Traveller-digest            Monday, 22 July 1996        Volume 1996 : Number 279

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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

         1. Re: Realism (Td V96 #273)
         2. Re: More Canadian horn-blowing
         3. psi self probe
         4. Re: Psionic auto-mindprobe? (Td V96#271)
         5. Fighters
         6. RE:WT-Economics Model
         7. RE: E-zine Name
         8. Re: Fighters and acceleration
         9. RE: E-zine Name
        10. Re: traveller
        11. Re: Fighters and acceleration
        12. Re: Realism
        13. A paid commercial announcement
        14. Histoire de la Terre
        15. Re: Fighters, carriers, et al...
        16. Re: A paid commercial announcement
        17. The Wonder Years and True Reference Works
        18. Re: Culture and Realism
        19. Re: Fighters and acceleration
        20. Re: F-16 Engines
        21. Re: Fighters and acceleration

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

From: "Stuart L. Dollar" <sdollar@goodnet.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 10:47:38 -0800
Subject: Re: Realism (Td V96 #273)

On 22 Jul 96 at 11:31, Derek Wildstar spewed:

> "Stuart L. Dollar" <sdollar@goodnet.com> wrote:
> > Meanwhile, about 5-10 miles upstream, the Mill Avenue bridge, which 
> > was like close to 100 years old...withstood everything that was 
> > thrown at it...
> 
> Not _too_ far from here is a stone viaduct built by the Baltimore
> and Ohio railroad company on their original main line west.  The viaduct was
> built well over 150 years ago, and still carries the traffic on the
> B&O's modern-day successor, CSX, despite the fact that trains are a _lot_
> heavier now than they were when the bridge was designed.

Yup...in those days they didn't build them to withstand X cfm water 
release or X tonnage of traffic...they just built them to last...

Stu
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" -Isaac Asimov, from "Foundation"
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This tagline brought to you by Big Ed's Taco Emporium, conveniently located next to
Bob's Pet Shop.
Stuart L. Dollar           sdollar@goodnet.com    

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

From: Ron Dawson <rdawson@cgc.ns.ca>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 14:47:30 -0300 (ADT)
Subject: Re: More Canadian horn-blowing

shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) wrote:
> In mail you write:
> 
> > Tom Opgenorth wrote:
> >>         The first radio transmission was made in Canada, can't remeber 
> >>         by who
> 
> The first *long range* transmision was made in Canada. And it was
> Marconi who did it. He'd done a fair amount of short range stuff
> elsewhere.
> 
> BTW, at the time it *wasn't* Canada, it was Newfoundland. :-)

Yep, just next door. It's interesting to note that soon after the first
transatlantic wireless experiment on Signal Hill, the Canadian government
lured Marconi to Canada where he set up shop in Cape Breton (northeastern
Nova Scotia).  Marconi ran a commercial transatlantic wireless service
from just a few miles from here.  I guess you could say the first
commercial long range wireless communication service was in Canada. ;-) 
Incidentally, Alexander Graham Bell and co. also played in this area with
experimental hydrofoils, sheep breeding and airplanes earlier on in the
century. 

- --------------------------------------------------------
Ron Dawson
CANSARP Support,                       Search and Rescue
Canadian Coast Guard College,                Sydney N.S.
Phone: (902) 564-3660 x1345          Fax: (902) 562-6113
Email: rdawson@cgc.ns.ca  Pager Email: pageron@cgc.ns.ca
- --------------------------------------------------------


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

From: Glenn Crawford <marz@hotstar.net>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 14:02:14 +0000
Subject: psi self probe

Mark Seemann <mark@dk-online.dk> wrote:
> One of my players have a psionic character with telepathy, awareness and =
> telekinesis. The character is considering mindprobing herself to see =
> what happens.
>
> Any ideas?

