			    TRAVELLER Digest 438

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Re: TRAVELLER digest 437 by George Herbert <gherbert@crl.com>
  2) Starship design commission... by "C. Pratt" <capratt@u.washington.edu>
  3) FF&S starship design help please by Bill Currie <BILLC@teleng1.tait.co.nz>
  4) FF&S/Distributior gripe by Bri <bri@teleport.com>
  5) Re: Surface area of starships by "Upton, Django" <DUpton@vtrnntov.telecom.com.au>
  6) Re: Differing armour thicknessess by "Upton, Django" <DUpton@vtrnntov.telecom.com.au>
  7) Pocket Empire by john.bogan@asb.com
  8) Point Defense by John Muir Macpherson <muirmac@uclink.berkeley.edu>
  9) by library@dss.gov.au (DSS Library)
 10) RE: Time Travel/Misjumps by David Elrick <Dave.Elrick@ps.co.uk>
 11) Lasers and missiles by alvin.plummer@sheridanc.on.ca
 12) Re: Point Defense by merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
 13) Materials question:  Clear Bonded Superdense? by Christopher_Griffen@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen)

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

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 14:43:30 -0700
From: George Herbert <gherbert@crl.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Cc: gherbert@crl.com
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 437 
Message-ID: <199510042143.AA23485@mail.crl.com>


Regarding the hull surface area issue... ignore it unless you're
doing something silly with oversize EMS arrays.  I never run out of
surface area in any of my designs; I think it was a silly thing to
add to the rules and a waste of space and effort.

-george

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

Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 16:24:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: "C. Pratt" <capratt@u.washington.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Starship design commission...
Message-ID: <Pine.A32.3.91j.951004161920.4358A-100000@homer16.u.washington.edu>


If someone has any spare time on their hands, and would like to help out 
someone who isnt graced with owning FF&S, would said person be interested 
in designing a ship for a primarily diplomatic role (i.e. _fast_, but not 
too heavily armed) with a crew compliment of between 35 and 60 and a 
pricetag around 250 MCr.   The ship should employ the highest possible 
technology, and be of the best possible construction (again i.e. if that 
means the ship has to be smaller to come in at around 250 MCr, so be 
it).   I see a lot of vehicles posted to this list so I assume that there 
are a lot of hobbyist ship designers out there.   If you have any 
question feel free to contact me at this email address.   Thanks in advance.


"Storm the Reality Studio. And retake the universe." -- William S. Burroughs
        Charles Pratt capratt@u.washington.edu -- when in doubt, sail.


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

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 12:41:37 +1100
From: Bill Currie <BILLC@teleng1.tait.co.nz>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: FF&S starship design help please
Message-ID: <19931042D8E@teleng1.tait.co.nz>

Could anyone who has succecfully designed a starship with FF&S please 
send me a copy of their design notes so that I can get started on 
designing my own ships, as I find FF&S a little confusing and there 
aren't any design exapmles for starships.

TIA
Bill
+--------------+-----------------------------------+
|Bill Currie   | "Watch that first step..."        |
|Christchurch  | Jump trooper motto.               |
|New Zealand   |                                   |
+--------------+-----------------------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 17:51:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bri <bri@teleport.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: FF&S/Distributior gripe
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.951004174915.4699A-100000@linda.teleport.com>

 well, after selling my old(1st ed) FF&S, and ordering from a new one 
with my local gaming store(The latest version they had was Mk1Mod1), I 
get the 1st verison with the friggin upgrade booklets.
 This is a little grip, I wish distributiors would keep up-todate books, 
especialley when they're 2vers out of date.
 I hate those little upgrade booklets and sheets :(
 
bri


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

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 95 12:02:00 EST
From: "Upton, Django" <DUpton@vtrnntov.telecom.com.au>
To: Roger Myhre <myhre@oslonett.no>, tml <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: Re: Surface area of starships
Message-ID: <30745625@msmailv0.telecom.com.au>


Roger Myhre  <myhre@oslonett.no> writes:

 --------------------
I have run into a problem, or rather several. I and I would appreciate that
GDW could answer this. Both privately, and CC: this list.

The problem is surface area.

