			    TRAVELLER Digest 138

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) TRAVELLER Tech	by David@rces.demon.co.uk (David Andrew Lund Thomassen)
  2) Merry X'mas	by Joni M Virolainen <jonimv@evitech.fi>
  3) Re: TRAVELLER Tech	by merrick@RT66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
  4) Languages and Translators in TNE...	by Ted7@world.std.com (Mitchell K Schwartz)

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Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 00:46:34 GMT
From: David@rces.demon.co.uk (David Andrew Lund Thomassen)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: TRAVELLER Tech
Message-ID: <197@rces.demon.co.uk>

With reference to the disusions on Traveller Technical items

One The AM PAW   No use since the majority of the energy of an
    AM Paw would still come from the velocity of the particles
    The maximum additional energy from the AM would be 2*mass
    where as the energy from the particles velocity at 99%
    of the velocity of light is about 10 times this (I cannot
    find the special relativity fromula for the exact number)
Two Bukkey? balls and lasers  Try contact-lenses for anybody 
    who needs them -PC's, Security operatives, Polititains and
    other high threat targets.  At 20 Cr a set coming in a 
    range of colours including clear wearable continuosly at
    TL 10+ they stop the nasty horrible laser blinding baddy
    from haming you.
Three Tracking a Deep site Meson Gun.  Use a neutrino detector
    and a lot of TIME to find it.  Ok so its firing at you but
    life isn't perfect.  Or try at track thru the meson screen
    to give a line to fire down - also dangerous.
Four Max speed I personally believe that a ship should have
    enough fuel to complete its role.  In the heart of the 
    Imperium that is only 10 G-turns (twice what it needs), on
    the edges of the Imperium this should again be doubled for
    extra versitility.  The RC needs ships that can go anywhere
    not just to Jump point and back (plus relative star and
    orbit speeds).  Battleships need lots of fuel for agility
    patrol craft use Fussion rockets and lots of fuel for range
    (plus Heplar  for agility).  Pebbles that are capable of 
    damaging the ship are spoted using Ladar (ie directional)
    sensors and shot at with the lasers/ sandcasters, what else 
    are all those gunners doing, sleeping?  Also this give 
    some radiation for those wonderful passive sensors to sniff
    out and call boggeys.  Silent runners use either lots of
    sand or hope for slow speed pebbles.

-- 
David Andrew Lund Thomassen

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Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 11:55:35 +0200 (EET)
From: Joni M Virolainen <jonimv@evitech.fi>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Merry X'mas
Message-ID: <199412210952.EAA14925@Mithril.MPGN.COM>

	Merry Christmas to all of you!

	'nuff said.

	Joni Virolainen
	jonimv@evitech.fi


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Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 10:31:58 -0700 (MST)
From: merrick@RT66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER Tech
Message-ID: <9412211731.AA02564@RT66.com>

> Three Tracking a Deep site Meson Gun.  Use a neutrino detector
>     and a lot of TIME to find it.  Ok so its firing at you but
>     life isn't perfect.  Or try at track thru the meson screen
>     to give a line to fire down - also dangerous.

Use meson detectors (communicators, that is) on small craft or drones in
between the large BB target, and the planet (they'll be looking for beam slop,
or using the forces the manipulate to prematurely decay some of them (they are
in a direct path between likely target and planet).  It's worth a shot (wouldn't
wanna crew the thing, though :)

> Four Max speed I personally believe that a ship should have
>     enough fuel to complete its role.  In the heart of the 

What do SDBs do these days?  Can't run and hide anymore, and it'll take years
to reach an Oort cloud.

>     Imperium that is only 10 G-turns (twice what it needs), on
>     the edges of the Imperium this should again be doubled for
>     extra versitility.  The RC needs ships that can go anywhere
>     not just to Jump point and back (plus relative star and
>     orbit speeds).  Battleships need lots of fuel for agility
>     patrol craft use Fussion rockets and lots of fuel for range
>     (plus Heplar  for agility).  Pebbles that are capable of 

Good Idea (tm)!  I was just playing with fusion drives last night.  You'd think
that they'd improve above TL9 though.  I was planning on having improvements
happen to them at the same milestones as fusion powerplants, and nuclear dampers
since these would be the related technologies.  If the fuel consumption figure
could go just a little lower, then fusion rockets would be *very* useful.

Military ships (BBs, and other large ones) have way too little propellant now.
I haven't been able to design a capitol ship with much more than 50 g-turns.
Remember that 50 gturns is only 8.5 turns of fuel at max burn (evading spinal
mounts makes you use a lot of gturns :)  (unless you haven't limited the lasers
in FFS which will allow a DD to kill your BB at 44 hexes ;)

I figured a Vargr Corsair would have 94.75 gturns if it replaced all the 
m-drive volume and fuel.  106.75 if you include a reduction in the powerplant
due to the fusion drive's 240MW extra power production.

Better, certainly (19% better), but you'd think TL15 would be somewhat better
considering the fundamental changes above TL9.

BTW, I calculated the KE of HEPlaR exhaust, and it is more than the energy put
into the reaction mass by the powerplant (by *a lot*), so the HEPlaR drives
have to be fusion rockets to some degree, because there isn't enough energy
input to accelerate the reaction mass.

