Traveller-digest            Monday, 22 July 1996        Volume 1996 : Number 277

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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

         1. Re: Terran History:  Canada
         2. Re: [T96#268] E-Zine Name
         3. Re: [T96#268] E-Zine Name
         4. Tactics, fighters and acceleration. 
         5. Re: Canada infiltrates Hollywood...
         6. Re: mispronounced names
         7. Re: Your various requesests
         8. Science Fiction Cultures we Steal, uh, use...
         9. Religion or Party? (off-topic)
        10. Re: FAQ list
        11. Re: Terran History: Canada
        12. Re: Realism
        13. Re: Tacoma Bridge
        14. F-16 Engines
        15. Re: Realism
        16. Ducted Fans
        17. Re: Tactics, fighters and acceleration. 
        18. Ships

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

From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <gpvll@hk.super.net>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 08:54:03 +0800 (HKT)
Subject: Re: Terran History:  Canada

Glenn M. Goffin wrote:

>
>From: sudet@well.com (Glenn M. Goffin)
>Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 23:29:05 -0700 (PDT)
>Subject: Terran History:  Canada
>
>This looked right on Eudora when I sent it, but I guess that a-umlaut
>doesn't survive the Internet.  It should of course be O Canada, O Canada,
>wie treu sind Deine Blaetter!
>
>- --Glenn
>
>>In the 58th Century, Canada will be (mis)remembered as a country with two
>>official languages -- English and French -- so at war with one another that
>>the country needed a German national anthem:
>>
>>O Canada, O Canada
>>Wie treu sind Deine Bl=E4tter!


        Maintenant, pour ceux d'entre nous qui ne parlons pas l'Allemand,
pourrais-tu nous traduire tout ca pour qu'on puisse decider s'il faut te
flamber ou non :)?


+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                         From the desk of either                       |
|                                                                       |
|    Roderick Darroch Elliott                   John Stephen Wishart    |
|                                                                       |
|                           gpvll@hk.super.net                          |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+


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

From: Joe Walsh <ransom@connect.iconnect.net>
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 21:06:40 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: [T96#268] E-Zine Name

On Sat, 20 Jul 1996, JEFF ZEITLIN wrote:

>  I'd thought of the game-element theme, but nothing I came up
>  with seemed to fit.  Moreover, I didn't want to present an
>  impression of a focus on a particular aspect of Traveller.

Good point.

>  Thus, the names I _did_ come up with.  "Freelance Traveller" is
>  my best so far, but I think _we_ can do better.

This is the one I'm having the most trouble with - coming up with a good 
name for the e-zine as a whole.  Don't know how much help I'll be on this 
one, but I'll continue to give it thought.  


> T::>Fiction section:  "Travellers' Diary," "Tales from the Front."
> 
>  Good!  And either of these could also be for campaign writeups/
>  "novelizations", which are also possible grist for this mill.

I'd like to see news of goings-on in other referee's games included. Not 
just novelizations (which would preclude those of us who aren't good 
narrative writers from participating) but even something as simple as 
notes from the campaign.  Just to get a feel for what is going on.  For 
one thing, it would be nice to be able to use that information in my own 
campaign - as rumors, TAS News, and/or influences on the actions of PC's 
and NPC's.


>  ::>Rules variants: "Another Look At...[rule name here]"
> 
>  Sounds rather conventional, but it will work...

Yeah, it does sound that way. :(   But, since it is the section I am most 
likely to submit material for, I figured I was obligated to at least 
throw out a name for the section. :)

>  ::>Weapons: "Lock 'n Load"
> 
>  YES!
> 
>  MORE!  MORE!

Since The Traveller Book actually lists the names for the different types 
of adventures (Patron, Casual Encounter, Amber Zone, Adventure, 
Campaign), do you think it would be permissable to use the first three as 
column titles in the e-zine?  That would certainly be the clearest approach.

Side Note:  I like that about Traveller: there are not only an 
almost infinite variety of adventure possibilities, there is also a good 
variety of officially recognized adventure lengths.  The above-mentioned 
ones, plus Folio Adventures, the Double Adventures...  The length of 
an adventure can be anything from a couple of hours to thousands of 
hours of real time.  Until I came upon Traveller, I had mistakenly 
thought that all RPG adventures had to be as lengthy as one of the TSR 
modules!


Anyway, I'll continue thinking about possible magazine/column names...


- -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! :)




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

From: "P. ENGEBOS" <pengebos@NMSU.Edu>
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 20:43:29 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: Re: [T96#268] E-Zine Name

On Sun, 21 Jul 1996, Joe Walsh wrote:

> >  ::>Weapons: "Lock 'n Load"
Lock and Load is the name of the equipment book for Optimus Design 
Studio's Battlelords of the 23th Century Game...


