			    TRAVELLER Digest 107

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Darrians	by rancke@diku.dk
  2) Re: Challenge 75	by George Herbert <gherbert@crl.com>
  3) MORE ON DOCKING RINGS	by john.bogan@asb.com
  4) TL13 K'kree Merchant	by bonn0015@itlabs.umn.edu (STEVEN M BONNEVILLE)
  5) TRAVELLER digest 105	by Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com>
  6) TRAVELLER digest 106	by Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com>

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Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 22:24:00 +0100 (MET)
From: rancke@diku.dk
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Darrians
Message-ID: <199411192124.AA15139@embla.diku.dk>

Erich Schneider:
>I wonder how the Darrians are doing in the New Era. One might think
>they would have an interest in helping the Regency trailblaze into the
>Virus-ravaged wastes. After all, if there's any people that knows how
>to pick itself up after a technology-annihiliating disaster, it's the
>Darrians.

I hope you won't take offense at this, Erich, but that's a bit like saying:
"If there's any people that knows how sail wooden ships and rob and plunder,
it's the Danes." The Maghiz was a couple of millenia ago. I suspect that
the Darrians are just minding their own business. What i wonder is what
their relationship with the Sword Worlds are at present.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
------------
        "This gives a possible range of 56 to 178 starships
         total  in the three Terran starport facilities,  a
         believable quantity for such a star system."

        "We have a maximum of 178 ships in port, and (as it
         is a busy star system)  we will say that there are
         70 docking berths at the Phoenix facility."

                        ---Journal of the Traveller's
                           Aid Society # 18


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

Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 16:50:48 -0800
From: George Herbert <gherbert@crl.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Cc: gherbert@crl.com
Subject: Re: Challenge 75
Message-ID: <199411200051.AA08383@mail.crl.com>


>From: CyHiggin@aol.com

>(5) "The Long Fall Club" : Gee, should I pull my punches because this is by a
>fellow
>TMLer?  NAHHH!

Constructive criticism always accepted here 8-).
One caveat: I haven't seen what they published exactly; I have what I sent
out (which embarrasingly, has a couple of continuity errors from a earlier
much different version...I don't know if GDW caught them or not 8-( )

>George, just WHERE is Mikkadhir?  Coordinates in the standard form would be
>nice.  Or is this a "drop-in anywhere suitable" sort of place?  If so, you
>should say so
>up front for the benefit of the slower-witted, like myself.

It's supposed to be a drop-in-place-anywhere.  My appologies to the
slower-witted in our readership ;-)

>This adventure
>is one of the
>"The NPC patron not only tells you what the mission is, but tells you how to
>do it" type; I
>don't like those.  It doesn't give the PCs a chance to decide what to do
>beyond which door
>to go in -- roll your dice and move your mice.  It would be a better scenario
>if the PCs
>were allowed to offer their own plans of attack, and save the default NPC
>plan for if the PCs
>fail to come up with a decent plan.

I agree, that's something I wasn't 100% happy with in the version that I
submitted.  It's something I've paid more attention to in more recent work.

>Oh yes, GDW lost your sidebar on
>re-entry kits.

Oh foo.

>       Minor nitpicks: How did Ms.Sweeney get off-planet if the TED stole her
>ship?

That's a secret.  There is a reasonable explanation, but it doesn't affect
the story in any way, and the RCES don't want to talk about it.
Basically, if you really want to know, Sweeney's ship being captured was
offset by a 100-ton Scout which was vaporized by a nuclear missile launched
from the fighter which pulled her out of the boonies after her ship was
captured... (She camped out for a month until RCES sent someone else in
to look because she was overdue...).

>How does
>the inserting ship get close enough to insert you on a re-entry vector
>without being detected
>by the advanced orbital sensor net?  You know, the one that keeps even small
>craft from
>slipping through undetected.

On a 8000 km diameter world, the safe entry vector should be 100km or so wide,
and 100 diameters from the world is around 800,000 km away.  If the ship can
not hold its course straight to better than 1 part in 10,000, then it's not
doing as well as existing TL8 space navigation systems 8-)  This should be
no problem.

>If there are so few soldiers in the military
>that the gate guard
>"knows everyone in the military by sight", how can they patrol the entire
>inhabited area?

There's around a battalion of them, if I remember right.  That's few enough that
the ones who pull starport duty should know each other by sight.

>If there are that few soldiers, why don't we just shoot them all and steal
>the ships unopposed?

They're not that few...

>(Steve says I should ask you "If the ships are so important to Ms.Sweeney,
>why isn't she
>coming along?")

Because there are posters with her face and LARGE REWARD IF CAPTURED
in all the local post offices, making any sort of skulking difficult
and more dangerous than usual 8-)

>How about some stats on the planet?  Not everyone has
>whatever
>supplement this place appears in (if it does), and you should state
>prominently what
>supplements are required to referee this at the beginning of the scenario...

It's a drop-it-in-place, make the rest of the planet what you want.
It's a little inconsistent not to have given a baseline world, but I
didn't really have one in mind.