-Merrick Burkhardt

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Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 14:49:22 -0500 (EST)
From: Ted7@world.std.com (Mitchell K Schwartz)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM (Traveller:TNE mailing list),
Subject: Languages and Translators in TNE...
Message-ID: <199412211949.AA14965@world.std.com>

What is the place of languages in Traveller (Regency or Wilds), and how
would I role-play it?

comments:

>IN THE REGENCY:  Things aren't so bad here when it comes to
>communication.  First, just about every human speaks proper Imperial
>Galanglic (with that famous Deneb drawl).
Except for:

The numerous Sword Worlders (with their Icelandic tongue; close
  to Galanglic, but not quite it) on their home planets.

The Darrians, with their own language.

The increasingly numerous Aslan, whose cultural imperative require that
  their language (trokh) be their first language. BTW, those same cultural
  imperatives can render social gaffes and translation errors into insults
  that require satisfaction by duel.

The Zhodani traders; let us not forget that the Zho are the LARGEST human
  empire at this point. Regardless of what you hear from the Regency
  government, they exist at the whim of the Zhodani.

The Vargr - not the imperial citizens brought up on imperial planets, but
  those colorful pups from Coreward, speakers of the Gvegh languages (there
  are actually more than 1; see your Vargr and Vilani for details..).

Admittedly, the Zho and the Vargr will mostly be encountered within the
Regency in groups where someone speaks Galanglic - and if you aren't
protected, noble Zho will KNOW what you meant to say. Darrians with lots of
Regency contact will probably learn some Galanglic - but get off the beaten
path and pull out that phrase book! Stiff-necked Sword Worlders will
probably make a point of not understanding you, given a choice...

>  When you need to talk to
>someone who can't speak Galanglic, you grab your translator, and talk on.
>(P.S. the other guy needs a translator, too!  Translators are in common
>use on worlds of TL B +)

In our campaign, we decided that a 1 way translator was pretty useless, so
1 translator can work both ways - if you have the second language loaded
into it, too.  Also, note that building a translator into your ship's
computer only really requires the software to be added to the already
powerful ship's computer; running two way translation is a snap if
necessary, especially over radio - and in fact is easier if the output is
text (you type; the translator translates and outputs the equivalent of
ASCII in the appropriate language for the recipient, who displays the text
on a monitor much as you are reading now; much more sensible for
ship-to-ship communications).

>IN THE WILDS: Well, you can forget the translator.
Of course, if you are a trader with access to a few high tech planets  -
like those that buy your ship, you can probably buy these new. (Note what
I said earlier about using one for two-way translation; in the worse case,
you buy two, one translating FROM Galanglic into language X).
On the other hand, 70 years is not enough time for Galanglic to change to
incomprehensible.  In what used to be the middle of the Imperium, you'll
hardly need a translator to understand the natives. Even in strong minor
human cultures that retained their own languages, odds are good that all
knowledge of Galanglic will not disappear within 70 years - semi-civilized
places with still have had existing school programs in place. Galanglic
will not disappear overnight in most places.

Non-human sophonts are
another question - it seems to me that even after a few thousand years of
human domination, non-humans are probably still more comfortable speaking a
language designed to fit their physiogeny.

Note that you must have a datachip for language X before a translator will
do you any good at all. Or someone with Computer, Language X, and Linguistics
(not to mention a fair amount of free time-like several weeks) to write a
new translation database.

>Even if you can find
>one, it's likely that it's infected.
Actually, its rather UNlikely that it's infected. Consider - the Virus
spread by network.  The translators were mostly used standalone. Odds are
good that standalone machines are fine.

> Admittedly, it's typically just a
>egg, which means that you can forget adding info... and possibily the
>entire contents of the memchip's been wiped.  Our neighbourhood,
>homocidal Virus, however, may have left a nasty little surprise for the
>unwary.
Actually, a sentient Virus trapped in a small, unnetworked computer
(careful with those commo connections!) with a voice interface could be a
lot of fun for PCs (or GMs) to play with :-)

>I expect that that your average Free Trader in the Wilds can speak
>least 3-4 different languages fluently (skill 4+), and a couple of words
>in 6-10 languages.
See above for comments about other languages.  More likely, a team of
raders will know several languages between them (take a good look at
character development - 12 skills (3-4 langs @ 4+) is a heck of an
investment in time! More likely 2 langs max at 4+; more likely 1 at 4+ and
2-3 at skill 2-3. Spread between a crew of say 5, you can cover a lot of
ground...


>TRANSLATORS: First off, living (I was going to say 'human') translators are
>most valuable in _Written_ material (which regular TNE translators are
>useless,
Again, consider the task. Text translation is a LOT easier than
speech, since written words are more easily deciphered than written.
Consider using document translation software at 1 TL earlier than speech
recognition devices.

>(Yes, I know that translator-software is being written now, even as we
>speak.  However, this software is not exactly astounding [ie. it's
>current 99% accuracy rate is simply not good enough for professional
>work].
Not by itself, but if a machine can translate 99% of text in a moment or
two and then hand the result to a human for an accuracy or cogency check,
that's one hell of a time savings! (and a lot cheaper than hiring a human
specialist full time, especially if you have to haul that human through
space, feeding him, and supplying him with air at a kilocredit a week!)

However, I could certainly see a place for a specialized translator career:

First Career:
Linguistics 1
Language (select one) 2
Liaison 1
Choice of:
Computer Ops, Act/Bluff, Bargain (up to limit of skills)

Subsequent:
Choice of:
Computer Ops, Act/Bluff, Bargain, Linguistics, Language (select one),
Liaison, Commo, Carouse

Slings, arrows, comments, flames cheerfully accepted (but ignored as I 
sit fit).

					Ted7

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End of TRAVELLER Digest 138
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