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Subject:   Traveller-digest V1996 #284
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Traveller-digest          Wednesday, 24 July 1996      Volume 1996 : Number 284

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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

         1. Re: Fighters, J-drives
         2. Re: TNE Wrap-up
         3. Minimum Crew Requirements
         4. The G Thing
         5. comments and a scenario (was Re: Urban legends)
         6. Starport Traffic Control
         7. Re: Traveller-digest V1996 #279
         8. Traveller translations...
         9. Re: Fighters and acceleration
        10. Re: Fighters and acceleration
        11. Re: The G Thing
        12. Re: comments and a scenario (was Re: Urban legends)
        13. Re: Fighters and Excessive G's
        14. Re: The G Thing

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

From: "Stuart L. Dollar" <sdollar@goodnet.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 22:56:12 -0800
Subject: Re: Fighters, J-drives

On 23 Jul 96 at 16:50, Joe Walsh spewed:

> On Wed, 24 Jul 1996, David Jaques-Watson wrote:
> 
> > 2.	RESTRICTED J-DRIVE SALES
> > 
> > Now, here is an interesting topic. Does the Imperium restrict jump drives?
> > 

I think that there is 1 very simple restriction that would keep high 
j-drives from being used in most applications: economics.  If you use 
the old 10% of hull fuel capacity for the drives, it just isn't 
economical to be cavorting around in a J-6 ship...unless of course 
you're a naval vessel, or something else that is run without regard 
to cost...

I don't and wouldn't use an arbitrary limit...I think that starship 
economics would make it hard for all but the most wealthy of PC 
groups...and let's face it, rich PC groups are not all that fun 
anyways...

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: Christopher Griffen <cgriffen@cris.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 20:12:19 -0800
Subject: Re: TNE Wrap-up

Responding to David Jaques-Watson:

>>Something I should point out as I remember it: my question to Don was
"why did you *initially* select Bk2 and HG as the starship rules?". This
is when he gave me the figures. Now, from what I've been able to guess, 
IG
felt that this was probably the most controversial area of the game. 
They
ran the idea of Bk2/HG "up the flagpole" to see who would shoot at it.

This approach has allowed all of us to have an input into the form that 
the
"new" rules are taking - either directly, such as Dave Golden & 
Wildstar's
work, or via the responses to Marc's survey (Don has a copy), or just 
via our
comments/criticisms/supportive words.<<

So do you get the impression that all Dave Golden's work was for naught? 
I certainly hope there is no indication that IG is going to revert to 
B2/HG.

- --Chris Griffen (in lurk mode for far too long, now!)

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

From: Jim Vassilakos <jimv@e2.empirenet.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 23:33:13 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Minimum Crew Requirements

On the off-chance that this hasn't been discussed to death in
earlier digests, what do you think is the absolute minimum
short-term crew requirements for piloting a small destroyer
(say somewhere in the vicinity of 200-300 normal operating
crew) over a distance of a few jumps? (Perhaps even just one
jump in order to make things easy) You obviously need a
pilot, but suppose you don't care to use the guns, and as
for maintenance, you don't really care so long as the bird
holds together long enough for you to get where you're going.
Anybody care to take a rough guestimate?

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

From: sudet@well.com (Glenn M. Goffin)
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 23:44:01 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: The G Thing

>From: Liam_McCauley@qsp.co.uk (Liam McCauley)
>Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 14:08:23 +0200
>Subject: Re: The G Thing
>

>     One idea I had (although I'm sure it's been thought of before, and I 
>     just can't remember where from) is to have the crew section, or the 
>     cockpit of a fighter, be able to rotate in all planes (like the belly 
>     turret of a B17, or the VR setup in The Lawnmower Man), allowing the 
>     G-forces felt to always be towards the floor.  

We'd need design rules for it, but it's a good idea.  C.J. Cherryh's
(_Downbelow Station_ and _Rimrunners_ come to mind) ship designs address the
issue by defining down differently in different parts of the ship at
different times.  When docked to the outside edge of a rotating station, for
example, down is away from the bow of the ship. When accelerating in space,
down is the same.  When not accelerating, the parts of the ship where most
of the crew are most of the time rotate to create centrifugal force, and the
rest of the ship doesn't have down.  Does this make any sense?  I'd say
Cherryh explains it better, but she doesn't actually explain it; she just
brings you into it with the story.

