest available at 
>that tech level.
>
>Therefore, for example, that 300Mj barbette is the largest power laser
>that can be constructed at TL-14.  If the designer needs more >penetration 
that then the limits of technology force you to go to a PAW
>or Meson Gun, no matter what the inefficiency of the device.

I have a better answer.  Build big lasers, and don't build PAWS.

I can build a laser that not only has a better PR, but also a better
PV than a PAWS, for less money, mass, volume, power, and crew
requirements.  I just wanted to know if there was a fix for
this, if the problem had been noticed, and what people were doing about
it.  

An arbitrary limit to the Discharge Energy of a laser is not only NOT
the best solution, it is NO solution at all.  It does have being
ridiculous in its favor, however... :)

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

Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 09:42:59 -0400
From: CyHiggin@aol.com
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Magic & other card games
Message-ID: <9410190938156798861@aol.com>

>Next item;  I am awash in guilty pleasure to find that many of you dislike 
>Magic as much as I do.  While this is hardly a TML topic, I just wanted to take this 
>opportunity to thank everyone who sent messages via TML or direct, making 
>fun of the Magic-obsessed sales weenie I mentioned last week.

..and then, back when I started playing Traveller, we had the bridge
fanatics who would take a break from their bridge game every now and then to
find out what had been happening to their character while they were gone...

From: "Glenn M. Goffin" <sudet@well.sf.ca.us>

>I'm considering buying a copy of GDW's old wargame, Imperium, which
>simulates the N Interstellar Wars between Terra and the Vilani Ziru Sirka.

>Would those of you who've played it give me your opinions?  Is it good for
>two-person play? solo? (forget about multi-player; coordinating schedules is
>just too tough.)  Is it balanced between complexity and playability? (or I
>should ask, where is the balance drawn between the two?).

It's only a two-person game anyway.  Never tried it solo.  Steve always
trounces me with the Terrans, though I've gotten better at the "Imperials
appeal to the Emperor and declare peace..." number to slow him down.  I never
understood all the people who said that it was unbalanced in favor of the
Imperials; I never found that to be the case.  It is very playable, not very
complex at all -- one war (it's a campaign game) makes a good "beer &
pretzels" session.

From: alvin plummera <plummera@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca>

>For world law levels, level 6 is "all firearms except firearms prohibited".
>What does this mean?

It means GDW still needs to hire a proofreader.  That should read "all
firearms except SHOTGUNS prohibited" (based on CT/MT tables).

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

End of TRAVELLER Digest 75
**************************
