			    TRAVELLER Digest 111

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Yet more AM burble	by Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com>
  2) Deep Site Meson Guns	by lewis@chara.gsu.edu
  3) Effects of an Anti-Matter Beam	by "Les Howie"  <lhowie@192.219.29.90>
  4) Alliance answers	by KenHagler@aol.com
  5) ship designs	by merrick@RT66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
  6) Penetration of concussion damage	by David Hoey <dhoey@it.ntu.edu.au>
  7) The AM rules I would be inclined to use	by "Les Howie"  <lhowie@192.219.29.90>

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Date: 23 Nov 94 16:25:57 EST
From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com>
To: "INTERNET:traveller@mpgn.com" <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: Yet more AM burble
Message-ID: <941123212557_100326.446_BHG5-5@CompuServe.COM>

Yet more AM burble: Another reason for supposing that "canonical" AM explosions
aren't massively big is that MT ship designs allowed the fitting of AM missile
warheads (and provided -er- proton screens I think to defeat them). Now if the
explosion was gonna be as big as some folk here suggest, this would be a weapon
of similar usefulness to the plasma grenades developed by one of my players (a
normal man can't throw one far enough to get it out of the danger space...)


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

Date: Wed, 23 Nov 94 16:45:43 -0500
From: lewis@chara.gsu.edu
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Deep Site Meson Guns
Message-ID: <9411232145.AA04911@chara.gsu.edu>

Greetings,
While fellow TMLer Tariq Rashid and I were waiting to get into Star
Trek, we started talking about Planetary assualts in Battle Rider.
Tariq had just made up a meson gun designed as a Deep Site Meson gun,
ie one to be buried deep underground in a planet, for planetary
defense.  We started to wonder how to fight one of these.
  Sensors won't be able to see it, sense it is buried under ground, I
assume it is deep enough to damp out all E-M radiation.  So you won't
be able to simply shoot it.
 The buried meson gun will need sensors on the surface to see enemy
ships so it can shoot them.  But the sensors can be spread across a
planet.  By the time an orbiting ship can start a sensor sweep to
detect the sensors, the deep site gun will fire on it, mostly likely
blowing it up or crippling it.
The only thing I could think of was to drop troops on to the surface,
basically below the senors, and have troops run around trying to find
the dishes and blow them up.
 Can anyone figure out another angle of attack.
Lewis Roberts

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Date: Wed, 23 Nov 94 21:24:52 AST
From: "Les Howie"  <lhowie@192.219.29.90>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM, xboat@MPGN.COM
Subject: Effects of an Anti-Matter Beam
Message-ID: <9411240124.AA16041@Prograph.Com>

Lewis Roberts writes
>  Anti-neutrons do exist, (They were discovered in 1955 at the Berkley
> Bevatron) but they have the same problem that neutrons have, you can't
> guide them or accelerate them with magnetic fields. You would have to
> use some sort of gravity focusing or some science fiction thing.

True - I believe that is why the NPAWS is not introduced until the same tech
level as the other gravetic technologies.  Remember, too, that we are talking
about technologies which (in the case of the Alliance ships which have been
posted on xboat) can produce and handle anti-matter on a scale that, seems,
well, pure science fiction ;-).

> Anti-protons would be more useful.

But would they not all have a negative charge, and so tend to disperse -- a
poor beam weapon?

>  I don't think they would be more effective then normal neutrons. A
> normal neutron would smash into an atom, releasing photons though
> Bremstrahlung, (The release of photons by a decelerating charged
> particle) THe atom it hits will also be effected, either flying away or
> releasing other particles.
>   An anti neutron will collide  into things until it hits a neutron and
> it decays into gamma rays. These are pretty lethal to crew memebers,
> but so are just neutrons, hence the old concept of the neutron bomb.  I
> think anti-matter bombs are a more inventive way to use anti-matter.

Now, it is clear from your answer that you are quite knowledgable on these
matters, but I find the conclusion surprising.

Looking first at the neutron stream impacting armour: The armour is dense and
thick, designed to absorb attacks such as this.  That means that there is a high
probablity that the neutron, having caused some photon release, broken up a few
neuclei, etc will finally exhaust itself having done some degree of damage to
the material proportional (more or less) to its kinetic energy.  This will
doubtless cause some damage to the hull material (such as happens, say, to the
materials within a fission reactor) but will probably cause most of its effects
to the target as a result of secondary radiation: I believe that this was
expected to be the main cause of AFV crew kills with the neutron bomb.

On the other hand, the anti-neutron stream will do damage not only as a result
of the kenetic effects but as a result of the release of the rest-energy of
both the anti- and target neutron.  Also, since the target material is designed
to absorb neutrons, the stream should be fully converted to energy within a very
short period of time.  I would expect that the  resulting release of energy and
wholesale atomic breakdown within the fabric of the hull itself should not just
have particle level effects: there should be obvious macroscopic effects from
the shock wave as a portion of the target suddenly becomes a plasma.
That is, wouldn't it blow a boody great hole in the hull?
I am prepared to be disuaded of this (Lord knows it wouldn't be the first time
on this list). ;-).

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

Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 21:14:02 -0500
From: KenHagler@aol.com
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Alliance answers
Message-ID: <941123211156_6103913@aol.com>

Mark Fletcher writes:

> The whole idea about the Alliance is pretty interesting; just a few queries
> though:

Thanks! Here's some answers.

