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From: owner-traveller-digest@mpgn.com (Traveller-digest)
To: traveller-digest@Phaser.ShowCase.MPGN.COM
Subject: Traveller-digest V1996 #757
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Traveller-digest      Sunday, December 15 1996      Volume 1996 : Number 757



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Joe's List 
Re: Starship Personalities
Re: [T96#748] Wierd Place Names
Re: Foss art, etc. (longish)
Travelleresque Art
Liz Danforth
Re: Mech mobility kills
Re: Wierd Place Names
Re: Strength of Aslans and Domain (and now Vargr)
Re: Deckplan Grids
Re: Joe's List
Re: Radiation and its nasty things...
Re: Travelleresque Art & what Traveller is
Why did the Aslan invade the Domain of Deneb ?
Re: Travelleresque Art
Starships: A Second Look
Re: Traveller-digest V1996 #755
Yet another Starships review (from a newbie)

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

Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 23:02:44 -0800
From: "Rich Ostorero" <stormhvn@inreach.com>
Subject: Re: Joe's List 

> 
> Liz is a great artist.. and she's joined at the hip with Mike Stackpole,
who
> has written the backstory for BattleTech for almost 15 years now.  

 . . . and I've read every one of his BT novels. GOOD stuff.


> If you
> haven't read the "Warrior" Trilogy, find it now.  You will *never* be
able
> to attend a wedding reception wiyhout grinning your head off again.

I read it back in '88, oops 3028. FASA is the past master of the
GenCon-gameworld tiein; the Wedding That Made War back then, the
Dukenhenzel(sp) The Dragon election/assassination bit this year.

> 
> Be nice if he wrote some Traveller stuff....

You betcha . . . . 

> Nah, just use a pool of whipped cream.. too thick to swim in, and you can
> drown in it.

Kinkier, too ;)

- --Rich
stormhvn@inreach.com

 

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

Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 23:22:14 -0800
From: "Rich Ostorero" <stormhvn@inreach.com>
Subject: Re: Starship Personalities

> 
> Well, I don't have the Starships book yet, so I can't comment on that
> directly.  However, I do find that except for a rare product, in most
RPGs I
> can write the descriptions and such for NPCs better than the product
itself.

Since I have inevitably been the GM in my gaming groups over the last
ten-plus years, NPC-writing is a campaign-long exercise for me. The only
game-system with which I'm familiar that seems to produce _excellent_ NPC
writeups is probably the White Wolf/World Of Dorkness system.

> 
> Perhaps this is due the fact that the average RPGer has bought more
> products, and played more of the certain game than the designers of the
> product.

With respect to relating the character to game background, you are probably
right, but in the broader sense,  NPC writing is an art independant of game
systems. It is more an authorial/storytelling skill than one gained through
familiarity with a game system.


  For example, take the Starships product.

As Benny Youngman might say if he were a TMLler: Take the Starships product
- -- PLEASE! :)

> Is Don Perrin as much of
> a Traveller fanatic as some of us on the list? 

I hope Mr. Perrin takes the time to talk to us about it. Or, if Mr. Perrin
is too damned busy working to make us fans happy with the next release
(very probable)<g>, maybe Joe can liaise with the IG Creative Team on this
one . . . .
 
 I don't think so (sorry, for
> the assumption if it's wrong).  A lot fo the people on this list have,
> literally *every* Traveller product in existence, so the stuff created by
> them is almost bound to be good!

Again, with respect to congruence with The Background We All Know And Love,
sure. 

- --Rich Ostorero
stormhvn@inreach.com

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

Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 23:05:01 -0800
From: "Rich Ostorero" <stormhvn@inreach.com>
Subject: Re: [T96#748] Wierd Place Names

> 
> How about Two Egg, Florida? <g>

I once went through a ville  called Good Grief, Idaho. Population,
according to the sign, was "three people and two dogs."

- --Rich Ostorero
stormhvn@inreach.com

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

Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 01:38:10 +0000
From: "Kenneth Bearden" <dreamer@brokersys.com>
Subject: Re: Foss art, etc. (longish)

On 15 Dec 96 at 2:06, Glenn Grant wrote:

; you stare at something like
> that finned monorail thing in T4 and wonder, "What the hell is *that*?"

LOL!

