			    TRAVELLER Digest 153

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) World Tamer's Handbook	by Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
  2) Blasters	by A.S.Lilly@bnr.co.uk (Andy Lilly)
  3) World Tamers Guide	by Grant Sinclair <grant@cleese.apana.org.au>
  4) Striker 2 in UK	by cs5025@wlv.ac.uk (L.T.Bryant)
  5) Charted Space	by Stefan Matthias Aust <sma@informatik.uni-kiel.d400.de>
  6) Blaster	by Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com>
  7) Glisten, Pt II	by Alvin Plummer <alvin.plummer@sheridanc.on.ca>

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

Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 10:11:31 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: World Tamer's Handbook
Message-ID: <199501050911.KAA06368@embla.diku.dk>

I acquired World Tamer's handbook shortly before Christmas and have a few
remarks and questions about it.

Overall it is an impressive work, but I simply don't understand why GDW
uses the artist they've used here. And the colours on the cover certainly
dosen't help much. Quite unattractive, IMO at least. I mean, I know tastes 
differ and all that, but Loren, do you really think that artist is any good? 

(Hmmm.... Wait a minute while I check... Ah! I think I've solved the
mystery. The cover artist has the same name as the Art Director...)

Be that as it may, the book is full of useful material and the three
campaigns presented in it are all three interesting. But I would have
liked a sample economy. There are some thing I'm not too sure about.

Why does the equipment and buildings in the Agricultural and the Raw
Material sectors not require maintenance?

(Assume TL 9 for all questions below.) 

Is it correct that a Light Industrial Laborer needs Cr 7,500 worth of Heavy 
Industrial Capital Goods and Cr 3,750 worth of Construction Capital Goods? 

Is it correct that a Heavy Industrial Laborer needs Cr 22,500 worth of Heavy 
IC and Cr 3,750 of Construction IC?

How much HICG does a Construction Laborer require? (Its still Cr 3,750 worth
of Construction CG, right?)

Is it correct that a Heavy IL uses 1.5 KW and 110 TONS(!) of Raw material 
to produce Cr 2000 worth of Heavy IC while a Light IL uses the same amount
of power and only (!) 55 tons of Raw Material to produce Cr 2000 worth of
Light IC? (That can't be right, can it?)

Is it correct that a Materials Laborer requires Cr 1500 worth of Heavy IC
and no Construction IC at all?

Can one ML really produce 500 tons (500,000 kilos) of Raw Material in a 
month?

Finally some comments and ideas:

Why would any TL 10+ society bother with roads at all? Surely a society
with cheap anti-gravity vehicles won't need anything much more sophisticated
than Trails & Tracks? Remember those cities that Beam Piper described with
tall buildings separated by green areas?

For any society much larger than a holiday camp you'll need another sector:
Administration. This sector can be as large as the other sectors allow it
to be (you can always make more work for administrators), but I do think
there is a real need for some coordination of any society. I have no idea
what the minimum administration any society can manage with, but it must
be more than nothing. As a pure guess I would suggest [Population Level] in
percent (So a 100 man group would need two full time coordinators, a 1000
man would need 30, 10,000 would need 400, and so on until population level
A where a full 10% of the population would be needed just to keep track of
everything (though I would allow computers to substitute to some degree).
Does this sound reasonable?

Another sector you've ignored is the Service Sector. That includes everybody
who makes life a little easier or more fun for other people: Waiters, hair-
dressers, sport and arts performers, fiction writers and game manufacturers,
etc. This would be the basis of another Satisfaction Index. A very important
one too. The Romans put it ahead of shelter and goods (Bread and Circuses,
remember? ;-).

You seem to think that everybody in a colony will have the same standard of
food, accomodation, and possessions. This may be true in a new colony
(although even there I would expect the common folk to bunk in 20-man
huts while the colony leaders lorded it in a whole quarter hut apiece), but
I don't believe it will ever be the case in any sizable society. And for
the purposes of determining civil resentment you need the lowest standard,
not the average. I'm not sure quite how to implement it. You could make
it possible to differentiate by sector. Or perhaps tie Social Standing to
standard of living and describe a society by how many of its members belong
to each level. So one society would be 90% middle class people while
another with the exact same economy could be 60% low, 30% middle, and 10%
upper class.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8



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

Date: Thu, 05 Jan 1995 10:08:14 +0000
From: A.S.Lilly@bnr.co.uk (Andy Lilly)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Blasters
Message-ID: <199501051016.FAA13379@Mithril.MPGN.COM>

Just for your interest, Blasters were detailed for CT in the UK White Dwarf
magazine many years ago (well before it became a Games Workshop advertising
booklet). It was an energy weapon rather than a laser, firing small nuclear
rounds which left targets frazzled but radioactive. I think the rounds
'ignited' as they left the barrel, hence the short 'pulse' appearance.