- --Glenn


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

From: sudet@well.com (Glenn M. Goffin)
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 23:44:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: comments and a scenario (was Re: Urban legends)

>From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)

[much good stuff deleted]

>In case you haven't guessed, I am fond of setting up situations where
>the players get into trouble because of theor pre-conceived notions.

a referee after my own heart

- --Glenn


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

From: sudet@well.com (Glenn M. Goffin)
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 23:44:15 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Starport Traffic Control

>From: solsec@southern.co.nz (Andrew Vallance)

>****************************************************************************
>This is air traffic contol
>All our operators are busy at the moment
>So please land your plane after the tone
>Beeeeeeeeepp.
>****************************************************************************

"Welcome to the Efate system.  The coordinates of ports of entry are listed
on radio frequency X, meson communicator frequency Y.  Emergency assistance
is available on radio frequency A, meson communicator frequency B.  Efate
does not provide traffic control to the several starports of this system.
Good luck."

- --Glenn


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

From: Darryl Adams <dtadams@ar.ar.com.au>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 17:21:26 +1000
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1996 #279

On Tue, 23 Jul 1996, Douglas E. Berry wrote:

> >
> >Brought to you by SolParTML, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SolSec.
> "Don't be stupid, be a smarty, join the Solomani Party!"
> 
> (advertising jingle used in occupied Imperial regions during the Last War.
> Oddly, the inhabitants of these worlds praised Virus for destroying the
> automated radio transmiiters used.)

Its springtime for Cleon and Imperium,
Sylea is happy and gay.


>----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
Darryl Adams                                       

dtadams@ar.com.au
 
"But as a Mistral employee once told me,
Your only as good as your fans"	        	TISM : Play Mistral for Me 


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

From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <gpvll@hk.super.net>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 17:45:45 +0800 (HKT)
Subject: Traveller translations...

Pierre-Louis Constantin wrote:

>From: pierre-louis constantin <Pierre-Louis.Constantin@DMI.USherb.CA>
>Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 13:20:25 -0400 (EDT)
>Subject: Re: Oh Canada
>
>Hi everybody, I'm back from the evil english Canadian Empire (more
>precisely Oakville, dumpster of souls :).
>

        My condolences.  Then again, it could have been Cambridge or
Kitchener-Waterloo (shudder) :).

>	I just wanted to remind everybody of the relatively
>little-known fact that "Oh Canada" was originally composed in french.
>Despite whatever the Reform Party members might hope. :)

        "Oh Canada, terre de nos aieux..."  I forget how the rest of it
goes, in both official languages; I only ever sing the thing at massive
affronts to democracy anyhow ;).

>
>Hm, shouldn't we be talking about Traveller?  One relatively
>interesting question that pops into my head is: Will T4 be translated
>to other languages?
>

        A French T4's success, I think, would depend upon its
"compatibility" with French SF.  I don't know how compatible Traveller would
be with a Lone Sloan/Vagabond des Limbes sort of SF tradition.  It's much
more Asimov/Niven in inspiration, so far as I can tell, and it would be a
tough fit with the "fantastique" vein of French SF that I'm familiar with.

        Of course, I stopped following French SF (and to a large extent SF
in general; law school will do that to you) about 3-4 years ago, and I can't
claim to have exhaustively canvassed it either, so I could be totally out to
lunch on this.

        Interesting, isn't it, how rpgs seem to be poor cousins of literary
genres?  D&D fed off of Tolkein, Traveller off of SF in general, Vampire off
Anne Rice...  Are there any RPG's out there that didn't evolve out of some
form of geek literature :)?

>- -- 
>Pierre-Louis Constantin, ift. a. 	"He whose name was writ in E-mail."
>	Independentist: My Canada excludes the federal bureaucracy :)
>(: "I hate fanatics with a passion; all extremists should be shot." :)
>
>------------------------------



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


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

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 21:21:51 PST
Subject: Re: Fighters and acceleration

In mail you write:

> shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) writes:
>> Please note that many carnival rides *routinely* exceed 3 gees!
>> Anything that has you upside down, but feeling at least one gee "up" is
>> subjecting you to 3 gees at the bottom of the spin.
>
> I don't think this is correct. Newer carnival rides employ designs
> which vary the angular velocity and allow loops *without* pulling
> as many gees at the bottom. Since they were introduced, loops have
> become easier to build (and more popular).

