Traveller-digest       Tuesday, June 24 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1469



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Minimum TL for...
Re: Merrick Burkhardt's Task system (longish)
T4.1 Chargen suggestions
Why KBv2.0?
Re: Putting Traveller on an upward trend
Re: Being Honest.
Re: T4 Task Rationale
Re: Latest Vote Count
Re: Deckplan Question?
Marc's Comments and a suggestion or two
Re: Deckplan Question?
Resources in PE

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

Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 18:11:31 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Minimum TL for...

Bruce Johnson wrote:

> On Sat, 21 Jun 1997 s.johnson107@genie.com wrote:
> 
> >     Question for the engineers on the list.  What's the absolute minimum level
> > of technology required to get airships able to carry a crew and some cargo into
> > the air?  I'm thinking of putting together an adventure on a world where below
> > a certain altitude the oxygen toxicity kills you.  This would restrict the
> > population to the mountain tops and I want to make the tech level as low as
> > possible.
> >     So what's required to get an airship off the ground and keep it moving
> > through the air?  Thoughts, comments, suggestions and References all welcome!

SNIP
 
> Lightweight, powerful engines are the limiting factor, I would think,
> since they would take the greatest amount of industrial infrastructure

How about an alcohol engine or a ctalytic sream rocket? What TL do 
you need to be able to make Hydrogen Peroxide? IIRC some of those 
man-portable chopper thingies used catalytic decomposition of 
Hydrogen Peroxide to power them.

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 06:42:31 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: Merrick Burkhardt's Task system (longish)

On Mon, 23 Jun 1997 22:24:36 -0600 (MDT), Merrick Burkhardt wrote:

> > Me thinks this task system needs a bit more work (or am I missing
> > something :)
> 
> Aside from the fact that it could use a little tweaking, the example
> you posted isn't really fair.

It is perfectly fair... as Anders' post explained it.  You have to
take into account _all_ possibilities to truly see how his idea could
work... I just used the first example that popped into my head.

> Somebody with skill-6 (I have to admit I'm more comfy with CT skills
> number wise---I'd consider a 6 to be a very famous expert.  Anyway,
> The table posted wasn't mine.  I say that there is no fixed
> relationship between skill and task level, just good guidelines.  I
> would say that if the task is "extremely hard" (I used
> Staggering/Impossible to fit with T4) for a professional (skill-3),
> then it would be 3 levels easier for a professional of skill 6.  For
> a task that is routine for a skill-1 person, the skill 6 guy should
> have automatic success, IMO.

I agreed pretty much with everything in your first posting of the M.B.
Task system, and even offered a few suggestions (please see Eris'
"Task System: Four Different Proposals" thread).  Anders Backman's
posting, OTOH, used a slightly different method than yours, and I
simply pointed out an error in his proposal.

Phil Kitching made a point about considering 3 sixes as a SF.  I
originally believed that it should be only 2 sixes, since your system
uses the 2d6 Average task as a basis.  I could be persuaded to go the
3 sixes route, though.  I just like the idea for a SF to be possible
for an Average task (3%).  I guess I'd have to see the numbers
comparing SF as 2 sixes vs 3 sixes to figure out which method I would
prefer.

I do believe, however, that Phil's rule for SS (rolling all ones)
makes the likelihood of such a result pretty remote.  Rolling all ones
on 3d6 is a 1 in 216 chance... a little too infrequent to even bother
with in an RPG.  I'd use "dice totals that are _less_ than the
character's skill level are considered SS".

Phil also made a good point about not being able to perform certain
tasks requiring more than 4 dice, or automatic successes taking place
if the number of dice required drops below 1.  This would make my
comment about some tasks requiring upwards of 8 dice a moot point.

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 03:00:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: pawn@CAM.ORG (Glenn Grant)
Subject: T4.1 Chargen suggestions

Marc,

At first I was taken with the idea of rolling attribute tests to acquire
skills, but your remarks persuaded me that it was a better idea to ensure
that all characters get roughly the same number of skills for each term
served.

