Subj:	TRAVELLER digest 284
Date:	95-05-13 19:22:58 EDT
From:	traveller@mpgn.com
To:	traveller@mpgn.com

From: traveller@mpgn.com
Sender: traveller@mpgn.com
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			    TRAVELLER Digest 284

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Re: TRAVELLER digest 283
	by muskrat@msn.fullfeed.com (John Kovalic)
  2) Model 1 & other babbles
	by "James M. Kelleher" <kelleher@holonet.net>
  3) Gauss Spinal Mounts
	by Edward Anthony Baltz <eabaltz@ummon.mit.edu>
  4) Re: Harold's FAQ
	by jamesd@spirit.com.au (James Dempsey)
  5) Re: TRAVELLER digest 283
	by aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
  6) Traveller FAQ (Re: Harold's FAQ)
	by Zaidfeld <cs911408@red.ariel.cs.yorku.ca>
  7) re: Equatorial launch sites
	by "Bruce Johnson" <JOHNSON@tonic.pharm.arizona.edu>
  8) Re: TL15 Spinal Mount Comparison
	by Derek Smith <Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com>

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

Date: Fri, 12 May 1995 21:35:28 -0500
From: muskrat@msn.fullfeed.com (John Kovalic)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 283
Message-ID: <199505130235.VAA24582@fullfeed.msn.fullfeed.com>


>Oh mi Gawd! Gauss Spinal Mounts! What a truly horrifying
>idea! What would defend against that ?

I'm guessing that at the distances ships normally operate at, Relativity
effects would be a pretty good defence against (what would in effect be)
very small, unguided missiles. Otherwise, just move your ship out of the
way. You've got time while the projectiles are comin'.


John K.

           ^
         /^\
***// \\ ******************************************************
     //(*)\\                   -----------------------
   //         \\                  The Servants of Kovalic

/----------\                -----------------------
============
Hat Trick*Tornado*Read My Lips*Peace in Our Time*Market Manipulation*Bigger
Business*Murphy's Law*Rewriting History*Deasil Engine*Energy Crisis*Tax
Reform*France*Japan*Cable TV*Fraternal Orders*L-4 Society* Multinational
Oil Companies*Germany*Israel* Liquor Companies*.......Ours, alllllll OURS!
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! (THWACK!) Sorry.
*******************************************************************



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

Date: Fri, 12 May 95 19:42:24 PDT
From: "James M. Kelleher" <kelleher@holonet.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM (Traveller posts)
Subject: Model 1 & other babbles
Message-ID: <199505130242.TAA22977@holonet.net>

Hello again

Once gaain I've slipped out of lurk mode.... ;-)
On the computers we have (at home only)...
One Amiga 1000, One IBM PS/2 Model 70, One Clone ( 386/40 ). Oh yes I
almost forgot a PMC microMate... a Z80 CP/M machine, and yes My wife
STILL uses it!
We do have Excel 5.0 and that probably be the most usefull to me
although I do have Borland C++.

To A. D. Venturer...
Oh No Acccck duck for cover!!!! :-)
The throwing rocks thing was covered AD Nausem a couple of months back.
Folks please please not again I have finaly recovered my page down
fingre :-)

On our Campaign Well Jim did it again we ended up on the other side of a
Naval blocade ( The bad guy's forces ), While finding out that there are
not one but two APB's out on us and our ship, one from the "bad" guy
admril and one signed by the Arch Duke himself - Yikes now we have to
try to run for it!
Meanwhile Narius calls a psycologist to make an appointment, The psyc
figures that she has a VERY disturbed person on her hands makes an
appointment for the next day. We where all mystified and figured that he
would show up with one of us under his arm. But no he asked "My Lord"
Gunnar for permission to leave the ship in order to take care of some
personal business, on being given permission he leaves and goes to the
psyc, he tells her that members of his order are not allowed to sleep
with weapons of mass destruction as to many incidents have happened
because of their dreams, and he is suffering from a particullary
horrible dream... He is in a room there is a table on the table is a
bowl of soup and a spoon. He sits down and starts eating the soup, no
deamons appear from the soup, nothing attacks him all is peacfull as he
eats his soup! This is so bad that he hasn't slept for three weeks!
( No wonder he has been a little twichy ). The psyc is just flabergasted
but manages to keep it together as she realizes that he belongs to a
ship and this VERY disturbed indivual is not a resident on her planet!
She gives Narius a referance to a sound enviroment expert figuring that
that might help him sleep. He thanks her and leaves, Pay... well that never
entered his mind...
Any why the upshot of all fo this is Narius not only has a sound system
to rival most colusiums! as well as smell. When pay was requested Narius
looked puzzled then said oh yes; see our quatermaster ( our Purser
Astrid). He runs a battle field gunpowder smells etc. when he wants to
sleep. I can't wait for him to either open his door or turn it up some
night Gunnar will wake up painting the bulkhead with the lazer sight of
his favorite .50 hand gun...
Oh yeah no fights this time, but I have the feeling that we will be
boarded during the next seession...
That one could be interesting, I've never seen THIS crew completely
freed to "GO FOR IT" I'd almost pity the boarding party...
Ok Ok go back to lurk mode now you've babbled on far to much...
( to much coffee )
Good Night
jim