Kenneth.
>

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

Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 03:17:47 -0500
From: 34zbtxq@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu (Susan M. Shock)
Subject: Travelleresque Art

        It seems to me that "Travelleresque Art" is really just a euphemism
for "We want everything to look just like it did in 1980". Never mind that
this mileau is 1,105 years before the "Classic" Traveller era that so many
people pine for. We want a Scout/Courier to look the same now and forever.
        That would seem to me to a BIT hard to accept for anyone with an
ounce or two of imagination.
        Do cars today look like cars 50 years ago? For that matter, does a
newly built aircraft carrier resemble it's World War Two counterpart?
        How do you make something look "retro" when it also has to look
futuristic as well?
        We are living in the soon-to-be-late nineties, but I have seen many
times styles from 30-50 years ago make a comeback. Humans are prone to
things like fads.
        Things like ships that don't match their deckplans, fine, Complain
about that. Books that are not properly edited or that do dumb things like
put color plates right in the middle of the design rules, yes, these are
things worth complaining about. Ships that don't look like Traveller? What
does this mean? That they don't look like you expect them to? Maybe it's
your expectations that are incorrect.
        Sometimes I think that some of the Traveller fans on this list (not
ALL, not even MOST, but SOME) are, for people who supposedly enjoy
imaginative pursuits like science fiction and roleplaying games, some of the
most hidebound people I've ever met.

                        Flame proof suit activated,
                                                        Allen Shock

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

Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 22:49:02 -0900
From: aramis@lunatic.asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Liz Danforth

>> That Computer Guy wrote:
>> > That said, I will mention that hands down, bar none, Rob Caswell *is*
>> > Traveller art.  Everything he did was simply beautiful and well laid
>> > out.  And his equipment drawings were spectacular to boot!
>>
>> Add Blair Reynolds to the list of artists that ARE Traveller
>
>Am I the only one who liked Liz Danforth's work?
No, I do as well. Matter of fact, she's the only one besides WH Keith who I
have immediate name recall on amongst CT/MT illustrators.

William F. Hostman
Aramis@asylumbbs.com

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

Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 02:03:36 -0800
From: "Douglas" <douglas@teleport.com>
Subject: Re: Mech mobility kills

Explosive that detonates at a right angle to the gravity field, as I
recall.  (Self Tamping - wonderful booby trap material)

- ----------
> From: Armand Suarez <suarez@on.rim.or.jp>
> To: 'Traveller Mailing List' <traveller@MPGN.COM>
> Subject: RE: Mech mobility kills
> Date: Friday, December 13, 1996 9:34 PM
> 
> Clint Fishback wrote:
> 
> >>Not necessarly true.  Your typical humaniod two legged mech most
> likely.  But if you consider the "spider" type mech that has been
> described, it won't just drop.  Of course if it gets to the point that
> enuff legs were shot out for it to drop, the mech is probably not in
> good shape anyway & would probably "die" soon anyway.
> --
> I really like the idea of the spider mech that's been discussed.  Anybody

> have the needed design sequence additions for FF&S to make one?
> 
> I think spider mech drivers' worst fear would be a TDX overhead proximity

> mine.  That could take out all the legs at once!  A cookie to anyone who 
> remembers what TDX is. ;-D
> 
> Later,
> 
> Armand

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

Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 10:19:31 +0000 (GMT)
From: PAUL WILLIAMS <p.d.williams@lancaster.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Wierd Place Names

Ok, all the others are wierd, but Chipping Norton? Does this mean
something to North Americans that we Brits need to be told about, 'cos
it sounds pretty normal to me. For what it's worth, there's a Bell End
in Australia, but I don't know whether I'll get censored for that one...

Paul.

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

Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 02:45:49 -0700
From: "Edward Swatschek" <edjs@mindlink.net>
Subject: Re: Strength of Aslans and Domain (and now Vargr)

> Date:          Sat, 14 Dec 1996 17:11:22 -0800 (PST)
> From:          Wes Payne <n9548326@cc.wwu.edu>
> 
> One resource [Hans] keep using, which I lack, is Trillion Credit Squadron.  
> I have no inkling of the assumptions used therein regarding the defense 
> forces that a given world can afford.  I can only offer statements as 
> "seems like" and "probable" as weak refutations of the arguments you've 
> put forward regarding the defense forces of some of the high population, 
> high tech worlds in Corridor Sector.  I have some TNE resources which 
> detail the amount of personnel and economic output a given world (or 
> nation) can commit to their military, but they're not handy.

TCS defines the yearly Naval budget of a world as Cr500 x Pop * 
GovMult, with the GovMult ranging from 0.5 to 1.5.  10 times this 
amount is how much you can spend on your initial fleet (based on 
maintenence being 10% of the ship's cost per year).

I feel the numbers are more applicable to independant worlds, rather 
than to the peacetime Imperium.  Member worlds leave the bulk of 
navel defense to the Imperium, which doesn't spend nearly as much TCS 
suggests.  The Domain of Deneb has (very roughly) 3-5000 ships in 
it's 34 regular fleets, perhaps a similar number in the reserve 
fleets.


