Traveller-digest      Thursday, June 12 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1422



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: T4.1 Char Gen Checklist
Re: T4.1 Char Gen Checklist
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1421
Re: Scenario: Generation-Ship
Re: Scenario - Generation Ship
Re: Scenario: Generation-Ship
3 products
Re: Scenario - Generation Ship
Re: T4.1 Char Gen Checklist
Fire (Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1421)
Re: Stellar codes (Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1416)
Re: Scenario - Generation Ship
T4.1 Notes--Steward skill
Re: T4.1 Char Gen Checklist
T4.1 Chargen/skill value notes
Re: 3 products
Re: Hydrogen Bubbles (was Re: Star ship design question)

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

Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 01:14:26 +0000
From: "Kenneth Bearden" <dreamer@weck.brokersys.com>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Char Gen Checklist

> 	I'd agree with this, plus why not assign some specific skills to specific
> trade classifications in the new version?
> 
> 	Lo could have maybe a vehicle skill (for getting to your neighbours!), Comms
> 	Na = Business
> 	Po = Streetwise , Gambling
> 	Hi = Computer, Electronics, Medical, Physics, Comms, Streetwise, Aircraft
> 	In = Computer, Electronics, Medical, Physics, Chemistry, Vehicle, Comms
> 	Ic = Survival, Climbing, Aircraft, Vehicle
> 	Wa = Watercraft, Navigation, Swimming (I know, it doesn't exist but it
> should)
> 	Fl = 
> 	Ag = Aircraft (crop spraying!), Craftsman, Mechanics, Equestrian, JoT
> 	As = Vac Suit, Space Craft
> 	Ba = Survival, Vehicle
> 	De = Survival, Vehicle
> 	Ni = JoT, Craftsman
> 	Ri = Trader, Broker, Computer, Gambling
> 	Va = Vac Suit, Vehicle

This is a really good idea.

Kenneth.

>

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 02:10:35 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: T4.1 Char Gen Checklist

Marc,

  Seeing the discussion on the list, I remembered that J.P. had ask me to
mention that Liaison was missing from T4.  This may have already been
hammered to death here, so if that is the case, so be it.  I haven't
finished digesting much beyond the past week. :)

  Also, I am still awaiting that e-mail address you were going to send.


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 10:55:15 +0300 (EET DST)
From: "Mikko V. I. Parviainen" <mvparvia@cc.hut.fi>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1421

On Thu, 12 Jun 1997, Traveller-digest wrote:
> Leonard Erickson wrote:
> > 
> > Just be *very* careful. The program wasn't very SF. For example, that
> > shipboard fire could have been fought in two different ways. First, cut
> > off the air. Ok, that's a bit hard on anybody trapped in there. But the
> > SF answer is "turn off the gravity". No gravity, no convection
> > currents, no flames. The fire strangles on its own smoke (no grav,
> > smoke don't "rise").
> > 
> 
> Convection currents have little to do with the presence of a 
> gravitational field. Consider: the flame, in zero-G, creates a 
> high temperature, low pressure region of air in its immediate 
> vicinity. The lower temperature, higher pressure air further away
> immediately moves in to occupy the space, driving the warmer air
> out. That's the convection and gravity has nothing to do with it.
> 
> Smoke particles will be carried away with the lower pressure air.
> 

Well.. I remember reading a book years ago which stated that astronauts
had tried to burn matches on a space station (can't remember whether it
was Skylab or russians ). The smoke from the fire just stayed around the
fire and eventually (quite soon, actually) extinguished it. 

The book was in Finnish, but a translation, but I have no idea of it's
name or anything else... 

Mikko Parviainen

http://www.hut.fi/~mvparvia

Too err is human.  To moo, bovine.

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:51:12 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Scenario: Generation-Ship

>>MA was a SF roleplaying game put out by T$R a long time ago...perhaps
>>before, but certainly of an age as CT; it's another claimant to the
>>"First SF RPG ever" title.
>
>        Metamorphosis Alpha was first reviewed in White Dwarf in the UK in the
>first edition, dated June / July 1977. Traveller was first reviewed in
>White Dwarf nearly a year later, in the April / May 1978 issue.

