Traveller-digest       Friday, June 13 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1425



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Pocket Empires
Massilia Sector Revised Data
Re: Planet X site going down
Re: Pocket Empires
Re: Starports & Tech levels
Re: Fire in Zero-G (Re: Scenario: Generation-Ship)
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1421
Re: Starship Hulls
Re: Jump drives
Re: Advanced CharGen System
Re: T4.1 Chargen:  Rolling for skills
Converting Design Systems
Re: T4.1 Char Gen
T4.1 Char Gen Checklist
T4/CT/MT task levels
Re: Fire in 0 Gravity
Re: T4.1 Char Gen Checklist
Re: Advanced CharGen System

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 07:27:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: John H Bogan Jr <jbogan@pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: Pocket Empires

At 07:18 AM 6/7/97 -0500, Joseph E. Walsh wrote:

>ALIEN RACE TABLE
>
>Roll  Race Type
> 2-9  Minor human race.
>10-11 Minor alien race.
> 12+  Major alien race.

Since there are no DM's noted, this breaks down
to roughly:

83% Human minor
14% Alien minor
 3% Alien major

Any particular reason for this?  There's only about
40 surviving Human Minor races in Imperial space
(and environs); which means about one, maybe two per 
sector. While that number could be tweaked
somewhat, and some H-minor races are spread over
several subsectors at least (e.g. Geonee, Suerrat),
it seems hard to justify that kind of statistical
predominance.

Maybe it's best it was left off.

Personally, I'd switch the die rolls for Human
and Alien minor races, and give a boost in
importance to the Bwaps et al. of the universe. 

Optionally (which is already the case), GM's can
assign alien populations as they see fit.


>-Joe
>______________________________________________________________________________
>Joseph E. Walsh  |  Game Designer for Marc Miller's Traveller
>_________________|  Atari 1200XL and Apple IIGS User and Programmer

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 14:00:17 +0200
From: Carlos Alos-Ferrer <alos@merlin.fae.ua.es>
Subject: Massilia Sector Revised Data

        I have sent Marc a thorough revision of the Massilia sector data,
with some changes and fixes which I detail below. I hesitate to post the
whole sector here. The original data is now publicly available, so I suppose
Marc would have no objection, but a whole sector is a bit too much. Anyway,
if somebody is interested in taking a look to the actual revised data and
make some statistic analysis as the ones recently posted per starports, etc,
email me privately.

MASSILIA SECTOR REVISION.
	Here I present the revised data for Massilia sector. 7 types of changes
have been made. Most of them have been discussed in previous mails. Changes
number 4),5),6, and 7) should probably also be necessary for all the sectors.

SUMMARY OF CHANGES:

1) Incompatibility with previous Traveller products (Knightfall, TD11)
	(detailed write-ups are rendered false)
	Changes to UWPs of: 0228,1025,1508,1510,1808,2010,2109
2) Incompatibility with description of the Rebin Empire in Traveller products
	(Detailed write-up is rendered false)
	Changes to UWPs or names of: 0212,0213,0214,0312,0315
3) Inconsistency with Geonee setting
	Changes to names of: 0928,1027,1028,1130,1131,1330,1430
4) Suppression of B Pop worlds:
	(Population makes universe absurd)
	Change to UWP of: 0510
5) Suppression of repeated worlds in the same hex
	(There are two system in the same hex: conserve the Knightfall one)
	Elimination of excess worlds at: 0720,2503,2506,2508
6) Incompatibility of Stellar Types with previous Traveller products
	(There are lots of V types from Knightfall changed to VI or IV in FS, 
	as in a scanning error)
	(Also, some D types are missing because they didn't fit: check length)
	Change of Stellar Types (Guide: Knightfall) of: 0206,0318,0632,
	1234,1239,1419,1424,1601,1634,1808,2138,2211,2212,2230,2231,2308,
	2317,2319,2331,2411,2428,2530,2734,2809,3206
7) Change of 40 A/B starport Barren worlds to E starport, TL 0
	Change to UWPs of: 0118,0301,0306,0308,0507,0519,0524,0526,0604,
	0609,0733,0736,1012,1040,1220,1235,1325,1408,1434,1507,1533,1538,
	1601,1634,1717,1731,1835,2040,2336,2531,2605,2731,2735,2737,2906,
	3009,3027,3207,3225