- --
Edward Swatschek - edjs@mindlink.net

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

Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 05:05:29 -0600
From: "David Blustein" <dtb@NASCRAG.ORG>
Subject: Re: Deckplan Grids

David Blustein wrote:
>>
>> Why not use a 1.0m square grid for deckplans, and be done with the
>> issue of compatibility?


William F. Hostman wrote:
>
> If you're gonna reduce to a common denominator, I'd rather see 0.5
> meter grid with heavier lines at the 1.5m breaks... 


0.5m works for me. (I'm not too picky - Really. :-)

I like the idea of making some lines heavier than others, but I
wonder which lines should be heavier. Every second line (1.0m), every
third line (1.5m), or every fourth line (2.0m)?

Cheers,
     David
- -- 
David T. Blustein
http://www.nascrag.org./~dtb/
mailto:dtb@nascrag.org

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

Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 03:37:13 -0800
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Joe's List

At 02:06 AM 12/15/96 -0500, Glenn Grant wrote:

>'Fraid so, Joe. Just like I'm (apparently) the only person who thinks Donna
>Barr's Traveller Book cartoons were brilliant.

Hey!  I liked those too!  I'm a big fan of Barr's work, especially the
Desert Peach.. now there's a thought.. Herr Oberst Rommel commanding a
ragtag Imperial Marine regiment during the 5FW.


+----------------------------------------------+
| Douglas E. Berry          dberry@hooked.net  |
|     Professional Driver - Traveller Guru     |
|        http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/        |
|**********************************************|
| "Life's a journey, not a destination."       |
|                                   -Aerosmith |
+----------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 14:45:50 +0000
From: brendan@odonovan.demon.co.uk
Subject: Re: Radiation and its nasty things...

> 	I'm in a game/write-up and come accross a problem. Seems a valuable metal
> deposit (used for jump grids, I think lanthium(?)) is in a radioactive area and
> contaminated. Does anyone know what a nuclear damper would do to effect the
> area? 

A nuclear damper is normally set up to increase the stability of the 
nuclei in its area of effect, stopping, for example, nuclear 
warheads from going off. You could thus render the material safe by 
keeping it permanently in a damper field, but this would be 
impractical in the long run. A better solution would be to use the 
ability to tinker with radioisotope half lives to speed up the decay 
and emission of radiation. This would let an area be decontaminated 
within a short period of time. As I see it, decontamination would 
consist of the following steps

1/ Vehicles with nuclear decay inhibitors would move into the 
contaminated area, and would deploy a second set of nuclear reaction 
accelerators.
2/ The deployment vehicle would withdraw to a safe distance.
3/ The deployed dampers would be activated. Temporarily the 
contaminated area would become intensely radioactive, releasing 
a large quantity of energy.
4/ During decontamination the progress of the reaction would need to 
be carefully monitored. If an area was sufficiently contaminated, 
then there would be a danger of the reaction running away and causing 
an explosion. There would be trade-offs to be made between the safety 
of taking it more slowly, and the cost of hiring the equipment for 
longer.

This presents a number of possibilities to throw the players off 
guard.
- - One of the dampers could be damaged by the radiation and stop 
responding to outside control signals, threatening a detonation.
- - A nearby village is sufficiently far from the radioactive area to 
be safe normally, but the increased emissions during decontamination 
threaten the health of the villagers. The players would have to 
negotiate an evacuation.
- - The radiation emitted from the area far more intense than expected, 
as beneath the surface is an old crashed battleship from the 
Terran-Vilani conflicts, containing a large number of nuclear 
warheads which are in danger of being detonated. 

All this depends on the level of contamination, and assumes that the 
area has some fairly high level waste. 

There was a big feature on radiation in Travellers' Digest 15, and a 
brief summary of the treatments presented is:
TL8- Treatment of symptoms only
TL9  - Anarad - a drug which combines with ionized atoms and removes 
them from the body.
TL 11 - Retrorad - a virus which repairs cell damage/mutation. Fairly 
slow acting so cannot handle fatal exposure levels. Must be prepared 
by medical personnel specifically for each patient. Preparation takes 
6-36 hours, which may be too long to be helpful. Must be administered 
soon after exposure.
TL 12 - Fast retrorad - Faster acting version of the above, faster to 
prepare as well (6-36 minutes). Can cope with otherwise fatal 
exposure.
TL 14 - Retrorad shield - As above, but remains dormant until needed. 
May prevent radiation sickness entirely, but expensive and needs 
weekly renewal. 

As always, feel free to find the gaping flaws in any of the above...
- --
Brendan 

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

Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 03:51:04 -0900
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Travelleresque Art & what Traveller is

> From: pawn@CAM.ORG (Glenn Grant)
> Subject: Re: Joe's List
> 
> >> That Computer Guy wrote:
> >> > That said, I will mention that hands down, bar none, Rob Caswell *is*
> >> > Traveller art.  Everything he did was simply beautiful and well laid out.  And his equipment drawings were spectacular to boot!

