			    TRAVELLER Digest 171

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Re: Moving Rocks	by Derek Smith <Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com>
  2) Cold effects	by Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com>
  3) Re: YARS: Fixing anomalous stars	by CyHiggin@aol.com

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Date: 20 Jan 95 14:35:29 ES
From: Derek Smith <Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com>
To: traveller <traveller@MPGN.COM>, xboat <xboat@MPGN.COM>
Subject: Re: Moving Rocks
Message-ID: <9501232100.AA09164@internet1.lotus.com>

erich @ bush.cs.tamu.edu (Erich Schneider) wrote:
>I always thought the preferred way to move rocks around in SF was via
>magnetic linear accelerators, or "catapults". Stick one near the
>mainworld, one or more out in the belt. Find a good rock, break it up
>into chunks, perhaps stick some metal on it if it isn't already
>metallic, fire the chunks out of one catapult and "catch" them in the
>other. Requires precise aim! Higher TLs allow for more powerful
>magnets and probably for shoving larger chunks around.

Makes for an interesting idea for a new class of planetary bombardment
weapon.

If you come out of jump with a very high velocity relative to your
target world, and your ship is equipped with, say, a spinal or
parallel mounted MASS DRIVER, rapid-firing 1 to 10 tonne shells...

Maybe they're made of stealth material.  Hmmm...  At higher techs
you could keep the mass the same but make them smaller by using
better materials technology...  That might just hurt a whole lot.

And it would be a whole lot cheaper than moving asteroids around.


Alvin, now look what you've gone and done...


BTW - Regarding the mythical Jo Grant.  He's been in the US for
the last 3 weeks.  I had lunch with him today.  He seemed real
enough to me.  By which I conclude that he's as real as I am.  8^)

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

"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of 
Congress. But I repeat myself."

                            -Mark Twain

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Date: 23 Jan 95 16:55:58 EST
From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com>
To: <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: Cold effects
Message-ID: <950123215558_100326.446_BHG112-3@CompuServe.COM>

>>I remember reading about the effects of cold from 
Challenge a time ago. I suppose the effects should be 
likewise. So if some of you have <<

There were two superb Gamelords pubs from way back called 
Desert and Mountain environment. These will have excellent 
treatment of such things, if the one I have got 
(underwater) is any guide. As all are now OOP, would some 
lucky collector care to post a summary, laced with 
copyright acknowledegments <g> ?




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Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 10:53:00 -0500
From: CyHiggin@aol.com
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: YARS: Fixing anomalous stars
Message-ID: <950124105259_4969985@aol.com>

Harold's comments:

>   I'd like a copy of this, if possible, Cynthia.  I don't mind rolling
dice,
>but wouldn't mind a break....

Will forward a copy via e-mail.  Ken's posting copies for me  to ghost and
mpgn.com archive sites as well.

BTW, with all the people who have picked up OS/2 3.0 Warp out there, with the
nifty Internet access kit (aka TCP/IP for OS/2 2.0 in disguise, for us
old-time OS/2 users...), how many TMLers use OS/2 now?  Inquiring minds that
write OS/2 programs would like to know.

>clarification: There are class VI stars, *but* because of their nature
>(lacking in any elements above helium-- therefore, no planets,
>asteroids, or even comets), they are not portrayed in the game.

Cool. I did not know that; the one college-level astronomy text I had around
the house didn't even mention class VI stars, so I figured GDW had
interpolated them into existance or something.  You learn something every
day....

>Solo white dwarfs also usually lack planetary bodies--the evolution
>of the star from main sequence to giant to white dwarf normally cooks
>away all the planetary bodies in a system.  Occasionally, though, a
>planet or two might survive--a Pluto-like body or on rare
>occasions an outer  gas giant.

GURPS Space system roll-up rules had a good way to handle this -- first 
you generate a normal system of a main sequence star of the same spectral
class.  Then you run it thru red giant and maybe supernova stages.  What's
leftis the white dwarf's planetary system.

> I'm curious, Cynthia, on the average number of
>white dwarfs per subsector that results from your method.  Some of the
>old standard sector files had a DM in over half the star systems, while
>others had lesser amounts because they where generated much later.

Well, I used a very unscientific method to come up with that 
percentage (33%) -- I ran it against the Spinward Marches and
adjusted the percentages by trial & error until it averaged around 3-4
dwarfs remaining per subsector.  Like for VIRUS.CMD -- you have the
source code, adjust 'til it suits you.  I liked the results I got with 33%,
so
I went with that number.  If you have some ideas for improving that while
sticking with one pass thru the file, I would love to hear them.  I want  to
keep this one-pass or so, as the current code will work on both subsector
and sector sized files, while leaving comments, etc. where they were.

>   Interesting information which could open up a whole discussion of
>playability vs. realism and the basis of the 1 parsec hex system, and
>why all the stars *shouldn't* be shown on the map, but I'll save it for
>later....

Since the real universe is also 3-dimensional, for our campaign we
decided that the 2-D hex map actually represents a map of jumpspace,
not realspace.  Gravitational potentials and other forces force stars to be
*at least* one parsec apart in jumpspace. And, there is not necessarily a
one-to-one correspondence between a star's realspace position and its
jumpspace position.  Supernova collapses in particular can move adjacent
stars a looong way in jumpspace, as unclimbable hills of "jump potential" 
form about spinning black holes and neutron stars... (Now you know why
you never find the damn things on the standard sector maps... You can't get
there from here.) Again, the standard "In My Campaign" disclaimer....


                                     -- Cynthia


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End of TRAVELLER Digest 171
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