REVISED DATA:

        (whole sector snipped)
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carlos Alos-Ferrer                          E-mail: Alos@merlin.fae.ua.es
Dpt. Fundamentos del Analisis Economico     Phn: (34) 6 5903400, Ext. 3226
Universidad de Alicante                     Fax: (34) 6 5903685
03071-Alicante (Spain)                      "Thursuth gha kvaekh?"
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 09:11:00 -0400
From: Bill Prankard <BPRANKARD@theiia.org>
Subject: Re: Planet X site going down

>Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 11:16:23 MET
>From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
>Subject: Re: Planet X site going down

>- -> <Engage Shutdown>
>- -> "The Domain of Deneb goes off the air immediately, We keep the..."
>- -> <CANCEL>
>Waittaminnit! The Domain of Deneb remains up! Hey, where's my site?
>How'd you do that? ;-)

Ancient Villani Secret! ;-)

>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 --

So your site is called "Domain of Deneb" eh?  I've checked it out.  It is 
very cool! And oh yeah, it's still running fine. :-)

BTW as of now the X-TEK Corporation site is (somewhat) up and runing. 
 Theres a link on the index or you can go directly to:

http://www.magicnet.net/~cmdrx/xtek/xtek.htm

Commander X

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 13:27:26 +0100
From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Pocket Empires

Jbogan wrote:

<alien race table snipped>


Hang on a minute.  You're right but you're missing the context of this
table.

If a world suitable for inclusion is inhabited there's a table to determine
the nature of the inhabitants.  *That* table (which requires you roll 3D or
2D depending on whether you are within the current Imperial border or
beyond it), indicates you roll on the Alien Race table on a 6 or less.


>Since there are no DM's noted, this breaks down
>to roughly:
>83% Human minor
>14% Alien minor
> 3% Alien major
You only roll 1 die on this table.  (Only mentioned in the text, p.32)

The DM is in the text: +2 for "each whole subsector that the world is
distant from Sylea"

So aliens become more and more likely as you move away from Sylea.

tc
timothy.collinson@solent.ac.uk

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 15:22:23 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Starports & Tech levels

Phillip McGregor writes:
>Some of you will remember that I argued that any planet within a single 
>Jump (of whatever TL) from a high Tech planet would have access to the TL 
>of said planet and that the local TL would be irrelevant, except to note 
>what they could *produce* locally.

You're partly right there, but only partly. People of such planets would,
indeed, _potentially_ have access to the high TL of their neighbor, but only 
if they 1) can afford to buy it, and 2) wants to buy it. The second part is 
a cultural thing, of course. They could be ultra-conservative, they could 
have religious or philosophical reasons to stick to lower levels, or
something. But the first part can be a problem too. Not only does the high-
tech goods (plus transportation) have to be cheaper than locally produced
goods, but they also have to produce something that they can sell to off-
worlders in sufficient quantities to get the money needed to buy the stuff. 

IMO most uninterdicted low- and medium- tech planets are low- and medium-
tech because of economic problems.

Sure, you can always send off to the high-tech neighbor for whatever you
want (provided you have the funds), but if the locals don't generally buy
it, the local shops don't stock it.
 
>Well, consider this. There are a number of planets in First Survey that 
>have A Class Starports with TLs of less than 9, the minimum required for 
>Jump Drives/Building Starships and there are many more that have Class B 
>Starports with TLs of less than 7 (the likely minimum for producing non-
Starships).

And a good number of them propably dosen't make any sort of sense. The 
necessary technology would have to be imported, and since that would make
said starport more expensive to run than one on a planet with the 
appropiate TL, such planets should be very rare, especially following a
period of retrenchment like the Long Night.

