Subj:	TRAVELLER digest 320
Date:	95-06-17 21:46:34 EDT
From:	traveller@mpgn.com
To:	traveller@mpgn.com

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			    TRAVELLER Digest 320

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Transmitters and the like.........
	by Bri <bri@teleport.com>
  2) Re: TNE version of Leviathan
	by merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
  3) BTW: Could someone please
	by Bri <bri@teleport.com>
  4) Re: FASA Material
	by Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
  5) The Death of the Battle Rider...
	by Julian Love <julian.love@st-johns.oxford.ac.uk>
  6) Re: Transmitters and the like...
	by Zaidfeld <cs911408@red.ariel.cs.yorku.ca>

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

Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 19:56:02 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bri <bri@teleport.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Transmitters and the like.........
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950616195351.10458B-100000@kelly.teleport.com>


 I was wondering, for transmitters and communicators of all types in TNE, 
can one transmitter only transmit one thing at a time? Or can a single 
radio/maser/whatnot(withing the limits of it's brodcast direction for 
directional communicators) transmit a large number of 'jobs' at once?
 I.E. A laser talking to another ship. Could it just be voice, or could 
they have a data transmission also going on in the background?
 Thanks in advance.

bri


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

Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 20:57:31 -0600 (MDT)
From: merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TNE version of Leviathan
Message-ID: <9506170257.AA13289@Rt66.com>

Hi,

>Rob Prior asks, 
> Has anyone out there designed a TNE version of Leviathan and the other
ships
> from that adventure?  I'd like to rerun an old favourite this summer, but
> don't have time to redesign all the ships.
 
We were planning on running the Leviathan adventures in the TNE system, and
Lane (ref) had me work on the ship since I'm GearBoy (tm).  There is a
*major*
problem we ran into... FFS designs lack the fuel to really explore anyplace
without a logistical train.  In the CT design, the ship could jump into a new
system, then drive around and look for new markets, or more importantly (if
you're the crew) fuel.  If they don't find it, they can jump out using the
extra fuel.  Getting the design to have enough gturns to explore a starsytem
alone won't happen (~220 is max assuming the ship is 100% fuel), especially
when you have to carry stores for the crew, as well as cargo.

I toyed with improving the fusion rocket, but didn't follow up on it (we got
busy with other stuff).  I have notes on improving the fusion rocket (the
idea
was that if you're going to assume HEPlaR in the universe, then a non "clean"
version should be more efficient by some %.  I worked out the efficiency of
the
HEPlaR (using the energy of the exhaust vs. a fusion reaction) and found that
it
was something like 4% (I don't have it handy, but that's what sticks in my
head
right now).  Even a small increase would improve the duration of thrust by a 
ways (we decided we needed at least 400 gturns on the Leviathan)--HEPlaR can
always be used near planets for safety.

I'll try to find my notes on the non mdrive part of the design, though.

-Merrick


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

Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 02:08:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bri <bri@teleport.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: BTW: Could someone please
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950617020711.8491A-100000@kelly.teleport.com>

 post a review of BattleRaiders, specificley what ships and technicial 
stuff it has in it. Tho any info would be appriciated.
 Thanks

bri


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

Date: 17 Jun 1995 09:48:03 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: FASA Material
Message-ID: <5873535.19626040@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca>

Seeker purchased the rights to all of FASA's Traveller material over five
years ago.  I don't know when they plan to rerelease it.  Your best bet is to
place an ad in Challenge for some used copies, or to contact Seeker directly
at:

Seeker Gaming Systems
PO Box 519
Mountan Home, ID 83647-0519


Note that although FASA allowed photocopying of out-of-print material, Seeker
does not.  (I had blanket approval from FASA.  The president of Seeker
actually phoned to inform me of the change in copyright ownership and
Seeker's policy towards photocopying.)

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

Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 16:24:33 +0100 (BST)
From: Julian Love <julian.love@st-johns.oxford.ac.uk>
To: traveller mailing list <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: The Death of the Battle Rider...
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.91.950617155045.6252A-100000@sable.ox.ac.uk>

Dear all -

A rare posting for me, but here goes...

I have been thinking about the kind of warships the Regency would have in 
service at the moment, and so began to convert The Battle Rider squadrons 
of the old CT Spinward Marches Campaign and MT Fighting Ships to TNE.
However, it seems to me that the battle rider design concept is no 
longer an effective way of making battle ships using FFS. The rules in FFS 
do not give a battle rider the same advantages that they had under High 
Guard or MT.

