Traveller-digest      Sunday, December 29 1996      Volume 1996 : Number 797



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

RE: IG Pricing 
RE: IG Pricing 
Campaign Diary Online!
Re: IG Pricing
Re: IG pricing[long rant coming]
Re: JTAS subscriptions (possible relationship)
Re: Interstellar taxes
Vargr Style Warfare
SEARCHER Class Explorer Scout (Kinda Long)
Re: Tech and Starports
Re: Psionic Lovers
Re: Tax collections 
Re: Tech and Starports
Re: JTAS subscriptions (possible relationship)
Re: Spreadsheets

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 13:21:17 +0000
From: "Kenneth Bearden" <dreamer@brokersys.com>
Subject: RE: IG Pricing 

On 29 Dec 96 at 10:51, Joseph E. Walsh wrote:


> Hmmm.  In college, they drilled it into our heads that cost should have 
> nothing to do with price.  You charge what you can get.  If you can't 
> charge enough to cover your costs, then you don't produce the product.  
> Other than that, cost and price should have no relationship.  There's no 
> such thing as too much profit. =)

Actually, Joe, this is only half way true.  I was a marketing major, 
and after that, held a position as a capital accounts manager for a 
medical sales company.

Price theory is half art and half science.  It depends on what goals, 
if they have any, they are trying to achieve with their products.  
For instance, they may want a high market penetration to get the 
Traveller name out there, sell a lot of books, and secure market 
share.

With the price of their current books, they are definitely not 
following this pricing strategy.  Another strategy is to price your 
product high if it is perceived as a quality product.  Again, IG is 
not doing this either, because it would be hard to position a premium 
product in the RPG market--customers do not perceive one company's 
products as a premium product with relation to the others.

What I'm trying to say is that there are many different approaches to 
pricing, and it depends on how you want to position your product and 
what your marketing goals are.  Although, as you posited, chargeing 
as much as you can get for a product is a viable pricing strategy, it 
is definitely not the only one.  There are many instances where a 
company may charge less than what they could get for a product 
because it fits their marketing goals.  This happens a lot with 
product lines that are meant to be perceived as discount/high volume 
items.  The company may want to go for volume, or they may want to 
establish their trademark in a certain way, or they may want to be 
lower than the competition, or they...

Get the picture?  I remember an extreme case that occurred when I was 
working my way through 
school.  I worked at a jewelry store, and we sold this 14K gold watch 
for $3,500.  A new store opened up down the mall and had the same 
watch for $600!  I was talking to the new store manager, and he told 
me that they had sold about 6 of the watches that year.  I went back 
to my store to look up the store records.  We had only sold one that 
year.  

On the surface, it looks like the new store had the right idea--they 
had sold 6 to our 1.  But, then I looked up our cost on the watch to 
figure profit, and in turn, used that information to figure the 
profit margin for the new store.  

And you know what I found?  The new store would have to sell 14 of 
the $600 watches to 1 of our $3500 watches to make the total dollar 
amount in profit!  We frequently had half price sales, and even if I 
sold the watch for $1750, we still made more than 7 sales at the $600 
figure.

This experience taught me a lot about marketing and price strategy.  
It also helped that I was studying that subject at that time in 
school.  Of course, there are other factors to consider.  There's the 
inventory cost of having the item in the case for so long, the 
opportunity cost of not having an item that would move more 
frequently, and so on.

Again, my point is that price strategy is a complicated matter, and 
there are many different reasons a company will price a product a 
certain price.

If I had to guess, I would bet that IG has not put this much thought 
into their pricing.  I actually think that they are using the cost 
plus how-much-do-we-need-to-make-on-each-item method, and they keep 
this in line, as much as they can, with the prices established for 
like products in the market.

I also know in publishing that prices come down the more the 
circulation is because of economies of scale.  Since Traveller is 
new, the prices are somewhat high compared to, say, an established 
product like TSR's AD&D.  Maybe we'll see those come down if 
Traveller takes off and is the huge success that we all want it to 
be.  Then again, if Traveller is this big of a success, there is a 
chance that prices will not be lowered but establish a new status 
quo.  If that happens, the rest of the industry will raise prices to 
meet what IG is charging.