Cmdr Lilly, PITS (Political Intelligence Team, Scout)
PITS Team motto: "We are never outgunned."
* Nothing I say or do in any way reflects the views of my very kind
  and generous employers who have no interest in outgunning anyone. *


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

Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 23:43:42 +1523847 (CST)
From: Grant Sinclair <grant@cleese.apana.org.au>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: World Tamers Guide
Message-ID: <199501051313.AA21495@cleese.apana.org.au>

Happy New Year, Everyone!

I have built a list of differences between World Tamer's handbook and 
World Builders handbook, to see which worlds of a sector I am working on 
need to be regenerated.  I thought initially that there would not be much 
work, but there is more than I thought.

Here are the differences, in case they are of interest to others:

I.1. Stellar mass of M0 II stars now 16
I.4. Process to establish tidal locking different for K and M type 
primaries
II. Luminosity of M0 III different, but so small that not worth worrying 
about.
V. Axial tilt table similar, but has different brackets - not worth 
worrying about unless you are very particular.
VIII. Density and Gravity done using variation on standard TNE rules, so 
these will all be different, as will everything that uses them (like 
planetary mass, distance of satellites, rotational period of satellites).
IX. Mass will be different, due to changes in step VIII.
Satellites: Tidal locking done differently.

There were two other differences that were actually corrections of WBH 
typos, rather than true changes. The designer correctly establishes 
satellite orbital distance by multiplying orbit number by planet radius 
(instead of diameter) and has the formula for planetary rotational period 
producing a result in hours (instead of days).

The only thing that looks missing is on p87. Mainworlds being satellites 
of gas giants are mentioned but no masses are given - these are needed if 
you want to apply the formulae that follow. Perhaps they will be in the 
second edition. They were stated in WBH, but were wrong, which doesn't 
help much (WBH definitions meant Jupiter and Saturn would both be small 
gas giants, instead of large, as they should be).

The designer appears to have had a problem with world gravities.  TNE 
implies low density is 0.7 standard, and high density 2.0 standard (by the 
world gravity table), but these are grossly different to WBH. The 
compromise seems to be to use 0.7 and 2.0 figures for world gravity and 
0.55 and 1.55 elsewhere. I have no idea which of the two sets is better, 
maybe someone like Duncan Law-Green can comment, if still around.

I suspect that there should be two different tables for establishing 
densities, one for terrestoid planets and one for satellites of planets. 
In our solar system, Mercury, Venus and the Earth are of comparable 
density; Mars is 0.71 that of Earth. Satellites of planets range from .2 
standard to 0.65 standard. I've deliberately ignored Pluto. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Grant Sinclair               The difference between a politician and a
grant@cleese.apana.org.au    snail is the snail leaves its slime behind
----------------------------------------------------------------------


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

Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 13:19:59 +0000 (GMT)
From: cs5025@wlv.ac.uk (L.T.Bryant)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Striker 2 in UK
Message-ID: <m0rPs6i-0003uNC@ccub.wlv.ac.uk>

Hi all, hope every oner had a good holiday.

Now  the  news as of 4th janury Dungons and starships  Wallsaw  (
and  probably Birmingham) UK , Had copys of striker 2, as  i  got
one  and have to say that it Looks quite smart. however  ive  yet
to  play  it and so ill hold Judgement till i do but i  like  the
look  of the book and im spending happy hours trying to  identify
the vehicls that were Kitbashed to make all thouse spanky  models
(  on  the cover the lead vehicle has the body of a  West  German
Marder  APC ) and that its nice to see the troops still  use  the
M113.
	But  asdide  form that it looks smart and its got   (  as
mentioned before) some more rules tweeks for FF&S.

	Hope this helps all the UK readers.
Lawrence  Bryant (president of wolverhampton universitys  student
roleplaying socity)
	All  facks opinions and spelling mistakes are my own  and
do not represent anyony execpt , MySELF.
-- 
oh rose thou art sick
               the invisible worm that flys by night.....STEEL


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

Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 15:27:05 +0100
From: Stefan Matthias Aust <sma@informatik.uni-kiel.d400.de>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Charted Space
Message-ID: <9501051426.AA04442@dagobert.informatik.uni-kiel.d400.de>

Hello.

