Traveller-digest     Thursday, October 22 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1000



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Where's Lucan
Re: Deck plans 
Re: Judge's Guild Products 
Re: The Imperial Navy
Re: Piracy
Re: Current Tech: Shortstop 
Re: Star-Gypsies
Questions
Re: Deck plans 
TTL
Re: What to do with the Reserve ?
Re: Deck plans 
Re: Star Gypsies
Re: Current Tech: Shortstop
Re: Deck plans 
The X-mail (was: Current Tech: Shortstop)
Re: Economics of piracy
Re: Mutiny
re: Economics of Piracy
Re: Deck plans 
Re: Star Gypsies 

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 23:23:47 EDT
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Re: Where's Lucan

> And there is one person it is even more odd wasn't informed: Dulinor! D. has
> met the real Strephon many times. What are the odds that he is not going to
> detect the imposture after a few minutes' talk? Not good. And he has grown

He didn't get to talk to him IIRC.  His meeting w/ the Emperor was in front of
everyone.  He comes down from the Sargon straight to the Assassination.  Yes.
In fact, Dulinor had scheduled a formal audience, which indicated there was a
very important and formal matter to be discussed.   Maybe he did that
specifically to make sure the real Strephon would be there (as well as giving
him the photo-op).  Strephon greets him, Dulinor bows and then plugs the
Imperial family.

> up with the system. He knows that the Emperor can't always be there (Come to
> that, he must have know that the Strephon he was meeting _could_ be an
> imposter. Why didn't he wait a few minutes and make sure?). Informing him
> ahead of time may miff him a bit, but its nothing to the outrage he'd feel
> if they tried to pull a fast one and he detected it.

The imposter was only supposed to be ceremonial.  A big bruhaha like Dulinor
arranged pretty much ensured the real Strephon would be there (if there hadn't
been a little event that required the Emperor's personal attention).  Besides,
the assassination had to be public and grandiose.

Gary

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 23:24:07 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Deck plans 

> I have a question for the Traveller people.
> 
> Is 1 ton of displacement equal to 14 cubic meters?

It's supposed to be.

> If so, I am trying to match the 400t System Defense boat and Jump Shuttle
> match these figures.  From what I can work out from the deckplans, the 200
> ton jump shuttle measures out to 6498 cubic meters give or take a few.

I take it you're adding the volume of the SDB, too.  Don't.

> If I use the 14 cubic meters rule, this works out to about 464 tons instead
> of 200?
> 
> Am I off here?

I get it as on the order of 2160 cubic meters, or 154.2 tons, considering it's only showing 1 deck.    The masurements I'm using are 30 meters wide, 24 meters long, & 3 meters high, by direct measurement.  Remember, each square is about half a ton.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 23:26:34 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Judge's Guild Products 

> Government just extended copyrights to 95 years, Disney was going to loose
> Micky in 2003, and they threw a fit. Read that this weekend.

Damn.  Just when you thought it was safe to go to Orlando...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 23:23:36 EDT
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

Hans wrote:

> >It should be noted that the colonial forces are taken out of that
theoretical
> >1000 ships...  "Reserve fleets are technically considered part of the
forces
> >of a named fleet, but are rarely moved out of their original subsector." -
> >Rebellion pg 27.  This drops your average 62.5-combatant fleet by half.
> 
> That would be one possible interpretation if it wasn't for the fact that
> _Rebellion_ also says that fleets range from 50 to 200 ships. With a lower
> bound of 50 ships it is kinda difficult to get an average of 31.25...

"A numbered fleet, depending on its mission, may have between two and 10
squadrons amounting to between 50 and 200 ships."  We're previously told a
squadron is 3-10 ships. Then the minimum 2 squadron fleet (of even the max of
10 ships/squadron) would only be 20 ships.  Only combatants are seemingly in
consideration for the purposes of this discussion.  The typical line squadron
has 4 or 5 ships.  If we put in the non-combatants, a 31.25 combatant ship
fleet will easily have 50 ships total.

> >>>If the 1000 ships are for a sector with a full sixteen sub-sectors, then
the
> >>>average fleet has 1000/16 = 62.5 ships. Since there are 320 regular
fleets
> >>>in the Imperium, the total of combat ships for the Imperium would be
around
> >>>20,000.
> >
> >You'd have to cut that to 31.25 (combatant) ships due to a fuller and in-
> >context reading of Rebellion.
> 
> Gary, even if _Rebellion_ didn't say that fleets range in size between 50
and
> 200 ships, your interpretation would merely be equally reasonable. Do try to
> restrain your defensive instincts.

Of course, Hans. : )  Just don't worship the numbers so much, and try to read
things in context.

> >The Named Fleets are umbrella organizations.  One Named Fleet for each
sector.
> >All regular and colonial fleets are member of the named sector fleet.
> 
> That's what one part of the text says. But the one Named Fleet they actually
> describe is "The Corridor Fleet" and none of the four fleets named is the
> same as any of the 16 regular fleets shown for Corridor on the map. So the
> one example of a named fleet we have is NOT an umbrella organisation. As I
> said, the evidence is conflicting.

It's clear that regular fleets are being alluded to.  Of the fleets, mentioned
as belonging to the Corridor Fleet, three of these are Fornast (A ,B, and E).
The 41st is in Zarushagar/A.  It seems to be an error.  Besides Corridor Fleet
has 16 numbered fleets (in 9 subsectors), not 4.  My bet is someone goofed.

It would be easy for me to assume this is one more error of which MT was
replete.  It's fortunate there might be another explanation (and/or excuse
<g>).  We know that the Imperial fleets were reorgnized after the Fifth
Frontier War.  I'm assuming this is mentioned in original Traveller somewhere
(SMC/FFW?)... (It's mentioned in Regency Sourcebook).  The 1st Fleet which
fought in the Fifth Frontier War, defending the intersection of Jewell (B),
Regina (C), Villis (F), and Lanth (G) subsectors was redesignated the 315th
fleet after the war (and the 1st Fleet designation tranfered to fleet at
Core/G).

> >The "Typical" BatRon from FSotSI has 4 BBs, 3 scouts, 1 tanker, 2
transports
> >and 2 auxilliaries (auxilliaries being noncombatant resupply/fuel ships in
> >FSotSI).  The Rider BatRon has 4 BRs.  The Typical CruRon has 5 cruisers.
In
> >fact, all the typical Imperial squadrons have about 4-5 core ships w/ a
larger
> >number of scouts, escorts, and/or auxiliaries.
> 
> >It seems your 'examples' are atypical and on the high end of the scale.
> 
> Could be. But to stick to my abovementioned principle, I'd prefer an
> explanation that validated both sets of information. Maybe the typical

Your set of information isn't invalidated by FSotSI.  Squadrons *can* be that
large, they're just not typical.  Don't worry Hans, there's nothing wrong w/
being atypical. (Or even "Alternate" <g>).  : )

> BatRon for the Rebellion era is just smaller than the typical BatRon from
> the previous era, the one that _Fighting Ships_ detail? 4 BBs, you say? That
> could be an 8 BB squadron that had been split in two or reduced by combat
> losses. What is the in-game date of _FSSI_? Long enough into the Rebellion
> for combat losses to have affected the composition of the typical squadron?

Not according to FSotSI.  The changes caused by the Rebellion are discussed,
but are limited to how the squadrons/fleets are designated.  Much of the info
is recycled from Rebellion.

> >>Unfortunately a huge reserve fleet gives other problems for the
background.
> >>Right, Gary?
> >
> >Nope.  : )   Possibly, if based on your (uncanonical) assumptions.
According
> >to canon?  No.
> 
> Really? And here I thought that we had had a long discussion where you
> argued that the Imperial peacetime navy wouldn't have a huge reserve,
> because a huge reserve would provide Norris with scores of extra fleets
> once they became reactivated. Was I mistaken? You actually believe that
> the Imperial Navy propably have huge numbers of ships laid up and that
> that is the reason the peacetime navy is so comparatively small?

Don't jump to conclusions.  I didn't like what *your* number-crunching put
out.  Fortunately for me, your system is uncanonical. : )

and later:

> And to me. I used that to argue that this was indeed the case. I thought
that
> Gary disagreed with me, but he has just stated that he has no problem with
> huge reserve fleets. I wonder what all the arguing was about, then...

About you using your uncanonical assumptions and calculations to prove your
uncanonical points, ignoring the quite a bit of canon you've taken far out of
context (possibly deliberately).


Gary

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:34:09
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Piracy

>From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
>Subject: Re: Re Piracy
>
>>{now responding to no one in particular)
>>
>>One other thought about piracy and the 3i: One bit I have noticed is that
>>Hans and Ian both seem to think of the Imperial Government as some form of
>>federal government, which includes internal policing as part of it's
>>duties. I don't; ...
>
>[major snip]
>
>Hmm, and here I was thinking that the discussion was over the plausibilty
>of career piracy in the "official" Traveller 3rd Imperium. :-)
>

My view is that if the Imperium claims the space between the worlds, then
it had damn well better prove an ability to protect that space. Otherwise,
worlds will either question the neccessity of being part of the Imperium,
start arming themselves to protect their commercial interests, start
allying with each other to do the above, or think about signing up with a
state that will protect them. 

I also believe, but others disagree, that the IN will see routine
patrolling and anti-piracy sweeps as being excellent training for wartime. 

It also strikes me as sensible for the local commercial and financial
interests to ahhhh make sure the local Naval authorities understand the
neccessity of keeping a strong anti-piracy presence.

Even with no Imperial fleet whatsoever involved, a small amount of cash
(MCr 200 or so) can make life uncomfortable for the 99% of pirates who do
not have high-tech milSpec gear (OK, so bikies in Denmark have got hold of
LAWs, and a bloke in Sydney did borrow a M113 a while ago ... you *might*
get a naval frigate or destroyer stolen. And I like the idea of the navy of
some world continuing to fight the Counter-Revolution, and slowly drifting
into brigandage. But 99% of pirates are going to be using modified standard
ships, or Frontier Traders of one sort or another).

The rough breakdown is six MCr 20 fighters, six MCr 3 customs cutters, MCr
50 worth of sensor arrays and one heavily armoured nil maneuver asteroid as
a base.

The customs cutters are unarmed except for a couple of missiles or a fixed
one-shot combustion laser, and use TL13 Fusion plants running Heplar to
keep the cost down. Should be about MCr 3.

The idea is to push the 'minimum threshold' for piracy above that which
most pirates can achieve. It is one thing to get hold of a Far Trader and
soup it up with a 2G Heplar rig taking up half the cargo bay, but it's
quite another to get a ship with MilSpec stealthing and MilSpec
counter-missile armament.

If you make pirates have MilSpec gear to challenge the mainworld's space,
then they will stick to chicken stealing among the belters and similar scum
in the Outsystem. 

As long as the brigands stick to the hills, and dont make a nuisance of
themselves to anyone important, then it isnt worth chasing them. If they
start sticking up stagecoaches outside the city gates, then we do something
about it.

>
>From: DustyLV769@aol.com
>Subject: Re: Economics of piracy
>
>	Just what kind of time frame are we using to make those claims?  Sure, if
you
>want to show a profit in a month or so, piracy is not the way to do it.
>Perhaps even over a year, you won't show any.  But couldn't these types of
>things be a long-term investment for a really commited
>individual/organization?
>

I'm not sure how to answer this, except to say that most people who want to
get rich slowly dont tend to go into a life of crime.

If you are in it for reasons of ideology, different story.

Ian Whitchurch

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 23:38:56 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Current Tech: Shortstop 

> Date sent:      	Wed, 21 Oct 1998 21:54:18 -0500
> From:           	Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
> 
> >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
> >> IIRC, the FBI has investigated players of T$R's Top Secret game -
> >> someone overheard the players discussing an op and called the feds.
> 
> >Not to mention SJG's run-in with the Secret Service over their
> >GURPS:Cyberpunk setting....
> 
> A PBM diplomacy game got a _lot_ of attention when one player sent a 
> postcard with "attack on Liverpool agreed" to another, mind you it was at the 
> height of the IRA bombings on the mainland.
> 
> Obtrav: how closely does the Imperium scan the X-mail?

Rebellion-Era, *VERY* closely.  Course, there's not much X-Mail sent because the Xboat networks kinda fell apart after 1120 or so.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:42:51 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Star-Gypsies

Date sent:      	Wed, 21 Oct 1998 13:50:09 -0400 (EDT)
From:           	William Prankard <cmdrx@magicnet.net>

>Greetings!

>I and a few players had an interesting idea last night.  I do not know if
>this had been mentioned on the list before.
>We came up with the possibility of "Star Gypsies" in Traveller.

From my work on the Luriani:

"It was the possession of this maritime capacity which preserved the 
remarkable homogeneity of Luriani culture, despite being separated by 
thousands of kilometres of water, each Luriani settlement was connected by a 
web of voyaging ships. Indeed some Luriani lived out their entire lives at sea, 
only setting foot on land to gather supplies or build new ships"

"When Vilani influenced traders contacted the Luriani in -7500 they had 
advanced to a solid TL3. The Luriani were to prove to be extremely adept in 
absorbing Advanced technology; and by -7200 they had achieved TL9 and were 
launching their first "voyaging" ships to the stars. By -6000 they had 
established a vigorous interstellar culture encompassing most worlds within 10 
parsecs of their homeworld. However the Luriani never developed the idea of an 
interstellar state (much like they have never truly developed a worldspaning 
government) and their worlds remained a loose grouping closely bound only by 
their voyaging culture."

Does this fit?

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 23:51:02 EDT
From: IrvEdwMac@aol.com
Subject: Questions

    1.)  How do I request an issue which I missed for some reason?   I see my
digests are numbered   932, 933, 934, 936, 937....   What happened to 935?
Was there one?   Could you send it to me again?

    2.)  How could I get back issues from before I signed up?

    3.)  Issue 918 had a GIF inside it.   How do I extract the GIF from the
TXT file?

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 22:41:49 -0500
From: "Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Subject: Re: Deck plans 

Thank you. 
I forgot the 1.5 meter square was 1/2 ton.

Only 3 meters high though?
Is that for the single deck or the WHOLe shutle?
tv

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 11:50:14 +0800
From: Colin Hutchinson <chutchin@cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: TTL

Does anybody know how to subscribe to the Traveller tech list?

Colin

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:59:01
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: What to do with the Reserve ?

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 22:27:04 -0500
>From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
>Subject: Re: Piracy
>
>FSotSI pg 6
>"The primary activity a reserve fleet undertakes is training."
>"Colonial squadrons are equipped with obsolescent (but still servicable,
>rather than obsolete) ships and with personnel with somewhat less
>training and experiance."
>RS pg 27
>"Reserve fleets are equipped with obsolescent - but still useful -
>starships which have been retired from front-line Imperial service; they
>are staffed by personnel serving in the Reserves (technically in the
>service of the Imperium, but without the status of strict Imperial Navy
>duty)."
>
>I believe this implies that reserve and colonial units are not as well
>equipped or trained as Regular fleets.
>

2 TLs down sounds about right for 'obsolescent'. Call it 80% skill-1 crew
and 20% skill-2.

Now, personally, I cant think of a better method of training than sending
the ship full of reservists and trainees (plus some people who know what
they are doing) to some backwater world to show the flag. Give em some
shore leave while they're there ... they joined the Navy Reserve to see the
subsector.

Something fairly simple while they are there, such as a sensor scanning
excersise and maybe a little pursuit and target plotting on any ships in
system sounds in order ('This is IN Ship Cyss ... we are going active with
our fire control in ten ... please do not be alarmed ... this is only a
drill ... this is IN Ship Cyss ... we are going to match courses with you
.. please do not be alarmed, this is only a drill').

I cant imagine a lot more effective ways of having an anti-piracy patrol
than by having a 20 kton cruiser, even an obsolescent one crewed by
reservists, in the system. Even if it is trying to find rocks at 100 000km
on two tries out of three.

Ian Whitchurch

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 22:52:12 -0500
From: "Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Subject: Re: Deck plans 

The reason I ask, is that I  need the total Internal volume for the jump
shuttle and SDB
in cubic meters.

Cant build a 2300AD ship without that figure.

tv

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 20:03:37 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Star Gypsies

Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> wrote

> > >Anyone want to try raising your kids on a Free Trader?

> > 3 days into J-Space:
> > "DAD!  Are we there yet?"
> > "No."
> > "DAD!  Are we there yet?"

"Hey Bobby honey why don't you go for a nice walk.  Go to the door
marked air lock & open it.  Close it after you and have the computer
open the outer door.  The atmosphere in the lock will give you enough
speed to go right through the pretty jump bubble.  What's that Bobby? No
you do not need a space suit & remember Mommy said you aren't old enough
for one until you are five anyway."

> Which was the _real_ driving force behind the invention of low
> berths....

You do realize that while in low berths your children will not age. 
Therefore you will not be able to get rid of them for a longer period of
time.  [Unless of course in YTU the Imperium defines age soley by
calender age & you are a heartless SOB & then you can take your newborn,
stick them in a low birth for 18 years & then abandon them on the next
planet with no fear of child abuse charges because they are legally an
adult.]

Early failed Vilani Marketing Strategy "People, the other white meat"

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 21:08:23 -0700
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Current Tech: Shortstop

>Obtrav: how closely does the Imperium scan the X-mail?


Ohhhh...what an *EVIL* thought.

Offhand, I'd say that anything they can decrypt is probably run through a
parser looking for 'key' words...

douglas

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 00:27:03 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Deck plans 

> Thank you. 
> I forgot the 1.5 meter square was 1/2 ton.

NP.  I figured as much.

> Only 3 meters high though?
> Is that for the single deck or the WHOLe shutle?

Supp 6 only shows 1 deck of the shuttle.  I'd assume the remainder of the 
volume is in tankage above & below the deck for the jump.  And figuring 14m3 
volume, divide 14 by 3, the answer by 1.5 (a ton is 1.5 x 3 meters in the 
plans), you get 3.1111 meters in height.  If you take a ton to be 13.5 m3, it 
works out to *exactly* 3 meters.  <grin>  Go figger.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:32:22 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The X-mail (was: Current Tech: Shortstop)

From:           	"Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Date sent:      	Wed, 21 Oct 1998 21:08:23 -0700

>>Obtrav: how closely does the Imperium scan the X-mail?

>Ohhhh...what an *EVIL* thought.

>Offhand, I'd say that anything they can decrypt is probably run through a
>parser looking for 'key' words...

At the risk of restarting the great encryption debate, I've always assumed that 
the Imperium required all manufacturers of encryption software to put in a 
backdoor so that they can read it. Theoretically it requires a warrant signed by 
a Count or better to read private mail; but Imperial Intelligence has been known 
to play fast and loose on more than one occassion. Of course there's a thriving 
market in black market encryption, but use of an illegal encryption utility is an 
Imperial crime (punishable by 5-10 years imprisonment) and just to make sure 
the IISS random selects mail and runs the decryption key to check. Of course 
the IISS comms office doesn't read these randomly decrypted messages...

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 21:45:23 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Economics of piracy

>Subject: Re: Economics of piracy
...
>	Just what kind of time frame are we using to make those claims?  Sure, if you
>want to show a profit in a month or so, piracy is not the way to do it.
>Perhaps even over a year, you won't show any.  But couldn't these types of
>things be a long-term investment for a really commited
>individual/organization?

  Good point, but it seems to be an approach more suited to long range
(sector or two, exploratory or no) trade. So far it looks like the risks/
costs to an operating pirate ship still occur on an on-going basis (monthly/
quarterly/ whatever) with no obvious improvements in long-term profitability
(not counting upgrading/establishing a spy network as that would entail non-
trivial risks; attracting real attention would be a negative, of course).

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 21:45:14 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Mutiny

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
>Subject: Mutiny
>
>I've been wondering: considering that mutiny is one of the more
>sensible sources of pirate ships we've discussed, how big a ship
>could a mutiny believably take place on?
...
>Is a 400tn _Gazelle_ Close Escort or _Luuru Kilaalum_ (sp?) 
>Patrol Cruiser too big? How about an 800tn _Broadsword_
>Mercenary Cruiser? A 1200tn _Kinunir_ Battle Cruiser?

  Potemkin probably had 300 or so crew, but was a somewhat confused
affair with a broader political element; mutinies in the English & 
Royal navies mostly had to do with pay. The High Seas Fleet could be
considered to have mutinied in refusing a suicidal engagement.

  OTOH, none of these really involved fully rejecting their homeland
and most mutinies didn't go very far at all. As a completely off the
wall rule of thumb keep it to a few score (believable in humans with
poor conditions/grievances and a few capable activists amongst the mob).
Social backgrounds will matter tremendously - IN ships may not worry
much because the crew has nothing but their oaths of service in common,
while a planetary SDB force relying on long-service professionals can
rely on people with deep roots in the community to keep things OK.

>Then there is the question: you've offed the Captain and a senior
>officer or two, as well as any loyal crew. Where do you get
>replacements? I don't see too many crew mutinying as a unit - 
>unless we're talking Vargr of course.

  You replace crew wherever it is you go to escape the wrath of the
people whose ship you just stole :>

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 21:45:36 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: re: Economics of Piracy

...
>>  Bearer bonds would be rare due to the potential for various sorts of
>>security risks - mostly having nothing to do with piracy. More likely
>>would be instruments transferring funds to a specific account or for 
>>an individuals use which would be of no use to pirates as such.
>
>Except that the funds could be confiscated before the instrament is inacted.
>For those travelling years away from home negotiable currence is everything.

  Confiscation would seem very unlikely. A reliance on negotiable currency
to the exclusion of more secure arrangements looks like yet another effort
to stack the deck so that pirates don't have to face harder facts.

>A check would take years to clear even a cashers check.  Real value must be
>carried or you risk loosing what backs that note.  Even bearer bond and
>stock can become worthless in 2 years time if the issueing agency goes toes
>up.  There would have to be a discount involve for trader to buy stock in
>distant places.  A core stock might be worth 50% in the marches unless is
>was for Imperial lines that operated in both./...

  I don't suppose that you're by any chance familiar with the history of
long-range financial transactions prior to modern communications? I'll
try and drag the right posts from my FRPG files for a minor rewrite...
  

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 00:39:28 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Deck plans 

> The reason I ask, is that I  need the total Internal volume for the jump
> shuttle and SDB
> in cubic meters.
> 
> Cant build a 2300AD ship without that figure.

Figure 600 tons.  That gives you 8400 m3.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 00:41:22 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Star Gypsies 

> > Which was the _real_ driving force behind the invention of low
> > berths....
> 
> You do realize that while in low berths your children will not age. 
> Therefore you will not be able to get rid of them for a longer period of
> time.  [Unless of course in YTU the Imperium defines age soley by
> calender age & you are a heartless SOB & then you can take your newborn,
> stick them in a low birth for 18 years & then abandon them on the next
> planet with no fear of child abuse charges because they are legally an
> adult.]

*HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM*...

Interesting (and *TWISTED*) idea you have there.  I *like* it!

> Early failed Vilani Marketing Strategy "People, the other white meat"

*snicker*

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1000
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Thursday, October 22 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1001



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Piracy
Re: Where's Lucan
Re: Deck plans 
Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 
Re: Judges Guild
Re: Judge's Guild Products
Bearer Bonds (was re: Economics of Piracy)
Arming Kiloton Freighters: Hippo Provincial Merchant
Instellar anti-Imperial terrorism!! (was re: Warship upkeep)
Gypsys in Space
Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 
"Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB
Re: Deck plans 
Efficient 100-D Control (was Re: Piracy: Anatomy of a Strike)
Re: Bearer Bonds (was re: Economics of Piracy) 
Re: Piracy
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB 
re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:29:00 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Piracy

At 13:34 22/10/98, Ian Whitchurch wrote:
>
>>From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
>>Subject: Re: Re Piracy
>>
>>>{now responding to no one in particular)
>>>
>>>One other thought about piracy and the 3i: One bit I have noticed is that
>>>Hans and Ian both seem to think of the Imperial Government as some form of
>>>federal government, which includes internal policing as part of it's
>>>duties. I don't; ...
>>
>>[major snip]
>>
>>Hmm, and here I was thinking that the discussion was over the plausibilty
>>of career piracy in the "official" Traveller 3rd Imperium. :-)
>>
>
>My view is that if the Imperium claims the space between the worlds, then
>it had damn well better prove an ability to protect that space. Otherwise,
>worlds will either question the neccessity of being part of the Imperium,
>start arming themselves to protect their commercial interests, start
>allying with each other to do the above, or think about signing up with a
>state that will protect them. 

I agree with Ian here. How can you claim to rule the space between worlds
if you make local forces deal with piracy by jump ships?

It is canon that the 3I uses a feudal form of government. I suggest that
those who think that members will provide their own security and still be
loyal tax paying members of the 3I have a look at early medival France. In
a fedual system if your overlord doesn't provide the security he's supposed
to you get yourself one who will (one way or another).

>I also believe, but others disagree, that the IN will see routine
>patrolling and anti-piracy sweeps as being excellent training for wartime. 

It would certainly be good for keeping sensor operators sharp, and give
good practice for chasing commerce raiders. That's a point how good were
the 3I's anti-commerce efforts in the Frontier Wars - if they were poor
that could indicate a lack of anti-piracy effort, and conversely if they
were effective it could show that the IN spends time on anti-piracy duties
in peacetime.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:16:39 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Where's Lucan

At 23:23 21/10/98 EDT, TravelrTNE wrote:

>He didn't get to talk to him IIRC.  His meeting w/ the Emperor was in
front of
>everyone.  He comes down from the Sargon straight to the Assassination.  Yes.
>In fact, Dulinor had scheduled a formal audience, which indicated there was a
>very important and formal matter to be discussed.   Maybe he did that
>specifically to make sure the real Strephon would be there (as well as giving
>him the photo-op).  Strephon greets him, Dulinor bows and then plugs the
>Imperial family.

Not only would a formal audience ensure that the real Strephon would be
there, but it would also mean that various dignataries, bodyguards and
guard units would be in predicable places, thus making planning the
assassination and take-over a whole lot easier. Of course things went off
the rails and he didn't get Varian or Lucan, etc, etc.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 23:51:40 -0500
From: "Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Subject: Re: Deck plans 

that is what I did, but I kept getting wonky figures on parts of the ship,
especially when I tried to do deckplans.
You can visit the site to see what I have in mind.
And yes, I created a retractable spin habitat since 2300 has no artificial
gravity.
tv
http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/redroach/ghd1.htm


>> The reason I ask, is that I  need the total Internal volume for the jump
>> shuttle and SDB
>> in cubic meters.
>>
>> Cant build a 2300AD ship without that figure.
>
>Figure 600 tons.  That gives you 8400 m3.
>
>Keven
>
>tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- ---
>                                                     Science-Fiction
Adventure
>                                                     In Reavers' Deep
>
>

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 22:20:03 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 

> From: Keven R. Pittsinger <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> > >> I can Psi-Cops like Al Bester from B5...  They police the Psis...
> > >No sh*t!! (I'm not a B5 fan, so this is the first time I've ever
> > >heard of this...) I was going to mention Alfred Bester's novel "The
> > >Demolished Man" for an example of how telepathic cops might work.
> > Yeah, now somebody tell Bruce *who* plays Al Bester on B5. I haven't
got the heart. ;->
> Walter Koenig.  Doesn't ring a bell?  Try 'Ensign Chekov(TM)' from 'That
Nameless Paramount/Desilu Sci Fi Hack of Wagon Train(TM)' circa 1964.
<grin>
> 
> Keven

You forgot the cheesy movies as well...  Circa 1980s & early 1990s...

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 01:58:51 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: Judges Guild

Leonard Erickson wrote:

> In mail you write:
>
> > The City-State of the Invinicble Overlord went to Mayfair Games and then
> > from there to TSR. I think Mayfair bought all the Judges Guild copyrights.
> > TSR then sued and settled with Mayfair and all the judges guild AD&D
> > copyrights went to TSR.
>
> On what *possible* grounds could TSR have sued?

Trademark violation outright and Trademark Dilution.  Specifically, whats
called "sponsorship confusion."

TSR gave JG a license to market "AD&D" products.
JG owns the copyright in everything it makes, but uses the license only
according to the contract with TSR.
The copyright pass to Mayfair.
If Mayfair markets the original JG materials, its interfering with
TSR's trademark, _unless_ the original license gave JG's successors
a license (which would be very unusual).
Since licenses are contracts between two specific parties,
change the parties and the contract is dead (unless both parties
agree to keep the previous contract in place merely substituing
the parties - though its really a new contract).

Since TSR and Mayfair compete in the same market, if Mayfair
sold JG products with both the Mayfair and AD&D name on them,
it could appear to the consumer that AD&D were in business together,
i.e., that AD&D was sponsoring and/or supporting Mayfair's marketing
of AD&D products.

If this were the actual breakdown of events, Mayfair would have the
copyrights, but they would be unable to market them, so long as
AD&D is a going concern, and for some period of time after that.
This kind of tying up of rights isn't altogether uncommon.

AD&D was doing a good job of protecting its trademark.
If you don't police the market to prevent people from using
your marks without permission, you could lose your mark
altogether.  You either abandon it, acquiese to its use by others,
or it becomes generic.  Xerox fights tooth and nail to prevent
anyone from using "xerox" to mean "photocopy" in advertising.
Kleenex pretty much lost out, IIRC.  Coca-cola has full-time
agents that go into restaurants and bars, all over the world
and ask for "Coke."  If they get anything other than "Coca-Cola,"
ths stuff hits the fan and distributors and bottlers catch all hell.

Its the price of doing business.

Bloo

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 02:00:22 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: Judge's Guild Products

Thomas Vickers wrote:

> Government just extended copyrights to 95 years, Disney was going to loose
> Micky in 2003, and they threw a fit. Read that this weekend.
>

I doubt that very much.  Have you got a reference for that?
The Berne Treaty, which we've already agreed to and Congress
can't do anything about, would be the rule here.

Bloo

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 01:55:43 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Bearer Bonds (was re: Economics of Piracy)

Steven Hudson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>Except that the funds could be confiscated before the instrament is inacted.
>For those travelling years away from home negotiable currence is everything.

  Confiscation would seem very unlikely. A reliance on negotiable currency
to the exclusion of more secure arrangements looks like yet another effort
to stack the deck so that pirates don't have to face harder facts.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It's my thinking that the slow speed of communication between
financial institutions will create a need for negotiable currency, at
least to some extent. My original analysis did not include passengers
carrying bundles of MCr notes with them, though - while I believe that
no one will want to leave their homeworld without a reserve of ready cash
on hand, you shouldn't see anyone but a mad eccentric carrying
luggage full of KiloCredit notes. (Thurston Howell III in space!!!)

I've been wondering, though, if Imperium-wide banking systems are
possible. Is there enough bandwidth on the X-Boat system, for example,
to support one? I mean one where I deposit my KCr in a branch office
of Hortalez et Cie on Core, and with the speed of X-Boat every branch
office knows that I made the deposit?

Take all my deposits and all my withdrawals, multiply that amount of
data by all the other banking sentients in the Imperium. Continually
update it, even though if the person is moving you'll have out-of-date
data moving through the system behind it's newer version - not a
version problem, but unneeded data that clogs the system. Eventually
get to the point where every single X-Boat is carrying several financial
data messages about every banking sentient in the Imperium. Will
there be any bandwidth left over for me to send a letter to my Aunt
Petunia?

Perhaps directed fund transfers are sent - "send MCr100 from account 
GHY675 on Core to account UYTR674 on Regina" - while general
broadcast messages are not - "Fred Soybun has Cr38 left in his
checking account." If this were the case, you'd have a reason for
carrying more negotiable currency, especially dilettante nobles and
others who don't necessarily know (or want it known) where they
are going.

Uh-oh - are we resurrecting the Great Traveller Interstellar Credit Card
Debate?  <G>

Walt Smith

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 23:26:46 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Arming Kiloton Freighters: Hippo Provincial Merchant

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
>Subject: re: Economics of Piracy
...
>  Remember, a 2 or 3 kt freighter (under HG) will toast a corsair
>in short order unless it's spectacularly well fitted out.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>I didn't think so...most of the freighters in TTA, even ones this big, had
>at most a turret or two and no armor. They may have had more hardpoints
>fitted, but no weapons on them - perhaps they were prepared to be
>upgunned if called out for Naval Auxiliary duty.  Their computers may be 
>better, as HG had a computer capability related to size as well as jump
>capability. The Corsair may have an agility and crew quality
>advantage, as well as the desperation benefit - the pirates are
>desperate men, the freighter crew (on a ship this size) may not
>be as dedicated - it's not like they own it or anything.

  Then they've got to be trying fairly hard to design useless stuff. More
likely this is evidence that equilibrium piracy is not considered to be a
significant threat. However, in aid of ensuring that, let's design (using HG,
of course) the "Hippo" class tramp freighter ("Provincial Merchant" in ads).

                MP-B4212C2-090000-64003-0       MCr 856        2000 tons
        batteries bearing   1     11  1                            TL=12
                batteries   1     11  1                          Crew=20 
        Cargo=1227. Fuel=440. EP=40. Agility=1.

  The crew total ignores the +50% ratings for command staff (7 total!) as
this isn't a warship. The four section heads get full staterooms and the
others get halves. The overbuilding in the loadout runs an explicit ~50 MCr,
which is probably not too bad for the peace of mind, especially in the SM
where the dirty Zhos are wont to conduct drive by shootings en masse.

  Note that it comes in at almost half the cost of the "Rabid Poodle" class
1000 Dt SDB.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 23:27:43 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Instellar anti-Imperial terrorism!! (was re: Warship upkeep)

...
>>>Atrocity warfare is not a habit of any of the Interstellar states in Known
>>>Space. Except for the K'kree, and during the Second Civil War.
>>
>>That's true but the missles could be duds...
>
>  I recall someone pointing out that these missile would be very hard
>to intercept due to neglible signature (therefore ballistic?) - what
>if the target doesn't detect them?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>Simple. At the appropriate time - say, when the interceptor has moved
>so far towards you that they'll have to backtrack, instead of being
>able to intercept the missiles along the way - you tell the authorities
>about the missile launch. Threatening hostages, even a planet full,
>does no good if the authorities are unaware of the threat.

  I guess it's not worth suggesting that adding planetary bombardment
to a pirates standard bag of tricks might make them a higher priority
to exterminate?

  I guess only ships can mount lasers, too.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 02:17:24 EDT
From: Kagehira@aol.com
Subject: Gypsys in Space

	Someone mentioned it would be interesting to see Gypsy's in space.
	While working on the Solomani and Aslan sourcebook, James Holden did just
that. Creating a race that lived aboard ships, the Astranami (IIRC). I believe
a copy of the write-up can be found in the HIWG documents on the HIWG CD.

Bryan

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 02:24:53 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 

> > > Yeah, now somebody tell Bruce *who* plays Al Bester on B5. I haven't
> > > got the heart. ;->
> > Walter Koenig.  Doesn't ring a bell?  Try 'Ensign Chekov(TM)' from 'That
> > Nameless Paramount/Desilu Sci Fi Hack of Wagon Train(TM)' circa 1964.
> > <grin>
> 
> You forgot the cheesy movies as well...  Circa 1980s & early 1990s...

Good thing you didn't *name* 'em, you'd have to (TM) them.  <ducking>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 23:46:37 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB

>Subject: Re: various piracy bits 
...
>>   I have to comment that this only makes sense if the system has _lots_ of
>> SDB's - rational economy would likely have diversified ships for this.
>
>I dunno.  Seems to me a SDB makes a fairly decent multimission boat if you 
>design it right.

  If budget constraints aren't an issue; if debates are going to revolve
about security/control vessels always being in too limited availability
then omni-purpose SDB's are a gift to pirates. Just for fun then we can
consider some ways of completing the fitting out of a "Rabid Poodle" class
1000 Dt SDB:

  160 tons unused goes to +40 fuel (for lack of anything else to do with it),
20 ton magazine (250+ m^3 of missiles for three turrets!, 78 tons for internal
bays for a half-dozen 10 ton inspection boats or fighters*, 12 tons for a bay
for six troops (why? - fold up the bunks and it's a rec-room/pool hall!).

  * - intended for warfighting only to allow fighters to piggyback away from
the world if an enemy fleet takes control of the mainworld zone.

  FWIW, a couple of boat bays should provide a sufficient Volume to play
Grav-Ball in. IIRC, there's still 10 tons unused, too - perhaps there's
a basis for the Mk. Ib "Leaping Chihuahua" variant?

