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Subject: TRAVELLER digest 389
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			    TRAVELLER Digest 389

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) 
	by myhre@oslonett.no
  2) RE: Apologies to proper scientists (fluorine. drive flares etc)
	by Neil Taylor <neil@owl.uk.gdscorp.com>
  3) RE: missile Gs
	by Neil Taylor <neil@owl.uk.gdscorp.com>
  4) RE: drive plume glow
	by Neil Taylor <neil@owl.uk.gdscorp.com>
  5) Fluorine in Gas Giants
	by jlockett@hanszen.rice.edu (Joseph L Lockett)
  6) Mertactor & colonists
	by Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
  7) Advanced Recruiting Rules:  Beta Version
	by Christopher_Griffen@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen)
  8) RE: drive plume glow
	by tcgny!uunet.uu.net!tcgny!berghold@uunet.uu.net (Peter L. Berghold)
  9) Relativity and its effects on navigation.
	by tcgny!uunet.uu.net!tcgny!berghold@uunet.uu.net (Peter L. Berghold)
 10) M41A Pulse Rifle
	by Christopher_Griffen@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen)
 11) Re: TRAVELLER digest 386
	by aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)

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

Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 16:28:57 +0200
From: myhre@oslonett.no
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Message-ID: <199508241428.QAA01685@hasle.oslonett.no>

Brendan wrote:

>This can be visualised as a 100W lightbulb every 10m along the exhaust 
>trail. This seems really dim for the ranges involved, but I don't know >how 
easy this would be to detect using sensors. Perhaps someone who has >more 
knowledge of real world sensor operations could finish this off. 

I think the Hubble is able to "see" a candle far out as Jupiter, but then 
I'm not sure. Detecting the drive plume depends on which way the radiation 
is aimed. Is it spread out, or pencil narrow, or something in between? If it 
is pencil narrow you have to be behind it it to detect it. Depending on the 
spread of the radiation from the plume, the sensing unit can sense from a 
wider angle. Another point is that TNE ships do not burn constantly, they 
usually coast along, making it fairly difficult to detect an incomming fleet 
at extreme ranges.


>Also, in my apologising post I made another mistake - 'heterolytic' should 
be 'homolytic'.

Doesn't matter I don't know what either of those things are anyway :)


--------------+-------------------+-----------------------------------
Roger Myhre   | myhre@oslonett.no | http://www.oslonett.no/home/myhre/
HIWGmember 142| Some people have one of those days, I got one of 
              | those lifes.
--------------+-------------------------------------------------------


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

Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 15:36:43 EDT
From: Neil Taylor <neil@owl.uk.gdscorp.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: RE: Apologies to proper scientists (fluorine. drive flares etc)
Message-ID: <009955BF.E0D1F120.20@arc.uk.gdscorp.com>

From: "Brendan O'Donovan" <Brendan@odonovan.demon.co.uk>:

>Firstly thanks to everyone for correcting my science in yesterday's posts. 
>There is a limit to how far a high-school kid can get with this kind of stuff.

>The exploding gas giant - I sort of knew this wouldn't work, still nice pseudo 
>science though. How about a _real science_(?) scenario. Suppose the gas giant 
>atmosphere contained significant amounts of molecular fluorine. Under normal 
>circumstances this would be extremely stable, 

Sorry Brendan - basic Chemistry wrong too.... Fluorine is one of the most 
reactive substances known!  It is *not* stable in a mixture with most chemicals, 
but will spontaneously react with almost anything you'd find in a Gas giant!  
(The F-F bond is weak, but it forms very strong bonds with most other elements  
- witnes PTFE (poly-tetra-FLUOR-ethylene) one of the most inert substances 
known, due to the strength of the C-F bond.)

>but the sort of energy near a 
>fusion exhaust could induce heterolytic fusion forming fluorine radicals. 

no - the heat energy in the high temperature fusion exhaust could break most 
chemical bonds (including C-F), but will *not* induce fusion, not even 
<heterolytic fusion> whatever that might be! 

Yes, dumping a few thousand tons of free radicals in your wake would be 
interesting, but still not as spectacular as you'd like.  Most of the enrgy 
released from re-forming bonds with the free radicals will be the energy that 
went into breaking them in the first place (ie that of the fusion trail)
There will be some from "latent chemical energy" in the other compounds, but not 
a huge amount.