>Given that a B Starport costs 600 RUs, and an A Starport costs 2400 
>RUs, and that an RU is (more or less) equal to the investment of 1 
>trillion credits 

You're off by a factor 200 there. A RU is equivalent to MCrimp5,000,
not MCrimp1,000,000.

>and that the Cr has always been assumed to be (from  the 1970s AFAIR) 
>around US$2, 

Marc Miller recently stated that the Credit originally was worth 1 US$.
From recent discussions on the net it appears that thanks to inflation
the Credit is edging into the $3 range.

>then we are looking at planets that obviously have had starports 
>constructed there by foreigners, at higher than local TLs.

That, or starports that shouldn't really be there.

>I did some quick calculations, and it seems that the worlds in question 
>have GWPs of only about the same as the actual cost of the Starports.
>
>So, consider this, we have worlds with less than the required TL for 
>building non-starships with 600 trillion credit starports or with less 
>than the required TL for building starships with 2400 trillion credit 
starports. And these have no effect whatsoever on the local effective TL?

You're assuming that the costs of A and B starports given in PE are 
reasonable. That's something I'm not so sure of. Certainly the costs of
E and D starports are far too high. You'd have to be a real financial
wizard to pay MCr6,000 for a flat piece of bedrock and a radio beacon
without getting done for embezzlement.

>Since these ports are capable of building starships/spaceships and 
>all that goes with them *and* since the investment is so huge that 
>they are obviously incorporating all or almost all of the actual 
>construction facilities in situ -- and probably construct most of the 
>componets in situ as well, based on the infrastructure cost -- then 
>how can you possibly justify the rest of the world not having more or 
>less the same TL?

You can't. But then, I don't agree that the components have to be built in
situ. Nor that a starport capable of building, say, a couple of 200 T ships
per year HAS to affect the economy of the host planet significantly.
 
>Surely the rule should be that if a world has a B Starport they *must* have 
>at least TL7 commonly available, if only as imported rather than locally 
>produced goods -- 

They *must* have TL 7 space technology available at the starport. I see no
reason why they *must* have TL 7 kitchen appliances available on the other
side of the planet.

>Remember, we are talking amounts of investment in infrastructure here 
>that would make the US Deficit look like a "piddling little amount"!

One major problem is that there are really two different _kinds_ of 
starports. One is the single, almost self-contained, little pimple on
the backside of a world built and maintained by foreign interests. The
other is the vast industrial complex capable of serviceing the trade
needs of a whole planetful of people.

I know that the 'Remarks' section of the UPPs are beginning to get
overworked, but I've been mulling over a proposal to distinguish between
them:

1) The default assumption is that a given starport represent starport
   capacity enough to serve the whole population of the planet.
2) When this is not the case, a code in the 'remarks' section details
   the effective capacity of the starport. The code consists of the
   letter for the starport type followed by three numbers, the population
   level and the population code of the effective size and the TL of the
   starport. Thus a UPP like

		A356984-4	A61A

   would mean that the starport is the standard size to serve 1,000,000
   people and that the effective TL is 10.

In any case, the cost of a starport (above type E) should not be a flat fee
but should depend on the number of people (or, in PE terms, labor points)
on the planet.



      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: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 17:05:59 +0300
From: "Hakan Koseoglu" <hkose@rorqual.cc.metu.edu.tr>
Subject: Re: Fire in Zero-G (Re: Scenario: Generation-Ship)

> 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.
This is true. You will not have a flame which distinguishes itself. Also
you will have a spherical flame instead of the conventional one.

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 17:10:06 +0300
From: "Hakan Koseoglu" <hkose@rorqual.cc.metu.edu.tr>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1421

> 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. 
Iff this was true, the fire in Mir would extinguish itself. Alas, it
needed humans to interfere...