Have you ever stood between two mirrors?
On the other hand, if the character uses telekinesis to mind probe, 
they will be able to pull their brain out of their head and examine it 
personally

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

From: Tom Ellis <tellis@telerama.lm.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 13:58:06 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Psionic auto-mindprobe? (Td V96#271)

Derek commented the a poor ref would simply disallow this, and I diagree.
In my campaign telepathy has no effect on the telepath for a reason.  They
do not read their own "frequency", to be brief.  Self probe would be a
"Special" talent in my Imperium.

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

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


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

From: Glenn Crawford <marz@hotstar.net>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 14:13:05 +0000
Subject: Fighters

Following the great string of fighters...

It follows too that the 6G limit is very arbitrary, I believe that 
higher comps should be allowed. Just at the end of the last century 
some wag said that man could never travel past something like 30 mph 
or the air would be sucked from his lungs. If anything, Traveller tech 
is far to conservative
Regarding sustained G's
as long as you are set up properly, you can withstand very high G (I 
am not saying it would be comfortable) 
Perhaps T4 should have some fighter specific anti-G cockpit, unique to 
smaller craft only and costing dozens of times the normal "bench"

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

From: JD.Burdick@t-online.de (J D Burdick)
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 96 20:00 +0100
Subject: RE:WT-Economics Model

In WT the amount of raw materials a industrial laborer requires compared to that 
laborer's output doesn't make sense.  A laborer at TL11 requires 70 mass tons or 
3.5 displacement tons of raw material.  Average cost to purchase the raw 
materials is 4000cr per ton.  Using the WT model, the laborer would take 
14,000cr worth of raw materials and turn it into 3000cr of finished goods. This 
doesn't make sense.  Manufacturing should add value to products not reduce it.  
Using the WT model, manufacturing companies would go broke.

Does anyone have a good work around or better economic model for Traveller?

JD
JD.Burdick@telekom.de
Germany

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

From: JD.Burdick@t-online.de (J D Burdick)
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 96 19:44 +0100
Subject: RE: E-zine Name

If you plan on covering all types of Traveller, then why not call it by what it 
is?  "The Traveller E-zine"

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

From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 19:45:01 GMT
Subject: Re: Fighters and acceleration

On Mon, 22 Jul 1996 09:26:41 +0000, Glenn Crawford wrote:

> I always wondered why the 6G limit?
> Modern jets can routinely pull up to 10 or more.

The 10G+ "pull" you refer to happens to modern fighter pilots during tight
maneuvers and not during periods of rapid acceleration.  Vessels in
outerspace do not suffer this type of stress since maneuvering does not
change a ship's vector.  Aircraft, on the other hand, make use of an
atmosphere and an airfoil to maneuver.  Even the steam catapults on modern
aircraft carriers do not submit the pilot to this kind of acceleration.
The 6G limit is for maximum acceleration purposes of T-Plate and HEPlaR
drives only.

Now if you are comparing the minumum hull rating in Traveller (regarding
maximum acceleration) with modern day fighters, perhaps someone that owns a
copy of MT's COACC might be able to help out.  Anyone?

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

From: Jeffery.M.Miller@Dartmouth.EDU (Jeffery M. Miller)
Date: 22 Jul 96 16:00:00 EDT
Subject: RE: E-zine Name

- --- J D Burdick wrote:
If you plan on covering all types of Traveller, then why not call it by what it 
is?  "The Traveller E-zine"
- --- end of quoted material ---
YEAH! And why don't we just name everything what it is...say, the new, #4
American Car Manufacturer...CAR! It has 4 wheels, a suspension system....

see?
Even game-geeks need FLAIR every-damn-once-in-a-while....

just MHO! 

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

From: JScott9996@aol.com
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 16:06:06 -0400
Subject: Re: traveller

unsubscribe traveller JScott9996@aol.com

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

From: Tommy Grav <tommyg@ifi.uio.no>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 22:20:17 +0200
Subject: Re: Fighters and acceleration

James Lindsay wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 22 Jul 1996 09:26:41 +0000, Glenn Crawford wrote:
> 
> > I always wondered why the 6G limit?
>
> The 6G limit is for maximum acceleration purposes of T-Plate and HEPlaR
> drives only.