<A bit off topic>
Metamorhosis Alpha was a supplement for AD&D. It did not function as a
standalone game which we found out when we bought it way back in the
seventies. The rules were constantly referring to tables of various sorts
that were to be found in the AD&D books. As we had no idea what roleplaying
was (I bought it because it was SF - I had decided to buy all SF games back
then) all about and lacked lots of tables it was of little use for us. We
rolled up some far out characters and made some maps but that was that.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 02:55:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Scenario - Generation Ship

  Ah, Metamorphasis Alpha - what a fun game from the depths of the gaming
past.  I played it back in the late 70s with the same bunch I played
Traveller with - it was comic relief after the stress of escaping from
Imperial Marines - but I digress.

  One of the members of the group had an early PC - one of those Radio
Shack things.  He liked to write character generation programs so we would
always have extra NPCs available - the one he did for Traveller came up
with a list of Scouts who either were lucky to get out after one term with
their skins, or made it through seven or eight and were fabulously wealthy
and had their own ship and lots of skills.  CT generation was weird that
way, what with the chance of dying thrown in.

  Anyway, he did a program for Metamorphasis Alpha, and most of the
characters turned out were reasonable, though a fair number lacked any
means of moving about or communicating (the char gen system for that game
is _really_ random).  Our favorite character from the list, though, was a
character who was a lettuce whose only mutant power was precognition - we
just died laughing at the thought of this poor lettuce alone in a field,
knowing when it was going to be picked and eaten, but unable to do a thing
about it.  That would be a roleplaying challenge for anyone!

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 12:12:50 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Scenario: Generation-Ship

- -> Ahhh...Metamorphosis Alpha...fond memories of munchkin daze
- -> 
- -> MA was a SF roleplaying game put out by T$R a long time ago...perhaps
- -> before, but certainly of an age as CT; it's another claimant to the
- -> "First SF RPG ever" title. You play a mutant 'something'
- -> living on a huge generation ship where the central reactor blew a gasket
- -> flooding the ship with radiation a long time ago.
- -> 
- -> You don't know you're on a ship.
- -> 
- -> I know someone who played a mutant telepathic fungus living on the back of
- -> another player's character, a spider, whose player had no clue why the GM
- -> told her that her character did these odd things occasionally, or why she
- -> heard voices in her head.  She thought her mutant had an insanity
- -> disability. 
- -> 
- -> Me, I was pretty normal, a 6' tall cobra with these skinny weak arms.
Sounds pretty interesting, tho' to weird for what i had in mind... 
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 07:44:58 -0400
From: "Alan M. Nuss" <amnuss@earthlink.net>
Subject: 3 products

Yesterday I picked up the three newest Traveller products; Anomalies,
Psionic Instutitues, and Long Way Home.

Quick overview:
Anomalies - looks good, nice artwork. Haven't read it yet.
Psi Inst. - Half way through it.  Great supplement.
LWH - As the first T4 adventure it sets the standard for other
  published adventures.  Uses the 'Nuggett' format. I like the 300
  ton Scout Survey ship and the Detailed System Data sheets.

I do recommend LWH and Psi Inst. (based on what I've read so far).

Alan

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 21:45:20 +0930 (CST)
From: David Sarkies <oedipus@student.adelaide.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Scenario - Generation Ship

>   Anyway, he did a program for Metamorphasis Alpha, and most of the
> characters turned out were reasonable, though a fair number lacked any
> means of moving about or communicating (the char gen system for that game
> is _really_ random).  Our favorite character from the list, though, was a
> character who was a lettuce whose only mutant power was precognition - we
> just died laughing at the thought of this poor lettuce alone in a field,
> knowing when it was going to be picked and eaten, but unable to do a thing
> about it.  That would be a roleplaying challenge for anyone!

This reminds me of another T$R game called Gamma World. It was sent of
Earth after a nuclear war and the PC's could be anything from pure humans
to mutant badgers. Back then I loved it; when I look back on it now I just
think about how stupid the character generation system was. For post
holocaust Roleplay I turn to Rifts.

- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Apollo ordained my fate ... but the hand that struck my eyes were mine
alone." Oedipus Tyrannos
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 09:58:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: T4.1 Char Gen Checklist

In a message dated 97-06-10 16:19:24 EDT, you all write/wrote:

Here are some comments to your comments. In addition, each character type is
a page, with the allowed skills for that career listed on the page, and a
Quick Generation system (for producing NPCs).