There are many reasons that IG is charging what it does for the 
products.  Let's just hope that the quality of the product makes it 
worth the price.

Kenneth.

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 13:50:13 -0600 (CST)
From: "Joseph E. Walsh" <ransom@connect.iconnect.net>
Subject: RE: IG Pricing 

On Sun, 29 Dec 1996, Kenneth Bearden wrote:

> Again, my point is that price strategy is a complicated matter, and 
> there are many different reasons a company will price a product a 
> certain price.

Hi Kenneth,

Your points are correct, and it just serves to further my point (which I 
suppose I didn't state forcefully enough): the belief that pricing must be 
related to cost is erroneous.  As a producer (or retailer, or wholesaler, 
or whatever) you can pursue whatever pricing strategy you wish.  There is 
no law that says each item can only produce X amount of profit.  

And, as I stated in a previous post, the market will let IG know whether 
their pricing strategy (whatever it is) is correct.  Complaining about it 
won't do a bit of good.  Their sales figures will give them the answer, 
by and by.


- -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, 29 Dec 96 20:00 GMT0
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Campaign Diary Online!

As promised, my campaign diary is now available online. You can get 
there from my home page or directly via 
http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/traveller/index.htm

    ---------=========oooooooooOOOOOOOOooooooooo=========---------
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 12:11:20 -0800 (PST)
From: "Peter J. Miller" <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: IG Pricing

At 04:18 29/12/96 -0700, you wrote:
>$22.95 a book!
>Maybe for a full set of rules for a game.

Hmmm...I'd like to know what game?  AD&D is about $50-$60, WW is about $30
at least, Star Wars is $35, T4 is $30, Paranoia is $25, Call of Cthulthu is
$30.  Except for rulebooks in the 50-100 page realm, I can't think of a
$22.95 rulebook nowadays that runs a respective amount of pages (ie. 150-250)


/\___________________________Peter John Miller____________________________/\
||           "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night..."          ||
||     Traveller, IG materials and the Home of the Imperium Games FAQ!    ||
||            On Peter's World - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/           ||
\/------------------------------------------------------------------------\/
   Great graphics, and the LOWEST prices on the net - www.irevolution.com

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

Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 12:32:09 +0000
From: "Shadowcat" <kwalsh@cube.ice.net>
Subject: Re: IG pricing[long rant coming]

22.95 is way out of line for supplements of this kind and size.
and the quality doesnt even come close to justifying the price.

Starships would have been a decent value at 10.00
but to charge 22.95 for CSC and Aliens is abominable

and what with the problems in licensing for other products
what are the odds of seeing any real improvement in this trend
the CD ROM idea that DGP has, would be the one of the best
ideas yet for T4, but it seems to be for nauht,  due to this 
rediculous problem of getting licensing. 

there are other game systems out there, and unless something gets 
done, some of us will start going elsewhere. out of disapointment.

I dont even begin to think I have answers, but its high time 
something gets done right.




The Cat of Knights and Shadows
Keeper of the Alt.Callahans WWW archives
Wargamer, Weird Herald, ADHD Advocate
http://www.ice.net/~kwalsh/callahan.html

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 14:47:13 -0600 (CST)
From: "Joseph E. Walsh" <ransom@connect.iconnect.net>
Subject: Re: JTAS subscriptions (possible relationship)

On Sun, 29 Dec 1996, Ernest N Rowland wrote:

> I disagree completely.  Sure, IG has had some startup problems, and somebody
> was in too much of a hurry to bring out T4 without putting the polish on the
> systems and production values.  Yes, we should complain when things are
> screwed-up, so that IG is aware of the problem, but I see too many people just
> going ballistic over these problems!  Give it a rest!

Hi Ernest,

I agree.  IG (under Ken Whitman) made a series of mistakes; IG (under 
Courtney Solomon) has now made a mistake as well.  It happens; no one is 
perfect.  What matters is their response to the situation after the 
mistake is pointed out.