> >> Add Blair Reynolds to the list of artists that ARE Traveller

> >Am I the only one who liked Liz Danforth's work?
> >- -Joe	
No I think Liz Danforth does good work as well, I liked her drawings of 
people.
 
> 'Fraid so, Joe. Just like I'm (apparently) the only person who thinks 
> Donna Barr's Traveller Book cartoons were brilliant. 
> But then, I only went to art school for several years and have worked   as a commercial illustrator, so what do I know about art? :)
> Glenn G.

No you are not the only one.  I have always thought that Donna Barr was 
a great illustrator.  Her drawings were among my favorites among CT 
illustrations.  Her drawings of people always seem to tell you that 
there is a personality behind the picture & her drawings of Naval 
personnel are especially good.  IMHO Donna Barr's spot illustrations are 
more usefull than some other artists full page illos.  If she is not too 
busy with her comic books (insert shameless plug here) I'd love to see 
her work in Traveller again.

	One of the things that a good RPG needs to do (and which 
Traveller has always  done well) is to let the players know that the 
charecter & personality of the charecter is important.  Traveller is 
about people interacting, the technology just controls what people 
(& aliens)_can_do & not what they _do_do.  This is why a good drawing of 
people is better than a good drawing of a ship.  The charecter is the 
important aspect.  Don't get me wrong I am a gearhead too & I've spent 
many hours designing ships, but you are not roleplaying the SHIP you are 
roleplaying the Charecter.  I like some of the Foss Art but don't like 
most of it. I have been staying out of that discussion because I do not 
think the ships are as important as the people.
	Remember this list is about a game called Traveller not about a 
game called Starship...

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

Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 04:30:45 -0900
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Why did the Aslan invade the Domain of Deneb ?

I have been following the "The Aslan Could Not Have Sucessfully
Invaded The Domai vs The Aslan Could Too & We Know This Because Cannon 
Says They Did" Thread with interest & it seems to me that both sides are 
in fact correct.  The Aslan are too weak & divided to have invaded as 
far as they did_based on what we know_but we know they did because 
cannonical references say the did & Marc Miller (rightly) has chosen not 
to rewrite continuity.  Therefore I would like to suggest that do not 
have enough information to discuss this subject.
	Therefore I propose that we give this thread a rest for 3 or 4 
years until Imperium Games does a sourcebook on the Rebellion Era at 
which point we can all lobby them relentlessly with our perspectives & 
try to get them published.  I have been playing Traveller for 18 years & 
I expect to be playing it in 3 of 4 years, we will all find out the 
answer then.
	I realize that taking away this argument will leave a hole in 
the list so I would like to propose a NEW subject to argue about.
	Why did the Aslan cross the Great Rift to find new land in the 
first place when there is lots of unclaimed land to the Rimward & 
SpinwardRimward portions of the Hierate?  If you look at the map of 
Aslan Spacein Solomani & Aslan (pg 50) you will notice that while a good 
portion of the nearby Sectors are Aslan Colonies most of this land is 
unclaimed by a government.  We do not know how many Aslan live there but 
we can assume that these Aslan are weaker than the Third Imperium (if 
they were stronger than the Imperium we would have heard about it).  
Therefore why didn't the ihatei go there instead of crossing the Rift. 
It was not easy or cheap for the Aslan to crosss the rift so why did 
they bother?  Please do not answer honor as Aslan honor is a cultural 
construct but desire for land is a genetic imperative & is therefore 
more fundamental.
I would like to throw this question out for comment.

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

Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 09:25:48 +0000
From: "Kenneth Bearden" <dreamer@brokersys.com>
Subject: Re: Travelleresque Art

On 15 Dec 96 at 3:17, Susan M. Shock wrote:


>         Things like ships that don't match their deckplans, fine, Complain
> about that. Books that are not properly edited or that do dumb things like
> put color plates right in the middle of the design rules, yes, these are
> things worth complaining about. Ships that don't look like Traveller? What
> does this mean? That they don't look like you expect them to? Maybe it's
> your expectations that are incorrect.

Sorry Allen, I don't agree with you here.  I'm not going to flame ya, 
but I do thing it is important the we communicate what we like and 
what we don't like as far as Traveller goes.  Art and the Traveller 
look is one of these.

You said that maybe the people's expectations who don't like the art 
are incorrect.  How can that be?  We are consumers, and as consumers 
we buy what we want and like.  I think communicating what kind of art 
we like for Traveller is just as important as discussing the latest 
rule controversy or change in technical thoughts (like the change in 
T-plate function).

We have to communicate what we want T4 to be!  Many people do not 
like the Foss art.  Communicating this is important.