Overview:
  Chargen Checklist
  Character Card Explanation
  Page of Six Blank Character Cards for photocopying
  CharGen Overview and basic table.
  Homeworld and Birthworld GenerationPage
  Education Page 1
  Education Page 2
  Education Quick Generation
  One page for each career (10)
  Birthdate Generation
  Example Character card with Narrative

Your comments were:
> 
>  > 	1. Basic Characteristics. Roll the six personal characteristics (2D
each):
> 
>  > Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Education, and Social 
> Standing.
>  
>  I use the straight "roll 2D and that's your Str...roll 2D and that's 
>  your Dex, etc" method, but I liked seeing other generation methods in 
>  the book i.e roll 2D six times and arrange to taste.
>  
>  It is nice to have options.

But some of the options became too wimpy.The checklist details what has to be
done. The text will talk about options. In fact, one option I find I like is
to pre-roll a list of half die, 1D and 2D rolls, and then use them in order
to create a character. You can make any decisions, but you have to use the
rolls in order.

> 	3. Birthworld. Determine the character's birthworld.
 
> 	4. Homeworld. If player decides that homeworld is not the same as
> birthworld, determine homeworld.
>	5. Homeworld Skills. Determine homeworld skills. For each trade
>classification of the homeworld, on World Skills Table 1 or World Skills
>Table 2, roll 1D to determine the specific skill received.

If I read this correctly, a PC from a Lo, Na, Po world would recieve 3
rolls on the World Skills tables, while a PC from a Hi, In world would
recieve 2.  Am I right?

Yes.

If you like your birthworld, you can keep it as a homeworld. If not, you can
decide to have a homeworld too.

Your homeworld is defined in the table by Starport and Trade Classifications
(you may want to search through FS to find a world that matches). You get one
homeworld skill for each trade classification your homeworld has. (ie. Your
homeworld is Industrial; roll 1D on the Industrial column). Which means that
someone from a Na world gets fewer homeworld skills than someone from a Na Va
Ast Ind world.


>	6. Education. Determine Educational Background.

This looks good, I like the inclusion of Educational Certificate.. makes us
high school only types feel included.
>  


> Please, I beg of you, replace Blade Weapon with BattleDress for Marines.

OK. Actually, its added in addition to Cutlass for the Marines.

>	10. Cold Sleep Weeks. Determine the total number of weeks spent by >the
> character in Cold Sleep during service.

> This is the single best change I've seen so far.. I've tried playing with
> various methods to account for low berth time, but never to my
satisfaction.

Thanks to Tim Brown for that one.


>b) In any service, an Injury reduces one characteristic; consult the
>Injury Table.
>Nice idea - before, getting the purple heart etc didn't mean a lot. Are
>there minimum characteristics under which a player *must* muster out from
>the services? Sort of an honourable medical discharge.

Injury inflicts up to 3 points (half die) on one characteristic. Recovery
inflicts from 0 to 3 points of recovery. If your injury still has 1 or more
points against you, you may muster out. If 3 points, you must muster out.



  
>  One thing I'd like to add, Marc.  Going hand in hand with chargen is 
>  character experience.  I hope that you have devoted some time to this 
>  because the system in T4 is completely broken.  I'd like to see a 
>  character expereince system that allows the character to grow at the 
>  same rate he did in chargen.  If he averaged 1 or 2 skills per year 
>  in chargen, then while playing the character, he should gain skills 
>  at a rate of 1 or 2 skills per year as well.

I agree that the current experience rule in T4 is completely broken. And that
the basic way to have experience is for a character to continue to add skills
or levels at about 1 per year.

Marc Miller

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 08:23:15 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Fire (Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1421)

Mikko V. I. Parviainen wrote:
> 
> Well.. I remember reading a book years ago which stated that astronauts
> had tried to burn matches on a space station (can't remember whether it
> was Skylab or russians ). The smoke from the fire just stayed around the
> fire and eventually (quite soon, actually) extinguished it.
> 
> The book was in Finnish, but a translation, but I have no idea of it's
> name or anything else...
> 

I recall the shuttle astronauts playing with fire, so to speak. They
had a spherical region that looked like a flame. Now, the material
they were burning didn't emit smoke but the convection was noticeable,
they said.