The rules states that the SA is equal MV*100. Also this is modified by hull
form. How much? Shall I use the MVM modifier on the hull form table?
 --------------------

Hah! Easy!
>From memory (I don't have FF&S at work with me :) SA=MVM*MV*100

 --------------------
The Players' Forms (PF) book states that SA equals FMV*100. While I also got 

a letter from GDW where I asked about this before PF was released, and they
answered that hull thickness does not affect the SA value. But as it stands
in PF it does so.
 --------------------

That's because the form in PF is wrong!
I seem to remember a few more discrepancies between FF&S and PF,
10 points to the first person to post a list of them :-)

 --------------------
What is right? I'm currently working on a spreadsheet for starship design,
and would like to know before I finish the thing off.
 --------------------

Why didn't you just work it out from the formulae for the various geometric 
solids that the hull configurations use?

The basic hull form in FF&S is the sphere.
The following formulae allow you to find the SA of a sphere given it's 
volume:

Volume of a sphere = (4/3)*pi*r^3  (m^3)

SA of a sphere = 4*pi*r^2  (m^2)

r = (SA/(4*pi))^(1/2) = ((3*Vol)/(4*pi))^(1/3)  (m)

=> SA = 4*pi*((3*Vol)/(4*pi))^(2/3)  (m^2)

The MV rating is for a hull thickness of 1cm. Therefore to get the SA from 
MV you simply multiply by 100*MVM.
FF&S determines FMV by simply multiplying MV by the MVM by the armour 
thickness in cm (this actually produces distorted results, particularly for 
small ships with lots of armour, although the difference for most designs is 
small; perhaps there is a bit extra around airlocks, hatches, turrets etc).

The MVM ratings for the other hull configurations are correct (well correct 
to the nearest decimal point)  for the length ratings given.

Django.

NOT from GDW ;)

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

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 95 12:15:00 EST
From: "Upton, Django" <DUpton@vtrnntov.telecom.com.au>
To: hiwg-list <hiwg-list@fwe.com>, myhre <myhre@oslonett.no>,
Subject: Re: Differing armour thicknessess
Message-ID: <30745A6D@msmailv0.telecom.com.au>


Roger Myhre <myhre@oslonett.no> writes:

 --------------------
I'm at the moment working on a spreadsheet with the following features:
 -Calculating Maneuver gee after thrust weight ratio
 -Standard Maneuver design procedure
 -Variable armor thickness
 -Environment controls in habitat areas only

The concept of variable armor is that the front 5 sections will have thicker 

armor to conform with the maneuver gee*10, while the 15 other sections can
have any thickness.
 --------------------

The 10*g limitation is BS anyway because the level of protection required 
against micrometeors etc varies with the ships relative velocity NOT 
acceleration!

IF you use the 10*g limitation then what happens to your ship when it turns 
around to decelerate?

<stuff about the benefits of less armour on ships performance deleted>

I don't see why you can't have variable armour anyway, there are rules for 
it (armouring specific locations).

Django.


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

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 95 22:48:20 -0500
From: john.bogan@asb.com
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Pocket Empire
Message-ID: <9510042248.0W1DC0F@asb.com>


> The book is interesting, and well worth the read, even if you are an RC 
> fan.  There needs to be much, much more, however.  I can't see how GDW 
> a deuately cover both the RC and the Regency.  Quick, somebody start 
> demanding coverage for your favorite Pocket Empire!

Gralyn Union! Gralyn Union!

Oh, wait... I have to write that ...

damn...


John Bogan  (smileys for anyone who can't detect them)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Calling the Imperium 'sick' and 'fatally diseased' is a lie of convenience.
 In 1116, he was given a choice, and chose the path that meant war.
 In 1123, he was one of the few beings in a position to have even a
 chance of taking out one of the engines driving the war on and on.
 Under such circumstances, those of conviction might feel compelled
 to take action, to do something to actually SAVE lives by ending the
 chaos. But if one feels the whole system is 'sick', it's easier to
 rationalize cowardice. So instead, he fled and gained a reputation for 
 'wisdom' by spouting nice but effectively useless platitudes.

"Ililek Kuligan is one of the most morally bankrupt beings in ten thousand 
 years of human history"
                                           --- Alfonz Ozaky, Aubaine 1201

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

Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 22:05:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: John Muir Macpherson <muirmac@uclink.berkeley.edu>
To: Traveller Mailing List <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: Point Defense
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9510042123.A2203-0100000@uclink.berkeley.edu>


I'm glad to see someone propose a workable system for point defense.  I 
have a few questions though.