I thought by showing IG what Foss pieces we like and what we don't 
like would be valuable.  "Hey, this is the type of stuff the fans 
want to see."

I don't necessarily need the art to look exactly like the Traveller 
of 20 years ago, but I do know what I consider Traveller art and what 
I consider non-Traveller art.  Joe Walsh made a good point in one of 
his posts.  IG may not know what good Traveller art is.

It is our job to tell them what we like.  If we don't, we'll keep 
getting the stuff that we don't like.

Kenneth.

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

Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 10:00:47 -0600 (CST)
From: "Joseph E. Walsh" <ransom@connect.iconnect.net>
Subject: Starships: A Second Look

Most of us have had our say about Starships, and there is certainly a 
variety of opinions about the book (in detail, anyway - it appears no one 
is actually HAPPY with the book; some are just less UNHAPPY than 
others).  I'd like to take another stab at it, now that I've had some 
time to really go through it - I want to try to be a bit more rational 
about the whole thing than I was in my first reaction.

I can live with the color plates.  It's no big deal to me, really.  They 
should have been placed in a less inconvenient place in the book, though.

I can also live with the B&W illustrations of the ships.  Some make me 
think, "Huh?" but I guess that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  I have to 
face facts: I'm a pretty darned conservative person, and my ties are 
solidly to CT.  But I'm not the average RPG consumer out there, so what 
do I know?  Maybe it's a good thing that the new art gets people 
thinking.

Finally, I can live with deckplans that have no gridlines.  I can add 
those on relatively easy.  Or, I can pull out a ruler.  Whatever.  Easy 
fix. 

Really, all that stuff should be of negligable concern.  There are bigger 
problems with the book.

The big problem with the deckplans is that things are mislabeled (anyone 
else notice there are no power plants??  I think they mean power plant 
when they say "engine" - but not all ships have "engines"!  And some 
jump-capable ships have no jump drives - the corsair for instance.), many 
areas are not labeled at all, and the plans don't conform to the design 
specifications.  2m by 2m staterooms?

Those are the real problems with the deckplans, IMO.  

There are also some real problems with the text.  Of course, it's not 
edited very well.  But there's a more serious problem: there's not much 
text in the book. 

The text /is/ the RPG.  One could certainly create an RPG solely using 
text.  One could not create an RPG solely using art.  An RPG supplement 
that is 75% art is rather a waste of paper as an RPG.  As something to 
keep on your coffee table as a conversation piece, maybe it's not so much 
of a waste. ;)

I believe the things we need to emphasize to IG and AP&D at this point are:

1) Editing (Including consistency - T-plates at TL 11 in one place, TL 12
            in another, etc.)
2) Add more text - 25% art and 75% text should be standard; 50/50 for books
   like Starships that have deckplans or other useful illustrations.
3) Make the illustrations (deck plans, weapon illustrations, etc.) conform
   to the descriptions of the items in the text.

Once they get those areas under control, we can decide whether to move on 
to the other issues.

That's my current thinking on the subject, anyway.


- -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! :)
       .....Official Reporter of Imperium Games Product Info.....

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

Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 08:49:13 -0800
From: "Brian A. Howard" <Bruadh@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1996 #755

Earlier, Susan Shock posted:

> A friend of mine clued me in to the fact that the Traveller Navigator's
> sectors produced by Planet III software (which has changed it's name to
> Davtech or some such) are now available as freeware. They will not be
> supported, but the designer, Jeff Davies, has made them available. There are
> five sectors; Deneb, Diaspora, Old Expanses, Reft and the Spinward Marches.
> These sectors also include EVERY ship published for TNE as well as few new
> ones (like a 55-ton Jump Boat). These are available from:
>         ftp.best.com/pub/jdavies
> 
> There is a web page telling about this at kttp://www.davtechsys.com/ftp.htm
> 
> BUT the ftp links don't work. so use the ftp site above.
> 
> I'm sorry to see that Planet III has thrown in the towel on doing Traveller
> software, as I was looking forward to their Traveller Shipyard program. But
> now at least those still playing TNE and Brilliant Lances can get these sectors.
>                                 Allen
> 
> P.S. This is about 5.5 megs of files altogther,so pack a lunch if you plan
> on doing it all at once!


I just tried to download these materials from Davies' webpage, but the
server couldn't find the address. Does he have the connections right?

Brian A. Howard

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

Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 13:03:25 +0100 (MET)
From: Thomas Biskup <tb@saranxis.ruhr.de>
Subject: Yet another Starships review (from a newbie)

This is a review of the Starships supplement for Mark Miller's
Traveller (Traveller 4th Edition; in this review it will be referred
to as T4).  I wrote it while reading the sourcebook and afterwards
changed nothing so you get my first-hand impressions.