I don't think either Ken Whitman or Courtney Solomon set out a business 
plan titled, "How Best to Screw our Customers."  [grin]  They made 
mistakes (mistakes which we, being outside of the process, can easily 
spot and which we think could easily have been avoided - but we don't 
know what the circumstances were; we weren't there).  They've fixed 
some problems, and they're in the process of fixing others.

An example: shipping methods; now they will be using bubble mailers and 
US Priority Mail, rather than plain manilla envelopes and 4th class 
mail.  If that doesn't work satisfactorily, they'll undoubtedly try 
another method.  

Another example: T4 had a lot of errata, and a tremendous amount of  
grammatical/typographical errors.  But look at CSC and Aliens - what an 
improvement!  Heck, even _Starships_ did better in that department. 

Yet another example: _Starships_ was a poorly crafted product.  IG and AP&D 
are well aware of that now, and they have a better idea of what consumers 
want.  The quote from Courtney is something like, "We will make up for 
_Starships_ with future products."  In other words, they're going to work 
hard to avoid making the same mitake twice.

I really don't think IG's on the ragged road to disaster.  They've had 
problems, and they have dealt with them.  They will undoubtedly continue 
to have problems; the key is in not making the same mistake twice.  As 
long as they continually improve their processes, I'll be upbeat about 
Traveller's future.  


> I think part of the problem is expectations versus reality.  If we were new to
> Traveller, the problems would be annoying, but not necessarily fatal (assuming
> we would know where to find the errata!)  But as people who have known and
> loved Traveller for a long time (17 years in my case), the expectation of a
> really great, "kick-butt" version of Traveller got my expectations very high,
> and I was disappointed.

Absolutely.  When I picked up T4 at Gen-Con, I was at the peak of my 
excitement over the product.  But after reading a couple of chapters, I was 
shaking my head.  I told Carole (my wife) that I was very disappointed in 
the editing job they had done.  

But, as time has gone on and sales have been solid, I've had to admit 
that I'm probably no longer able to relate to the new customers and their 
perception of this product.  It's hard to keep in mind how I dealt with 
error-laden products in the past.  The most recent one that I can 
remember was _Shadowrun_.  For one thing, the first edition made the 
character creation option of putting the highest emphasis on wealth a 
way of making a super-character.  Did I throw out the book?  Did I never 
buy another supplement?  Nah.  We just changed the top number of nuyen to 
be 500,000 instead of one million (or whatever; I forget what the figures 
were at this point).  _Shadowrun_ was still a great game at its core.

T4 is a great game, too.  We old timers can easily fix the errors on our 
own.  Newbies won't notice some errors, and will fix the others as best 
they can - just like we've all done in the past.

[pause]

During the pause above, I got a phone call from Marc Miller.  He told me 
that he is actively discussing a change in graphics design for T4.  
Specifically, he wants a true graphic design specialist working on the T4 
product line.

So, there ya go - a real-time example of product improvement in the T4 
line! :)


- -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, 29 Dec 1996 15:49:33 -0500
From: Thad Coons <104765.503@compuserve.com>
Subject: Re: Interstellar taxes

Hans Rancke wrote:

> You're making a perfectly natural mistake here, but a mistake
> nonetheless. Taxes can't be sent from one planet to another unless you
> have lots of cargo ships to carry valuable stuff between them. Bits in
> a computer or  pieces of paper isn't wealth unless you can buy
> something with it. If you can't eat, burn, or fondle it, it isn't
> wealth.

Not even Terran economies worked that way past the 19th century or so.
The Imperium's remarkably stable currency was the basis for a large and
complex interplanetary banking system. Most monetary transfers take place,
not in kind nor in coin, but in bookkeeping transactions in the
computerized ledgers of Imperially chartered banks.

> When Mikesh "pays" umpteen million credits to the Imperium it
> dosen't actually send anything more than a message saying "We'll do
> umpteen billion credits worth of work for you for
> free". 

