Traveller-digest      Monday, December 30 1996      Volume 1996 : Number 798



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Interstellar taxes
Re: Water on Starships
Re: Interstellar taxes (long)
Re: Vargr tactics
Re: Ship construction
Re: SEARCHER Class Explorer Scout (Kinda Long)
Re: Vargr tactics
Need Help
Vargrs Invade Corridor! (was Re: Interstellar taxes)
Re: Water on Starships (long)
Re: IG Pricing
Re: Pricing
Re: JTAS subscriptions (possible relationship)

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 04:09:39 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Interstellar taxes

Chris Cox writes:
>Hans Rancke wrote:
>>Taxes can't be sent from one planet to another unless you have lots of
>>cargo ships to carry valuable stuff between them. 
> 
>and later says:
>>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". 
>
>So are you saying that Mikesh never pays taxes but only agrees to do
>work at a later date for the Imperium?  

That is the _effect_. What happens is of course that the Mikesh government 
writes a check to the Imperium for the amount and some time later the local 
starship yard on Mikesh does some work for the Imperium which the Imperium 
pays for by check. The starship yard then pays its employees and 
subcontractors who use it to buy groceries etc. As long as the Imperium 
dosen't use any of the credit to buy stuff on Mikesh and ship it somewhere 
else, Mikesh dosen't lose any actual wealth.

>If so who ends up paying the salaries for the Imperial Navy?  

That depends on what you mean by salary. If you mean the little rectangular
plastic pieces called Crimp-notes, then the Imperium pays them. If you mean 
the food they actually stuff their faces with, then whatever planet they are 
currently on feeds them. In return the planet gets some little rectangular 
plastic pieces which they collect and turn over to the Imperium the next
time they have to pay taxes.

>I don't know how things work in the rest of the world, but here in the U.S. 
>taxes are deducted from my paycheck and electronically transferred to the 
>government. Then government budgets out these funds and then government 
>employees, contractors, etc. receive checks.  At no time is it necessary to
>transfer valuable stuff, and is actually impractical to do so.  

There comes a time when it becomes necessary to transfer valuable stuff. You
wouldn't be alive if you couldn't buy food with your salary, for example.
That's what I mean by valuables. _Stuff_. Things grown or raised or dug up
out of the earth or manufactured. Money and credit is worthless if you can't
use it to buy something useful.

>I don't see why this won't work on an interstellar basis.  

Chris, I hereby solemly promise you that if you and I ever meet, I'll buy 
you a beer. Just remind me of this message and I'll buy you one. 

Now, have I just lost the price of a beer and have you just gained one? That 
depends. If I lived just down your street then the answer would be yes. If I
lived in the same city as you the answer would propably be yes. As it is the
answer is no unless you happen to come to Copenhagen some day.

Now I'll go one better. I promise that I'l buy anyone (well, the first 
anyone) who comes to me with a signed note from you a beer.

Now, have I just given you a beer? That still depends. If you happen to know 
someone who is going to Copenhagen and who is willing to believe that I'll
keep my word, the answer is propably yes. You can give that person a note
in exchange for a beer and when he gets to Copenhagen I'll give him another
one instead.

Only, the beer didn't actually travel from Denmark to the US, did it? It was
produced in the US and consumed in the US. Nothing of actual value travelled
anywhere. In order for me to actually give you a beer, we'd have to get  
some friendly tourist or airline stewardess who happens to be going from
Copenhagen to your city to carry the beer.

If there's no cargo transfer between two systems, no actual wealth can be
transferred (Except knowledge, which is a special case).

><snippage>
>>In the meantime Mikesh has umpteen million credits worth of scheduled 
>>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. 
> 
>This is exactly what will happen.  The Admiral left in command of
>Corridor will not start spending funds that he doesn't have.

I'm not talking about funds. With or without contact with Core, the raw
materials and the factories and the shipyards are all still there. They'd 
still do the work. The rest is bookkeeping.

>Your suggestion that the government switches ship maintenance capacity to 
>ship building capacity despite a lack of funds would cause inflation, 

But the wealth is still there. The mines don't stop producing ore just 
because the imperium in't there anymore. It really is a question of use it
or lose it. No central government would thank a cut-off governor for 
shutting down ship production.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 18:48:10 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <DSummers@Mail.ARC.NASA.gov>
Subject: Re: Water on Starships

Fri, 27 Dec 1996 20:22:53 PST, shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
>> I don't think water usage would be all the limited at all.  If you
>> have 5-10 gal of water per person and could recycle it in less than
>> an hour, you could take showers, cook, etc. and have a good reserve
>> for emergency oxygen.