 Does it really state in FF&S that 6G is a limit? I can't recall 
having read that. I quess I'll have to read the relevant pages 
again. 

 Another question I have is how many G's are the shuttle astronauts
exposed to at take-off? I guess this would be a better comparison
than to a fighter pilot. Say they can take 3G without problems, that
means you can have a figter with 6G compensators, G-suit adds say 2G
for a total of 11G's. That is as long as the pilot is sitting at the
rotational axis. Is these numbers fair or what. I don't want to start
designing fighters for my campaign without more knowledge, so I turn 
to all of you out there. This far all I have seen is speculation.
Does anybody have any sources on how much the human body can take?
 

- -- 
Tommy Grav 
Email: tommyg@ifi.uio.no
WWW-Page: http://www.ifi.uio.no/~tommyg/Traveller.html
"Sooner or later the worst set of circumstances are bound to occur."

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

From: Tommy Grav <tommyg@ifi.uio.no>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 22:26:50 +0200
Subject: Re: Realism

Stewart Eyres wrote:
> 
> 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>

Talking about swimming pools. Here in Norway their tearing down
whole wall of a building, just because the swimmingpool in it 
were 5 centimeters to short for international standards, so it 
couldn't be used for tournaments. This is going to cost a lot 
of money. I wonder if the company or the arcitects will pay this?
Nhaaa. <g> 

- -- 
Tommy Grav 
Email: tommyg@ifi.uio.no
WWW-Page: http://www.ifi.uio.no/~tommyg/Traveller.html
"Sooner or later the worst set of circumstances are bound to occur."

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

From: sudet@well.com (Glenn M. Goffin)
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 13:56:40 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: A paid commercial announcement

>From: Darryl Adams <dtadams@ar.ar.com.au>

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

Tired of all those Vegans, Vilani, and Vargr polluting your race and
language with their impossible to remember, let alone pronounce, words and
phrases?  Losing touch with your kids because when you listen to their phone
calls they're speaking 21st Century Japanese?  

The Solomani Party is the refuge for you.  No more foreigners.  No more
foreign cultures.  No more foreign languages.  We all speak Galanglic, and
we're going to take over the universe and make it all the same as us.  Join
us today!

Brought to you by SolParTML, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SolSec.

- --Glenn


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

From: sudet@well.com (Glenn M. Goffin)
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 13:56:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Histoire de la Terre

>From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <gpvll@hk.super.net>

>>O Canada, O Canada,
>>wie treu sind Deine Blaetter!

>        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 :)?

O Canada, O Canada
Comme vrais (ou constants) sont tes feuilles!

Cette phrase vient de deux chansons -- O Canada, le hymne national de
Canada, et O Tannenbaum, un Noel allemand.  Tannenbaum veut dire sapin, un
arbol avec des feuilles toujours verts.  Les chansons ont des rythmes
similaires.

- --Glenn


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

From: jeff_michelle nort <103010.212@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 22 Jul 96 17:03:47 EDT
Subject: Re: Fighters, carriers, et al...

	Allowing the system to have ship killer missles to deal with major (ie
capitol ships) would make the fighter a major factor  in system defence. SDB's
and smaller ships would still hold their own, but a swarm of fighters loaded for
bear (furry terran mammal) would make life hard for the invading fleet. Point
defence would come into its own. I have images of Star Wars Revenge of the
Jedi....
	But, larger ships would carry their own fighters for defence, just like
modren, sea going carriers. And, with just the same missions. I guess it would
ballance out in the end, but  1K of 15 ton fighters swarming in on a BattRon
would be a sight... I picture something akin to the battle of Letye Gulf in
1944.
	