>These 
>radicals would be incredibly reactive, and could induce very fast chain 
>reactions like 
but it only spreads at around the speed of sound.
For comparison of scale - the modest sized blotches on jupiter after the comet 
impact were as large as our entire planet(!) but small compared to Jupiter.
It would take *weeks* for reactions to progress that far!  Jupiter is probably a 
hotbed of chemical reactions anyway, and i don't think a trail of radicals will 
do much to chnage that...

> This fuel will be spread out along a path 67km long, and with a cross section 
>of about 5m^2 (half of the surface area of the thrusters). This gives a total 
>volume of space of 335000m^3. The energy from the thruster would be spread out 
>all along this thread. It seems to me that the intensity of the emissions from 
>the exhaust would therefore be very low, and so hard to detect, compared to 
>more concentrated sources, like the engine nozzles themselves. 

true the exhausts glow (but are usually designed with baffles to prevent easy 
detection - the designers knew about that bit!)
as far as the con-trail glowing, a rough guess would be to compare it with the 
tail of a Comet, which glows by reflected sunlight on a tenuous gas cloud - and 
comets are visible a long way off in telescopes; and often visible to the naked 
eye...

>The size of the target matters less to 
>passive sensors than the energy output (fixed in a given expenditure of fuel) 
>and intensity (which decreases as the exhaust stream gets longer).

actually the energy flux alone is all that matters for small sources - on a 
wide-field camera you are imaging the enrgy into a small area, and summing the 
flux.  You are fighting inverse-square law diminishment of the flux though, and 
try to compensate by increasing the area of the detector's collectors (increase 
diameter).
[And just like current satellites, don't point your passive EMS array at
a) the sun or b) a nearby drive flare, 'cos you'kll burn off the sensitive 
receptor surfaces!]

> This does depend on how hot the exhaust is though, as Traveller seems to use 
>MWs 
Yes - Boltzman's law puts the radiance as proportional to the 4th power of the 
temperature of the radiating black body (the gas). this means that at fusion or 
helpar temperatures, the gas radiates almost all of its energy very quickly, and 
cools enormously.
The brightest emitting part of the flare is confined to relatively close to the 
drive (say 1 sec, at 67km/s = 67km), 
But the rest of the flare *will* act as a reflector and diffusor scattering the 
light of the radiant flare and the unbaffled parts of the drive emissions.
--------------------------------------------------+
-- Neil Taylor              neil@uk.gdscorp.com --|
-- Graphic Data Systems Ltd,                    --| 
-- Wellington House, East Rd, Cambridge CB1 1BH --|
--------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 15:42:48 EDT
From: Neil Taylor <neil@owl.uk.gdscorp.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: RE: missile Gs
Message-ID: <009955C0.BA5450A0.22@arc.uk.gdscorp.com>

 John Muir Macpherson <muirmac@uclink.berkeley.edu>:
>	The other thing this brings up is the possibillity of 
>intercepting intruders with "cruise" missiles which have their own HePLAR 
>drives and sensors.  Because they could take higher G's than a 
>human-crewed vessel, they could intercept the target more quickly, and 
>since bogies can be detected so far off they would provide a stand-off 
>attack capability.  Having their own drive would also allow them to carry 
>a much larger warhead.  Any ideas on the max G tolerance of missile 
>components?

I think Seawolf anti-missile missiles on todays destroyers do about 25 
(twentyfive) Gs! (and only using chemical thrusters...)
Trav missiles at 6G ish are pretty pathetic really...

>This answers my question about realistic HePLAR.  I'll just pick an 
>exhaust temperature I like and work out performance from there.

I'd guess 10-20,000K as a plasma temperature.... and NO I don't want to go near 
it, or allow it anywhere near my settlements! (I've said this before).
You can cool the plasma by spereading the energy over more mass, but that drains 
the reaction mass very quickly.
I suppose in atmosphere, you could draw in vast quantities of air, and heat it, 
like todays new high bypass turbojets, but then youre no longer emitting plasma, 
just hot air.......