-- 
Remember: no matter where you go...
There you are...
B. Banzi

James M. Kelleher
kelleher@holonet.net


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

Date: Sat, 13 May 1995 00:25:15 -0400
From: Edward Anthony Baltz <eabaltz@ummon.mit.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Gauss Spinal Mounts
Message-ID: <199505130425.AAA01354@ummon.mit.edu>


I've thought a bit about including gauss spinal mounts before, but there is a

serious problem.  Unless the projectile is highly relativistic, by the time
it
gets there, the ship will be gone if its made any course change at all.  With

the ranges involved in combat, the projectile would have to be going a
sizeable
fraction of the speed of light.  Even travelling at 0.1c, it has gained 0.5
percent of its rest mass in kinetic energy.  For a 1kg projectile, this is 
4.5e14 joules.  Firing one projectile in a turn would require a continuous 
power drain of 250,000 MW.  Even at this speed, targeting is significantly 
harder than lasers and particle weapons because the travel time is so long, 
and its a single projectile.  The obvious thing to do is to fire many smaller
projectiles, maybe in the milligram range, perhaps just shoot iron filings.
At 0.5c, the targeting wouldn't be as much of a problem.  To fire 10 in a 
turn, like the standard lasers and PAWS, given a 10,000 MW input at 100%
efficiency, you've only created 0.2 grams of mass IN A TURN.  That makes 20mg
per projectile.  Given a gamma of 2 (0.86c), this makes the projectile 20mg, 
because at a gamma of 2, the kinetic energy is equal the rest energy.
KE=mc^2(gamma - 1).  20mg is pretty small... for iron it would be about 
three cubic millimeters.  The magazine weighs just about nothing, you could 
carry billions!  The problem is only power required.  A big advantage of
these
things is they can't really be stopped by any screen.  A really strong
magnetic
field might do something, but the power drain would be utterly unfeasable.
Your only hope would be to detect by active EMS and dodge... yeah right!

Ted Baltz

fizix student

eabaltz@mit.edu

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

Date: Sun, 14 May 95 01:07:06 
From: jamesd@spirit.com.au (James Dempsey)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Harold's FAQ
Message-ID: <20a918b0.f2884-jamesd@loki.spirit.com.au>

On May 12 Andy Lilly wrote:

> I'd love to see a trav' FAQ (and one for xboat too) but has anyone got the
> time to do it?
>
I think the idea sounds great. After some of the heated discussions which
have
appeared, and reappeared lately, it could save on some bandwidth.

Few people would have the time to create this on their own (I wouldn't) but
perhaps if people were to send their FAQ topics into one central person, and
that person just collates them it might be possible. 

Would MPGN be willing to carry it at their FTP site, and make it available 
via the listserver?

> Perhaps it could just be a list of topics with the digest numbers each were
> discussed in, so if someone sees a topic they can check what's already been
> said and how long ago (by downloading back-digests from MPGN or even the
old
> TML archives at engrg.uwo.ca) before opening a new discussion?

To make it useful, it would probably need to contain a summary of the
discussion, particularly its outcomes and the major points covered. That way
if someone felt they had something new to add, they could confirm it quickly
and easily.

My first suggestion for a topic would be a TNE product list with scheduled 
release dates for future items.

BFN.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
James Dempsey
email: jamesd@spirit.com.au



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

Date: Sat, 13 May 95 16:14 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Cc: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 283
Message-ID: <memo.275511@cix.compulink.co.uk>

In-Reply-To: <199505122303.TAA06299@Ambassador.MPGN.COM>


  > From: George Herbert <gherbert@crl.com> 
  > Subject: Re: Equatorial Starports 
  >  
  > Traveller's thrusters and such are all much better than 700s. There's
  > no reason for TL9+ vehicles to prefer the equator. Starports should
  > be near population centers, but not too near. 

Ah, but not all worlds are TL9+, and most were 8- at one time or another.

  > From: bonn0015@flipper.itlabs.umn.edu (STEVEN M BONNEVILLE) To:
  > Subject: TL15 Spinal Mount Comparison 
  >  
  > I designed three spinal mounts, all with a DV of 2500 at one
  > light-second. 
  >  
  > Comments, anyone? 