	A note on aircraft carriers: I had a buddy on one during the 'Gulf tango
(I was there, BTW) and he told me of them getting a message to move to the area,
as fast as possible. Well, I guess that the commander likes fast cars, so the
helmsman was given the 'Peddal to the Metal' order and the carrier tried to
hydrofoil. He told me that the rooster tail from the rear almost reached the top
of the deck. He kinda laughed because of them showing Firefox on the closed
circut tv that night... The support ships were left in the spray.
	A friend of my step-dad told me a same story of the Enterprise during
Vietnam leaving Subic Bay and having only so much time to reach Yankee Station.
He wanted to water ski for awhile, but I guess the rooster tail was high again.
I asked him how fast they were going and he said that the DD's were left behind
and they were at flank speed. The CA's were left in the wake also. I figure
somewhere near 38 -41 KTS. WOW !

	Jeff

	' Life is a minefield; I'm hoping for duds'


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

From: Jeffery.M.Miller@Dartmouth.EDU (Jeffery M. Miller)
Date: 22 Jul 96 17:16:03 EDT
Subject: Re: A paid commercial announcement

hmmm...(sure to attract flames) Sounds a little bit like modern day Quebec! 

tee hee! ;-)

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

From: Wes Payne <n9548326@cc.wwu.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 14:43:31 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: The Wonder Years and True Reference Works

Thus spake Darryl Adams <dtadams@ar.ar.com.au>:

[excerpts from Imperial history snipped]

> +76 The start of the Pacification wars, where the Imperium forces planets 
> to join it. Mainly Economic Warfare is used, but millitary forces are 
> used as well. 

[snip]
 
> Why did Cleon stop his wars at Year 0? If he was hell bent to be seen as 
> the sucessor of both the Rule of Man and the Ziru Sirka, did he stop at Core?
> Unless the march of the Imperial ideal was so infective that whole 
> sectors wanted to join? When did Vlan join the Imperium, and dit it join 
> volentary. What was the extent of the Imperium at Year 15,30, and 45? 

The fact that there were Vilani Pacification Campaigns implies that the 
former Ziru Sirka (or, Vilani Cultural Region) did not join voluntarily.  
As far as the other fine points of history circa Year 0:  if they have 
not already been written, they will be...

Thus spake ROWAN Iain <wm0iro@acresearch.sunderland.ac.uk>:

> This does raise an interesting question.  When we read an account of
> Imperial history, such as the posting which started this off, are we
> reading the Actual God's Own Truth - a step out of the game which
> provides an accurate account - or are we reading the perspective
> on history which the average citizen of the Imperium (and therefore
> most PC's) would have?  I seem to remember someone arguing
> quite neatly on the list once that the portrayal of the Solomani as
> nasty racists was just Imperial propaganda blackening the patriotic
> nature of the Solomani society.

Most 'encyclopedia' material I have for Traveller (which is from MT and 
TNE) has two parts:  the part that the players read, and the referees' 
section.  Only the referees' section contains the Actual God's Own Truth, 
which is why players are discouraged from reading (or using) it.
 
> It strikes me that it would be quite neat for players to go into a
> situation with certain expectations because of what they had
> read, only to find those expectations confounded by reality.

Having them get tripped up because they FAILED to read it, even when 
given numerous hints, is at least as fun.  The players in my current 
campaign used to get burned all the time because they didn't do enough 
research (and this still happens sometimes).  Now they mostly get burned 
because they didn't apply critical thinking to the library data which 
they did manage to read.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Wes Payne, known to you as:  n9548326@cc.wwu.edu
Western Washington University -- Bellingham, WA -- The Great Northwet!  
"What is FUN?  Why is it usually colored BRIGHT PINK, and where does
 it go when JESSE HELMS comes around?" 
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------


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

From: Wes Payne <n9548326@cc.wwu.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 14:52:14 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Culture and Realism

Thus spake "Stuart L. Dollar" <sdollar@goodnet.com>:

> On 17 Jul 96 at 15:16, Dragoness Eclectic spewed:

[snip]
 
> > And we won't mention the similarities between the Aslan and Shogunate 
> > Japan, nope, we won't.  Or the Solomani Confederation and the old 
> > Soviet Union... (the same power triad: Party, Military, Secret Police). 
> > I find that foriegn Earth cultures are more often thinly disguised 
> > and used in fantasy than in scifi, though.  Either that, or the  
> > scifi authors disguise the source of their cultures better. 
> 
> I think you're probably correct with the latter statement...  What I want to 
> know is who they patterned the K'kree after???  ;-)

I don't think that there is any extant Terran nation that makes a good 
K'kree analogue.  However, if you can imagine an entire nation of 
ultraconservative vegans (militant vegetarians, not those tentacle-limbed 
guys) on amyl nitrate...