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 02:31:40 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Deck plans 

> >> The reason I ask, is that I  need the total Internal volume for the jump
> >> shuttle and SDB
> >> in cubic meters.
> >>
> >> Cant build a 2300AD ship without that figure.
> >
> >Figure 600 tons.  That gives you 8400 m3.
> 
> that is what I did, but I kept getting wonky figures on parts of the ship,
> especially when I tried to do deckplans.
> You can visit the site to see what I have in mind.
> And yes, I created a retractable spin habitat since 2300 has no artificial
> gravity.
> tv
> http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/redroach/ghd1.htm

Looks good, even though I'm not much into T2300.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 00:00:52 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Efficient 100-D Control (was Re: Piracy: Anatomy of a Strike)

>Subject: Piracy: Anatomy of a Strike (was re: Economics of Piracy)
...
>>  As the original poster pointed out, these are some of the redeeming
>>characteristics that make using an Imperial port, or getting stopped
>>by a patrol craft, _totally *bleeping* suicidal_. Unless of course
>>they're not detectable by detailed physical inspection.
>
>Of course you're not _using_ the ports, or getting close to patrol
>craft. Agreed, suicidal. You might, however, still be able to *hunt*
>near such areas, *if you can look harmless for a long enough
>period of time*. That's what these features are for - to let you look
>like normal traffic until you find a target.

  OK, but if you're not using the ports, then your ship is really only
capable of generating revenue from piracy - no practical alternatives
exist (i.e., casual piracy combined with cargo haulage).

  Avoiding contact with security ships is _not_ always going to be at
the pirates option - unless he's over-equipped to a fairly ridiculous
degree, or the locals are too backward/poor/stupid to realize that they
have a problem.

  If a customs cutter or warship taps you for an inspection then what?
Whether you enter the 100-D limit and join the traffic stream is somewhat
irrelevant, as the authorities just might decide that ships losing money
waiting out past the line are worth observing more closely.

>Jump in-system, to a system that hasn't enough patrol craft to
>stop everyone immediately. Emit and transpond like an innocent
>Fat Trader, with an ID code that looks right but will eventually
>(days/weeks later) twig suspicious, if anyone decides to look carefully
>at the records. Point your ship towards some outer system
>destination, or into normal traffic, whatever vectors you nearer other
>ships and farther from patrol ships. Check vectors carefully, ready
>for a strike & grab on a ship you can match with, or ready to rabbit
>when your turn on the board & search queue gets close.

  I assume that no system will have enough ships to "stop(/board) everyone
immediately", nor do I believe that it would be necessary or desirable.
According to your economic case for piracy this a TU in which starships are
so well documented that stealing them is undesirable, but the authorities
will never have a useful current list of extant shipping?

  In any case, let's say that the authorities only want to search 2-5%
of ships in space, and will search the others at the starport (if at all);
this still represents up to a 4 or 5% chance of being terminated with
each visit to a major system - which is attrition with a vengeance, and
discounts the authorities noticing that you never land even if not
challenged.

>You've sweated an hour inside a patrol ship's interception envelope.
>He's turned to match with a Free Trader, his projected area where he
>can still catch you slowly drags away. Your Navigator works
>feverishly, ID'ing the abilities of other ships in traffic, carefully
>plotting who you can catch, and who you'll have time to raid
>before you and your prize drift back into the interception range of
>that overworked patrol ship out there.

  You do realize that all of this is occurring, by definition (inside
a worlds 100-D zone) under observation and within engagement range
(depending on which Trav edition/rules, anyway) of some elements?

>The Pirate Captain gives the order. Precious minutes are wasted by
>the authorities, as  junior patrol crewman on boring sensor watch tries 
>to figure out if his equipment is malfunctioning. Where did that Trader 
>go? There it is...pulling how many G's? Call the Captain, alert! But
>we're hard aside a merchantman, with a third of our crew not
>aboard...the nearest backup is where?!? More time lost...he's
>a patrol captain, not a front-line Imperial Navy warship commander.

  Neat fiction, but it seems unlikely that only the IN produces competent
personnel (OC, where do passed over officers drop out to?). Again, the
use of _very_ expensive (the boat I posted last week was MCr 1400+!) 
warships for routine and possibly unnecessary inspections (when a MCr 14
luanch from S:7 would do) looks like a deliberate step to make piracy
seem more practical.

...
>The hapless Fat Trader is easy pickings. A string of rescue balls,
>their emergency beacons a plaintive wail in the darkness, streams
>off on one vector as the Corsair takes another. The patrol captain
>makes a hard choice - chase a pirate, or ensure the safety of the

  Are you familiar with the Inquisitions' (IIRC) definition of "mercy"? :>

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 02:56:22 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Bearer Bonds (was re: Economics of Piracy) 

> Perhaps directed fund transfers are sent - "send MCr100 from account 
> GHY675 on Core to account UYTR674 on Regina" - while general
> broadcast messages are not - "Fred Soybun has Cr38 left in his
> checking account." If this were the case, you'd have a reason for
> carrying more negotiable currency, especially dilettante nobles and
> others who don't necessarily know (or want it known) where they
> are going.

That's how I do it IMTU.  Somebody needing cash on the other end can send money either by Xboat or by mail on a subbie to be placed in a draw account.  The transfer is bundled up with a copy of the owner's ID, the key code of a smart card, and the answers to some random questions designed to help prove their identity.   All they have to do is show up at the bank's branch with their ID, the smart card, and answer some random questions to prove their identity and the draw account is converted to a regular checking/debit account.

If there isn't a branch of their bank on the destination world, their bank sets up the draw account with a bank of the player's choosing.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 00:17:47 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy

>>  They also go right through the primary defense/detection zone, and they
>>will be going far too fast for gravity to decelerate them much. I doubt
>>that aerobraking will be practical.
>
>That's why you run in cold and choose your velocity so that after your
>gravity braking you can quickly match velocity with the outgoing trafic.
...
>you dock with the target.  A touch of cold gas manuvering and a gravity well
>and you can hit any spot on the 100 dia. shell you want on the way out and
...

  I think (I'll try to work it out eventually) that you're really over-
estimating the utility of a cold gas thruster. In any case, you're
assuming that you can go in close enough for gravity braking to do
lots of good - and in fact drift right past the planet - and no one
can possibly detect you with any sort of sensor? Is that reasonable,
and if so under what rules?

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 00:20:36 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

...
>>>>>The sensor ship could not maintain constant readiness.  It would have
to out
>>>>>mass the pirate 10 to one or more to stand a chance.
...
>>  You'll forgive me for pointing out that this is hardly an authoritative
>>citation?
>
>Not at all.  Combat is a highly fluid enviroment.  I was giving a good
>margin for error.  Over designing as it were.

  Or just making a sweeping statement with no supporting evidence?

>>  So, at maximum sensor range (IIRC?) a single "broadside" will inflict
>>damage equal to the survival capacity of a ship 2-4 times its' size? I
>
>Or cripling damage.  The second shot finises the job.

  Was there a Trav combat system you'd attach those calculations to? IIRC, 
that doesn't work in SFB, either.

>>shall not bother to address the concept of a sweep conducted with all
>>weapons crews off-duty.
>
>Maned full time all the time?  A sensor ship that spends months listening
>with gunnery crews on full alert would be driven insane be bordom.

  Unless the crews are pirates, I suspect. One guy watching the boards
wouldn't work? People make lots of jokes about computers using vacuum
tubes in Trav, but then they assume that software will never get past
the pong level?

>>  At what range do you need to be to reliably disable the drives and weapons
>>of an armoured target? 
>
>...one fifty misile launch...

  Time to contact? Defenses? Fifty missile launch tubes! Needless to
say, military PD lasers will stop those unless they're laser-tipped,
and SDB armour should stop chem-lasers, unless I'm mistaken. Or are
lots of them nukes?

>>  Just for fun, where do they build them, and who paid for them?
>
>Pirate base, standard shipyard, foriegn states.  They are not pirate until
>the do their first ilegal act now are they.  After that Law 0 areas.

  Pirate bases can build starships? Doesn't that make them equivalent
to A starports, which cost "20 years of planetary income"? Wouldn't
an Imperial shipyard make notes on building a purpose-built pirate or
small warship (or heck, the 3I could require such papers). Wouldn't
a foreign state tend to be wary of building hornets to release into
others habitations (the Alabama (?) comes to mind).

  Oh, and who paid for them, and why?

>>  In CT maneuver drives didn't have cutoffs, and given many months of
>>fuel it is in practical range for many SDB's; Jump vessels could be
>>used otherwise.
>
>Yes, but would the ships systems last 2 years+ without spares?

  With a Jump unit it a week; with spares in magazines (or dumps) it
probably is do-able, especially as w/o thruster cut-offs it's not that
long a cruise; and apparently pirates don't require maintenance to any
real degree, according to some of the posts in the last month.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 03:13:24 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB 

> >Subject: Re: various piracy bits 
> ...
> >>   I have to comment that this only makes sense if the system has _lots_ of
> >> SDB's - rational economy would likely have diversified ships for this.
> >
> >I dunno.  Seems to me a SDB makes a fairly decent multimission boat if you 
> >design it right.
> 
>   If budget constraints aren't an issue; if debates are going to revolve
> about security/control vessels always being in too limited availability
> then omni-purpose SDB's are a gift to pirates. Just for fun then we can
> consider some ways of completing the fitting out of a "Rabid Poodle" class
> 1000 Dt SDB:
> 
>   160 tons unused goes to +40 fuel (for lack of anything else to do with it),
> 20 ton magazine (250+ m^3 of missiles for three turrets!, 78 tons for internal
> bays for a half-dozen 10 ton inspection boats or fighters*, 12 tons for a bay
> for six troops (why? - fold up the bunks and it's a rec-room/pool hall!).

Put a bigger powerplant in it and the biggest computer you can find, then 
mount dual fusion guns in half the turrets.  Crank up fuel to match, drop down 
to 2 40 ton pinnaces and double the 'stateroom' space for long range crews.  
And remember, these boats are gonna be out there for six months at a time, so 
make sure you have *plenty* of life support spares in the cargo bay.

>   * - intended for warfighting only to allow fighters to piggyback away from
> the world if an enemy fleet takes control of the mainworld zone.
> 
>   FWIW, a couple of boat bays should provide a sufficient Volume to play
> Grav-Ball in. IIRC, there's still 10 tons unused, too - perhaps there's
> a basis for the Mk. Ib "Leaping Chihuahua" variant?

I'd have to see the whole specs.  Got 'em in HG format?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 03:14:50 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism

Steven Hudson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>Simple. At the appropriate time - say, when the interceptor has moved
>so far towards you that they'll have to backtrack, instead of being
>able to intercept the missiles along the way - you tell the authorities
>about the missile launch. Threatening hostages, even a planet full,
>does no good if the authorities are unaware of the threat.

  I guess it's not worth suggesting that adding planetary bombardment
to a pirates standard bag of tricks might make them a higher priority
to exterminate?

  I guess only ships can mount lasers, too.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I wasn't the one to bring it up as a tactic, just helping tweak it
to make it work. <G>

I don't see pirates planning on large-scale terrorist attacks, but
it's not always predictable what a pirate captain will do when
everything is going wrong. Running with a major price on your
head maybe better than dying by the rules.

Interesting tightrope one must walk to be a pirate. Scary enough
to cow a merchant captain, but not scary enough to send the
governor calling for the IN. Effective enough to make a profit,
minor enough not to be worth the while of a light cruiser. Bold
enough to take a prize, patient enough to wait for that sliver of
perfect time when a prize can be taken without too much chance
of loss..

Walt Smith

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1001
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com

Traveller-digest     Thursday, October 22 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1002



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Where's Lucan?
Piracy question
Squadron Sizes of the IN
Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB
re: Efficient 100-D Control
re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
'Limp Terrier' 800t SDB
re: Piracy Question
RE: Piracy and Parting Out
TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch
TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch
traveller-request@MPGN.COM

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 03:53:03 EDT
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Re: Where's Lucan?

> >It was only looking for an excuse to fly apart.
> >That excuse was the lack of the One Clear Choice.
> 
> OK, here's my take on the Rebellion: The Imperium
> was done in by three simultaneous crises -- a
> major internal conflict (specifically Dulinor), a
> major external conflict (the Solomani), and an
> entrenched incompetant on the throne.

Well the lack of a clear line of succession (caused by Lucan's suspected
involvement w/ his brothers death) gave the excuses for there to be multiple
claims.  Also read the quote from Norris' book in the titlepage of the MT
Ref's Manual titled "The Last Days of the Imperium."  Pretty much sums up my
argument. ; )  How could I ever be more eloquent than the First Regent? lol

> The Imperium could -- and HAS -- survive one (the Illelish
> Revolts and the whole Solomani conflict; the Frontier
> and Rim wars; Cleon the Mad; etc.), or even two simultaneously.
> But with all three happening at once, it created
> a dynamic which worked against solving any one of them,
> and worked towards creating more.

Hmm... sounds reasonable.  Though, where have two of these been present at one
time?

> Arguably, the spinning off of the Domains was what was
> _supposed_ to happen in the event of the breakdown of
> central authority and foreign aggression. Craig and

That's Strephon's take in the beginning of Survival Margin.  Course, in the
same place he indentifies a severe local myopia that is just wanting to spin
the Imperium off into sector sized areas. (SM pg 6). 

<snip>

> >Maybe.  I might be unusually pessimistic, but I see very
> >little possiblity of the awesomely dynamic and complex
> >threads presented in TNE to be present in G:T.
> 
> Sorry, you lost me here. What "awesomely dynamic and complex
> threads" would those be? And why wouldn't they be possible?

I'm referring to the Empress Wave and Longbow.  Avery.  The Zho Core
Expeditions.  The Ithklur and their struggle for freedom against the Hivers
and their manipulations.  All of these were tied together under large story
arcs in a Babylon 5 type fashion.   Polities rising and falling from power
instead of the stable and steady state enviornment we see in original
Traveller.  The Imperium, 1100 years old.  The Hive Federation... thousands of
years old.  The Two Thousand Worlds... thousands of years old.  The Aslan
Hierate, the new boys on the block... thousands of years old.  What's the
oldest continuously running government today,on Earth?  A couple of hundred
years old?

They might well be possible in G:T, I just don't expect it.  I'm aware of no
game company that has really done it.  Maybe Star Wars and their New Republic
setting, but that was driven more by the novels and their authors...  GDW was
*going* to do it w/ TNE,but died before we got anything but prologue.  DGP
*might* have been trying to do it, but it's not clear beyond their continually
running story in TD and MTJ.

SJG has had a tendency towards not leaving loose ends in essentially one
product support.  I know there's In Nomine, etc, and that G:T is obviously
going to be more than one product, but I believe it's been confirmed there
will be no overall plotline for the background of G:T's alternate universe...
Course, i'd be happy to learn i'm wrong.

> TNE (and characters presented within -- even remanats)
> always had a hideously oversimplified view of the
> Imperium. Gamewise, that's understandable. Characterwise,

Maybe you mean the Reformation Coalition rather than TNE in general.  The
Regency (and the Hubworlds) certainly had different views on the Imperium than
the Reformation Coalition, as did the Covenant of Sufren.  The Regency
certainly glorifies and looks fondly to the Third Imperium.  All of Charted
Space would have a certain reaction to the Collapse, seeing how it resulted in
Virus and the Collapse.

> it was a flaw that no one had a more nuanced view of
> what happened, and settingwise, the greatest threat
> to the RC was the view that if they were different
> from the Imperium in one or two aspects, they were
> somehow immune to all the myriad forces that shape
> events, including the Collapse. What keeps the RC

No one necessarily thought that, that I can see.  It was teh opinion of many
in the RC that there was a creepy morality to the pragmatism of the Third
Imperium that had many facets.  The hands-off attitude towards the governments
of Imperial member-worlds w/ quite repugnant governments.  The attitudes
towards cloning and clones.  Especially if M:0 portrays the early Imperium,
it's crass and hideous desire for the credit at the expense of more important
things.  Especially in the way that the Imperium destroyed itself, killing
billions of its own citizens even before Virus.

> together is the "example" of the Imperium and the fact
> that the wilds are howling around them on all sides.

Doubtful.  Especially if M:0 portrayed things as they really went.  The RC has
a cause to reclaim the Wilds to the extent of the former imperial boundaries
and w/ a philsophy quite unlike that of the Imperium and far closer to what
Dulinor (more accurately probably the Reform Solomani) would have wanted.

> What happens in ten years, when the Wilds have been
> pushed back by a comfortable margin and the pressure to
> "agree to disagree" is off? And what if they _didn't_
> have an example to point to?

Exactly!  There are a number of issues within the Coalition (Centrist vs
Federalist, Schalli and the Humanist Right, Feudal Technocracies vs the more
democratic philosophies, amongst others) that were going to have to be
resolved if the Coalition was to survive.  They were tabled and put aside
while the initial expansion proceeded.  It makes the Coalition vibrant and
alive and not black/white like critics of the RC like the paint it.  Derek
Stanley (?) has an excellent CINET article in his Coalinfonet project on
remnants and the "Garvey Society" that intended to leave the coalition for a
world in Alpha Leonis.  There was a larger association of Coalition remnants
that opposed the move.  The Coalition was essentially the Solomani
Confederation, minus the totalitarian government and the racist tone (though
that was present from the Humanist Right).

Gary

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 03:53:34 EDT
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Piracy question

I've most often ignored the piracy threads (or at best skimmed them for
anything useful).  This latest round has been no exception (excepting the
Imperial Fleets subject).  Does anyone hold that piracy is possible in the
Imperial core, where free traders themselves are implausible?  
  It's only on the fringes where players can themselves be free traders,
right?  Where outside influence, rival governments, places for Vargr/bandits
to thrive and escape to,etc right?  Where huge bulk freighters (probably
escorted by megacorp warship/escorts) don't dominate the space lanes?
   Even in the fringes, does anyone hold the existence of any Sunbeards as
possible?  Even off the X-boat routes, eventually someone is going to get
tired of you and summon elements of that reserve fleet.  Dodging back and
forth into another territory is likely to eventually earn a visit from a
regular Imperial Navy fleet or 10.  
   In TNE you're quite likely to to spend a term as a prisoner (it's my
experience, most of the players tending towards piracy haven't gone for very
high INT attributes) or change careers.  
   Course, in TNE piracy is much more plausible do the less cosmopolitan and
homogenous setting, anyways.

Gary

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 03:53:21 EDT
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Squadron Sizes of the IN

> DD (Midu Agashaam)  Limited Production (deployed in over-size squadrons of
25
> for evaluation)

mmm... i read "has thus far deployed the ships in over-sized squadrons of ten
to twenty vessels, and has committed them to operations only with the Navy's
major battle fleets."
The spread is important IMO.  One, it gives flexibility and two, the enemy
doens't know exactly how many ships you'll putting on him (and would have to
gamble on the max).  This would result in alot of strategic shuffling, etc.
The Imperium and it's fleets do not have the ships to put all of it's
squadrons at max size, but they have enough to optimize x number of squadrons
and keep their enemies on their toes (even assuming all sides equal).

> CE (Gazelle)  "Hundreds"
> CC (Kinunir) 20 built, deployed either individually or in pairs
> CF (Lightning) 133 built

Supplement 5 is clear that 92 FI's were constructed out of an order of 100.  8
hull numbers were canceled.  There were only 28 CF's.  Only 15 survived to
1107.  I see nothing about the number of Lightings in Supp 9.

> CR (Atlantic) 794
> 
> All of these ships seem to be set w/in the Spinward Marches...only in the
case
> of the CE and the CR are they specifically mentioned as being used Imperial-
> wide.
> 
> Squadron sizes:
>      I reject a lot of the info presented in FSSI...it amazes me that no one
> seems to have noticed the glaring errors that puts it right up there w/ most
> IG products.  This was probably the worst product GDW put out for any Trav
> incarnation.

I don't know... First Survey  would be pretty hard to beat.  : )
As Rupert has pointed out, the errors are confined to the ship designs
themselves, rather than the theory and discussion of the Imperial Navy. 

>      There are specific references to the size of a BatRon in Fighting
Ships:
> Both the Tigress and the Kokirrak-class DN are listed as having a Batron
size
> of 8 DN's.  So here is what I use IMTU...YMMV:

Mmm...  this is a nit, but both those ships have BB as their designation
inside Fighting Ships, Dreadnaught simply referring to the mainline BBs.
 
> Squadron (CruRon, BatRon):  8 ships

This would ignore the explicit word in Fighting Ships, pg 9 that says CruRons
are 4-8 ships.  BBs would, if anything, average similar or smaller, not
larger.  The examples we have are hardly representative.  The mentions of
those two ships being in squadrons of 8 would fit the optimum (read: maximum)
number, doing all their propaganda justice.  ; )

<snip>

Sounds pretty good, though i'd add spreads in there (and put your numbers at
the top end, too).  Even if just for some flexibility.

> During times of peace, BatRons are usually deployed among the sector in
> BatDivs at key naval bases (called "stations" for that good old Royal Navy
> feel <G>)  Batrons are rarely broken down into detachments, except for
> specific missions.  CruRons are routinely broken down into divisions and
spend
> a fair amount of time on detachments as well ("showing the flag")  DesRons
are
> used much like CruRons.

BatRons are going to be enormously unnecessary in the Imperial core.  Only on
the fringes would they be necessary at all, though maybe in numbers out of
proportion than the imperial core *would* have.

What would be the purpose of a DesRon for the IN?  Destroyers (the Midu
explicitly) are supposed to be ecorts for cruisers and battleships.  Maybe for
small-time flag waving missions to impress inferior TL worlds.  Power
projection, but not actual presence.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 01:18:18 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB 
...
>>   160 tons unused goes to +40 fuel (for lack of anything else to do with it),
>> 20 ton magazine (250+ m^3 of missiles for three turrets!, 78 tons for
internal
>> bays for a half-dozen 10 ton inspection boats or fighters*, 12 tons for a bay
>> for six troops (why? - fold up the bunks and it's a rec-room/pool hall!).
>
>Put a bigger powerplant in it and the biggest computer you can find, then 

  <bonk> We've hit a TL limit Cap'n! - no model 7/G+. The powerplant upgrade
would just lead to more cardiac arrests over at the Treasury, anyway :)

>mount dual fusion guns in half the turrets.  Crank up fuel to match, drop down 
>to 2 40 ton pinnaces and double the 'stateroom' space for long range crews.  
>And remember, these boats are gonna be out there for six months at a time, so 
>make sure you have *plenty* of life support spares in the cargo bay.

  The fusers didn't fit the EP profile real well, plus I didn't want
to munchkinize the thing too much - the sand wouldn't be much use in
a shooting war but it should limit repair bills in anti-piracy ops.
To really finesse the HG rules there'd be another weapon class to soak
up weapon-1 (which requires nukes to inflict in HG!) hits.

  Fuel is already 8-12 months at stand-by (TCS); the magazine is more
stores than anything else, really - not that six months supplies for
20 solitaire experts is going to be more than a ton. FWIW, not that
humans can't take long cruises (historically many _much_ longer than
the ones that concern the TML) but both the empty ship bays and troop
bay might be very popular spaces.

  Hmm, Grav-Ball: 3rd SDB Wing vs High Port Marine Detachment?

...
>I'd have to see the whole specs.  Got 'em in HG format?

  Roughed out on scrap paper, actually :) - maybe for Sunday, though.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 04:02:55 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Efficient 100-D Control

Steven Hudson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
  OK, but if you're not using the ports, then your ship is really only
capable of generating revenue from piracy - no practical alternatives
exist (i.e., casual piracy combined with cargo haulage).
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My economic analysis didn't include any revenues from trade. If your
ship can do this, more profits to you - the ship that *might* be able to
pull off a strike in a patrolled system probably can't park at 
a legal port and ever leave again. Well, leave again with the same
owner anyway. :)

Steven again:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
  Avoiding contact with security ships is _not_ always going to be at
the pirates option - unless he's over-equipped to a fairly ridiculous
degree, or the locals are too backward/poor/stupid to realize that they
have a problem.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Finding a system that has enough cargo to hunt, that is also backward,
poor and/or stupid is a pirate's dream - such systems don't stay this
way for long. They either lose the trade (nothing to hunt anymore),
get enough trade revenues to arm themselves, or get smart enough
to call for help real quick.

I'm postulating some time between entering the system and
encountering the patrol forces, this is the window the pirate has
to act (to attack or flee) within.

Steven again:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
  If a customs cutter or warship taps you for an inspection then what?
Whether you enter the 100-D limit and join the traffic stream is somewhat
irrelevant, as the authorities just might decide that ships losing money
waiting out past the line are worth observing more closely.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You're not waiting. You're poking along at an innocent 1G, looking for
a window of opportunity where an unexpected 3 or 4G will get you
what you're hunting for.

Steven again:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
  I assume that no system will have enough ships to "stop(/board) everyone
immediately", nor do I believe that it would be necessary or desirable.
According to your economic case for piracy this a TU in which starships are
so well documented that stealing them is undesirable, but the authorities
will never have a useful current list of extant shipping?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I'm postulating that you can give them a transponder that will take some
time to check, and that such a transponder will not be too unusual.
This comes from the earlier transponder debates - the idea that if the
authorities encounter a transponder code they haven't heard of before,
they'll record it and watch for verification to show up (days or weeks
later) rather than seize the ship immediately - tracking ships by
keeping records and distributing seize-under-suspicion lists, rather
than hold every ship with a transponder code you haven't been
informed of yet. The pirate in this case isn't ever going to use this
particular code again, so isn't really concerned about it being on
a seize list.

Steven again:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
  In any case, let's say that the authorities only want to search 2-5%
of ships in space, and will search the others at the starport (if at all);
this still represents up to a 4 or 5% chance of being terminated with
each visit to a major system - which is attrition with a vengeance, and
discounts the authorities noticing that you never land even if not
challenged.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You weren't planning on hanging around. If a patrol ship starts vectoring
towards you, you run for it - even jumping out at under 100-D if you
have to (owch). Long sensor ranges don't have to help only the good
guys, you should know that the customs vessel is coming your
way quite a while before he can shoot at you effectively.

Steven again:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
  Neat fiction, but it seems unlikely that only the IN produces competent
personnel (OC, where do passed over officers drop out to?). Again, the
use of _very_ expensive (the boat I posted last week was MCr 1400+!) 
warships for routine and possibly unnecessary inspections (when a MCr 14
luanch from S:7 would do) looks like a deliberate step to make piracy
seem more practical.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I always figured that if they were good at their jobs, they wouldn't
be stuck on customs inspection duty. ;)

I don't see MC1400+ SDB's assigned to customs inspections. I was
more thinking 400tn dragons and such...if you are planning on using
a MCr14 Launch for inspection work, you'd best have some heavier
units on hand because that Launch will do nothing to stop a Corsair
except die noisily enough to get the attention of the rest of your
defense flotilla.

If the pirate is playing footsie with more than one or two patrol craft,
he ought not be there in the first place. The success of the pirate is
going to depend on finding systems where patrol assets cannot handle
incoming traffic properly, for whatever reason - finances, incompetence,
units pulled out-system for wartime duty, whatever.

You can easily equip a system to the point where the pirate will
not succeed. No U-Boat during WWII could possibly have penetrated
Scapa Flow either. <G>


Walt Smith

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 04:09:02 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

Steven Hudson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
  With a Jump unit it a week; with spares in magazines (or dumps) it
probably is do-able, especially as w/o thruster cut-offs it's not that
long a cruise; and apparently pirates don't require maintenance to any
real degree, according to some of the posts in the last month.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It wasn't me saying pirates required no maintenance (though IMTU
I allow time consuming, dangerous and less effective "field maintenance"
in a pinch, and if anyone's going to get pinched it'll be the pirates).

I did figure that a pirate could probably take only one or two ships
in an entire year's cruise and make a profit, thus a long transit from
a law level zero class A or B starport to a chosen hunting area was
doable. More ships taken on that cruise would simply equal more
profits, or a faster amortization of the value of the corsair ship.

Walt Smith

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 04:12:53 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: 'Limp Terrier' 800t SDB

OK, here's my take on the SDB's.  This is a High Guard design.

'Terrier' SB-1027    SB-81068F2-400000-05004-0 MCR 772.128  800 tons
                     Batteries Bearing  2  1                 Crew=21
                     Batteries          2  1                   TL=12
Pass=0. Low=0. Cargo=14. Fuel=128. EP=64. Agility=5. Pinnaces=2 Marines=13.

This boat is relatively lightly armoured, but heavily armed.  It mounts 4 dual 
fusion gun turrets and 4 triple missile turrets as well as a pair of stock 40 
ton pinnaces for transporting the boarding parties.  13 Marines provide enough 
men for two customs inspection parties.  The 14 tons of cargo space is used to 
store spares for the life support system as well as a limited amount of 
'critter comforts' for those long trips.  The boat carries enough fuel to 
remain active for two months.  This boat is a standard design IMTU (but *NOT* 
refered to as a 'Terrier'; it's the 'Cobra-kai' Class there!!)

Keven



tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 05:05:08 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy Question

Gary (TravelrTNE) wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I've most often ignored the piracy threads (or at best skimmed them for
anything useful).  This latest round has been no exception (excepting the
Imperial Fleets subject).  Does anyone hold that piracy is possible in the
Imperial core, where free traders themselves are implausible?  
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Not I, no more than I'd expect to find someone growing marijuana
on the South Lawn of the White House. 

I'm not sure about the implausibility of Free Traders in the imperial
core, though. There are a lot of marginally developed planets in there.

<snip>

Gary again:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
   Even in the fringes, does anyone hold the existence of any Sunbeards as
possible?  
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Someone think it possible, otherwise there wouldn't be any piracy debates
going on. I'll bet that even a large fraction of the anti-piracy camp
will give you "possible". "Common", "practical", or "sensible" would
be a different matter entirely.

Gary again:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Even off the X-boat routes, eventually someone is going to get
tired of you and summon elements of that reserve fleet.  Dodging back and
forth into another territory is likely to eventually earn a visit from a
regular Imperial Navy fleet or 10.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That "eventually" may take longer than a particular pirate's entire
career...or at least, that would be what a pirate would bet on.
It may take some time for the complaints of the little fish pirate
targets to reach the ears of someone with the authority to order
around Imperial Task Forces. Those multi-kiloton megacorp
freighters you mentioned don't get bothered by pirates - it's those
scruffy Free Traders who keep getting hit, and they were probably
smuggling anyway.
Get to be too big a fish, get eaten by an Impie anti-piracy sweep.
Stay small, look like a "local problem", live longer.
  
Walt Smith

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:14:08 +0100
From: "Jason" <JBrowne@palmstech.com>
Subject: RE: Piracy and Parting Out

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt Clonfero
>
> This was suggested in an issue of White Dwarf many moons ago
> - Certainly
> before issue 100.

Damn, don't you just hate it when you're ( relatively ) new to a
subject!

Cheers for the reply.

Jason
- --
Reply to : Jason@PalmsTech.com

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:20:44
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch

Important note :

It's actually a modified version of the FS standard TL13 anti-shipping
missile ('We have three basic loadouts ... det laser, combustion laser, and
auditor').

OK. Here goes. Missile first, then we demonstrate how to modify it into a
customs launch ('Get one auditor. Dice finely. Jam into warhead space').

*********************************************************************

Famile Spofulam TL13 Standard Anti-Shipping Missile

1.633 m3 Adv Comp Lam (17.963t, KCr 13)

500 kkm TL12 Laser Commo (0.028 m3, 0.056t, KCr 56)

3 MW Fusion Plant (1m3, 3t, KCr 400)

3 MW TL 13 batteries (1.5 m3, 3.55t, KCr 12 - 56 mins output)

1200 kN HEPLAR engine (0.6 m3, 0.6 t, KCr 6)

4 hrs Heplar Fuel (3.6 m3, 0.3t)

400 MJ X-ray Laser (0.472 m3, 0.472t, KCr 48)

TL12 50 kkm Beam Pointer (2.667 m3, 2.667t, KCr 267)

1 shot/min evacuator (0.092 m3, 0.092t, KCr 46)

300 kg one-shot cartridge (0.3 m3, 0.3t, KCr 15) (assumes laser cartriges
cost Cr 25/MJ)

The whole thing costs KCr 688, masses 30 ton, and turns into a nice 11.2 m3
sphere (0.7 dtons, 2.78 m diameter) and pulls 4.0 gees for 2 hours. It has
Armour Factor 87, and is completely reliant on targeting from the mother
ship, having no integral sensors.

**********************************************************

OK. So we need to turn this into a Customs Launch. We have, IMO, up to 30
tons of mass to play with, and plenty of armour.

Inflate the beach ball shape to be 6 dtons (84 m3). The armour falls from
AF 87 to AF 22 (dont get shot at) (*Cue Ditzie Stage Left with massive air
pump*). 72 m3 to play with, to go with the 30t.

Add a TL12 Sens 12.5 PEMS (0.1 m3, 0.1t, KCr 500) (*Sounds of hammering*).

Add 2 TL12 CM 0.8/CP 1.25 Computers (0.04 m3, 0.008t, KCr 2) (*Sounds of
high-pitched whining about not being able to doooooooo anything*)

2 Workstations (14m3, 0.4t, KCr 5)

2 Bunks (28 m3, 1 t, KCr 2) <Mass includes 1 auditor and 1 beefy Marine
type *Can Iiiiiiii take the Marine-weeeeeeeny home wiiiith me ????*>

4 G Compensation (0.5 m3,0.25 t, KCr 25) <*But the mariiiiiine doesnt want
to play graaaav pong*>

Type III LS (0.4 m3, 0.4 t, KCr 30)

Extra 16 hours HFuel (14 m3, 1.0 t)

Standard airlock (3 m3, 0.2 t, KCr 5)

Sanitary Facility (3.5 m3, 0.2, KCr 1)

Extra 1.5 MW power (0.5 m3, 1.5t, KCr 100)

Total mass is therefore 34.3 t, total cost is KCr 758 - call it a round KCr
760 including some nice chairs and fuzzy dice. It is capable of 3.5 gees
for 20 hours.

Under normal operations, the Cutter will pull 2 Gees, as the full 3.5 gees
requires use of battery power.

Note that the small size of fusion plants at TL13 allows the use of cheaper
Heplar, rather than expensive T-plates.

Whilst technically capable of up to 2 weeks life support, most trips will
be a lot shorter. The pilot and gunner usually share one bunk, with the
marine and auditor sharing the other.

You could build a cargo version by eliminating the 2 bunks, and having 28
m3 of cargo space.

It's a lot cheaper than ships boats under previous Traveller design rules ...
taking the laser out cuts the cost by KCr 350, if you are really cheap.

Ian Whitchurch

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:23:14
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch

>Total mass is therefore 34.3 t, total cost is KCr 758 - call it a round
KCr 760 including some nice chairs and fuzzy dice. It is capable of 3.5
gees for 20 hours.


Oooops. Total price is actually KCr 1345 - call it a round KCr 1350.

It's still pretty cheap for a Ships Boat or Customs Cutter.

Ian

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 15:56:01 -0500 (GMT)
From: Kunal <kunal@discoveryindia.com>
Subject: traveller-request@MPGN.COM

Dear Sir,

pls Unsubscribe kunal@discoveryindia.com from your mailing List


thanks







At 06:18 PM 10/21/98 -0400, you wrote:

>

>Traveller-digest     Wednesday, October 21 1998     Volume 1998 : Number=
 996

>

>

>

>(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.

>All rights reserved.

>

>The following topics are covered in this digest:

>

>Re: Economics of Piracy

>Re: Current Tech: Shortstop

>Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

>Re: Current Tech: Shortstop

>Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics (Was:Piracy))

>Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*

>Re: Re UWP Cultural Extensions

>Re: UWP Cultural Extension

>Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)

>Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others

>4IWG Signup

>Re: mass-based jump limits

>Re: Sensors and waste heat

>Re: CodeRe IMTU

>Re: Capital ships

>Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*

>Re: The Imperial Fleet

>Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others

>Re: Piracy and parting out

>Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

>Re: Question regarding Ley Sector

>Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)

>Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*

>

>----------------------------------------------------------------------

>

>Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:27:00 +1300

>From: Rupert Boleyn <<rboleyn@clear.net.nz>

>Subject: Re: Economics of Piracy

>

>At 11:55 21/10/98 -0700, Steven Hudson wrote:

>

>>>The lost wages of people murdered in the US every year would pay for

>>>quite a few more police officers, no?

>>

>>  The rest of the industrialized world really wonders about that, btw.

>

>My friends and I have often speculated as to how it is that the US has so

>many cops per capita and still has such a high crime rate (especially

>murder) compared to other places. Note this is not an attempt to start a

>gun debate (so there).

>

>- --=20

>IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

>

>"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."