--------------------------------------------------+
-- Neil Taylor              neil@uk.gdscorp.com --|
-- Graphic Data Systems Ltd,                    --| 
-- Wellington House, East Rd, Cambridge CB1 1BH --|
--------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 15:55:31 EDT
From: Neil Taylor <neil@owl.uk.gdscorp.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: RE: drive plume glow
Message-ID: <009955C2.80ED92C0.45@arc.uk.gdscorp.com>

>Assume all that the energy from the drive went into heating the reaction mass. 
>For the free trader this gives the mass 100MJ of energy each second. 

fair 'nuff

>These MJ 
>are distributed through the volume of exhaust produced in this time. This gives 
>an energy density of about 300J/m^3 (at 4hex/turn, 1G). 

ditto

>If you want a drive 
>plume 10,000 km long, then the energy of the exhaust will be given up in 150 
>seconds. Very roughly, if we pretend that energy is lost at a uniform rate, 
>this 
>gives an output of 2W/m^3. 

therein lies the nub - it isn't at all. It declines fast: proportionally to
(temp)^4, and the temp depends on the remaining energy
Watch a lightbulb cool down from a few hundred C (~500-600K) when you turn the
power off, and this plasma is cooling faster than that, but from a much higher
temperature. 

>This can be visualised as a 100W lightbulb every 10m 
>along the exhaust trail. 

more like 100MW over 10-100km: 1-10MW/km, 1-10kW/m
pretty bright actually.

>This seems really dim for the ranges involved, but I 
>don't know how easy this would be to detect using sensors. Perhaps someone who 
>has more knowledge of real world sensor operations could finish this off. 

also the sensors will image many km or flare onto each pixel cell in the
sonsor's imager, thereby summing the intensity over many km (unless they're very
close).

Radio telescope can detect gas clouds glowing light years away...
--------------------------------------------------+
-- Neil Taylor              neil@uk.gdscorp.com --|
-- Graphic Data Systems Ltd,                    --| 
-- Wellington House, East Rd, Cambridge CB1 1BH --|
--------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 10:13:07 -0500 (CDT)
From: jlockett@hanszen.rice.edu (Joseph L Lockett)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Fluorine in Gas Giants
Message-ID: <199508241513.KAA04263@harry-clay.hanszen.rice.edu>

Brendan O'Donovan (Brendan@odonovan.demon.co.uk) writes:
> The exploding gas giant - I sort of knew this wouldn't work, still nice pseudo 
> science though. How about a _real science_(?) scenario. Suppose the gas giant 
> atmosphere contained significant amounts of molecular fluorine. Under normal 
> circumstances this would be extremely stable

Nope.  Molecular fluorine is extremely _un_stable -- it reacts with virtually
anything.  I believe _water_ "burns" in the presence of molecular fluorine
gas.  It's even worse than oxygen, which reacts (rust, fires, etc.) with all
manner of things and disappears rapidly from an atmosphere unless replenished
by an active biosphere.

In addition, fluorine is relatively rare in the universe.  There was an
article lo these many years ago in Analog SF... I believe the author was
John Gribbin, and I know the title was something like "What About Those
Halogen Breathers?"  A good library might have back issues, and you can
track it down from the indices in the January issues for the previous year.
(Riffles through collection....)  Here we are.  October, 1984, page 60,
"Those Halogen Breathers", by Stephen L. Gillett, Ph.D. (I was close!).
He points out:

	"O.K., now let's look at fluorine....  only one isotope is stable,
19F with ten neutrons.  This single isotope is about one-third as abundant
as 17O, the rarest isotope of oxygen.  Already we can see problems a-brewing;
fluorine is _rare_.
	Worse than this, fluorine is ferociously reactive.  It is the most
electronegative element known, and replaces oxygen in its compounds at
slight (or no) provocation.  Under proper circumstances, fluorine will
combine with _everything_ except the three lightest noble gases, helium,
neon, and argon.  It's gonna be hard to force F2 to accumulate in an
atmosphere."

It's a splendid article, and highly recommended for world-builders.