In the Alien book "Solomani & Aslan", I luckily picked up 2nd hand two
weeks ago, I found out that the "Charted Space" isn't all charted
space but that there's more information available.  The book shows 4
sectors below and a couple of sectors left of the "normal" map shown
for example in the TNE rules book as charted space.

Now I've two questions: Do the other alien books also enlarge the
charted space (I would be very interested in the Zhodani empire) and
is there anything more than a page full of small dots available (like
the atlas of the imperium for the emperial space)?

Perhaps a computer readable version of the Aslan space (or the
Solomani Rimwards region) is already available.  Otherwise I would
suggest a project to chart this space (make a worlds list). Although
the map didn't show individual hexes, I've tried to scan a small part
of the map page and with 400dpi one could locate each world exactly in
the column and with a little luck also in the row (small errors may be
possible).  If there are enough voluntaries who would like to chart
two or four subsectors, it wouldn't be much work.

We could also generate the (not really official) UWPs for all worlds.
Because this hasn't done already (if I know right) there's no
copyright on these worlddata and one could make the lists free
available??

Btw: what's the legal status of the other world data (available per
ftp)? Has GDW granted their permission? Or would GDW grant their to
the above idea? Loren? (Unrelated to the question whether have to be asked
or not.) In general, what's about the copyright of material generated
with the help of a rules book?  I got the impression that some
companies follow the idea that all ideas, based on or developed with
the help of a given rulebook couldn't be published independendly.  But
because the misuse of trademarks (one could omit them) or because of
the misuse of licence (usage only for personal matters)?

bye
-- 
Stefan Matthias Aust // keep the soldiers gunning, keep the cameras running,
                    //  cause the rulers always laugh at the video bloodbath

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

Date: 05 Jan 95 15:21:51 EST
From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com>
To: <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: Blaster
Message-ID: <950105202151_100326.446_BHG133-1@CompuServe.COM>

>> Will someone please tell me what the hell a blaster is 
anyway. <<

Answer: a device found in cinematic-style adventures, given 
to grunt guards to allow them to fire thousands of rounds 
at player characters from a range of twenty feet and _never 
hit them_!

BTW, did you know that for Star Wars the first movie, the 
noise of a blaster was created by hitting a steel girder 
with a lump-hammer ?




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

Date: Thu, 05 Jan 1995 22:32:58 -0500 (EST)
From: Alvin Plummer <alvin.plummer@sheridanc.on.ca>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Glisten, Pt II
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.91.950105203740.2798A-100000@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca>


This is the continuation of my rough draft for a Glisten adventure. 
First, I'm going to cover some of the databanks concerning the missing 
Aslan female, Hlausau' Ktyakukois.  Then more referee's detail (perhapse 
too much detail: but as I said, this is a rough draft).  No wizz-bang 
ending tonight!


Common knowledge: 

Name: Hlausau' Ktyakuhois
      Section Leader, Ilroei Industrial Products;
        Plant construction division.
 
      Citizenship: Aslan Hierate; Oikhoiseaha clan
      Homeworld: Iysewekh
                 Ranib: Trojan Reach/0640  A6205LA-E
      Age: 44
      Physical, DNA, visual ID provided in the datapac
      Arrived at Glisten 326-1200
      Missing since 359-1200             ('Christmas' - personal joke)
      Last seen: Entering an automated taxitram
                 Sarodon Asteroid, Clromov Belt, Glisten
  
      Resided at: Savekhyaktea Segment, in the Aslan Residential Quarter of 
                  Sarodon Asteroid.

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

Common rumours about her fate:

      Quiet conversation with some of her peers and companions [largely 
Aslan, or humans that folow Aslan tradition] at Ilroei will result in 
these rumours...
  - she was killed in a duel due to a deadly insult she gave to a losing 
party in one of her cases back in Ranib subsector, four years ago.
  - she is being held for ransom, but the local clan chief is keeping it 
quiet
  - she has a reputation of being very difficult to fool
  - she is extremely adapt in company politics, having a 'golden' career 
history.  She understands who to befriend, who to avoid, and how to 
massage them to her point of view
  - a local human terrorist group - perhaps the dreaded Freedom League - 
has kidnapped her.  
  - political troubles back in Ranib subsector has forced her to return 
home, but strictly incognito
  - she left to scout the Regency for new markets, but choose to do so 
alone, and without alerting her local clan chief (after all, she does 
outrank him, being a representative of the great clan chief back home)