>=20

>Rupert Boleyn <<rboleyn@clear.net.nz>

>Palmerston North, New Zealand

>Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:29:05 +1300

>From: Rupert Boleyn <<rboleyn@clear.net.nz>

>Subject: Re: Current Tech: Shortstop

>

>At 02:15 21/10/98 PST, Leonard Erickson wrote:

>>In mail you write:

>

>>>   I suspect that cheaper work-arounds will be found; the obvious one is

>>> using teensy-weensy digital timers to replace the mechanical timer fuzes

>>> that were replaced by radar proximity units.

>>

>>But timers were replaced with proximity *because* timers can't be set

>>accurately in advance. To have the timer set properly you have to know

>>flight time and what ground level at the target is *very* accurately.=20

>

>Modern artillery relies on knowing these things anyway. A battery of guns

>can achieve amazing accuracy these days if they have had the time to do a

>proper survey of their positions and have good maps, and if you want good

>fire support this is essential. They also go to a lot of trouble to make

>sure their weather readings are accurate and keep very careful records of

>barrel wear, etc to ensure accuracy.

>

>>The way to get proximity fuzes that *aren't* susceptible to "Shortstop"

>>would be to use radar units that are multifrequency and that use

>>"random" pulses. That way you *can't* jam them. But it'd take a while

>>to get these more advanced units to be cheap.

>

>IIRC you can make proximity fuses that use a capacitance sensor to tell

>when they are at the right distance from the ground. These should be immune

>to just about anything.

>

>>>>it comes from out of nowhere to kill you, the way you can't do anything

>>>>but hunker down and hope they run out of ammo. I'm imagining these

>>>>grunts, if Shortstop works, fighting for the priviledge of wearing it

>>>>(and thus being in the middle of the protection zone).

>>>

>>>   Nah, the guy beside you, in case of snipers...

>>

>>The heck with snipers! A few HARM rounds mixed in with the proximity

>>ones will make wearing that pack *very* unpopular!

>

>Hell yes!

>

>- --=20

>IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

>

>"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."

>=20

>Rupert Boleyn <<rboleyn@clear.net.nz>

>Palmerston North, New Zealand

>Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 15:33:22 -0600 (MDT)

>From: Merrick Burkhardt <<merrick@shell.rt66.com>

>Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

>

>=20

>> >Ships in traveller are *bright*. In terms of _detection_ (very

>>=20

>> Where is the canon for this?  What is the energy source that make them

>> bright?  What is thier energyu density and how do you know that it is=
 above

>> the treshold of detectability at 1 LY?  The ship would have to be=
 blazingly

>> bright in the light part of the spectrum.

>=20

>MT and on a Scout-like ship rejects more than 100MW of power.

>

>> Where is the canon that says that you cam pick out a scout in the ort=
 cloud

>> that you did not know was there?

>=20

>150MW is a bright source.

>

>> If it is above the threshold of detection.  Numbers please?

>=20

>Intergrate long enough. Bruce's sensor numbers (signatures in this

>case) simply apply magnitudes to hulls radiating--I beleive the

>baseline was 1 100dton sphere, but I could be wrong.

>

>> >only way it takes more time to scan is if you decide to integrate

>> >longer to see fainter sources. I could be wrong, but I'd likely scan

>> >at the integration time needed for 100D defense, and add the frames

>> >together to look for indications of fainter sources out in the void.

>>=20

>> a ship scan for 100 dia could not resolve a ship at .5 light years.

>=20

>Huh? A ship scan that does the whole sky one or two times in a half

>an hour, that can _just_ detect a 100dton ship obviously won't

>detect the same ship in the same amount of time at 0.5ly. If the

>same sensor integrates for longer periods of time (or adds scanns

>together over time, same thing) it can see fainter objects at the

>same distance, or the same object farther away.

>

>> >If I saw something in an added frame set that wasn't in the normal

>> >scan, I'd know it was fainter. I could then dedicate a tighter scan

>> >at higher resolution and longer integration time on that specific

>> >area to get more data.

>>=20

>> This might apply at 100 dias.

>=20

>HUh? it always applys. Intergrate long, see fainter. Period.

>

>> I could not include the zeros after the decimal to express the veiwing=
 angle

>> of a 100 meter ship at 1 ly in this post.  All the computer in the world

>> could not hold the data if one binary bit represented every 100 square

>> meters of surface area in a 1 LY shell.

>=20

>IT DOESN"T NEED TO. Stars are typically point sources (distant ones,

>certainly). You don't need to resolve a target to detect it. The

>sensor operator would simply see a bright point, and have a rough

>idea of where it is (somewhere within the arc reprented by the

>pixel). He would also have spectroscopic data, and after a while, it

>might even move on the sky.

>

>>.5 to 1 year!  You'd never find a moving ship.  You saw were it was a year=
 ago!

>=20

>That doesn't mean you don't know that it _was_ there. A fusion

>rocket ship breaking into the system at 1ly would be visible now I'd

>wager.

>

>> and exactly how bright is that, in lummins please?  I'd love to run the

>> energy densities at the reciever on this.  I dought you could detect a 1=
 meg

>> atomic blast at 1 light year in the light spectrum!

>

>I'll work it out when I'm back at home. 150MW isotropically radiated.

>That's 1.34E-25 w/m^2 at 1ly or so.

>

>- -Merrick

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:34:23 +1300

>From: Rupert Boleyn <<rboleyn@clear.net.nz>

>Subject: Re: Current Tech: Shortstop

>

>At 11:24 20/10/98 -0700, Steven Hudso wrote:

>

>>  Now, can they make them detonate in the launch tubes? :>

>

>Sorry, but no. A shell doesn't arm itself until it's a good way out of the

>barrel, and modern fuses are just about impossible to set off early.

>However a good close explosion can set off the shell itself - this is how

>ammo dumps go up if they are pooorly laid out.

>

>- --=20

>IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

>

>"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."

>=20

>Rupert Boleyn <<rboleyn@clear.net.nz>

>Palmerston North, New Zealand

>Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:37:47 -0700

>From: Bruce Johnson <<johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>

>Subject: Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics (Was:Piracy))

>

>Charles Prevatte wrote:

>=20

>> There are solid state devices the conver heat to electricity without

>> themselves generating more heat than they use.  Thay is one way to do it.

>> There are more.  All you need to do is put the heat to work and that work

>> will use up the heat.

>

>Not unless they repealed the laws of thermodynamics while my back was

>turned.=20

>

>

>- --=20

>Bruce Johnson

>University of Arizona

>College of Pharmacy

>Information Technology Group

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 18:36:29 +0100

>From: SD Mooney <<dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>

>Subject: Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*

>

>Matt Clonfero <<Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>

>

>>..or just a case of taking your work to lunch. It is, after all, what

>>the AWE crowd are payed for.

>

>Fair point.

>

>Dom

>

>- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------

>"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion

>that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.

>You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -

>'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's

>MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/=20

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 22:12:05 +0100

>From: SD Mooney <<dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>

>Subject: Re: Re UWP Cultural Extensions

>

>"David J. Golden" <<goldendj@pcisys.net> wrote:

>

>>	I hate to reopen the gripefest about DGP products, but what about the

>>World Builders' Handbook? If I recall the way somebody explained it once,

>>while DGP owned the copyright to the actual *text*, the ideas and concepts

>>were created under license, and hence the license holder (then GDW, now

>>FFE) had free right to reuse those ideas and concepts. Sure, the text=
 would

>>have to be rewritten or paraphrased, but the various profiles were

>>invaluable as a guideline and creativity jogger ...

>

>When I edited  _101 Religions_ most of them came with the URP from WBH. To

>avoid complications we grouped all the religions by 1 of the codes and then

>converted the number into a textual description. Tedious, but not too

>difficult. The only problem I could see is avoiding the same words that DGP

>used. We took the decision to avoid the problem entirely, which was a shame

>as one of the TML Peters (Peter B IIRC) had expanded the URP quite

>usefully.

>

>I agree the codes are a great creativity jogger - in much the same way that

>a UWP is. It makes you think to justify the stats, which makes for an

>interesting universe.

>

>Dom

>

>- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------

>"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion

>that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.

>You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -

>'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's

>MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/=20

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 22:46:33 +0100

>From: Mark Watson <<markw@antares.demon.co.uk>

>Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

>

>"Volker A. Greimann" wrote:

>

>>

>> DGP=B4s World Builders Handbook had three different stats:

>> Progressiveness, Aggressiveness and Extensiveness. These were subdived=
 into:

>>

>> P: Radical, Progressive, Conservative, Reactionary

>> A: Expansionistic, Competitive, Unagressive, Passive

>> E: Monilithic, Harmonious, Discordant, Fragmented

>>

>

>I liked the DGP stuff (but then I liked everything they did). Nancy Parker=
 also

>did a pretty good article called "Aspects of Culture" in Digest 16, with a=
 few

>more tables. I seem to remember there was also something in Space Gamer,=
 but

>maybe I'm wrong.

>

>One thing not covered by any of these: I'd like to see something about=
 status of

>the arts, architecture, etc. Is there an emphasis on beauty or on=
 functionality,

>is life ordered or chaotic. To a certain extent these could be inferred=
 from

>other cultural ratings, I guess, but whatever ratings emerged should be=
 able to

>act as the DNA for the "flavour" of a system's society.

>

>M

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:47:11 -0700

>From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)

>Subject: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)

>

>Charles writes

>>The ort clould is .5 to 1 LY out from the primary and you expect to see a

>>ship at that range?  Just how big is that array?  You have to have a=
 curtain

>>amount of surface area to resolve targets that size at that range.  And=
 how

>>are you going to pick it out from the million of bodies out there as well=
 as

>>scan a shell that size with that precission?  And how much does this cost?

>

>This particular claim got a little out of hand - no-one - not me or Merrick

>or Steve or anyone - was claiming that you could easily see lurking pirates

>in the outer part of the oort cloud. I did make the claim that a really=20

>big military array could see targets in the *inner* Oort cloud - the

>Oort cloud really starts at about a thousand AU out (depending on who you

>talk to, of course; it's not like there's a big sign in space saying

>

>- ------------------------------------------------------------

>|  <<=3D=3D=3D OORT CLOUD NEXT 100,000 ASTRONOMICAL UNITS         |

>|       KUIPER BELT AND ALL SOLAR SYSTEM DESTINATIONS =3D=3D>  |

>|                                                          |

>|       Please do not throw garbage or missiles from       |

>|       your ship - help keep our solar system clean!      |

>- ------------------------------------------------------------

>

>A major population-10 world might have a PEMS-15.5 sensor - MCr 250,000

>(about as much as a battleship), 50,000 m2 of collecting area. A battleship

>might have a million megawatts of power (and most likely no IR masking,

>since battleships tend to run out of surface area), for an IR signature of

>1.5. The sensor array has an Impossible task to detect a target out to=20

>a range of (15.5+1.5=3D17), or about 3000 AU. It's true that there are a=
 lot of

>bodies out there - but few that are radiating at the 2000 K temperatures of

>a fully-powered battleship's radiators; the battleship would stand out.

>(Not easily, but MCr 250,000 buys a lot of computer power to keep track of

>which source is which; "millions of bodies" will be recorded in its=
 database.)

>If the battleship was mostly powered-down, or using various baffling=
 tricks,

>(if it knows where the sensor array is), then it would be more able to=
 hide.

>There are tricks the sensor operator can use to balance things out=
 partially.

>

>A dinky little pirate, on the other hand, can hide pretty effectively in=
 the

>oort cloud at full power or no - my main contention is that it can't hide=
 from

>a big (high-pop world) sensor array at one light-second.

>

>>Bruce, what is the smallest object in the rings of saturn that can be seen

>>well enough to identify with the whole sky scaner you talk about?  Exactly

>>how many of those size objects are there?  How long would it be before a=
 new

>>one was detected?  What is the name of this device and where on the web=
 can

>>I view the data on it?  How does it see a signal that has an amplitude=
 less

>>than the universe's noise temperture? =20

>

>Note that seeing signals less than the temperature of the background is=20

>easy if you just integrate long enough or have enough collecting area.

>

>>I would truely like to know.  I know of no techology in existance or

>>proposed in theory that can simultainious see both a spherical panarama=
 and

>>resolve all objects present with a viewing angle of 10^-30 seconds, a

>>temperture of 200k, only emitting IR, and is a half light year away.

>

>The half a light year thing I don't feel obliged to defend, since I never

>made that claim. Nor did I claim that you look at the whole spherical

>panorama simultaneously (one scans a piece at a time). Nor that we can do

>all of this at current tech levels (though the extrapolations are pretty=20

>smooth in FFS2; the main assumption is that high-TL sensors can be built=
 much

>bigger than modern telescopes.)

>

>At the ranges that I was talking about, like one light-second, these=20

>detections are much easier. A

>typical scoutship is about 15th magnitude in reflected visible sunlight at

>one lightsecond. (I have to double check whether that's for a black hull or

>a grey hull.) There are telescope systems even now that can scan the whole

>sky down to 15th magnitude every night (a piece at a time) and relatively

>complete catalogs of the whole sky down to this level; making a system that

>matched all detections with these catalogs is within the realm of modern

>technology and moderate cost (less than a million dollars including the

>telescope.) High TLs and more money will make things much more sensitive.

>

>(By the way, if anyone cares, the closest you can see this scout with your

>naked eye is about 6000 km (as a 6th magnitude star.))

>

>The waste heat is where the scoutship's real problem comes from, of course.

>A T4/TNE scout with a 100 MW power plant, generating 10 MW of waste heat

>(generous assumptions) is ~7-8th magnitude in the near-IR (2-5 microns); it

>stands out pretty sharply. IR sensors are going to get even better faster=
=20

>at high TLs (through things like cooling the telescope optics); the=20

>hypothetical scout is easy to see. A pirate running its power plant at any

>level will be similarly easy to see. Running on batteries, with its hull=20

>cooled down, and almost no life support, it becomes more possible to hide.

>I have previously said that its' on the margin; a pirate running very cold

>can probably hide from a low-TL or low-pop world's sensors at the 100=
 diameter

>limit - barely, as long as the world has no forward-deployed sensors or=
 SDBs.

>(I suppose I need a DSR rule for "extreme shutdown" - when all the power=
 plant

>is shut down, minimum life support (from suits), refrigerated hull, etc.;=
=20

>might be worth another -0.5 or so.)=20

>

>Bruce

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:48:23 -0700

>From: "Douglas Glatz" <<douglas@teleport.COM>

>Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others

>

>>The Midshipman's Hope series by Author Fein-something. Looks to be 4 or

>>5 mint volumes from the same Weber reader.

>

>

>David Feintuch.  The Midshipman series is well written, and I devoured each

>one.  It is also an extremely depressing series - the protagonist is

>literally tortured by his experiences and David Feintuch is a good enough

>author to transmit that to the reader.  By the end of Fisherman's Hope, we

>have seen Nicholas Seafort succeed at every task put in front of him, but=
 at

>a tremendous personal cost.

>

>I recommend the series, but with reservations.

>

>E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com

>http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller

>IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls

>The early bird gets the worm, BUT

>   the second mouse gets the cheese!

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 17:56:16 -0400

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <<jamstar@glasscity.net>

>Subject: 4IWG Signup

>

>We're having minor technical difficulties with signups to the 4th Imperium=
=20

>Working Group.  Please use the subscription box at:

>

>http://www.glasscity.net/users/jamstar/traveller/4i/index.html

>

>The one on Jim's page needs tweaking a bit to work right.  Dammifiknow how=
 the=20

>error slipped in, but it's signing everybody to lurk in my PBEM.  <<sigh>

>

>Keven

>

>tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy

>-=
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------=
- ---

>                                                     Science-Fiction=
 Adventure

>                                                     In Reavers' Deep

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 15:02:51 -0700

>From: Bruce Johnson <<johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>

>Subject: Re: mass-based jump limits

>

>Anthony Jackson wrote:

>>=20

>> Any opinion on making the jump limit based on object mass, rather than

>> diameter?  If you base it on, say, the local tidal strength (rate of=
 change of

>> gravitational force) it remains a fixed multiple of radius for objects of

>> constant density, and allows resolving questions about jumping near a=
 comet or

>> other large gas cloud.

>

>I suspect that this is exactly what does occur, since it is canon that

>large masses precipitate ships out of jump space, and the 100 dia. limit

>is simply a convenient rule of thumb, so I'd favor this.

>

>- --=20

>Bruce Johnson

>University of Arizona

>College of Pharmacy

>Information Technology Group

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 15:04:43 -0700

>From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)

>Subject: Re: Sensors and waste heat

>

>>>[telling ships from asteroids]

>>Btw, I think that shape resolution is almost a non-issue=20

>I was thinking more of using a LIDAR - probably running in the UV - to=
 light

>the target up and get a shape from imaging and time resolution, but it's=
 pretty

>marginal for a small sensor at 1 AU, I admit.=20

>

>>there's quite a lot of 30 meter

>>rocks in your average solar system

>True, but a planetary station only needs to keep track of the ones

>within the a few lightseconds of the mainworld - each time a new one comes

>comes into that sphere it studies it intently with LIDAR, high-res imaging,

>spectroscopy, etc for a couple of hours, then adds it to its database of=20

>targets currently close enough to be confusing...

>

>Jumping into another system, on the other hand, telling asteroids from

>defenders is much more painful.

>

>Bruce

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 18:03:15 -0400

>From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <<thewolkes@earthlink.net>

>Subject: Re: CodeRe IMTU

>

>Where can I find out about IMTU codes?

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 18:01:59 -0400

>From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <<thewolkes@earthlink.net>

>Subject: Re: Capital ships

>

>At 05:53 PM 10/21/98 +0100, Matt Clonfero wrote:

>>pbroeder@wave.co.nz wrote:

>>

>>>The "Wet Navy" rules from Challenge say that a navy at TL15 will mostly

>>>consist of meson gun armed submarines

>>

>>He he he. This takes `we hide with pride' to a whole new level. To

>>invade a world with deep meson sites is bad enough; to invade one where

>>they move around...

>

>Remember that those deep meson sites need targeting data, and those pretty

>much have to be on or near the surface.  I think a heavily-stealthed

>submarine devoted to sensor work would be useful for a TL15 wet navy.

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 20:19:23 +0100

>From: SD Mooney <<dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>

>Subject: Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*

>

>Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com wrote:

>

>>but why not both on the same ship?  seems pretty silly to me.  it is not

>>like they are controled by the same gunner....

>

>You can have both on a ship under HG. You just can't have any secondary

>batteries of the same type as the spinal mount.

>

>Dom

>

>- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------

>"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion

>that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.

>You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -

>'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's

>MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/=20

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 20:16:23 +0100

>From: SD Mooney <<dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>

>Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

>

>Charles Prevatte <<prevattec@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

>

>Re the Kinuir....

>

>>It is classed a cruiser,  perhaps a light cruiser.

>

>Post High Guard, all the references to the Kinuir class ships called them

>as 'Colonial Cruisers', not 'Battle Cruisers'.

>

>They're just an overblown gunboat, and not even optimised under HG. They're

>good for showing the flag and scaring pirates with the PA barbettes. The

>Sydkai (?) was a much better ship... (MTJ) but that's a different story.

>

>Dom

>

>- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------

>"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion

>that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.

>You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -

>'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's

>MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/=20

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 16:36:11 -0500

>From: Eris reddoch <<eris@gulf.net>

>Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others

>

>Glenn Myers wrote:

>

>> Last Friday I went to my local used bookstore hoping to complete my

>> Honor Harrington Series. You see, I had heard about HR on the TML and

>> when I saw a complete set in near mint condition I immediately bought

>> the first 4. I also picked up a couple of Weber's other works.

>

>> They were gone...  Gasp...  sputter... I'll have to pay FULL PRICE!

>

>Gasp! The Horror!!! ;->

>

>Buy "On Ballik Station" and enjoy it. It's the first book and the one

>you should start with. Then recheck your used bookstore..maybe some HH

>books will be back in stock.

>

>> But, In Enemy Hands was there, again in mint condition. Apparently I

>> have an anal-retentive high-volume Weber reader in the vicinity. Lucky

>> me!

>

>Hey, I'm not selling my copies anytime soon. ;->

>

>> Getting to the point now, I also saw some other titles I recognized from

>> the TML. Anyone care to recommend or warn me about these?

>

>> The Midshipman's Hope series by Author Fein-something. Looks to be 4 or

>> 5 mint volumes from the same Weber reader.

>

>I read the first one and liked it well enough...although the hero was

>sort of introspective for my tastes. Sooner or later, I intend the

>read the others.

>=20

>> I was rather disappointed in the other Weber Books I bought. "Crusade"

>> and "In Death Ground" are more like traveller technology (more

>> conventional drives -none of the wedges from HR). But I found them much

>> less interesting partly due to the unending carnage. In Death Ground is

>> about 600 pages of endless battle fleets being turned into plasma. At

>> the end, you've only read the first installment. I felt "Part 1" should

>> have been on the outside cover. I will not be buying the conclusion.

>

>Well, in most of the HH books there is at least one space combat scene

>and one or two personal combat scenes. Less combat oriented than David

>Drake's books or the Sten series, though.  I have to admit to liking

>the Sten books, space opera and all. ;->

>

>Eris

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 17:07:59 -0500

>From: Black ICE <<wombat@premier.net>

>Subject: Re: Piracy and parting out

>

>Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:

>>=20

>> Douglas Glatz

>>=20

>> >The IMTU code for piracy is pi

>> >

>> >         pi++    Piracy exists and is rampant.  Anyone may commit=
 piracy.

>> >                 Ship tracking and ID are uncommon.

>> >         pi+     Piracy exists.  Antipiracy is mostly political or=
 economic,

>> >                 and is inadequate. Transponders may be changed or=
 masked, or

>> >                 are not widespread or sufficient.

>> >         pi      Piracy only exists in the vacuum of government or=
 corporate

>> >                 morals.

>> >         pi-     Piracy is not sustainable.

>> >         pi--    Piracy is impossible.

>>=20

>> What's the code for "Piracy is implausible, but it's also a neat plot=
 device,

>> so I use it anyway"?

>>=20

>Based on other "geek codes" I've seen, that would probably be "pi!"

>

>>       Hans Rancke

>> University of Copenhagen

>>      rancke@diku.dk

>> ------------

>>         "This gives a possible range of 56 to 178 starships

>>          total  in the three Terran starport facilities,  a

>>          believable quantity for such a star system."

>>=20

>>         "We have a maximum of 178 ships in port, and (as it

>>          is a busy star system)  we will say that there are

>>          70 docking berths at the Phoenix facility."

>>=20

>>                         ---Journal of the Traveller's

>>                            Aid Society # 22

>

>- --=20

>- ------

>|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net

>|JOLT|

>|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:

>|    |

>- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 16:10:00 -0600 (MDT)

>From: Merrick Burkhardt <<merrick@shell.rt66.com>

>Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

>

>BTW, the sun would be around 10^-9 W/m^2 at 10ly--sun-like stars are

>visible much farther than this, and so the power/area would drop as

>a square law.

>

>- -Merrick

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 23:13:20 +0100

>From: Mark Watson <<markw@antares.demon.co.uk>

>Subject: Re: Question regarding Ley Sector

>

>Andrew Moffatt-Vallance wrote:

>

>> I'm currently reworking the Luriani in light of Jeff's revised data for=
 the Fornast

>> Sector which ment that I have moved the Luriani to the Ley Sector (which

>> actually makes them more interesting IMHO). My question is does anyone

>> know when the Imperium moved into the Ley Sector? I know that Fornast was

>> brought in by around 120. But did Artemesus immediately move on to Ley or

>> did he turn his attentions elsewhere?

>

>"A Concise History of the Imperium" in Digest 18 doesn't specifically=
 mention when Ley

>was incorporated, but does mention that Depot/Ley was attacked by a long=
 range raid by

>the Julian Protectorate in 185.

>

>This essay seems to form the basis of the essay on the pacification=
 campaigns in the

>Milieu 0 campaign - the raid on Ley is mentioned there on p.121

>

>My guess is that it was taken during the earlier part of the Julian Wars.

>

>M

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 16:16:10 -0600 (MDT)

>From: Merrick Burkhardt <<merrick@shell.rt66.com>

>Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or=
 tedious.)

>

>I'd like to say I'm sorry if I'm the one who got things out of

>hand--it wasn't my intention. That's what I get for deciding I have

>time to read the list again in the middle of a thread :-)

>

>I became interested in the question of whether or not it would even

>be possible to detect a small ship in some part of the oort cloud.

>Not as a routine detection task (that fits within a turn sequence,

>limiting integration time a lot), but rather in the broad sense. A

>fixed in-system sensor, building up data over time. CouHaow far out

>could they detect, say, a scout ship adding up their routine scans

>over time (how many intergration periods to increase the sensitivity

>by 0.5, 1.0, and so forth--and what is the maximum for this).

>

>- -Merrick

>

>------------------------------

>

>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 15:12:24 -0700 (PDT)

>From: Anthony Jackson <<ajackson@iii.com>

>Subject: Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*

>

>SD Mooney writes:

>> Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com wrote:

>>=20

>> >but why not both on the same ship?  seems pretty silly to me.  it is not

>> >like they are controled by the same gunner....

>>=20

>> You can have both on a ship under HG. You just can't have any secondary

>> batteries of the same type as the spinal mount.

>

>Nah, HG just doesn't let you have two weapon systems of the same type with

>different attack ratings.  Messes up the USP.  Of course, as GT doesn't=
 _use_ a

>USP, this isn't a problem....

>

>------------------------------

>

>End of Traveller-digest V1998 #996

>**********************************

>

>To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

>

>unsubscribe traveller-digest

>

>in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want

>to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,

>such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the

>"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

>

>subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

>

>A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to

>subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"

>in the commands above with "traveller".

>

>Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com

>

>

<color><param>8080,0000,0000</param>Visit http://www.discoveryindia.com -
the dedicated information center on India</color>

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1002
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Thursday, October 22 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1003



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others
Heat conversion
MT Vehicular Combat in space
Re: Arming Kiloton Freighters: Hippo Provincial Merchant
Re: Star Gypsies
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 
Re: The Imperial Fleet
RE: Star Gypsies
(no subject)
Re: Capital ships
Fuzzies (was re: Travellerish Fiction)
RE: Star Gypsies
Re: The Imperial Fleet
re: Star Gypsies
Ammo price and weight
Re: Ammo price and weight
GT Megathrusters
Apologies from the 4IWG
.
Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber
Re: GT transponders
Re: Current Tech: Shortstop

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

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 22:50:53 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others

In mail you write:

> What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H. Beam Piper:
>
>       Little Fuzzy
>       4-Day Planet
>       Uller Uprising
>       Space Viking

	The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
	Fuzzy Sapiens
	Fuzzies and Other People
	

> There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the top of my 
> head.

More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
the moment.

BTW, with regards to the "kobolds" thread elsewhere on the list, I
think Fuzzies would be a fun race to work up. They *may* be a bit less
intelligent than humans, but that's not a big handicap. 

They'd make good scouts, and they'd also probably like engineering.
They might not understand the *theory*, but they'd be great at doing
maintenance and repairs. Especially given that they can work
comfortably in spots a human mechanic would be lucky to *see* into. 

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

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 02:11:44 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Heat conversion

>Charles Prevatte wrote:
>
>> There are solid state devices the conver heat to electricity without
>> themselves generating more heat than they use.  Thay is one way to do it.
>> There are more.  All you need to do is put the heat to work and that work
>> will use up the heat.

All changes in state of energy invlove entropic loss of some kind; ie: you
never EVER get out as much as you put in. The higher the entropy of the
source form, the more lost in converting it to a less entropic form, and
the more side effects produced in the conversion.

Yes, it is theoretically possible to convert heat to an IR laser, but the
by products will be some other form of radiation, and the laser will have
far less energy than the heat applied, and by the rules of entropic loss,
you're gonna have some other wierd radiations in the process, assuming that
since you're putting out IR as the primary, and forcing it to lase in a
chamber or crystal. Thus, you need to convert molecular motion into
electromag radiation (doable, as it is a low to very low order situation),
then lase it. So, you'll need a chamber which is either non-absorbtive of
IR (so it cannot convert back to molecular motion, ie heat), or is not in
contact with anything, and more than likely, the process will wind up with
the energy loss translating into a rapid degeneration of ther mechanism by
heating, or will result in other radiations or another very-low order
situation (and that laser will be a high order situation)

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 02:51:15 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: MT Vehicular Combat in space

><< Also, while I runt (basically) MT, I use the VEHICULAR COMBAT rules, not
> the space combat rules (which are the same as HG for combat resolution...
> Ick!). This means ranges tend to be fairly close for space combat, and
> ability to hit is determined by TL. I use the folowing task for starhip
> fire:
>  >>
>
>Now just how do you apply damage...esp. for Spinal weapons/nuclear weapons?
>And what effect do screens have?  I would really like to know...
>
>DustyLV769@aol.com

Damage is applied in the exact same manner as in vehicular combat, except
for meson guns.

In short, look up the pen and atten and damge stats from the MT PM pg 80.
Figure the damage taken just like you would for personal or vehicular
combat (keeping in mind that there is errata that says the hits
capabilities generated by the craft design system need to be multiplied by
10). So you check attenuation, find effective pen. Compare pen to AV  to
get multiplier:
	EfPen < AV= No (DmgMult 0.1),
	AV <= EfPen < 2x AV = low (Dmg Mult 0.5)
	EfPen >= 2x AV = High (Dmg Mult 1).
Find success level on to hit task to get success level mods
	Made by			 0    1   2   4   8
	DamMult			0.5   1	  2   4   8
	minimum final damage	 0    0   1   2   4

Multiply base damage by both damage multiples (from pen level and th task
success), and rais to minimum if needed. Note: Many choose to apply the
sequence slightly out of order: BsDmg x TH Multiple, raise to minimum,
apply pen multiple.

also, the weapons list for starhip weapons only shows certain key TL's
(which differ from the key ones in the design sequences), but can be easily
figured for the interveneing steps.

Meson Guns should use a much different result system. Increase to hit task
by one diff level.
	Roll made by:		  0    1    2    4    6    8   10
	Dice to roll for mishap:  -   1d   2d   3d   4d   5d   6d
In addition, all hits will do a proportion of the damage points. a minimal
hit (no dice to roll) should do about 1d6 dp per factor. For better hits,
roll on mishap table, using the indicated number of dice. on superficial,
1d6% dp loss.
Minor, 1d6 * 5% of DP lost. Major 1d6 * 10% loss (which with high rolls
will run you out of DP on a first hit), and Destroyed results get you 2d6 x
15%. All percentage losses are rolled per system with DP's anmd are based
upon total DP's (both sides of the slash) of the UNDAMAGED unit.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:15:00 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Arming Kiloton Freighters: Hippo Provincial Merchant

At 23:26 21/10/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>                MP-B4212C2-090000-64003-0       MCr 856        2000 tons
>        batteries bearing   1     11  1                            TL=12
>                batteries   1     11  1                          Crew=20 
>        Cargo=1227. Fuel=440. EP=40. Agility=1.

Could someone please give a quick guide to what all those lovely little
digits mean? I don't have HG, and haven't seen a copy in nearly 10 years.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 06:43:45 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: Star Gypsies

Peter Newman wrote:
> 
> Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> wrote
> 
> > > >Anyone want to try raising your kids on a Free Trader?
> 
> > > 3 days into J-Space:
> > > "DAD!  Are we there yet?"
> > > "No."
> > > "DAD!  Are we there yet?"
> 
<<snip>>
> 
> > Which was the _real_ driving force behind the invention of low
> > berths....
> 
> You do realize that while in low berths your children will not age.

I didn't mean for the _kids_.  ;-)  Mom and Dad take turns.

<<snip>>
> 
> Early failed Vilani Marketing Strategy "People, the other white meat"

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 07:55:37 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 

bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh) writes:
>A dinky little pirate, on the other hand, can hide pretty effectively in
the
>oort cloud at full power or no - my main contention is that it can't hide
from
>a big (high-pop world) sensor array at one light-second.

But the Oort Cloud discussion started with a pirate base out there, which
is (a) larger, and (b) must have pirates coming and going (or it's not
really a base, eh?).

A base, whether for a pirate band or just a supply dump for a single ship,
should eventually be discovered. The only question is when.

Bruce, I know this is a big favour, but could you crunch the numbers to
provide guidelines about how many visits a base could have before it was
probably detected? I suppose variables would be TL/size/wealth of
detecting navy, and signature of pirate base/ships. We'll also need a
reasonable assumption for the energy/frequency bandwidth of the jump flash.

Actually, long-term sensor use (strategic sensors?) woul make a nice
addition to the Definative Sensor Rules.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 08:01:08 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

Dom writes:
>Re the Kinuir....
>
>>It is classed a cruiser,  perhaps a light cruiser.
>
>Post High Guard, all the references to the Kinuir class ships called them
>as 'Colonial Cruisers', not 'Battle Cruisers'.
>
>They're just an overblown gunboat, and not even optimised under HG.
>They're
>good for showing the flag and scaring pirates with the PA barbettes. The
>Sydkai (?) was a much better ship... (MTJ) but that's a different story.

Thanks. George and I are proud of the Sydkai. Hm, as Roger hasn't paid us
for the article yet (we were waiting for DGP to publish AI), does that
mean we could resell it?  Bloo, any legal advice on who owns the copyright
to a commissioned work that was never paid for?

In one the the TNE novels (think it was Death of Wisdom), a character
refers to Kinunirs as Bombardment Cruisers. Apparently they were intended
to overawe and control small worlds without space defenses. 

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 05:57:36 PDT
From: "jim clem" <travmind@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: Star Gypsies

- ----Original Message Follows----
From: "Brian Mays" <bmays@genscope.com>
To: <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: RE: Star Gypsies
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 13:39:35 -0700
Reply-To: traveller@MPGN.COM

>Anyone want to try raising your kids on a Free Trader? 
>
>Walt Smith


3 days into J-Space:

"DAD!  Are we there yet?"

"No."

"DAD!  Are we there yet?"
===============
Heheheh, this is why I put a low berth in my van.

=0




Jim Clem, B.S.E.
GM, The Scattered Worlds Traveller PbEM, Where Humaniti Carves out a New 
Home
http://www.geocities.com/area51/dimension/7081/trvpg1.html
The Fourth Imperium Working Group
http://www.geocities.com/area51/dimension/7081/4I.html

"Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander. Daughter of Andre
 and Sophie Ivanov. I am the Right Hand of Vengence and
the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way
back to Earth, sweetheart. I am Death Incarnate, and the 
last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent
me." from "Between Darkness & Light" -Babylon 5 

Now THATS my kind of woman!!!!


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:16:16 +1000
From: Morgan <jasper@uq.net.au>
Subject: (no subject)

unsubscribe traveller jasper@uq.net.au

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 06:09:19 PDT
From: "jim clem" <travmind@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Capital ships

- ----Original Message Follows----
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 18:01:59 -0400
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Capital ships
Cc: traveller@MPGN.COM
Reply-To: traveller@MPGN.COM

At 05:53 PM 10/21/98 +0100, Matt Clonfero wrote:
>pbroeder@wave.co.nz wrote:
>
>>The "Wet Navy" rules from Challenge say that a navy at TL15 will 
mostly
>>consist of meson gun armed submarines
>
>He he he. This takes `we hide with pride' to a whole new level. To
>invade a world with deep meson sites is bad enough; to invade one where
>they move around...

Remember that those deep meson sites need targeting data, and those 
pretty
much have to be on or near the surface.  I think a heavily-stealthed
submarine devoted to sensor work would be useful for a TL15 wet navy.
=====================

A great idea.  Anyone out there know, would ELF transmissions be 
sufficient to pass along targetting data?  I don't know.






Jim Clem, B.S.E.
GM, The Scattered Worlds Traveller PbEM, Where Humaniti Carves out a New 
Home
http://www.geocities.com/area51/dimension/7081/trvpg1.html
The Fourth Imperium Working Group
http://www.geocities.com/area51/dimension/7081/4I.html

"Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander. Daughter of Andre
 and Sophie Ivanov. I am the Right Hand of Vengence and
the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way
back to Earth, sweetheart. I am Death Incarnate, and the 
last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent
me." from "Between Darkness & Light" -Babylon 5 

Now THATS my kind of woman!!!!