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 08:12:34 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Stellar codes (Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1416)

At 08:00 AM 6/11/97 -0600, you wrote:
>Douglas E. Berry wrote:

>> Stellar codes.. the first world orbits a type F4 Main sequence star..
>> bigger and hotter than our sun.  The second orbits a much smaller, colder
>> star (though the "VI" needs to be changed, we don't use that anymore,
IIRC.)

>Really? What do we use instead of the VI then?

Most of them should be changed to type V (main sequence) or straight dwarf
stars (VII).  The ration should be about 80/20 in favor of the main sequence.

Let me take this opportunity to call once again for the crew doing the FS
revision work to look closely at the stellar data.. An Agricultural world
won't be sitting around a barely glowing cinder like a M9D. Take the chance
to revise some of the oddities, and make the *nice* worlds (Rich, HiPop,
Agricultural) orbit Sol-like suns.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
|    "Traveller assumes a remote centralized     |
|   government (referred to in this volume as    |
|    the Imperium)...                            |
|       -Introduction, Book 4: Mercenary (1978)  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 08:07:27 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Scenario - Generation Ship

At 02:55 AM 6/12/97 -0700, Dr. Mark Clark wrote:

>  Ah, Metamorphasis Alpha - what a fun game from the depths of the gaming
>past.  I played it back in the late 70s with the same bunch I played
>Traveller with - it was comic relief after the stress of escaping from
>Imperial Marines - but I digress.

MA is one of those games us vets can use to lord over the goths..  "You
think you've got problems, fang-boy?  Hell <spit>, back in '79, we was on
the Warden, and my character was forced to marry the Princess of the Giant
Lab Rat People!  Talk about angst!  You kids today..."

>  One of the members of the group had an early PC - one of those Radio
>Shack things.  He liked to write character generation programs so we would
>always have extra NPCs available - the one he did for Traveller came up
>with a list of Scouts who either were lucky to get out after one term with
>their skins, or made it through seven or eight and were fabulously wealthy
>and had their own ship and lots of skills.  CT generation was weird that
>way, what with the chance of dying thrown in.

A friend of mine did that on his Apple II.  When we saw "Scout" come up as
the profession, we shouted "CORPSE!"  Hey, we were 13, we found that amusing.

>  Anyway, he did a program for Metamorphasis Alpha, and most of the
>characters turned out were reasonable, though a fair number lacked any
>means of moving about or communicating (the char gen system for that game
>is _really_ random).  Our favorite character from the list, though, was a
>character who was a lettuce whose only mutant power was precognition - we
>just died laughing at the thought of this poor lettuce alone in a field,
>knowing when it was going to be picked and eaten, but unable to do a thing
>about it.  That would be a roleplaying challenge for anyone!

LOL!  I played a potted flower with amazing telepathic abilities and a
messiah complex.  I tended to refer to humans as fertilizer.

Great old game...

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
|    "Traveller assumes a remote centralized     |
|   government (referred to in this volume as    |
|    the Imperium)...                            |
|       -Introduction, Book 4: Mercenary (1978)  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 10:51:10 +0000
From: "Kenneth Bearden" <dreamer@weck.brokersys.com>
Subject: T4.1 Notes--Steward skill

Marc,

This is just a small note to you that, as you are fixing all the ills 
of our current Book 1, you should consider replacing the steward 
skill into the skills list and putting it on the starship crew pay 
table.

Kenneth.

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

Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 10:51:11 +0000
From: "Kenneth Bearden" <dreamer@weck.brokersys.com>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Char Gen Checklist

> But some of the options became too wimpy.The checklist details what has to be
> done. The text will talk about options. In fact, one option I find I like is
> to pre-roll a list of half die, 1D and 2D rolls, and then use them in order
> to create a character. You can make any decisions, but you have to use the
> rolls in order.

I have absolutely no problem with this.  Like I said in my first 
reply to T4.1 chargen, I use the standard, straight 2D, one-time, for 
each attribute--just like in CT and MT.

I doubt I'll use another system.  I was just surprised to see 
alternative stat rolling methods when I first looked at T4, and I 
thought it was a pleasant change for those GMs who wanted 
alternatives.