> (1) Any chances of bringing the timeline up to 1201?

Sure, someday. I've set 5650 AD (1129 Impy) as the "present" for my own use,
though, and I won't go beyond that until I've finished with the development I
want to do for the 5650 period. Besides, 1201 Impy is significant primarily
in the standard Virus setting, which I don't use.

> (2) How would you preserve game balance?

Short answer: I don't care about game balance. Long answer: the apparently
overwhelming superiority of the Alliance will look a lot less overwhelming
when I get around to designing "modern" ships for the Aslan.

>  Surely if the Imperium and the
> Alliance were in a duel to the death, the Alliance could perform some
> deep penetration raids into Spinward Marches and Deneb sectors, blowing
> up stars which have Hi-Pop worlds around them?

Well, the star trigger doesn't blow up stars, it just causes massive flares
(sort of a junior nova, maybe). But that's the general idea. The Alliance can
also threaten Impy worlds with planetbuster missiles just about anywhere.

>  This would be the ultimate
> deterrant to the Imperium.

The Alliance hopes so!

> (3) Any details on Alliance society?

Some. For starters, there's no single Alliance society--most of the members
have significantly different societies of their own. I've developed
Neubayern's society somewhat (since I played it during the pbem game), but
unfortunately the hard drive with those files is broken. If you're
interested, you can probably find most of them in the archives. Other members
had varying amounts of detail done by their players, but I haven't got around
to trying to collect that info yet.

> (4) What are the Battle Rider stats for alliance warships?

There aren't any. I cancelled my plans to convert the Alliance ships using
FF&S when I discovered that such conversions would be a huge undertaking
guarenteed to give me ulcers. Maybe BR would be easier, but I can't afford it
at present.

> Why with my Virus plot, and your Alliance we could change TNE forever!!!

On the subject of Virus and the Alliance, I'm not using Virus myself. For
someone thinking of using both, though, here's a thought:

The Alliance uses exclusively fiber-optics. There are almost no silicon-based
electronics in Alliance space, and those that remain are being replaced as
quickly as possible--living next to a supernova requires such precautions.
So, there is no rational way that Virus could affect anything in the
Alliance. Of course, the whole idea of Virus is irrational (in my opinion),
so feel free to invent some excuse for a silicon chip to invade a fiber optic
computer.

> How big are the meson guns (Are we talking Death Star scale equipment here?)

Not that big. The gun itself is 50,000 tons (and remember three are needed in
different ships), and it draws an absurd amount of power, so the power plant
will be pretty huge as well.

Ken

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

Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 19:58:46 -0700 (MST)
From: merrick@RT66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM (traveller)
Subject: ship designs
Message-ID: <9411240258.AA28672@RT66.com>


Howdy,

I've been making some 1:1000 scale ship miniatures, as well as bashing
some in the same scale from model kits. I have a couple of designs for
Zhodani ships based on some earth defense force (Starblazers) ships.

Does this seem like a Zho, or Imperial aesthetic to you (if it matters)?


-Merrick


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

Date: Thu, 24 Nov 1994 18:54:56 +0930 (CST)
From: David Hoey <dhoey@it.ntu.edu.au>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Penetration of concussion damage
Message-ID: <199411240924.SAA04544@morinda>

Page 283 gives the rules for explosions and it doesn't state the penetration
rating of concussion damage.  On page 303 it lists the effects of demolitions
and explosives on walls.  Here it lists the penetration value of a charge
as either concussion value times 2 if tampered or concussion value divided
by 2 if just learning against it.

Using this gives concussion the penetration rating of 2.  This derived from the
formula for calculating penetration rating from damage value and penetration
value.

Penetration rating = Damage value / Penetration Value

and penetration value is 0.5 x Damage value.

Penetration rating = 1 / 0.5 = 2.


--
**************************************************************************
*  David Hoey          * Computer Science, Northern Territory University *
*  dhoey@it.ntu.edu.au * Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia           *
**************************************************************************

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

Date: Thu, 24 Nov 94 09:50:15 AST
From: "Les Howie"  <lhowie@192.219.29.90>
To: xboat@MPGN.COM, traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: The AM rules I would be inclined to use
Message-ID: <9411241350.AA16835@Prograph.Com>

JSHiggin@aol.com (Steve)  wrote
>I am inclined to say that dramatic license should
> apply here, but that is a copout.

Here are the rules I think I would go with:

1.    High Guard combat:  small craft launched or to be recovered in the turn of
      an AM explosion in the mother craft subject to a role for destoyed/severe
      damage/ no effect.


2.    Role Playing: Ships outside of 5000 km safe, 5000-1000 km possible sensor
      damage, 1000-100 km definate sensor damage, 100-50 km, sensor damage and
      possible ship damage, possible radiation effects, 50-10 km, same but
      more severe, possible destruction, under 10 - toast.

3.    BL: same hex, conduct a "difficult" attack against each sensor system
      to cause 1h.  Probably some more rules are needed, I don't have BL.

4.    BR: same hex, temporary sensors hit.  White-out should be 5 turns.

Sorry to "polute" xboat with TNE references, but I cross-post this stuff.
The Universe I am working on is only tech 8.5, so I have a way to go before I
have to worry about AM.

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End of TRAVELLER Digest 111
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