So here's an idea for an optional skill-acquisition rule:

   For each skill acquired while persuing a career:
        To pick the skill of your choice from the available skills:
        Difficult test of one of the skill's applicable attributes; 
        If success: PC acquires the chosen skill.
        If failure: PC must roll for skill randomly on the same table.

Thus, if a Scout is trying to acquire Astrogation, she would attempt a
Difficult test of her Edu or Int. If she fails the roll (didn't do well in
that training course, or didn't qualify for it that year), she might still
pick it up by rolling randomly on the same table (she is assigned to some
other training mission). Either way, she gets a skill. But she has to
succeed in the test to get the one she wants.

Another suggestion: put 'Sophontology' into the Science cluster. I think
Traveller characters should have a chance to know something about the
universe's aliens, their culture, psychology, biology, etc.

This also applies to Background skills: if the world has a non-human
population, there's a good chance the PC will know their language, or have
some Sophontology skill.

Alternatively, you might institute an "Alien Culture" cluster, which
confers a skill in Aslan Culture, Vargr Culture, etc. Each alien culture
might consitute a cascade skill group: someone with Aslan Culture-2 might
automatically have Aslan Language at Level-1, and vice-versa. Same goes for
Sophontology, which might cascade to several alien cultures and languages,
at the ref's discretion.

More thoughts as they come to me...

 + GMG +

    -----------------------Glenn Grant-----------------------  
                         <pawn@cam.org>
    Web: <http://helios.physics.utoronto.ca:8080/ggrant.html>
"Nature abhors normality. It can't go too long without a mutant."
                        --Dr Blockhead

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

Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 03:00:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: pawn@CAM.ORG (Glenn Grant)
Subject: Why KBv2.0?

Marc and fellow Travellers,

It has taken me some time to chime in on the task system issue - after
attending Ad Astra in Toronto last weekend (big Faan-type fun) and
grovelling through a vast amount of backlog at my office (no fun at all), I
had a week's worth of TML Digests to get through. Am caught up now.

I've been fiddling with task system fixes since the T4 system's
inadequacies first became apparent, last autumn. I came up with the D66
Task System, a brilliant stroke of genius which only required players to
re-learn how to add and subtract (in Base-6!) and which was not quite
entirely compatible with T4 (all DMs given in the books had to be
multiplied by 3, FrEx). Okay, so that was a dead loss, but it was an
instructive waste of time...

My thoughts and suggestions: 

Change the weighting of skill vs. stat to a 3:1 ratio, or at least 2:1. Ken
and I independently settled on a 3:1 ratio after much tinkering and
testing, and I like the balance this provides. With this ratio, a
high-stat/low-skill PC can still beat out a low-stat/low-skill PC, but not
an average-stat/high-skill PC...
                                   Target Numbers
                                   T4.1    KBv2.1
  Frank Four:   stat 4, skill 4:    8       16
  Fran Fifteen: stat F, skill 1:   16       18
  Eddie Eight:  stat 8, skill 4:   12       20

...and this, I think, is as it should be. The high stat surely counts for
something, but so does a high skill. Balance is achieved.

I am against balancing stat and skill by changing the chargen system to
produce typical characters with skills in the range of 6 or 9+. By simply
tripling the effect of each skill level, KBv2.0 achieves basically the same
effect -- without having to radically change T4 Chargen (which I think is
pretty cool right now, and getting 'way cooler with T4.1).

I also like the extra granularity KBv2.0 provides. I like Ken's idea of
adding EPs incrementally as a Character earns experience or studies new
skills, thus advancing their skills a third of a level at a time. And
though the effect of the various DMs given in the rules is reduced a bit,
they don't have to be changed or multiplied (as in my D66 system - too much
granularity!).