>TASK RESOLUTION
>
>When all the targets has been designated. The die is rolled for resolve hits
>against the missiles. The asset of a PD is its difficulty modifier times 
>3. If the PD is crewed use the crew skill level if the crew interfere 
>with the operation in any way, or if the crew asset is higher than the PD 
>mount asset.

	When you say the asset is based on diff mod, do you mean that the 
diff mod for overpowering is considered twice, first to determine the asset 
and then as a diff mod for the difficulty of hitting the target?  Even if 
it is only used once, why is it based on this rather than on the computer 
or operator?  This means that a TL 10 PD weapon has as much a chance to 
hit a missile as a TL 15 weapon.  Of course the TL15 gun can fire at 
_more_ missiles, but for a given target it is no more accurate.
	In regard to installing a computer with the PD gun to allow it to 
fire on multiple targets: can I install computers on all my guns to 
allow them to fire at multiple targets other than missiles, like ships?  
If I can, then why don't all guns have these computers installed as a 
matter of course?  My point is that I suspect that the gunner's 
workstation contains enough computing power to do this, and if it 
doesn't then it should.
	I think we have to decide whether point defense can only be 
conducted by specialized systems or whether the rules for multiple 
targeting should apply to all weapons.  I lean toward the latter.  By the 
tech levels we're talking about I think that computing power is 
ubiquitous enough that it does not require too much additional hardware 
to fire at multiple targets when the overpowering exists to do so.
	My suggestion is that firing at multiple targets is possible for 
all weapons, but only for targets which are very close, say 10,000km or 
less.  This allows point defense against KKMs but preserves the 
BL rules as written for det-lasers.  Exactly how many different targets 
could be fired upon or at what difficulty, I don't know.  That's why I'm 
glad this thread was started. :-)

	--Muir

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

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 17:48:36 -0500
From: library@dss.gov.au (DSS Library)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Message-ID: <199510060047.RAA00984@babylon5.dss.gov.au>

Dear Folks -

1.      TAVONNI/VILIS

I directly asked Chris Griffen for Tavonni's TNE stats. He replied:
>     Per your request, here are the stats for Tavonni/Vilis in the New Era: 
>     B567642-D S Ag Ni Ri 434
>     Did your suggestions make it in? Those are considerable modifications,
>     considering that the original UWP was E567000-7.

I replied:
>     You little beauty, Chris! The stats from our campaign have made it into
>     "real" Traveller!! Gee, I better do a RICE Paper or something and get
>     this published ASAP!

Chris replied:
>     Hey, that's cool!  Those are really the stats from _your_ campaign?  
>     I've always wanted to have some sort of lasting effect on Traveller 
>     history.  Congratulations!

Answer: those are the stats I gave GDW via Mike Mikesh. They are slightly
different from the stats in my campaign, but I thought they would be more
believable. I sent Mike all of my DM's notes, which are really only a
rough draft of Tavonni (where is World Tamers Handbook?? What do you mean,
all the shipping containers are filled with CARDS? Chuck them out and put
in some REAL gaming material!). Even this was 10-15 pages long! I also
sent Mike and Dave Nilsen a rough timeline for Tavonni from 1100-1201.

I want to do a RICE Paper on Tavonni, but I am still stuck for system
stats. The ones I use I rolled from _Scouts_ and _Grand Survey_; does anyone
know how much different the *new* official system is? I may just post the
current stats, and let you folks tell me what is wrong.

Also, no-one has answered my query on sending RICE Papers to this list.
>From GDW's standpoint (who want first publishing rights), does this list
constitute "publishing" or is it just mail? Hopefully the latter, as it
doesn't purport to be a 'zine - and it is to GDW's benefit if list comments
are able to knock the rough edges off someone's you-beaut paper (gives
them less headaches if it is submitted for publication).

2.      3D SPACE

A quick and dirty halfway solution is to use Marcus L. Rowland's World
Generator program. It creates a fake 3D space, where systems are at different
"heights" in a cubic area of space - but only one exists per vertical axis.
Distances between worlds are available from one of the menu options;
select your starting world, and distances to others are shown in light-years.

This idea has been suggested a number of times to explain the unrealistic 2D
Imperial maps - that is, that the maps are "really" 3D, with systems at
different
"depths". Just don't think about this explaination too much and you won't see
the holes. Me - I like simplicity, as without something to easily display 3D
space, I can't visualise it well enough to understand it and run a campaign.

3.      EFATE

Alvin, I will try to send you all I can find on F8. However, it may be by
snail mail - I don't feel like typing in 10+ pages of data.