It sounds like what you are doing is making the 2D straight roll the 
offical way to roll stats, but in the text you are describing some 
optional rules.  

Personnaly, I don't care if the options are there or not, but it 
sounds like you are pleaseing everybody by having them there.

Your systems seems like a good idea, and I can't wait to see them.

> If you like your birthworld, you can keep it as a homeworld. If not, you can
> decide to have a homeworld too.

Awesome.  Great.  Love it.

> Your homeworld is defined in the table by Starport and Trade Classifications
> (you may want to search through FS to find a world that matches). You get one
> homeworld skill for each trade classification your homeworld has. (ie. Your
> homeworld is Industrial; roll 1D on the Industrial column). Which means that
> someone from a Na world gets fewer homeworld skills than someone from a Na Va
> Ast Ind world.

More awesome, great stuff that I love.

> I agree that the current experience rule in T4 is completely broken. And that
> the basic way to have experience is for a character to continue to add skills
> or levels at about 1 per year.

Marc...I'm lovin' ya. 

 I've got to tell you that my expectation of T4-Revised has 
completely turned around just based on these two posts you've made 
about the chargen system.

My expectations were that T4-Revised would just be a spell-checked 
version of the book we have now.  You are making it clear that it is 
much more than that.

I'm getting excited about seeing the new book.

Thanks,

Kenneth.

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

Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 10:51:09 +0000
From: "Kenneth Bearden" <dreamer@weck.brokersys.com>
Subject: T4.1 Chargen/skill value notes

The value of a T4 skill level...

There seems to be a misconception among some T4 players that one 
actual skill level in T4 is worth less than one skill level in CT.

I've run into this before with our discussions on the task system and 
when I was designing KBv1.1 and KBv2.0.  Most recently, it has been 
brought up again with Marc's discussion on T4.1 chargen.

Some people think that having a (just picking a skill off the top of 
my head) Computer-4 in CT is equivalent to having a Computer-8 in T4. 
 In my recent reply to Marc's notes on T4.1 chargen, one TMLer cited 
my notes on skill level value and even said that a skill level 
of 6 in my game should be a skill level of 12 in T4.

This may be TNE thinking (where skill levels did reach into the 
double digits), but I want to make it absolutely clear that this is 
not true in T4.  The value of a level 1 skill in T4 is the same as 
the value of a level one skill in CT/MT.  

For those of you who doubt this, let me prove it to you.

First off, I think the misconception of T4 skills came about with the 
broken chargen system (that Marc is fixing, thank God!) in our 
current version of T4.  T4 actually did two things for Traveller 
characters--one of which was good, and one of which was not so good.

T4 did:

(1)  Increased the actual number of different skills a Traveller 
character can obtain in chargen.  This is good.  Characters went from 
having, say, 4-8 skills in CT and MT basic chargen to several varied 
and different skills in T4.

With the multiple skills a character gets in T4 chargen combined with 
all of the default skills that he can now use (over 40 skills!), the 
character has a lot of versitility and options for tackling different 
Traveller tasks.

Again.  This is brilliant, and one of the areas in which T4 shines 
out above all other Traveller rules systems.

(2)  In doing this, though, a limit was not placed on how far one 
particular skill could go.  I'm not advocating that there be a skill 
limit, mind you, but I am saying that, through dice rolls, it should 
be hard for any one skill to reach level 5 or 6 through chargen.

Basically, what I'm saying is that a T4 character should have many 
more skills to choose from than a CT character, but the actual skills 
in both rules sets will range in level from 1 to 6 (or so, having no 
skill limit--you might occasionally see a level 7 skill).

If skills in T4 were allowed to reach level 12, or 15 even, I would 
never have had a problem with attributes outweighing skills in the 
task system, and KBv2.0 would be unneccessary.

Here's my proof, with examples, that T4 skill levels are the same as 
CT/MT skill levels.

As I mentioned in the other post on this, T4 is just a re-working of 
CT.  Many of the same paragraphs that appeared in the CT Traveller 
Book (and other CT rule books like the 3 black books, Starter 
Traveller, etc) appear in T4 word for word.

T4 is the same game as CT with a few tweaks--the task system.

