			    TRAVELLER Digest 467

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Complete List of all trav-related products by ehenry@magmacom.com (Ethan Henry)
  2) Misc sensor comments by merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
  3) Re: TRAVELLER digest 455 by library@dss.gov.au (DSS Library)
  4) 2 - 4 - 6 - 8 - Murder Maim and Mutilate... by A.S.Lilly@bnr.co.uk (Andy Lilly)
  5) about sensing at distance by mitch@intersys.com (Mitch Schwartz)
  6) Oops - ignore last message by mitch@intersys.com (Mitch Schwartz)
  7) Various... by Christopher_Griffen@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen)
  8) Dark Trav by Christopher_Griffen@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen)

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Date: Sun, 29 Oct 1995 13:27:43 -0500
From: ehenry@magmacom.com (Ethan Henry)
To: xboat@MPGN.COM, traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Complete List of all trav-related products
Message-ID: <199510291827.NAA24135@mag1.magmacom.com>

Ok,

So, although I know that all the "old hands" on both of these lists
have each and every article from Challenge memorized, I was wondering if
anyone has put together a complete list of all the Trav books, supplements,
products, etc? For instance, did "Flashback" (stock #0217) ever come out?
It has an ISBN number in the ad for it in the back of COACC, but I've
never heard _anything_ about it...

If not, I could start work on compiling such a list (it wouldn't be too
much work really) and could even put up web space if no one else has
any...

Ethan, hoping to write something more interesting real soon now
Ethan Henry                                     ehenry@magmacom.com
                                                aj185@freenet.carleton.ca


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

Date: Sun, 29 Oct 1995 22:25:17 -0700 (MST)
From: merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM (traveller)
Subject: Misc sensor comments
Message-ID: <9510300525.AA22045@Rt66.com>


Howdy,

I've had the chance to play a few more BL games lately (I had been doing
more BR) and I kept some notes.  I've been using the concept that going
active, or using gturns both cause automatic bogey detections.  There is
a not so subtle effect of this I thought I'd mention (I didn't put it in
the last draft of my sensor rules posted).

If a ship is detected as a bogey, the _only_ way for the _Bogey
Detection_ to be lost is for the target not to use gturns or be active.
The latter is easy, but if it doesn't use gturns, don't bother treating
it as invisible---it is on the last known vector, it's as good as still
being a "real" bogey effectively.

Just thought I'd make that obvious for the sake of simplifying
bookkeeping.  It also means that if you saw a HEPlaR plume at some great
distance you'd know more or less where they are, and they'll know you're
coming as well---I like that this is the standard case in the straight
BL rules (I don't mind the rules, I just like having a reason *why*
something works the way it does).

>From a roleplaying POV, something a crew might do, knowing that they use
of HEPlaR makes their position know to anyone that cares is the
following:

Use terrain to do a burn that can't be seen... a good use for planets,
do a burn to put your course behind a terrain feature (asteroid, even),
then do a course change when you're out of line-of-sight.

Assuming the shape of the HEPlaR cloud isn't usually imaged all that

Maybe there'd be a way to fake a HEPlaR plume :-/  Rig up the lifeboat
or Gig to blow all its propellant in a big puff at the same time the ship
does a small burn.  By the time the other guy analyzes the HEPlaR cloud
at high resolution you've made it to jump point...  

Anyhow, this makes Bogeys less ephemeral than they might have seen in my
rules (it was there, I just didn't point it out).

-Merrick

PS-  I used some 21g135 HEPlaR missiles last few games.  Interesting.  I
was trying out S/FIMs and they were pretty hard to use (I was using them
with fighters) since getting locks was bloody hard---even when trying to
paint the target with an active.  Allowing passives to use twice an
active sensors short range (the active is broadcasting from the target)
makes using passives very effective... evade a little and you're in good
shape.  I've been giving this bonus only iff the active has a lock on,
otherwise it's just the -1 DM (since if there's a lock on the active
will dwell on, or at least frequently return to, the target).

I'll have all my revisions added to the rules I wrote in a week or so.


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

Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 16:46:45 -0600
From: library@dss.gov.au (DSS Library)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 455
Message-ID: <199510310045.QAA04229@babylon5.dss.gov.au>

Dear Folks -

In digest 455, Pete Burke asked about Coronor's star. The RSB lists it as F8 V,
not M8 V (as in the MT Encyc.). Is that better?

- Hyphen
 (David Jaques-Watson)


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

Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 11:37:47 +0000
From: A.S.Lilly@bnr.co.uk (Andy Lilly)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: 2 - 4 - 6 - 8 - Murder Maim and Mutilate...
Message-ID: <199510301044.FAA12007@Mithril.MPGN.COM>

Was it here or xboat that mentioned TNEutil.sea on deneb.cc.missouri.etc....

Well, what format is the file in? What platform is it for? PUH-LEASE when
mentioning software tell us these minor details so we don't waste time
downloading stuff that we can't use!

Andy


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

Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 10:36:12 -0500
From: mitch@intersys.com (Mitch Schwartz)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: about sensing at distance
Message-ID: <95Oct30.103808est.20484@gateway.intersys.com>

on Fri, 27 Oct 1995, Charles Collin said:
>Leonard Erickson posted an idea for landing on an Oort cloud body and
>melting it for fuel.  His claim was that such an undertaking would be
>impossible to detect because there are "just too many cubic AU's to
>search".  But, you don't have to search cubic AU's, you just have to have
>sensors pointed at every part of the sky. 