How about 'ouch!'? Not subtle, are they?

  > From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com> 
  > Subject: MD Spinal 
  >  
  > Oh mi Gawd! Gauss Spinal Mounts! What a truly horrifying idea! What
  > would defend against that ? Not meson or nuclear screens; not sand;
  > only globes, and lasers - and the lasers would have to be very good
  > (probably easier under TNE). The only problem I can see looming
  > (literally) is the magazine size... not to mention weight! 

What you do is you build it into a large asteroid - when you need more
ammo, you just carve off another chunk. Who says planetoid hulls are
useless?


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

Date: Sat, 13 May 1995 13:15:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Zaidfeld <cs911408@red.ariel.cs.yorku.ca>
To: TNE Mailing List <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: Traveller FAQ (Re: Harold's FAQ)
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950513130221.28566A-100000@blue>


On Sat, 13 May 1995, James Dempsey wrote:

> Few people would have the time to create this on their own (I wouldn't) but
> perhaps if people were to send their FAQ topics into one central person,
and
> that person just collates them it might be possible. 

Good idea.  Does anyone want the "job"?

> My first suggestion for a topic would be a TNE product list with scheduled 
> release dates for future items.

There is such a list on MPGN's ftp site.  (GDW.pricelist or something 
like that...)

Some things to add to the FAQ:

-FTP, WWW and gopher (or any other Online resources)
-Mailing-lists (GDW-beta, TNE-Pocket etc) information
-Reviews (past (Classic & mega) and present(TNE)) of GDW products by 
 members of TML (ie: Aliens of the Rim)
-Errata location
-Rumors and offical GDW policy (Loren's part)
-Recommanded Stores for Traveller Products around the world by TML members.
-Challenge's submission guides
etc...

What do you all think?

           -Shalom Zaidfeld
----
Toronto, CANADA
Internet: cs911408@ariel.cs.yorku.ca
 
"Ground Control to Major Tom, your circuit's dead, there's something wrong"
        ...David Bowie on the Virus [Michael Bailey]


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

Date:         Sat, 13 May 1995 11:41:12 MST7
From: "Bruce Johnson" <JOHNSON@tonic.pharm.arizona.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: re: Equatorial launch sites
Message-ID: <49668AC04CE@tonic.pharm.Arizona.EDU>

Sometimes it's amazing how utterly boneheaded stupid and ignorant 
you can be...

     In my last post about this subject I managed to mangle not only 
geography, but history as well.  Now I feel like one of those maligned 
schoolkids, you know, the ones who put Greenland somewhere in 
China, and Confidently point to the Tasman Sea as the English 
Channel :-(

     The American who led the revolt in Nicaraugua, and installed 
himself as leader, was named William Walker, and did so in the 1850's 
which led to the first armed intervention of US forces there.  He was 
backed by Cornelius Vanderbilt, who did indeed desire the rights to 
build a canal there, linking the Atlantic and Pacific.

     Panama's independence was from Colombia, and while it was 
covertly funded by the US, and was plotted by local businessmen and 
officials of the Panama Canal company in response to Colombia's 
refusal to grant rights to the land to build the canal, it had nothing to 
do with the earlier events in Nicaragua.

    Mea Culpa

Bruce Johnson
Information Technology/College of Pharmacy
The University of Arizona
johnson@tonic.pharm.arizona.edu 

Keeper of the BP FAQ

As if this place HAD any opinions...

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

Date: 13 May 95 13:50:16 EDT
From: Derek Smith <Derek_Smith.LOTUS@crd.lotus.com>
To: STEVEN M BONNEVILLE <bonn0015@flipper.itlabs.umn.edu>
Cc: Multiple recipients of list <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: Re: TL15 Spinal Mount Comparison
Message-ID: <9505132242.AA14512@internet1.lotus.com>

Steve Bonneville wrote:

>Spinal mounts: a comparison.
>
>I designed three spinal mounts, all with a DV of 2500 at one >light-second.
>

Steve, I of course, like the designs.  But I think you are not
using the correct basis for comparison.  DV is probably not the
best component of these weapons to hold constant.

I think you'd get a more accurate comparison by keeping DISCHARGE
ENERGY constant.

This way your laser would shrink drastically in size.  I expect
that at TL 15 it would be the smallest, cheapest (both important)
weapon of the three, and (at least against ships that aren't
giant floating sandcaster platforms) the most effective.  It's
DV will be less, but it's PV will probably be higher.


--Derek

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

End of TRAVELLER Digest 284
***************************


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