Subj:	TRAVELLER digest 399
Date:	95-09-02 13:50:45 EDT
From:	traveller@mpgn.com
Sender:	traveller@mpgn.com
Reply-to:	traveller@mpgn.com
To:	traveller@mpgn.com (Multiple recipients of list)

			    TRAVELLER Digest 399

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) canonical list of TNE publications?	by jhc@hostel.lincroftnj.attgis.com (Jonathan Clark)
  2) Re: Plasma trails, targeting	by "Brendan O'Donovan" <Brendan@odonovan.demon.co.uk>
  3) Re: Ship Yards & collapse	by "Svenson G N" <svenson_g_n@space.honeywell.com>
  4) Re: TL9 Shipbuilding	by "Brendan O'Donovan" <Brendan@odonovan.demon.co.uk>
  5) Re: Plasma Trails, Missiles	by merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
  6) Re: Regency Sourcebook rumors	by Steven Bonneville <bonnevil@itlabs.umn.edu>
  7) MHD turbines	by John Muir Macpherson <muirmac@uclink.berkeley.edu>
  8) Re: Beginner needs help	by merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
  9) Re: FF&S Weapon Design question...	by Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
 10) Re: Building Futures	by Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)

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

Date: Fri, 1 Sep 95 14:31 EDT
From: jhc@hostel.lincroftnj.attgis.com (Jonathan Clark)
To: MPGN.COM!traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: canonical list of TNE publications?
Message-ID: <9509011432.AA28785@hostel.lincroftnj.attgis.com>

I'm looking for a list of sourcebooks that
I might use as a GM in a TNE campaign.

Could some kind person publish or mail me a list
of what RPG books and other products GDW (or anyone else)
has published for the TNE Universe? Also what's upcoming?

Thanks in advance...

Jonathan

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

Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 18:20:28 GMT
From: "Brendan O'Donovan" <Brendan@odonovan.demon.co.uk>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Plasma trails, targeting
Message-ID: <75@odonovan.demon.co.uk>

In your message dated Friday 1, September 1995 you wrote :
> 	We've established that you can see a plasma trail, and therefore 
> bogies under thrust, from a long way off.  So why can't you target-lock 
> them?  One idea that occurred to me was that while all that radiated 
> energy in the plasma exhaust may make it easier for a bogie detection, it 
> may actually make target locks _more_ difficult.  Think of it as trying 
> to target someone standing behind a spot light.  Next to the enormous 

Maybe, but while the missile is thrusting, it is better to think of the
exhaust 
as a big obvious pointer leading exactly to the end of the missile. If it 
stopped thrusting, it might be comparitively invisible until it left its
exhaust 
far enough behind, though.
> 
> 	Someone mentioned that Heplar had to be a fusion rocket based on 
> the KE of the exhaust.  Why is this so?  Couldn't a fusion NERVA-type 
> engine produce exhausts with KE's just as good as a fusion drive?  Is 
> there a relevant upper limit on the plasma temps one can create by 
> heating from a fusion plant, other than the temp of the plant itself?

I might be wrong, but if you heat the hydrogen up to the temperature of the 
reactor core, its no longer a plasma, but instead starts to fuse itself 
(although you're not maintaining the same kind of pressure, so maybe not).

Maybe we should stop trying to explain thruster technology from millenia
ahead 
in terms of current projected technology. Traveller HEPlaR is best defined as

RRGRMUTT (really really good reaction-mass-using thruster technology). Its 
distinguishing features (from TNE canon) are
1/Its really very fuel efficient
2/It generates massive thrust
3/Its okay to stand within a meter or two of one on a small vehicle, or
around 
ten to twenty meters of it on a starship. (I'm open to suggestions on this
one, 
but that seems about right)
4/It doesn't heat up the reaction mass enough to make the exhaust visible