							Hakan
- -------------------------------------------------------
| hkose@rorqual.cc.metu.edu.tr | Mars is our destiny. |
| 2:430/312@fidonet            |                      |
- -------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 11:08:45 -0400
From: "Chris Cox" <chriscox@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Starship Hulls

Holy Huge Hulls, TravMan!  These standard hulls take up 43% to 93% of a
ship's volume!  Are these correct?  Is it possible that there was a mix up
with cubic meters and displacement tons which resulted in the volume needed
for hulls being off by a factor of 14?

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

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 10:46:32 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@Comten.com>
Subject: Re: Jump drives

>Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 00:07:59 +0000
>From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
>Subject: Jump drives (looooooong)
>
>With the current discussion of jump drives; I wish to contribute a >piece
>that I prepared and filed away to use when ever players had questions. >It is
>done in the form of a lecture transcript from a Professor of advanced
>Mathematics
>
>For your enjoyment and commentary..

I love it! This fits into my perception of how jump should work. When I
asked the original question it was meant to help me in designing some
deck plans. The answer I am incorperating is to consider the j-drive
itself as being directly attached to the fusion bottle (re: your
discussion). Thank you for sharing this, it will be included in any
future games I play as a standard hand out.

Mike Peters
Letterworks@Comten.com

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 08:39:44 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Advanced CharGen System

Kenneth Bearden wrote:

>One of the problems in CT and MT, when using the advanced chargen
>systems, is that the advanced characters were so much more powerful than
>the basic charcters.  In T4, if advanced chargen is introduced, we're
>going to have the same problem--except in reverse.  Basic system
>characters will be much more powerful than advanced system characters.

Only if the Advanced CharGen system is exactly like the one from CT/MT.
Who's to say that IG won't make a new Advanced CharGen system that makes
the characters even *better* than the Basic T4 characters?

It would behoove them to make an Advanced CharGen system that makes
characters who are more _detailed_, not more powerful, however. More detail
could include awards and service medals, specific year-to-year assignments,
and specific special assignments, all a la CT rules.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml



- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 08:53:23 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Chargen:  Rolling for skills

>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.

This may be true in T4, but what if it wasn't true in T4.1? What if,
instead of a skill of 3 being good enough to be called a professional, it
required a skill of 7 or 8? Skill inflation? No, skill normalization. A
characteristic  of 7 or 8 is average and we don't think characteristics are
inflated, they just work off a different scale. That's the problem with the
task system, really. When you add a characteristic and a skill level you
are adding together things of completely different scales. Characteristics
average about 8 and can vary by 5 or more points between individuals.
Skills average about 2 and a mere 2 points separate beginners and experts.
This means that when you add skills and characteristics together, like in
the task system, all the mean and variance come from characteristics;
skills have practically no effect on task rolls.

Now the KBv2 task system fixes this by multiplying the skill level;
normalizing it so it has around the same contributions of points and
variability as a characteristic. It works well for this, but what if skills
just had point totals and variabilities like characteristics right from the
start?

>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.

Exactly. If skills worked off the same scale as characteristics, adding
them together for tasks would work. Not only that, target numbers could be
based on skills or characteristics interchangeably. You could use either a
skill or characteristic as a DM. A lot of the tables for converting
characteristics to task DMs would be unnecessary because the characteristic
would be a DM.

What I am suggesting is that skill point totals be considered the same as
characteristic point totals; just as an 'average' person might have a Str
of 7 and a weightlifter have one of 14, an 'average' starship pilot would
have a Pilot skill of 7 and an ace have one of 14.

Not only will this fix the task problem, it is conceptually simpler because
a certain number of points will always mean the same thing, whether used as
a characteristic, skill, or DM.

>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.

True, because many of the the rules in T4 were taken directly from CT and
were not even edited to be consistent. The character generation, education
effects, skill ratings, task system, and experience rewards are all
seriously out of whack with each other. The book is already greatly
unbalanced, I suggest balancing it. Make 1 characteristic point = 1 skill
point = 1 DM = 1 experience point.