>One cubic meter of water is 264 gallons. One "displacement ton" of
>water is 3566 gallons.

True.  However, I mess the point you are making.  5-10 gallons of
water per crew position provide plenty of water for personal
use and can easily be convereted to sufficient oxygen to fill
an  interior of a ship.

>I rather expect ships to have a *lot* of water. For one thing, it helps
>you balance the load in the ship by pumping it between tanks.

I guess I dont' think, given how well powered they are, that
starships are that sensitive to weight distribution.  Also,
they can already pump liquid hydrogen around but even this
seems pretty crude for a starship that has artificial gravity.

>Water is also ideal for shielding against
>things like solar flares, a few meters will do just fine for civilian
>ships. And you can use it to equalize heat load by pumping between
>tanks just under the "skin" of the ship.

I think, if you look at Traveller, they already have shielding
which is superior.  I don't know what they use for heat
eualization (in fact my guess would be that, given traveller
materials local heating just isn't a problem) but carrying around
a lot of water so you can pump it around for that purpose
seems a lot like having to spin the ships so they get
heated evenly by the sun, it just seems crude for the
TL.

>And water makes a good source for both oxygen for breathing, and
>hydrogen for fuel.

>In my opinion, it's *definitely* worthwhile to have the ship set up to
>store water in those odd nooks and crannies

5-10 gals per crew position should be more than sufficient for
crew oxygen and Traveller ships already carry a lot more hydrogen
than you can get from storing water in "nooks and crannies".

A certain amount of water would be useful for multiple uses
(like for emergency oxygen or for person use).  However, past
that, if you want to carry more hydrogen, it makes more
sense to store hydrogen.


____________________________
(Disclaimer: Would NASA have ME speak for them?)
DSummers@Mail.ARC.NASA.gov

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 04:49:30 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Interstellar taxes (long)

Thad Coons writes:
>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.

Terran economies works just that way today. An electronic money transfer
works only because the reciever trusts the sender to delivers something
useful some day in the future when the reciever tries to use the money
to buy something from the sender.

>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.

That is exactly my point. Most monetary transactions are bookkeeping 
transactions. But bookkeeping transactions aren't worth anything unless
they translate into actual wealth at some point. 

>>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."

What do you think those credits ARE? Promisory notes. IOUs. They're not
wealth unless you can use it to buy something real.

>The Imperial treasurer (whatever his title) then sends a message to the
>local branch of the Imperial 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.

And?

>>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. 

>And why would that <censored> Lucan strip the Corridor of naval fleets but
>leave their maintenance budget alone?  

I'm not talking about a budget. I'm talking about mines producing ore,
factories producing subsystems, and ship construction workers assembling
ships. All the stuff that Lucan CAN'T move away fom Mikesh.

>No, he's going to transfer imperial credits to where *he* wants the 
>maintenance and shipbuilding done. 

Yes, and do you know how that works? He sends a fleet to some luckless
planet and demands that they maintain the ships. Once he's done that he
gives them a check for umpteen million credits backed by (among other)
the electronically transferred credit from Mikesh. Now, how are they going 
to use that to get anything valuable from Mikesh?

>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.

Money is not a magic substance that turns into anything useful at the
wave of a hand. The only way to take anything out of a planetary
economy is to load something valuable onto a cargo ship and jump away.
(Or to build a ship and jump away with it ;-).

>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?

OK, so on Day 001-1117 the Mikesh Government sends an electronic message
by courier to Lucan with the local taxes. How does that make them any
poorer and Lucan any richer? The next year Mikesh sends Lucan a note of
defiance instead. How does that make them any richer and Lucan any poorer?



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "A  subsector  official  pompously states that the
        subsector  armed  forces  have  four Kinunir class
        ships in service,  each with enough troop strength
        to put down any military operations that threathen
        the peace of the Imperium."

                        ---Adventure 1, The Kinunir

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 05:39:17 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Vargr tactics

Thad Coons writes:
>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.

Agreed. According to _Rebellion_ the Corridor fleets are withdrawn in early
1117. This explicitly includes the subsector fleets. What isn't clear is 1)
how big a percentage of the local planetary defense forces that are jump-
capable and 2) whether those forces were added to the Corridor fleets when
they withdrew. My own suggested answers for those two questions is "20%" 
and "Yes". Neither has any canonical backing.

>If you're a smart Vargr, you don't even go near the high population worlds

I agree.

>for a while. 

Ever.

>Instead, you cripple the weakest X-boat links you can find.

Why? You're a Vargr Corsair. What kind of profit do you derive from 
attacking an X-boat or an X-boat tender?

>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.

Agreed.

>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.

Agreed.

>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. 