How does it work? Dunno. Mumble something about major gravitic acceleration
of 
the reaction mass (no ions, no plasma). Ignore what FFS says about it being 
plasma if you have any players who know better ("I know you've got a PhD in 
Physics, but this is a really special kind of plasma you've never heard of 
before") otherwise use it, what's the difference, a rose by any other name,
and 
so on.
> 
> 	--Muir
> 

-- 
Brendan 

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

Date: 1 Sep 1995 15:08:00 U
From: "Svenson G N" <svenson_g_n@space.honeywell.com>
To: "James Kundert" <james@dumbcat.sf.ca.us>, "Traveller"
<traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: Re: Ship Yards & collapse
Message-ID: <199509011920.PAA11726@Mithril.MPGN.COM>

>Date: Thu, 31 Aug 95 22:56:49 PDT
>From: James Kundert <james@dumbcat.sf.ca.us>:

>details snipped

James, thank you very much for your post on ship yards from "Trillion Credit
Squadron". That was what I was looking for! I have heard alittle about that
book but don't have access to it. I really appreciate the information!

>Another point. Why has Mnemosyne been Collapsed? It is well behind the
>Quarantine line and unlikely to have been hit by Virus. It is also part
>of an organized state that could protect its own borders.

On your question as to why I collapsed Mnemosyne: after my reading of the
"Traveller: The New Era" and "Survival Margins" rule books as far as the
spread
of the virus, there was no mention of anyone outside of the Zhodani empire
and
the states in Deneb, Spinward Marches and Trojan Reaches plus some of the
Reft
and Riftspan Reaches.

I made the assumption that the virus would travel coreward of the Zhodani and
also cross the reft spinward of the Aslan Hierate and hit the region spinward
of the Regency as well. I assumed that the Quarantine ran up the spinward
side
of the Spinward March and Trojan Reach sectors, extending a little bit into
The
Beyond to areas where the Aslan were in control. I took it that the minor
states to spinward did not have the communications network to get the warning
or military strength to protect themselves from the virus when it arrived. I
based that on the fact that so many empires went under to the virus,
Solomani,
K'kree, Aslan, the Villani and to some extent the Hivers (I havn't read the
new
Hiver sourcebook or "Vampire Fleets").

Have I missed something (quite possible)?

Enlighten me please!

Thanks,
Greg Svenson
gsvenson@space.honewell.com
gsvenson@aol.com

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

Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 18:32:41 GMT
From: "Brendan O'Donovan" <Brendan@odonovan.demon.co.uk>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TL9 Shipbuilding
Message-ID: <76@odonovan.demon.co.uk>

James wrote :

>   According to a _really_ old source (Trillion Credit Squadron), a world
> with a class A or B port can handle roughly one-thousandth of its
> population in ship tonnage in its drydocks. This maximum applies to the
total
> of all ships being built, all ships being repaired, and all ships in for
> yearly maintenance, added together. The actual number varies depending on
> government type and whether or not the world is on a war footing
economically.

This is good news for my own TL9 pocket empire. A world with a population of
5 
billion could support 5 million tonnes of ship, that's about 350,000 
displacement tonnes. While a small to medium TL9 ship is quite laughable to a

TL12 ship, a 100,000 rate cruiser built at TL9 would be scary even to the 
Coalition's big clippers, and this would be within reach of a high
population, 
aggressively expansionist world. Fun :-). I'll post it and my pocket empire's

background once I've finished them off. 

Whatever the problems of Wilds and RCES campaigns, we should thank GDW for 
making us design ships at TL12 and less. In MT days, the broadly TL14/15 
Imperium made it all too tempting to go for the higher tech designs.

-- 
Brendan 

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

Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 14:10:33 -0600 (MDT)
From: merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Plasma Trails, Missiles
Message-ID: <9509012010.AA14287@Rt66.com>

Hi,
 
> Try this on for size, and it is (near) realistic. When someone use active 
> sensor, take the active sensor short range and multiply with 2. Within this

> range the task to detect are easy. Increase the difficulty as you move 
> outwards in rangebands. The Extreme rangeband wil go far out as 160 hexes 
> for an active sensor with a short range of 10.. Outside this the task 
> becomes impossible. 