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:04:08 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Fuzzies (was re: Travellerish Fiction)

Leonard Erikson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
BTW, with regards to the "kobolds" thread elsewhere on the list, I
think Fuzzies would be a fun race to work up. They *may* be a bit less
intelligent than humans, but that's not a big handicap. 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
IMO, considering the evidence presented in the books, the Fuzzies
may have been _more_ intelligent. Dropped in the middle of a planet
full of big predators and few usable food sources, the fragile little
fellows survived. Faced with a First Contact situation, they made
friendly relations and allies before the language barrier was even
broken. As adults, they learned an alien tongue - spoken at a
wavelength they generally don't speak in - with relative ease.
Add to that the complete failure of a professional psychiatrist to
cause lasting mental aberrations in a Fuzzy, no matter how he
tried. Longer term evidence of their inborn mental stability: they've
been living for generations with horrible predators and a chemical
imbalance that makes most of their babies be horribly twisted
stillbirths, yet they still play, laugh and love each other.

They're sane, friendly and resourceful. Piper created a race
that I hope we encounter some day - because if nothing else,
Fuzzies seemed to have a talent for bringing out the best in
humans.

Hmmm, I think my enjoyment of Piper's "Little Fuzzy" books
is showing... <G>

Walt Smith

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:18:00 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: RE: Star Gypsies

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 13:39:35 -0700
From: "Brian Mays" <bmays@genscope.com>
Subject: RE: Star Gypsies
>Anyone want to try raising your kids on a Free Trader?
>
>Walt Smith

3 days into J-Space:
"DAD!  Are we there yet?"
"No."
"DAD!  Are we there yet?"
********************
yeah for a normal journey....but if you raise the kids there they will
think of it as home.......it may be more like:
Yaw....Do we hafta go dirtside again?    those groundworms stink!  I don't
like it there....the grav is all wrong, and their life support is allways
broken.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:29:11 -0400
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

Hi all,

SD Mooney wrote:
> good for showing the flag and scaring pirates with the PA barbettes. The
> Sydkai (?) was a much better ship... (MTJ) but that's a different story.
> 
> Dom

Was the Sydkai the Anti-Piracy vessel published in MTJ#3 by several
authors, one of which was TML's own Rob Prior? I really found that
vessel to be interesting. I was also disappointed that the illustration
didn't seem to match the description. I seem to remember a revolving
small craft loading mechanism but didn't see that the drawing matched.
As I recall, it was a weak performance design, optimized for duration on
station.


Glenn

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:38:44 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: re: Star Gypsies

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 16:24:10 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Star Gypsies
A big factor affecting the possibility of these "Star Gypsies" existing
is how YTU handles aging starships. Is the annual maintenance
cost higher for a 40 year old Free Trader than it is for one 39 years
younger?
***************
it should cost more....how much more will affect the prices of used ships
as well.



Some of the discussions on how a pirate supports himself are
relevant here as well. Can someone scrounge or improvise
cheap replacements for life support materials and maintenance
requirements?
*************
you would have to for this to work. If you are using GT you can do the work
yourself and only pay for parts.
that could cut the costs down to normal.


A Free Trader can easily hold three pairs of adults and a couple
kids for each pair. If it has no bank payment any more, the price
of running this ship for a year would be about Cr520000 for
life support, plus the cost of the annual maintenance, plus
any berthing fees at starports, plus any damage or unexpected
equipment failures - that annual maintenance on your jump drive
has never been described in canon as including a warranty.
*****************
if you are running GT the costs can be different...the big costs are
docking fees and annual maintainance

so for a free trader  20KCr each time she docks, and 28.8KCr for annual
maintainance so if you dock at a regualr starport every two weeks it is
about 550KCr a year....however if you spend most of your time on frontier
worlds and only hit a regular starport every 3-4 months your costs can be
under 10KCr month....These numbers assume you skim your own fuel.


if you look at the annual maintainance as yearly costs for food and housing
it is only 2400Cr a month. Not bad for a 10 bedroom house with food for 20.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:35:02 -0400
From: "Dan Eveland" <develand@mindspring.com>
Subject: Ammo price and weight

Pardon my ignorance, but where is the prices and weight for personal weapon
ammo other then power packs.  I want to use the encumbrance rules, and have
not found the specifications needed.  Please don't tell me I have to design
them in GURPS Vehicles!  :)

Dan

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:39:07 -0400
From: "Dan Eveland" <develand@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Ammo price and weight

This question is, of course, concerning GURPS Traveller.

Dan


- -----Original Message-----
From: Dan Eveland <develand@mindspring.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Thursday, October 22, 1998 9:36 AM
Subject: Ammo price and weight


>Pardon my ignorance, but where is the prices and weight for personal weapon
>ammo other then power packs.  I want to use the encumbrance rules, and have
>not found the specifications needed.  Please don't tell me I have to design
>them in GURPS Vehicles!  :)
>
>Dan
>

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:47:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: William Prankard <cmdrx@magicnet.net>
Subject: GT Megathrusters

X-TEK News Release
295-1120 Vincennes/Deneb (1122-A899AA6-G)

X-TEK is proud to announce the release of the new XG-13 "Mega" Thruster.
This new technology was considered "classified" during the 5FW, but has
now been declassified by the IN.
The new thruster unit provides nearly 5 times the thrust power and reduces
size by 1/4.

But the Megathruster is not for everyone, yet.

As with all new technologies, the Megathruster is expensive.  X-TEK must
charge 6.25Mcr for its basic "powered" unit.
Also, Megathruster technology is very power hungry, even though the
thruster in the basic module is 4 times as small as its TL-12 counterpart,
the rest of the module is devoted to the fusion power unit.  X-TEK R&D is
currently looking for smaller and cheaper power units to use with this new
technology, with major research into Antimatter reactors.

Also, care must be taken not to install too many megathruster units, TL-13
technology can provide gravatic compensation for up to 7g's after that,
the pilot, crew, and passengers will feel the effects of high
acceleration.

So far the only place to upgrade to the new thrusters are on Vincennes.

Statistics:
TL-13 Mega Thruster (Powered)
500tons thrust;  5.75t;  6.25Mcr
Includes:
100cf of MegaThruster; 0.75t;  6mcr;   Requires 50Mw Power
200cf of Fusion Plant;  5t;  0.25Mcr
200cf of Power Plant Access Space.

TL-13 Mega Thruster (Unpowered)
2500tons thrust  3.75t 30Mcr 250Mw

Ships planed to be produced by X-TEK using this technology:
"Hornet-III" Space Superiority Fighter
"Silverbolt" Class Intruder Scouts
Fast Traders and Cargo Haulers.
Fast Troop Transports and Boarding Craft.
and many, many, more...

This concludes this press release from X-TEK Industries of Deneb, LIC.

\\  // Commander X
 \\//  CEO X-TEK Industries of Deneb, LIC
T E K  Military & Civilan Starship Contractor
 //\\  High Energy Weapons Research
//  \\ http://www.magicnet.net/~cmdrx/xtek/xtek.htm

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 06:54:54 PDT
From: "jim clem" <travmind@hotmail.com>
Subject: Apologies from the 4IWG

Keven has pointed out the error in my sign up for the 4IWG mailing list 
that caused some to be added to his PbEM game list.  Please accept my 
apologies for this, I have now fixed that problem, it should work fine.  
If you have mistakenly been added to Keven's PbEM list, send me a mail, 
and I'll add you to the 4IWG list my self.  Sorry for the inconvenience, 
and thanks for your interest. 



Jim Clem, B.S.E.
GM, The Scattered Worlds Traveller PbEM, Where Humaniti Carves out a New 
Home
http://www.geocities.com/area51/dimension/7081/trvpg1.html
The Fourth Imperium Working Group
http://www.geocities.com/area51/dimension/7081/4I.html

"Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander. Daughter of Andre
 and Sophie Ivanov. I am the Right Hand of Vengence and
the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way
back to Earth, sweetheart. I am Death Incarnate, and the 
last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent
me." from "Between Darkness & Light" -Babylon 5 

Now THATS my kind of woman!!!!


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:55:22 EDT
From: Azmandius@aol.com
Subject: .

unsubscribe azmandius@aol.com

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:03:54 -0400
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber

Hi all,

Leo Hale wrote:
> 
>      Glenn, you might try another series of Webbers' called the Armageddon
> Inheritance.  Great story telling.  Some very cool alternate answers to
> some of the big questions regarding human civilisation.
> 

Actually, I did read the Armageddon Inheritance, liked it,and recycled
it (sold it back) to pick up In Death Ground. Poor deal, maybe I should
try to get it back. It's tough trying to afford the current stuff with
spare change.

I can understand why such great condition used copies are easy to find.
After reading Weber's stuff, only about half is likely to be reread by
me. I'll keep the HR series.

The only SF regularly reread by me is  Piper, Anderson, Niven,
Pournelle, Asimov, Heinlein, Cherryh, Cole and Bunch (in approximate
order of preference). 

"Keven R. Pittsinger" wrote:
> 
> The 'Sten' series was great, except where it started turning weird toward the
> end when the new Emperor started flipping out.
> 

I actually rather liked that. It was uncomfortable but more interesting
than the "Sten and Kilgour are dispatched to deal with the latest threat
to the Empire" plotline. That's a series I was sorry to see end. 

BTW, should I read In Enemy Hands out of order. I've read 1,2,3,4
already. I guess I should say should I stop reading In Enemy Hands now
while I still can. ;-)

Glenn

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:11:42 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 18:12:24 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: GT transponders
At 07:52 AM 10/21/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 18:30:42 -0400
>From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
>Subject: Re: Ship swallowing pirates
>>The transponders in GT also seem easily forgable....just record someone
>>else's and broadcast it back.
>That depends on whether there's some kind of time-dependent encryption on
>them.
>************
>doesn't seem to be...just a wideband radio message...
If it's just a wideband radio message, then yes, you can be anyone you want
to be, at least on your transponder.
If that's true, then why have a transponder at all?
**************8
because with the least effective sensors and a skill of 12 you can detect a
transponder on a 16 or less at 10,000 hexes. (just over one AU)...and a 10
or less at 100,000 hexes (about 11 AU).  A transponder will scream at
everyone
 ***************I'M OVER HERE!!!!!********************LOOK AT
ME!!!!!!!!!!!!*******************.

if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 07:12:37 PDT
From: "jim clem" <travmind@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Current Tech: Shortstop

- ----Original Message Follows----
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 21:54:18 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Current Tech: Shortstop
Reply-To: traveller@MPGN.COM

Walter Smith wrote:
> 
> Tommy Grav wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >Did you ever wonder what someone would think who was monitoring this 
list
> >and had no idea what Traveller or RPGs were?  And suppose Nuclear 
Dampers
> >(for example) really DID exist, but as a deep dark secret weapon?  
We'd
> >probably have our own desk at the NSA by now!
> 
> The TML-files, huuuummmmmm......
> 
> Didn't someone make some NPC based on Mulder and Scully
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
> IIRC, the FBI has investigated players of T$R's Top Secret game -
> someone overheard the players discussing an op and called the feds.
> 
> Walt Smith

Not to mention SJG's run-in with the Secret Service over their
GURPS:Cyberpunk setting....


Oooops.  I just mentioned it.  Forget I posted anything.  Fnord.
- -- 

A friend of mine was in Army Intel in Germany sone years back, and 
played Top Secret.  Unfortunately, he had a game folder marked, yep, Top 
Secret with him at his office one day, and when he walked out that 
evening, the MPs noted it, decided he was stealing something, and 
proceeded to tackle him.  He told me, "An M16 in the ear and a 200 lb MP 
on your back will give you a new outlook on life!"



Jim Clem, B.S.E.
GM, The Scattered Worlds Traveller PbEM, Where Humaniti Carves out a New 
Home
http://www.geocities.com/area51/dimension/7081/trvpg1.html
The Fourth Imperium Working Group
http://www.geocities.com/area51/dimension/7081/4I.html

"Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander. Daughter of Andre
 and Sophie Ivanov. I am the Right Hand of Vengence and
the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way
back to Earth, sweetheart. I am Death Incarnate, and the 
last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent
me." from "Between Darkness & Light" -Babylon 5 

Now THATS my kind of woman!!!!


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1003
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Thursday, October 22 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1004



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: New Deck plans
Re: Where's Lucan?
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)
Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics (Was:Piracy))
Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics (Was:Piracy))
re: Finding Ships in the Oort Cloud
Re: Piracy
Re: The Imperial Navy
Re: Star Gypsies
Re: Finding ships (now attacking fleet...)
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)
Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics
re : TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 
Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB
Re: mass-based jump limits
GT Megathrusters
Re: Piracy question
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud
Re: The X-mail (was: Current Tech: Shortstop)
re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
High Guard USP's

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:22:57 -0500
From: "Smart, David J (David)" <David.Smart@ons.octel.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans

Michael D. Peters posted:
>
>THe PDF file for the Twain Class 200 sdt Free Trader has been added to the
>Jump Point web page. That makes two PDF files, both Free Traders. Take a
>look and grab the file(s) and let me know what you think.
>
>Jump Point can be found at http://users.citnet.com/letterworks

WOW! Now those are deckplans!

Ever think about submitting to BITS for publication?

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:42:21 -0500
From: Steven Bonneville <bonnevil@ima.umn.edu>
Subject: Re: Where's Lucan?

<TravelrTNE@aol.com> wrote:

> > The Imperium could -- and HAS -- survive one (the Illelish
> > Revolts and the whole Solomani conflict; the Frontier
> > and Rim wars; Cleon the Mad; etc.), or even two simultaneously.
> > But with all three happening at once, it created
> > a dynamic which worked against solving any one of them,
> > and worked towards creating more.
>
> Hmm... sounds reasonable.  Though, where have two of these been present at 
> one time?              

Not at once, but the Imperium had three in rapid succession in 979-1002.  
The 3FW in 979-986, a coup that forced the abdication of Styryx for his
son in 989, and the Solomani Rim War in 990-1002.

Arguably, the Imperium either lost or regained a chunk of its border in
this war, depending on your point-of-view.  (The Imperium considered the
Solomani Sphere an autonomous region from 740 to 940, even after the SAR
declared itself the Solomani Confederation in 871.  They revoked the SAR
charter in 940, but spent years trying to make a diplomatic solution.  
The SRW didn't even start until the Solomani started reabsorbing border
worlds!)  

  -- Steve Bonneville

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 07:48:43 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)

Merrick Burkhardt wrote:
> 
> Bruce's calculations on the month required to find a scout in the
> oort cloud snipped...
> 
> Cool. The problem is time frame. It means that a fleet that jumps in
> will likely come and go (and have arrived to attack :-) in about
> half the typical detection time.
>

Two problems with that scenario:

1) How do you jump _in_ at the Oort Cloud? That's so far beyond the 100
dia limit it's not funny, like jumping into an empty hex. Can this be done?

2) If you're attacking, you _still_ gotta come in on maneuver drive,
which will take a long time, and get you noticed when you get in closer,
probably right about at the limits where you'ld be pegged jumping
normally in-system, so detection time won't necessarily be halved.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 14:47:20 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics (Was:Piracy))

At 02:37 PM 10/21/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Charles Prevatte wrote:
> 
>> There are solid state devices the conver heat to electricity without
>> themselves generating more heat than they use.  Thay is one way to do it.
>> There are more.  All you need to do is put the heat to work and that work
>> will use up the heat.
>
>Not unless they repealed the laws of thermodynamics while my back was
>turned. 
>

The law of conservation of energy.  Heat in = some heat out + some
electricity out.  Total power in = total power out.  It's a non nuclear
process based on junction heating as in a thermal couple.  A comon every day
device that does this same thing.  There is no repealing the law to
thermaldynamic.  It proves it.  Efficency is not 100%.  Conducters of power
are also heat radiaters but total heat is reduced while total power is
maintained in verious forms.  It's the same process as steem generation of
electricity in a different form.  Body heat into electricity.  There is
waste throughout the system but it does reduce RADIATED heat which it the
goal.  Just as insulation does not decrease total energy it increases time
of change and decreases radiation at any given instant. 
 You're are over simplefyng the model.  Remember that molecular motion is
included in the model and can be used for work.  If this is engored quite a
few of the physical laws start to appear to break down.  If you egnore the
light emited, then a incadesent light bulb breaks thermaldynamics.  Power
takes many forms not all of them are readily apparent.

Charles L.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 14:47:26 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics (Was:Piracy))

>I am sorry...I have held my tongue as long as I can.  I have to wonder:  Do I
>live on the same world as you do???  This is clearly, patently, blatently in
>error.
>
>DustyLV769@aol.com
>

Read up a little on juction excitation.  As in thermal couples.  It's a well
known and docmented present day technology.  If the above were true then how
do you explain solar cells?  The device I am discribing is in effect a IR
tuned solar cell.  Again this does not break either consevation of energy or
thermaldynamics any more than solar cells do.  They convert one type of
energy into another type of energy at less than 100% efficency.  Power does
not come from nowhere nor does it go into nowhere.  I work with heat
recovery systems regularly, are you trying to tell me they to are imposible?
I did not ever say that the system way 100% effecient but with a difference
of 200-300k power out will be significant and heat radiated will be reduced
as system heat is reused to product elctricity that will then not have to be
drawn from batteries that then will not release heat.  The system will
quickly balence at some level of reduced demand from the batteries and total
heat signature will be decreased due to increased total efficency.  It will
not reach 0 but the reduction in radiation will make the ship's hull less warm.

Where do you see a problem?  I do not fathom it.  These devices exist today.
Power output and efficency (about 14% is bleeding edge for solar last I
read) are low just like solar cells but are improving (solar cells are
begining to include a similar technology in their newest designs to get more
power by using more of the light spectrum).

I design heat recovery system controls.  They cut power use in steam
generation.  They do not reduce it to zero.  Savings can be on the order of
20% in winter and 10-12% in summer.  Are you telling me that a 20%+
reduction in power use will not decrease heat signature?  Are you trying to
tell me that a heat gradiant or 300k is not enough to do usefull work?  I
work with a far smaller gradiant of about 80-100k.  If nothing else use the
heat to boil a gas like nitrogen or hydrogen to power a turbine to produce
power.  This would make a good single stage of heat recovery system for our
stealth ship.  Use the space between the hulls as you LHY tank an use the
pressure from heating to power that generater.  This reduces the power
needed to be drawn from batteries reduceing waste heat from the batteries.
Two or three layers of recovery will increase efficency dramatically which
will reduce total power use and signature plus slow the speed at which the
outer hull has to dump heat.

I do this for a living people.  Heat does not come from nowhere.  It is a
waste product of power used for doing work.  Reduce power use, increase
efficency, and you reduce waste heat.  A simple simi-closed system.  You
still have to draw power from the batteries to counter system losses but
those losses are less and those losses are your signature.  Lower loss=lower
signature.

Charles L.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 14:47:29 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Finding Ships in the Oort Cloud

At 09:42 PM 10/21/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Bruce Allan MacIntosh wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
>(By the way, if anyone cares, the closest you can see this scout with your
>naked eye is about 6000 km (as a 6th magnitude star.))
>
>

So it would be easily visible in orbit?  Or would atmospheric condition make
that range much shorter from earth?  This could make for some interesting
intel gathering ability on the competion with the aid of a small telescope.

Charles L.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:49:36 -0500
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: Piracy

>>>The reserve fleets will be next to useless for anti piracy as they are
>>>manned by reservists and thus spend most of their time in orbit around
>>>the high tech, high population worlds in the subsector they are assigned.
>>
>>This is a totally unwarranted assumption. Nowhere in the rules do I find
>>any support for the idea that the colonial fleets and the system defense
>>forces are not trained to the same standard as the regular navy. [...]
>
>FSotSI pg 6 [...]

[snip of references]

>I believe this implies that reserve and colonial units are not as well
>equipped or trained as Regular fleets.

"Not as well equipped or trained" does not mean "next to useless for anti
piracy." If the difference is TL 14 BBs v. TL 15 BBs (or cruisers, or
whatever), then I would say that the Colonial fleets are more than adequate
to deal with pirates. After all, Defense CruRon Regina (the SDB example in
_FSSI_) is a *CruRon*.

Nor are reservist or colonial units necessarily incompetent, which is what
the first statement above implies. They are simply not front-line units.
"Somewhat less training and experience" could be Gunnery 3 instead of
Gunnery 4, for example.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:49:34 -0500
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

>>That would be one possible interpretation if it wasn't for the fact
>that
>>_Rebellion_ also says that fleets range from 50 to 200 ships. With a
>lower
>>bound of 50 ships it is kinda difficult to get an average of 31.25...
>
>the 50-200 ship numbers do not specify if this is combatant only or
>non-combatants and combatants.  I would say this is both combatants and
>non-combatants, thus the average 31.25 combatants per fleet would be a
>good number.


I thought this too at first, and was about to respond "Well Hans, that
could be 30 combatants and 20-170 auxiliaries."

However, since the 50-200 number was talking about squadrons within the
subsector fleets (the latter of which they defined as part of the
1,000-ship combatant sector fleet), it is reasonable to assume that this
number includes combatants only.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 08:14:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brannon Boren <brannonb@animal.blarg.net>
Subject: Re: Star Gypsies

On Wed, 21 Oct 1998, Peter Newman wrote:

> > Which was the _real_ driving force behind the invention of low
> > berths....
> 
> You do realize that while in low berths your children will not age. 
> Therefore you will not be able to get rid of them for a longer period of
> time.

We discussed this extensively in our MP game under the title of
"Kiddie-Cryo" but decided a far better option was "Virtual Boarding
School"  ;)

Ben

PS: Actually I have three kids, and don't even own a television, so we've
become rather good at helping our children find interesting ways to spend
their time not slaved to a device for entertainment. It is sometimes a
challenge, but definitely worth it.


ObTrav: What is the tech level of a planet which has access to high-tech
items, but shuns some of them for cultural reasons, or is committed to
keeping technology hidden behind a more 'natural' facade. For instance,
maybe jets are used to get from city to city, but for short journeys
everyday people use horses and wagons...

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:57:13 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Finding ships (now attacking fleet...)

 
> > Cool. The problem is time frame. It means that a fleet that jumps in
> > will likely come and go (and have arrived to attack :-) in about
> > half the typical detection time.
> >
> Two problems with that scenario:
> 
> 1) How do you jump _in_ at the Oort Cloud? That's so far beyond the 100
> dia limit it's not funny, like jumping into an empty hex. Can this be done?
 

I think you can, as long as it's outside 100D.
IMTU, YMMV :-)

> 2) If you're attacking, you _still_ gotta come in on maneuver drive,
> which will take a long time, and get you noticed when you get in closer,
> probably right about at the limits where you'ld be pegged jumping
> normally in-system, so detection time won't necessarily be halved.

You'd jump from there into the system. Say you have to do a J4 to
get to a certain system to attack. Do a J4 to their oort cloud, but
with tankers that can mine for fuel (the tankers are stretched out
for fuel, too, in this case). Refuel all the ships. Do a J1 into the
main part of the system. Attack, etc.

If the attack succeeds the tankers come in (a courier is sent to
bring 'em in system since the light lag is longer than a jump). If
the attack is failing, the ships still have plenty of fuel to jump
back out to the tankers, who can top 'em off for the J4 to friendly
space.

- -Merrick

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:06:21 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)

At 03:47 PM 10/21/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>>I became interested in the question of whether or not it would even
>>be possible to detect a small ship in some part of the oort cloud.
>
>Increasing sensitivity by 0.5 takes about a day worth of scanning and is
probably
>the limit for a target that can accelerate. You can also use single-arc
>scanning to get a +0.5, and put your sensor out in the outer part of the
>solar system to get it away from zodiacal dust (although then you need 
>two sensors...) All of this gives a big top-of-the-line military array 
>about a 17.5 sensitivity. That lets it see the prototypical scout target

This sensitivity number, what are the units? lumins?  Color temp?  Or is it
a gaming number from the sensor rules?  I've seen it now several times and
have yet to see a units notation.

>(signature 0) out to a range of 17.5, or 10,000 AU (well into the Oort cloud). 
>That's taking two weeks to scan the whole sky (twelve arcs at one day per 
>arc roughly), and an Impossible task for each detection (maybe a 10% chance of
>success for a really good operator), so it would probably take a month or 
>two to really find the scout, at a cost of MCr 500,000 for the system.

Pricey!  Wonder what the resale value of that would be for a pirate...

Why steal a shutle with 2 250,000Mcr satalites just waiting to be grabed?
Or are they stations?  Crew rotation would take a jump capable ship for a
station but it's doable.  Say a 3 month on, 3 month off duty schedule with
one full spare crew to fill in for sickness or injury.

Not a bad idea.

>If the scout was well-masked and running at low power, you could only see it 
>out to 100 AU or so. (Add a difficulty level for "surprise" and the 
>detection range comes in by a factor of 3...)
>
>Bruce
>

Charles L.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:07:20 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics

 
> >Not unless they repealed the laws of thermodynamics while my back was
> >turned. 
> 
> thermaldynamic.  It proves it.  Efficency is not 100%.  Conducters of power
> are also heat radiaters but total heat is reduced while total power is
> maintained in verious forms.  It's the same process as steem generation of
> electricity in a different form.  Body heat into electricity.  There is
> waste throughout the system but it does reduce RADIATED heat which it the
> goal.  Just as insulation does not decrease total energy it increases time
> of change and decreases radiation at any given instant. 

This makes no sense. The ship is using 20MW, rejecting 80MW. That
means that all the wires and devices are (on average)20% efficient
(some more, some less as you'd expect). You throw in a thermocouple
to get more electricity--but the assumption is that the whol;e ship
is already at room temperature. So *any* heat added to the system
(resistance in the wires, right?) brings the ship's temp up. Soon
room temp in the scout is 25C, then 30... The 80 MW has to be
radiated, even if you use it all first all 100MW of power must leave
the ship. All the time. You luck out if the majority of power use is
drives/weapons since they both project power out of the ship.
Anything that doesn't do this need to be radiated, regardless of
what you do with it for the short term (and meanwhile, the drive is
still pumping out 100MJ/s.

Basically, the radiated power is equal to the generated power,
period. Some radiates through the hull. Some from the actual
radiators, and some from devices that actually get rid of power
(drives, lasers, PAWs, etc.).

> few of the physical laws start to appear to break down.  If you egnore the
> light emited, then a incadesent light bulb breaks thermaldynamics.  Power
> takes many forms not all of them are readily apparent.

POwer generated must be radiated. Period. The problem in traveller
is that there is way too much power. There is a ton of handwaving
just to radiate all that is now.

- -Merrick

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:10:41 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re : TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch

>Oooops. Total price is actually KCr 1345 - call it a round KCr 1350.
>It's still pretty cheap for a Ships Boat or Customs Cutter.

Very amusing.

It probably needs a different name than "cutter" or "launch" (which I tend
to associate with things capable of longer indepndent operations - this
only has 16 G-hours of fuel, so it's incapable of interplanetary ops).
And I'd put in a contra-grav so you can land it without setting fire to 
plants. Maybe "barge" or "skiff" is the right word.

Pity it got slightly too big to fit in the launch tubes...

Bruce

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:19:39 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 

>Bruce, I know this is a big favour, but could you crunch the numbers to
>provide guidelines about how many visits a base could have before it was
>probably detected? I suppose variables would be TL/size/wealth of
>detecting navy, and signature of pirate base/ships. We'll also need a
>reasonable assumption for the energy/frequency bandwidth of the jump flash.

I think I lack the time to explore all of the parameter space involved...
although I could try and do one case. You don't even really need me, though;
the rules are all in the DSR. A couple of issues to keep in mind...

- -the base itself, since it's attached to a Big Honking Hunk of Ice, is probably
pretty much undetectable (it gets all the bonuses for landed and camoflaged,
etc) unless it has gigawatts of power coming out (which it shouldn't)

- -the pirate ships will take a while to rendezvous with the base (since
thrusters don't work well out in the Oort cloud) unless they have HEPlaR 
aux engines (which would be surprisingly easy to detect), so the pirates
probably do have to spend a day or two at full power to do the rendezvous (opr
even a week, if thrusters work at 1/100 or 1/1000 that far out.) 

- -no-one has ever really defined for me how bright a "jump flash" is, or what
wavelengths it comes out at, which is why they aren't in the rules. I don't
like jump flashes that much myself - ships are easy enough to see as it is,
and I would like spies to be able to jump in and out without being instantly
detected . . . but if someone gives me numbers I can put them in. 

>Actually, long-term sensor use (strategic sensors?) woul make a nice
>addition to the Definative Sensor Rules.
A week's worth of searching adds about +1 (+0.5 for one-day scans, +0.5 
because you scan only 30 degree arcs.) (Oops - make that two weeks.) 
For simplicitly, you could instead assume that the sensor detects everyting
out to (sensitivity+signature)=0.0 with no modifiers if you don't want to have
to roll...

Bruce

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 11:23:00 -0500
From: "Smart, David J (David)" <David.Smart@ons.octel.com>
Subject: Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB

Steven Hudson posted:
>
>>Subject: Re: various piracy bits 
>...
>>>   I have to comment that this only makes sense if the system has _lots_
of
>>> SDB's - rational economy would likely have diversified ships for this.
>>
>>I dunno.  Seems to me a SDB makes a fairly decent multimission boat if you

>>design it right.
>
>  If budget constraints aren't an issue; if debates are going to revolve
>about security/control vessels always being in too limited availability
>then omni-purpose SDB's are a gift to pirates. Just for fun then we can
>consider some ways of completing the fitting out of a "Rabid Poodle" class
>1000 Dt SDB:
>
>  160 tons unused goes to +40 fuel (for lack of anything else to do with
it),
>20 ton magazine (250+ m^3 of missiles for three turrets!, 78 tons for
internal
>bays for a half-dozen 10 ton inspection boats or fighters*, 12 tons for a
bay
>for six troops (why? - fold up the bunks and it's a rec-room/pool hall!).
>
>  * - intended for warfighting only to allow fighters to piggyback away
from
>the world if an enemy fleet takes control of the mainworld zone.
>
>  FWIW, a couple of boat bays should provide a sufficient Volume to play
>Grav-Ball in. IIRC, there's still 10 tons unused, too - perhaps there's
>a basis for the Mk. Ib "Leaping Chihuahua" variant?

I can just see it now; the boat approaches the pirate ship and is queried
by the ship's security officer with a password to ensure the victim's
crew didn't take the ship's boat and are trying to board:

Security Officer:  "Leaping Chihuahua, ID check: 'Yo quiero...'"

Ship's Boat:  "'Taco Bell'"

Security Officer: "Prepare for docking.."

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:19:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: mass-based jump limits

Peter L.S. Trevor writes:
> Been there, done that.  :-) I proposed just this idea  last  week
> under  the  heading  "Jumpimg from zero planetary diameters".  If
> you missed it check out

cept you're using gravitational force, not tidal force, and thus wind up with
jump distance proportional to the square root of mass rather than the cube
root.  Using tidal force actually comes close to matching the standard rules..

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:30:08 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: GT Megathrusters

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:47:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: William Prankard <cmdrx@magicnet.net>
Subject: GT Megathrusters

Statistics:
TL-13 Mega Thruster (Powered)
500tons thrust;  5.75t;  6.25Mcr
Includes:
100cf of MegaThruster; 0.75t;  6mcr;   Requires 50Mw Power
200cf of Fusion Plant;  5t;  0.25Mcr
200cf of Power Plant Access Space.
TL-13 Mega Thruster (Unpowered)
2500tons thrust  3.75t 30Mcr 250Mw
**************8

I belive you need to double the access space for long occupancy, and that
you need access space for the thrusters as well. also the thrusters should
be vectored thrust.


*checks*

GT 158 sidebar..longterm access space.
GVe 2ed 14 access space  powered propulsion systems and powerplants (unless
in a pod)
Ve 2ed 41 1.5 weight volume and cost for vectored thrust.
so an unpowered thruster is:
2500 tons  thrust  1 space 3.75t 30MCr  250Mw
that matches exactly....

the regular thrusters (per ton) are
thruster 0.06 cf + 0.12 cf access space
PP 0.4cf + 0.8cf access space
or 1.38ct/ton of thrust gives us 500/1.38=362.31884 or 360 tons/space
stats:
360 tons thrust 1 space 4.14tons 3.06MCr

still quite a respectable boost...

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:46:19 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy question

...
>I've most often ignored the piracy threads (or at best skimmed them for
>anything useful).  This latest round has been no exception (excepting the
>Imperial Fleets subject).  Does anyone hold that piracy is possible in the
>Imperial core, where free traders themselves are implausible?  

  FWIW, I'm far from sure that Free Traders would be implausible in the
Core. Although the majority of trade would be in larger, scheduled ships
there may always be some left-overs in the larger trade volumes, and any
world that doesn't have such a ship leaving every day or two is a good
prospect for picking up some sort of urgent freight, passengers, or a nice
load on spec that the networks won't handle in time due to contracts and
routing. Of course, the further out you go the more such cracks there
should be.

  As for piracy, it's the concept of an on-going career in any region with
detectable trade flows that I'm having trouble explaining credibly - if you
smuggle and cheat at cards but simply wait for the perfect chance (which
may never come) OK, but if you try and take a cargo every month or whatever
then eventually you're going to get nailed - and if you're not doing it far
from the trade nexuses then I don't believe you'll last long either.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:41:15 -0400
From: Joe Pettit <jpettit@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud

>
> -no-one has ever really defined for me how bright a "jump flash" is, or what
> wavelengths it comes out at, which is why they aren't in the rules. I don't
> like jump flashes that much myself - ships are easy enough to see as it is,
> and I would like spies to be able to jump in and out without being instantly
> detected . . . but if someone gives me numbers I can put them in.

Well, the jump flash properties could be features of the individual drives rather
than a law of nature.  Thus you could get "stealth" drives that have virtually no
jump flash, while cheaper drives lack the baffles and enter the system like a
supernova.  One could even presuppose that each ship has its own jump signature.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:39:21 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: The X-mail (was: Current Tech: Shortstop)

Andrew Moffatt-Vallance wrote:
>  
> At the risk of restarting the great encryption debate, I've always assumed that
> the Imperium required all manufacturers of encryption software to put in a
> backdoor so that they can read it.

Well, I guess I can see where YTU falls along the 
evil oppresive regime <> fancy trade organization spectrum...

This does, however, make life far more profitiable for the PC's since
private courier is now the only reasonably secure means of message
transport.

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:59:20 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
>Subject: re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
...
>I did figure that a pirate could probably take only one or two ships
>in an entire year's cruise and make a profit, thus a long transit from
>a law level zero class A or B starport to a chosen hunting area was
>doable. More ships taken on that cruise would simply equal more
>profits, or a faster amortization of the value of the corsair ship.

  I agree that the cash flow is there, although I suspect that the long
term risk from attrition is too high to validate a career. Thus I try
to figure out how they could grab a starship and sell it to retire.

  I'm not sure that I follow the various Law O mentions (including 
someone else's assertion that you build your warships there - although
payment still hasn't been figured out); do low Law level worlds not
enforce Imperial law? Are they exempt from law-suits or criminal
prosecution for aiding and abetting pirates and murderers? If so, then
nukes are presumably available at fairly modest prices there.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:59:15 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: High Guard USP's

>From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
>Subject: Re: Arming Kiloton Freighters: Hippo Provincial Merchant
...
>>                MP-B4212C2-090000-64003-0       MCr 856        2000 tons
>>        batteries bearing   1     11  1                            TL=12
>>                batteries   1     11  1                          Crew=20 
>>        Cargo=1227. Fuel=440. EP=40. Agility=1.
>
>Could someone please give a quick guide to what all those lovely little
>digits mean? I don't have HG, and haven't seen a copy in nearly 10 years.

  MP = class ("tramp freighter")
   B = size, 2kt
   4 = shape ("close", cheap, partly streamlined)
   2 = Jump #
   1 = M-drive #
   2 = Power #
   C = comp (3fib) [1-9, fib is A-J?]
   2 = crew ("tens")
   armour
   9 = sand (ten triples at +2f for TL 10+)
   repulsors and the three screen types.
   6 = lasers (have to use the spare EP's somehow)
   4 = high energy weaps (two twin plas, +2f for TL 12+)
   PAW, MG
   3 = missiles (two triples, no TL mod)

        Steven Hudson

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1004
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Thursday, October 22 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1005



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud
David Weber fan site - honorpedia
Re: Capital ships
Re: Capital ships
Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: The Imperial Fleet
Armoured hulls in High Guard
Re: TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch
Correction: Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB
Re:GT Megathrusters
FFW history (was Re: Piracy)
Re: Bearer Bonds (was re: Economics of Piracy)
Re: traveller-request@MPGN.COM
Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 
Mad Dogs: Ib "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: Piracy
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)
Piracy: Cease!
Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Cold gas utility (was Re: Piracy)

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:47:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud

Bruce Alan Macintosh writes:
> -no-one has ever really defined for me how bright a "jump flash" is, or
> what wavelengths it comes out at, which is why they aren't in the rules.
> I don't like jump flashes that much myself - ships are easy enough to see
> as it is, and I would like spies to be able to jump in and out without
> being instantly detected . . . but if someone gives me numbers I can put
> them in. 

