TRAVELLER Digest 507

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Re: TRAVELLER digest 506 by Michael.Barry@FINANCE.ausgovfinance.telememo.au
  2) Re: TRAVELLER digest 506 by merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
  3) Re: TRAVELLER digest 506 by Bill Currie <BILLC@teleng1.tait.co.nz>
  4) Re: TRAVELLER digest 506 by library@babylon5.dss.gov.au (DSS Library)
  5) Question about Black Globes by lewis@chara.gsu.edu (Lewis Roberts)
  6) Re: Question about Black Globes by merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
  7) Sorry! by Oliver Albrecht <ollichid@sp.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>
  8) Ship designs. by t01bpa@aberdeen.ac.uk
  9) Re: TRAVELLER digest 506 by "V.A.G." <GREI5001@pcmail.uni-trier.de>
 10) RE: FASA and other animals by David Elrick <Dave.Elrick@ps.co.uk>
 11) DGP info. by Alvin Plummer <alvin.plummer@sheridanc.on.ca>

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Date: Thu, 7 Dec 1995 10:49:40 +1000
From: Michael.Barry@FINANCE.ausgovfinance.telememo.au
To: traveller@MPGN.COM (Non Receipt Notification Requested),
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 506
Message-ID: <394910071295*/G=Michael/S=Barry/O=FINANCE/PRMD=AUSGOVFINANCE/ADMD=T
ELEMEMO/C=AU/@MHS>

In Traveller Digest 506, Oliver Albrecht wanted some ideas on how to stop
his monster GALAXIA-class battleship. Here are some thoughts of mine:

1)  <science-fictional solution> lure the beastie into a close stellar orbit
where its black globe is flat-out absorbing solar energy(the lure? enemy
intel, Ancient artifacts, cash,...). Then ambush it with some relatively
beefy weapon.
2)  Arrange a mutiny. Doesn't matter how many guns it has if the enemy are
aboard.
3)  You really can't beat a battalion of Zho Commandoes armed with canisters
of nerve gas, suitcase nukes or EMP weapons. The problem would be getting
them close enough to pop aboard...
4)  See how good its hull armour is when you drop it onto a neutron star  ;]
5),etc - you get the idea...space is a big, scary place where almost
everything wants Oliver's ship dead, dead, dead...you just have to matchmake
the ship with the cause of death. Sly n sneaky is the way to kill big ships.
Just read any SF novel NOT written by Jerry 'Jackboots to the Stars'
Pournelle for more ideas.

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

Date: Wed, 6 Dec 1995 17:02:05 -0700 (MST)
From: merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 506
Message-ID: <9512070002.AA02675@Rt66.com>


> In Traveller Digest 506, Oliver Albrecht wanted some ideas on how to stop
> his monster GALAXIA-class battleship. Here are some thoughts of mine:

Here's my idea:

7 tonnes of BSD at speed 30.  No more battleship.


Getting *to* the battleship is an exercise left to the insane :-)

That or some nutty Luke Skywalker type...

-Merrick

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

Date: Thu, 07 Dec 1995 13:56:57 +1100
From: Bill Currie <BILLC@teleng1.tait.co.nz>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 506
Message-ID: <151930A3B4B@teleng1.tait.co.nz>

>
> > In Traveller Digest 506, Oliver Albrecht wanted some ideas on how to stop
> > his monster GALAXIA-class battleship. Here are some thoughts of mine:
>
> Here's my idea:
>
> 7 tonnes of BSD at speed 30.  No more battleship.
>
>
> Getting *to* the battleship is an exercise left to the insane :-)
>
> That or some nutty Luke Skywalker type...
>
> -Merrick

May the force be with the poor sod, along with a few matrix crystals
(ALA Marion Zimmer Bradly, Darkover), some gods, and a lot of luck.

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

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

Date: Thu, 07 Dec 1995 14:29:17 -0600
From: library@babylon5.dss.gov.au (DSS Library)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 506
Message-ID: <199512080025.OAA23446@babylon5.dss.gov.au>

Dear Folks -

I posted this to the xboat list, but have had no reply so far...any comments?

Re:      COPYRIGHT

Jeff Zeitlin posted "CONVENTION ON THE TOLERATION OF COMPATIBLE PRODUCTS BOTH
COMMERCIALLY AND NON-COMMERCIALLY PRODUCED" back in Digest 356. It was
intended to set out a fair and legally-sustainable compromise to the issue
of copyright.

Question 1:

Has anything more been heard of this convention? Specifically, have any major
gaming companies been approached with the convention, and how have they
reacted? Has GDW been approached?