And where do you get these units? Each of them is commanded by a captain and
a crew who is in it for the profits. If it's an ally, how do you persuade 
him to go first and if it's a follower, are you sure you want to cripple
your forces so that another Corsair band can move in and take over once
you've exhausted yourself reducing the defenses?

Oh, I agree that the low-population worlds are wide open. Even the low-medium
worlds are in trouble. Trade might dry up, depending on just how big the
merchant fleet really is (If the merchant fleet is as big as I personally
think it should be there are some really nasty tricks that can be improvised.
however, since I've no canonical backing for my estimates, I won't go into
that). But I can't wait to hear how you're going to go about plundering a 
high-population or even a high-medium population world.

Chris Cox writes:
>Actually if the Vargr were in position to intercept couriers 

The Vargr would never be in a position to intercept military couriers. Using 
drop tanks a courier can go 12 parsecs between bases. A courier from Mikesh 
(Corridor 0206) could jump to Kaasu (Corridor 1209), a world defended by 6.3 
trillion credits worth of TL 16 system defenses. From there it could jump 
Kukish (Corridor 1606), a world with 5.6 trillion credits worth of TL 15
system defenses. From there it could jump to Plunge (Corridor 2505), a world
with 5.6 trillion credits worth of TL 14 defenses. From there it is only a 
jump to Vland Sector.

Besides, once again, why would any Vargr corsair admiral bother to try?
Where's the profit? 

>then was probably much too late for those funds to then be used for ship
>building or possibly even reactivating mothballed ships.

Assuming the ships are available (a very reasonable assumption) Mikesh alone
can reactivate 1200 50,000 T cruisers in 10 weeks. (Actually, I don't say
that there would be 1200 50,000 T cruisers mothballed at Mikesh. It would
be a much more varied mix and some of them would take longer to reactivate
(a 1,000,000 T ship would take 12 weeks).

>The time line IIRC is the Corridor fleet departed about 245-1117 and by
>001-1118 Corridor was in Chaos.

_Rebellion_ states that the Corridor fleets were withdrawn in early 1117.

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

I did indeed. So they would've.

>Had that been the case there would be no pressing need to quickly rebuild 
>the fleet.

Lucan ordered the withdrawal of the entire Corridor fleet, including the
reserve fleets. Possibly (even likely) also the jump-capable parts of
the planetary defense fleets. He may even have had the first batch of
reactivated ships included (depending a bit on the timing). I don't deny
that if the commanders in Deneb and Vland don't send some ships into 
Corridor to cover for them (much the likeliest turn of events, IMO), the
Vargr would have had a field day in Corridor for some months. My argument
is that they wouldn't be strong enough to breach the defenses of the high-
population worlds, and it is precisely the high-population worlds that are
capable of building more ships. Once those worlds have had some time to 
make good the lost ships, the Vargr would be kicked out again.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 05:46:26 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Ship construction

Michael Nutt writes:
>Hans, do you have any comments on the back-and-forth between me and Thad 
>about basing yard capacity on yard workers as opposed to displacement 
>tonnage?

If you recall, I did a rough estimate of the figures that were suggested
for basing capacity on price and found them to be comparable to the TCS
method, so I don't see why you shouldn't use either. Obviously the TCS
rule is a simplification, an average. Some worlds would have larger
shipyard capacity than 1 T per 1000 citizens, others would have smaller.
Btw. the TCS rules does take some account of using more workers and more
money to increase production speed.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "This gives a possible range of 56 to 178 starships
         total  in the three Terran starport facilities,  a
         believable quantity for such a star system."

        "We have a maximum of 178 ships in port, and (as it
         is a busy star system)  we will say that there are
         70 docking berths at the Phoenix facility."

                        ---Journal of the Traveller's
                           Aid Society # 22

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 21:33:48 -0800
From: "Rich Ostorero" <lordbasl@inreach.com>
Subject: Re: 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".

Or, why not an "early mark" of a "classic" design, a developmental
fork-in-the-road?

That's what I'm going to use it for . . . or _would_ if not for the TL. If
I mod it to TL-12, it would make a _great_ Scout for the Ardin Empire in my
game (The Ardin Empire has a thing about wedge-shaped hulls, just like the
capital ships of a certain space-opera Evil Empire from three famous films
. . . ).

Then again, so would the CT  type S scout/courier.