Obviously a lot of people like MT's system, but I never played MT, so I
can't comment on it. Except to say that, at this point, with lots of T4
books already on the shelves, it's rather too late to drop the variable
dice idea. It would certainly make a lot of people happy to go back to
something with only two dice - that was part of the motivation behind my
D66 system. But I don't object to throwing lots of dice on principle - even
half die if absolutely necessary (which they aren't!).

If it's decided that the stat:skill ratio should be increased to 1:2 or
1:3, I would recommend strongly against achieving this by dividing the
stat. It's *much* easier to multiply the skill than divide the stat. During
combat, stats fluctuate due to injury and recovery, and this math has to be
recalculated with every change. Skills, however, don't fluctuate during
game play, so the skill*3 calculation in KBv2.0 only has to be done once,
before the game starts, et voila' (or "walaa" as Ken would spell it ;). I
note that a MT-style system would also involve dividing the stat, and thus
recalculating the TN after every injury or recovery. I also note that Ken
already tried (stat/2)+skill, with KB1.0, and it proved difficult to get
the probabilities to work out the way we wanted. This problem evaporated
when he switched to stat+(3*skill), in KBv2.0.

For those who don't know: KBv2.0 works like this:

   Target Number = Attribute + Experience

   Experience Score = Skill Level x 3

   Determine the task difficulty level and roll the TN or less to succeed:

   Easy           2D
   Average        3D
   Difficult      4D
   Formidable     5D
   Staggering     6D
   Impossible     7D

Yes, that's a lot of dice. But none of the other system's I've analysed
result in the kind of probabilities we wanted. KBv2.0 does: Impossible
tasks are never a cake-walk, even for PCs with stats of 16 (unless they
also have a high skill!)

For Jack-of-all-Trades: don't halve the attribute, just add the Skill level
without multiplying it (stat+skill). This makes JOT a lot less
omni-powerful, as it was in T4, but it's still useful.

I don't know if I like Ken's fix for SS and SF - which basically involves
special TNs for SS and SF. In Derroch's game, we're using three ones = SS,
three sixes = SF (if anyone rolls three sixes AND three ones - well, we'll
worry about it when it happens!). 

For multiple actions: take the lowest TN from the actions attempted, and
divide it by the number of actions.

For default skill throws: just use the full attribute. (Personally I would
suggest a negative DM, depending on the situation.)

Target numbers (TN) and their chance of success within each difficulty.
(These numbers are not adjusted for either SF or SS.).  
 
TN   Easy     Avg    Diff     Form    Stag     Imp

1     --      --      --       --       --      --

2     2.78    --      --       --       --      --
3     8.33   0.46     --       --       --      --
4    16.67   1.85    0.08      --       --      --

5    27.78   4.63    0.39     0.01      --      --
6    41.67   9.26    1.16     0.08     0.00     --
7    58.33   16.2    2.7      0.27     0.02    0.00

8    72.22   25.93   5.4      0.72     0.06    0.00
9    83.33   37.5    9.72     1.62     0.18    0.01
10   91.67   50      15.9     3.24     0.45    0.04

11   97.22   62.5    23.92    5.88     0.99    0.12
12  100      74.07   33.57    9.8      1.97    0.28
13           83.8    44.37   15.2      3.59    0.61

14           90.74   55.63   22.15     6.08    1.2
15           95.37   66.44   30.52     9.65    2.2
16           98.15   76.08   39.97    14.46   3.79

17           99.54   84.1    50       20.59   6.12
18          100      90.28   60.03    27.94   9.39
19                   94.6    69.48    36.31  13.72
 
20                    97.3   77.86    45.36  19.17
21                    98.84  84.8     54.64  25.72
22                    99.61  90.2     63.69  33.22

23                    99.92  94.12    72.01  41.42
24                   100     96.76    79.42  50
25                           98.38    85.54  58.58

26                           99.28    90.35  66.78
27                           99.73    93.92  74.28
28                           99.92    96.41  80.83

29                           99.99    98.03  86.28
30                           100      99.01  90.61
31                                    99.55  93.88

