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Traveller-digest           Thursday, 11 July 1996       Volume 1996 : Number 236

(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

         1. Philosophical Lines
         2. Re: Corn Dogs, Comin' Up Hot!
         3. Re: Fighters and Missiles
         4. Re: Correction...
         5. Re: surgical strike force
         6. 2. RE:corn dogs
         7. FTP archives broken?
         8. Re: Fighters and Missiles
         9. Re: Traveller E-Mag
        10. Re: The Iridium Standard
        11. Re: Corn Dogs
        12. Re: Possible Traveller E-Mag
        13. The Iridium Standard
        14. Re: Fighters and Missiles
        15. Re: Traveller E-Mag

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

From: muskrat@msn.fullfeed.com (John Kovalic)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 07:40:26 -0500
Subject: Philosophical Lines

It was thus said...
>
>>To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum from Jurasic Park.
>>
>>"You were so busy trying to figure out how to do it that no one bother to
>>stop and think whether they should be doing it at all."
>
>I know this is way off topic, but I think this is one(probably second) of my
>all time favorite lines from a movie.  BTW, I think it applies incredibly
>well to Virus.

There's a great line from the journalism industry. I forget who said it,
and this is a paraphrase:

"Many times, people confuse what they HAVE a right to print with what IS
right to print."

Now substiture "electronically engineer" for "print," and *voila*! :-)

John Kovalic



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                                                     - Arthur Dent
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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------------------------------

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 01:36:46 PST
Subject: Re: Corn Dogs, Comin' Up Hot!

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> In New South Wales, we call them Battered Savs, and they are quite 
> popular at the Royal Easter Show (Thay also can be called Dagwoods)

Weird. In the US a "Dagwood" is a sandwich made up of many layers of
all sorts of different meats, cheese, whatever. The name is from the
comic strip "Blondie" where the husband (Dagwood Bumstead) is always
building these *huge* sandwiches. To the best of my knowledge he's been
doing this since the strip started in the 30s!

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 01:41:27 PST
Subject: Re: Fighters and Missiles

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> The key to 
> effective fighter ops would be getting close enough (probably while the 
> enemy's capital ships are being distracted by your own cruisers and 
> battleships) to launch a whole slough of missiles and get the hell out as 
> you're guiding them to their targets, while not giving the enemy a lot of 
> time to defend against the incoming warheads (or evade them).  Even with 
> the good old High Guard rules, building massive carriers (like the ones 
> presented in the Fighting Ships supplement) didn't seem like such a keen 
> proposition given the low survivability of fighters in the face of other 
> capital ships, especially when some of them could pull just as many G's 
> as a fighter could.

It occurs to me that if fighters are *not* common (as in Millieu 0)
there'd be a tendency to build *big* heavily armed and armored ships,
even though they'd be slow. This'd be the old "battleship" approach.
You may not be fast, but when you get there, there are only two kinds
of enemy ships. Ones that can get out before you pound them to rubble,
and the ones you are about to pound to rubble.

A few fighters could ruin your whole day. They'd have to be able to sit
there quietly, concealed by something (I have a few ideas :-), and then
do a quick run in, fire, and get the hell out of there.

One thing that occurs to me is that most folks seem to be designing
ships to run all the weapons at once. Given that power *distribution*
isn't terribly expensive, and that most weapons can be operated at
lower power, the likely designs would be for ships that can fire the
main weapons at full power only if they aren't using much of the
secondary armament.

Hell, depending on the energy requirements, I could even see reasons
for designing ships that can't use full *drive* power and fire the main
guns at the same time.

Remember, you are going to have conflicting requirements, and limited
funds. So you make the best compromise you can.

If you design a ship that can do everything at once, and I design one
that costs the same, but can put out more firepower by not manuevering,
or by not using the secondary weapons at the same time, I can pound on
you at ranges where you can't get close. If you *do* get close, then I
can run like hell, or pound you with secondary weapons. But I'll have
some words to say to the captains of the ships that were supposed to be
making you keep your distance!