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

From: Michael.Barry@FINANCE.ausgovfinance.telememo.au
Date: 22 Jul 96 12:47:47 +1000
Subject: Tactics, fighters and acceleration. 

     Why use fighters if they can't achieve greater acceleration than a 
     capital ship? Because they're FASTER. 
     
     ?Huh? It's true. A fighter in space can be launched with the same 
     initial speed as the carrier, PLUS whatever velocity the launch tubes 
     give (don't tell me that launch tubes are just long gunbarrels that 
     the fighter flies down, a la some crummy space opera - those buggers 
     are magnetic railguns that shoot fighters into the sky). 
     
     So a 6G carrier accelerating towards its target launches a squadron of 
     fighters, giving maybe a 20-30G boost over the length of the launch 
     tubes (catch your lunch, flyboy). This would have your fighter leaving 
     the carrier at maybe 500m/s faster than the carrier itself (somebody 
     check my calculations, please!). The carrier can then peel off and 
     withdraw to a safe distance, leaving the relatively 'disposable' 
     fighters to hit the enemy capital ships. 
     
     This initial speed plus the 6G acceleration of the fighter, plus 
     (possibly) some kind of disposable high-acceleration strap-on booster, 
     would have your fighters intercepting the target faster than the 
     capital ship could. Of course, they would probably only have the 
     opportunity for one salvo of missiles before momentum carried them WAY 
     past their target. 
     
     Fighter dogfights would be very rare, since you'd need to match 
     velocities fairly closely. Only place such things might happen is 
     where both vehicles' velocities are tied to some external factor (ie 
     in orbit or in a dust cloud or some such). 
     
     Note that I think 6G acceleration is pretty bloody poor for thousands 
     of years of technological development. I would expect a TL 15 fighter 
     to have ten times the acceleration of a TL 12 craft, and a hundred 
     times that of a TL9 one. Say TL 9 = 2G, TL12 = 20G, TL15 = 200G. 
     
     Comments, from fanatics especially, please. 

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

From: jbogan@nyc.pipeline.com (John H Bogan Jr)
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 02:47:49 GMT
Subject: Re: Canada infiltrates Hollywood...

On Jul 20, 1996 17:36:59, 'Joe Walsh <ransom@connect.iconnect.net>' wrote: 
 
 
> 
>Right.  "William Shatner's Traveller" is coming to a game store near you! 
> 
 
"Ghostwriting by Marc Miller".  Hey, anything to boost sales ;) 
 
- -- 
 
John H Bogan Jr       jbogan@pipeline.com 
 
No building is so tall that even a small dog  
can't lift it's leg on it. 
                                  --- Jim Hightower

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

From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 96 21:28:07 -0600
Subject: Re: mispronounced names

On 07/22/96 at 08:53 AM,  Roderick Darroch Elliott
<gpvll@hk.super.net> said:

>        Dude, I can relate.  I normally use my middle name,
>"Darroch", which is pronounced much as it's spelled save for the last
>"ch" which is this wierd Gaelic hard-ch deathrattle noise.  

Pleased to meet you, I'm James Eris Reddoch..<g>..and it's more like
clearing your throat than a deathrattle...but then I've never
*actually* heard a deathrattle.  <g> I also go by my middle name, in
honor of my Great Uncle Eris, so I know all about strange and
mispronounced names.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------




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

From: chriscox@ix.netcom.com (Chris Cox)
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 19:56:51 -0700
Subject: Re: Your various requesests

Opps, it appears that a message that I intended to be sent to Derek was sent
to the TML by mistake.  Sorry about that.

Chris Cox
Falcon watching on Wall Street in New York City
(chriscox@ix.netcom.com)
The Draconis Cluster Traveller page
(http://users.aol.com/yanbeck/trav.htm)


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

From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 19:59:38 -0700
Subject: Science Fiction Cultures we Steal, uh, use...

In reference to the whole borrowed cultures thread...

I have always enjoyed Keith Laumer's "Retief, Galactic Diplomat" series.  He
had some great aliens.  Like the folks who's entire society resolved around
a predictable massive Earthquake that destroyed their temples, which were
made of glass.  Or the world with several subspecies of the sentient race
trying to fathom the concept of democracy ( they take "one man, one vote" to
be a call to slaughter their opposistion, so they can't vote.)

I'm already writing an adventure based on "The Brass God".