- Hyphen
 (David Jaques-Watson)


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

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 95 12:42:00 PDT
From: David Elrick <Dave.Elrick@ps.co.uk>
To: "traveller%mpgn.com" <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: RE: Time Travel/Misjumps
Message-ID: <307435D5@pc136>



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

> is there any precedent in Traveller for a misjump taking a ship back in
> time?

I used the 1980 (1981 maybe?) film "The Final Countdown" [the one with Kirk 
Douglas as captain of the Nimitz] as the source for a time-travel adventure 
some years ago now. Basically, the PCs were heading for Rhylanor during the 
Fifth Frontier War and due to a jump-space anomaly (translation: they rolled 
a misjump and I wanted to keep them in the area they were in), they 
travelled back in time to the Zhodani assault during the Third Frontier War 
(I think - I don't have my notes to hand and it was a few years ago). They 
enjoyed it anyway.

>Or more subtle - the players are investigating the world mentioned above, 
in
> the New Era, and in a deep hangar they discover what appears to be a
> Coalition Clipper, although its registration indicates it has not yet been
> constructed...

Try reading "Sphere" by Michael Chrichton for some ideas of how this might 
go.

Kind Regards

Dave Elrick

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

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 09:36:38 -0400
From: alvin.plummer@sheridanc.on.ca
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Lasers and missiles
Message-ID: <9510051336.AA23877@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca>


This is an interesting article from USENET rec.games.frp.misc, posted by 
Wes Payne, ( n9548326@cc.wwu.edu ) If this material has already been 
covered, my apologies: I wasn't following that discussion too closely.

In article <n9548326.812412010@waldorf> you wrote:
: merrick@mack.rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt) writes:

: >In article <44d5ng$epj@netaxs.com>, Michael Ryan <mryan@netaxs.com> wrote:

: [snip]

: >The other thing to remember is that all if "all missiles are nuclear" as 
: >gdw says, then any impact missiles will be much nastier since for some 
: >weird reason all the universe's militarys poo poo them as impossible, 
: >then don't bother with countermeasures that make them impossible.

: Compared to the possibility of encountering a nuke, dampers are damn cheap.

: >For the attached duty scouts and traders that are the real point of your 
: >post (ie: non-military use of missiles and the IRW) I think that impact 
: >missiles make plenty of sense.  The "fact" that they'll all be shot down 
: >as stated by gdw somehow applies to ships that are unarmed!?

: No.  Nobody, even at GDW, treats the difficulties of a homing missile 
: surviving the trip to its target or, rather, the impossibility of such a 
: thing, as fact.  But consider this:  Space combat lasers are some of the 
: most superbly engineered things in the Traveller universe.  Why?  They 
: have to be.  Anything that can focus its output to a dot that has one 
: square centimeter of area at a distance of hundreds of thousands of 
: kilometers is tough to build.  Now, considering that a target moving only 
: one hex/turn is going to move about 17 meters in the millisecond that the 
: laser pulse lasts, that focal array is actually going to have to TRAVERSE 
: that beam during the pulse!  Now THAT'S precision.

: So, if a device can maintain such a focus over hundreds of thousands of 
: kilometers, how hard is it to hit something that's only fifteen or twenty 
: thousand km away and moving to occupy the point in space that you are?  
: Not very.  The firing solution is almost entirely a two-dimensional 
: problem under these conditions.  It basically comes down to this:  
: Between the return leg of whatever sensor data is bounced off the target 
: and the time it takes the laser pulse reach it, how far can that target 
: move?  Depending on the maximum thrust that the missile is capable of, it 
: can only change its position (the predicted endpoint where the laser must 
: aim in order to hit it) by a few meters in the fraction of a second 
: between the time that the sensor echo it presents reaches the firing ship 
: and the laser energy from that ship reaches it.  (If the missile is 
: 30,000km, or one-tenth of a light second, away from its target, this 
: interval would be 2/10 of a second)  What with the cross section that a 
: half-ton missile presents, and the average thrust that such missiles have 
: (the ones listed in Brilliant Lances and FF&S are usually capable of 4 to 
: 6 Gs or so), missiles typically have a tough time changing their endpoint 
: enough in this interval to avoid being hit within the magical 1/10 light 
: second radius.