In a world where these sorts of choices get made, suddenly things like
fighters *do* have a place. Fighters and missiles can firce me to waste
power defending myself instead of attacking you.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 02:13:37 PST
Subject: Re: Correction...

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> Recently, someone posted values for how much energy a 10g wing nut would
> have at 35km/s. I thought the numbers looked *way* too high, but only had
> the "5km/s equals the equivalent weight in TNT" *rule of thumb* to go by.

<snip>

> The rule of thumb seems to be off by a factor of 3--I guess meteors at
> that speed tend to be 2/3 gone by the time they hit dirt.

Nope. The "rule of thumb" is that *3* km/s give you the energy of an
equivalent amount of TNT. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 02:00:09 PST
Subject: Re: surgical strike force

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> I feel that a surgical strike team is probably best exemplified by your 
> second example.  Commando's.  These are guy's who get in, get out and no 
> one know's they've been there untill the powerplant or whatever explodes. 
>  In TNE these guys are known as Special Forces, the Surgical Strike team 
> would be point laser designators infiltrated on a planet months before 
> the strike occured, these would be the guy's in charage of insuring that 
> "Mortimer Crane, Supreme Dictator of Gault and Generalisimo for life" has 
> an unfortunate accident on his way to the prom.  I think the main point 
> of a surgical strike team is if they can get in and get out without 
> firing a shot they've done their job correctly, if they get into a fire 
> fight they've screwed it up royally.

Reading this, I just flashed on a bunch of old "Mission: Impossible"
episodes. 

That would be an interesting sort of campaign to run. Being an IMF for
the Imperium. On lower tech worlds it's *easier*, but not necessarily
as easy as the players might think. I don't care if you *do* have
1990's technology, going up against (say) the Gestapo requires being
*very* careful.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

From: muskrat@msn.fullfeed.com (John Kovalic)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 08:23:33 -0500
Subject: 2. RE:corn dogs

At 04:26 AM 7/11/96 -0400, Les Howie <lhowie@novalis.ca>:
>
>>
>>The British Empire, of course. The loss of the North American colonies is,
>>in Britain, in *part* explained by the huge communications delay (four
>>weeks at best, I believe, but that's only from vague memories of "AO" level
>>History, courtesy of Millfield School, Street, Sommerset).
>
>I've always wondered what British schools taught about that little upset.

It's actually *very* close to what's taught here, when it's covered in
depth. (i.e., when we move away from the cliches here in the States).

>>From what I have have read about the quality of British administration at
>the time, shorter time lags may just have made the problem worse (and my
>family was Loyalist, so that's not my favourite admission to make).

This was another reason agreed upon.

>>Better yet is the battle of New Orleans, fought by the British Empire
>>*after* the peace was agreed upon, simply because word hadn't arrived yet.
>>
>
>Remembering that that was a different war.

I was hoping not to have to remind people of that. :-) But it was still the
same Empire. In many ways, it was a stronger Empire. And the time lag still
affected the war of 1812.

>I've seen the point made that the telegraph is what KILLED the Empire.
>Imagine if Clive had had to cable for permission before he conquered
>India... "LAST MESSAGE GARBLED STOP AWAIT INSTRUCTIONS STOP STOP STOP"

Well, this is a cute line but the cost and carnage of the First World War
did far more to destroy the Empire in reality and (perhaps more
importantly) in people's eyes...

Still, to get this thread back on track, I think the Roman administrative
system is closer to the Imperium than the British Empire is. The system of
Provinces and Governors and their relative power to the "throne,"
unfortunately, allowed the Rebellion to happen in the first place. (Or at
least allowed GDW to use that to rationalize the Rebellion...)

John Kovalic



******************************************************************
"This must be Thursday. I never COULD get the hang of Thursdays"
                                                     - Arthur Dent
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*                 "Wild Life": a Web comic --                    *
*       MUSKRAT CENTRAL: http://www.msn.fullfeed.com/muskrat/    *
******************************************************************




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

From: gsw@aloft.att.com
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 09:17:50 -0400
Subject: FTP archives broken?