>End George harassment.

In defense, this was origionally written in early 1993, back before any
of us knew how TNE actually looked.  (Actually, it was _origionally_
written for MT and the civil war era, but then GDW stopped accepting
non-TNE materials and I adapted...).  A lot of things were vague because
when I wrote it I didn't know what TNE was going to look like.
All I knew of RCES when I wrote it was what was in the main TNE
rulebook, none of the suppliments.  The ship strength of the RCES was
a total unknown, among other things... with as many ships as RCES actually
has, I'm not sure the scenario as written rings true.  In addition to the
uncertainty as to some TNE background details, I also had to adapt the
origional idea a lot, and managed to (I think, not sure if I did a final
edit and fixed them or not...) leave a few bits of the origional which
shouldn't have stayed.  Mea Culpa.  I have up and down articles... 8-)

-george

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

Date: Sat, 19 Nov 94 21:05:50
From: john.bogan@asb.com
To: uunet!mpgn.com!traveller@uunet.uu.net
Subject: MORE ON DOCKING RINGS
Message-ID: <9411192105.A8798wk@asb.com>


No, docking rings DO allow the docked ship to be protected
by a mothership's armor.

As for pressurization, correct, they are unpressurized.
They are essentially a protected sleeve (or notch) for ships
to dock


John Bogan

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

Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 01:01:21 -0600
From: bonn0015@itlabs.umn.edu (STEVEN M BONNEVILLE)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: TL13 K'kree Merchant
Message-ID: <199411200701.BAA18700@diatom.itlabs.umn.edu>

Quite a while back, I said that the rules changes in TNE made it
impossible to build a starship for the K'kree.  I think that I've
found a way to get around the problems now.  Here's the result: a
K'kree merchant vessel, inspired by the designs in the GDW K'kree
alien module.


TL13 K'kree Xeekr'kir! ("Merchant")

BATTLE RIDER

AK Xeekr'kir!
 --          -2
 --       TL-13
 --         --
 --         --
A:6 P:5   J2 G1*
AV:1        --
 --          31


BRILLIANT LANCES/FF&S

GENERAL
  Displacement:  6000 tons         Hull Armor:       29
  Length:        80 meters         Volume:        84000 cu. meters
  Target Size:   M                 Tech Level:       13
  Config'n.:     Dome/Disc SL      Price:      MCr 3550.83
  Mass (Loaded/Empty): 27831*/25977 metric tonnes
    *loaded mass may increase if accomodations exchanged for cargo

ENGINEERING
  Power Plant:       1224 MW Fusion (94 MW/hit), 1 year duration
  Jump Performance:  2 (12600 kL hydrogen fuel)
  G-Rating:          1G Fusion Rkt (-1200 MW/G), CG Lifters (600 MW),
                     0.05G HEPlaR (30 MW/0.01G)
  G-Turns:           40 (124 with jump fuel), 150 kL ea. (Fusion Rkt)
                      OR
                     16 (49.6 with jump fuel), 375 kL ea. (HEPlaR)
                     [HEPlaR burns 2.5 Fusion Rkt G-turns per G-turn]
  Maint:             1125

ELECTRONICS
  Computer:  3 x TL13St (0.45 MW ea.)
  Commo:     1 x 300 Mm radio (10 hex, 10 MW)
  Avionics:  TL10+ Avionics
  Sensors:   1 x PEMS fixed array 150 Mm (5 hex, 0.5 MW ea.)
             1 x AEMS 180 Mm (6 hex, 20 MW ea.)
  Controls:  4 x K'kree Bridge Workstations, twelve other K'kree
             workstations.
			
ARMAMENT
  None.  Armed variants typically mount twelve hardpoints.
			
ACCOMODATIONS
  Life Support:   Extended (14.28 MW); jump fuel tankage not supported
                  Artificial Grav (5G, 420 MW)
  Crew:           Working Crew: 17 (1 x Maneuver, 12 x Engineering,
                  3 x Command, 1 x Medical)
                  Retinue: 54 (9 x Maintenance, 45 x Supernumerary)
  Accomodations:  71 x K'kree Accomodations (0.012 MW ea.)
  Cargo:          552.65 cubic meters, 154 cargo hatches
  Airlocks:       60 (K'kree Airlocks)


SYSTEMS
  LS 27H; ELS 14H; JD 76H; PP 13H; FRkt 67H; CG 12H; AG 17H;
  HEPlaR (3h); PEMS (2h); KSR 1H ea.; AEMS (2h); Others (1h)

  FRkt == Fusion Rkt; KSR == K'kree Accomodations

DAMAGE TABLES:
  AREA  SURFACE                 INT. EXPLOSION
  1     1-6: Antenna            1-9: Elec., 10-20: Quarters
  2                             1-18: Quarters, 19-20: Hold
  3-5                           Quarters
  6-11  1-11: CH, 12-15: AL     Quarters
  12-15 1-12: CH, 13-17: AL     1-8: Quarters, 9-20: Hold
  16,18                         1-9: Engineering, 10-20: Hold
  17,19                         1-8: Engineering, 9-20: Hold
  20                            Engineering

DESIGNER'S NOTES:

K'kree Accomodations
  672 kL; 48 tons; 0.012 MW; MCr 1.
K'kree Airlocks
  36 kL; 2.4 tons; 0.012 MW; MCr 0.06; 20 square meters.
K'kree Workstations (TL13)
  168/84 kL; 0.2 tons; MCr 0.002.