32                                    99.82  96.21
33                                    99.94  97.79
34                                    99.99  98.79

35                                    100    99.39
36                                    100    99.72
37                                           99.88

38                                           99.96
39                                           99.99
40                                           100


NOTE that higher than average attributes are still a great advantage,
especially for Difficult tasks, which are the majority during combat. A PC
with a weapon skill of 1 has little chance of hitting if their Dex is 7,
but a pretty good chance if it's 12. KBv2.0 generally gives lower
probabilities than T4 or T4.1 (personally I think T4 and T4.1 are too
'easy', so I like this. YMMV).

That's enough from me on this topic.

Whatever you decide, Marc, I want to thank you for soliciting to our
opinions on this and other matters. Whatever you decide, I'm sure the
Deluxe Edition will be a killer book. Can't wait to see it.

 + GMG +

    -----------------------Glenn Grant-----------------------  
                         <pawn@cam.org>
    Web: <http://helios.physics.utoronto.ca:8080/ggrant.html>
"Nature abhors normality. It can't go too long without a mutant."
                        --Dr Blockhead

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

Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 07:05:31 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: Putting Traveller on an upward trend

On Mon, 23 Jun 1997 19:55:21 -0800, Richard Hough wrote:

[a bunch of good ideas regarding an Traveller boxed edition snipped]

I believe Games Workshop (of all people) once released cheap versions
of some of their games with greatly stripped down rules.  The idea was
to design a product that mimicked its big brother (in this case, T4)
at the lowest possible price.  These "minigames" would act as sort of
a springboard towards their mainline games.

Certain things like animal encounters, psionics, starships (combat &
construction), and much of the background can be stripped away,
leaving a core booklet of 20 or so pages consisting of nothing more
than a basic character generation system, a short equipment list, a
subsector map, and a brief adventure.  Basic game mechanics would have
to be identical (including the task system we finally decide upon).
Also included would be examples of some of the additional rules
sections found in the full-sized products.

Such a product would be designed in such a way as to appeal to the
individual curious about RPGs, but lacking the funds to buy the main
rulebook.  A coupon could be included towards the purchase of future
T4 products if the buyer decides that he likes what s/he sees.

This might not have been what Richard had in mind when he started this
thread, but I thought I should speak up, nonetheless.

The real trick would be shrinking the minigame down to the size of a
deck of Magic cards (I'm kidding :)

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 11:46:26 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Being Honest.

- -> <SATIRE MODE ON>
- -> 
- -> QUASTSYS V.01
- -> QUick And Stupid Tas SYStem
- -> 
- -> 1. Get the player to roll some dice. However many of what types they feel
- -> comfortable with. They don't mean anything but hey it makes the player think
- -> he actually does something.
- -> 
- -> 2. Carefully ignoring the diceroll, decide if the player
- -> 
- ->    a) Needs to succeed in order to further the plot
- -> 
- ->    b) A little faliure at this point would be good for dramatic effect.
- -> 
- ->    c) Has been annoying you all night and getting rid of that overblown
- -> character would be a good thing.
- -> 
- -> <SATIRE MODE OFF>
- -> 
- -> Not that us gamemasters ever really work it like this ;)
I do!
(when playing Paranoia, anyways) ;-)
 
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: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 12:15:16 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: T4 Task Rationale

- -> Mon, 23 Jun 1997 12:41:18 +1000, Jason Anderson 
- -> >Just one point I wanted to comment on. Dex 7 is *average* for 
- -> humans -
- -> >hardly a clutz. PC's are likely to have a higher Dex level (depending on
- -> >how you let them generate their stats of course).
- -> 
- -> Well, a Dex 7 is that average rolled, before any additional
- -> character advancement.  That means that  a stat of 7 is
- -> below average.  I would say that someone on the clutzy
- -> side of average is not doctor material..