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Wes Payne, known to you as:  n9548326@cc.wwu.edu
Western Washington University -- Bellingham, WA -- The Great Northwet!  
"What is FUN?  Why is it usually colored BRIGHT PINK, and where does
 it go when JESSE HELMS comes around?" 
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------


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

From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 23:36:43 GMT
Subject: Re: Fighters and acceleration

On Mon, 22 Jul 1996 22:20:17 +0200, Tommy Grav wrote:

>  Does it really state in FF&S that 6G is a limit? I can't recall 
> having read that. I quess I'll have to read the relevant pages 
> again. 

Doh!  Gotta stop thinking in CT terms.  I never really agreed with the 6G
limit from CT & MT and I do like the "tons of thrust" style of TNE.  The
maximum Gee rating of any hull in QSDS is 6 (including the "Really Big Hull
List").  SSDS does not make any mention of a limit, however (nor does
FF&S).  Just a little bit of canon that spands the many versions of
Traveller....

>  Another question I have is how many G's are the shuttle astronauts
> exposed to at take-off? I guess this would be a better comparison

I believe I read somewhere that the astronauts experience somewhere in the
neighbourhood of about 3 G's of acceleration (1 of these Gees coming from
the Earth's gravity of course).  The shuttle goes through a LOT of fuel
during this time and it only has to travel a relatively short distance, so
it might not really be a fair comparison either  :-)

Is the 6G limit just a piece of canon that was verbally carried into the
TNE universe by players of previous versions or is there really such a
ruling?  The G-compensation tables in FF&S on p 77 only go up to 11G's
anyway....

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

From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 96 14:06:51 -0600
Subject: Re: F-16 Engines

On 07/22/96 at 09:43 AM,  Stewart Eyres <spe@astro.keele.ac.uk> said:

>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.  

Stewart, you can never be sure what a Congress will do.  <g> 

The smartest thing is to keep *all* politicians as far away as
possible from anything you're involved in.

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




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

From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 96 14:25:03 -0600
Subject: Re: Fighters and acceleration

On 07/22/96 at 09:07 AM,  Bri <bri@teleport.com> said:

> Rember, with modern fighters your talking about a few SECONDS at _most_ at
>even 9gs.. With traveler ships, you must rember that each "it's just 3gs
>over" is a _half hour_ of being 3 gees over. Your heart would be gone by
>then.

Well, ya'll may remember I'm not enamored of fighters, but there are a few of
points that need to be made...

1.  Given 6g compensators, then 9g has the effect of 3g..not 9!
While 3g would be uncomfortable a conditioned ( and that includes chemically
conditioned ), and properly positioned pilot could
handle 3g's for several hours.

2.  Excess g's above 6 would contribute to a ship's agility.
Agility would involve jinking and quick turns with timings in the seconds NOT
half-hour.  A few seconds at 15g *could* be
survived..given gravity compensation..and that would make *big*
differences in combat.

3.  Your reference to half-hour relates to set game turns.  I don't play
wargames with Traveller, I roleplay.  Half-hour's are fine for a wargame, but
not for roleplaying a combat. 

Finally, a question...if your fighter's cockpit was flooded with water
providing neutral buoyancy for the pilot, and the computer system controlled
both the grav compensators and water pressure, couldn't a pilot handle g
forces in the 2 digit range?  

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




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

End of Traveller-digest V1996 #279
**********************************