Not necessarily. The local branch of the Imperial Bank (whatever its title)
says "Umpteen billion credits have been transferred from the accounts of
Mikesh's planetary government to the local account of the Imperial
Treasury."
The Imperial treasurer (whatever his title) then sends a message to the
local branch of the imperal bank which says "Transfer X billion credits
from the imperial treasury account on Mikesh to accounts of these
industries, and deduct Y billion credits from the local imperial account"
(offplanet transfer of funds)
So... Y billion fewer credits are available to the local branch of the
imperial bank to loan, invest, or do whatever.

> In the meantime Mikesh has umpteen million credits worth of sceduled 
> maintenance that is not going to be needed after all because the ships
> aren't there any more. If you think the brevet admiral who has been
> left in charge  of Imperial forces in Corridor is going to let that
> capacity go to waste,  you're sadly mistaken. And even if he is such a
> chump surely the Mikesh  government will find good use for the
> available starship construction  capacity (Come to think of it, they
> will HAVE to build more ships unless they want a major recession).

And why would that <censored> Lucan strip the Corridor of naval fleets but
leave their maintenance budget alone?  No, he's going to transfer imperial
credits to where *he* wants the maintenance and shipbuilding done. In fact,
that's no doubt a good part of the reason he has such trouble keeping his
imperium together: taxes are NOT being fed back into the planetary
economies, as they were in normal times.

The only way the local brevet admiral has the credits to build new ships
and keep the local economy busy, as well as to fight the Vargr, is to
convince the local nobility, up to the sector duke, to rebel against Lucan
by withholding taxes. How long will these worthies dither before finally
deciding that Lucan will not or cannot either protect or punish them?

  

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 15:49:38 -0500
From: Thad Coons <104765.503@compuserve.com>
Subject: Vargr Style Warfare

In all the discussion that has been addressed about whether the Vargr could
successfully invade Corridor, very little attention has been given to how
they would try.

First of all, we assume that the main force of the Imperial Navy has gone
away, so that the local admiral cannot properly react to Vargr raiders.
If you're a smart Vargr, you don't even go near the high population worlds
for a while. Instead, you cripple the weakest X-boat links you can find.
You find some rockball where *everybody* goes to refuel and *nobody* wants
to live, and raid fat merchants for as long as you can get away with it.
You establish yourselves first at low class spaceports, low population, low
tech, as YOUR safe places. You don't just raid and attack: you make deals
with the human population of such places: using boasts, threats, bribes, or
promises, whatever gets you the most advantage, and you press for better
terms (to yourselves) at every opportunity.
If for some reason it's necessary to reduce a planet's defenses to the
point where they *have* to deal with you, you do it in wolf-pack fashion:
send enough units to stretch out the defenses. While some of you are trying
to lead them on a merry chase, others of you are looking for critical and
vulnerable resources, to weaken their defenses.
 

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 16:17:07 -0500
From: 34zbtxq@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu (Susan M. Shock)
Subject: SEARCHER Class Explorer Scout (Kinda Long)

        Here's a little ship I knocked out using SSDS. It started as an
attempt to recreate the Serpent Class Scout from SCOUTS AND ASSASSINS but
quickly diverged from that. This could probably be best termed an
"intentionally spurious design" and could represent some Imperial noble's
"pork barrel project".


SEARCHER CLASS EXPLORATION SCOUT

Tons:100        Volume:1400                     Cost: Mcr 105.6
Crew: 1-9       Passengers H/M:0                Low berths:0
Cargo: 0.17     Controls: Exploration/Survey    TL: 15

8 Size rating                                   2 Jump Rating
6 Fire Control Rating                           2 G-rating/T-Plates
M Battery #1: 3 (6)                             21.4 Fuel Rating /S/R
                                                2 Sandcaster Rating
                                                10A, 4P, 0J Sensor Rating
                                                10 Armor        6 Structure

NOTES: Wedge airframe configuration. No small craft carried. The ship has
three labs (usually used
for Biology, Botany and Geology). Normal crew complement includes 1
Engineer, 2 Maneuver, 2 Electronics, 1 Gunner, and 3 Science specialists.
One of the scientists usually doubles as the ship's medic. The scientists
each get one small stateroom, and the crew uses the other three, 2 persons
to a stateroom. It takes 2.6 hours to process the ship's fuel load. The ship
can scoop 4.3 tons of fuel per hour.