Battle Riders were designed because they could defeat a traditional 
warship of equal tonnage by not carrying jump drives. However, once the 
cost of the tender was factored in they were actually more expensive 
than traditional ships, but still worked in CT and MT because of two 
main things: 

1: Spinal mounts were of fixed sizes at each TL, and only one per ship 
was allowed. Compared to the power of spinal mounts, other weapons were 
reasonably inneffective, so there was little advantage in building a 
battleship larger than the minimum size which could carry the largest 
spinal mount available with sufficient jump, maneuvre, and agility.

2:Armour was very expensive (at least it was in MT, not so sure about CT).
Hull cost and mass were independent, so that while hulls got relatively 
lighter as displacement increased, they became cheapest (ie lowest MCr 
per ton) at about 50,000T. With the cost of armour being a significant 
percentage of the final cost of the ship (just look at Fighting Ships!), 
economising in this area was important.

As a result, there was an important role for battle riders, as they were 
cheap to armour (as they were approx 20,000 - 50,000T in size, and the 
rules favoured a fleet that could field the largest number of spinal mounts.
So while battle riders were expensive when combined with their fraction 
of the carrier compared to traditional battleships, larger battleships 
had less and less payoff as their size increased. Once your ship was 
carrying the largest spinal mount, further increases in size were a waste 
of money, and more exopensive to armour etc.

In TNE however, two vital things have changed:

1:Spinal mounts are not limited in size. You can now build that meson 
gun as large as you like, so a bigger ship can carry a bigger spinal mount.

2:Armour is cheap - hull price is now proportional to mass, and the 
mass/ton ratio drops with larger hulls. So it is relativeley cheaper to 
armour larger hulls, there is no longer an optimum size at 50,000T and in 
any case armour isn't a major cost any more.

As a result, the design proceedure always favours larger ships. So the 
excess cost of producing battle riders and their tenders is no longer 
worth it - what is important is not the number of spinal mounts, but the 
power of those spinal mounts.

So under TNE the best fleetes are those with the greatest number of large 
battleships. A large battleship can effectively carry enough armour 
and screens etc that it is invincible against any smaller ship., and can 
carry a spinal mount large enough to defeat the screens of any smaller ship.

So the battleship is back, and the battle rider is dead.A bit of a shame 
IMO.I rather like having smaller ships in fleets - it forces designers to 
be cleverer, rather than in TNE where the winner is the side that can 
produce the biggest ship.

Sorry its gone on so long. Any comments welcome.Thanks for listening...

Jules

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

Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 12:57:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Zaidfeld <cs911408@red.ariel.cs.yorku.ca>
To: TNE Mailing List <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: Re: Transmitters and the like...
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950617124140.15275A-100000@blue>


On Fri, 16 Jun 1995, Bri wrote:

>  I was wondering, for transmitters and communicators of all types in TNE, 
> can one transmitter only transmit one thing at a time? Or can a single 
> radio/maser/whatnot(withing the limits of it's brodcast direction for 
> directional communicators) transmit a large number of 'jobs' at once?
>  I.E. A laser talking to another ship. Could it just be voice, or could 
> they have a data transmission also going on in the background?

Well, I don't know if TNE covered this, but in Megatraveller's Refs 
Companion it says the following:

Channel Capacity:  The total number of lines available to a communicator 
equals the square of the device's tech level.  All available lines may be 
used for reception; the number of lines used for transmission is limited 
to the tech level of the device.  Each channel in used (Either 
transmitting or receiving) requires one control panel dedicated for it.

ie: a radio comm, TL 14 has 196 lines received and 14 lines transmitted.

LINES PER CHANNEL:

Type			Receive		Send	R/S
----------------------------------------------------
Voice Simplex		  1/2*		1/2*	 1
Voice Duplex		   1	         1	 2
Comp. Data/Telemetry	   1		 1	 2
Image (w/voice)		   2		 5	 7
Computer Control	   2		 2	 4

* Can only send or receive but not both at the same time (CB like)

So the above communicator can transmit on 2 image channels (5 lines 
each), 1 computer control channel (2 lines), one computer data (1 line) 
and 1 voice channel (1 line) at the same time.  


Hope that helped,

           -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]


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

End of TRAVELLER Digest 320
***************************


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