+--------------------------------------------+
| Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net |
|    Professional Driver - Traveller Guru    |
|--------------------------------------------|
|     Now Appearing At:  (Note New URL!)     |
|  http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/index.htm   |
+--------------------------------------------+


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

From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 20:18:16 -0700
Subject: Religion or Party? (off-topic)

At 08:55 PM 7/21/96 -0400, David Jaques-Watson wrote:

>Iain said:
>>Is it their most holy of holies religious festival, or is it the
>championship decider? 
>
>Sounds like Melbourne on AFL Grand Final Day.  ;-)

Heh.  

My mother and I are confirmed members of the Church of 49er Faithful.
Die-hard fans of San Francisco's pro (American) football team.  If you were
an alien, it would look like a church to you:

1>  My mom refuses to watch a game without a Niners shirt on, but she won't
wear one from a year when we didn't win the SuperBowl.

2>  She will drink only from one glass for the duration of the game.

3>  She yells and tries to coach the TV.

I'm no better.  When I was in hospital last year, I went nuts as I realised
that the first game of the season was on in few hours..  My wife ran home to
get my niners hat and t-shirt (I couldn't wear it, too many tubes in me, we
draped it over my chest.)

Traveller tie-in?  uhhhhh......  I'm working on Rollerball rules for
Traveller.. that count?




+--------------------------------------------+
| Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net |
|    Professional Driver - Traveller Guru    |
|--------------------------------------------|
|     Now Appearing At:  (Note New URL!)     |
|  http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/index.htm   |
+--------------------------------------------+


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

From: James.Dempsey@hr-m.b-m.defence.gov.au
Date: 22 Jul 96 13:58:42 +0000
Subject: Re: FAQ list

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On Sun, 21 Jul 1996, Paul Kestner said: 
>Where do I find the FAQ list for those done to death subjects, 
>like meson guns ?
    
     On the web at 

        http://www.spirit.com.au/_jamesd/tml-faq.html

     There is also a lha file on ftp.mpgn.com (called tml-faq.lha), I have 
been lax and not given Rob a .zip or .gz file yet though.

     It has a number of topics in it, but only a couple have summaries. I 
am still looking for summaries of the recent Virus and Rocks debates. Umm, 
IIRC there is no mention of mesons though.

BFN,
James Dempsey
jamesd@spirit.com.au
james.dempsey@hr-m.b-m.defence.gov.au

- --smxr-9607221358421999
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- --smxr-9607221358421999--


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

From: Darryl Adams <dtadams@ar.ar.com.au>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 16:45:18 +1000
Subject: Re: Terran History: Canada

On Mon, 22 Jul 1996, Roderick Darroch Elliott wrote:

>         Maintenant, pour ceux d'entre nous qui ne parlons pas l'Allemand,
> pourrais-tu nous traduire tout ca pour qu'on puisse decider s'il faut te
> flamber ou non :)?

Speak English ! There are no subtitles in this mailing list!!!


(Misquting one of my favourate Goon Show lines :-)

Darryl

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

From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <gpvll@hk.super.net>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 15:32:53 +0800 (HKT)
Subject: Re: Realism

Leonard Erickson wrote:

>In mail you write:
>
>>         Point being that all these failures were quite predictable, but some
>> negligent greedhead builders cut corners, knowing full well that this could
>> happen, and people died.  Same would go for cold sleep capsules and the
>> like.  Relating this to Traveller, I'd think that Law Level on the planet of
>> origin ought to have some sort of effect on the reliability of gear...
>
>However, the reliability will go back *up* (at least partially) at the
>low end of the scale. Why? Because if something fails, the friends and
>relatives of the guy it failed are going to walk up and shoot you!
>

        Yeah, but I'd argue that the TL level for that kind of society would
have to be pretty low...



+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                         From the desk of either                       |
|                                                                       |
|    Roderick Darroch Elliott                   John Stephen Wishart    |
|                                                                       |
|                           gpvll@hk.super.net                          |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+


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

From: Stewart Eyres <spe@astro.keele.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 09:07:12 +0100
Subject: Re: Tacoma Bridge

Hi there

In reference to the Tacoma bridge, not only idd it happen in
relatively recent times, I read/saw somewhere that engineers have only
understood what was wrong with the design to cause it to collapse.

Stewart Eyres <spe@astro.keele.ac.uk>

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

From: Stewart Eyres <spe@astro.keele.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 09:43:29 +0100
Subject: F-16 Engines

shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) said:

>I asked my Dad who works at Pratt & Whitney, (They make the 
>engines for the F-16 and several other jets) if a private
>citizen could buy an engine. He said that the Government
>paid for the R&D of the engine, so they control who can buys
>one.  That is why Arm sales to foreign countries must have
>congressional approval.  