True...I think I made the assumption that the jump flash is equal in brightness
to the amount of energy required to go into jump (one hour * power input of
jump drive).  Of course, given 20 minute turns that's really not all that
visible, though one might assume that stealthing doesn't apply to it.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 11:55:49 -0500 (CDT)
From: Cormac Russell <retch@io.com>
Subject: David Weber fan site - honorpedia

http://www.movie-trailers.com/weber/

Also check ethe book appendices as they often have fairly detailed info
(at least the earlier ones)
Just finished Echoes of Honor last night. Was in tears at the end (ok, so
it is easy to emotionally manipulate me).

Tonight I'm sitting down with my Gurps Traveller book, and Vehicles, and
trying to figure out how to build the books from the HH universe in
that... :) whee!
   RTG OUT!
..-. -. --- .-. -.. ..-. -. --- .-. -.. ..-. -. --- .-. -.. ..-. -. --- .-. -..
Retch The Grate aka Cormac Russell    Amiga, The Computer for The Creative Mind
Tolerance, Peace and Love  rcormac@occs.cs.oberlin.edu retch@io.com  //   /\
Vote Discordian Play Traces Of Reality crussell@gtinteractive.com  \X/   /()\
URL: http://cs.oberlin.edu/students/rcormac/frontdoor.html         B5 <*> B5   

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:59:28 +0100
From: Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Capital ships

Fred and Evelyn Wolke wrote:

>>He he he. This takes `we hide with pride' to a whole new level. To
>>invade a world with deep meson sites is bad enough; to invade one where
>>they move around...
>
>Remember that those deep meson sites need targeting data, and those pretty
>much have to be on or near the surface.  I think a heavily-stealthed
>submarine devoted to sensor work would be useful for a TL15 wet navy.

Well, using TL 9 technology, I'll lay a fiber-O grid across the ocean
floor; and splice it up with sonar commo transducers. The ends go ashore
to a highly dispersed detection array (made up of mobile & fixed/hidden)
sensors.

Targetting info comes from the array, into the fiber-o grid and then by
gertrude to the subs. The subs are passive at all times.

Aetherem Vincere
Matt
- -- 
Matt Clonfero: Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk    | To err is human, To forgive
My employer and I have a deal - I don't speak | is not Air Force Policy.
for them, and they don't speak for me.        |   -- Anon, ETPS.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:13:31 +0100
From: Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Capital ships

jim clem wrote:

>>He he he. This takes `we hide with pride' to a whole new level. To
>>invade a world with deep meson sites is bad enough; to invade one where
>>they move around...
>
>Remember that those deep meson sites need targeting data, and those 
>pretty
>much have to be on or near the surface.  I think a heavily-stealthed
>submarine devoted to sensor work would be useful for a TL15 wet navy.
>=====================
>
>A great idea.  Anyone out there know, would ELF transmissions be 
>sufficient to pass along targetting data?  I don't know.

In a word, no. As I suggested in an earlier message, use a seafloor grid
of communications stations if you want offboard targetting - or, as
another list memeber suggested - tow a buoy with a targetting system on
it.

Aetherem Vincere
Matt
- -- 
Matt Clonfero: Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk    | To err is human, To forgive
My employer and I have a deal - I don't speak | is not Air Force Policy.
for them, and they don't speak for me.        |   -- Anon, ETPS.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:46:34 +0100
From: Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

Charles Prevatte wrote:

>>>CVN-72 USS Abraham Lincloln, commissioned 11/11/89
>>>CVN-73 USS George Washington, commissioned 7/4/92
>>>CVN-74 USS John C. Stennis, commissioned 12/9/95
>>>CVN-75 USS Harry S. Truman, commissioned 7/25/98
>>>
>>>and CVN-76 USS Ronald Reagan is currently under construction
>>>
>
>Are these Nimiz class?  That was all the Popular Mechanic's artical was on
>and I ment 'new' as in new design.

Improved-Nimitz Class.

>>>And more are on the way.  Authorization was recently granted for the CVX
>>>with a combat airwing of about 75 AC.
>
>I think this is the experamental one of platform that the PM artical was on.
>It's supose to be something else with new and modern catapults, engines, and
>new defesive systems.

CVX as a revolutionary platform has been canned. Instead, the USN is
going for an evolutionary design. Why? It's cheaper.

ObTrav: Note that the biggest proportion of ships in FSSI are
evolutionary designs.

Aetherem Vincere
Matt
- -- 
Matt Clonfero: Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk    | To err is human, To forgive
My employer and I have a deal - I don't speak | is not Air Force Policy.
for them, and they don't speak for me.        |   -- Anon, ETPS.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:20:52 -0400
From: Kurt Feltenberger <kurt@blazenet.net>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

At 07:55 PM 10/21/98 +0000, you wrote:
>At 02:05 PM 10/20/98 -0700, you wrote:
<<SNIP>>
>>>and CVN-76 USS Ronald Reagan is currently under construction
>>>
>
>Are these Nimiz class?  That was all the Popular Mechanic's artical was on
>and I ment 'new' as in new design.

Similar in design, but larger and displacing a bit more.  They are the
"Improved" Nimitz class.



Kurt Feltenberger

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a
habit.
- --- Aristotle ---

mailto:kurt@blazenet.net

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:44:52 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Armoured hulls in High Guard

  Has anyone ever figured out why armoured hulls use the cost formula
of [MCr 0.3 (+ 0.1 per armour factor) per ton] in High Guard? I can
see the explanation that it's different materials and engineering work
in upgrading the whole structure (somewhat like compartmentalization
in GURPS: Space, IIRC), but the toughest armour materials at TL 8-F
don't cost anything like that much, and I don't know of other armoured
hull design sequences that use that thinking.

  It's the high armour factors that kills - I think that HG is the only
one that costs it like that.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:45:00 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch

>From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
>Subject: TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch
...
>OK. Here goes. Missile first, then we demonstrate how to modify it into a
>customs launch ('Get one auditor. Dice finely. Jam into warhead space').

  Bad news, sir - the IN doesn't procure from architects suspected of
massive substance abuse*.

  *except FS, I suppose, but that's probably just from sheer terror.

...
>OK. So we need to turn this into a Customs Launch. We have, IMO, up to 30
>tons of mass to play with, and plenty of armour.
>
>Inflate the beach ball shape to be 6 dtons (84 m3).

  I was waiting for an inspection boat this small to be designed - if
you can do 6 or 8 ton fighters I don't see why not, for short hauls.
Admittedly, for SDB basing you might as well build bigger, more capable
units as the crew quarter requirement on the mother ship adds up a bit
too fast for economy's sake.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:44:56 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Correction: Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB

>Subject: Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB 
...
>>   160 tons unused goes to +40 fuel (for lack of anything else to do with it),
>> 20 ton magazine (250+ m^3 of missiles for three turrets!, 78 tons for
internal
>> bays for a half-dozen 10 ton inspection boats or fighters*, 12 tons for a bay
>> for six troops (why? - fold up the bunks and it's a rec-room/pool hall!).

  Oops - the small craft don't pay +30% on ships 1000 Dt and under; thus this
leaves another 18t free (6x10x4 grav-pong arcade?).

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:41:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: William Prankard <cmdrx@magicnet.net>
Subject: Re:GT Megathrusters

Addendum to X-TEK News Release re: MegaThrusters

From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com:

>*checks*

>GT 158 sidebar..longterm access space.
>GVe 2ed 14 access space  powered propulsion systems and powerplants
(unless
>in a pod)
>Ve 2ed 41 1.5 weight volume and cost for vectored thrust.
>so an unpowered thruster is:
>2500 tons  thrust  1 space 3.75t 30MCr  250Mw
>that matches exactly....

>the regular thrusters (per ton) are
>thruster 0.06 cf + 0.12 cf access space
>PP 0.4cf + 0.8cf access space
>or 1.38ct/ton of thrust gives us 500/1.38=362.31884 or 360 tons/space
>stats:
>360 tons thrust 1 space 4.14tons 3.06MCr

>still quite a respectable boost...

Looks like I didn't know the bit about vectored thrusters.  I was working
with G:Vehicles and Anthony Jackson's module system, but noticed that the
values were a bit different from those on the chart.  I did notice a
factor 1.5, and wondered what it was.  I corrected my chart accordingly
for weight and price, but not for volume.  Now I know what the problem
was, I didn't RTFM! (smacks forhead).  That's what I get for working late
at night. 

Also I knew about the access space for fusion plants, but not for
thrusters, makes sence I guess.  Looks like rule of thumb is take any
drive or PP and multi by 3 for volume.

I have only one last question, how did you derive the price?  I came out
with 4.5Mcr for the entire powered unit.

if 2500tons thrust =30MCr,  then 1ton thrust = 0.012Mcr
therefore 360tons thrust = 4.32Mcr
36Mw Power  = 0.18Mcr (36,000*0.2*25)
total=4.5Mcr 

Thanks for the quick audit work.  Now I can finish my quick and easy
thruster chart for GT!
Now to work on those lasers for GTL-11 and 13...

\\  // Commander X
 \\//  CEO X-TEK Industries of Deneb, LIC
T E K  Military & Civilan Starship Contractor
 //\\  High Energy Weapons Research
//  \\ http://www.magicnet.net/~cmdrx/xtek/xtek.htm

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 11:10:19 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: FFW history (was Re: Piracy)

>From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
>Subject: Re: Piracy
...
>It would certainly be good for keeping sensor operators sharp, and give
>good practice for chasing commerce raiders. That's a point how good were
>the 3I's anti-commerce efforts in the Frontier Wars - if they were poor
>that could indicate a lack of anti-piracy effort, and conversely if they
>were effective it could show that the IN spends time on anti-piracy duties
>in peacetime.

  Wasn't the failure of the Zho's to stop attrition to raiders behind
their lines in Regina listed in the FFW TNS as a big factor in the
resulting stalemate? If so then Imperial anti-commerce (and anti-sweep)
tactics seem fairly effective, and anti-piracy is much closer to those
function than battle line drill is.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 11:10:25 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Bearer Bonds (was re: Economics of Piracy)

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
...
>It's my thinking that the slow speed of communication between
>financial institutions will create a need for negotiable currency, at
>least to some extent. My original analysis did not include passengers
>carrying bundles of MCr notes with them, though - while I believe that
>no one will want to leave their homeworld without a reserve of ready cash
>on hand, you shouldn't see anyone but a mad eccentric carrying
>luggage full of KiloCredit notes. (Thurston Howell III in space!!!)

  Grabted - it's just that there'll be a cut-off where an individual
carries the balance in non-negotiable instruments; a businessman might
carry Cr 2000 in cash, have a credit transaction for a local bank for 
KCr 100, and a inter-institutional document guaranteeing the down-payment
on the new mining/prospecting spaceship they'll need piggy-backed to
their own (lower-tech?) system. Carrying KCr 500 in bearer bonds is a
disaster if you even lose your luggage*.

  (heh - players are prepared for piracy - but how closely do they watch
their bags in starport bars? :> )

  I'm not touching the banking bit except to say that luckily most
Imperials never leave their home systems, and that presumably the
banks computers will be capable enough to deal with most of the mess.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 14:26:29 +0200
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <greimann@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: traveller-request@MPGN.COM

<html>
At 15:56 22.10.98 -0500, you wrote: <br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite cite>Dear Sir, <br>
pls Unsubscribe kunal@discoveryindia.com from your mailing List <br>
At 06:18 PM 10/21/98 -0400, you wrote: <br>
&gt; <br>
&gt;Traveller-digest Wednesday, October 21 1998 Volume 1998 :
Number 996&nbsp; <br>
</blockquote>Goes the Pepperpot:<br>
Oooooh, ahhhhhh, well I Never!<br>
<br>
or:<br>
Lets go to the stoning!<br>
<BR>
<div>Volker</div>
<div>---</div>
Volker A. Greimann, greimann@geocities.com
</html>

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 11:23:28 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 

>From: "Joseph R. Dietrich" <yikes@evansville.net>
>Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 
...
>I sure wished they could have come up with a better way than Virus to end it
...
>collapse. Replace vampire ships with ruthless TED raider fleets, and
>thereyago.

  Me Too.

>Hated HEPLARs though ...

  Is there really much difference in practice between a HEPLAR and
CT-era "thruster" equipped ship? It was fairly rare for most ships
to try near-light cruises, and missiles (and small craft in Mayday)
already had burn limits.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 11:55:41 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Mad Dogs: Ib "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV

Mk. Ib "Leaping Chihuahua" variant?
...
  Please keep in mind that TL 12 designs are not SOTA (well, except in
M:0, but they haven't invented HG yet); cost is actually substantially
_reduced_ (MCr 240 before filling the 80t) if the power plant is TL 13.

                SN-A1168F2-C50000-64003-0       MCr 1516.37      1000 tons
        batteries bearing   1     11  1                            TL=12
                batteries   1     11  1                          Crew=20 
        Cargo=*. Fuel=120. EP=80. Agility=6.

  The engineering staff has been gratuitously augmented so that they can
play bridge even when one of them is racked out. There's now more for the
bridge crew to do, at least...  Under TCS the ship can lie doggo, using 10
Dt of power plant fuel per month (or nil under G:T).

  There's also a ten ton mag for the reduced missile load, 60 tons for
internal bays for a half-dozen 10 ton small craft, 12 tons for a bay for
six troops or small craft pilots (/rec-room/pool hall), and a 15 ton bay
for stores or vehicles (plus the nice man from Merlin shipyards says that
if we can configure it properly they'll send us brochures on interchangeable
quarters modules for additional missions).

  Ideally the ship is equipped with hundred ton drop tanks for proper
strategic operations, although internal tankage can be used.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:48:03 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 04:10 PM 10/21/98 -0600, you wrote:
>BTW, the sun would be around 10^-9 W/m^2 at 10ly--sun-like stars are
>visible much farther than this, and so the power/area would drop as
>a square law.
>

Actually that's a fairly high energy density.  More than FM radio signals
that your car radio can pick up if it's any good.  The sun has a huge power
output in the visible light spectrum but even those power levels drop below
the threshold of detectability.  There are stars we know exist that our eyes
can't see.  They are below the thresshold of our eyes detectablity and no
matter how long you look at them, you will not see them.  That is what I
mean.  You proved my point for me.  Thanks.

Charles L.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:48:00 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 03:33 PM 10/21/98 -0600, you wrote:
> 
>> >Ships in traveller are *bright*. In terms of _detection_ (very
>> 
>> Where is the canon for this?  What is the energy source that make them
>> bright?  What is thier energyu density and how do you know that it is above
>> the treshold of detectability at 1 LY?  The ship would have to be blazingly
>> bright in the light part of the spectrum.
> 
>MT and on a Scout-like ship rejects more than 100MW of power.
>
>> Where is the canon that says that you cam pick out a scout in the ort cloud
>> that you did not know was there?
> 
>150MW is a bright source.
>

A scouts surface area can not radiate that kind of power.  The ship would
melt!  Space is the untimate vacume bottle.  Radiation is the only way to
get rid of heat and it is the worst way.  There is a limit to how much a
given area can radiate.  150MW would liquify tons of steel! or boil milions
of gallons of water.  Get real!  it take less than 100watts hours to boil a
gallon of water in 20 minutes.  Look at your electric bill for a month.

>> If it is above the threshold of detection.  Numbers please?
> 
>Intergrate long enough. Bruce's sensor numbers (signatures in this
>case) simply apply magnitudes to hulls radiating--I beleive the
>baseline was 1 100dton sphere, but I could be wrong.
>

If the signal is less than the threshold of detection of a singal element of
the array no amount of intergration with improve the signal because it was
not detected.  Real world collides with theory.  Real world wins.  Sensor
threshold is a basic fact of applies science.

>> >only way it takes more time to scan is if you decide to integrate
>> >longer to see fainter sources. I could be wrong, but I'd likely scan
>> >at the integration time needed for 100D defense, and add the frames
>> >together to look for indications of fainter sources out in the void.
>> 
>> a ship scan for 100 dia could not resolve a ship at .5 light years.
> 
>Huh? A ship scan that does the whole sky one or two times in a half
>an hour, that can _just_ detect a 100dton ship obviously won't
>detect the same ship in the same amount of time at 0.5ly. If the
>same sensor integrates for longer periods of time (or adds scanns
>together over time, same thing) it can see fainter objects at the
>same distance, or the same object farther away.
>

See threshold comment above.

>> >If I saw something in an added frame set that wasn't in the normal
>> >scan, I'd know it was fainter. I could then dedicate a tighter scan
>> >at higher resolution and longer integration time on that specific
>> >area to get more data.
>> 
>> This might apply at 100 dias.
> 
>HUh? it always applys. Intergrate long, see fainter. Period.
>

Not if the signal is less the the sensors threshold.  Period comma
exclamation point.  Like your radio, if the signal is to faint you can'y
pick it up no matter how much to amplify.  The weak signal can't get through
the front end to get to the amplifier.

>> I could not include the zeros after the decimal to express the veiwing angle
>> of a 100 meter ship at 1 ly in this post.  All the computer in the world
>> could not hold the data if one binary bit represented every 100 square
>> meters of surface area in a 1 LY shell.
> 
>IT DOESN"T NEED TO. Stars are typically point sources (distant ones,
>certainly). You don't need to resolve a target to detect it. The
>sensor operator would simply see a bright point, and have a rough
>idea of where it is (somewhere within the arc reprented by the
>pixel). He would also have spectroscopic data, and after a while, it
>might even move on the sky.
>
>>.5 to 1 year!  You'd never find a moving ship.  You saw were it was a year
ago!
> 
>That doesn't mean you don't know that it _was_ there. A fusion
>rocket ship breaking into the system at 1ly would be visible now I'd
>wager.
>

You might have enough energy density there, yes.

>> and exactly how bright is that, in lummins please?  I'd love to run the
>> energy densities at the reciever on this.  I dought you could detect a 1 meg
>> atomic blast at 1 light year in the light spectrum!
>
>I'll work it out when I'm back at home. 150MW isotropically radiated.
>That's 1.34E-25 w/m^2 at 1ly or so.

First figure out the surface area needed to radiate that 150MW contineious
heat output into space and the temperture of the radiater.  Cooked crew!
Remember to include that parralel radiater will loose efficency due to
absorbion of some of their neighbors energy.

A scout ship could not radiate 1MW with a living crew.

Charles L.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:47:57 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy

At 12:17 AM 10/22/98 -0700, you wrote:
>>>  They also go right through the primary defense/detection zone, and they
>>>will be going far too fast for gravity to decelerate them much. I doubt
>>>that aerobraking will be practical.
>>
>>That's why you run in cold and choose your velocity so that after your
>>gravity braking you can quickly match velocity with the outgoing trafic.
>...
>>you dock with the target.  A touch of cold gas manuvering and a gravity well
>>and you can hit any spot on the 100 dia. shell you want on the way out and
>...
>
>  I think (I'll try to work it out eventually) that you're really over-
>estimating the utility of a cold gas thruster. In any case, you're
>assuming that you can go in close enough for gravity braking to do
>lots of good - and in fact drift right past the planet - and no one
>can possibly detect you with any sort of sensor? Is that reasonable,
>and if so under what rules?
>

The habitable planet, no you'd be spoted if you got to close.  The gas
giant, a moon, or the star yes.  And you do not have to get close to use the
planets or other bodies gravity field for help in stearing.  A little change
makes a bit difference over 1 ls.  I'm not saying it's easy or simple I'm
saying it's an option and a posiblity.

I'm fishing for a way to get canon pirates back into logical posibility.
The pirates definately need a few breaks on the mail list.  They are taking
a terible beating from fleets of IN to .5Gcr sensor arrays.  Pour guys are
just trying to may a dishonest living. (grin)

Charles L.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 11:49:44 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)

>>(By the way, if anyone cares, the closest you can see this scout with your
>>naked eye is about 6000 km (as a 6th magnitude star.))
>>
>>
>So it would be easily visible in orbit?  Or would atmospheric condition make
>that range much shorter from earth?  This could make for some interesting
>intel gathering ability on the competion with the aid of a small telescope.

Spaceships in low orbit are indeed easily visible (look at the space shuttle,
which is about the size of a typical scout...) 6th magnitude stars are visible
from a good dark site with good eyes, so you could see even medium-high orbits.

>This sensitivity number, what are the units
They are gaming units from the FFS2/Definitive Sensor Rules. It's a log scale-
basically it's log(range/5km)+6   (the "5km" and "+6" are there for
obscure historical reasons) and the sensitivity gives the range at which you
can detect a "typical" target (a 100-ton 100-MW scout with no special
masking.) Unitless log numbers are much easier to work with than making poor
players multiply and divide in real flux units. The log numbers were
derived, though, from a real model of spacecraft emission and sensor
sensitivity, done in perfectly reasonable physical units like 
photons/m2/angstrom (I've never liked "lumens" much - archaic concept.) 

>>[PEMS-15.5 system]
>>would probably take a month o
>>two to really find the scout, at a cost of MCr 500,000 for the system.
>Pricey!  Wonder what the resale value of that would be for a pirate...>
>Why steal a shutle with 2 250,000Mcr satalites just waiting to be grabed?
>Or are they stations?  Crew rotation would take a jump capable ship for a
>station but it's doable.  Say a 3 month on, 3 month off duty schedule with
>one full spare crew to fill in for sickness or injury.

That was the example for a high-population world. The sensors are on
stations, somewhere at around 10 AU (so you can reach them with 
non-jump-capable ships), and presumably heavily armed and guarded...
the sensor array itself masses 50,000 tonnes and is spread out over a tenth 
of a square kilometer, so it won't fit in most pirate ships. 

I'm restraining myself from getting into the thermodynamic arguments, so I
will ask only: "what happens to the electricity you generate with your
magic thermocouples?" 

Bruce

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 11:49:42 -0700
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Piracy: Cease!

Folks, we go through this every six months.  The TML is now swamped by the
latest incarnation of the Piracy Threads That Would Not Die.  With all
respect to those involved, nothing is ever going to be agreed to, since the
final decision is a matter of persoanl gaming taste.  *Both* sides can make
convincing cases for their sides.

Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?
- --

Douglas E. Berry
Templar Agent at Large.
dberry@hooked.net  
http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/gateway.html 

TravGeekCode: 
tc+ tm+ !tn- t4@ ?tg+ tt@ to(CORPS)++ ru@ $ge++ 3i
ii+ au st+ ls+ pi kk+ so(++) va++ dr+ zh+ sw++ ?da
         

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:47:29 -0500
From: Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

Charles Prevatte wrote:
 
> Read up a little on juction excitation.  As in thermal couples.  It's a well
> known and docmented present day technology.  If the above were true then how
> do you explain solar cells?  The device I am discribing is in effect a IR
> tuned solar cell.  Again this does not break either consevation of energy or
> thermaldynamics any more than solar cells do.  They convert one type of
> energy into another type of energy at less than 100% efficency.  

Ok, your solar cell converts some of photons into electricity and the
rest of them heat the solar cell and the parts around it. The
electricity goes down wires, heating the wires due to resistance, runs
an electric motor heating the parts of the motor, and does work
producing more heat. Now, where does all that heat go?  

> Power does not come from nowhere nor does it go into nowhere.  

Right! It *has* to go somewhere. On earth it is transferred to the
system, the air, ground and water. But the amount of heat energy
transferred to the "system" is *exactly* equal to the energy that
would have enter the system from that stream of photons if it hadn't
intersected with the solar cell. No more, no less.

A space ship doesn't have a planet for a heat sink, every joule it
absorbs or produces has to go somewhere. It either raises the internal
energy (temperature) of the ship, or is radiated into space. The
energy going into the system, from every source, has to balance with
the energy within it or radiated out. So, if you produce internally,
or absorb externally, 100 joules per second then your local system
will either radiate away 100 joules per second or increase in internal
temperature until, eventually, whatever heat sink you have in the
local system is overloaded and the energy radiates away. At no point
will the the energy produced/absorbed not be balanced with the energy
of the system minus any it radiates away.

Even if you use that 100 joules as efficiently as possible you aren't
going to get more work out of it than 100 joules worth. If you do then
you've got a perpetual energy/motion machine, and I want to buy stock!
I'm sure you don't mean that. ;->

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:19:07 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Cold gas utility (was Re: Piracy)

...
>>>One ton at most, 0 power, dirt cheep.  It's compress gas.  You could use
>>>your life suport reserves.
>>
>>  I suspect that this will fall far short of the needed performance envelope.
>>Let's assume that the target has been running at 1-G for an hour or so (d=
>>65kkm, v= 36 kps)./...
...
>>masses 10-20 metric tonnes per displacement ton, and that the ISP of your 
>>specified thrust agent sucks beyond all rational* belief?
...
>The cold gas thruster need only impart a tiny vecter that will build up a
>angle of attack change over 3 ls distance of 1000s of Kms./...

  OK - 400 Dt corsair (although you keep mentioning quite remarkable
vessels) at 10 tons/Dt = 4000 metric tons; 1000 kg of gas at 100 m/s
 - should give your ship a vector change of 2.5 cm/sec.
As 3 ls = 900 kkm, transiting at 36 kps (very low compared to some of your
statements) or 25,000 seconds; 1/40th m/s for that time is _625 meters_?

  Can someone please check that for errors?

...
>As for landing, you'd have to dump your delta v and then you'd be toast!

  Irony - if your ship is so superior to the locals that they can't
spot you wandering right through their air/orbit defense zone then
why not just set yourself up as their god-emperor?

...
>while the pirate already has speed equal to or slightly greater than the
>merchant will have at the 100 dia. shell.  If the pirate is a 6Ger he can
>quickly match up on the out bound leg from 75 dias or better out and still
>have enough V to coast out while looting his prize before the SDB gets to him.

  That's a really special pirate ship - although I can think of one way
to scam it, I haven't seen that approach tried yet. OC, under these
conditions your target selection is sharply limited by your ability to
slow down to grab stuff.

  Hey, this could be a job for Reddnekk Arms! Here, Bubba!

        Bye.
                Steven Hudson

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1005
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Thursday, October 22 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1006



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard
Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 
Re: Bearer Bonds
Re:GT Megathrusters
Re: Finding ships (now attacking fleet...)
Of Thrusters and HEPLAR (was "It Isn't Traveller")
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1003
GT Space Combat
Re: Squadron Sizes of the IN
Sten
Jump
RE: Piracy: Cease!
Re: Piracy: Cease!
Re: Piracy: Cease!
Re: GT Space Combat
[none]
Re HEPlaR
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 
Re: Sten
Re: Sten 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:01:40 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 

At 09:19 22/10/98 -0700, Bruce Alan Macintosh wrote:

>-no-one has ever really defined for me how bright a "jump flash" is, or what
>wavelengths it comes out at, which is why they aren't in the rules. I don't
>like jump flashes that much myself - ships are easy enough to see as it is,
>and I would like spies to be able to jump in and out without being instantly
>detected . . . but if someone gives me numbers I can put them in. 

One thing that I've wondered about, but lack the knowledge to work out is
how much of a gravity wave pulse you'd get from a ship entering or leaving
jump. I assume there must be at least a little because as far as this
universe is concerned the ship simply stops existing, or instanteanously
comes into existence and I can't see how this wouldn't make a fuss. If
nothing else it should be a distinctive siqnature, but how big would it be?

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:07:46 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard

At 10:44 22/10/98 -0700, Steven Hudson wrote:
>  Has anyone ever figured out why armoured hulls use the cost formula
>of [MCr 0.3 (+ 0.1 per armour factor) per ton] in High Guard? I can
>see the explanation that it's different materials and engineering work
>in upgrading the whole structure (somewhat like compartmentalization
>in GURPS: Space, IIRC), but the toughest armour materials at TL 8-F
>don't cost anything like that much, and I don't know of other armoured
>hull design sequences that use that thinking.
>
>  It's the high armour factors that kills - I think that HG is the only
>one that costs it like that.

MT also has very high armour costs at the top end, IIRC.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:11:56 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 

At 11:23 22/10/98 -0700, Steven Hudson wrote:
>>Hated HEPLARs though ...
>
>  Is there really much difference in practice between a HEPLAR and
>CT-era "thruster" equipped ship? It was fairly rare for most ships
>to try near-light cruises, and missiles (and small craft in Mayday)
>already had burn limits.

AFAIK CT didn't say anything much about maneuver drive until HG came along.
The Traveller Book (I don't have the LBBs) says that 10PN (10 times the
powerplant number) is enough fuel to power the powerplant and maneuver
drives for a month. This suggests some sort of reaction drive.

IMO the massive fuel consumption rates are from an attempt to use all this
fuel with the powerplant after having declared that the drives were
reactionless.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:20:01 -0700
From: "Leo Hale" <lhale@panlabs.com>
Subject: Re: Bearer Bonds

     Why not move to a very old and reliable means of transferring money
over long distances, when communication is a problem.  They called them
Letters of Credit and they were used in the past before some guy discovered
the telephone.  It's a promissory note from a Large & Respectable company
that has branches on many worlds.  When presented it is redeemed at the
value listed (i.e. when purchased) and then returned to a branch of the
issuing company. for repayment.  This way someone could carry a decent
amount of money without dedicating his hold as a bank vault.

Leo

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 15:28:39 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re:GT Megathrusters

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:41:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: William Prankard <cmdrx@magicnet.net>
Subject: Re:GT Megathrusters
Addendum to X-TEK News Release re: MegaThrusters
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com:


I have only one last question, how did you derive the price?  I came out
with 4.5Mcr for the entire powered unit.
if 2500tons thrust =30MCr,  then 1ton thrust = 0.012Mcr
therefore 360tons thrust = 4.32Mcr
36Mw Power  = 0.18Mcr (36,000*0.2*25)
total=4.5Mcr
************
Hrmmm...I checked it twice....
<looks at notes>

thrust 360 * 2000 * 0.001 * 4000 * 1.5 / 1,000,000 = 4.32 MCr

Hrm ....Doh

<Smacks self in forhead>

I missed the 1.5 for vectored when doing the price....teach me to design
starships at work :)



Thanks for the quick audit work.
*********
Glad to help

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 14:20:53 -0500
From: Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Finding ships (now attacking fleet...)

Merrick Burkhardt wrote:

> > 1) How do you jump _in_ at the Oort Cloud? That's so far beyond the 100
> > dia limit it's not funny, like jumping into an empty hex. Can this be done?

> I think you can, as long as it's outside 100D.
> IMTU, YMMV :-)
 
> > 2) If you're attacking, you _still_ gotta come in on maneuver drive,
> > which will take a long time, and get you noticed when you get in closer,
> > probably right about at the limits where you'ld be pegged jumping
> > normally in-system, so detection time won't necessarily be halved.

> You'd jump from there into the system. Say you have to do a J4 to
> get to a certain system to attack. Do a J4 to their oort cloud, but
> with tankers that can mine for fuel (the tankers are stretched out
> for fuel, too, in this case). Refuel all the ships. Do a J1 into the
> main part of the system. Attack, etc.

<snip>

Merrick, scenarios like yours are precisely why IMTU ships can only
jump to objects of stellar and near stellar mass. I don't want a fleet
bypassing systems by jumping from oort cloud, to oort cloud, to empty
hex, to oort cloud all the way to their enemy's home system half a
galaxy away, never running the risk of detection or combat as it
moves. Just as I don't want merchant ships jumping from 2 hours away
from a world to the next system's oort, refueling, then jumping to
within 2 hours of that system's main world.

If the places a ship, or fleet, can emerge from jump are limited then
defenses can be set up, traps can be set, choke points can be created,
and battles can be forced. So, I try to make the volume where ships
can jump in large enough to be challenging to the defense/ambusher,
but not *impossible* for them, and small enough to be dangerous for
the attacker/traveller, but not *impossible* for them either.  

IMTU, of course, YYMV.

Eris
Eris

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 14:30:12 -0500
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Of Thrusters and HEPLAR (was "It Isn't Traveller")

>>Hated HEPLARs though ...
>
>  Is there really much difference in practice between a HEPLAR and
>CT-era "thruster" equipped ship? It was fairly rare for most ships
>to try near-light cruises, and missiles (and small craft in Mayday)
>already had burn limits.

Functionally, I don't suppose so there is *too* much of a difference, 'cept
MT reactionless thrusters let you keep going and going and going ...
(weren't CT drives fusion rockets?).

It was really more of a campaign-feel thing for me. Since all my MT games
to date have been Star Wars-style space operas set during the Rebellion (or
Hard Times), I preferred the cozy blue ion glow of thruster plates to the
plasma wash of HEPLAR. (I also hated the bookkeeping of fuel consumption,
I'll admit).

Not that I think thrusters are any more realistic than psionics (except for
electronic psionics via cybernetic implants) ...

P.S. I never understood the notation for missile burn limits, either. They
are not explained in the MT rules.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:36:19 -0700
From: "Leo Hale" <lhale@panlabs.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1003

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:03:54 -0400
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber

Hi all,

Leo Hale wrote:
>
>      Glenn, you might try another series of Webbers' called the
Armageddon
> Inheritance.  Great story telling.  Some very cool alternate answers to
> some of the big questions regarding human civilisation.
>

Actually, I did read the Armageddon Inheritance, liked it,and recycled
it (sold it back) to pick up In Death Ground. Poor deal, maybe I should
try to get it back. It's tough trying to afford the current stuff with
spare change.

I can understand why such great condition used copies are easy to find.
After reading Weber's stuff, only about half is likely to be reread by
me. I'll keep the HR series.

The only SF regularly reread by me is  Piper, Anderson, Niven,
Pournelle, Asimov, Heinlein, Cherryh, Cole and Bunch (in approximate
order of preference).

"Keven R. Pittsinger" wrote:
>
> The 'Sten' series was great, except where it started turning weird toward
the
> end when the new Emperor started flipping out.
>

I actually rather liked that. It was uncomfortable but more interesting
than the "Sten and Kilgour are dispatched to deal with the latest threat
to the Empire" plotline. That's a series I was sorry to see end.

BTW, should I read In Enemy Hands out of order. I've read 1,2,3,4
already. I guess I should say should I stop reading In Enemy Hands now
while I still can. ;-)

Glenn

- ------------------------------
     Glenn I would like to point you towards another series of books that I
enjoyed very much.  The Author is Lizanne Norman and the books are a series
called 'The Sholan Aliance', while the first book is 'Turning Point'. There
are currently four books in the series, but another is on the way (soon I
hope).

Leo

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 15:43:17 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: GT Space Combat

we ran the practice for our PBeM TCS game...here are some conclusions:

ships that are trying to sneak around need at least basic steath and EM.

keep your subcraft on board until the last minute....they just add that
many more sensor contacts, and don't really scout well (unless they are at
least 10-20 hexes ahead of you)

short range missile fire can cause heavy damage.  a 200 dt SDB/CV had a
volley of 8 missiles come at it.  its point defense (1 double turret)
stopped 4 of them.  the other 4 crippled it....and this is with only 3
hexes of relative velocity.

a better way to check for detection is needed, fleets vs fleets means a lot
of rolls....perhaps just a bonus to detect like the rof bonus table would
be a better way......

more later

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 15:53:19 EDT
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Squadron Sizes of the IN

In a message dated 10/22/98 0:56:10 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
TravelrTNE@aol.com writes:

<< > CE (Gazelle)  "Hundreds"
 > CC (Kinunir) 20 built, deployed either individually or in pairs
 > CF (Lightning) 133 built
 
 Supplement 5 is clear that 92 FI's were constructed out of an order of 100.
8
 hull numbers were canceled.  There were only 28 CF's.  Only 15 survived to
 1107.  I see nothing about the number of Lightings in Supp 9. >>

	I used the tail #'s from Supplement 5 as the basis for the number I quoted..I
may have counted the conversions twice (drugs, don't ya know :-)

>      There are specific references to the size of a BatRon in Fighting
Ships:
> Both the Tigress and the Kokirrak-class DN are listed as having a Batron
size
> of 8 DN's.  So here is what I use IMTU...YMMV:

Mmm...  this is a nit, but both those ships have BB as their designation
inside Fighting Ships, Dreadnaught simply referring to the mainline BBs.
 
	Hehehe..a minor nit.  I use the designation DN for a large ship of the line
designed for no other glorious purpose than combat w/ similar vessels.  I see
BBs as a ship class roughly equivilant to the Scharnhorst or Gniesenau in WW2:
heavily armed, fast ships but lacking in the armor of a DN.  Both, however,
would be classified as BatRons in my TU.