Ah.  Now comes the question of signal strength.  MT (or TNE, for that
matter) limits the 
range at which a given detector can detect an object.  Consider that the
signal strength must be
strong enough to be picked out from the general interstellar background
noise as a sophont-made
signal.  The only detectable signal is that being bounced back in a direct
line (curved slightly by the gravity of intervening bodies) between source
and detector. 

(worth noting in the other discussion about ship size detectability; on a
curved hull, the only difference in detectability in a
small hull and a large hull is length; and if the curve of the hull is in
three dimensions (like a sphere) the return surface for any ship at long
range is a point.  Once you start dealing in 
slab sides or shapes encompassing reverse curves, you get more return,
although you still
don't get much bounceback along a signle ray)

Detecting a ship return as opposed to a return off any random piece of space
junk, gas cloud, or background cosmic ray is most difficult; You really only
get positive results from a series of definitive returns (return can also be
passively gathered data; in any case it is a signal that hits the detector
array).  Picking a ship out of the backgound at 100 AU is just not available
in MT or TNE (CT avoid the issue, near as I recall).

The other option, of course, is to seed your comet belt with detectors.
THOUSANDS of detectors
with commo links back to the home planet.  These, of course will all need to
be periodically serviced (long haul rides) or replaced as they go off-line
(may actually be cheaper than servicing).

> There are some SETI ideas right now that would cover
>10% of the sky continuously using only present day technology (radio
>telescopes).  

Recall that SETI is based on the assumption that messages will be
identifiable as messages due to regularity of the signal (even if only
on/off with regularity).  Deepspace detection of objects does
not have that advantage.  I can spin my vessel perpendicular to the line
between me and the planet, and I will appear as a random object.

However, note also that detecting a comet for refueling ( and most will be
more like 100s of meters rather than kilometers) is a lot easier than
matching vectors and grabbing it for fuel!  That is a chase than can take
days...

>If you assume higher 
>technology and a MUCH more powerful motivating influence (i.e., survival 
>instinct), then it is likely that most worlds will do *at least* this.  

MT and TNE both tell us that the technology is not there (in sensor ranges)

>They could then pick up the heat needed to melt the asteroid for fuel.  

IR light is a weak source, certainly at the ranges >1 AU.

>Furthermore, if the Oort cloud is a good source of fuel, then it will 
>definately be scanned for just this sort of activity.  

Note that the Oort cloud is HUGE (Space is really, really big!).  The
ability to detect all its items is not available for any reasonable cost.
Star Wars (the space-based defense vs ICBMs) was and inetresting idea, too,
but among its other flaws it was TOO EXPENSIVE to implement. And
it wasn't.  So would be putting detectors throughout the Oort Cloud of a
system (much less
every one in imperial space).

Note that this is also a vector I described as completely viable for Vampire
vessels - jump into the Oort cloud, fall out toward the inner system in a
direction so as to not threaten the planet directly and then bombard the
planet with radio messages containing copies of itself.  Combined
with jumping past any blockade using the dark between the stars, there is no
defense. So, there
should be no Regency, either.  But that, little Adam, is another story.

                                                                            
    Ted7
 
Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more
difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing in the tempting place.
                    -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Official:                                                Unofficial:
mitch@intersys.com                     Ted7@world.std.com
                                                     http://world.std.com/~Ted7


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

Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 10:42:25 -0500
From: mitch@intersys.com (Mitch Schwartz)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Oops - ignore last message
Message-ID: <95Oct30.104424est.20482@gateway.intersys.com>

Oops.  I just sent a message about detecting far off items in the Oort cloud.
Ignore it.  Forget it.  You didn't see it.  Not from me anyway :-)

I meant to send it to the Xboat list.  

Sorry. Mea culpa. I accept the responsibility (but not the blame....) :-)

                                                Ted7
Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more
difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing in the tempting place.
                    -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Official:                                                Unofficial:
mitch@intersys.com                     Ted7@world.std.com
                                                     http://world.std.com/~Ted7


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

Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 08:24:45 -0800
From: Christopher_Griffen@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Various...
Message-ID: <094fc770@MailXFER.DMCWAVE.COM>

Responding to Wes Payne:

>>Kinda makes me glad that my MT campaign was run in the Domain of Deneb.  
Must've been due to some subconscious yearning to turn back the clock...<<

I have those yearnings occasionally myself.  Mostly about the Solomani Rim. 
What a waste of great campaign material!  Fortunately, I've finally worked 
up the gumption to collapse and update the Solomani Rim for myself.  I'll 
be submitting material in the near future.

--Chris

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

Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 08:50:53 -0800
From: Christopher_Griffen@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Dark Trav
Message-ID: <09502d10@MailXFER.DMCWAVE.COM>

>>> Anyone want to take bets on Drake's reaction to the New Era? > 
> P.S. Drake, be sure to sign up to the X-Boat list, since it formed
> for the benefit of those who couldn't abide the new system and setting, > 
and focusses on Classic (original) Traveller and Megatraveller.
> If you're using MT then it may be the list most directly useful to you.

Scott Nolan:  Don't let them scare you, man.  Traveller: The New Era 
(commonly known as TNE) is the best thing that ever happened to 
Traveller.<<


I second Scott's statement.  TNE is far different from Classic Trav and 
MegaTrav, but in most ways it's a much-improved game.  Life isn't static 
and neither should our RPGs be.  Where's the story in a universe that never 
changes?

If I have one complaint about TNE, it's that the proofreading has seemingly 
gone out the window in several of the early products.  They seem to have 
gotten a reign on quality control for the most part, though, with later 
products.

What I'm looking forward to is a "Year 2000 Sourcebook."  What's gonna 
happen 800 years after the fall of Virus.  I'd like to see TNE reach this 
point some day.

--Chris

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End of TRAVELLER Digest 467
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