My Bogey Detection Rules in a nutshell :-) (you have 'em now, take a
look)
 
> >Actually, FFS/BL has rules for many of the things you mentioned.
> >Jamming, chaff, flares, decoys.  They attempt to have actives penalized,
> >but it is too weak a rule.  If they rules are written well, it won't be
> >any harder than BL as it stands.  I just record the basic modifiers a
> >ship has on the control shett.
> Jamming yes, but not in a sense that makes lay men understand waht jamming 
> means. Chaff and flares? Naah.

Yeah they do!  FFS, *not* BL.  Its right there in the rules, number of
flares/chaff popped per turn per hexside, etc..  Don't have FFS in from
of me, but it's right next to the EMM/Stealth stuff.  Really.

> Sorry haven't played MayDay. 

Too bad, it was a good game.  In a nutshell (for those of you who don't
have Mayday, Triplanetary, or Battle Rider):  Each ship/missile/whatever
has a past, present, and future position marker.  You change course by
using gturns to alter the future position counter, then move all the
counters up a notch when you've decided where the future position should
be. (past goes to present, present to future, then you plot ahead to the
new future position based on the vector between past and present).

This allows more precise maneuvering.

> >PEMS *is* a telescope (broad band detector covers damn near all
> >wavelengths).  It will make hitting with a passive lock harder, though.
> >Hmmm.  If the target is a 2g scout, and the missile is 12gs, it really
> >won't matter though.
> It will. I'll show you the math. I now assume that we remote control the 
> missile. The target are 10 hexes away from the controlling unit. The
missile 
> are moving with a speed of 10 hexes, while the target is moving 5 hexes a 
> turn. Com lag is roughly 1 second, and the detection lag is the same (the 
> time EM radiation goes from the target to the passive sensing unit). This 
> gives us a lag of about 2 seconds. The Scout is moving at a velocity of 
> 83333 meters a second. The missile twice as far. When a course correction 
> comes from the controlling unit, the target has moved 166666 meters, 
> including what ever it manages to increase and decrease of velocity in
these 
> seconds, and course alterations too. If this missile is impact oriented, it

> will never hit. And the situation becomes worse if the attacker are using 
> active radar. In additon as the missile tries to close. it is just x and y 
> coordinates that the defender needs to put down to nail the missile with a 
> laser shot. This is the reason that I never liked the big hex/time scales
of 
> Traveller space combat. It's just too large to make any real sense.
 
So you're saying docking is impossible?  Or at least boarding.  Besides
if the missile is FIM, then the lag is only 1 second.  And as it gets
closer, the lag is less and less.  My KKM rules *require* a missile to
have its own guidance for this very reason.  I never said hitting would
be easy, just that it would not be impossible (as GDW says).

If the scout is moving 5, it can alter its future position by two hexes
on either side of its future position.  This gives a cone of space where
the scout *has* to be during the turn---and a plane (line in the game)
where it has to be at a given moment.  Knowing which way the scout is
thrusting would be a requisite part of an intercept solution, otherwise
it'd be pure luck.  Also, at the point of time you mention above, the
missile has 200,000 meters per second of delta V available (12gturns) 
Assuming the inital coasting vector puts it more or less in the path of
the target, it should hit. Besides which, it needs to get to the same
hex even if it is a det-laser missile.

>  
> >Also I thought it might be useful to give missiles a program like: "use no

> >more than 2 gturns per turn if you cannot intercept *that* turn".. That 
> >way you don't get a missile using its full 12gturns when it it too far to 
> >hit.
> It sounds interesting, but alas missiles tend to work poorly in the scale 
> Traveller present its space combat. Never liked the time and hex scale. 
> Would rather see something like 1000Km hex and 1 minute turn or something.
 