I haven't been on the "newer" ones as it's been 15-20 years since I
rode *any* carnival ride. But on at least one of the rides I was on,
it was *rotating as a unit*. So we had to get 2 gee at the bottom just
to neutralize our weight at the top. To have any sort of safety factor,
it needs more like 2.5-3.5.

> I suppose you could treat inertial compensators as an "all-or-nothing"
> thing, so that you would go instantly from 1G "down" to >6G "back"
> (which may or may not be the same as "down") if they are overstressed
> or fail. This would explain why >6G ships are rare (the pilots would
> have to be in gee tanks for non-trivial trips). It would also explain
> why the decks often are not perpendicular to the direction of thrust
> and would give you a "desperation maneuver" to try when needed. I'm
> not sure if it "feels right" for inertial compensators to work this
> way, but it is one way to look at them.

I think it makes far more sense to treat them as neutralizing up to
their max, but it doesn't matter if you are running at the max or above
it. So with 6g neutralizers, you could run at 9 gees and only be
subjected to 3 of them.

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

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

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 21:10:17 PST
Subject: Re: Fighters and acceleration

In mail you write:

>  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?

Well, there are those films of Col. Stapp (and others) in the rocket
sled tests of the 50's that show them enduring 40+ gees for seconds.
No injuries except some bruising.

And as I keep saying, I suspect anybody in decent shape can handle 3
gees for hours.

I'm not sure where to dig up all the info from Stapp's research, but it
has all sorts of info. Things like volunteers handling dry air temps of
500 degrees F for rather substantial periods (half an hour or so). 

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

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

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 21:55:21 PST
Subject: Re: The G Thing

In mail you write:

> A little data.
>
> Dole (Habitable Planets for Man) quotes some experiments on subjects WITHOUT
> G SUITS but seated (averages)
>
> 5 G - 2 minutes to blackout
> 4 G - 8 minutes
> 3 G - an hour IN SOME SUBJECTS

And that's *seated*. I suspect that reclining will greatly extend those
times and the limits.

> Mobility was also interesting.  Subject had to move 7.5 feet under various
> accelerations.  Average took 1.85 seconds under 1 G, 21.86 seconds under
> 3.16 G (did I mention they were allowed to crawl?) STRONGEST took 18.15
> seconds under 4G (rest could not move)

Fighter pilot has to use the sidearm controllers (you *don't* use a
stick on something where the pilot is expected to use it during
*continuous* high acceleration.

I'm also told that prolonged high acceleration has some problems you
wouldn't think of. Urination is easily dealt with by the usual tubing
setup. But lord help anyone who needs to defecate! In fact, you want
your digestive tract relatively empty of solids for high gee manuevers.

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

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

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 22:16:36 PST
Subject: Re: comments and a scenario (was Re: Urban legends)

In mail you write:

> Leonard Erickson wrote:
>> 
>> The players are trying to survey a planet that got depopulated during
>> the Long Night. They find a map hidden in the ruins of a government
>> office (say hidden behind a false panel in a file cabinet). It's in bad
>> shape, but they can still read it. It's a map of one of the more remote
>> areas of the planet, a definite wilderness area. But there are some
>> cryptic markings on it, indicating that *somethhing* is there, but the
>> markings don't say what it is. But it's ovbvious, both from the way the
>> map was hidden, and the fact that the notes are *so* cryptic, that
>> whatever it is, it was supposed to be *very* secret.
>
> [snipity snipity snip] 
>
>> I expect that typical players will either contaminate the hell out of
>> themselves, or manage to set set off some of the explosive/flammable
>> stuff leaking out of corroding drums.  :-)
>> 
>> In case you haven't guessed, I am fond of setting up situations where
>> the players get into trouble because of theor pre-conceived notions.
>
> This is an absolutely evil scenario.  There's a streak of wicked genius 
> hidding in this puppy.

It's what comes of a lifetime of moderate paranoia coupled with an
inventive mind raused on things like Brunner's "Traveller in Black"
fantasy stories.... <evil leer>

If I had the current rules on stuff like sensors, it'd be a fun setup
to draw up plans and flesh things out. Then submit it to JTAS. 