Thanks ;)

- --Rich Ostorero
lordbasl@inreach.com

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 96 00:07:30 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Vargr tactics

On 12/30/96 at 05:39 AM,  Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk> said:

> Lucan ordered the withdrawal of the entire Corridor fleet, including the
> reserve fleets. Possibly (even likely) also the jump-capable parts of the
> planetary defense fleets. He may even have had the first batch of
> reactivated ships included (depending a bit on the timing). I don't deny
> that if the commanders in Deneb and Vland don't send some ships into 
> Corridor to cover for them (much the likeliest turn of events, IMO), the
> Vargr would have had a field day in Corridor for some months. My argument
> is that they wouldn't be strong enough to breach the defenses of the
> high-population worlds, and it is precisely the high-population worlds that
> are capable of building more ships. Once those worlds have had some time
> to  make good the lost ships, the Vargr would be kicked out again.

Were the Vargr quickly "kicked out again?"

Anyway, there are a couple of points you might be missing.  

First, Lucan *probably* didn't withdraw *all* his forces.
Certainly, he took the attack fleet with him...and as much of the mobile
reserve as possible, but I would expect he left strong military presence on
major worlds.  Why?  So he could insure that the shipyards kept building
ships, the schools keep churning out crews, and the replacement ships he
needed kept coming toward Core and out of Corridor.  The Officers Lucan
left in Corridor probably were under orders to *ruthlessly* extract as much
as possible and not to worry about what happened to minor systems...hence
the Vargr incursions.  At some point the remaining Officers would have
decided to "take over" where they were, and/or the local governments would
have decided to "take out" the Officers.  Civil unrest (if not war) would
have sweep through the sector.  With the factions not
supporting Imperial claiments exactly, mainly just local systems attempting
to reassert local control.

Second, there was probably a serious psychological backlash from all the
turmoil.  I imagine anti-war and peace movements all over the place.  If
Lucan continued to take wealth (and sons and daughters) *out* of the
systems it would have occured to them that he was bleeding them dry, and
that wouldn't go over very well.  In the end, it's likely that the major
systems would develop very isolationist tendencies.  The major systems
could defend themselves, sure, they were also self-suffcient, so they would
have hunkered down to ride out the hard times, and let the outside worlds
fend for themselves.

I don't play in that particular universe, so my comments are pure
speculation. <g>

Eris

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

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 02:16:06 -0500
From: ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com
Subject: Need Help

Happy New Year!  I need a hand from someone who has the MegaTraveller referee
rulebook handy.  I am designing a disintegrator weapons design sequence a la
FF&S and 3G3.  I need to get all the stats pertaining to weight. mass.
volume, and power of the disintegrator weapons listed in the starship design
sequence of that rulebook.  I would appreciate the data as that book is 1000
miles away from me!
    I'll make an announcement when its done and will email it in a zip file
for anyone interested.   Thanks...... Charles

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 05:36:42 -0500
From: "Chris Cox" <chriscox@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Vargrs Invade Corridor! (was Re: Interstellar taxes)

Thad Coons wrote:
> If you're a smart Vargr, you don't even go near the high population worlds
> for a while. 

I think that the Vargr would do just the opposite.  The Vargr would
need to hit the high population industrialized world as fast and as
hard as they can.  If they don't then the Vargr will be allowing
these planets the chance to start building and reactivating ships by
the thousands (the Hi Pop Industrial Production from Hell scenario
that Hans has been championing).  After securing these worlds you can
then go after the rest.

> Instead, you cripple the weakest X-boat links you can find.

They may still do this but X-boat links aren't that important.

<the sound of snipping>
> 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.
<the rest sniped>

I pretty much agree with you on how Vargr will actually try and gain
control of worlds.

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

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 07:23:10 -0600 (CST)
From: "Peter  H. Brenton" <pete@cummings.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: Water on Starships (long)

On Fri, 27 Dec 1996, Leonard Erickson wrote:

[snip] 
Useful information about storing atmospheric gasses was here - I was
hoping someone would provide me with just this lkind of guidance to
suplant my poorly educated guesswork.

> > but there is bound to be some inevitable waste (water left on the
> > bather's body, liberated into the cabin air, etc.)
> 
> The water *can't* be "lost". There's nowhere for it to go. You are
> forgetting that the ship is a *closed system* while underway.

Right.  Closed except when you open the airlock to the starport.  Minor
losses there, not enough to kvetch about.  And explosive decompression is,
hopefully, a rare event:) 

[snip my solid waste rant]
> > for lots of space and time to do this job.
> 
> That's for reprocessing "solid" waste. Reprocessing *that* will take
> space and time (though not as much space as you might think).

Explain this please, in email - I think the list is probably tired of this
crappy subject matter.  It may be useful in my large habitat adventure
though.


[snip somemore]
> The H2 and O2 are recombined into water which is fit for *any*
> use. The solids are packed into blocks, and wrapped to be disposed of
> or sold (they'll have been sterilized in the process of releasing the
> water, so they make good fertilizer). 
 