No, it's the average of the general pop allright. You forgot about the 
aging effects! So the older people and the children are going to have 
lower stats than those "on their peak". That reduces the average back 
to about 7. (Also don't forget many characters never roll on the stat 
improv. tables, choosing skill improvement instead!
 




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: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 12:22:50 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Latest Vote Count

just a few corrections this time, for people whose votes were changed!

Voting for T4.1 with revisions or variants thereof:
Marc Miller
A.S.Lilly
Phil Kitching
Tim Reynolds
Simon Turner
Andrew Vallance
Mike Lee
Leroy WL Guatney
J.P.
Joe Walsh
- -10
( some of these state that it can't stand as it is, though)


Voting for KBv2.0 (or other KB variants or similar systems) were:
- -12
Kenneth Bearden
Peter Miller Dedly
Richard Hough
Kelly St.Clair
Jeff Norton
VolantZep
James W. Lindsay
SD Mooney (willing to Accept KBvXX, prefers MT)
dmckinne                 (ditto!)
Michael Galligan
Glenn Grant
Martin FC Pickett

Voting for a system along the lines of MT 
(or variants thereof):
(or just preferring it!)
- -22
Volker A. Greimann
Carlos Alos Ferrer
Andrew Akins
Nick Munn
2drapers
Dave Scott
RFXn
Rob Prior
Franklin Cain
Vanya
John Snead
David P Summers
Ryan Dooley
SD Mooney
Bob Sanders
Ola Agren
dmckinne
Nik Whitehead
William F. Hostman
Andrew Boulton
Steve Charlton
Victor Holzrichter

TNE-like D20 system
- -1
Harold Hale


Other votes generally in favor of change (no specific system)
- -11
Jeffry Miller
John Wood
jwbrewer
Mark Ayers
Neil McGurk
Michael Peters
Paul Owensby
Marc Bradley
Scott Ellsworth
Eris Redoch
Glenn Grant
Victor Raymond

66 votes tallied!


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: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 01:21:42 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Deckplan Question?

In mail you write:

>
> Hello everyone,
>
> I was wondering if anyone can fix my confusion of an issue I have...? I
> was looking at the books to create my own deckplans and the first (green
> small book with all the original deckplans) book I have on the subject
> says each square represents 1.5m^3 and a cieling height is 3m so you need
> 2 squares on top of each other or => 6.75m^3 
>
> Now my first question is where did they derive 13.5m^3 (it indicated
> something about 4 squares?????).... what is wrong here or have I misread
> something???

1.5m*3m*1.5m=6.75. A displacement ton is *two* of these rectangular
solids. In other words, 1 DT is 3m high 1.5 meters wide and 3 meters
long (3*3*1.5=13.5)

Another way of looking at it is that each "square" is one-half ton.

> So if I had a 30ton vessel (small craft) this equals about 420m^3 volume
> or roughly 62 squares right?? now of course some of this is wasted
> space... but if I went by the book it says 14m^3 = 1ton and a 1.5m^3
> square is considered 1ton (right?) that would be 31 squares???

30 displacement tons is *60* squares. Remember, each "square" is *half*
a ton.

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

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

Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 08:14:28 -0400
From: Andy Brick <exeus@compuserve.com>
Subject: Marc's Comments and a suggestion or two

Hi All,

Marc wrote -

> The problem is, as much as people may like TNE or Mega or CT, those systems
> don't exist any more. There are no new publications for them, and comparisons
> to them don't work. =


By the same logic, as the supplement Library Data A-M is out of print, does that
mean that its contents are no longer canon ? I think not. A lot of CT stuff
is still valid - look
at Snapshot for example. People still design stuff with FF&S et al for T4,
yet "TNE does not exist".

Comparisons with the earlier systems are not only possible, but important
If Traveller is to
improve, we have to ask ourselves if what we have in T4 is actually any
better than what we
had before. If not, then why take a retrograde step ? If it ain't broke,
don't fix it. MT was not
broken, T4 is.