----------------------------*-------------------------*-----------------------
Joseph L. "Chepe" Lockett   | "Nullum magnum ingenium | GURPS fan, Amiga user,
jlockett@hanszen.rice.edu   |  sine mixtura dementiae | Shakespearean scholar,
http://www.io.com/~jlockett |  fuit." -- Seneca       | actor and director.
----------------------------*-------------------------*-----------------------

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

Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 17:53:00 +0100 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Mertactor & colonists
Message-ID: <199508241553.RAA05690@embla.diku.dk>

Christopher Griffen writes:

>>Me:
>>I agree that you could make a good case for a planet like, say, 
>>Weiss or Windsor (which lies in the middle of the area shown as 
>>settled) not necessarily being settled at the time shown, but 
>>Mertactor lies on the edge of the border shown. It may be too 
>>complicated to show non-settled worlds in the middle of an area, but 
>>it's quite simple to draw a border either way around a border world. 
>>Surely the edge would've been on the other side of Mertactor if it had 
>>been unsettled. (Tarsus dosen't prove anything as it IS on the other 
>>side of the egde in the 300 and 400 map AND is shown as settled on the 
>>500 map. Which fits perfectly with what other knowledge we have.)<<
>      
>Mertactor's _right_ on the edge of Regency space.  I interpret that to 
>mean that it is on the very edge of what was Imperial space.  

But that's just what I'm objecting to: You're making an interpretation 
that is logical enough, but just happens to be about one of the already 
established snippets of information that we have and turns out to be
wrong. I suspected that you didn't have access to that information and
therefor informed you about it. To reiterate: In several CT modules
(One of the Library Data books and _Traveller Adventure_) is a short
article about the history of the settlement of Spinward Marches. In it
are three maps that shows the settlement pattern for the Marches in
the years 300, 400, and 500. They show that Mertactor was 1) already
settled by the year 300 and 2) not yet part of the Imperium by the year
500.  

>I believe that supports my argument that it could've been one of the 
> _last_ systems to be settled.

Indeed it would if we hadn't happened to have some _other_ evidence on
the subject. As it is, we _know_ that Mertactor was settled already by
the year 300, while others (the whole spinward half of District 268)
wasn't.

>My intent is to express that Mora could be trying to set an example for 
>other would-be colonists.  Many billions more could be applying for their 
>Moran visas through civilized space.  If news of this arguably expensive 
>deportation gets out, it could save Moran citizens from what they perceive 
>to be far greater expenses in overcrowding and pollution.

Specious. Why dosen't Mora just deny entry to the colonists they don't want?
Unless Imperial law forbids a planet to keep out immigrants (which I grant
you _may_ be the case). But in that case it seem extremely impropable the 
Imperial law would allow Mora to _export_ them against their will. (And
where DO you get your figures? Billions of immigrants? Again, think of the
cost.)

>Part of the allure of the frontier would be the wide open spaces. That's 
>why so many colonists came to the Americas initially.  I don't see why it 
>shouldn't apply on an interstellar scale.

Because the cost of shipping emigrants across the Atlantic was low enough
that even poor people might manage to scrape together enough for the fare.
The cost of shipping people across even a subsector is something only
well-off people can afford. And you're talking about shipping them across
several sectors now.

>>But if it isn't Moran citizens being booted off planet, whet's their 
>>beef? Surely they neither needed, nor wanted to settle on an already 
>>inhabited planet if the had a whole colonization ship with them.<<

>Unless the reason they left their homes in distant Imperial space for the 
>relatively civilized confines of Mora. There's a bit of a  dichotomy here 
>that I think makes for fascinating history.  Colonists may well yearn for 
>the wide-open spaces and liberties of the frontier, yet they might also 
>inwardly want to cling to the familiar. Mora would have likely offered the 
>familiar in that it had cities, skyscrapers, grav vehicles, etc.

Again you're ignoring the high cost. If you've paid for a colonization ship
you're going to want to settle somewhere where YOU are in charge. And in
any case, if the colonists came from somewhere else and were merely refused
permission to settle on Mora, how can we say that Mertactor was settled
from Mora? Surely that implies that the settlers were _from_ Mora. Not just
that they had visited there.
      
>>Hans:  Again, I don't see why emigrants from, say, Deneb, with their very 
>>own colonization ship can be said to come from Mora if all the contact 
>>they have with that planet is being gouged a bit on the fuel bill (and 
>>believe me, there's a very definite limit to how much the Morans _could_ 
>>gouge them before someone else started shippin in fuel from Jokotre and 
>>under- cutting them).<<

>You're forgetting one thing that may negate most of this part of the 
>debate:  fuel scoops.

