Subj:	TRAVELLER digest 393
Date:	95-08-28 08:54:52 EDT
From:	traveller@mpgn.com
Sender:	traveller@mpgn.com
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			    TRAVELLER Digest 393

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Re: Missiles
	by "Brendan O'Donovan" <Brendan@odonovan.demon.co.uk>
  2) Re: TRAVELLER digest 391
	by sturm@tiac.net (sturm)
  3) Mertactor debate
	by Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>

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

Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 13:09:09 GMT
From: "Brendan O'Donovan" <Brendan@odonovan.demon.co.uk>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Missiles
Message-ID: <73@odonovan.demon.co.uk>

:From the message dated Saturday 26, August 1995 :

> I have a 16 MJ laser for just that purpose.  It does -15 diffmods, and is 
around
> 1 ton displacement.  I'll post it this weekend if I get the chance.  I
would
> only put this on a CT/MT era ships (in quantity, that is) since I assume 
they'd
> all have to have common firecontrol computers so they all won't pick the
same 
> target to shoot.  I deal in CT stuff, mostly, so would this really be an 
issue?

Good point - under FFS rules each laser would need a separate crewmember to
fire 
it. A master fire director would probably be uneccesary at the ranges
involved, 
assuming the laser starts firing before the missile has almost closed to 
detonation range. Even though, the extra accommodations for the crew needed
to 
man hundreds of anti missile lasers needed to protect a ship against a
5,000ton+ 
missile carrier would be prohibitive, even on a larger cruiser, and even if
you 
designed the lasers to be really small. How about letting MFDs allow a single

gunner to fire a number of weapons equal to its normal -Diff mods, each
firing 
at a separate target, although without any accuracy benefit from the MFD. 

> 
> Seems it would require an integration of nav/FC computers that might be
> dangerous if you have the Virus around... 

I'd always wondered how the system where the crew pass on the data from one 
computer to the next computer in line worked to protect systems. If the crew 
could recognise whether the code is right or not, couldn't they have just 
generated it themselves with a pocket calculator? This seems to show that the

crew could only spot massive and blatant changes in the codes. Anyway, how 
much can you compress down a jump solution? Sure this protects against
further 
infection, but the virus could still control the actions of the subsidiary 
computers by feeding slightly erroneous codes to the crew. Integrating the 
ship's systems should be possible to do safely, as long as the communications

systems are completely isolated.

> 
> -Merrick
> 
 
How about using very small KKMs against detonation missiles? The tracking 
solution should be really easy as the KKM would never need to generate a fire

control solution, as it can home until contact. The detonation missile won't
be 
able to shoot down the KKM, and evasion wouldn't help much against a high
tech 
tracking system.

-- 
Brendan 

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

Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 10:24:12 -0400
From: sturm@tiac.net (sturm)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 391
Message-ID: <199508271424.KAA13902@zork.tiac.net>

I want to get off this mailing list.  Unsubscribe traveller@mpgn.com.  kill 
subscription.  terminate.  Just make it stop. 


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

Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 22:29:20 +0100 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Mertactor debate
Message-ID: <199508272029.WAA06588@embla.diku.dk>

Christopher Griffen writes:
>Hans Rancke-Madsen writes:
>      
>>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.<<
>      
>In Supplement 8, Library Data, I have the information to which I think 
>you're referring.  

Right.

>But can you tell me where it states exactly that _Mertactor_ was settled 
>in about 300, and not just that interstellar region?  