I just tried to get archives 233 and 235 from ftp.mpgn.com (since our
gateway has gone flaky recently and is losing mail). :-( Unfortunately,
I could not read these due to their file permissions. Is this a bug, or
are they intentionally made unreadable for a while?

- -O Gerald Williams / Bell Laboratories - PAI830 55E-224 O-
- -O gsw@lucent.com /   1247 South Cedar Crest Boulevard  O-
- -O (610)712-3370 /          Allentown, PA  18103        O-
- -O -------------/ "Innovations for Lucent Technologies" O-



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

From: Tom Ellis <tellis@telerama.lm.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 09:26:25 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Fighters and Missiles

I have routinely designed ship's that could divert power to various
systems.  One can have a BIG GUN that way, and still have emergency
agility and speed to get the hell out of dodge should the other guy have
an ever BIGGER GUN.

_______________________________________________________
Tom Ellis
tellis@telerama.lm.com
http://www.lm.com/~tellis/

"No! Do, or do not.  There is not try." Yoda
_______________________________________________________ 


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

From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 09:27:58 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Traveller E-Mag

> From: jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com (JEFF ZEITLIN)
> Subject: Possible Traveller E-Mag
> 
>   JTAS.  The problem is, naturally, I can't pay (that makes it
>   _definitely_ a business, which means taxes and red tape with
>   my employer - the NYPD is very touchy about "off duty
>   employment").

Hm. Wierd. Too bad. Although I'm sure it has a good basis...
(Anyone want to submit an adventure about a cop corrupted
by a bunch of on-line game-playing hooligans?)

>   What I'd like to know:
> 
>   * Would people here be willing to write for it?

Yes.
 
>   * What would you like to see in it?

Anything. I'd really like background material and
equipment mostly. But these could be worked into
an adventure at the same time of course...

>   * What should I do to avoid stepping on Imperial Games's toes?

Maybe publish material to support new product releases from IG.
For example, when Starships comes out, publish a bunch
of starship designs using the new system. When Aliens comes
out, publish some adventures with aliens to stimulate interest
in buying IG's products. Be proactive towards supporting IG.

>   * What do you think of the idea in general?

Cool. Me like.
 
>   * What other comments do you have?

Get someone with artistic ability to help out. A few good graphics
can make a web page really shine. Like at Goeran's (sp?) page. It's 
very smooth (I think he stole most of those graphics even, no?)
You don't need 200Kb jpegs, just a few little things.

Ethan

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

From: Joseph "Chepe" Lockett <jlockett@io.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 08:45:42 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: The Iridium Standard

Quoth Stuart L. Dollar:
> The Roman Empire in part was wrecked by a ruinous inflation in later 
> centuries...they never left a standard based on precious metals...

Actually, in defense of "Cynthia" (Steve, right?) (though I disagree wth
him), I must point out that part of the "problem" for Rome _was_ the
precious metal standard: by the later empire the coinage was so debased
(adulterated with less valuable metals in order to be able to mint more
currency with the same amount of metal) that it caused widespread
economic difficulties.

Other folks have claimed that elemental abundances shouldn't vary much
between stellar systems, and thus a Gold/Iridium/Unobtainium standard
would be workable.  But, while the abundances wouldn't vary much, the
_exploitation_ and hence _available supply_ would.  There used to be
places on Earth where you could pick up copper nuggets off the ground...
but not after the Bronze Age got going.  Gold deposits were few and
far between in the Old World after centuries of mining... and then the
New World gave a bonanza of riches to the Spanish (which wrecked their
economy in just the way people are supposing!  I don't think they've
ever quite recovered... though problems like Franco have also intervened).

Terra, Vland, Sylea, Zhdant, all have long histories of mineral
exploration and exploitation.  The discovery of a virgin, uninhabited
planet with untapped veins of precious metal could cause a significant
blip in precious metal supplies throughout the young Imperium, or at
least through a Domain in the full-sized jumbo version of 1000+.