No, you missed the salient part of my argument. How can someone be said to
come from Mora when they don't come from Mora?

>>>Chris:  Yes, the numbers are astronomical, but have you ever considered 
>>>what it must've cost the Sword Worlders to immigrate from Terra?!  Now 
>>>that must've been a pretty penny.  
>      
>>Hans:  Yes, but that was colonization, not population pressure  relief.<<
>      
>      Different reason.  Same costs.

No, it is not the same costs as I went on to demonstrate. One involves
buying a ship and take it with you, the other buying a ship and use it
to export someone else.

>>Hans:  Nonsens. Someone will have to foot the bill, and that someone 
>>will have to believe it worthwhile.<<
>      
>Discussed above.  See my second comment, regarding "setting an example."

Not discussed above. I pointed out that the cost of exporting one colonist
by the "buy them a ship and send them off" method was equivalent to the
naval taxes of 20,000 people for a year. I consider that to be prohibitively
high. If you choose to believe that any politician would consider that a
reasonable price then we just have to disagree on that point. 
      
>>Do you really think any government would be willing to spend that kind of 
>>money just to get rid of an insignificant part of their population? 
>>I don't.<<
>      
>Once again, I defer to my second comment, above.

Have you actually thought a little about the figures involved?


>>The other kind is where you (the government) build a ship, load it with 
>>people (volunteers or "volunteers"), send it to some other planet, dump 
>>the people, _and comes home for another load to repeat the process_. Now 
>>you _may_ be getting into something managable. Now we're not just building 
>>a ship and waving goodbye to it.<<
>      
>It could've been this way.  I left my paper intentionally vague for just 
>this reason.  I write the historical facts.  I leave the logistics to 
>individual referees.

That's the very same mistake GDW keeps making. It's a technique that only
works if you have a good enough sense of proportion that your historical
facts lands within the realm of the possible. Furthermore, you again miss
the salient point of my argument: that even if the costs becomes reasonable
then moving the exportees to some planet one or two or three jumps away is
significantly cheaper than moving them NINE jumps. The use of ships to
relieve population pressure is expensive, and it won't work, but there 
could be other reasons that makes it worthwhile to the government (getting
rid of dissidents, propaganda value, etc.); the chioce of a planet some
way off may also make political sense that outweighs economic sense; but the 
chois of a planet NINE jumps away is unlikely to say the least. A matter of
simple economs.

>I don't think you'll find anyone who's travelled to the habitable zone of 
>any other systems besides this one, but I've always been willing to believe 
>that there are probably enough chemical variations in the universe to 
>support some pretty bizarre happenstances. Like maybe an atmosphere that is 
>slightly rich in carbon dioxide.  Not enough to hurt its status as a type-6 
>standard atmosphere, but enough to spur a somewhat extraordinary amount of 
>flora.

I still think that you can stuff the soils with chemicals and the air with
CO2 as much as you like but without water it's still going to be a desert.
However, I don't know enough about the subject to be dogmatic about it.
      
>>Sure. It's just that I firmly believe that in an "shared universe" like 
>>GDWs Traveller Universe it is not only polite to make every effort to fit 
>>your new material to what has been produced before, it is also, in the 
>>long run, the most expedient thing to do.
>
>I only lament that you don't feel I've done so.  

Well, on the point of when Mertactor was settled there's no question about
feelings. Yoy haven't. On the point about the colonists coming from Mora
it is a matter of feeling. I conceed that is't physically possible and
dosen't contradict any previously established fact. But I consider it 
sociologically unlikely. Not just unlikely to the point of being interesting
-  which is a thing I approve of; it enhances the ambience of the game when
things aren't exactly like one would expect it to be  -  but to the point
of being disruptive of my "suspension of disbelief". So, yes, it's just a
feeling. But there are still solid arguments behind the feeling.

>But then, I have no control over that.  

Yes you have. You can convince me that my arguments are wrong, or you can
let yourself be convinced that my arguments are right and change the info.
Either way will work just fine.

>I welcome you to freely edit or completely discard  my paper for the 
>purposes of your own campaign.