: How do you beat this and make something capable of actually contacting 
: the target?  You can increase its thrust, which increases the change in 
: endpoint (keep in mind that applying transverse thrust to do this 
: increases the cross-section that the missile represents to a laser-armed 
: target) or you can decrease the missile's radius, which affects not only 
: how much fuel the darn thing can carry in order to reach its target in 
: the first place, but how much of a warhead it can carry.  Of course, as 
: previous discussions on this thread have borne out, even at a closing 
: speed of only one hex/turn, it doesn't have to carry much of a warhead at 
: all.  I am hoping that the submunition warhead missile that I am working 
: on (whenever I get around to it) will be a viable alternative to 
: nuke-armed missiles.

: >I fear that otherwise the IRW have to be ditched (unless you don't have a 
: >problem with no missiles on civilian ships).

: Don't throw nukes -- throw rocks!

Don't you dare!

*** *** *** ***

Oh yeah, it would be nice if GDW eventually produces a good hi-tech 
supplement for FF&S. It should focus on articles and items which becomes 
possible at TL's 14 to 17 (where Vincennes is rapidly approaching).  
Like shipborne disintergraters, say, or experimental organic starships. 
Perhaps a Challange article?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alvin Plummer                          - waiting for Grandfather to get his.

Reply to: alvin.plummer@SHERIDANC.ON.CA
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 08:24:15 -0600 (MDT)
From: merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Point Defense
Message-ID: <9510051424.AA09368@Rt66.com>

Hi, 
 
> I'm glad to see someone propose a workable system for point defense.  I 
> have a few questions though.
 
So am I, but mine has a =20 at the end of each line, I guess I can
search and delete all of them, I just haven't done it.

> 	I think we have to decide whether point defense can only be 
> conducted by specialized systems or whether the rules for multiple 
> targeting should apply to all weapons.  I lean toward the latter.  By the 
> tech levels we're talking about I think that computing power is 
> ubiquitous enough that it does not require too much additional hardware 
> to fire at multiple targets when the overpowering exists to do so.

As far as I can tell, the basic idea of the posted rules is that you
shoot at multiple targets by cycling through FAs.  Why is this different
than dividing the ROF by the number of targets? In any case the range
issue is key if we want the rules to degenerate to the BL case at long
(ie >0) ranges.

> 	My suggestion is that firing at multiple targets is possible for 
> all weapons, but only for targets which are very close, say 10,000km or 
> less.  This allows point defense against KKMs but preserves the 
> BL rules as written for det-lasers.  Exactly how many different targets 
> could be fired upon or at what difficulty, I don't know.  That's why I'm 
> glad this thread was started. :-)

The real trick here is crossing angle problems, IMHO.  The traverse of
the weapon to change targets (and to track one) is a key problem.  When
a missile evades within 15,000 km, it can possibly change its angular
position such that it's more of A problem than its larger angular size.

I have to admit I lean towards a simpler system, but I did have trouble
reading the post I got.  I am confused by the formulae, any
clarification?

MT=3D[(FAx+DM)/CM]/10

MT=3DMaximum Targets
FAx=3DNumber of Focal Arrays
DM=3DDifficulty Modifier
CM=3DComputer Multiplier

So a TL15 laser clould engage 18 targets, and the number of FAs would
be? I'm confused :-)

I had been playing with allowing ROFs to be divided down to 5 shots per
target (as per underpowering rules), then having each new target be at
+1 DiffMod (DM).  By installing an MFD for the anti-missile laser can
deal with multiple targets better.  I also played around with +1 DM per
new target, but the DMs add up, target 6 would be at +6DM.  In the
latter case the MFD's -DMs can be used separately for each attack.  (in
other words a TL15 MFD aimed laser can shoot at the first 6 targets for
free.  Range in this case is still just sub-zero pulled out of a hat
though.

-Merrick

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

Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 08:58:36 -0700
From: Christopher_Griffen@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Materials question:  Clear Bonded Superdense?
Message-ID: <074019f0@MailXFER.DMCWAVE.COM>

     Does anyone have any idea how, using Traveller materials as the basis, 
     one could design a super-tough clear material?  Could some sort of 
     clear plexiglass be infused with bonded superdense bits or something 
     to make it ultrastrong?
     
     The reason I ask is that I want to design a k'kree tank, and I get the 
     impression they'd want clear domes on top or something to keep from 
     becoming claustrophobic.  Suggestions would be appreciated.
     
     --Chris

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

End of TRAVELLER Digest 438
***************************