I suppose one might claim that the planet Mertactor wasn't colonized by
300, just the Mertactor system. Belters and such, I suppose. Otherwise
my argument goes as follows:

The 300 map shows a dotted line that encloses an area denoted as "settled"
(but not under Imperial control). The line goes right by Mertactor. If
Mertactor had been in the middle of the area, and unsettled, it might have 
been to complicated to show that it was unsettled. But Mertactor is right on 
the edge of the area. If Mertactor had been unsettled (or do I mean 'not 
settled'? ;-) in 300 then it would have been quite simple to draw the dotted 
line the other way round Mertactor and leave it in the 'not settled' area. 
Since this was not done, Mertactor must have been settled by 300. The 
argument is strengthed by looking at the year 400 and year 500 maps and note 
that the dotted line does move, presumably to reflect new settlements, and 
to note that the one planet we know about in the area, Tarsus, is outside 
the settled area on the y400 map and inside it on the y500 map, just as it 
should be according to other information.
      
>>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?<<
>
>I don't quite know what you mean here.  

I objected that exporting people was expensive. You responded that perhaps
Mora didn't foot the bill - perhaps the ships came from somewhere else (and
were thus paid by someone else). I responded that if the settlers came from 
somewhere else then Mertactor couldn't be said to be settled from _Mora_. 

>But I would like to know your views on my fuel scoops argument. Fuel scoops 
>eliminate the lion's share of the costs of interstellar travel.

Ahh! I missed that because I've been using Trillion Credit Squadron economics
for my arguments and they completely ignore fuel costs. No, I'm not terribly
impressed by the argument. Fuel costs are not the lion's share of 
interstellar travel costs. The most impressive is the cost of the ship and
(in TCS) the 10% yearly maintenance cost of same. Even with Book 2 economics
fuel skimming is very uneconomic. The time you loose while skimming cuts 
down on the number of jumps you can make per year but the maintenance costs 
and bank payments remain the same.

>>Have you actually thought a little about the figures involved?<<
>      
>Yes, I have.  But if you think whipping up a few figures on a calculator 
>gives you an accurate estimation of the cost, 

Oh, no, not accurate. But it gives us the best evidence we have and it does
give us a ballpark figure.

>I think we're coming from rather different angles.  My observations about 
>human motives are that as a race, we can be extremely irrational and do 
> things for reasons that our descendents will question as ludicrous.  

True.

>In short, anything is possible.  Cost doesn't factor into it.

Profoundly untrue. Whenever people have done something that didn't make
economic sense in the long run they may have managed in the short run,
but they've always been caught in the crash eventually. It's like... no
it IS a law of nature: You can keep piling stones on top of each other
for a while, but eventually they're going to come tumbling down.

>Pick up a book on any region's history and you'll find descriptions of 
>enterprises that were foolishly conceived and poorly planned.  

Yes, but those were also funded by someone; someone foolish, perhaps, but
someone with ressources. That's not what I object to. My objection is 
that it's a government that's funding this particular foolishness and
that it's not the kind of foolishness governments indulge in. Governments
are far more apt to err through spending too FEW money on a project.

>My world view is that we often do stupid or even crazy things, 

Yes, but never without a reason that seems good at the time. What reason
would the Moran government have for spending all that money to get rid of
these people when they could have gotten rid of them for 1/3rd the cost?

>How about this:  1) I deport the colonists from Fornice or Glisten 
>instead of Mora, and 2) I change the date to 305 or thereabouts?  Let 
> me know what you think.

Ooops, I've left my Spinward Marches file at home. I can't remember if
there's ever been any information on when Fornice was settled. Glisten was
settled in 298, so it's propably a bit early to feel population pressure.
In fact, it's a little early to feel population pressure even on Mora IMO.
However there's no reason the settlers can't be from Mora. What I doubt is 
that they have been moved there at government expense. Note that it is in
the 'settled, but not Imperial' area, so it's not an official colony of
any Imperial government (since otherwise it would be an Imperial planet
itself). You could keep most of what you wrote by making the settlers Morans
who were wealthy, but persecuted (advocates of patriachy? polygamists? 
garlic fanciers?). That way their move to a spot so far from Mora makes 
sense. As for the date, now that you've moved it that close to 300, could 
you put it a little before 300 to keep the map honest? ;-).


      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

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

End of TRAVELLER Digest 393
***************************


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