			    TRAVELLER Digest 129

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Re: TRAVELLER digest 128	by MORNINMAN@aol.com
  2) Re: Jo Grant	by Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
  3) Re: TRAVELLER digest 127	by HANS-CHRISTIAN PRYTZ <92HANSC@kihelektro.kih.no>
  4) Re: Jo Grant	by Derek Smith <Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com>
  5) Re: TRAVELLER digest 128	by MORNINMAN@aol.com
  6) Kinetic Energy and spaceflight	by merrick@RT66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)

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Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 18:35:30 -0500
From: MORNINMAN@aol.com
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 128
Message-ID: <941211183529_3459662@aol.com>

In Message <199412112020.AA080987206@relay2.geis.com>
gdw.support@genie.geis.com spake in flowing prose:

[commenting on Jeff Zeitlin's proposal to generate Trav. stats for literary
aliens} >>>> SF authors discourage such things...but it won't hurt to ask, I
suppose. I think Jerry Pournelle inherited the rights to the Piper
properties...he can be reached care of any of his publishers (I have a vague
memory of the Fuzzies being licensed to someone as an RPG property -- Steve
Jackson sticks in my mind, but I don't remember for sure).<<<<

I used to have an excellent sourcebook from Zocchi Games (I think, anyone
with an ID?) with stats for nearly every literary alien imaginable, from Hal
Clements' Mesklinites to Niven's Puppeteers.  In some cases they didn't even
bother to change the names to avoid infringement.  The book included generic
stats and a pretty fluid conversion scheme for nearly any of the popular
space games.  Ah, for the good old days of intellectual plunder.  Has anyone
seen this?  I'd be interested in getting a copy, as my dog enjoyed mine even
more than I did.




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

Date: 12 Dec 1994 02:40:33 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Jo Grant
Message-ID: <45023.58338912@nynet.nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca>

Has anyone been able to email Jo Grant?  His new email address
(jo_grant@crd.lotus.com) was bounced back with the message "User jo grant not
listed in public Name & Address Book".

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

Date: 12 Dec 94 14:34:16 MET-1
From: HANS-CHRISTIAN PRYTZ <92HANSC@kihelektro.kih.no>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 127
Message-ID: <MAILQUEUE-101.941212143416.320@kihelektro.kih.no>

> > [Meson Gun stats deleted]
>
> Yes and no.  (Helpful, huh?)
>
> It depends upon what your ship is intended to do.  This gun isn't
> even going to warm up the meson screens of a large (or even medium
> sized) ship.
Well the original intent of the ship was an armed scout/small
warship. It is fairly packed with sensors and there is also a beefed
up (read more weapons added) version. I'll post the design whan
finished. (If it shouldn't go to the xboat list that is ??)

BTW how many weapons (not missiles) can a MFD control?

> Of course, I would just pack the ship with kick-ass lasers, but saying
> too much about that will just get me beat about the head and shoulders
> with arbitrary 25*TL or 50*TL Laser DE limits...  8^)
>
Well... it's a TL15 design, and I haven't designed any of the other
weapons yet (final exams this week ;-(

> So - If the killer laser isn't the weapon that has evolved into the
> "weapon of the times" at your tech level, the gun you designed is
> probably ok in the "pick off the small fry" role.
>
> To attack a capital ship, you probably want a DE of something on the
> order of 50,000 Mj (which is probably larger than your whole 2000 dt
> ship!)
>
Out of hand I'd say that a TL15 powerplant that could produce that
amount of power wouldn't fit into the ship together with the gun.
50,000Mj/0.2=250,000Mj per shot at 100 shots/combat turn =>
25,000,000Mj/30minutes => approx 14000 MW

.. well perhaps it would fit after all (I don't remember the
volume/MW of the power plant)

---
____________________________________
|Hans-Christian Prytz              |
|e-mail <92hansc@kihelektro.kih.no>|
------------------------------------

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

Date: 12 Dec 94 11:30:12 ES
From: Derek Smith <Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com>
To: traveller <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: Re: Jo Grant
Message-ID: <9412121626.AA12155@internet1.lotus.com>

<Stuff about messages to Jo Grant being returned deleted>

I'll give it a try.

We work for the same company, so I should be able
to raise him internally and see what's up with his email
address.


-----------------------------------------------------------------
Derek Smith - Lotus Development Corporation - Release Engineering

Error, no keyboard - press F1 to continue.

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 12:03:37 -0500
From: MORNINMAN@aol.com
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 128
Message-ID: <941212120234_3999203@aol.com>


---------------------
Forwarded message:
Subj:    Re: TRAVELLER digest 128
Date:    94-12-11 18:39:24 EST
From:    MORNINMAN
To:      traveller@mpgn.com

In Message <199412112020.AA080987206@relay2.geis.com>
gdw.support@genie.geis.com spake in flowing prose:

[commenting on Jeff Zeitlin's proposal to generate Trav. stats for literary
aliens} >>>> SF authors discourage such things...but it won't hurt to ask, I
suppose. I think Jerry Pournelle inherited the rights to the Piper
properties...he can be reached care of any of his publishers (I have a vague
memory of the Fuzzies being licensed to someone as an RPG property -- Steve
Jackson sticks in my mind, but I don't remember for sure).<<<<

I used to have an excellent sourcebook from Zocchi Games (I think, anyone
with an ID?) with stats for nearly every literary alien imaginable, from Hal
Clements' Mesklinites to Niven's Puppeteers.  In some cases they didn't even
bother to change the names to avoid infringement.  The book included generic
stats and a pretty fluid conversion scheme for nearly any of the popular
space games.  Ah, for the good old days of intellectual plunder.  Has anyone
seen this?  I'd be interested in getting a copy, as my dog enjoyed mine even
more than I did.




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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 10:27:16 -0700 (MST)
From: merrick@RT66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM (traveller)
Subject: Kinetic Energy and spaceflight
Message-ID: <9412121727.AA28708@RT66.com>


Howdy

I'm gonna post my kinetic energy missile (KEM) rules one of these days when I

get it all sorted out, but the process of playing/writing them out has posed
a few questions...

Basically, the minimum armor values for ships are way too low.  If you assume
a ship might use 25% of its g-turns to accelerate at maximum, then small
ships
might cruise in-system at speeds of around 20 hexes/turn (or 1.2E06 km/hr).
A small pebble would destroy a scout ship at this speed... without question.

So, what to do about armor?  I think that the BSD armors and above should
only be possible to manufacture in large sheets due to the complexity of the
process.  This would eliminate BSD KEAP rounds, but these are easier to lose
than having to rethink all spacecraft designs.  The point of ditching this is
the following idea:  any material of lesser toughness has a penetration
rating
(PR) that is a positive whole number (ie lasers have a PR of 1/10, steel vs.
BSD has a PR of 10 or something).

Or maybe the lower toughness material could be divided into the larger
toughness
to give the PR (SD vs. BSD would have PR of 2, Crystaliron vs. BSD PR=3.5,
Hard Steel vs. BSD PR=14)

The only reason to limit the KEAP rounds is that if we don't KEMs will be
*way* too nasty (a 1g ball would seriously hurt a BB at velocities upwards of
20 hexes/turn).

The result of this is that spacecraft can move at a reasonable clip without
being destroyed.  Without something like this you better keep your
scout/courier
ships below 3 or 4 hexes per turn unless you want them dead.

I think this is a reasonable fix.  Whatcha think?


-Merrick

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End of TRAVELLER Digest 129
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