Some facts about me, the reviewer, beforehand: in 1982 or 1983 I
played in a couple of Classic Traveller sessions, but the campaign
died due to a variety of reasons.  Since then I remember Traveller
fondly and always wanted to start a campaign of my own.  My first
attempt to do this was with Traveller: The New Era, but since I hated
both the background and the rules I nuked this idea.  Now T4 provides
another chance to go for it and I'm still very excited about it.

First of all I'll summarize my general impressions (part 1) and
afterwards you'll be able to see my detailed comments and rants (part
2).  A summary concludes my review (part 3).


- --- PART 1: General Impression

LAYOUT: The bad thing about the layout is: it's bland and boring.  It
looks as if it were done by someone who knows how to use 'Word for
Windows' but that's it.  The (good?) thing about the layout is: it's
bland and boring.  There are no ugly backgrounds to distract the
reader, the information is presented in a pretty straightforward way
and there are no disorganized sidebars, etc.  There is no index but a
book with this little contents probably doesn't need one.  The colored
artwork (for comments about its quality see the next section) sadly is
scattered in a very stupid way in this book.  *All* the plates are placed
in the middle of the table section used for creating new starships,
where it's of absolutely no use and even disturbs the ship design
process.  It appears to have been randomly inserted in that place, as
if nobody ever considered whether the artwork has some meaning and
where it could be put to better use.
	Then there are the deckplans for the ships.  The initial
comments on the Traveller mailing list already made me expect ugly
deckplans, but they are even worse than I ever would have believed to
be possible in a professional company.  They were obviously drawn with
some kind of primitive graphics software, they are extremely ugly, they
don't show *any* details, there are no grids on them and there is no
description for ships interior except a couple of words like 'Fuel',
'Cargo', ...
	The organization of the book is a little strange, too.  On
page 5 e.g. the imperial calender is displayed, then you turn to page
6 and *blam*: you see a rescue ball and the ship data?  Where's the
start of that section?  Where are the introductory words?  Where's the
organization?
	Another main problem is that the individual descriptions for
ships (as far as you can call them 'descriptions') take up by far too
much space.  A description plus picture took up one-fourth of a page
in the basic rules; now they take up one page alone (without adding
*any* information).  Half a page would have been enough for so little
information.
	The tables for the ship design process (there are 18 pages of
tables shock-full with numbers) are placed at the end of the ship
design instructions (which is basically a good idea in order to not
interrupt the design instructions), but sadly there are *no*
references between the individual design steps and the tables involved
(or the pages where to find them), so that you basically have to
search a lot.
	Finally the page numbers again show up at the bottom center of
a page which makes it somewhat difficult to find a page if you flip
through the book.  Also the layouter should consider to use a smaller
typeface for variable indices since currently the usage of the same
typeface size for the index as for the variable itself destroys the
line layout.
	Rating: 5 out of 10 (-0.5 for the badly placed page numbers;
- -2 for basically useless and very ugly deckplans for the ships; -1.5 for
wasting a lot of space in the ship presentation; -0.5 for misplacing
the artwork; -0.5 for a general lack of organization).

ARTWORK: The artwork is done by Chris Foss.  The front art looks good
although I would have expected a picture more clearly concentrating on
a starship and not on a planetary surface scene *with* a starship (or
something like that; it looks a little like a mechanized sandworm from
Dune).  Personally I'd have preferred if the picture from the back of
this book had been used as the cover art since it fits the topic a lot
more.
	The interior art consists of B/W illustrations for the various
ready-to-run starships and some color plates in the back of the book.  The
B/W artwork is not bad but it's not good either.  The ship art generally
lacks some detail and is too close in colors to the background so that it
is not really well recognizable.  Also several of the illustrations fail
to convey a hard SF feeling but rather look as if they were coming from a
Flash Gordon comic.  On the whole it is usable though (although it won't
spark your imagination). 
	The colored artwork has a different problem: while it is pretty
well done it is not related to the topic of this book in *any*
reasonable way (most pictures show a starship, but no ships from the
book from what I can see).  There is no text for the pictures and they
aren't even placed close to any meaningful section.
	Rating: 4.5 out of 10 (-2 for unrelated color art; -2 for the
somewhat boring B/W illustrations; -1 for the bad choice of too many
dark colors for the B/W illustrations; -0.5 for the strange placement
of the color art).

EDITING: The editing is a lot better than in the basic T4 rules
(although there was only very little text to be edited).  There are a
couple of typos and grammatical mistakes, but nothing too distracting.
The text itself is written in a very sober style (maybe a little dry)
and I found it somewhat difficult to understand the ship design
process (the missing references to the tables involved are a major
factor in this).  The rules really seem to be written for people with
previous experience in designing Traveller ships and not for newbies
like me.
	Rating: 7 out of 10 (-1 for a couple of easy to spot typos and
problems; -1 for missing references; -1 for the somewhat confusing
explanations).