Discussion

[The discussion below makes use of the details outlined in the convention
document as cited above, and is not intended as a challenge to the original
work. The convention was originally developed by:
        jimv@cs.ucr.edu (Jim Vassilakos)
        larrys@zk3.dec.com (Larry Smith)
        jhahn@nslsilus.org (Joel "Aardy" Hahn)
        guy.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com (Guy Robinson) ]

At first, I thought that the following was applicable:
"While the prop description may not be copied outright and verbatim, the vitals
of props may be inserted into unofficial game supplements and adventures as
long as the source of the material is properly cited (see Subsection II. F
below)."
"Prop" = a "thing" of an RPG, specifically an thing which a character can
         interact with. eg. a monster, a spell, a skill, a character class,
         an item (in our terms, a specific Vargr character is not a prop, but a
         generic Vargr thug IS a prop).
"Vital" = a specific value associated with a particular prop. eg. "HP=3, AC=6,
          Dam=1d4".
"Description" = information about the prop which cannot be quantified in game
                terms. eg. "The Giant Chicken lives in giant chicken coops in
                Wisconsin where hero-wizards tend their flocks of sheep".

Now, it may be that a planet's statistics can be considered to be "prop vitals".
Under the convention, the vitals can be used in unofficial game supplements
and adventures as long as the source is quoted.

However, after reading the convention again, I realised that a planet,
especially a complete list of planets for the Regency, might be considered to
be a "place".
"Place" = "an imaginary locality in a game setting". eg. Waterdeep, Shadowdale.

"Places" ARE under copyright, according to the convention, and you cannot use
them without permission of the copyright holder.

(BTW, note that "characters" are also copyright. In theory under the
convention, we cannot publish adventures that mention Norris or Plankwell or
Strephon unless we have permission. This is probably the main right that an
"Approved by GDW" sticker gives to its holder.)

Question 2:

So, with this in mind, what is the answer? Because planets have "vitals", are
they "props"? Or, because they are so much part of the game setting, are they
"places"? I dunno, maybe only the ones with descriptions are "places", just
like only fleshed-out NPC's are "characters".

- Hyphen
(David Jaques-Watson)


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

Date: Thu, 7 Dec 95 01:27:16 -0500
From: lewis@chara.gsu.edu (Lewis Roberts)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Question about Black Globes
Message-ID: <9512070627.AA25228@chara.gsu.edu>

Howdy,
I was building a 20,000 ton strike cruiser, and I installed
a Black GLobe. The question is how do I figure out how much damage the
ship can absorb.  A globe requires a capcitor which can hold a certain
amount of power, but this doesn't equal damage.
I thought the answer might be in Brillian Lances.  I don't play that
 only Battle Rider.  In BR, the only ship that has a Black Globe is the
Kinnur, and it is simply stated that it can absorb 10 points of damage.
So does anyone have a clue?

Another question, this one a little more wacky.  Can you operate
a Black Globe in an atmosphere.  From reading FFS, I didn't think so,
but wanted to know what everyone else thought.  I was thinking about
vehicles with Black GLobes.  I don't think it is a practical idea,
but it was one of those weird ideas that pop up while reading FFS.
Lewis


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

Date: Wed, 6 Dec 1995 23:40:36 -0700 (MST)
From: merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Question about Black Globes
Message-ID: <9512070640.AA05817@Rt66.com>


> Howdy,
> I was building a 20,000 ton strike cruiser, and I installed
> a Black GLobe. The question is how do I figure out how much damage the
> ship can absorb.  A globe requires a capcitor which can hold a certain
> amount of power, but this doesn't equal damage.

It gets a little tricky.  The damage is done in MJ.  If a 1000MJ PAW hits
the globe, it absorbs 1000MJ.  The caps h are listed in MJs, so you'd
just convert this using the conversion table (I'd think.  It is for
damage, though, not MJ :-/


> I thought the answer might be in Brillian Lances.  I don't play that
>  only Battle Rider.  In BR, the only ship that has a Black Globe is the
> Kinnur, and it is simply stated that it can absorb 10 points of damage.
> So does anyone have a clue?

It's not in BL at all (at least my edition).

> Another question, this one a little more wacky.  Can you operate
> a Black Globe in an atmosphere.  From reading FFS, I didn't think so,
> but wanted to know what everyone else thought.  I was thinking about
> vehicles with Black GLobes.  I don't think it is a practical idea,
> but it was one of those weird ideas that pop up while reading FFS.

The FFS section on BGs states that if it comes in contact with anything
over 50tons (asteroids, planets, etc.) it blows up.

-Merrick

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

Date: Thu, 7 Dec 95 08:21:45 +0100
From: Oliver Albrecht <ollichid@sp.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>
To: -s@sp, traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Sorry!
Message-ID: <9512070721.AA08852@sp.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>

Hello there, but I wanna apologize for the outlook of my mail in
Digest #506! The ZModem recieving somehow did`t work on my machine,
so iI ascii-downloaded it into vi, but that scrappy thing cut the lines.
To restore the file, just go to some of the end of the lines and press
delete. Next time I promise, no line will be longer than 80 chars!

Sorry for your invonvenience... Hope the mail helped anyway...
Bye Oliver.

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

Date: Thu, 7 Dec 1995 10:43:18 +0000 (GMT)
From: t01bpa@aberdeen.ac.uk
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Ship designs.
Message-ID: <S9512071043.AA21153@sysa.abdn.ac.uk>


Does anyone know of an excel ship design sheet that they could send
me, to suppliment FFS, cause i get to stage 5 and always get stuck.
Ta.