My very first dungeon plan (back in 75!) had a lever on the wall of one
room. It controlled a trapdoor *outside* the room. Took the players
forever to figure it out...


              |    |
              |    +--------+
   -----------+    |        |
  <- to cells *    |        |<-lever
   -----------+    |        |
              |    |        |
              |    |        |
              |    |        |
              |             |
              |    +--------+
              |    |

* <-trapdoor

The room was an old guardroom for the dungeon cells on the side
corridor. The trapdoor was an extra hazard for anybody who managed to
get out of a cell.

In any case, keep two things in mind. First, a real and reasonable
purpose for building the whatever. Second, what it will *look like*
from the viewpoint of a player. The trick is thinking of things where a
player's "distorted" view of the universe will lead them down the
garden path.

Oh yes, there's a *third* level to the "waste dump" scenario if you are
*truly* evil. Much "waste" for one industry is a "valuable raw
material" for another. Especially if the second industry is at a higher
tech level.

So if your players barely make it out alive, and decide to blast the
hell out of the place (say by detonating a nuke), both out of
frustration and to "make the place safe", picture their reactions when
they get back to civilization and (eventually) find out that they
"wastes" were actually worth *money* to some megacorp!

If they don't blow it up, you can have them read the news later about
how XYZ corp is making a fortune reprocessing the wastes. :-)

They may just shoot themselves rather than keep playing...

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

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

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 21:39:11 PST
Subject: Re: Fighters and Excessive G's

In mail you write:

> How much can a person in a Low Berth take G-wise?  And could this
> technology be adapted for prolonged fighter G manuvers?  Once could set a
> burn, get shut down in a Low Berth-type system, and then be roused after
> the burn...I suppose it would be a little awkward, but I bet the G's that
> could be taken would get up there...

There are several problems with this. First of all, if the pilot is in
a low berth you might as well not have him there.

Also, it takes *time* to prep for low berth and revive you from it. And
it has the problem that there is a non-trivial chance of *dying& every
time you are "revived".

Then there's the matter of just *how* low berths work. It's rather
likely that there's a treshold above which you start taking rather
*drastic* damage. 

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

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

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 22:03:31 PST
Subject: Re: The G Thing

In mail you write:

> Blast from the past! I had a model of a space station circa late '60s that
> followed this design, sort of. The model was a rocket shaped tube with one 
> side made of clear plastic so you could see the interior detail. Inside
> were a series of tiny decks with control consoles, beds, and some other
> sparse molded details, with ladders connecting the decks through 
> deck/overhead hatches. There were a bunch of little guys in about 15mm scale
> you could glue into the model.
>
> The nose cone section of the station was just big enough to hold one
> of the little guys, molded in boxers and undershirt, standing in front
> of a sink with medicine cabinet, brushing his teeth. I don't remember
> any toilet, just a sink.
>
> The strange thing was that "down" on this model was towards the nose
> cone. I was only about eight at the time, I don't remember if there was
> any mention of spinning the station for gravity, or if there was any
> gravity. All the engineering stuff was at the opposite end of the
> nose cone, as you'd expect in a `60s style rocket, just that the decks
> were laid out upside down to what you'd expect.

Ah! The old Revell MOL (Manned Orbiting Laboratory) model. Complete
with a couple of wedge shaped "DynaSoar" lifting bodies to use as
shuttles. 

It was an actual Air Force design that was one of the *many* things we
lost when NASA's space program became *the* Space Program.

In the late 60's a lot of the old 50s space kits got re-released. I
wish I had some of them now. Especially the ones that Lindberg
released. They re-released some kits as a "Mars Probe" series. But I
recognized them. They were originally models of the old Von Braun lunar
program designs. A two stage "parabolic" shape booster with a
cylindrical third stage and sattellite,. The same booster with a winged
re-entry vehicle. A "standard" spinning wheel space station. And an
open framework lunar lander (Earth Orbit Rendevous design).

Hmmm. If I can afford the new rules, it might be fun to reverse
engineer a lot of the old designs from the 50s. They were *workable,
it's just that (in most cases) we had better engines or materials by
the time we wanted to build things. Just what you need for a TL 7
civilization reaching out into space. :-)

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

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

End of Traveller-digest V1996 #284
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