Hmmm... perhaps we've been arguing at cross-purposes. I thought that these
RICE papers were supposed to describe things as they might be in the GDW
universe. If you say that it just describes the way things are in YOUR
Traveller universe then a lot of my arguments are futile. I may still
think that you social dynamics are flawed, but then, you're perfectly
entitled to make your Traveller universe anything you like.

Svend Andersen wrote:
>Hans Rancke-Madsen made an interesting point about the financial costs of
>shipping excess population off-world.  Indeed, it seems hard to see why a
>government would spend so much, to send dissadents to a whole new star 
>system.
> 
>Now, I don't know whether this is a solution, or whether it's feasible, but -
>what about the colony ships used to settle Mora?  What happened to them?  
>Could they have been moth-balled, and then refurbished and used during this 
>transfer?

Possibly. But remember, the cost of running them is what I used to base my
second set of calculations on. That alone runs into money.
 
>I know there were some moth-balling rules somewhere, and you might have to
>have the government upgrading the Jump drive or something, and darned if I 
>know why whoever paid for the *Moran's* trip let them keep these valuable 
>pieces of hardware on ice... 

Exactly. If the Morans owned the original ships (First type of scenario)
then they would most propably have been dismantled to form the first
settlement (would have been designed to be thus dismantled); if they didn't
then the ships would have returned to the original world (Deneb, wasn't it?)

>but how would this suggestion affect the cost-worthiness of the proposal?

It helps, of course, but you're still stuck with the basic economic problem
that no matter what the costs, the closer to Mora you dump the exportees,
the more cost effective it is.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
------------
        "A  subsector  official  pompously states that the
        subsector  armed  forces  have  four Kinunir class
        ships in service,  each with enough troop strength
        to put down any military operations that threathen
        the peace of the Imperium."

                        ---Adventure 1, The Kinunir

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

Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 08:47:35 -0700
From: Christopher_Griffen@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Advanced Recruiting Rules:  Beta Version
Message-ID: <03ca7aa0@MailXFER.DMCWAVE.COM>

     I'm currently refereeing a Regency mercenary campaign and have found 
     that recruiting is a bit vague.  Other than making a die roll on your 
     Recruiting skill, I didn't know how else to make the process more 
     in-depth.  In my efforts to make recruiting interesting and more 
     challenging for my players and I've come up with the following.  
     Supplemented with a fair degree of roleplaying, these rules may just 
     work out.
     
     Criticism and suggestions are invited.  Thanks.
     
     --Chris
     
     
     
     RECRUITING:  ADVANCED RULES
     
     Recruiting involves the active pursuit of personnel to be hired for a 
     task, contract or long-term position.  Most often used in the 
     mercenary field, Recruiting skill enables its user to locate 
     individuals suitable for employment using a variety of methods.  These 
     methods include posting job listings in local publications and/or 
     computer bulletin boards, frequenting establishments at which the 
     desired personnel may be located, and networking with one's contacts 
     and other individuals who may come into contact with potential 
     recruits.
     
     Successful recruiting depends on a number of facets.  Among them are:
     
     --Recruiting Skill
     --Population
     --Sampling Rate
     --Military Proximity
     --Starport Level
     
     Recruiting skill is far and away the most important facet.  A good 
     recruiter can find potential recruits in just about any populated 
     environment.  The higher the recruiter's skill, the better he is at 
     beating the bushes for potential employees.
     
     Basically, recruiting depends on a successful task roll made at 
     Difficult level.  If the individual succeeds, he successfully locates 
     a qualified corps of potential recruits.  No success indicates an 
     inability to find viable recruits. Future attempts at recruiting in 
     that system will not be possible until two weeks have passed.  
     Catastrophic failure indicates the same as failure except that the 
     user cannot find any viable candidates for 30 days in that system.  At 
     the end of the established period, the recruiter may attempt to 
     recruit in the same system without penalty.  If the recruiting task 
     was successful, the individual may attempt to recruit in the same 
     system after two weeks have passed, modified by the appropriate DMs, 
     listed below.  Any attempts to do so before two weeks have passed will 
     meet with automatic failure.
     