If Congress will clear arms sales to foreign powers, then surely it
would allow the sale of a jet engine (which just happens to be a
crucial component of a weapon) to domestic commercial interests for
commercial purposes.  Of course, this doesn't mean that the Imperium
allows just anyone to purchase J-6 drives, but there are plenty of
extra-Imperial TL 15 worlds to but from.  The question then is does
the Imperium ban the use of J-6 drives.  In TNS news items prior to
the 5FW, Tukera Lines were apparently starting a J-6 service from,
Regina to Capital.

Stewart Eyres <spe@astro.keele.ac.uk>

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

From: Stewart Eyres <spe@astro.keele.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 09:56:54 +0100
Subject: Re: Realism

John H Bogan Jr       jbogan@pipeline.com said:

>Isn't the MIT library creeping downhill because the architect forgot
>to factor in the weight of the books?

Can't have many books in it then; a library worth of books is *heavy*
- - if the architect forgot them, the building would fall down.  As LKW
said, definitely an urban myth.  Reminds me of a story about the
college where I did my first degree - "UMIST main building was
designed with a swimming pool on the top floor. but the architect
forgot to include the weight of the water, so now it is just a gym" -
a friend of mine at Imperial College told me the same story about his
college building!  

Stewart Eyres <spe@astro.keele.ac.uk>

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

From: Antti Lahtinen <lahtinen@ee.tut.fi>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 13:29:39 +0300
Subject: Ducted Fans

> I was trying to generate some non-gravitic vehicles using FFS and 
> discovered that it is basically impossible to create a viable ducted fan 
> air-vehicle at less than TL 14 (and even then it is *very* close to the 
> limit).  Are the lift and power values on page 75 of FFS correct?  Is 
> there some simple trick I'm missing to create such vehicles?

        I compared the FFS thrust-to-power values with some real-world
        ducted fan designs, and it appears that FFS ducted fans are
        inferior than those we have today.

        Unfortunately I could find only limited amount of data about
        modern ducted fan development, and most currently available data
        is from the US X-planes -projects. The available research papers
        described a 182 cm fan with gas-turbine rim-drive. This fan was
        used in a hybrid VTOL fighter (I think it was Republic AP-110 or
        something), where a turbojet engine was used as gas generator to
        rotate the ducted fan on lower speeds. On higher speeds the ducted
        fan was covered with shutter, and the thrust was provided by the
        turbojet engine.

        The turbojet engine alone could produce 2000 kg thrust, but when
        all of the engine exhaust was used to rotate the ducted fan, the
        fan produced 7000 kg thrust.

        Ducted fans can be used on subsonic and possibly transonic
        aircraft, since their velocity range is slightly higher than
        with propellers, but they can not be used on supersonic flight.

        With little number crunching and real-life technical knowledge
        it could be possible to design a TL-8+ FFS airfighter with
        fission reactor (only heat-generating reactor and boiler, no
        electric turbines), steam-driven ducted fans for takeoff and
        acceleration, and fission-heated nuclear ramjets for high-speed
        flight.

        At higher TL the same airfighter could be designed with fusion
        reactor, electric ducted fans and electric ramjet. Maybe.

        Antti Lahtinen     :     Justice is Only a Wish of a Weak
        lahtinen@ee.tut.fi :


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

From: Tom Ellis <tellis@telerama.lm.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 06:31:40 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Tactics, fighters and acceleration. 

On 22 Jul 1996 Michael.Barry@FINANCE.ausgovfinance.telememo.au wrote:

>      
>      Note that I think 6G acceleration is pretty bloody poor for thousands 
>      of years of technological development. I would expect a TL 15 fighter 
>      to have ten times the acceleration of a TL 12 craft, and a hundred 
>      times that of a TL9 one. Say TL 9 = 2G, TL12 = 20G, TL15 = 200G. 


Given that 6G's is the limit of inertial compensators, I challenge you to
find me a pilot that can withstand the extra 194 G  at TL 15.  Do you
realize just how *fast* an accelleration that is? Anything organic (and
inorganic for that matter) would be promptly crushed.

>      
>      Comments, from fanatics especially, please. 
> 

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

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


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

From: hbill@primenet.com (bill hutchinson)
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 03:35:53 -0700 (MST)
Subject: Ships

Can anyone help me.
I don't have FF&S and i need something to help me build starships...
Is there a computer program out????
Help...Mayday....SoS....

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Tucson,Az   --                                            
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End of Traveller-digest V1996 #277
**********************************