The SEARCHER Class Scout Explorer was an attempt to come up with a
'replacement' for the ubiquitous Scout/Courier. It failed. The ship's
miniscule cargo capacity, in addition to seriously limiting it's exploration
range, made it unviable as a merchant vessel after it's useful service life
was over, which meant that mny Detatched Duty scouts did not want it. Thus
the few that were built remained in service or were scrapped. It's major use
was for mapping and surveying missions within easy reach of a Scout base. An
interesting feature of it's design was the decision to forego 
lasers entirely, depending on a missle turret for offense and a sandcaster
for defense.

And now, for all you lovers of art and culture...
THE FF&S/BRILLIANT LANCES version!

GENERAL DATA
Displacement: 100 tons          Hull Armor: 20
Length: 35 meters               Volume: 1400m^3
Price: Mcr 105.6                Target Size: S
Config: Wedge AF                TL: 15

ENGINEERING DATA
Power Plant: 200 MW Fusion Power Plant (200 MW/hit) 1 year duration (26.096
MW excess power)
Jump Performance: 2 (280 m^3 fuel)
G-rating: 2G (50 MW per G), Contra-Grav Lifters (13.4 MW)
G-Turns: Unlimited maneuver with Thruster Plates
Maint: (uh...haven't calculated that...)

ELECTRONICS
Computer: 3x TL-15 Mod St. Computers (0.55 MW each)
Automation Level: High
Commo: 300,000 km radio (10 hexes, 10 MW), 3x 1000 AU maser (0.6 MW, used
one at a time)
Avionics: TL 10+ Avionics
Sensors: 2x 120,000 km EMS fixed array (4 hexes, 9 MW each), 2x Active EMS
300,000 km 
(10 hexes, 0.15 MW each),TL-15 Densitometer (0.4 MW), TL-14 neutrino
detector (0.01 MW)
Controls: Flight deck with 3 workstations; 6 other workstations

ARMAMENT
Offensive: 1 Missle Turret (Loc 10; Arcs: all, 3 ready missles, none in
cargo, 0.15 MW)
Defensive: 1 TL-15 sandcaster turret (Loc 11; Arcs: all, 2d10x5 beam
reduc/hit; 50 Cann, 1 MW)
Master Fire Director: 1 TL-15 Beam/Missle MFD (6 Diff Mod; 10 hexes Msl, 10
hexes (can control up to 6 missles at once); 1.8 MW, 1 Crew.)

ACCOMODATIONS
Life Support: Standard (0.28 MW), Grav Compensators (6G; 7MW)
Crew: 1x Engineering, 2x Electronics, 2xManeuver, 1x Gunnery (turrets not
manned), 3x Scientists
      (can be flown for short durations by a crew of 1)
Crew Accomodations: 6x Small Staterooms (3x single occupancy, 0.0005 MW ea.,
3 double occupancy, 0.0005 MW each.
Passenger facilities: None
Other Facilities: 3 laboratories (0.8 MW ea.)
Cargo: 2.14 m^3, one large cargo hatch
Small Craft and Launch facilities: none
Air Locks: 1

Notes: fuel scoop, purification machinery (3.5 MW) 2.6 hours to refine
300m^3 fuel

No damage tables; I'm not THAT ambitious...
                                Enjoy (?)
                                                Allen Shock           












    






        

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 13:06:54 -0800 (PST)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Tech and Starports

This is an interesting thread, and I think a number of people have 
dismissed Phil's ideas too easily.

One thing no one has mentioned yet is the table in DGP's World Builder's 
Handbook which gives minimal tech levels for starports.  