RULES: While the Standard Ship Design System (the only 6 pages of
rules you'll find in this book) seems to be well thought-out the
presentation is less than perfect (see the next section).  The rules
seem to strive for quasi-realism through number-crunching (the number
of tables and the fractional numbers involved even makes most Phoenix
Command supplements pale in comparison).  On the good side, the
complete design process just takes up six pages so that it should be
manageable with a little practice.  The tables also sport a couple of
abbreviations which obviously nobody wanted to explain.  You'll
definitely need a pocket calculator to use these rules and you'd
probably be better of if you know how to create a spreadsheet for
this.
	Sadly they also neglected to include examples of ship design.
The process is very involved and somewhat complicated and it would
have been nice to receive a complete example of a starship designed
from scratch.
	Finally you won't be able to create any starship in the
Traveller universe with this supplement.  Ships are limited to 5000
tons in size.
	Rating: 6.5 out of 10 (-1 for obfuscated presentation; -0.5 for
being a little number-heavy; -1 for failing to include examples; -1
for being limited to 5000t ships)

COMPLETENESS: The rules are somewhat confused and suffer from missing
references to the relevant tables (see above).  Also they are
basically presented as a plain text divided into some steps.  A little
more formatting to highlight the different actions required would have
been better.  The system obviously expects the reader to have
completely read and memorized the starship rules in the basic system.
Thus you'll even have to read the design rules from the standard
rulebook to understand the improved design process (and can't use it
as a stand-alone system).  Examples are missing which further
complicates things.
	Since there is already a lot of redundancy in this book (15 of
the 30 ships were already presented in the T4 rulebook) they also should
have added all the important formulas and descriptions (I e.g. hate
flipping from the ship design book to the basic rules and back just to
determine what a black globe defense system does).
	I also had hoped for a new and improved ship combat system but
they don't even mention anything like that.  At least some details
about the workings of sick bays, laboratories, etc. also would have
been nice.
	Rating: 2 out of 10 (-1 for not including the basic travel
formulas, etc.; -1 for missing references; -2 for lack of general
descriptions; -2 for a missing new ship combat system; -1 for limiting
the ship sizes and thus requiring yet another supplement; -1 for
including so much redundant information).

PRICING: $20 for a 107 pages book (3.5 pages of introduction, 1.5
pages on the imperial calendar, 30 pages of tiny ship descriptions and
average quality art, 32 pages of useless and ugly deckplans, 18.5
pages of tables, 1.5 pages of forms, 2 pages of NPCs, 6 pages on ship
design, 12 pages of color art).  Thus the useful parts of the book
basically consist of 41 pages (15 new ship descriptions, 20 pages of
forms and tables, 6 pages on design).  To put it bluntly: the pricing
is excessive and an absolutely bad joke.  The book is worth $10 at
most and even then I would think about it twice.  The book just does
not offer enough for this very high price.  You can get complete
roleplaying systems for this price with a lot more content.  If you
are not a die-hard Traveller fan (or a despaired Traveller newbie
like me) save your money for something else (maybe TSR's 1997
Alternity SF rpg, maybe WW's upcoming Exile rpg, maybe the Fading Suns
rpg or maybe just some some movie tickets).
	Rating: 0 out of 10.

- --- PART 2: Detailed Review

The detailed review will comment each section in the order it appears
in the book (if I have to say something about it -- good or bad):

Introduction
- ------------
The short introduction contains some basic words on how important
starships are for the third imperium (what a surprise) and then
continues with the Imperial Calendar (I'm still wondering how it's
related to starships although I'm glad about all background
information I can get).

Starship Descriptions
- ---------------------
This actually is not really a section since you are immediately
dropped into it without any explanation (now words about the format;
no explanations for the abbreviations; you'll need to refer to the
basic rules for this).  A ship description takes up two pages: one
page for the illustration and the basic data (in the basic rules they
only needed one-fourth of a page and the presentation was no worse
than it is now) and a second page for the deckplans.  While the waste
of space for the description is only a little annoying the deckplans
are truly bad: they lack all details, there are no grids on them and
they look as if drawn by a fifth-grader who learned to use some
painting software a couple of days ago.  Truly ugly, truly useless and
absolutely bad.  15 of the 30 ships are reproductions from the basic
rules.
	Twice there are NPC descriptions inserted in between ship
descriptions.  While the descriptions are okay, they do not shine.  A
somewhat experienced GM can make up such NPCs on the spot.
	Basically this section offers only very little information on
very many pages.