- ----------------------------*------------------------*------------------------
 Joseph L. "Chepe" Lockett  |"Nullum magnum ingenium | GURPS fan, Amiga user,
http://www.io.com/~jlockett | sine mixtura dementiae | Shakespearean scholar,
  Email: jlockett@io.com    | fuit." -- Seneca       | actor and director.

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

From: Liam_McCauley@qsp.co.uk (Liam McCauley)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 14:10:37 +0200
Subject: Re: Corn Dogs

     Steve & Joe,
     
     Mea culpa.  I am truly sorry for any temporary or permanent damage 
     done to your digestive system, waistline or taste-buds.  I know that 
     ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the law, but I plead for your 
     mercy.
     
     As somebody else said (and taken completely out of context):
     >> and again I am amazed at how few people understand the "corndog" 
     >> issue that they complain about.
     
     (Actually, I wasn't complaining, just enquiring, but I think the 
     author of the quote wasn't talking about me, so I'll shut up now)
     
     
     Anyway, it wasn't my fault.  All these people were complaining about 
     corn-dog jokes and I wanted to know what I was missing (an early 
     coronary from the sound of it).  If you thought those jokes were bad, 
     imagine how much worse they would be if you'd never heard of a 
     corn-dog.
     
     
     It's funny (no, honest it is) that this is the longest running thread 
     I've ever started.  I post ship designs, weapon designs, etc, and 
     hardly a reply.  As soon as I ask what a bloody corn dog is...
     
     Did someone say they were being advertised over here now? ;-)
     
     Cheers,
     Liam
     
     --
     
     Liam_McCauley@QSP.co.uk

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

From: William A Humphrey <wh2a+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 10:28:19 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Possible Traveller E-Mag

Excerpts from Traveller: 10-Jul-96 Re: Possible Traveller E-Mag by
Bri@teleport.com 
> >   * What should I do to avoid stepping on Imperial Games's toes?
>  If it's free, I don't think they can really complain. Just credit all
> their copyrights.

And, tell them about it.  Get their blessing; get a link to it put on
their page!
- --
                                            Bill H
"Only one...has survived battle with [us].  He is behind me; you are in 
front of me.  If you value your lives, be somewhere else!"
                                                    - Ambassador Delenn 

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

From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 16:33:37 +0200 (METDST)
Subject: The Iridium Standard

Cynthia wrote:
>Once you wade through the technical hand-waving, the REAL reason 
>most countries are off the gold standard is so that they can rob 
>the populace through inflation and deficit spending. 

That may be the true sinister intent that motivates those evil, villaneous
"they", but what gives them such a perfect excuse is that pegging the
wealth of a society (which is actually the sum total of the goods
produced by its inhabitants (and their ancestors, if durable)) to an
arbitrary (and uncontrollable) supply of some rare substance with
little intrinsic value is such a silly thing to do.

Stuart L. Dollar wrote:
[What an appropiate name ;-)]

>Regardless of what a currency is based on, whether it be faith, gold, 
>salt, or ivory (all of which have been used at 1 time or another by 
>somebody on Earth), the people still have to believe its worth 
>something...  

I've always been impressed by the currencies used in Jack Vance's books,
where the unit is the amount of money paid for one hour of unskilled
labour. No doubt there would be practical problems with this, but it's
a wonderful way to make equipment lists for one society useful for a
different one. In my campaign one credit (lower-case c) is a sociological
term for this amount of money. It varies from low-tech, low-population
society to high-tech, high-population society, of course, but that's what 
exchange tables are for. One Crimp (Credit, Imperial) is the imperial 
currency and is equivalent to the credit of a high-population, TL 15 world 
with a Class A starport. This accords well with many of the prices 
published in various Traveller publications, though not perfectly. In
any case the salary tables and costs of living in Traveller are badly
broken anyway.