Regardless of the mainworld's starport, the starport has a minimal tech 
level based on its classification:

Starport type  Minimum TL:

Class A          10
Class B          9
Class C          8
Class D          7

Now, this seems about right for the Year 0 era
It seems a bit low for 1110, and if I were 
doing it, I would would change it to

(John's Year 1110 table)

Class A         13
Class B         12
Class C         11
Class D         9


In any case, starports are clearly enclaves of higher technology on 
low-tech worlds.  I've always ruled that Class A and B starports are 
actually Imperial-owned territory, but this is non-canon.

Anyway, I agree with Leonard and others who have suggested a "3rd world" 
model for low-tech planets with good starports.  Obviously, the locals on
a TL 8 world did not build their own Class A starport.  Therefore, this
starport was build by an outside concern (the Imperial government, a
megacorp, the IISS...) for some reason.  This reason could be anything
thing from the fact that the world occupies a strategic military position,
to the presence of valuable resources on the world that some megacorp
wants to the world simply being in a highly desirable location for a
refuel and refitting stop located between two groups of wealthy worlds.  I
would imagine the latter case would be especially common along pathways
through rifts. 

Once the starport has been built, technology will leak out.  No, I don't 
believe that the average low-middle class office worker on such a planet 
will have a TL 13 hand computer, but their boss might, and the CEO of 
their company almost certainly will.  On such worlds, individual access to 
technology will depend largely on wealth.  Some essentials like medicine 
and power generation might be widely available if the government exists 
to help the citizens rather than simply to use them, but hi-tech personal 
possessions are only going to belong the the upper middle class on up.

This will make for some fascinating worlds, which have a feel somewhere
between"cyberpunk" and the new game Fading Suns.  While this is certainly
not the mainstream of Traveller, such worlds will provide a fascinating
level of diversity to the Imperium.  Where else can you have worlds with
both TL 7 cars and TL 12 grav vehicles existing side by side, or even TL 5
"model T's", horse carts, and grav vehicles all in the same city.  Such
worlds would provide many scenarios for GMs interested in social politics. 

Comments?


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 13:21:48 -0800
From: "Glenn M. Goffin, Esq." <sudet@well.com>
Subject: Re: Psionic Lovers

From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>

>        A Zhodhani significant other might think that there was anything
>wrong with infidelity.  We know that in todays society many people are[deletion]
>P. S.   The above thoughts are not necessarily intended to promote
>infidelity in the "real world" but rather to suggest what the Zhodani
>viewpoint might be.

Thanks for your insights.  My initial comments were made somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but 
this is, I suppose, a real issue, especially for those playing in the TNE setting where 
many Zhodani refugees have moved into the Spinward Marches (if their games are R-rated, 
PG, anyway).  

Another thing for us to bear in mind is that mores change over time.  Not that long ago 
- -- about 5,000 years, I think -- it was not uncommon for Egyptian siblings to marry.  
Who knows what living arrangements will be found 3,000+ years from now, among a human 
population far exceeding today's?

- --Glenn

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 18:29:30 -0500
From: "Chris Cox" <chriscox@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Tax collections 

Michael wrote:
> The courier from Mikesh won't be able to get through to send the
message to
> the Fisc. The courier from Capital can't get through with the
yearly budget,
> or with the message transferring the money to the Navy.
<stuff deleted for brevity>
> they can go ahead and allocate funds back to the <local> Navy.
 
Actually if the Vargr were in position to intercept couriers then was
probably much too late for those funds to then be used for ship
building or possibly even reactivating mothballed ships.  The time
line IIRC is the Corridor fleet departed about 245-1117 and by
001-1118 Corridor was in Chaos.  

> <chuckle> Avoiding a recession is secondary to "not getting overrun
by the
> Vargr". 

Your right of course, for some reason I had been thinking that
Corridor may have had the view that the reserve fleets would have
been sufficient to defend against the Vargr (I think Hans may have
suggested it but I'm not sure).  Had that been the case there would
be no pressing need to quickly rebuild the fleet.