     The following DMs are applied to recruiting rolls:
     
     
     Die Modifier (DM)
     
     ---------------------------------------------------
     RECRUITING SKILL    +Recruiting Skill (as per normal at Difficult 
     level)
     POPULATION          -1 if Low Pop     0 if Med Pop     +1 if High Pop 
     SAMPLING RATE (EFFECTS NOT CUMULATIVE)
     -2 if same system sampled within 30 days -1 if same system sampled 
     within 60 days
     0 if system not sampled within 60 days or more
     MILITARY PROXIMITY  +1 if naval base present and hiring ship's crew or
     mercenaries
     0 if no military base present
     +1 if Government 7 or Law Level 0-3 (and hiring mercenaries)
     STARPORT LEVEL      +1 if Starport A (+2 if recruiting trader crew)
     0 if Starport B-D (+1 if recruiting trader crew)
     -1 if Starport E-X (0 if recruiting trader crew)
     
     If the recruiter is successful, he is able to muster a number of 
     recruits equal to his Recruiting skill level (not his asset level, but 
     his skill level).  If he achieves exceptional success, he is able to 
     muster a number of potential recruits equal to twice his Recruiting 
     skill level, modified by the rules listed below.
     
     The potential recruits will present themselves within a number of days 
     equal to 2D/Recruiting Skill (drop fractions).  For example, Esteban 
     has a Recruiting skill level of 3.  A roll of 2D achieves a result of 
     7.  Dividing 7 by 3, we obtain 2.333 as our result.  Fractions are 
     dropped, for a final total of 2.  Esteban's recruits will appear 
     within two days of his initial Recruiting attempt.
     
     Ambitious referees may optionally choose to modify the above rules for 
     roleplaying purposes.  You may want to require several methods of 
     recruiting and apply appropriate DMs, depending on the ambitiousness 
     of the recruiting methods of your player(s).
     
     Attempts by multiple individuals to recruit may not be pooled together 
     for a more favorable DM.  Instead, each individual's recruiting task 
     is handled separately.  However, there is a maximum effectiveness that 
     one group can have in collective recruiting efforts.  To determine the 
     limitations on number of recruits, first determine the total 
     recruiting skill levels of the members of your group. If the number of 
     Recruiting skill points exceeds two times the planetary population UWP 
     digit, the total number of recruits beyond 2 x UWP is to be divided by 
     two (drop fractions).
     
     For example, Esteban and his group are rather prolific at recruiting.  
     The entire group, including Esteban, has 10 levels of Recruiting 
     skill.  Everyone achieves standard success on their Recruiting rolls.  
     They are recruiting from a planet with a population UWP digit of 4.  
     To find out the total number of recruits obtained, we subtract two 
     times the UWP digit (2 x 4 in this case, for a result of 8) from the 
     total levels of Recruiting skill (10).  The result is two.  We divide 
     this number by two to achieve a result of one.  Esteban and his group 
     therefore acquire a total of nine recruits.

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

Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 12:41:25 -0400
From: tcgny!uunet.uu.net!tcgny!berghold@uunet.uu.net (Peter L. Berghold)
To: Traveller Mailing List <uunet!MPGN.COM!traveller@uunet.uu.net>
Subject: RE: drive plume glow
Message-ID: <9508241644.AA04270@dinghy.tcg.com>


>Radio telescope can detect gas clouds glowing light years away...


Which brings up some interesting thoughts about detecting space craft from a
distance.  If a radio telescope can detect gas clouds, I wonder if part of
the sensor array on a warship (or other ships) would be very directional
radio recievers set to detect exhaust plumes from ships and/or missle
ordinance.  Or maybe the energy levels are too low?  How about detectors in
the noses of ordinance?  That would make for a nasty way of "locking on" to
a ship's engineering plant. 

That idea was offered (I believe) in Star Trek "The New Frontier" for a
photon torpedo's guidance system OBTW...
   

          _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
        _/ Peter L. Berghold                Voice: (718) 355-2722            _/
      _/   Teleport Communications Group    UUCP: uunet!tcgny!berghold      _/
    _/     MIS Dept.; Sr Unix Specialist    INTERNET: peterb@cnct.com      _/
  _/  "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it"   _/
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/


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

Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 12:46:09 -0400
From: tcgny!uunet.uu.net!tcgny!berghold@uunet.uu.net (Peter L. Berghold)
To: Traveller Mailing List <uunet!MPGN.COM!traveller@uunet.uu.net>
Subject: Relativity and its effects on navigation.
Message-ID: <9508241649.AA04325@dinghy.tcg.com>

I know some folks are going to groan when they read this and say "Oh no..
not this again" but I've gotta get this outta my system.