Now I realize this will require some changes, but nothing severe. A
"Doctor" will need a Medical skill of 8. The Tactics pool and Leadership DM
will apply equally to both sides, so the greater number of skill points
will not unbalance things. Instead of using skills as task DMs (like
Brawling for grapples) use opposed task rolls. Instead of skill levels
being added to tables (like Broker on the Actual Value table) give a DM for
skill minimums, like the character generation sequence already does. None
of these changes are new rules, they are just new uses of the existing
rules.

>If you add a roll to the chargen system (a throw to see if a character
>is awarded a skill for that year), you will not only be putting a limit
>on the already too generous T4 chargen system, but you will also be
>paving the way for the addition of advanced chargen rules for T4 down
>the road.

I think the T4 chargen system is too stingy, not too generous. Coming out
of chargen with a skill level of 10 should be no more unreasonable than
getting a Dex of 10. With more points for skills, there is potential for
relating skill increases to things like missions or training courses, so I
think this scheme would be even better suited to an advanced character
generation system. I have no quarrel with rolling to see if you get a
skill, but using this method it just isn't necessary. If you get, say, 3
skill points per year, an advanced character generation system could split
that into individual missions or projects.

Comments? Is this too radical a change? I thought it was similar to how TNE
skills worked, but I don't have that book. Are there serious problems I
haven't considered?

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 97 13:42:27 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Converting Design Systems

David Sarkies  wrote

>I was wondering if anybody knows how one would convert a Megatraveller
>weapon for use in TNE. This is because I play the TNE system but have
>collected a number of megatraveller books from various second hand places.
>I was also wondering how ship statistics could be converted.

Well there aren't any good rules for vehicles.  I tried to convert
COACC planest into FFS, but there are too many differences in the
assumptions of fuel usage, power output and the like.  But most of the
time, my players don't really care about all the details, they just
want a plane and to know how fast it goes.  So I use the old Coacc designs.  

Weapons are another thing, I just don't use them, I really would like
to buy Emperor's Arsenal, but the weapons aren't in TNE format.  I
asked Greg Porter if it would be easy to convert them to TNE format.
Greg used Guns,GUns, GUns to develop the T4 guns, and G^3 has TNE rules
also, but he said you would have to reverse engineer the weapons, to
G^3 and then convert them to TNE, alot of work. 

Ships are another thing, I tend to use as is, TNE and MT use about hte
same amount of fuel to jump, so they aren't a bad approximation for
each other.  If I plan on using the ship extensivly, I'll just make up
a version of the ship with FFS, it is fairly simple, unless you are
converting a military ship, with lots of Fusion GUns, which don't exist in TNE.


Lewis Roberts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
Q:Why does an elephant have a trunk?
A:So that it has someplace to hide when it sees a mouse.        
 
lewis@chara.gsu.edu
http://www.chara.gsu.edu/~lewis/roberts.html
- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 17:38:12 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Char Gen

Kenneth wrote:

>T4 is basically a re-working of CT with a task system.

Hmm. Wasn't MT too? ;-)

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Feel the guilt / like shackles round your feet / like a halo in reverse"
                     Depeche Mode "Violator"

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 13:38:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: T4.1 Char Gen Checklist

   Hi.

> Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 17:40:33 -0400 (EDT)
> From: CardSharks@aol.com

> Pursuing an ED8 certificate increases your Edu to 8.
> Going to an Academy will increase it to 9.
> Going to Univeristy gets you an A.
> Grad School gets you a B.
> Honors gets you+1 Edu.

   Yay!  This is a BIG improvement.  Not only does it work from a
   game-mechanics standpoint, but it actually makes /sense/!

   -Rob

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 13:39:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: T4/CT/MT task levels

   Hi.

> Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 19:20:40 +0000
> From: Kenneth Bearden <dreamer@brokersys.com>

   [snips, here and elsewhere]

> But, I'm also saying that a side effect of the T4 system, which is
> broken, is that some skills can reach the double digits in level.

> The levels of skills should be kept the same.  Game mechanics throughout
> the book, originally generated for CT, depend on it.