--------------------
 
Special knowledge - level I

  - she was born & raides in a lower-class family
  - trained as a purchaser for Ilroei's Consumer Products division
  - gained a reputation as an  adequate worker, but a True Master of 
    Tradition
  - eventually left the company, gaining a reputation as a professional 
    adjudicator of inter-clan financial disputes
  - obtained subsector-wide fame in 1192 by resolving a 30-year old 
    corporate dispute between two powerful clans
  - rejoined Ilroei Industrial Products in 1197
  - was proclaimed a clan elder (female: similar to a vice-president of a 
    company) in 1200

Special knowledge - level II

  - Kty[akuhois] has a very willful and hardheaded personality
  - she has a mate and seven children back on Iysewekh
  - she is the primary motivatior for her clan's expansion into 
    ex-Imperial space: in many ways, the Glisten project is her baby

Rumours 
  
  - she is rumoured to have been quite abusive to her personal servants 
    and those under her command
  - that her father was not merely lower-class, but actually an outcast
  - she's looking for *any* fault in local operations, to discredit the 
    current leadership and further her own ambition
  - that several of her most celebrated cases were actually carefully 
    arranged show trials, designed to increase her prestige among the clan 
    leadership.

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


Where is Hlausau' Khyakuhois?

The first step is to realize that this is an "inside job", thai is, her 
     enemy is probably Aslan, rather than human
The second deduction is to determing that her abrasive personality, 
     ambition, and high competence would make enemies of both competitive 
     businessess and her superiors _back at Iysewekh_.  (Her skill in 
     politics has insured that the Aslans at Glisten are all "her people", 
     due to her highly astute sense of politics and judjement of 
     character.  There are a number of ways that the PC's may be able to 
     discover this fact)  
The third deduction is that whoever took her did not wish to kill her in 
     public.  *Why?*  A competitor would benefit more from a public duel 
     than a dishonourable kidnapping.  Indeed, they may not have killed  
     her at all.

You may leave the players to figure this out themselves - especially once 
they have the special, detailed knowledge they need to figure this out 
themselves.  Or yor may present it as a task (esp. if pressed for time) - 

      Formidable: Average of Intelligence and Education.

This task can be attempted twice a week.

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

Once the above is known, you need to figure out who among her possible 
enemies would hesitate to kill her in public.  Attempting to find her 
enemies within Ilroei Industrial Products would be - in this adventure - 
not possible.  For one thing, none of them is at Glisten, and there is 
much too little info to work on.  Even if they are at Iysewekh, the PC's 
know too litle about the sublties (sp) os Aslan company politics to 
understand what to do.

===========================================================================

Who has Hlausau' Ktyakuhois?  Part II

The PC's *can*, however, try to find Kty's enemies outside the Ilroei 
company: 
           Difficult: Liaison or Research

Then, narrow the list of subjects by discussing who would prefer her to 
"dissapear" rather than either be killed, counter-attach in a non-violent 
(ie. political) manner, or simply wait for her to return to the Trojan Reach:
     
           Average: Research

>>> and the answer is...
         Ftaihkeaya Machinery, owned by the Ftaihkeaya clan of Tlaiowaha 
(Tlaiowaha: Trojan reach/1928 B1209L4-E T  411 A1 F4 D)

================================

Ftaihkeaya Machinery is in direct competition with Ilroei  in the area of 
constructiong some of the enormous pieces of gravitic machinery needed to 
suspend TL E gravitic cities in the air.

Ftai. has long been the primary supplier of this kind of equipment, but 
it's dominance in the field has been slowly worn away by complacency and 
the competition.  Ftai. decided to try and revitalize it's product line 
by setting up a TL F research office to gain new insights from Glisten 
(and nearby Regency) manufactourers.

But now, less than five years after the reasearch office was created, 
Ilroei is planning to establish a major factory in Glisten to take 
advantage of the ex-Imperial markets.  This is *very* bad news for 
Ftaihkeaya.

Then Hlausau' Ktyakuhois herself arrived, to take command of Ilroei 
operations and turn that factory into a reality.  Thjis upset all of 
Ftai's plan's,a ndwould decisively give Ilroei the upper hand.

Moreover, Ftai. couldn't directly attack eith er Ktyakuhois or her 
company: as an adjudicator, she sided with Ftai. in a controversial 
ruling over copyright.  Even though she is removed from the bench, for 
Ftai. to attack her publicly would almost certianly cause Ftai. to lose a 
lot of public standing, as a company _and_ as a clan.