As you go through the rule book, you see game mechanics that use 
skill level as a DM to throws.  These are the same rules that were in 
CT (albeit they may be inverted throws to account for the lower is 
better system in T4).

Four Examples:

Page 45, Medical Skill.  It states in the skill description that 
Medical-3 is a doctor--just like in CT and MT.  

Page 60, Tactics Pool.  It is clear that the tactics pool is based on 
the MT model (where skill levels were the same as in CT).  Lessening 
the value of T4 skills would mean increasing the points in this pool 
making it much more powerful in combat than it was designed to be.

Page 115, Low Passage rolls.  You get a +1 DM if you have a Medic-2 
or better--just like in CT.  If T4 skills were less value than in CT, 
this rule should read something like, "You get a +1 DM if you have a 
Medic-4 or better".

There are many more instances in the T4 rules where it is clear that 
a T4 skill level holds the same amount of weight that a CT skill 
level does.  If the T4 skill levels were valued differently and 
actually reached the double digits like some have posited, this would 
greatly unbalance many of the rules throughout the book.  IG would 
have to go through the entire rules book and re-work all of these 
rules to fit the new T4 value.

Given all of this, it is completely clear to me that a level-3 T4 
skill is interchangeable with a level-3 CT skill.

This subject becomes awkward to explain because people start thinking 
number of skills vs how large one skill can be.

T4 increased the number of skills a character can earn through 
chargen--it did not increase the level each of those skills can 
reach.

You should never see a double digit skill (Computer-10) in T4 just 
like you would never see that in CT or MT.

Kenneth.

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 09:18:23 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: 3 products

At 07:44 AM 6/12/97 -0400, Alan Nuss wrote:
>Yesterday I picked up the three newest Traveller products; Anomalies,
>Psionic Instutitues, and Long Way Home.
>
...
>LWH - As the first T4 adventure it sets the standard for other
>  published adventures.  Uses the 'Nuggett' format...

YES!

This was, imho, one of the better things to come out of DGP.  When well
done, it makes an adventure a lot easier to run, especially if you play
every few weeks, and might have lost some of the thread.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 09:32:14 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Hydrogen Bubbles (was Re: Star ship design question)

At 02:47 PM 6/9/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Scott Ellsworth wrote:
>>>[wither so much fuel?]
>> Jump drives need a huge heap of energy, a bunch of mass to form a very
>> small, unstable universe with, and a hull grid that shapes the field that
>> turns that heap o' stuff into a bubble of our space inside jump space.  The
>> energy could come from accumulators without a problem, and the hull grid
>> might get smaller as the tech level goes up, but the need for mass stays
>> the same until a way is discovered to use pre-existing bubble of our space
>> inside jump space.
>
>You've got a really nifty explaination for why ships require so much
>liquid hydrogen as "Jump Fuel". I like it! I do have some minor quibbles
>with your explanation, though, and I'd like to posit a slightly revised
>version of your excellent theory.

Reasonable enough.

>Quibble #1: What is it about our space that jumpspace doesn't like?
>Ship's make a jump in outer space which is nearly vacuum, why should
>jumpspace react violently with it?

In my world, the physical laws are fundamentally different.  At the
interface, you occasionally get flashes of energy as the matter involved is
turned to energy, combined with perfect absorbing surfaces that just take
matter away, and so on.

(I have ruled that this is the high tech power source which the ancients
used to make all of that antimatter.  Low tech folks cannot reliably
predict what will happen at the interface, and so must keep it very stable,
and far away from themselves.)

>Quibble #2: Why does the volume of hydrogen increase for higher
>jumpspace levels? 10% of hull volume for jump-1, 20% for jump-2, etc.

...

>Each jumpspace level has a certain particle density which creates
>pressure in much the same manner as an atmosphere does. A jumpspace
>bubble therefore requires some kind of gas to "inflate" it to the point
>where the outside pressure on the bubble is equivalent to the inside
>pressure of the hydrogen gas.

I like your pressure idea, and may steal it.

I have used an alternative explanation - each level of jump space erodes
the jump bubble faster, and it is a linear relationship, so you will need
to have twice as much fuel available if you are in J2 space.  The jump
governor was more a way of programming the drive to only enter J1 space if
you are doing a J1, J2 space for a 2, and so on.