> Squadron (CruRon, BatRon):  8 ships

This would ignore the explicit word in Fighting Ships, pg 9 that says CruRons
are 4-8 ships.  BBs would, if anything, average similar or smaller, not
larger.  The examples we have are hardly representative.  The mentions of
those two ships being in squadrons of 8 would fit the optimum (read: maximum)
number, doing all their propaganda justice.  ; )

	I see CruRons as having 8 units at normal strength...this does not mean that
this number can't be augmented as necessary.  In peacetime, however, there are
very few missions that would require a full-strength CruRon, so I see the
cruisers as spending most of there time operating in CruDivs or CruDets (solo
operations are not unheard-of as well).  During wartime, the Fleet Admiral
must balance the need to cover all his areas of responsibilty (splitting his
forces) versus being able to fight and win over an enemy force (concentrating
his force)  This is Hell's Half-Acre:  east of the rock, west of the hard
place!  :-)

<< BatRons are going to be enormously unnecessary in the Imperial core.  Only
on
 the fringes would they be necessary at all, though maybe in numbers out of
 proportion than the imperial core *would* have. >>

My take is that most warship construction takes place in-theater.  You build
your local fleets for the Spinward Marches in the Spinward Marches...not the
Glimmerdrift Reaches, for instance.  I keep meaning to sit down and work on
the numbers of TL15  Type A starports there are in the Marches...although the
Domain level might be a better choice (Comments??).  One potential bottleneck
I see relating to the TCS numbers and the sizes of the fleets they allow is
yard capacity:  Just how many tons can a yard be working on at one time?
Remember, construction is not instantaneous;  if you have a 1Mt yard cap, and
you are building a 1Mt ship, that yard is full for 5+ years.  Overhaul and
refit takes the same capacity as new construction...so that yard is "out of
business" so to speak.

What would be the purpose of a DesRon for the IN?  Destroyers (the Midu
explicitly) are supposed to be ecorts for cruisers and battleships.  Maybe for
small-time flag waving missions to impress inferior TL worlds.  Power
projection, but not actual presence.

	DesRons are almost always split into divisions or detachments. DesRons are
used as screening vessels for a Task Group or Task Force; they also serve as
pickets for systems (I use unrealistically short-range sensors IMTU <G>) A
CruDiv or CruDet usually has at least one DesDiv for it's screen as well.
Destroyers (and this is a generic term for me:  I consider Midu's, P.F.
Sloans, Rapiers, etc as making up DesRons) are the types of vessels that most
commonly are used on solo ops, or in very small groups.  Destroyers usually
carry a small number of troops; they are fast (normally), carry sufficient
firepower to cool down most situations that aren't already out-of -hand
anyway, and are extremely cheap WRT larger vessels (economy of force I believe
is the term)

DustyLV769@aol.com

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 11:47:46 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Sten

>"Keven R. Pittsinger" wrote:
>>
>> The 'Sten' series was great, except where it started turning weird
>>toward the
>> end when the new Emperor started flipping out.
>>
>
>I actually rather liked that. It was uncomfortable but more interesting
>than the "Sten and Kilgour are dispatched to deal with the latest threat
>to the Empire" plotline. That's a series I was sorry to see end.
>
>BTW, should I read In Enemy Hands out of order. I've read 1,2,3,4
>already. I guess I should say should I stop reading In Enemy Hands now
>while I still can. ;-)
>
>Glenn

NO!!! wait to get them in order... there is an overarching political
superplot that runs through volumes 5 and up of the sten series.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 11:53:14 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Jump

>
>1) How do you jump _in_ at the Oort Cloud? That's so far beyond the 100
>dia limit it's not funny, like jumping into an empty hex. Can this be done?

CANON universe doesn't require the 100 diameter limit to exit jump, merely
that you can't exit jump inside that limit, and attempts to do so result in
dropping out at the limit.


>2) If you're attacking, you _still_ gotta come in on maneuver drive,
>which will take a long time, and get you noticed when you get in closer,
>probably right about at the limits where you'ld be pegged jumping
>normally in-system, so detection time won't necessarily be halved.

No, you can micro jump in. In fact from 1000 AU, it is possible for it to
take months to come in (under TNE, it is usually far better to take your
HEPlaR fuel and use it to microjump!).

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:00:42 -0700
From: "Brian Mays" <bmays@genscope.com>
Subject: RE: Piracy: Cease!

>Folks, we go through this every six months.  The TML is now swamped by the
>latest incarnation of the Piracy Threads That Would Not Die.  With all
>respect to those involved, nothing is ever going to be agreed to, since the
>final decision is a matter of persoanl gaming taste.  *Both* sides can make
>convincing cases for their sides.
>
>Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?

Loath as I am to stifle on-topic discussions, I have to agree with Doug
here.  I have set my filter to send any email with the word "piracy"
directly to the Recycle bin.  Needless to say, I'm suddenly getting a LOT
less TML traffic.  Unfortunately, since I'm using MS Outlook, a few messages
still manage to get through.  :)

Barnacle Brian (argh!)

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:02:57 -0700
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Piracy: Cease!

Awwwww.... I was just starting to get involved!  :)

Look at all the fun threads that get spawned off of the piracy debates.
Imperial fleet compositions and disposition, system defense strength and
deployment patterns, industrial capacity, political considerations, etc...

I know the core thread gets kinda repetitive (ok, *very* repetitive!  :),
but the spinoffs are *fun*!  8^D

douglas

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!
- -----Original Message-----
From: dberry@hooked.net <dberry@hooked.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Thursday, October 22, 1998 12:08 PM
Subject: Piracy: Cease!


>Folks, we go through this every six months.  The TML is now swamped by the
>latest incarnation of the Piracy Threads That Would Not Die.  With all
>respect to those involved, nothing is ever going to be agreed to, since the
>final decision is a matter of persoanl gaming taste.  *Both* sides can make
>convincing cases for their sides.
>
>Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?
>--
>
>Douglas E. Berry
>Templar Agent at Large.
>dberry@hooked.net
>http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/gateway.html
>
>TravGeekCode:
>tc+ tm+ !tn- t4@ ?tg+ tt@ to(CORPS)++ ru@ $ge++ 3i
>ii+ au st+ ls+ pi kk+ so(++) va++ dr+ zh+ sw++ ?da
>
>

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:14:59 -0400
From: John Macek <macek@erols.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy: Cease!

dberry@hooked.net wrote:
> 
> Folks, we go through this every six months.  The TML is now swamped by the
> latest incarnation of the Piracy Threads That Would Not Die.  With all
> respect to those involved, nothing is ever going to be agreed to, since the
> final decision is a matter of persoanl gaming taste.  *Both* sides can make
> convincing cases for their sides.
> 
> Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?
> --
> 
> Douglas E. Berry
> Templar Agent at Large.
> dberry@hooked.net
> http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/gateway.html
> 
> TravGeekCode:
> tc+ tm+ !tn- t4@ ?tg+ tt@ to(CORPS)++ ru@ $ge++ 3i
> ii+ au st+ ls+ pi kk+ so(++) va++ dr+ zh+ sw++ ?da
> 

Maybe someone should create a Traveller Piracy mail list....

:?)

John
(who's still trying to get caught up on the piracy thread so he can post
his .02Cr worth)

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:11:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat

Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> we ran the practice for our PBeM TCS game...here are some conclusions:

Since I wasn't there...is there any log of what happened?  

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:05:19 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: [none]

>>It would certainly be good for keeping sensor operators sharp, and give
>>good practice for chasing commerce raiders. That's a point how good were
>>the 3I's anti-commerce efforts in the Frontier Wars - if they were poor
>>that could indicate a lack of anti-piracy effort, and conversely if they
>>were effective it could show that the IN spends time on anti-piracy duties
>>in peacetime.
>
>  Wasn't the failure of the Zho's to stop attrition to raiders behind
>their lines in Regina listed in the FFW TNS as a big factor in the
>resulting stalemate? If so then Imperial anti-commerce (and anti-sweep)
>tactics seem fairly effective, and anti-piracy is much closer to those
>function than battle line drill is.
>
IMTU, that was done by starmercs and priates pressed into imperial service,
often with some desrons to draw off capital ships...

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:13:55 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re HEPlaR

>>Hated HEPLARs though ...
>
>  Is there really much difference in practice between a HEPLAR and
>CT-era "thruster" equipped ship? It was fairly rare for most ships
>to try near-light cruises, and missiles (and small craft in Mayday)
>already had burn limits.

OH YEAH! Heplar burns fuel. CT/MT SHIPS and Small Craft do not use fuel for
maneuver (solely for power). So in CT/MT, as long as the PP holds out, you
can keep thrusting. Under TNE's HEPlar, your heplar fuel was often enough
for an extra jump-1, and only gave you a few HOURS of thust. Since T-plates
were in FF&S WITHOUT THE &%^%^* cutoff, and the TML'ers (back when there
was XML for CT/MT players) "imposed" the cutoff. Since FF&S2 was
essentially TML written by a mostly TNE supporting crowd, it maintained the
imposed limits on thrusters.

A typical heplar ship has about 4-12 hours of thrust, assuming they don't
dip into PP or J fuel. As comepared to an MT design having 28 DAYS of
continuous thrust. Under MT, it is possible to design craft with crews of
10 or so, which can thrust for YEARS (which would get you a mre 99.9% C,
even tho by the accelleration formulae, you'd wind up at supralight speeds;
the formulae do not include relatavistic effects).

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:38:18 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 

>   Has anyone ever figured out why armoured hulls use the cost formula
> of [MCr 0.3 (+ 0.1 per armour factor) per ton] in High Guard? I can
> see the explanation that it's different materials and engineering work
> in upgrading the whole structure (somewhat like compartmentalization
> in GURPS: Space, IIRC), but the toughest armour materials at TL 8-F
> don't cost anything like that much, and I don't know of other armoured
> hull design sequences that use that thinking.

According to the rules, it's not just plated all over the place, it's also the 
improved bracing & such.  And besides, 'worked' metal is *always* more 
expensive than just sheet or ingot metal.  The more you play with it, the more 
it's worth.

>   It's the high armour factors that kills - I think that HG is the only
> one that costs it like that.

When you look at it, yeah, it's expensive, but not compared to egines and 
such.  And the price applies *ONLY* to the armour; my SDB design I posted the 
other day has 80 dt of armour at a cost of 56MCr.  The hull ran 96MCr, and the 
power plant ran 576MCr.  Power plants don't get cheaper (relatively) until you 
hit TL14!

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:52:20 -0400
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: Re: Sten

"William F. Hostman" wrote:
> >BTW, should I read In Enemy Hands out of order. I've read 1,2,3,4
> >already. I guess I should say should I stop reading In Enemy Hands now
> >while I still can. ;-)
> >
> >Glenn
> 
> NO!!! wait to get them in order... there is an overarching political
> superplot that runs through volumes 5 and up of the sten series.
> 

Dear William,

You misunderstood me, I changed the topic back to Honor Harrington. I've
read the first four books of the series and now I have a later book "In
Enemy Hands" #7 or #8. I wanted to know know if I would ruin anything by
charging ahead. 

I've noticed Weber's work usually follows a common arc. Begin with a
scene of the bad guys plotting, follow with cutesy treecat scenes,
receive new orders and begin ramping up the tension for the final
climax.

I just finished cutesy treecats so I can still walk away.

Bye

Glenn

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:50:28 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Sten 

> >"Keven R. Pittsinger" wrote:
> >>
> >> The 'Sten' series was great, except where it started turning weird
> >>toward the
> >> end when the new Emperor started flipping out.
> >>
> >
> >I actually rather liked that. It was uncomfortable but more interesting
> >than the "Sten and Kilgour are dispatched to deal with the latest threat
> >to the Empire" plotline. That's a series I was sorry to see end.
> >
> >BTW, should I read In Enemy Hands out of order. I've read 1,2,3,4
> >already. I guess I should say should I stop reading In Enemy Hands now
> >while I still can. ;-)
> >
> >Glenn
> 
> NO!!! wait to get them in order... there is an overarching political
> superplot that runs through volumes 5 and up of the sten series.

"In Enemy Hands" is Honor Harrington.  The Sten series, in order, are:

   Sten
   The Wolf Worlds
   Court of a Thousand Suns
   Fleet of the Damned
   Revenge of the Damned
   Return of the Emperor
   Vortex
   Empire's End

Keven
(one who was *there* when "Death came quietly to the Row")

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1006
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Thursday, October 22 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1007



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

detectability
Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others 
Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB 
Re: The X-mail (was: Current Tech: Shortstop)
Re: Arming Kiloton Freighters: Hippo Provincial Merchant 
Re: Piracy question
Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Judges Guild
Re: Star Gypsies 
Space Viking (OT)
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1006
Re: Star Gypsies
Re: Re HEPlaR
Re: Piracy Redux
Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: Travellerish Fiction - Piper
Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1005

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:56:12 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: detectability

Charles wrote

>There are stars we know exist that our eyes
>can't see.  They are below the thresshold of our eyes detectablity and no
>matter how long you look at them, you will not see them.  That is what I mean

and

>If the signal is less than the threshold of detection of a singal element of
>the array no amount of intergration with improve the signal because it was
not detected.  Real world collides with theory.  Real world wins.  Sensor
>threshold is a basic fact of applies science.

In the real world that I live in, I have often detected things in long exposures
or multiple images added together that were not detectable in a single or
short exposure. In the real world, because noise is random, as you take 
multiple samples or long exposures the noise goes up only as the square root
of the number of samples or exposure time, while the signal goes up linearly
with the exposure time, so with a good camera - one that isn't limited by
something silly like its analog-to-digital converters - by integrating long
enough you can see fainter and fainter. Your eye can't do this because your
eye doesn't build up  signal with time - it's like a camera always reading
out ten times a second - but better cameras can do this. I've sent Charles a
private email with Actual Numbers which I can copy to anyone who cares; I'll
take the argument about whether longer integrations let you see fainter 
objects to private email and stop bothering all you nice people about it.

Bruce

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:53:25 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others 

> In mail you write:
> 
> > What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H. Beam Piper:
> >
> >       Little Fuzzy
> >       4-Day Planet
> >       Uller Uprising
> >       Space Viking
> 
> 	The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
> 	Fuzzy Sapiens
> 	Fuzzies and Other People
> 	
> 
> > There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the top of my 
> > head.
> 
> More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
> the moment.

'Federation'?  '4-Day Planet' is bundled up with 'Lone Star Planet' in my copy.

> BTW, with regards to the "kobolds" thread elsewhere on the list, I
> think Fuzzies would be a fun race to work up. They *may* be a bit less
> intelligent than humans, but that's not a big handicap. 
> 
> They'd make good scouts, and they'd also probably like engineering.
> They might not understand the *theory*, but they'd be great at doing
> maintenance and repairs. Especially given that they can work
> comfortably in spots a human mechanic would be lucky to *see* into. 

The Fuzzies were *GREAT*.  I saw a writeup of them once for CT a *LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG* time ago in a magazine.  Anybody happen to remember where it was?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:25:34 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB 

> >  FWIW, a couple of boat bays should provide a sufficient Volume to play
> >Grav-Ball in. IIRC, there's still 10 tons unused, too - perhaps there's
> >a basis for the Mk. Ib "Leaping Chihuahua" variant?
> 
> I can just see it now; the boat approaches the pirate ship and is queried
> by the ship's security officer with a password to ensure the victim's
> crew didn't take the ship's boat and are trying to board:
> 
> Security Officer:  "Leaping Chihuahua, ID check: 'Yo quiero...'"
> 
> Ship's Boat:  "'Taco Bell'"
> 
> Security Officer: "Prepare for docking.."

They're lead by this really *SHORT* Vargr wearing a beret, right?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 14:06:40 -0700
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: The X-mail (was: Current Tech: Shortstop)

>>>Obtrav: how closely does the Imperium scan the X-mail?

>>Ohhhh...what an *EVIL* thought.

>>Offhand, I'd say that anything they can decrypt is probably run through a
>>parser looking for 'key' words...

>At the risk of restarting the great encryption debate, I've always assumed
that
>the Imperium required all manufacturers of encryption software to put in a
>backdoor so that they can read it. Theoretically it requires a warrant
signed by
>a Count or better to read private mail; but Imperial Intelligence has been
known
>to play fast and loose on more than one occassion. Of course there's a
thriving
>market in black market encryption, but use of an illegal encryption utility
is an
>Imperial crime (punishable by 5-10 years imprisonment) and just to make
sure
>the IISS random selects mail and runs the decryption key to check. Of
course
>the IISS comms office doesn't read these randomly decrypted messages...


Of course they don't.  That's why an armed tramp freighter can make 25,000
per ton carrying *physical* mail.

douglas

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:12:08 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Arming Kiloton Freighters: Hippo Provincial Merchant 

> At 23:26 21/10/98 -0700, you wrote:
> >
> >                MP-B4212C2-090000-64003-0       MCr 856        2000 tons
> >        batteries bearing   1     11  1                            TL=12
> >                batteries   1     11  1                          Crew=20 
> >        Cargo=1227. Fuel=440. EP=40. Agility=1.
> 
> Could someone please give a quick guide to what all those lovely little
> digits mean? I don't have HG, and haven't seen a copy in nearly 10 years.

MP is the ship type.

First Group, Physical Stuff, in order, left to right:

D - Size code.  D is 2000 dt
4 - Configuration.  4 is Close Structure.
2 - Jump Capacity.  2 is Jump 2.
1 - Manuver Capacity.  1 is 1G thrust.
2 - Power Plant.  2 is Pn2.  Power plant must equal or exceed Jump number or
                             Manuver number, whichever is *higher*.
C - Computer Type.  C is Mod3/fib.
2 - Crew Multiplier.  In exponents. 2 means tens of crew.

Second Group, Defenses, in order, left to right:

0 - Hull Armor Factor.  
9 - Sandcaster Factor.
0 - Meson Screen factor
0 - Nuke Damper Factor
0 - Force Field ('black globe') Factor
0 - Repulsor Factor

Third Group, Offenses, in order, left to right:

6 - Laser Factor
4 - Energy Weapon (fusion & plasma guns) Factor
0 - Particle Accellerator Factor
0 - Meson Gun Factor
3 - Missile Factor

Last digit is Fighter Squadrons.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 14:26:11 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Piracy question

Thu, 22 Oct 1998 03:53:34 EDT, TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Piracy question

>Does anyone hold that piracy is possible in the
>Imperial core, where free traders themselves are implausible?

My understanding it that even in the Imperial Core, most worlds
are low pop worlds.  I don't see piracy or free traders
implausible.

>   Even in the fringes, does anyone hold the existence of any Sunbeards as
>possible?  Even off the X-boat routes, eventually someone is going to get
>tired of you and summon elements of that reserve fleet.

By "Sunbeards" you mean full time pirates operating out of pirate
bases?  That kind of piracy does seem unlikely to me, at least with
the kind of assumptions I use....

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:32:28 -0400
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)

Hi All,

"Keven R. Pittsinger" wrote:
> 'Federation'?  '4-Day Planet' is bundled up with 'Lone Star Planet' in my copy.

Federation is a collection of Piper stories including a variant of Lord
Kalvan which is more conventional science fiction (no time travel).

Empire is another colection of stories published about the same time.
Both were done by Ace in the early 80's.  

Ah hell, here's the whole list AFAIK

Note the ones without a mark I am actively seeking! Nudge, nudge, wink,
wink


The Terran Federation
The Paratime Stories [see Roland Green and John F. Carr]
[2]  Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (1965) [= Gunpowder God]
[X]  Paratime (1981) [C]
[ ]  Four Day Planet (1961) [YA]
[2]  Junkyard Planet (1963) [= The Cosmic Computer](Ace F-274)
[3]  The Space Viking (1963)
The Little Fuzzy Series [see Ardath Mayhar & William Tuning]
[2]    Little Fuzzy (1962)
[X]    The Other Human Race (1964) [= Fuzzy Sapiens][O/2N= The Fuzzy
Papers (1977)]
[X]    Fuzzies and Other People (1984)
[2]  Empire (1981) [C]
[X]  Federation (1981) [C]
[X]  Uller Uprising (1982)
[X]  Four Day Planet and Lone Star Planet (1979) [O/2N= Four Day Planet
+ A Planet f]
[X]  The Worlds of H. Beam Piper (1983) [C]
with Michael Kurland
[X]  First Cycle (1982) [C]
with John J. McGuire
[ ]  Crisis in 2140 (1957)
[ ]  A Planet for Texans (1958)
Non-Genre Fiction
[ ]  Murder in the Gunroom (1953)
Related Titles
Ardath Mayhar
[ ]  Golden Dream: A Fuzzy Odyssey (1982) [Little Fuzzy sequel]
William Tuning
[X]  Fuzzy Bones (1981) [Little Fuzzy sequel]
Roland Green and John F. Carr
[X]  Great King's War (1985) [Lord Kalvan sequel]

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:39:19 -0400
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

Which brings up the question to me, why don't our fighters, heavy or
otherwise have enough firepower to knock out a capitol ship?  Seems to me
that we should have equivalent weapons in the Trav era that are available to
carriers/fighters today.  Anyone play Wing Commander?
Thom Harris

- -----Original Message-----
From: CardSharks@aol.com <CardSharks@aol.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Monday, October 19, 1998 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries


>In a message dated 10/18/98 7:12:06 PM Central Daylight Time,
>Sethkimmel@aol.com writes:
>
><< individual basis the BRs are weaker than a full Battleship. >>
>
>Technically, Riders are trying to be cheap capital ships... The definition of
>Capital ship is a big ship that can kill anything, but can only be killed by
>another capital ship. Everything else better run and hide.
>
>I just saw a piece on WWII capital ships and it said that it was several years
>into WWII before it was clear that airplanes from carriers could kill a
>Capital ship. Then, of course, the whole set of definitions changed, and the
>old terminology became obsolete (though people still used it).
>
>Marc
>

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:53:56 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

On Tue, 20 Oct 1998 13:33:38 -0400, CardSharks@aol.com (Marc
Miller) wrote:

>We have an economic extension for the UWP in Pocket Empires.
>Should we do a cultural extension (about the same number of digits, etc). What
>would that cover?

The question to ask is how the local culture impacts the PCs. 

I'd certainly include an indicator for xenophobia/xenophilia,
which might be used as a "modifier to reaction rolls" on
interpersonal tasks.

Another possibility for an indicator might be
combativeness/conciliatoriness, giving an idea of the likely
reaction to insults, opposition, attitude in negotiation, etc.

I don't know what to call this next one, but it indicates how
seriously they take their religion's commandments/proscriptions.
("What do you mean, I can't get cleared in 'til tomorrow?" "The
portmaster is a Furshluggian, and Furshluggism doesn't permit
commercial activity on Fourday.")


- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:54:29 -0500
From: David Lightfinger <lightfinger@home.com>
Subject: Re: Judges Guild

Leonard Erickson wrote:
> 
> In mail you write:
> 
> > The City-State of the Invinicble Overlord went to Mayfair Games and then
> > from there to TSR. I think Mayfair bought all the Judges Guild copyrights.
> > TSR then sued and settled with Mayfair and all the judges guild AD&D
> > copyrights went to TSR.
> 
> On what *possible* grounds could TSR have sued?
> 

TSR, at the time, had just released the second 'politically correct'
version of the AD&D rules...you know, the ones where demons and devils
were replaced with taanarri, etc.?

Mayfair, assuming they still had the rights to publish AD&D material
(continuing from their Role Aids books for 1st edition) came out with
some supplements: Apocalypse, Demons, Demons II, ArchMagic. 

The Demons and Demons II got TSR into a tizzy, and they sued, pointing
out that the Mayfair license relations was overwith via the production
of 2nd Edition. Mayfair gave in instead of fighting the court battle
with TSR, selling off their AD&D properties to TSR.

City State of the Invincible Overlord was the only Judges Guild property
that I know of that was owned by Mayfair. Matter of fact, I know another
company later reprinted some Judges Guild products. Wish I could
remember who that was.

It was shortly thereafter, btw, that GDW became TSR's target, over
Dangerous Journeys, and thus the demise of GDW began.

- --David

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:02:32 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Star Gypsies 

> ObTrav: What is the tech level of a planet which has access to high-tech
> items, but shuns some of them for cultural reasons, or is committed to
> keeping technology hidden behind a more 'natural' facade. For instance,
> maybe jets are used to get from city to city, but for short journeys
> everyday people use horses and wagons...

Horses & wagons don't work so hot in big cities.  And you'd need at least a 
*couple* big cities to support building stuff like jets, *unless* your tech is 
so high that your factoreis are highly automated.

But anyways, the TL of the planet is the TL of most readily availiable 
devices.  Lifestyle choices wouldn't enter into this.  If they have the 
capacity to build air rafts, who cares what they use to get to work?

I could see a planet where they have high tech and choose to make their 
availiable tech be fairly 'green'.  Local transport would be 'skimmer pads' 
(kind of like a gravitic skateboard, if you can get teh cost down) powered by 
batteries.  Long range transport would be by maglev tunnels.  All industry 
would either be in space or underground.  This planet's technologies would 
*not* be sustainable in event of catastrophe...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 15:07:06 -0700
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Space Viking (OT)

I was reading an afterword in a Jerry Pournelle book (he and Piper were
close) where he mentions that someone had picked up 'Space Viking' and
written a sequel.  Unfortunately, I've never been able to find it.  Does
anyone know anything about it?

douglas

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 15:07:36 -0700
From: "Leo Hale" <lhale@panlabs.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1006

Dear William,

You misunderstood me, I changed the topic back to Honor Harrington. I've
read the first four books of the series and now I have a later book "In
Enemy Hands" #7 or #8. I wanted to know know if I would ruin anything by
charging ahead.

I've noticed Weber's work usually follows a common arc. Begin with a
scene of the bad guys plotting, follow with cutesy treecat scenes,
receive new orders and begin ramping up the tension for the final
climax.

I just finished cutesy treecats so I can still walk away.

Bye

Glenn

*************************************************************************
     You will want to ready the one before that, since it explains what
Honor is doing in a Grayson uniform rather than MRN one.

Leo

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 22:38:59 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Re: Star Gypsies

On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 23:24:14 -0400, Christopher Thrash
<thrash@io.com> wrote:

>Don't know if I've posted this before; apologies to the list if so.  From a
>long-unfinished Contact! article:

May I ask three things of you:

(1) Could you change the name of the group from Romany to
something else (the Terrestrial gypsies are called this, and this
portrayal, no matter how accurate, may be considered offensive),

(2) Do you have any plans for finishing the article,

(3) May I have a copy of the completed article (if it's going to
be completed) for Freelance Traveller?

- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 15:22:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: Re HEPlaR

William F. Hostman writes:
> >>Hated HEPLARs though ...
> >
> >  Is there really much difference in practice between a HEPLAR and
> >CT-era "thruster" equipped ship? It was fairly rare for most ships
> >to try near-light cruises, and missiles (and small craft in Mayday)
> >already had burn limits.
> 
> OH YEAH! Heplar burns fuel. CT/MT SHIPS and Small Craft do not use fuel for
> maneuver (solely for power).
Well, in CT it's reasonable to fudge the ridiculous fuel consumption of the
reactor as including the fuel consumption of systems powered off of it (i.e.
the drives); the result is fairly close to the performance of a total
conversion reaction drive.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:35:53
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Piracy Redux

>From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy
>
>I'm fishing for a way to get canon pirates back into logical posibility.
>The pirates definately need a few breaks on the mail list.  They are taking
>a terible beating from fleets of IN to .5Gcr sensor arrays.  Pour guys are
>just trying to may a dishonest living. (grin)
>

Simple.

Pirates exist in the outsystem, among belters and similar scum.

Their stock in trade is mugging small colonies of belters, and selling the
loot to other belters.

They do not come *anywhere* near mainworlds, as mainworlds have sensors,
customs cutters, fighters, SDBs, traffic control and are listened to when
they complain to the Subsector Admiral.

If a belter colony is at all defended, then pirates dont go near it either,
except maybe as low-paperwork traders.

The corrollory of this is those in the Outsystem have to pay high freight
rates when they do want something. This makes the Outsystem profitable to
trade with, if you are prepared to take the risks (this also neatly
exaplains why planetary develpment in Traveller is overwhelmingly
concentrated at mainworlds).

Very occasionally, a pirate might come within the normal zone of operations
for legitimate merchants (ie the 100 diameter limit). But not as a career
thing.

Now, if the structure of the Imperium has broken down due to war or civil
war, or you are located on an 'open' Imperial frontier (not a frozen,
militarised one like the Spinward Marches of the 1100s), then things are a
different story.

But, for me, the above explains piracy in the Third Imperium.

Ian Whitchurch

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:54:58 -0400
From: Kurt Feltenberger <kurt@blazenet.net>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

At 05:46 PM 10/22/98 +0100, you wrote:

>CVX as a revolutionary platform has been canned. Instead, the USN is
>going for an evolutionary design. Why? It's cheaper.

DoD announced within the past two weeks that it had been allocated funds to
continue with development.

 

Kurt Feltenberger

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a
habit.
- --- Aristotle ---

mailto:kurt@blazenet.net

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:12:32 -0700 (PDT)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Piper

- -> > What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H.
Beam Piper:
> >
> >       Little Fuzzy
> >       4-Day Planet
> >       Uller Uprising
> >       Space Viking
> 
> 	The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
> 	Fuzzy Sapiens
> 	Fuzzies and Other People

        Empire
        Federation
        Lord Calvan of Otherwhen
        Paratime
        Lone Star Planet
        


> 	
> 
> > There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the
top of my 
> > head.
> 
> More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
> the moment.

_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 15:55:31 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 

> From: Keven R. Pittsinger <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> > > > Yeah, now somebody tell Bruce *who* plays Al Bester on B5. I
haven't
> > > > got the heart. ;->
> > > Walter Koenig.  Doesn't ring a bell?  Try 'Ensign Chekov(TM)' from
'That
> > > Nameless Paramount/Desilu Sci Fi Hack of Wagon Train(TM)' circa 1964.
> > > <grin>
> > You forgot the cheesy movies as well...  Circa 1980s & early 1990s...
> Good thing you didn't *name* 'em, you'd have to (TM) them.  <ducking>

Why name them?  While they were watchable, they are not standards of movie
making...

> Keven

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:31:17 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

Marc, I tried (twice) to post this to the TML, and I never saw it
come through.  Would you please forward it to the list?

On Tue, 20 Oct 1998 13:33:38 -0400, CardSharks@aol.com (Marc
Miller) wrote:

>We have an economic extension for the UWP in Pocket Empires.
>Should we do a cultural extension (about the same number of digits, etc). What
>would that cover?

The question to ask is how the local culture impacts the PCs. 

I'd certainly include an indicator for xenophobia/xenophilia,
which might be used as a "modifier to reaction rolls" on
interpersonal tasks.

Another possibility for an indicator might be
combativeness/conciliatoriness, giving an idea of the likely
reaction to insults, opposition, attitude in negotiation, etc.

I don't know what to call this next one, but it indicates how
seriously they take their religion's commandments/proscriptions.
("What do you mean, I can't get cleared in 'til tomorrow?" "The
portmaster is a Furshluggian, and Furshluggism doesn't permit
commercial activity on Fourday.")


- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:17:53 +0100
From: Richard Talbot <richardt@post.almac.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1005

Subject: Piracy: Cease!

Folks, we go through this every six months.  The TML is now swamped by
the
latest incarnation of the Piracy Threads That Would Not Die.  With all
respect to those involved, nothing is ever going to be agreed to, since
the
final decision is a matter of persoanl gaming taste.  *Both* sides can
make
convincing cases for their sides.

Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?
____________

So at what velocity does a rock hit a planet then :))))))

- -- 
Regards 
Richard Talbot - Alloa, Scotland - http://www.almac.co.uk/richardt
Contact: richardt@post.almac.co.uk - ICQ:15535153
Join British Isles Traveller Support "Its the only way to be sure"

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1007
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Thursday, October 22 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1008



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*
RE: Star Gypsies
Zho Battlerider (High Guard)
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: Efficient 100-D Control
Re: Sensors and waste heat
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges (long and tedious)
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
New CVX (was Re: The Imperial Fleet)
Stupidity and Piracy (was: Re: Piracy Question)
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:51:33 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*

Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com> wrote:

>Nah, HG just doesn't let you have two weapon systems of the same type with
>different attack ratings.  Messes up the USP.  Of course, as GT doesn't
>_use_ a
>USP, this isn't a problem....

Fair point. I was thinking factor 9 missiles (3x turret) and factor 9
missile bays. Of course, you could (shock horror) ignore the USP limits!

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:45:39 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: RE: Star Gypsies

"Brian Mays" <bmays@genscope.com> wrote:

>>Anyone want to try raising your kids on a Free Trader?
>3 days into J-Space:
>
>"DAD!  Are we there yet?"
>
>"No."
>
>"DAD!  Are we there yet?"

No!

DAD! I feel sick....

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:42:21 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)

Strike Battlerider

USP BR-K606CH3-196600-900Q9-0
- ---------------  -2----- 2--14
- ---------------  -2----- 2--14

15000 dT
TL14
MCr 12706 (*)
Crew 153
Passengers 0
Low 0
Cargo 0
Fuel (600dT - 9.3 days)
EP = 1800
Agility 2 (2.6)
Troops = 20
Fuel Scoops (no FPP - uses Tender)

- ------

I designed this a while ago as a starter for the FT playtest for GenCon UK
98- You can trade the armour for higher power and thus better agility
(which I would probably do if I redesigned it).

It shows the advantage of TL15 Power plants sizewise. An Imperial version
would be nasty.

Any thoughts (it is meant to be a meson gun wrapped in an eggshell)?

Dom

(*) undiscounted - this should be right, but it's a while since I designed
the little rascal and I had two figures written down. :-(

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:04:43 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 12:20 AM 10/22/98 -0700, you wrote:
>...
>>>>>>The sensor ship could not maintain constant readiness.  It would have
>to out
>>>>>>mass the pirate 10 to one or more to stand a chance.
>...
>>>  You'll forgive me for pointing out that this is hardly an authoritative
>>>citation?
>>
>>Not at all.  Combat is a highly fluid enviroment.  I was giving a good
>>margin for error.  Over designing as it were.
>
>  Or just making a sweeping statement with no supporting evidence?
>

I do not bring my traveller books to work.  It was a best guess bassed on
the assumetion that a full attack by a ships own weapons would badly damage
it.  If you want to nitpik everything to death then you'll need too start
footnoting everything you say as well.  I still have not gotten threshold
sensor numbers for these sensors yet.  No one has explained how a 100ton
scout can radiate 10MWs of heat per second as some say it does.  If you want
do carry on this discussion under the debating rules I can do that.  We will
both have to start by proving our primices.  Can you prove a 100MW power
plant has 10MWs of waste heat and a 100ton scout can radiate it without
killing the crew?

I can prove the concepts of sensor thresholds and noise numbers.  You can
test these consepts yourself listening to your car radio.  As for converting
heat to electricity by a solid state means check any thermalcouple reference
book or catalog for a very elementery form of this technology.

>>>  So, at maximum sensor range (IIRC?) a single "broadside" will inflict
>>>damage equal to the survival capacity of a ship 2-4 times its' size? I
>>
>>Or cripling damage.  The second shot finises the job.
>
>  Was there a Trav combat system you'd attach those calculations to? IIRC, 
>that doesn't work in SFB, either.
>


All aproaches from behind the planet to remain hidden for the examples below.

As for SFB 2 stingers 2 at range 0 on the front shield on a Fed. CA will net
about 20-30 internals (if memory serves). 12 stingers 2 = one CA in bpv.  At
range 0 more CA.

A CA on a CA (better example) at range 0 with just overloads will do 34
interals.  (16x4=64 30 box shield)  Add phaser for an extra 34 points.
Think you could win with 64 internals at WS0 or 1?  At range 1, about the
same.  At range 4, 25-35 internals including 2 trop and 4 phasers.  At
ranges 8 and average rolls, 10-15 internal including 1 torp and two phasers.

My CA has a speed of 12 yours 0.  Still like your odds?  

Personally I'd prefer a Hydron hellbore crusier for that attack.  "What Fed?
I don't see no Fed?"  Do you really need to see the numbers for range
0,1,2,3,or 4?  A fussion cruiser at 0 with overloads and all phaser is not
that much beter though you may not blow up.

Or a D7k with 2 type 4 drones (48 points), full overloads at range 1 (32
points), and phasers (40 points).  Follow up with a second drone launch on
the next turn.  If WS 0 you'd have to tracter them or eat them on another
shield.  Then I'd Minza you to death with my higher speed or overrun and
kligon phaser hose you at range 1.  Two or three shields down, 2 or 3 torps
gone, 4-6 phazers gone, 10 or more power, and all hull.  If using power
balencing for damage this would get UGLY!