Thus, they originally decided to kidnap and kill her in secret, using 
human mercenaries to cloak their involvement.  However, the humans who 
kidnapped her decided to blackmail Ftai. instead.  They recieve regular 
payments of 5 MCr every six months, thru a paper company.

Ftai. Machinery is currently in a quandry.  The - so far - have decided 
not to hinder the construction of Ilroei's factory, so as not to draw 
attention to themselves.  They _have_ sent out two squads of trusted, 
elite clan soldiers to kill Kty and ker captors, but they are following 
empty leads in the Regency.

There are two ways that the PC's can get hard proof connecting Ftai. 
Machinery with Kty's kidnapping: follow the electronic "paper chain" 
connecting Ftai.'s payments to the blackmailing merc's or ambush Ftai.'s 
outgoing company messenger.

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

One: The email trail!

Following the email trail will eventually lead the PC's to the xboat 
network, and onward to Mora, the capital of the Regency.  There, the 
message is copied 50 times and sent off to destinations throughout the 
Regency, via both xboat and merchant ship's.  The smart PC will return to 
Glisten at this point, the stupid PC would go on a mad romp across the 
Regency like the Aslan mercenaries.   [If they meet, the Aslan's may 
choose to 'team up' with the PC's until they find Kty, then kill both her 
and the PC's!  They are poor liar's however...]

The lucky PC will follow the copy sent to Gandr (Lunion: Spinward 
Marches/2245 E000347-8).  Gerard Winstion, an experienced money 
launderer, picks uo the money with fake ID's, spends a month cleaning it, 
then places 90% of it in a variety of subsector accounts, keeping 10% for 
himself.  If caught, he can be "persuaded" to lead the PC's directy to 
the mercenaries.  Warning: he alwars has one or two of the mercenaries 
with him, and a chartered scout with crew ready to jump.

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

Two: The Messanger ambush!

Ftaihkeaya's messanger can be ambushed in four places: in Ftai.'s 
industrial/residential complex, enroute to the starport, on the Aslan 
jump4 courier ship, or at his destination at Tlaiowaha starport in the 
Trojan Reach, about 10 four-parsec jumps away.

Finding out who the messanger is and his location is a computer task, 
using the same method needed to illegally enter Oikhoiseaha's computers: 
just this time, the target is Ftai's.  Getting inside Ftai's complex - with 
takes up half an asteroid - is more difficult. (you PC's had better have at 
least a ship's boat: some of these asteroids they are travelling to is clear
across the system..)  About 15,000 people - 1/3 Aslan - live and work in 
the complex, and the site is guarded to peasetime *Aslan* standards, 
including 5 20-disp fighters and 3 large laser bays.  Moreover, an attempt to
forcibily board the facility will quickly run into about 1250 adult Aslan 
males and TL E-F security precausions.

If the messanger is to be ambushed in transit to the starport, the PC's 
would need to plan carefully to insure that they are near the Frai. 
spaceship as it transport the messanger to a waiting jump4 courier ship.  
Tey're so many ships near Glisten Starport that they won't draw suspicion 
until the're within 300 km's of the transport.  Then, they must shoot 
down the spacship's HEPlaR, match vectors, close with the spacecraft and 
board it in under 30 minutes.  Then they must grapb the messanger (who 
would have suicided by this time), get back to their ship, and jump out 
before the Glisten systen navy arrives in force.  Fortunately, the 
Regency doesn't hav an extradition treaty with the Aslan New Lords, but a 
change in ID and [very expensive, rare TL G drugs (for TL F DNA tests), 
impossible-to-legally-get] drugs to mask the PC's DNA pattern are 
strongly advised.

Sneaking onboard the Aslan ship as Ftai. cargo requires enterind the 
starport, somehow getting rid of the cargo of a cargo container, and 
entering it yourself.  It's aslo wise to put a forged ID sticker with the 
new weight on the container, and wear Vacc suits.

Once onboard, they should wait until certain that the messanger is 
onboard (ie. until they feel the shift into jump space). THEN assult the 
crew.  If successful they can bring the dead messander (or, if there 
_really_ lucky, the Low Berthed messanger) back to Ilroei, so they can 
take out the TL E computer chip in his brain (wiped after death: that's why 
he's so willing to die, if he can't avoid capture.) to rebuild the wiped 
information (normally a Formidable: Computer test, but in this adventure 
there's automatic success after 1d6 weeks).

==============
==============

Break in the adventure.
Well, that's all most of the detail's : some more to follow, then the 
Adventure Finale!


Alvin Plummer

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

End of TRAVELLER Digest 153
***************************