[Incidentally, I've had to skip a huge amount of messages over the last
months. Did Imperium Games ever answer those questions they solicited
a long while ago, and if the did, can anybody mail me a copy? I posted
a question about wether they intended to mend the economic system for T4
and I'd like to know the answer.]

>Stu
>"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" -Isaac Asimov, from "Foundation"

"Absolutely true. Only an incompetent waits to use violence until it is the 
last resort."
				- Someone whose name I've forgotten

Joe Walsh wrote:

>Hmmm...if I recall correctly, the Imperial ruling family has a bit of 
>stock in a number of megacorps.  

Yes. In fact, I once noticed that the Imperial family has 2% or more stock
in all LIC corporations detailed in any Traveller source I can find (with
the exception of one single megacorporation). Sometimes they have more, but
at least 2. I therefor decided that the lone exception was a misprint and
that in my campaign the "price" of a LIC charter is giving 2% of the company
to the Emperor. This share cannot be sold or otherwise transferred. 

Eris Reddoch wrote:
>>If somebody had found gold nuggets by the ton on say
>>for  example Australia, economies would have been wrecked wholesale
>>in the  18th century...
>
>...it was *very* unlikely huge quantities of gold nuggets would have
>been found anywhere by the 18th century, and everybody *knew* it.
>Economies were predicated on gold's relative rarity, based on
>thousands of years of experience.  

I don't know about the first part, but the thousand years of experience
included the virtual ruining of the Spanish economy by the huge amounts
of gold they brought back from the New World.


      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

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

From: Charles Pratt <tminus@u.washington.edu>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 07:38:08 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Fighters and Missiles

On Thu, 11 Jul 1996, Leonard Erickson wrote:

> A few fighters could ruin your whole day. They'd have to be able to sit
> there quietly, concealed by something (I have a few ideas :-), and then
> do a quick run in, fire, and get the hell out of there.

Or concealed by nothing...a fighter with minimal power systems running
(e.g. life support and a passive sensor array) has got to be a near
impossible target to detect at an distance greater than "next-door".

> One thing that occurs to me is that most folks seem to be designing
> ships to run all the weapons at once. Given that power *distribution*
> isn't terribly expensive, and that most weapons can be operated at
> lower power, the likely designs would be for ships that can fire the
> main weapons at full power only if they aren't using much of the
> secondary armament.
>
> Hell, depending on the energy requirements, I could even see reasons
> for designing ships that can't use full *drive* power and fire the main
> guns at the same time.

Sure.  Why do you need 4 G's of acceleration to sit at 300000kms above a
planet and pound the snot out of it?  Assuming planetary defenses had been
cleared, of course...

- -----

        "Life is a disease of matter." --- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
        Charles Pratt tminus@u.washington.edu -- when in doubt, sail.
"The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools"
                                          -- Larry Niven, _Ringworld_


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

From: Joe Walsh <ransom@connect.iconnect.net>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 09:43:39 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Traveller E-Mag

On Thu, 11 Jul 1996, Ethan Henry wrote:

> >   * What other comments do you have?
> 
> Get someone with artistic ability to help out. A few good graphics
> can make a web page really shine. Like at Goeran's (sp?) page. It's 
> very smooth (I think he stole most of those graphics even, no?)
> You don't need 200Kb jpegs, just a few little things.

Oop.  That brings up something I should have mentioned when I replied to 
Jeff's query before:  make the page accessible to text-only users as 
well.  There are those of us who use text-only because it is very much 
faster to download text than graphics.  I hate it when I go to a web site 
and the text-only version looks like garbage because the person 
maintaining it didn't bother to see what it looks like without all the 
pretty graphics.  It doesn't take a lot of effort to make sure it looks 
good for all users.  


- -Joe
______________________________________________________________________________
Joseph E. Walsh      |  Atari 8-Bit User and Programmer Since 1982
ransom@iconnect.net  |  Classic Traveller Referee Since 1983
Stuck in the '80s    |  Microsoft-Free and Loving It! :)



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

End of Traveller-digest V1996 #236
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