Good enough?  It's mostly from memory.  I've played a lot of SFB.  The bpv
for the stinger is from my MSC I keep in my desk for the berg campain.

>>>shall not bother to address the concept of a sweep conducted with all
>>>weapons crews off-duty.
>>
>>Maned full time all the time?  A sensor ship that spends months listening
>>with gunnery crews on full alert would be driven insane be bordom.
>
>  Unless the crews are pirates, I suspect. One guy watching the boards
>wouldn't work? People make lots of jokes about computers using vacuum
>tubes in Trav, but then they assume that software will never get past
>the pong level?
>

But the guns will be unmaned if the crew is standing down.  That was my
point.  You will not have everybody at their station all the time.  You just
agreed with me.  The pirate knows when he will attack an can have his crew
on station.  The SDB never knows when all hell will break loose.

>>>  At what range do you need to be to reliably disable the drives and weapons
>>>of an armoured target? 
>>
>>...one fifty misile launch...
>
>  Time to contact? Defenses? Fifty missile launch tubes! Needless to
>say, military PD lasers will stop those unless they're laser-tipped,
>and SDB armour should stop chem-lasers, unless I'm mistaken. Or are
>lots of them nukes?
>

Stop 50 missles on balistic targeting with no gunners in the turrets and 3
seconds warning?  Real good crew.

>>>  Just for fun, where do they build them, and who paid for them?
>>
>>Pirate base, standard shipyard, foriegn states.  They are not pirate until
>>the do their first ilegal act now are they.  After that Law 0 areas.
>
>  Pirate bases can build starships? Doesn't that make them equivalent
>to A starports, which cost "20 years of planetary income"? Wouldn't
>an Imperial shipyard make notes on building a purpose-built pirate or
>small warship (or heck, the 3I could require such papers). Wouldn't
>a foreign state tend to be wary of building hornets to release into
>others habitations (the Alabama (?) comes to mind).
>

Then who builds the merc cruisers, armed merchants, and the corsairs?

>  Oh, and who paid for them, and why?
>
>>>  In CT maneuver drives didn't have cutoffs, and given many months of
>>>fuel it is in practical range for many SDB's; Jump vessels could be
>>>used otherwise.
>>
>>Yes, but would the ships systems last 2 years+ without spares?
>
>  With a Jump unit it a week; with spares in magazines (or dumps) it
>probably is do-able, especially as w/o thruster cut-offs it's not that
>long a cruise; and apparently pirates don't require maintenance to any
>real degree, according to some of the posts in the last month.
>

True, with jump it's easy and you lose your weight advantage over the pirate.

No, they need the maitainence, just like everybody else.  All I am trying to
do is come up with a way that the canon pirate can exist.  Life does not
have to be easy for them but systems that track every 10 meter object in a
system out to the ort cloud is less believable to me than the occassional
pirate.

Charles L.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 19:03:22 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: Efficient 100-D Control

Walter Smith wrote:
<<snip>>
> 
> You can easily equip a system to the point where the pirate will
> not succeed. No U-Boat during WWII could possibly have penetrated
> Scapa Flow either. <G>
> 
> Walt Smith

For any historically-challenged subscribers to the list, HMS ROYAL OAK
was sunk in October 1939 by a U-boat (U-39?) that did just that: 
penetrated the main British naval base (Scapa Flow).

For those of you who were already aware of this (or surmised that
someone had done so because of the <G>), I apologize for wasting your
bandwidth.

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:04:58 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Sensors and waste heat

At 06:00 PM 10/21/98 PST, you wrote:
>In mail you write:
>
>> The pirate uses a double hull with a hard vacume between and solid state
>> thermal electric converters on the inner hull to convert the waste heat back
>> to electrical power and a 100% refecter shield one inch above that.  All
>> tech available today.
>
>Sorry, but thermoelectric converters convert heat *differences* into
>power. That is, you have a heat source and a heat *sink*. And *by
>definition* "waste heat" is heat at the temperature of your *sink*.
>

That is one type and it is much more efficient the the plain junction type
but they do exist  Check a thermal couple catalog for a simple example.

>
>Your thermoelectric converters would merely act as extra insulation,
>which, by *slowing* the rate at which heat moves from inside the ship
>to the outside *raises* the internal temperature. This is an
>unavoidable consequence of the laws of thermodynamics.
>

I know that but they would also cut the amount of power that had to be
generated be more heat wastefull means and thus cut total signature.

Not that it matters.  You still get seen at the range you need to be at to
strike at targets.  Finally got all the numbers crunched.  Only one or two
questions to be answered by Bruce and I'll help you bury the piracy debate.
I was pro pirate due to canon but the reality check is coming due.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:04:53 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges (long and tedious)

At 02:20 PM 10/21/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>This whole discussion must be becoming extraordinarily tedious to most
>of the TML. It's possible that by this point everyone else is bored and I 
>should be giving Charles his tutorial in basic imaging theory in private 
>email; if anyone feels that way, please send me a note.

No need to bother.  I caught the part I was missing to firgure the situation
out.  Please read on while a ingest this crow I find before me. (Grin)  I
still have a question or two and I think you'll like hearing me admit my
errors.  There were several.

Oh, I've had to go over this a few times with the aid of a reference book
and a calculater so this may get a little disjointed.  I think I've finally
pull most of the data togethere form their various sources.

By the way, thanks for your help Bruce and your pacience while I worked this
out for myself.  I design computer control systems at the chip and board
level for a living.  Some of the mistakes I made were in very basic
assumption for my kind of work.  One of the draw back to linear thinking is
you sometimes miss the far more direct non linear answer while you are
crunching the numbers.

>>>The system can detect objects much further than 5156; objects don't need to 
>>>be resolved (bigger than one pixel) to be detected - you can detect something
>
>>I know that but they HAVE to be above the sensor threshold to effect that
pixel.
>I don't know what "sensor threshold" means in this context. It's certainly

The smallest amount of energy detectable by the sensor as being present and
as being discrete.  This sets the low limit for detectability for a sensor
snap shot but having read the rest of the post I should qualify the qestion
by geting the answer as a function of integration time as it appears that in
this case it is very 'shutter speed' dependent.  Most of my work requires
real time data so I had not thought about the integration time as a factor.
It threw off by understanding of the information you were presenting
considerably.

A bad case of flat head syndrom.  Or, "How did I miss that!"  As always one
small thing missed sets you way off course and scued the rest of the data badly.

>possible to detect an object that is much dimmer per square arcsecond than
>the background - infrared telescopes do it all the time; the IR sky is about
>1x10^-15 watts/m2 micron in brightness at 2 microns wavelength, for example,
>and the the dimmest objects currently detected by the Keck telescope are 
>about 1x10^-19 watts/m2 micron. As long as the background is stable, sources
>much fainter than the sky can be detected relative to it. The main reason that
>the sky isn't stable is quantum mechanical - poisson noise in the number of 
>photons arriving in a given unit time - and that can be reduced relative to
>the signal by collecting more photons, since the poisson noise goes up as only
>the square root of the number of photons involved, and hence goes up as the
>square root of the time or collecting area, while the real signal goes up 
>linearly with time or collecting area.
>

So the sensor can detect a single photon as an individual or only as part of
a summing?

If this is correct just what is the limit to what can be seen?  Intergation
time?  Does a longer intergration time let do get a higher magification as
well as light level or is that still limited by mirror size?

That piece of information is the final piece I've been looking for.

Could a scout ship in orbit around a planet a parsec away be detected?

>
>>>detect objects
>>>that's a tiny fraction of a pixel quite easily. (For example, Saturn is
about 
>>>a tenth of a pixel on your eye.) The PEMS described above, with ~2-3m
>telescopes,
>>>can detect a 99% black scout-sized starship at about (if I recall correctly)
>>>That's a 20-sigma detection - pretty unambiguous. Space is dark. Ships - even
>>>black ships - are bright.
>>>Please define 20-sigma.  Signal strength deference is not relevent if the
>>>signal is not more than 2x noise level.
>"Twenty sigma" means "twenty times the noise level", in some particular 
>integration time with the given collecting area. Signal-to-noise isn't just
>the ratio of the brightness of target to brightness of background but is in
>fact a function of collecting area, efficiencies, and time spent integrating.
>
>>It's a quantum physics issue.  If
>>the viewing angle aproached that of one photon on the surface of the sensor
>>the obtect is not detectable by any means
>I have no idea what "viewing angle approached that of one photon" means.
>In any case, the signal levels are well above single-photons (trust me, I 
>did real calculations with real numbers to justify these sensor models.)
>The main noise source is (as previously indicated) poisson noise in the
>background. (Internal electronic noise is effectively negligible for 
>modern imaging sensors.) 
>
>>If the radiant energy from the scout that reaches the sensor drops below the
>>background noise level it will be undetectable regardless of any other
>>concurn.  You are egnoring that there are quantum limits on ampification and
>>discrimination.  With infinite amplification, no noise threshold, and no
>>quantum energy threshold you are correct.  Signals at 1ev or one photon are
>>not recoverable.  They carry on inteligable information as they are single
>>state quantum units.  The noise level is much higher than that.
>Astronomers routinely observe objects where they are collecting only a 
>photon per second (even in a ten meter telescope). You just have to collect
>long enough for those photons to add up to a real signal. Granted, a single
>photon isn't a real detection - but 400 photons is, and it's just a matter
>of waiting long enough or having enough collecing area. Amplification 
>doesn't enter into it.
>
>>Space is not at 0k.  I think that if I recall properly it is in the single
>>digits (2k maybe) but it varies some from place to place.  Not my field but
>>I do remember hearing it quoted in the past somewhere.  99.9 black at 300k
>>is 3k effective 

>Something emitting 0.1% as much energy as a 300 K object is emitting as much
>energy as a 53 K object, since power radiated goes as temperature to the fourth

This is due to the radiation constant having the absolute temp to the -4
power in the demominator isn't it?  

I knew something was fishy with that simplified formula.  I think they
assumed 20c as a constant background temp.  If so it explains the wierd
numbers I keep getting.

Can you tell me the absotute maximum amount of heat that a 20c black body in
planetary space could radiate per square meter?  The formula I have is
simpified and incomplete.  I do not think it is giving me the right numbers.
They look way to low.

>power, but that's a minor point. Emitted power goes *up* with the blackness
>of an object (emissivity = 1 - reflectivity); that's why they're called
>blackbodies. A 99.999999% *white* 300K object would emit only as much power
>as a 3K blackbody. It's also radiating all that power at very
>different wavelengths than a colder blackbody and would still be easily
>detectable.  Most of the power in the 3K blackbody comes out at milimetre 
>wavelengths, most of the (small) amount of power in the 300K object comes out
>in the mid-infrared. Easy to tell apart.
>

I thought that telescopes today were built to recieve a fairly narrow part
of the spectrum.  Are there units that range from mid RF through IR in one
reciever?  That would curtainly be news to me.  What is the reciever made of
to recieve this ide a spectrum?

Also with the long integeration time, how long would it take to do a
spherical scan at 3 ls from a space born sensor and detect that 53k black
body?  This is my last hope to solve the pirate problem.  If the scan time
is short how do the pirates survive?  Or is it that scaner is real costly?
It's the pirate problem I have been trying to find a loop hole for.  If this
does not do it I guess I'll have to join the no pirate camp.  All the holes
are pluged for all but the commerse raiders in 100K ton cruisers.

Some of the holes I plugged on my own, others were pluged for me.
Detectability and stealth was my last concept for a solution.

This post is loaded with the data I was searching for in several areas!

I've been pulling by hair out looking for the imission formula.  Someone
posted the idea that a scout was radiating 10MW of waste reacter heat into
space!  Anyway I figure it the crew gets cooked and the ship melted at that
power output!

>In reality, the main background signal isn't actually the 3K cosmic background
>anyway, but scattered sunlight and thermal emission from zodiacal dust. That
>does look like a 300 K blackbody, but with a distinctive spectral bump that 
>is hard to hide against...and it's optically thin, so it's dimmer per unit
>area than a solid object like a spacecraft.
>

So you could digitaly filter it out and still see a ship hiding by emiting
in that range.  Is this correct?

>>and that 300k can be reduced by technological means I've
>>discuss in other posts to much less than 300k.  How do you think thermos
>>bottles work?
>I certainly don't think that thermos bottles make things become colder than
>they originally were, or that if I put a heat-generating object in a thermos
>bottle - or a vacuum - or wrapped it with insulation - that it would become
>cold. Refrigerators make things cold; they also have to put the heat somewhere.
>

No, I ment that the inner vaccume would retain the heat and let the outer
hull cool down naturally.  If a real good IR reflecter were placed between
the inner and outer hulls then perhaps IR leakage could be reduced to near 0
and the outer hull could approach space normal tempertures.  This is fishing
also as I do not know of a 100% IR mirror though there are 100% laser mirrors.

Sometimes when I'm answering these emails I brain storm.  Some of the ideas
work out but then some don't.  This one does not look promising.

>>[cold-gas thrusters]
>>Use H2 at 2k and throw 100 kilos out at 100 mps
>This will accelerate a one-thousand-tonne pirate ship by about a centimeter
>per second, which seems somewhat inadequate.
>

No, I ran the numbers, at the speeds needed for a stealth attack run with 12
ls warning from the target, the vector would not be enough.  Slow down to
give the thrust time to accrue and you miss your target as he has time to
jump out.  The window isn't narrow it's non existant without at least a good
healthly fraction of a G thruster control at the very least.

>>>And the colder the exhaust, the *less* thrust it'll give
>>Depends on launch speed to.
>This depends on how you launch it. When people who actually know what they're
>talking about refer to a "cold gas thruster" they mean something that basically
>opens a valve in a bottle of compressed gas to let it expand into vacuum
>and provide thrust. The velocity of the gas comes from its internal kinetic
>energy, which is proportional to its temperatuer. 

That's originally what I was talking about but...not nearly enough power to
get the job done.

>I know of no good way to accelerate a gas
>without heating it in the process - if you're going to use non-thermal
>ways to accelerate something you're better off flinging away a solid rather
>than a gas. 

True, but a solid object would likely be warmed from the launch process to,
so you loose out that way.  Thrusters are the only real way but if you use
those you're spoted for sure.



Does not look good for the pirates.  I was trying to come up with a proof
for canon and ended up proving canon unlikely but at least I know why it is
unlikely and have worked out the proofs myself.  As the saying goes, I
believe little of what I hear or see...unless I can find proof for it myself.

Do not feel your effort was in vain Bruce.  I learned a great deal from this
discussion on matters outside my normal interests.  Knowledge is often it's
own reward, at least it is to me.  Learning is one of my favorite avocations
even when I have to do it the hard way.  Oh! for future reference, a fomula
is worth a lot of text in explaining some things to me.  Math is one of my
stronger suits.

Charles L.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:12:51 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

Jeff Zeitlin wrote:

> I don't know what to call this next one, but it indicates how
> seriously they take their religion's commandments/proscriptions.
> ("What do you mean, I can't get cleared in 'til tomorrow?" "The
> portmaster is a Furshluggian, and Furshluggism doesn't permit
> commercial activity on Fourday.")

Assuming there is a religion at all?

I thought about religion wrt a cultural extension, but think that
it should be left out of official Traveller materials, and left
to the individual GM, using 101 Religions, of  course. ;-)

You could use religion to explain a xenophobia rating
and consequent difficult reaction modifiers.

Bloo

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:57:45 -0700
From: scharlto@ifsna.com
Subject: New CVX (was Re: The Imperial Fleet)

There was a pretty good write-up on this in a recent Proceedings (or maybe
it was the Air & Space mag?).  The upcoming CVX is not a revolutionary new
design per se, but it is a test-bed for revolutionary ideas.  They are
taking a proven hull design, and making some major changes in flight deck
design, the catapult system, the above-deck 'island' design (almost totally
eliminated) and the power-plant (probably NOT nuclear).  The development
and shakedown cruise for this vessel will serve as a major source of
research into what does go into the 'next generation' carrier, and it will
still be a fully capable warship.

Actually, the Navy seems to have thought this one out and come up with a
good plan to deal with limited R&D funds.  I beleive the new funding just
announced is the actual construction go-ahead; I think the R&D part of the
project is largely complete.

Steven Charlton


Kurt Feltenberger <kurt@blazenet.net> said:

>>CVX as a revolutionary platform has been canned. Instead, the USN is
>>going for an evolutionary design. Why? It's cheaper.
>
>DoD announced within the past two weeks that it had been allocated funds
to
>continue with development.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 19:16:29 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Stupidity and Piracy (was: Re: Piracy Question)

Walter Smith wrote:
> 
<<snip>>
> 
> Gary again:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>    Even in the fringes, does anyone hold the existence of any Sunbeards as
> possible?
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Someone think it possible, otherwise there wouldn't be any piracy debates
> going on. I'll bet that even a large fraction of the anti-piracy camp
> will give you "possible". "Common", "practical", or "sensible" would
> be a different matter entirely.
> 
My view exactly (referring to piracy being neither practical nor
sensible).  I would, however, point out that piracy, like trying to
become a professional athlete to get out of poverty, need not be
profitable _on average_.  It must only be _thought_ to be profitable to
occur.  For every John Dillinger, there are countless unsuccessful bank
robbers.  It's the Dillingers that get the publicity, thus creating in
some minds the impression that a career as a bank robber is a fine
idea.  The thought of getting something for nothing is quite attractive,
and I can see some ships' crews (and even some heavily-in-debt ships'
owners) concluding that piracy would be an easy way to make a fast MCr
or 20.  Add in the occasional story about some pirate pulling off some
incredible stunt, with a gigacredit or two lost to this pirate, and you
have the recipe for some truly stupid behavior.  (Including [or
especially] on the part of PCs....)

Bottom line, IMO:  99.99% of the time, piracy is little more than a
quick ticket to the nomination round of the Darwin Award.  However, it's
the successful .01% that gets 95% of the publicity, thus attracting more
fools (and, admittedly, the occasional genius/lucky fool) to piracy as a
way of life.

<<snip>>

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:19:22 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

 
> >150MW is a bright source.
> 
> A scouts surface area can not radiate that kind of power.  The ship would
> melt!  Space is the untimate vacume bottle.  Radiation is the only way to
> get rid of heat and it is the worst way.  There is a limit to how much a
> given area can radiate.  150MW would liquify tons of steel! or boil milions
> of gallons of water.  Get real!  it take less than 100watts hours to boil a
> gallon of water in 20 minutes.  Look at your electric bill for a month.
 
True, but since MT, ships have generated *way* too much power--for
most applications. Drives are another story. Luckily you can say
that even t-plate drives have hot exhaust, it just doesn't do much 
of the pushing. That allows you to get rid of the lion's share
(technically, the Lion's share should be _all_ of it, right? But you
get my point :-) out the tailpipe.

> >Integrate long enough. Bruce's sensor numbers (signatures in this
> >case) simply apply magnitudes to hulls radiating--I belive the
> >baseline was 1 100dton sphere, but I could be wrong.
> 
> If the signal is less than the threshold of detection of a singal element of
> the array no amount of intergration with improve the signal because it was
> not detected.  Real world collides with theory.  Real world wins.  Sensor
> threshold is a basic fact of applies science.
 
Real wrold telescopes can catch things on the oreder of small
numbers of photons per hour and record it. So the TL8 baseline has
an amazingly high sensitivity. CCD cameras typically have quantum
efficiencies over 80%--that means you can get data from many events
that are A SINGLE PHOTON.

In other words we can detect on the order of 10^-19 Joules. Bruce
might have something better than converting 1-2eV (visible-IR
photon(other way around, actually)) into Joules :-)

> >HUh? it always applys. Intergrate long, see fainter. Period.
> 
> Not if the signal is less the the sensors threshold.  Period comma
> exclamation point.  Like your radio, if the signal is to faint you can'y
> pick it up no matter how much to amplify.  The weak signal can't get through
> the front end to get to the amplifier.
 
This isn't an amplification issue. You are opening the shutter
longer, not running the signal though an amplifier. Film is very
inefficient (QE of about 2% if I remember right). That means you
need to hit a film grain with many photons before the grain leaves an
image (this is a pixel on film). If you open the shutter for 10
seconds, you get 1 photon to hit a grain, you get a blank picture.
If you leave the shutter open for an hour, you might get 5-10.
Several hours, and you get enough to leave a latent image. That is
what we mean when we say integration time. CCD cameras work the
same way. When Bruce said (and I parroted) that you can add frames
together, there *is* a signal to add. That is because the CCD (or
future traveller sensor which is also solid state) has such a high
quantum efficiency--it can detect a single photon. So as long a a
given image of an area has a single photon from the source, there is
data. Bruce explained why adding frames lets you get rid of noise
(which is random and changes from frame to frame).

> A scout ship could not radiate 1MW with a living crew.

Then don't play traveller :-) Traveller weapons require that they
deliver at bare minimum a couple MJ to a target per pulse (I think
it's around 2MJ to penetrate a cm of steel). That means traveller
ships that rae armed require at least some number of MW if they are
armed. Drives that do multiple gs are MW. Hell, there are plenty of
1MW PPs used *now*--that's only ~1330 horsepower (~0.75KW/HP sticks in
my head).

Most traveller power goes to the drives, so the power radiates
there. You have to assume that even a t-plate has a hot exhaust, and
that it takes a lot of the energy with it (that and whatever gravtic
energy is lost... a good handwave). Th Scout with the drives off
drops its power by about 100MW.

- -Merrick

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1008
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Thursday, October 22 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1009



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Ceasing Piracy, or move to TTL
Re: GT Megathrusters
Re: GT transponders
Re: Capital ships
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: GT transponders
Re: Capital ships
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges (long and tedious)
DOH!!!!!!!!!!
Re: GT transponders
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxilaries
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud
Re: Sten
Re: Star Gypsies
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
Re: GT transponders
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:29:48 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Ceasing Piracy, or move to TTL

Subject says it all. I guess we should stop or move it. I see these
threads and forget what list it's on half the time (may also be true
of other gearhead answers posted :-)

I don't think I read anybody saying that piracy wouldn't happen out
in the sticks, it just seems to require more thought on the part of
the pirate is all.

- -Merrick

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:17:51 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: GT Megathrusters

>Statistics:
>TL-13 Mega Thruster (Powered)
>500tons thrust;  5.75t;  6.25Mcr
>Includes:
>100cf of MegaThruster; 0.75t;  6mcr;   Requires 50Mw Power
>200cf of Fusion Plant;  5t;  0.25Mcr
>200cf of Power Plant Access Space.

You forget that access space on ships that are designed for long occupancy
(IE starships) the access space requirement is DOUBLED.  (V2E p. 15, first
paragraph)

This means that your access space has to be THREE times the size of the
component, rather than two; this reduces the size of the thruster to 1/6 of
the 500cf space instead of 1/5.
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

>>>The transponders in GT also seem easily forgable....just record someone
>>>else's and broadcast it back.
>>That depends on whether there's some kind of time-dependent encryption on
>>them.
>>************
>>doesn't seem to be...just a wideband radio message...
>If it's just a wideband radio message, then yes, you can be anyone you want
>to be, at least on your transponder.
>If that's true, then why have a transponder at all?
>**************8
>because with the least effective sensors and a skill of 12 you can detect a
>transponder on a 16 or less at 10,000 hexes. (just over one AU)...and a 10
>or less at 100,000 hexes (about 11 AU).  A transponder will scream at
>everyone
> ***************I'M OVER HERE!!!!!********************LOOK AT
>ME!!!!!!!!!!!!*******************.
>
>if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.

Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
anything there.

If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
out.
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:09:12 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Capital ships

At 06:09 AM 10/22/98 PDT, you wrote:
>
>
>----Original Message Follows----
>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 18:01:59 -0400
>To: traveller@MPGN.COM
>From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
>Subject: Re: Capital ships
>Cc: traveller@MPGN.COM
>Reply-To: traveller@MPGN.COM

>>He he he. This takes `we hide with pride' to a whole new level. To
>>invade a world with deep meson sites is bad enough; to invade one where
>>they move around...
>
>Remember that those deep meson sites need targeting data, and those 
>pretty
>much have to be on or near the surface.  I think a heavily-stealthed
>submarine devoted to sensor work would be useful for a TL15 wet navy.
>=====================
>
>A great idea.  Anyone out there know, would ELF transmissions be 
>sufficient to pass along targetting data?  I don't know.

Probably not... ELF is a very narrow bandwidth.  There's not much
technology could do to expand it, either... the frequency is just that long.

If it were me, I'd use meson communicators (they exist in GT, dunno about
the rest)
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:49:53 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

On Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:19:40 -0400, steve daniels
<stevedaniels@portcaddo.com> wrote:

>Jeff Zeitlin wrote:

>> I don't know what to call this next one, but it indicates how
>> seriously they take their religion's commandments/proscriptions.
>> ("What do you mean, I can't get cleared in 'til tomorrow?" "The
>> portmaster is a Furshluggian, and Furshluggism doesn't permit
>> commercial activity on Fourday.")

>Assuming there is a religion at all?

Well, yes - but now that you bring up the point, the same kind of
prohibitions may exist culturally independent of religion
(although perhaps having their origin in religion).  Kind of like
"blue laws" in some areas of the US, where they really do
prosecute for transacting business on a Sunday.

>I thought about religion wrt a cultural extension, but think that
>it should be left out of official Traveller materials, and left
>to the individual GM, using 101 Religions, of  course. ;-)

:)

>You could use religion to explain a xenophobia rating
>and consequent difficult reaction modifiers.

Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
- - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
States since the mid-1980s.

- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:41:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Fred and Evelyn Wolke writes:
> Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
> anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
> anything there.

Well, usually traffic control has some idea of what it _wants_ there, and may
react poorly if that isn't what they think ought to be there.
> 
> If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
> Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
> away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
> better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
> locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
> out.

Yah, you can set your transponder to claim you're a navy destroyer, though it's
common to have some level of encryption on IFF schemes, so you'd probably need
a reasonable database.  However, you'd better _look_ like a navy destroyer, at
least as far as your signature goes -- given that its known you can forge your
transponder ID, people won't automatically believe it.

The point of a transponder is to let your _friends_ know who you are.  If you
don't have any friends who you want to know who you are, you might as well just
turn your transponder off.

The traveller transponders are just as forgeable as a modern transponder. 
Modern transponders can be spoofed.  It's just that most people don't, because
it isn't all that useful in most situations, and tends to accumulate large
fines from the local authorities.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:39:33 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Capital ships

At 05:59 PM 10/22/98 +0100, you wrote:
>Fred and Evelyn Wolke wrote:
>
>>>He he he. This takes `we hide with pride' to a whole new level. To
>>>invade a world with deep meson sites is bad enough; to invade one where
>>>they move around...
>>
>>Remember that those deep meson sites need targeting data, and those pretty
>>much have to be on or near the surface.  I think a heavily-stealthed
>>submarine devoted to sensor work would be useful for a TL15 wet navy.
>
>Well, using TL 9 technology, I'll lay a fiber-O grid across the ocean
>floor; and splice it up with sonar commo transducers. The ends go ashore
>to a highly dispersed detection array (made up of mobile & fixed/hidden)
>sensors.

What would you do if you had just suppressed or destroyed the local
defenses, but the Navy was going to arrive in a few weeks and you wanted
your 'Subs' to be able to make the world useless to them for as long as
possible?
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:51:53 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

>A scout ship could not radiate 1MW with a living crew.

Then the ship MUST be doing SOMETHING with the energy besides radiating
it... because (at least in GT) the power is measured in MW for practically
everything.

So, therefore, there MUST be some kind of anti-entropic 'miracle heat sink'.

And the whole debate about infrared and sensors has to be re-thought...
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 19:00:44 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges (long and tedious)

BTW, this is off the list (people were gettin' POed :-)




 
> So the sensor can detect a single photon as an individual or only as part of
> a summing?
 
Both. Typically it might take two low energy photons, but if your
pixels are large, this isn't a problem (an advantage of detecting
vs. resolving a target). (BTW, while I don't do it for a living like
Bruce does, I'm an astrophysics person by training (optical
astronomy, though I've done a couple runs at the VLA).

Bruce assumed in DSR that quantum efficiencies go towards 100% as TL
increases. Traveller sensors are assumed to be something like phased
array radar receivers.

> If this is correct just what is the limit to what can be seen?  Intergation
> time?  Does a longer intergration time let do get a higher magification as
> well as light level or is that still limited by mirror size?
> 
> That piece of information is the final piece I've been looking for.
 
Telescopes (any light detector, basically, even a radio telescope)
are just buckets to catch photons. Longer integration time catches
more light--you see dimmer (or farther) objects.

Magnigfication has nothing to do with integration time. Resolution
(we never even talked about magnification other than the fact that
it doen't matter for anything (you can magnify a crappy image, it's
just bigger :-) on the other hand is important if you want to see
what the object is (otherwise you get a spectrograph as most of you
data on the little bright dot that is the target).

Resolution goes up with increased telescope diameter it goes as
k*wavelength/telescope_diameter. k is typically around 1.22 if I
recall. Low numbers are better since the resultant units are an
angle. For detection resolution doesn't matter at all.

> Could a scout ship in orbit around a planet a parsec away be detected?
 
If it were bright enough :-) It isn't. Besides, once it gets that
close to another body, the ability to split the scout from the
planet becomes an issue (here resolution would actually matter).

> I thought that telescopes today were built to recieve a fairly narrow part
> of the spectrum.  Are there units that range from mid RF through IR in one
> reciever?  That would curtainly be news to me.  What is the reciever made of
> to recieve this ide a spectrum?
 
CCDs have a fairly large bandwidth. But nowdays they are typically
narrow. Bruce assumes for DSR (and is right to do so) that IR is
where the action is.

> Also with the long integeration time, how long would it take to do a
> spherical scan at 3 ls from a space born sensor and detect that 53k black

You don't scan at 3ls. You scan the sky. The sky is a surface to a
telescope--distance isn't a factor in scanning (other than the fact
that farther objects are fainter). I suppose you might ask "What is
the minimum integration time to detect a 53K BB at 3ls?"

> body?  This is my last hope to solve the pirate problem.  If the scan time
> is short how do the pirates survive?  Or is it that scaner is real costly?

I think that this has been blow out of proportion. In a backwater
system the question is can the planet send a ship that can beat the
pirate within weapons range before he loots his target. I'm not sure
a pirate needs, or cares if he is detected.

> It's the pirate problem I have been trying to find a loop hole for.  If this
> does not do it I guess I'll have to join the no pirate camp.  All the holes
> are pluged for all but the commerse raiders in 100K ton cruisers.
 
I don't agree (I think DSR is great, but the trick is to figure out
how/where pirates could be given that). Military sensors in CT could
see out past 100D, and they had pirates :-)

> I've been pulling by hair out looking for the imission formula.  Someone
> posted the idea that a scout was radiating 10MW of waste reacter heat into
> space!  Anyway I figure it the crew gets cooked and the ship melted at that
> power output!
 
A huge problem with all the ship design systems. We got kind astuck
with it. But in terms of drives and weapons, you need *tons* of
power to do what we expect/want traveller ships to do. It's no
accident that drives now (ion drives) that use little fuel and power
have accelerations that are thousandths of a g :-)

> So you could digitaly filter it out and still see a ship hiding by emiting
> in that range.  Is this correct?
 
Yeah, when you add frames, you can subtract stuff that varies over
the frames (within some parameters you pick). The noise is random,
so it goes away.

We would take a "dark frame" with our CCD--a picture with the
shutter closed. This would provide a reference frame that had any
detector noise. We would subtracrt this from observation images.

You can do similar things with noise from the sky (just take
multiple images of your source so you have comparisons.

- -Merrick

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 19:02:17 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: DOH!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry everyone. I said my last post was off the list, then hit
return before I edited the header.

Feel free to bombard me with 0.99c rocks at will!

- -Merrick

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:02:20 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Fred and Evelyn Wolke wrote:
> 
> >>>The transponders in GT also seem easily forgable....just record someone
> >>>else's and broadcast it back.
> >>That depends on whether there's some kind of time-dependent encryption on
> >>them.
> >>************
> >>doesn't seem to be...just a wideband radio message...
> >If it's just a wideband radio message, then yes, you can be anyone you want
> >to be, at least on your transponder.
> >If that's true, then why have a transponder at all?
> >**************8
> >because with the least effective sensors and a skill of 12 you can detect a
> >transponder on a 16 or less at 10,000 hexes. (just over one AU)...and a 10
> >or less at 100,000 hexes (about 11 AU).  A transponder will scream at
> >everyone
> > ***************I'M OVER HERE!!!!!********************LOOK AT
> >ME!!!!!!!!!!!!*******************.
> >
> >if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
> 
> Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
> anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
> anything there.
> 
> If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
> Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
> away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
> better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
> locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
> out.
> *****
> 
IIRC, transponders only respond to specific signals (based in concept, I
would suspect, on World War II-era IFF devices).  If that's the case,
then, unless the pirate had the current IFF codes for whatever force
he/she/it was trying to impersonate, the transponder wouldn't respond
appropriately to being interrogated by the IFF, and would therefore be
marked as hostile.

Much better to remain a "poor, lost circus performer" (or three!).

> thewolkes@earthlink.net
> http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes
> 
> tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
> as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy
> 
> Traveller Geek Code:
> http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
> *****

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:01:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

Fred and Evelyn Wolke writes:
> 
> >A scout ship could not radiate 1MW with a living crew.
> 
> Then the ship MUST be doing SOMETHING with the energy besides radiating
> it... because (at least in GT) the power is measured in MW for practically
> everything.

In GT, only weapons, drives, active sensors, and artificial gravity have
significant power consumption, and most of these probably dump a lot of energy
directly to space.  The assertion that a scout ship can't radiate a megawatt is
false, though -- it just requires a heat pump to a fairly hot radiator vane.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:15:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxilaries

> Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:39:19 -0400
> From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
> Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
> 
> Which brings up the question to me, why don't our fighters, heavy or
> otherwise have enough firepower to knock out a capitol ship?  Seems to me
> that we should have equivalent weapons in the Trav era that are available to
> carriers/fighters today.

The GURPS Traveller fighters probably can take out capital ships, due to
the KK missiles they can use. This is not especially unbalancing: a
fighter costs more and takes up much more space in a ship than a missile
launcher...

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:01:40 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 

>One thing that I've wondered about, but lack the knowledge to work out is
>how much of a gravity wave pulse you'd get from a ship entering or leaving
>jump. I assume there must be at least a little because as far as this
>universe is concerned the ship simply stops existing, or instanteanously
>comes into existence and I can't see how this wouldn't make a fuss. If
>nothing else it should be a distinctive siqnature, but how big would it be?

The amplitude of the resulting gravity wave would be no greater than the
total gravity of the exiting ship... VANISHINGLY small.
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:01:47 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud

>Well, the jump flash properties could be features of the individual drives
rather
>than a law of nature.  Thus you could get "stealth" drives that have
virtually no
>jump flash, while cheaper drives lack the baffles and enter the system like a
>supernova.  One could even presuppose that each ship has its own jump
signature.

Heyyyy!!!!

Wouldn't this be an excellent basis for those unforgeable transponders that
occasionally get tossed about?

If every set of jump drives has its own unique 'fingerprint' similar to the
way bullets can be traced back to a gun, then you can keep accurate records
about where a ship goes.
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:39:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Re: Sten

I recommend reading only to "Fleet of the Damned."

The authors indicate a longer planned serious was their intent in the
afterward to the last book, but other evidence seems to suggest that
Fleet of the Damned was intented as the end of the series...

There is also a noticeable fall off in quality in the last two books.
Suddenly logic flies out the window, and the empire is (for example)
described as "spanning many galaxies" (?!!) and the intelligence of
everyone drops a few notches to support the over-arching theme of
deconstruction. Rather sad, really.

On the other hand, the same authors' A RECKONING FOR KINGS, while
theoreticlaly a Vietnam War fiction, would be a good source for any low to
mid tech mercenary game...

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:22:48 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Star Gypsies

>(3) May I have a copy of the completed article (if it's going to
>be completed) for Freelance Traveller?

PMI, but what is Freelance Traveller?
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:20:33 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

At 05:39 PM 10/22/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Which brings up the question to me, why don't our fighters, heavy or
>otherwise have enough firepower to knock out a capitol ship?  Seems to me
>that we should have equivalent weapons in the Trav era that are available to
>carriers/fighters today.  Anyone play Wing Commander?


At least in GURPS Trav, you could do a lot of damage to a capship by
accelerating up to a nice high speed (say, 20) and launch your missiles
from 20 hexes out (this of course assumes that you've got someone feeding
you targeting data) The missiles can then use their thrust to intersect the
target's path, and hit with a relative velocity of between 15 and 25...
that does LOTS of damage, if the bloody things get through.
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:31:59 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:39:19 -0400, "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>

>Which brings up the question to me, why don't our fighters, heavy or
>otherwise have enough firepower to knock out a capitol ship?  Seems to me
>that we should have equivalent weapons in the Trav era that are available to
>carriers/fighters today.