The scale may indeed be a bit off, but what if the missile isn't seen
until it fits in the shorter range scale?  You seem to be saying a
missile could never hit the target.  If the detection/launch range was
30,000km instead of 300,000km (still with 200 km/s delta v) would it
hit? 



-Merrick

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

Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 18:21:13 -0500
From: Steven Bonneville <bonnevil@itlabs.umn.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Regency Sourcebook rumors
Message-ID: <199509012321.SAA03871@dino.itlabs.umn.edu>

Christopher_Griffen@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen) wrote:

>     Mora has been elevated to tech level 16.  I think this is the only 
>     world to be elevated as such.  I would guess that the other worlds 
>     rated this high are Depot/Deneb, Vincennes/Deneb, Daryen/Spinward 
>     Marches, Tobia/Trojan Reaches and possibly Pashus/Deneb.  From what I 
>     understand, though, Mora and Vincennes are the only two TL-16 worlds 
>     on which consumer products are readily available.

Interesting.  This suggests that the "HIWG Regency" data that is in the
archive was not used.  Tobia is probably still tech-15; tech-16 is from
Leroy's archive files.  Of the "sixteeners" that remain, in 1120 their 
vital stats were:
  Vincennes/Vincennes   Twenty billion, industrial, subsector capital.
  Mora/Mora             Ten billion, industrial, domain capital.
  Darrian/Darrian       Two billion, Confederation capital, special case.
                        Not Regency, either, unless something's changed....
  Depot/Inar            Two million, naval depot. 
  Pashus/Zeng           Eighty thousand, research station Zeta in Deneb.
                        Already tech-16 in the 1100s.

Yeah, Vincennes and Mora look like the only consumer product sources at
tech-16 if that's true.  

Oh, and:
>     For one, the First Regent is one Coranda Alkhalikoi-Aledon, son of

Caranda, probably.  Caranda was the first Duke of Regina, elevated from
baron by the first emperor of the Alkhalikoi dynasty, Grand Admiral of
the Marches Arbellatra Alkhalikoi -- he gave great support to her move
to become Regent of the Imperium, and later Empress.  If you have World
Builder's Handbook by DGP, you can see on the map that a large island 
on Regina is named after him.  This would be a *very* nice touch, if 
it's true too.

  Steve Bonneville
  <bonn0015@tc.umn.edu>


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

Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 17:08:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: John Muir Macpherson <muirmac@uclink.berkeley.edu>
To: Traveller Mailing List <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: MHD turbines
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9509011658.B15356-0100000@uclink.berkeley.edu>

	I'm trying to convert TNE for use in a 2300AD-type campaign and I'd 
like to know what the upper limit on MHD turbine performance is in terms 
of MW's of output per unit fuel.  Also, does anyone know what the heck 
the MHD recombustion chambers used for atmospheric travel in 2300 are 
supposed to be or how they work?
	Looking through my old Challenges, I found a description of a 
good low-tech atmospheric thruster that could be a "friendly"  variant of 
Heplar.  It appeared in Challenge #33 in an article called "Three Blind 
Mice"  by David Nilsen and all copyrights etc, belong to those people.
	"Fortunately, it proved possible to modify the new technology 
fission plant to double as an atmospheric re-entry thruster.  Scramjet 
inlets allow high speed air to be passed over the heat exchange coils, 
where they are heated an expanded to provide sufficient thrust at high 
altitudes.  At low altitudes, when taking off or landing, additional 
reaction mass is needed.  This is provided in the form of liquid hydrogen 
which is mixed with the air at the heating coils -- they combine 
explosively and provide the additional thrust needed, leaving only water 
vapor as a waste product."
	Anyone want to take a stab at performance for this drive?