   Whether the levels should or shouldn't be the same can be debated. 
   Effectively, however, they are not the same in the two games as
   published.  Inter-character competition is going to greatly influence
   which skill levels are normal in any given campaign.  T4 norms are
   much higher than CT norms, not `should be much higher', but `/are/
   much higher'.

>>    Note that these two reasons do not depend on arguments based on
>>    canon or qualifications to be a doctor, but merely the laws of
>>    statisitics and supply-and-demand.

> And the problem with what you are saying is that there are CT game
> mechanics in the T4 rule book that depend on skill values being the same
> as they were in CT.  If you inflate the numbers of CT skills to match T4
> skills as you say, then these rules (which are all over the main book)
> are skewed greatly in one direction.  

   This is true for some cases, but is not generally true of the task
   rolls which dominate most games I play in.  For most task rolls that
   are not give-aways, a +1 mod doesn't amount to as big a change in
   probability in T4 as in CT.  (There are some exceptions for very high
   and very low probability tasks.)

> That's just not viable.  T4 skills must be kept at the same value as CT
> skills.

   I'm not saying what's viable, just what is.  And my campaign, using
   T4 rules with inflated task difficulties, is more viable than any CT
   campaign I've ever run in the past as far as attracting players goes
   (though the task system has just about nothing to do with this.)

> In other words, a level-3 skill in T4 is the same as a level-3 skill in
> CT.  Exactly the same.

   Except for the effects of inter-character competition and most task rolls,
   (where they are exactly different) what you say may be true.

   -Rob

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

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 11:41:25 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Fire in 0 Gravity

They did studies of combustion on the shuttle.  Fire will burn
in zero gravity.  If the air is still, it will have to depend
on diffusion and will burn slowly.  Air currents will accelerate
the burning.

____________________________
Summers@Alum.MIT.edu

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Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 13:59:06 +0000
From: Kenneth Bearden <dreamer@brokersys.com>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Char Gen Checklist

> But do we really need a Liason skill, it always seemed to me to be 1)
> unfairly more powerfull than Admin or Streetwise since both skills
> defaulted from it and 2) implausible, yes there is such a thing as
> training in how to interact with people but I think that in Traveller
> terms you should just get Admin or Streetwise whichever you are _really_
> learning.  

I think that Liason is one of those old skills that is really
Traveller.  It's been around forever, and it has uses in many places.  I
still use it in my game.

Besides, Liason is integral to the Vargr.  They're so big into
emmissaries, and Liason is one of the most important skills that they
can get.

Kenneth.

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Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 14:27:31 +0000
From: "Kenneth Bearden" <dreamer@weck.brokersys.com>
Subject: Re: Advanced CharGen System

> Only if the Advanced CharGen system is exactly like the one from CT/MT.
> Who's to say that IG won't make a new Advanced CharGen system that makes
> the characters even *better* than the Basic T4 characters?

True, this could be done.  I had to argue my point from what I know 
and what I've seen.

The advanced chargen systems in CT/MT were great.  I really liked 
them.  They could be improved, just like I suppose everything could 
be, but they were pretty damn good just the way they are.

I'd be completely happy with them being placed into T4 as is.

> It would behoove them to make an Advanced CharGen system that makes
> characters who are more _detailed_, not more powerful, however.

Since I made this same argument in the post you quoted from, we are 
in total agreement here.

 More detail
> could include awards and service medals, specific year-to-year assignments,
> and specific special assignments, all a la CT rules.

Exactly.  But they must take care to make sure that characters, 
whether generated via basic or advanced character generation, are 
interchangable.

Otherwise, we'll end up with a situation like we had in CT/MT.  I 
really liked advanced chargen rules and want to use them, but those 
characters were much too powerful when complared to basic gen 
characters.

So what do you do?  You've got a few careers that offer an advanced 
system that you really like, and you've got a bunch of careers that 
use a basic system--but the two systems don't produce similiar 
results.

I'd like to see T4 re-introduce advanced chargen AND make it fit with 
the basic chargen system we already have.

Kenneth.

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End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1425
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