As for tasks, my belief is that we stick to the MT system or a minor
variant thereof. My
suggestions for such variations are -

* Keep the ability to combine any skill with any attribute, it's useful

* Keep the 3-7-11-15-19 sequence, maybe with Staggering at 19 and
Impossible at 23 for
compatibility with already published T4 sources,

* Limit skill levels to 5 maximum, 3 or 4 during character generation. I =
do
this anyway and
no one ever complains. The best way to achieve this is the use of "skill
points" rather like in
2300AD - divide skills up into Primary, Related and Unrelated and set
prices for each skill
level accordingly. That gives a nice balance and removes "Combat
Accountants" from the
game. It also forms the basis of a nice experience system.

* Assume that an average stat of 7 gives no bonus, and use the 3-7-11-15
scale to determine
mods from statistics. ( so 2 is -2, 3-6 is -1, 7-10 is +0, 11-14 is +1,
15-18 is +2 etc ). This
makes Impossible tasks truly Impossible without circumstantial DMs ( Max
skill is +5, max stat
is +2, so +7 - you need a 16+ on 2D for Impossible even if you have Skill=
- -5
and Stat-F. Unless
you get an extra +4 plus from somewhere i.e. a modifier for the situation=
,
you are going to fail ).

* Use the rest of the system as is. That gives us Exceptional Success and=

Failure, the Mishap
table, and the wonderful time increment system as well.

> The objective standard in T4 is that characters get about 1 skill per
year. And skill levels then =

> reflect that idea.

Well, yeah, but you can still do that through skill points to purchase
skills.

Anyway, engage lurking device ! =


Andy Brick
exeus@compuserve.com

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

Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 08:31:53 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Deckplan Question?

>On Mon, 23 Jun 1997, Simon Early wrote:
[snip]
>> Thus a 100 T vessel has 200 squares on its deck plan.
>
>So what do you do with the 50 extra m^3 your ship has? A displacement ton
>is 14 m^3 _not_ 13.5 m^3.
[snip]
Well, if you want to get technical remember;

1). Both 13.5 m^3 and 14 m^3 are approximations to begin with.  I'll leave
it to more chemically oriented heads to decide exactly how many m^3 are in
a displacement ton of Hydrogen (or is it Deuterium?...and what about water
before refining?)

2). I seem to remember that there is a significant "fudge factor" written
into the rules for making deck plans...maybe 10% or so?  At least this is
the case in MT and CT.

3). If you don't like 2). chock it up to "waste space" for hull structure,
tight angles, etc.  which do not count as "usable space" in that a 1.8
meter tall being cannot stand upright or on a level deck.  Of course, as
you point out, these spaces are excellent candidates for "smuggler's
holds".  They are also right where I would look if I were an Imperial (or
other) customs inspector.

Personally, I take a relatively vague approximation of the number of
squares as a guideline, and make the deckplans as I see fit based on the
approximate m^3 of the components I installed when I designed the ship in
the first place.

Pete

Peter H. Brenton
"Shiela-X where are you"

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

Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 14:41:41 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Resources in PE

Joseph E. Walsh writes:
>As far as Resources, there is no way to change them.  They're an 
>absolute.  Resources is the amount of material available on the planet 
>(and, if you have sufficient tech, in the system itself - planetary 
>belts, gas giants, etc.).  It's modified in the GWP calcs to end up with 
>what you can get at, thus the .1*TL part of the equasion.

On the scale of a normal PE campaign you're propably right. But if you're
trying out a variant where the total population is so small that low- and
medium-population planets become important, you should propably let random
events allow for resources changes. There are quite a few examples of
planets and belts where a single raw material was found, causing a huge
increase of population, followed by the strike being exhausted causing the
system to depopulate. I can't figure on a way to model that other than by
a temporary increase of resource score. Hmmm... perhaps a comment: "Due to
lanthanum deposits this system counts as Resource 15 for up to 50,000 
people." Propably too complicated...


      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

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End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1469
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