Chris Cox
(chriscox@ix.netcom.com)
The Draconis Cluster Traveller pages
(http://users.aol.com/yanbeck/trav.htm)

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 18:23:37 -0600
From: "David Blustein" <dtb@NASCRAG.ORG>
Subject: Re: Tech and Starports

John Snead <jsnead@netcom.com> wrote:
>
> I've always ruled that Class A and B starports are actually
> Imperial-owned territory, but this is non-canon. 
>
> Comments?

Loren Wiseman's article, _Champa Interstellar Starport_, in JTAS #7
describes an "extrality" fence that delineates the boundary of a
starport. Inside the extrality fence Imperial law rules - since
starports are Imperium Bases - and outside the fence local laws
prevail.

The same could easily be said for tech levels.

I've always figured that the TL givin in a world's UWP reflects the 
tech level of goods that can be produced locally (exclusive of the 
effects of importing high TL goods).

Depending on local culture, government, and laws (including import
and export restrictions), the amount of high tech imports will
certainly vary and, perhaps, allow production of goods above the
local TL - as long as the imports continue, or until the local TL
improves (regardless of cause or time required for the change).

Will all local TLs climb to match the average Imperium TL in every
case? Probably not. Will some? Will none?

In my campaigns, a world's UWP governs what it's like outside the
confines of starports, and Imperium laws and maximum TL govern what
it's like inside the confines of starports.

As to whether or not the Imperium actually owns a specific starport,
leases it, runs it at the request of a local government, has a local
government run it for them, lets out 10 year contracts to the lowest
bidder to operate and maintain it, or some other variation, I can
only imagine that many possibilities exist pertaining to the details
of starport ownership. Certainly, there are at least as many
possibilities as there are readers of the TML. :-)

For me, starports within the Imperium are Imperium bases (by and
large), Imperium law and maximum TL are applied inside starports,
UWPs are applied outside starports, and all sorts of relationships
can exists between individual worlds and the Imperium that governs
the space between them.

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

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 00:37:29 +0000
From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: JTAS subscriptions (possible relationship)

At 02:57 AM 11/28/96 +0000, you wrote:
>> 
> Gee why don't we all get Lawyers and put IG out of business. Then those
>bastards wont take all that extra cash for trips to Club Med. We can
>fuck them up so bad that they go out of business an we wont have to buy
>anymore of their crappy games. Get real folks. What was that line
>casting stones or was it glass houses.
>

I was trying to make two points.

1) Big companies screw up too, just like little companies.

2) In business, unlike in the game, the rules are the rules; no house
versions allowed. What you don't know can hurt you. Again, consider GDW,
Gygax and Dangerous Journeys. The content problems, typos, and editorial
mistakes can be corrected in later editions. Business management mistakes
can be much harder to fix. That is why I hope the Sweet Pea folks are indeed
BUSINESS people. 

Traveller is great, unique game. For it to succeed or fail on it's own merit
is one thing, to lose it because someone did not understand the basics of
business management (production scheduling, cost accounting, tax & insurance
rules) would be tragic beyond words.

Garry

  

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 19:28:15 -0700
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@usa.net>
Subject: Re: Spreadsheets

At 02:20 am 12/29/96 -0800, Susan M. Shock said:
>Dave,
>	You mentioned in your latest e-mail that the spreadsheets you used in
>making SSDS were on your web site. I'm probably being dim but I could
>not find them. Can you direct me to their exact location? I would be
>willing to prepare some interim extensions to the hull charts for use
>with SSDS, if I can get ahold of these spreadsheets.
>			Thanks!
>				Allen Shock

	EARGH! Yet again, I forget to upload something . They're there now, linked
from the NavalArchitect page. The full URL is

	www.usa.net/~goldendj/Traveller/Admiralty/NavalArchitect/SSDSSheets.zip

	Sorry.
- --________________________________________________________________
   Dave Golden                           PGP Public Key available 
   goldendj@usa.net     http://www.usa.net/~goldendj/default.html

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

End of Traveller-digest V1996 #797
**********************************