For each K'kreer! not carried, 672 cubic meters of cargo may be carried
instead.  Presumably, the open quarters have some sort of concealed
"blast door" system in the ceiling or floor to seal off small portions
of the ship if the hull is somehow breached.

The Xeekr'kir! was intended only for travel by small herds within K'kree
civilization.  Unlike human starships, civilian K'kree ships that travel
within the Two Thousand Worlds often carry no navigator, but rely on the
use of pre-recorded jump co-ordinates available from most starports.

To keep the crew size small, this ship uses two maneuver drives:  a 1G
fusion rocket for use outside of atmosphere, and a small 0.05G HEPlaR
system which in conjunction with the contragrav is used for takeoffs
and landings with an approximate 0.04G performance in an effectively
0.01G gravity field.  The fusion rocket is used to kill most of the
ship's vector before the landing system is activated.  The hull is
only stressed for 1G, but the drives are rated for normal thrust
figures (FRkt == 60000 TT; HEPlaR == 3000 TT), so the HEPlaR will in
actuality get about twice better than rated performance in most cases.

Peak power output is held down to 1224 MW.  If the fusion rocket is in
operation, the power plant is throttled back and engineering crew are
tranferred to rocket operation.

The K'kree have the technical capability to build better ships than
this, but they have a conservative approach to technology.  This ship
is fairly sophisticated for K'kree space.  (This suggests that many
civilian K'kree vessels with archaic computers will survive the TNE
virus.)

This design illustrates some K'kree difficulties with interstellar
travel.  The ship above is roughly the equivalent to a K'kree Far Trader,
and it is possibly cramped by civilian K'kree standards.  It's about
the smallest civilian K'kree starship size possible.

  Steve Bonneville
  <bonn0015@gold.tc.umn.edu>



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

Date: 20 Nov 94 06:12:36 EST
From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com>
To: "INTERNET:traveller@MPGN.COM" <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: TRAVELLER digest 105
Message-ID: <941120111235_100326.446_BHG51-5@CompuServe.COM>

>> Another note:  AM8: _Darrians_ states that experimental TL17
 antimatter plants on Darrian and Mire both detonated due to
 the effects of the Maghiz.  (Flare on Darrian, electronic
 effects and maintenance failures on Mire.)  Not like they
 didn't have enough problems!] <<

BUT - they also didn't vapourize the planet. So the (dubious) vote of canonical
Traveller seems to be on the side of the "big bang but not the end of the world"
mathematical school. Me, I'm lost. First sight of a ^ and I reach for a 1d00
table-of-effects - my math never was up to this sort of stuff and - far more
important - my players couldn't give twopence. They want their characters to
adventure. If they get a lucky Power Plant hit and then all get roasted - end of
game - no more fun. It matters not a bugger to any of us if that's
mathematically what would have happened; it's better for the evening's
entertainment if there's a big bang and a few frustrating bits drop off their
ship.

Say after me "It's a game".

Only kidding - love ya all really!

>>1.  A question for the group: should this be a traveller list thread, or an
xboat thread?  Opinions, please. <<

X boat probably. I mean, come the New Era, no-one's got that much high-tech kit
left...


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

Date: 20 Nov 94 07:22:55 EST
From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com>
To: "INTERNET:traveller@mpgn.com" <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: TRAVELLER digest 106
Message-ID: <941120122254_100326.446_BHG54-1@CompuServe.COM>

>>Basic physics give you a problem that gun designers have been trying
to work around for almost exactly 100 years --  more power behind the
bullet means more recoil means less accuracy in automatic fire mode.<<

It occurs to me that the FGMP weapons have a grav widget built in which reduces
their weight (sorry, Classic data, not sure if FFS does this). Now, in ships,
along with grav plates we get inertial compensators (which appear to work by
magic as far as I can tell). Presumably, you could build these into a CPR gun
and presto! No recoil. However, I wouldn't allow them in _my_ game - last thing
I want is 105mm smooth-bore sidearms...

-----

Seperate subject - in my campaign, a large fleet of "almost, but not entirely,
unlike" Borg have appeared in the Foreven (which is where my players are) and
are knocking holes in everything with glee. Obviously, fighting them requires
pulling out all the stops, and my bunch of genii have decided to write computer
viruses to throw at them (yeah, they saw that epsiode). It's getting to the
stage I'm worrying they might kick off the collapse in 1113 and miss the whole
war bit out altogether! <kidding>...


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End of TRAVELLER Digest 107
***************************