	--Muir

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

Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 18:04:40 -0600 (MDT)
From: merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Beginner needs help
Message-ID: <9509020004.AA29269@Rt66.com>

> Hi everybody,

Howdy,
 
> I just got T:TNE (Deluxe Edition with FF&S), BL and BR sent from my 
> cousin...
> I like the system, esp. the starship rules. However, I'm interested 
> in getting the full stats of the ships provided in Battle Riders, to 
> give me an idea what to take into account if I want to build large 
> ships like Battle Riders, Battleships, Tenders etc (I plan to start 
> my own campaign, with my own powers, which I need to desgin ships 
> for). Does anybody know where to find such stats?

Hehehe.  They don't exist ('cept the ones in BL).  You can use the rules
for converting BL ships to BR ships backwards to at least get the
tonnages of the ships.  There have been a few designs for big ships
posted on the TML, I know they're archived and you can get 'em.  There
are a few basic "rules" for military ships (that I can think of):

1.  Look at the BR damage values chart (in the back of the BR
rulebook)--those are the nubers you need to shoot for in a design (why
make a meson gun that does 499 in BL when 1 more dmage point will make
it jump from 9 to 10 in BR?).

2.  Big ships can have big armor.  A battleship can easily have a BR
armor of 20 (armor gets tonnage % cheap with increased size).

3.  The conversion rules from BL to BR are broken regarding number of
missiles controlled (they count one per MFD instead of MFDs*FC rating).
Missiles are nasty in BR, carry a lot of them :)  (there are 50ton bay
designs in the archives that hold/control 36 missiles)

4.  Add an aux bridge (it'll negate a bridge hit in BR).

5.  Start with 50 gturns (~22% of ship) and only add more if you have
room later.

6.  Since missiles are good, have a bunch of small anti-missile lasers
(hundreds on a big ship)---don't bother with dampers til they have some
damper screens that work over a wide area (the ones in FFS will kill a
missile less often than a small laser).

7.  It isn't really in the rules, but in a design for BL divide the
HEPlaR reignition chambers into a few smaller ones.  They'll be easier
to kill, but one mdrive hit won't kill you dead (and even though most
canon ships seem to have multiple nozzles, they have one hit area in
BL--we did this early on so a character's Gazelle wouldn't have a 1 shot
kill against it. 

8.+  I'll write more if I think of 'em :)

-Merrick

PS-it makes a difference if you use house rules, obviously (they stuff
above isn't based on my house rules, BTW)

> 
> Thanks a lot in advance
> 
> Joerg
> 


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

Date: 02 Sep 1995 02:02:12 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: FF&S Weapon Design question...
Message-ID: <1949097981.173400414@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca>

As a guess, treat the attack like a barrage.  I don't know whether this would
be area fire or multiple precision attacks (looking at Striker II); if I had
to choose, I'd pick precision attacks with deviation rolled separately for
each round.
han Wet Navy.  This will penalize you, I'm
afraid, especially as there are no longer scale efficiencies.

3) Use the Wet Navy transmissions.

4) Use Wet Navy armour and superstructure rules.  Design weapons with FFS.

5) Use Wet Navy crews, but reduce accomodation requirements for primitive
ships (tech 0-3): even deck space is good enough for a low-tech crew!

6) Really high-tech ships may want better propulsors, as we no longer have
grav thrusters and heplar underwater can't be stealthed!  Suggestions?  (I
haven't had a chance to work on this yet.)  Remember to consider implications
and crossover effects.

7)  The Wet Navy calculations for speed etc. are still valid.  (They should
be: formulae created by a Royal navy ship designer!)  


I haven't covered everything, but this should get you going.

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

Date: 02 Sep 1995 02:41:50 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Building Futures
Message-ID: <3642290142.173580611@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca>

The article was originally printed in an Analog (1990, March, April or May I
think).  It is reprinted in "Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy", published
by St, Martins Press.

Barnes is an interesting writer, and this essay comes with a huge list of
suggested reading, some of it quite technical.


Anything you can find by Dr. Gillett will also help for physical
worldbuilding.

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

End of TRAVELLER Digest 399
***************************