Just read Steven Hawkin's book "A Breif History of Time" and some of the
points raised in the book make for some interesting problems for Traveller
and space faring society at large.

Given that everything in the universe is moving (quickly!) how do you
calculate where things are in space?  The light you see from a distant star
system may or may not really give you a clue as to its location.  In the
time it takes for light or other radiation from a star system to get to you
the object has moved from the point it was when the light was emitted.  Same
for your perspective in space.  The place you are observing from is *also*
moving so that changes the "value" for the observation even more...

So what is a navigator to do?  This makes navigating in space REAL
interesting...
   

          _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
        _/ Peter L. Berghold                Voice: (718) 355-2722            _/
      _/   Teleport Communications Group    UUCP: uunet!tcgny!berghold      _/
    _/     MIS Dept.; Sr Unix Specialist    INTERNET: peterb@cnct.com      _/
  _/  "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it"   _/
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/


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

Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 10:17:34 -0700
From: Christopher_Griffen@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: M41A Pulse Rifle
Message-ID: <03cb4330@MailXFER.DMCWAVE.COM>

     Thanks, Liam.  Great piece of equipment.  They're going to start 
     mysteriously turning up in the Deneb Sector weapons market in my 
     campaign.  I look forward to seeing if the players in my group enjoy 
     the advantages it has over the ACR.  As noted, the range is a lot 
     shorter than that of the ACR.  Why is that?  Lower muzzle energy?
     
     At any rate, putting this in my campaign will enable my players to 
     better visualize combat since they have a cinematic reference.  Should 
     be fun.  Take care.
     
     --Chris

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

Date: Thu, 24 Aug 95 18:46 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Cc: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 386
Message-ID: <memo.468106@cix.compulink.co.uk>

In-Reply-To: <9508230150.AA04151@Rt66.com>


  > From: cmdrx@magicnet.net (Commander X) 
  > Subject: Hoverboards 
  >  
  > quoting from Mr. Boulton in Digest#385 (aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk):
  > 
  > > Talking of bizarre vehicles, I thought of a great one in the shower
  > > this morning - grav-boards! Surf-board + contragrav =3D very silly,
  > > but I've= 
  > just 
  > > gotta do it :-) Haven't attacked the idea with FF&S yet, but watch
  > > this space... 
  >  
  > I have been using these toys since MT days, but I converted them to
  > TNE. The original idea was to try to make a Hoverboard like from "Back
  > to the Future part II" but all I 
  > could do was make a hover surfboard.(The things heavy too! 86kg  :(

Yeah, I thought they'd be too big for a skateboard.

  > Total Mass:0.043tonnes(86kg<heavy!>) 

Huh? Shirly that's 43kg?

  > I hope that gives you some ideas Mr. Boulton.  Now that you have this,
  > you dont need to do all 
  > those calcultions in FF&S! Please feel free to correct, adjust,
  > improve(especialy the MASS!) or 
  > whatever. 

I was thinking of adding ducted fans for more thrust, and solar panels for
more power. If I get time, I'll try it tonight.

  > From: "Brendan O'Donovan" <Brendan@odonovan.demon.co.uk> To:
  > Subject: Re: HEPLAR & Fusion drives 
  >  
  > > Two related notes:  How big would the reaction mass "flame" behind
  > > a Heplar or fusion equipped ship be.  Since the reaction mass IIRC
  > > is around 10^6 C, shouldn't it be visible from a great distanc,
  > > like multiple AU? 
  > The flame would be very hot, but when travelling at a speed of 67 km/s
  > (4hexes per turn) or a similar order of magnitude, the reaction mass
  > expended would be spread out across such a large area that it would
  > not be easily visible. The exhaust near the ship would be hotter,
  > but the greatest signiture would come from the end of the ship heating
  > up, which would accumulate heat, rather than the exhaust itself. 

HEPLAR is used on air/rafts etc - isn't this a bit anti-social for use in
built-up areas?

---===---
Andrew Boulton

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

End of TRAVELLER Digest 389
***************************