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

Date:          Thu, 7 Dec 1995 12:58:22 MET
From: "V.A.G." <GREI5001@pcmail.uni-trier.de>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 506
Message-ID: <515F16B19F9@pcmail.uni-trier.de>

Sorry to take up your space, but the digest 506 arrived incomple at
my location! Could you send it to me again?
Thanx,

( and because you're al so nice ill even leave out my tag line)

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

Date: Thu, 07 Dec 95 12:49:00 PST
From: David Elrick <Dave.Elrick@ps.co.uk>
To: "traveller%mpgn.com" <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: RE: FASA and other animals
Message-ID: <30C76ADD@pc136>



Christopher_Griffen_at_DMC-SJ3@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen) said:

> Maybe, but there are two sides to every coin.  I've got it on good
authority
> that FASA may not've been entirely at fault in the loss of the Star Trek
> license.  I understand that it was frustrating for many players of the
game,
> but Paramount may have had ulterior motives in pulling the license.

As I understood it at the time, the licence agreement was that FASA would
send everything to Paramount for approval before it was distributed. FASA
printed two TNG products (Next Gen First Year Sourcebook and Next Gen
Officer's Manual) and wanted to distribute them together. I was told that
the First Year Sourcebook was approved and that FASA issued the Officer's
Manual _before_ sending it to Paramount. As a result of this, Paramount
pulled the licence.

This struck me at the time (and still does) that Paramount were looking for
a reason to pull the licence and took the first excuse that presented
itself.

> If we see a TSR Star Trek RPG in the future, I think we'll have reason to
believe
> that FASA wasn't entirely at fault.

Dave Neilson (in an interview with RPI) called the Star Trek licence "..the
licence that eats its young...". I don't think FASA were blameless, but I
still don't think what they did merited the loss of the licence.

There is a Star Trek RPG (of sorts, it's actually a Starfleet Battles RPG -
but Star Trek is in its parentage).

> West End would be excellent, and they are used to producing high
> quality, low glitz, easy to use, fun to read supplements.

Check out their Masterbook rules system, or TORG, or Shatterzone (they're
basically the same system after all). Look at the rules. Read the rules.
Read them again (and again, and again until you understand them). Play it.
You thought TNE was complicated?

Harold D. Hale <hdhale@smtpwpo.dayt.tasc.com> writes:

>  What the heck is FASA supposed to have done wrong?  I didn't
> think that they had to license the stuff they developed for Battletech.

Neither did I, but apparently they do. I understand the problem concerns
some of the mechs used in the original game which are mentioned in the
licence. I know nothing more than that.

> BUY GDW PRODUCTS.  It is the best thing that any of us can do.
>
> There is no reason to be sad.  GDW hasn't gone anywhere yet,
> nor should we assume that it is going to.  If anything will *absolutely*
> kill GDW, it would be having the fans of its games conclude that the
> company is done for and stop purchasing products.

Or spreading the rumours that they are on the way out. I agree with Harold
here, we should support GDW in whatever way we can.

The point I was trying to make the other day was that we shouldn't be
arguing over who we are going to ask to buy something that isn't ours to
sell as if GDW is already gone, before GDW have actually gone.

Here we are, arguing over the grave goods, while the owner is lying sick in
another room. We wouldn't do that to our own families, so why are we doing
it to GDW?

>   the best thing you can do  is to go out and buy a GDW product.

and continue your support in other areas. Run some participation games at
shows (or even at club), write for Valkyrie or Traveller Chronicle or
another magazine. Make other people curious enough to go out and buy
Traveller (or T2K, etc.) to see what the fuss is about.

> P.S.  Why yes, I do plan on getting back to talking about Traveller in the
> near future.  I know what some of you are thinking.

Hopefully we all will. :-)

Kind Regards

Dave Elrick

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

Date: Thu, 07 Dec 1995 11:13:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Alvin Plummer <alvin.plummer@sheridanc.on.ca>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: DGP info.
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.91.951207110224.31473A@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca>


For those who's interested - this means you, VAG - here's the new address
for DGP...

Digest Group Publications
P.O.Box  75472
Seattle, WA  98125

email: rodge@cyberspace.com

They're into a couple of new things, including developing new
games.  Ask Hyperodge (aka Rodge Sanger) at the email address for more
info, though it may take a while for a response.

The rights to DGP was bought by Hyperodge: this includes the old
development material for Zhodani & Droyne: the Psionic Races, which was
never published.  I doubt if they have the time to publish it now, and
whether they still have the GDW license to do so... I simply don't know.

Previous to Hyperodge, DGP was shut down after GDW shifted over to TNE,
sometime in 1990, I think.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alvin Plummer
"Preserve what we created, Norris, and remember what we stood for."
                               - Strephon, 179-1126

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



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End of TRAVELLER Digest 507
***************************