...
>Why Hydrogen?
>
>Heavier elements react violently with jumpspace. Hydrogen, and some
>isotopes of Helium (just throwing that in for fun...) seem to be
>relatively inert. This is why it is imperative that the hydrogen be free
>from impurities. Small impurities in the bubble may cause jumpspace
>incursion and misjumps.

I said the hydrogen thing was a density issue.  At the boundary, you want
as uniform a density as possible, as the decay/erosion happens less
predictably when it hits a particle of matter.  If they could fill the
space with unbound mesons (not the magic particle discovered by Bob, but
real ones that carry the strong nuclear force), then jump would be even
safer.  In addition, chaos theory is hard to work with, and the jump
interface is something that is a bit quirky anyway, so the more simplifying
assumptions they can make, the happier they are.  (Sort of like assuming a
spherical physicist...)

Refined fuel is pure hydrogen, which makes life easier.  If you get crud in
there, you have other elements hitting the J-space<->realspace boundary,
and causing some kind of fluctuation.  This happens anyway, but you might
get unlucky enough to have a serious fluctuation, which catapults you into
parts unknown, or splits the bubble (and the ship) in two.

>This is another very good reason to *not* jump within an atmosphere, of
>a mainworld or a gas giant.
>
>Why no Jump-7?
>
>Increasing levels of jumpspace have increasing jumpspace pressures.
>Entering Jump-1 requires 10% of the ship's volume of hydrogen to create
>a stable bubble.  Jump-6 requires 60% of the ship's volume of hydrogen
>to create a stable bubble. At Jump-7, the volume of hydrogen required
>increases dramatically, and is actually greater than that of the ship!

This also works.  I kind of like my approach of making a controlled J7-j36
possible, due to the misjump rules, but so difficult that any race that
could do it would already be using instantaneous teleportation.

>> How does jump space work?
>> 
>> The drive makes a small universe out of the ship itself and the heaps and
>> heaps of LHyd that you pump out as you enter jump space.  Jump space does
>> not like little bubbles of our space, and so starts to convert it to the
>> native stuff of jumpspace.  When that happens, the ship is destroyed, so
>> you want to leave jumpspace before it has eaten the little universe you are
>> in.
>
>Although the idea of jumpspace slowly intruding upon the jumpspace
>bubble, chewing through it like some flesh-eating disease, has some
>appeal, it's perhaps a bit too melodramatic, imho.

I have a number of bad holovid shows that get mentioned, like "Light
Crusiers Everywhere", a bit of Lucan fluff propaganda.  I may add "Evil
Jumpspace Monsters" next time.  Kind of cute...

I make it a point to wrap the vivid images that I create the universe with
in proper technobabble, though, so that I can keep the players happy.  For
example, the decay of the pocket universe is usually referred to as an
"self sustaining Jumpspace boundary breakdown."  (The rule is that the
scarier the problem, the longer the tech words.

>You also have to deal with loss of mass in our universe, and whatever
>nastyness that may entail.

In point of fact, this was the big problem that either the Grandfather or
the Baddies from the Core are facing up to - continued pinching off of
space time for pocket universes, plus the steady leak of matter into
Jumpspace may turn the universe from closed to open, which excessive
experimentation into the structure of Jumpspace may make it go the other
way.  Whichever happens, someone is going to be unhappy.

>That's why I prefer of thinking of the hydrogen bubble as an
>"equilibrium" situation.

Not unreasonable.  I use the dynamic nature to give pilots and engineers
something to do during jump.

>> So, the short answer is that almost all of that LHyd is just pumped out
>> into jumpspace.  You can either have it go into the drive, or to the hull
>> grid, which is my usual choice.
>
>As I said, the loss of the LHyd to jumpspace opens a can of worms that
>unsettles me. Why not have the ship jump in-system with the hydrogen
>bubble still intact? This would cause some neat role-playing
>opportunities.

A good point - one should address it one way or another.  I kind of like
some of the H2 escaping into real space as a possible way to detect the
somehow undetectable vessels.  (Not to rehash the stealth topic - I just
like it too much to let it die, but I have not found an appropriate hand
wave to use it yet.)

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

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End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1422
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