This is what I was kind of arguing for, but I like (and should have
thought of) the idea of making "Shit Bricks" out of the stuff, rather
than keeping it in semi-liquid form.

The rest of your post is excellent and just what I was trying to prompt
for.  Thanks.

Hmm, the expression "shitting bricks" could be given a whole new meaning;

"Where have you been?"

"Our last jump dropped us outside the Oort Cloud of this system.  We've
been shitting bricks for months just getting back here on manuver drive."

Pete
 

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 09:04:09 -0500 (EST)
From: athol-brose <cinnamon@one.net>
Subject: Re: IG Pricing

On Sun, 29 Dec 1996, Peter J. Miller wrote:
> 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)

Over the Edge.

But really, Starships is only 96 pages long. The last 96-page RPG rulebook
I bought was D6 (80 pages, actually) and it was $10! Greg Porter's new
Epiphany game is $15. Starships was $23.

Every other page for the first and longest section of Starships might as
well be blank; the ship "plans" -- except for the cross-section plan of
the starliner -- might as well not have been there, and I'm a *new* player
of Traveller and have never seen any of the "classic" ship floorplans.
Some of the stats given don't jibe with the ship design system, which I
could have downloaded as PDF and printed myself.

I am extremely unhappy with my Starships purchase, and have cancelled my
standing order for Traveller products at the local game store. I still may
pick up M0, because beneath it all, there's a damn fascinating game
waiting to be played here.

athol-brose -- cinnamon@one.net -- http://w3.one.net/~cinnamon/

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 16:53:57 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Pricing

In mail you write:

> As mentioned previously, the folks at IG are out of the office until 
> January 2.  AFAIK, they've not seen a single message in reaction to 
> their move of charging for shipping.  So, it's not a surprise we haven't 
> seen anything from them about that, including the lack of an update to 
> the web page.

<snip>

> At this point, I believe it was an honest mistake, rather than a 
> malicious move to hurt IG's customers.  I'm hoping that, after gaining a 
> full understanding of the situation and the legalities involved, Courtney 
> will reverse the policy.

The troubling part is that they didn't understand the legalities
*already*. These are supposed to be *professional* business types,
unlike the original bunch of designers.

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

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

Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 16:20:25 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: JTAS subscriptions (possible relationship)

In mail you write:

>> From: sam thomas <sinbad@dfw.net>
>> The point that is being made is that "questionable"(understatement) 
> business
>> practices that IG has made in the past, will only drive away the potential
> <snip> <snip> <snip>
>
> 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!

The reason people are "going ballistic" is because there's a *pattern*
of mistakes here. And rather than admit that they made some *major*
goofs and accept the losses, they are taking measures that are illegal
to avoid the losses.

I understand about making mistakes. I'v made enough myself. But IG
isn't *taking responsibility* for their mistakes. Sure, it may cause
major financial problems to eat the shipping charges. But the *fact* is
that by law they don't haver a choice. And all it will take is *one*
complaint and they'll be out of business.

Just like Traveller, the business world has rules. But unlike
Traveller, if you break the rules, you are in *real* trouble.

IG has every right to *ask* people if they are willing to pay the
shipping charges that they neglected to list. But if someone says "no"
andasks for the product *as advertised*, then they may have problems.
I'm not up on that part of the law.

I *do* know that with the way they've charged credit cards, both for
the original books, and now for the shipping charges, they *will* lose
the ability to accept credit cards if someone files an official
complaint and follows up. That *alone* is bad news.

The problem is that Ignorance is *not* an acceptable excuse. Nor does
it speak well for the company.

IG hasn't yet learned that they cannot *unilaterally* take actions that
cost other people money. 

They are *required* to not charge credit cards until product ships.
They are *required* to get permission for "overlooked" charges like the
shipping. And if the person doesn't agree to the extra charges, they
have to refund the original charges as well. 

They may or may not have to supply things at the advertised price in
spite of their own error. As I understand the rules on such, the
mistake they made isn't the kind that they can excuses with an "it
should have been obvious" (example: if a store advertises a $100 item
for $10, they can claim that the error was obvious and not honor the
ad. If they advertise a $25 item for $20, they're stuck) But this sort
of thing could require a lawsuit to determine.

The stuff about charging credit cards does *not* require a lawsuit. 

IG may be making honest mistakes. But if you make an honest *fatal*
mistake, you are just as dead as someone who makes a *stupid* fatal
mistake. 

And that's the problem. They don't seem to realize how *serious* their
mistakes are.

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

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

End of Traveller-digest V1996 #798
**********************************