The Standard Ship Design System
- -------------------------------
The system seems to be well-conceived, heavy on numbers and fractions
and is not very well organized.  While the steps are logical they lack
references to many tables and auxiliary formulas used and thus are
pretty confusing at times.  They also require knowledge about the ship
design process in the basic rules and force you to constantly flip
back and forth between the basic rules and this manual unless you
already have memorized all the information about starships from the
basic rules.  This makes it somewhat difficult for newbies to use this
section (although practice will change this).

Tables
- ------
Lot's of them.  A little more organization would have been nice but
basically they are okay.


- --- Part 3: Summary

The summary consists of two parts: an objective part (counting the
numbers) and a subjective part summarizing my personal impressions. 

Layout ........... 5.0/10
Artwork .......... 4.5/10
Editing .......... 7.0/10
Rules ............ 6.5/10
Completeness ..... 2.0/10 
Pricing .......... 0.0/10

Overall rating ... 4.2/10 (25/60) (rounded)

Objectively rated the latest offering in the new Traveller line is a big
disappointment.  The book again appears to have been put together without
spending a lot of time thinking about the composition.  It lacks in many
places and is far too low on useful contents.  The price is by far too
high and there is nothing in the book or in its production value
justifying this price.  Basically this is a below average supplement. 

Now for the subjective part (and personal comments)... I hope I'm not
too insensitive in my comments but I never liked to only hint at
problems:

1. The book is almost three months late.  Looking at it I wonder what
   IG did in all that time.  The book is pretty thin (a meager 107 pages)
   for its price and more than half of this is filled with at best
   average illustrations and deckplans.  

2. The presentation again is not very good.  When will people
   understand that technical instructions (the ship design process) need
   good examples and that roleplayers want *detail*?  Both is missing in
   this book which is bad for new players.

3. The editing still has a lot of problems in general: what IG
   basically needs are IMHO one or more editors, who have knowledge about
   roleplaying games but aren't die-hard Traveller fans.  Again and
   again the current editors seem to neglect that they need to draw new
   gamers into this genre to be able to survive.  Sadly the current offerings
   are not very well suited for new players since they again and again
   assume previous knowledge about the game.  To spot such problems is
   very difficult for someone who his an expert in his field since he'll
   automatically assume certain things a newbie doesn't know.

4. The price (I can't repeat this often enough): $20 is by far too much
   for a book of this size.  If the color art would be excluded I'd rate
   it as a $8.95 or $10 supplement.  This product really seems to be
   pushed to 107 pages artificially (especially in the section with the
   pre-designed ships).  It just does not have enough contents.  I'm very
   concerned about this since the next products in the line again are
   priced at $20.  I don't know about their page count but I know that I
   *definitely* won't buy them if none of the following is going to be
   true:
	- the supplements need to be larger in size and they need to
	  contain a lot more information
	- the price needs to be scaled down (okay, this is not going to
	  happen with the immediate releases coming but I still can hope
	  for the future).
	- the quality of writing needs to improve drastically; currently
	  the quality is on a fanzine level (sorry, but it's that average).
	- the quality of the art has to improve and it needs to be *related*
	  to the game!

5. I'm also pretty disappointed with the little background information
   in Starships.  The meager two pages of NPCs are pretty average and
   lack good ideas, interesting stories and flavour.  Any moderately
   experienced GM is probably able to come up with at least as good
   descriptions on the spot during a game (I know that I regularly do so
   since I don't like excessive preparation).

To sum it up: I am (again) very disappointed with the latest offering in
the Traveller line.  My main problem with it really is the high prize (I
got my Starships book for free so I shouldn't complain but I would be
really disappointed if I had paid $20 for it).  It really would fare
better at a lower prize (maybe as a 64 pages supplement for $8.95 or $10). 
One half of that would have been dedicated to ship design (tables and
rules and some more formulas and basic descriptions for the equipment) and
the other half could have been used for ready-to-run ships (at the scale
of one ship per page, where the deckplan would take up one half of the
page, one quarter would be used for the data and one quarter for a good
illustration).  That would have been a good product as far as I am
concerned and it probably would rate a lot higher for me.  I fear that IG
(or Sweetpea Entertainment or whoever) will very soon get into financial
problems with the Traveller line if they don't manage to captivate a new
audience (the old fan base was never large enough to support the game on
its own).  Over here in Germany Traveller does not seem to sell well
(judging from first-hand expressions in my area and from what I saw during
the Essener Spieletage).  I really hope that things will change soon for
the better though but there is still a lot of work to be done...



- --
Thomas Biskup                               email to: tb@saranxis.ruhr.de
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Would you choose one life over one thousand?
 I refuse to let arithmetic decide questions like that."
                          -- Data and Picard, "Justice", stardate 41255.6

 

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

End of Traveller-digest V1996 #757
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