Why?  Just because weapons are leading over armor today doesn't mean this
should
always hold.

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:40:03 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

At 05:41 PM 10/22/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Fred and Evelyn Wolke writes:
>> Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
>> anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
>> anything there.
>
>Well, usually traffic control has some idea of what it _wants_ there, and may
>react poorly if that isn't what they think ought to be there.
>> 
>> If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
>> Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
>> away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
>> better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
>> locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
>> out.
>
>Yah, you can set your transponder to claim you're a navy destroyer, though
it's
>common to have some level of encryption on IFF schemes, so you'd probably
need
>a reasonable database.  However, you'd better _look_ like a navy
destroyer, at
>least as far as your signature goes -- given that its known you can forge
your
>transponder ID, people won't automatically believe it.

There you go... there's some encryption on IFF schemes... exactly what I
was saying.

>The point of a transponder is to let your _friends_ know who you are.  If you
>don't have any friends who you want to know who you are, you might as well
just
>turn your transponder off.

That's certainly the intended use, but the way you've been describing them
you can easily use them for something else.

>The traveller transponders are just as forgeable as a modern transponder. 
>Modern transponders can be spoofed.  It's just that most people don't,
because
>it isn't all that useful in most situations, and tends to accumulate large
>fines from the local authorities.

That's because the combat environment of the modern seas is completely
different.

In the Buccaneer days, pirates used to keep six or seven flags aboard, so
they could fly whichever one would get them what they wanted, akin to
changing transponders.
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 19:01:02 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

>Which brings up the question to me, why don't our fighters, heavy or
>otherwise have enough firepower to knock out a capitol ship?  Seems to me
>that we should have equivalent weapons in the Trav era that are available to
>carriers/fighters today.  Anyone play Wing Commander?

You're trolling, right? My gods - a piracy debate, virus debate, 
transpoder/encryption debate, and now fighters. The relativistic rocks
can't be far behind...

Take a look at the archives. In essence,modern fighters have advantages -
vastly higher speed, for example - over surface ships  that traveller fighters
lack; and speed-of-light weapons mean that a small, agile craft trying to
get close to a bigger craft is comitting suicide in a glorious fashion; and
even if it did get close, there are no weapons that require you to be close
and can take out a capital ship in a single blow the way a big bomb or
torpedo can.

(One should also note that even USN carrier-based aircraft are at best a 
system for extending the range of missiles vs front-line Soviet warships -
trying to fly over a former-Kirov to drop bombs is an invitation to certain
death, as any Harpoon player knows.)

Bruce

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1009
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Friday, October 23 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1010



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Re HEPlaR
CT Missile burn limits
Re: Piracy Cease & Re Piracy Redux
Re: GT Transponders
re: Fighters
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Re UWP Cultural Extensions
Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics (Was:  Piracy))
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges (long and tedious)
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges (long and tedious)
Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics  (Was:Piracy))
Re: Ceasing Piracy, or move to TTL
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
Re: Current Tech: Shortstop
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: Current Tech: Shortstop
Re: Capital ships

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:13:24 +0800
From: Colin Hutchinson <chutchin@cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 

AThe short answer is that Heplar has at least one foot in reality.  More
seriously it makes a great deal of difference in space combate, try playing
BL/BR assuming Thruster plates instaed of HEPLAR.  If you run out of juice,
that is IT.  On a good day you get tpo orbit the sun.


>
>  Is there really much difference in practice between a HEPLAR and
>CT-era "thruster" equipped ship? It was fairly rare for most ships
>to try near-light cruises, and missiles (and small craft in Mayday)
>already had burn limits.
>
>

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 22:24:24 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

Jeff Zeitlin wrote:

> Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
> - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
> States since the mid-1980s.

The what?!  I was raised in Texas and now live in Boston.
Both with large Latino communities, to say the least,
and I haven't noticed any change but for the positive in
the last 30 years.

Bloo

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:20:31 +0800
From: Colin Hutchinson <chutchin@cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Re HEPlaR

>
>A typical heplar ship has about 4-12 hours of thrust, assuming they don't
>dip into PP or J fuel. As comepared to an MT design having 28 DAYS of
>continuous thrust. Under MT, it is possible to design craft with crews of
>10 or so, which can thrust for YEARS (which would get you a mre 99.9% C,
>even tho by the accelleration formulae, you'd wind up at supralight speeds;
>the formulae do not include relatavistic effects).
>
You are under-rating Heplar ships I thionk.  More likely30-100g turns or
15-50 g hours.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:02:02 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: CT Missile burn limits

>P.S. I never understood the notation for missile burn limits, either. They
>are not explained in the MT rules.

Yes, they are, in the missile design sequence in the special supplement on
Missiles... All CT space-missiles (including nukes) are chemical rocket
10x100cm missiles, built from some standard components, IIRC. I do know
that they ARE chemical, even if ships aren't. (I don't recall ANY ct
references to just how MDrives worked, other than they took power from the
PP and no fuel (both bk 2 and HG require that your PP rating be sufficient
for the higher of the MDrive or JDrive.)


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:17:16 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Cease & Re Piracy Redux

>Subject: Piracy: Cease!
>
>Folks, we go through this every six months.  The TML is now swamped by
>the
>latest incarnation of the Piracy Threads That Would Not Die.  With all
>respect to those involved, nothing is ever going to be agreed to, since
>the
>final decision is a matter of persoanl gaming taste.  *Both* sides can
>make
>convincing cases for their sides.
>
>Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?

Actually, it has been a little over 6 months, and it isn't "Every 6 months"
that it crops up. It is a MAJOR cannon issue which reflects the whole of
the imperial canon, and how to interpret the OTU.

Ian Writes:
>
>Their stock in trade is mugging small colonies of belters, and selling the
>loot to other belters.
>
>They do not come *anywhere* near mainworlds, as mainworlds have sensors,
>customs cutters, fighters, SDBs, traffic control and are listened to when
>they complain to the Subsector Admiral.
>
>If a belter colony is at all defended, then pirates dont go near it either,
>except maybe as low-paperwork traders.

This is similar to my perceptions, but I assume that outsystems tend to be
fairly lawless, and often a GG subsystem may be almost a different
mainworld in many ways... there is a lot of turf around a gas giant,
between rings, major sattelites, minor sattelites, and Trojan Asteroidal
clusters. Lots of sources of minerals and metals, and lots and lots of
ices. Magnetic induction power can be quite cheap and effective considering
the ammount of magnetic flux one encounters orbiting some GG's... Plus some
are IR sources.... These sub sytems (other than the closest GG to the
primary, may be nearly independant, and are not included in the MW UPP's,
and in some cases, and extended system can ammount to more persons than the
mainworld.... but traveller lacks a "Realistic" world generation system -
There are no pop mods for habitability! Nor law mods, for that matter.
(Hmmmm... I'm digressing, so I think I'll shut up now).


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 22:55:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Re: GT Transponders

Transponders are not designed primarily to catch pirates, just like modern
air traffic control transponders are not designed to stop drug dealers.

They are there to  notify traffic control and other vessels that a ship is present in the
area. This prevents collisions (very rare in open space, but possible near
planets, space ports, etc.) and through automatic monitoring of
transponder signals, makes it easier to respond to any problems
("traffic control reports Beowulf's transponder signal suddenly went off
the air -- something's wrong, send a cutter or SDB to investigate").

Of course, *because* your computers should be constantly tracking all
in-system
traffic, you can screen out a good portion of all non-starships since you
are *constantly* tracking them. So that just leaves the starships. Many of
them will be regulars -- while a determined smuggler or pirate can find
out who they are and mimic them, doing so does require extra work and
research, and doing it over many jumps can lead to mistakes that a traffic
control team can catch ("hey, didn't the SS Cantolope just jump in 4 days
ago -- no way they should be back this week!" or "hey, the Denebia
always used to come in at 2 G -- she's doing 1 G now?). Aside from that,
by screening out those transponder contacts that are normal insystem
commerce (planet to planet) and those that are "regulars" it's easier to
concentrate on strangers and anomalies who may be bogies.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:19:16 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Fighters

>At least in GURPS Trav, you could do a lot of damage to a capship by
>accelerating up to a nice high speed (say, 20) and launch your missiles
>from 20 hexes out (this of course assumes that you've got someone feeding
>you targeting data) The missiles can then use their thrust to intersect the
>target's path, and hit with a relative velocity of between 15 and 25...
>that does LOTS of damage, if the bloody things get through.

Oh goody - a KKM debate to go with the fighter debate and the piracy
debate and the transponder debate...

"if the bloody things get through", of course, is the hard part - 
for reasonable laser technology
(let alone the really good lasers in GT or just-plain-T) hitting an
incoming kinetic impact missile is remarkably easy; certainly for the
space/price of a figher you can fit in a point defence laser that
can eat up many many times its weight in impact missiles (at least
in FFS2; but presumably also in GURPS - it'll be interesting to try
this once I get a copy of GURPS.) 

Bruce

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 22:45:12 -0500
From: William Barnett-Lewis <wlewis@mailbag.com>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

References: <199810230201.WAA20363@phaser.Showcase.MPGN.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Oh, I duuno, ... I always had good luck with those birds in Harpoon...
They _always_ got my Iowas's into 16" range...

Bye bye Navy Cross, er, Kirov...   ;'>

(No, I wasn't here for the last flame war. Just ignore those asbestos boxers...)

> 
> >Which brings up the question to me, why don't our fighters, heavy or
> >otherwise have enough firepower to knock out a capitol ship?  Seems to me
> >that we should have equivalent weapons in the Trav era that are available to
> >carriers/fighters today.  Anyone play Wing Commander?
> 
> You're trolling, right? My gods - a piracy debate, virus debate,
> transpoder/encryption debate, and now fighters. The relativistic rocks
> can't be far behind...
> 
> Take a look at the archives. In essence,modern fighters have advantages -
> vastly higher speed, for example - over surface ships  that traveller fighters
> lack; and speed-of-light weapons mean that a small, agile craft trying to
> get close to a bigger craft is comitting suicide in a glorious fashion; and
> even if it did get close, there are no weapons that require you to be close
> and can take out a capital ship in a single blow the way a big bomb or
> torpedo can.
> 
> (One should also note that even USN carrier-based aircraft are at best a
> system for extending the range of missiles vs front-line Soviet warships -
> trying to fly over a former-Kirov to drop bombs is an invitation to certain
> death, as any Harpoon player knows.)
> 
> Bruce
> 
<vbg>

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:07:14 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

At 12:21 am 10/21/98 EDT, you wrote:
>In a message dated 10/20/98 2:02:23 PM Central Daylight Time,
>stevedaniels@portcaddo.com writes:
>
><< A cultural extension is going to go a long way to defining
> the culture of a planet.  And consequently, diminsh or limit a
referee's
> freedom of movement for creating within the constraints of that.
>>
>
>Unless the referee himself/herself generates it. If we do the
CulturalX for
>every world, then we limit etc. If we show how to do one, then we
enhance what
>the ref can do.

	This is *exactly* why I love details such as the WBH law profiles,
religious profiles, etc.  I don't think I've EVER created one
strictly by the dice. But it provides a good spur for my imagination
(which is sometimes a bit rusty and needs a swift kick to get it
going ...)
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:39:36 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Re UWP Cultural Extensions

At 12:26 am 10/21/98 EDT, you wrote:
>In a message dated 10/20/98 10:54:16 PM Central Daylight Time,
>goldendj@pcisys.net writes:
>
><<  If I recall the way somebody explained it once,
> while DGP owned the copyright to the actual *text*, the ideas and
concepts
> were created under license, and hence the license holder (then GDW,
now
> FFE) had free right to reuse those ideas and concepts.  >>
>
>I believe that I explained it that way. And I am not adverse to
making use of
>the concepts. I am just investigating which ones are positive and
which ones
>aren't.

	Well, the positive ones are the ones I use, and the negative ones
are the ones I don't ... <g>


On a more serious note, I very much liked

	Technology Profile (WBH pp83-86; I'm a gearhead, whaddaya want?).
Breaking up the otherwise monolithic TL into various areas goes a
long way to adding variety. THIS planet produces computer equipment
for export to THAT planet, which produces medical equipment for
export back ... despite the fact that they're both listed at the same
TL in a top-level UWP. Everybody pays a premium for NOrazi air/rafts,
but those guys/gals/things could build a decent stereo system to save
their gills. Solomani excel at Medical (genetics), while Hivers build
great computers.

	Parts of the population related details (WBH pp74-77) ... Social
Outlook (progressiveness, aggressiveness, extensiveness). Local
customs left me cold, except as a "menu" from which I could pick if I
wanted ... dressing habits, eating habits, living quarters, family
practives, miscellaneous customs ... nah.

	Government related details (pp78-79) was moderately interesting in
generating background flavor for me to get the mindset of a planet's
government, but I never extensively used it.

	Religious profile (pp79-81) was nice, but I never got around to
using it.

	Legal Profile (p82) was a very definite good idea.

	From the above you can obviously see I have WBH, and will survive if
none of it gets reused. I would argue, however, for keeping
everything but the "local customs." Instead of presenting that as
some kind of profile or table to be rolled on, you can just provide a
menu of ideas.

	Other useful extensions (not just cultural) to the UWP:

	Native life--is the local life as varied as earth (thousands of
species in all different branches of the kingdom--plants, animals,
insects, microorganisms, "none of the above"), is it more primitive,
maybe more sparse (ecotastrophe in the past cut the number of species
by a factor of a thousand?), is it more plantlike, is everything
mobile, etc., etc.

	Sentients--what's the distribution of sentient species? Distinguish
between spacefaring and native non-spacefaring, or major and minor.
Perhaps HVARKD-ABC would be
Human/Vargr/Aslan/hiveR/Kkree/Droyne-minorA/minorB/minorC, where each
digit represented the percentage of the total population represented,
and minorA, B, and C are minor species which would have to be spelled
out in the comments or details.

	Social mores--are people direct/aggressive (Americans) or
indirect/passive (Japanese)? Does the community or the individual
come first? Is honesty important? Is time important (i.e. the
American "time is money" concept or the idea that "today, maybe
manana, maybe next week")? Are group activities or individual
activities stressed? Is the culture implicitly or explicitly
stratified, and to what extent? Poor/middle class/rich, or a full
Hindu caste system? Is it based on wealth, appearance, heritage,
occupation? Any sexual dimorphism in the culture (i.e. male/female
roles)? Tolerance of those towards/beyond the fringes of the
culture's "normal"? Level of permissiveness (sexuality, intoxicants,
leisure, pleasure in general)?


- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:50:30 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics (Was:  Piracy))

At 07:54 pm 10/21/98 +0000, you wrote:
>>Not even "in theory" can a laser convert heat to IR.
>>
>
>There are solid state devices the conver heat to electricity without
>themselves generating more heat than they use.  Thay is one way to
do it.

	Simple thermodynamics ... they're utilizing a temperature
differential and extracting work from the heat as it flows from hot
to cold ... BUT the heat is STILL flowing.

	It is quite simple physics. Every single solitary megawatt of power
generated on the ship, REGARDLESS of how it is used in the meantime,
has to leave the ship somehow. Except for the fraction that's sent
out, say, as a laser beam, it ALL winds up as heat. And if you look
at the efficiency of lasers, you find that of every five or so MW
sent to them by the power plant, only one leaves in the beam itself.
The rest is waste ... heat. You *cannot* use up heat, only move it
around. Thermo 101.

- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:47:38 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges (long and tedious)

At 02:20 pm 10/21/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>This whole discussion must be becoming extraordinarily tedious to
most
>of the TML. It's possible that by this point everyone else is bored
and I 
>should be giving Charles his tutorial in basic imaging theory in
private 
>email; if anyone feels that way, please send me a note.

	I'm still learning from the discussion ...
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:37:39 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges (long and tedious)

At 12:04 am 10/23/98 +0000, you wrote:
>No, I ment that the inner vaccume would retain the heat and let the
outer
>hull cool down naturally.  If a real good IR reflecter were placed
between

	If you've got a perfect block between the inner and the outer hull,
every watt of energy generated is building up inside the ship. How
fast, at 150MW, to reach infinite temperature? All the way back to
basics:

	Energy in a system = Energy generated less Energy lost

	Consider the ship as a system. The rate at which it emits energy
MUST equal the rate at which it's generated to keep the temperature
(=measure of random kinetic energy) constant. If the emission rate
drops below the generation rate, you start building up ...

- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:42:31 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics  (Was:Piracy))

At 02:47 pm 10/22/98 +0000, you wrote:
>
>>I am sorry...I have held my tongue as long as I can.  I have to
wonder:  Do I
>>live on the same world as you do???  This is clearly, patently,
blatently in
>>error.
>>
>>DustyLV769@aol.com
>>
>
>Read up a little on juction excitation.  As in thermal couples.
It's a well

	Perhaps going back and reading up a little on basic thermodynamics
and how it specifically applies to the space environment will help
explain. ALL of the heat MUST go somewhere. Even if you use a
thermocouple, ANY kind of thermocouple, there are two basic facts:

	1. You MUST have a heat sink at a lower temperature than the heat
source. If you want to keep your spacecraft at a comfortable
temperature, you eventually wind up having to emit the heat from the
ship to space (background temperature: approx 3K). Heat moves from
higher temperature to lower temperature.*

	2. Conservation of energy still applies. With a 20% efficiency, the
20% you manage to convert to electrical energy is STILL in the
system. When you use it to do anything, it eventually winds up as
waste heat. You still have to get rid of it, along with the original
80% you couldn't convert in the first place.

>I design heat recovery system controls.  They cut power use in steam
>generation.  They do not reduce it to zero.  Savings can be on the
order of
>20% in winter and 10-12% in summer.  Are you telling me that a 20%+
>reduction in power use will not decrease heat signature?  Are you
trying to
>tell me that a heat gradiant or 300k is not enough to do usefull
work?  I
>work with a far smaller gradiant of about 80-100k.  If nothing else
use the
>heat to boil a gas like nitrogen or hydrogen to power a turbine to
produce
>power.  This would make a good single stage of heat recovery system
for our
>stealth ship.  Use the space between the hulls as you LHY tank an
use the
>pressure from heating to power that generater.  This reduces the
power
>needed to be drawn from batteries reduceing waste heat from the
batteries.
>Two or three layers of recovery will increase efficency dramatically
which
>will reduce total power use and signature plus slow the speed at
which the
>outer hull has to dump heat.

	The heat that comes into the first stage of your mythical system
STILL COMES OUT THE HULL! Even the heat you've transferred into the
LHyd STILL IS IN THERE, AND STILL COMES OUT!
>
>I do this for a living people.  Heat does not come from nowhere.  It
is a

	Bruce does IR sensor work for a living. I do satellite operations
for a living. Trust me, if we could generate energy for free, we
could. This is a very different environment, with a very different
mindset, than the one with which you're familiar. Part of the problem
may be getting the difference across.

* Well, you can "pump" heat from low temperature to high temperature
... but you pay a price in energy (which winds up as waste heat ...)
That's basically what starships do... the radiators (IIRC) are around
2000K. The fusion reactor obviously is higher than that, so you just
let the waste heat there run "downhill."  To keep lower temperature
regions (such as the crew quarters at around 300K) cool, you pump the
heat "uphill" to the radiator.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:49:10 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Ceasing Piracy, or move to TTL

At 06:29 pm 10/22/98 -0600, you wrote:
>Subject says it all. I guess we should stop or move it. I see these
>threads and forget what list it's on half the time (may also be true
>of other gearhead answers posted :-)

	Probably a good idea ... I know I tend to come across as more
hostile than I intend when I'm frustrated. (Which, incidentally, is a
lefthanded apology to anybody offended if I HAVE phrased things
poorly ...)
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:58:59 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

At 09:20 pm 10/22/98 -0400, you wrote:
>At 05:39 PM 10/22/98 -0400, you wrote:
>>Which brings up the question to me, why don't our fighters, heavy
or
>>otherwise have enough firepower to knock out a capitol ship?  Seems
to me
>>that we should have equivalent weapons in the Trav era that are
available to
>>carriers/fighters today.  Anyone play Wing Commander?

	The difference between the relationships 'twixt modern capital ships
(operating in and limited by the ocean environment) and fighter
aircraft (operating in and limited by a much different environment,
air), and space "carriers" and "fighters" both operating under the
exact same environment and limitations.

	A modern fighter has speed and maneuverability 20 or more times
higher than a modern capital ship. A space fighter has a minimal
margin in maneuverability over a larger vessel, and the disadvantage
of much less armor, power, and weaponry.

	Add in lightspeed weaponry, realistic detection ranges ...

	Don't compare AIR fighters and WATER capital ships, they're two
different things. Compare speedboats and battleships, and then tell
me which one has the advantage.

	Oh, and I wouldn't consider Wing Commander or any other video game
to be a reasonable source of reference when you're talking hard
science fiction. Space fantasy, maybe.

	Since I've noticed a definite revival of old topics (which is GOOD,
frankly ... it means there are new people joining the list. Just us
old fogeys who've heard it before), may I be the first to bring up
the idea of kinetic kill missiles? After all, why use a det-laser
that goes off thousands of km (or miles for GURPS geeks) away from
the target when you can apply a little E=1/2mv^2 ...

(ducks and runs off to hide under his killer lesbian Aslan lifeboat
shield)
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:48:57 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Current Tech: Shortstop

At 09:29 am 10/22/98 +1300, you wrote:
>IIRC you can make proximity fuses that use a capacitance sensor to
tell
>when they are at the right distance from the ground. These should be
immune
>to just about anything.

	How about an oscillating electrical field?  After all, in effect
what a capacitance sensor is doing is measuring the local electrical
field ...
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:38:45 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 06:48 pm 10/22/98 +0000, you wrote:
>If the signal is less than the threshold of detection of a singal
element of
>the array no amount of intergration with improve the signal because
it was

	Given that REALWORLD sensors right now have "threshold of detection"
equal to a single photon (not 100% of the time, but up there), I'm
not worried ... unless you're emitting fractional photons?

>not detected.  Real world collides with theory.  Real world wins.
Sensor

	You're right. Realworld detects single photons.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:55:09 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Current Tech: Shortstop

At 01:24 pm 10/21/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>
>johannes wrote:
>
>> Did you ever wonder what someone would think who was monitoring
this list
>> and had no idea what Traveller or RPGs were?  And suppose Nuclear
Dampers
>> (for example) really DID exist, but as a deep dark secret weapon?
We'd
>> probably have our own desk at the NSA by now!
>
>Who says we Don't?

	How many people on the list very deliberately did NOT sign up from
work, even though that's a more convenient/timely way to participate,
simply because they didn't want to explain things ...?
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:15:15 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Capital ships

At 05:59 pm 10/22/98 +0100, you wrote:
>Fred and Evelyn Wolke wrote:
>
>>>He he he. This takes `we hide with pride' to a whole new level. To
>>>invade a world with deep meson sites is bad enough; to invade one
where
>>>they move around...
>>
>>Remember that those deep meson sites need targeting data, and those
pretty
>>much have to be on or near the surface.  I think a
heavily-stealthed
>>submarine devoted to sensor work would be useful for a TL15 wet
navy.

	Cheap disposable sensor buoys, packaged in dispersed dispensers (can
I say that?) all across the ocean floor. Once triggered, the
dispensers randomly spit out a buoy, which floats to the surface,
sees what it can see, and broadcasts targetting info for as long as
the buoy survives ... If you've got data from a couple of these buoys
simultaneously, you should be able to get a fairly decent "blind" fix
and saturate a fair volume ...

	Slightly more expensive dispensers, with more expensive buoys. The
buoys are connected to the dispenser "base" by a fiber optic cable
(--minimal detectable leakage), and multiple fibers lead away from
each base to widely scattered terminal points. MesonSub snugs up to a
terminal point, activates the sensor buoy, acquires a target and
destroys it, then moves on ... or just keeps using that sensor until
it finally bites the dust, THEN moves on

	Combination pop-up det laser/sensor missiles from automated
launchers on the seabed--pop up and engage any target visible, while
simultaneously broadcasting targeting coordinates. Again, multiple
inputs give you a better chance of hitting something.

	Cheap passive/active sensor package on top of every single building
on the planet, all feeding into the global data net. Try degrading
THAT "very large array ..." Even if you don't like the idea of
millions of devices dumping sensor data onto the net, hook groups of
them together, and then make the consolidated data available. Think
WebCam ...

	Put an optical sensor on top of every single streetlamp. By
combining data from them, you can certainly detect anybody
reentering.

	Fire blindly ... if you've got enough subs, you can blanket the most
likely approach corridors ...
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1010
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Friday, October 23 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1011



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: Capital ships
Re: GT transponders
Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV
Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*
Re HEPlaR
Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 
re: Travellerish fiction
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard
SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)
Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges (long and tedious)
Re: GT transponders
Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*
Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV
Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 
Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges (long and tedious)

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 21:21:32 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 06:48 pm 10/22/98 +0000, you wrote:
>At 03:33 PM 10/21/98 -0600, you wrote:
>>> Where is the canon that says that you cam pick out a scout in the
ort cloud
>>> that you did not know was there?
>> 
>>150MW is a bright source.
>>
>
>A scouts surface area can not radiate that kind of power.  The ship would
>melt!  Space is the untimate vacume bottle.  Radiation is the only way to
>get rid of heat and it is the worst way.  There is a limit to how much a
>given area can radiate.  150MW would liquify tons of steel! or boil milions
>of gallons of water.  Get real!  it take less than 100watts hours to boil a
>gallon of water in 20 minutes.  Look at your electric bill for a month.

		The scout MUST radiate that much heat, or the scout melts. Look at
your basic thermo textbooks. It's being generated, it HAS to go
somewhere. IIRC, the DSR assumed a radiator temperature of around
2000K. 

>>> If it is above the threshold of detection.  Numbers please?
>> 
>>Intergrate long enough. Bruce's sensor numbers (signatures in this
>>case) simply apply magnitudes to hulls radiating--I beleive the
>>baseline was 1 100dton sphere, but I could be wrong.
>>
>
>If the signal is less than the threshold of detection of a singal
element of
>the array no amount of intergration with improve the signal because
it was

		Given that REALWORLD sensors right now have "threshold of
detection" equal to a single photon, I'm not worried ... unless
you're emitting fractional photons? 

>not detected.  Real world collides with theory.  Real world wins. Sensor

	Yep. Realworld can detect single photon. Realworld wins. In case
you've missed the repeated point, Bruce generated professional
simulations based on REALWORLD data to determine signatures and
sensitivities. The only extrapolation was in determining what size
sensors would be for a given sensitivity at different TLs.

>First figure out the surface area needed to radiate that 150MW contineious
>heat output into space and the temperture of the radiater.  Cooked crew!
>Remember to include that parralel radiater will loose efficency due to
>absorbion of some of their neighbors energy.
>
>A scout ship could not radiate 1MW with a living crew.

	A scout ship that cannot radiate 150MW would not have a living crew.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:03:44 +1000 (EST)
From: JEFFREY MALONE <j1.malone@student.qut.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Capital ships

ELF would be virtually useless for targeting data.  Whilst I don't have
the stats in front of me, the data transfer rate for ELF comms is _very_
low.  About all its useful for is for cueing other comms systems.  As I
recall, the USN is working with blue/green lasers as a high data rate
comms means for submerged (albeit, not at great depth) subs.  By high Trav
TL, meason comms would be the means of choice, both because of the data
transfer rate, and because intervening matter is no longer an issue for
maintaining comms.

Jeff Malone (aka Academician Boris Kalashnikov)

*******************************************************************************
Jeff Malone
PhD Student - Department of Justice Studies, Kelvin Grove Campus, QUT
              Kelvin Grove  QLD  4052
Phone:        (07) 3864-3597
Fax:          (07) 3864-3991/2 
*******************************************************************************

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:18:02 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400, Fred and Evelyn Wolke
<thewolkes@earthlink.net>
>>if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
>
>Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
>anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
>anything there.
>
>If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
>Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
>away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
>better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
>locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
>out.

Well, IMO, a transponder is never going to be able to "prove" who you are
and I thought saying they existed for that reason didn't work.

If they exist, I think they would be mostly to aid navigation (ships are easier
to track and you don't have to take time to call them up to find out who they
are).   It does have some benefit to security because it complicates some
situations because ships have to commit to sneaking up (since once they
are detected they have to explain why their transponders were off which
they may or may not be able to do).

That is why I think they exist.

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:41:37 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB 
...
>They're lead by this really *SHORT* Vargr wearing a beret, right?

  Actually they're lead by the Public Accounts auditor who's looking
into why the new ship class can't power it's fusion gun :(  You could
just install batteries in the spare space (although this shouldn't
really work in HG/Striker). 

  Alternatively, allow HG designs to be non-standard sizes (i.e., tonnage
may be any value of one or above - <1 would require scaling down output
per Striker) and simply enter EP's output, while listing the USP for damage 
purposes as Pn with all fractions dropped.

  Or just design the ship properly the first time...

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:41:42 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*

>From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
>Subject: Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*
...
>Fair point. I was thinking factor 9 missiles (3x turret) and factor 9
>missile bays. Of course, you could (shock horror) ignore the USP limits!

  You could get around this by adding three lines (#1 listed as second set
of batteries, and 2/3 as #batts/batts bearing). Kind of an ugly way to do
it though, and it starts to screw with the HG simplicity concept.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:20:35 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re HEPlaR

>From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
...
>OH YEAH! Heplar burns fuel. CT/MT SHIPS and Small Craft do not use fuel for
>maneuver (solely for power). So in CT/MT, as long as the PP holds out, you
>can keep thrusting. Under TNE's HEPlar, your heplar fuel was often enough
>for an extra jump-1, and only gave you a few HOURS of thust. Since T-plates
...

  I appreciate that your powered maneuver duration is drastically reduced, but
is that a bad thing, and does it really affect how most ships behave in Trav?

  Given that the economics of ship financing have largely killed gas giant
refuelling IIRC (YMMV), at least for shippers in well-travelled areas, then
making M-drive cruises to the outer system longer hardly matters. It will
make some differences to ship designs, esp. for intra-system use, but it
may actually make certain activities easier out there.

  I hope that few CT ships went relativistic often; this also largely
solves the "near-C half-brick in a sock" routine, yes?

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:19:06 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 

>>
>>  Is there really much difference in practice between a HEPLAR and
>>CT-era "thruster" equipped ship? It was fairly rare for most ships
>>to try near-light cruises, and missiles (and small craft in Mayday)
>>already had burn limits.
>>
>>
>AThe short answer is that Heplar has at least one foot in reality.  More
>seriously it makes a great deal of difference in space combate, try playing
>BL/BR assuming Thruster plates instaed of HEPLAR.  If you run out of juice,
>that is IT.  On a good day you get tpo orbit the sun.
>
Oh, one other problem with heplars: they eat a large power chunk, in
ADDITION to needing plenty of fuel of their own. And MT/FF&S1 pp's (which
are basically identical) do eat a goodly ammount of fuel.

Colin Writes
>>A typical heplar ship has about 4-12 hours of thrust, assuming they don't
>>dip into PP or J fuel. As comepared to an MT design having 28 DAYS of
>>continuous thrust. Under MT, it is possible to design craft with crews of
>>10 or so, which can thrust for YEARS (which would get you a mre 99.9% C,
>>even tho by the accelleration formulae, you'd wind up at supralight speeds;
>>the formulae do not include relatavistic effects).
>>
>You are under-rating Heplar ships I thionk.  More likely30-100g turns or
>15-50 g hours.

Check TNE, BL. G-Turns of thrust are 1/2 hour of 1G. I was a little low,
but the ships which need endurance lack it severely, and those which don't
have it.
looking in TNE Mk1 Mod 1
Scout: 80 G-turns with 2G, so we get 20 hours of max thrust
the far trader (Jayhawk A2) has 48 GT, 1G, so 24 hours of thrust
the free trader, 56 G-T, or 28 Ghours, and 1g
The Lord Baltimore Yacht: 32G-T with 4G, so 8 hours
gazelle 112 G-T, 3G With tanks 18h45m max thrust.
	77.6 G-T 5G without tanks  7h45m max thrust
Lab SHip: 96g-t 1G, 48 hours
Patrol Cruiser: 60G-T 4G; 7h30m at max burn
SDB: 112G-T, 4G; 14 hours
Fat Trader: 60G-T 1G; 30 hours
Donosev: 104G-T 2G; 26 hours
Subsidized Liner: 76 G-turns 1G; 38 hours
Merc Cruiser: 48G-T 2G; 12 hours

None of the above includes jump fuel. Low is 7h30m, high is 48.
Of the above, commercial craft (merchants & lab ship): low 24 high 48
Military (rest except yacht): low 7h30m high 26h

Total mission delta-v is usually measured in G-Hours... from launch to
refuel, whether that is far point or RTB. If RTB, that means accellerate,
coast, decellerate, do whatever, accellerate back, coast, decellerate, land.

Heplar may be more realistic, but it meant (IME) PC's taking running jumps
constantly, and spending about 3 times as long to get to/from jump points,
and GG's became accessable only via jump, as did the outter system. One
group of PC's nearly died off due to a misjump using TNE Rules, which put
them in the system, at several thousand AU. (T-Plates can get very tricky
on distances like these, because you run smack into relativity issures, but
with accelleration to 10PSL, 1000au becomes roughly (using an 8.5 lm AU,
not right,but fairly close)(8.5m x 10 x 1000) 85000minutes = 60 days. With
heplar, forget it... find a snowball and jump if you can. If you can't,
find a low berth, rig the PP to maintain the LB ONLY and run on as little
power as possible to maintain operation) and pray. Mind you, if the locals
like you, in 6 days they will know you exist, and may send help.

With T-plates, run as little as possible (LS, MD, computer, G-comps,
passive sensor for nav fix) till you hit 10 PSL. THen shut down sensors at
MD at 5PSL or 10PSL, and go to only one computer, and ration the food. (as
established before, water will be recycled if only to keep it out of the
machinery.) You can usually take your remaining (MT/FF&S1) usually 19 days,
and multiply by 5 (you can run at 20% or less often... I can see running a
plant stablely for as low as 10% output). With a T-plate universe, 1000AU
is reachable. Damned inconvinient, but reachable.

in a T-plate universe, the outer system is still a long trip, but is at
least doable with standard craft. In a Heplar (which is STILL
unrealistically efficient, IIRC) universe, a mainworld orbiting a GG is
barely going to have reasonable travel times in the GG's moon-system, and
going from planet to planet is much easier by jump in most cases.

(NOTE: I am NOT trying to encourage a Near-C rock discussion)
BTW, is there a formula for time-dilation effects that is simple enough to
use? (I don't do calculus, only simple algebra and statisics.)

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:54:55 +1300
From: pbroeder@wave.co.nz
Subject: re: Travellerish fiction

> What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H. Beam
Piper:
>
>       Little Fuzzy
>       4-Day Planet
>       Uller Uprising
>       Space Viking

        The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
        Fuzzy Sapiens
        Fuzzies and Other People


> There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the top of
my
> head.

More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
the moment.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You missed 'lone star planet','federation','empire','first cycle'

no i do NOT lend books :)

Jonathan, new zealand

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:54:36 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
...
>>   Has anyone ever figured out why armoured hulls use the cost formula
>> of [MCr 0.3 (+ 0.1 per armour factor) per ton] in High Guard? I can
>> see the explanation that it's different materials and engineering work
>> in upgrading the whole structure (somewhat like compartmentalization
...
>When you look at it, yeah, it's expensive, but not compared to egines and 
>such.  And the price applies *ONLY* to the armour; my SDB design I posted the 
>other day has 80 dt of armour at a cost of 56MCr.  The hull ran 96MCr, and the 
>power plant ran 576MCr.  Power plants don't get cheaper (relatively) until you 
>hit TL14!

  Yes, but the Terrier SDB is carrying (f4) 10% at MCr 0.7 /ton, while
the Rabid Poodle is maxxed out for combat at (f12) 26% at MCr 1.5 /ton.
At TL 12 they're presumably using superdense, which is KCr 14/m^3 in
slabs, so a D-ton should cost MCr 0.196 plus forming and engineering?
(which gives the 1000 Dt Poodle an armour allocation around 50,000 tons!)

  If the "2+2a" formula for armour in HG accounts for engineering and
compartmentalization with the fixed 2% of ship D-tonnage, then the "2a"
should be linear cost based on the material and its' forming/installation
cost(?). If so, then the Poodle would pay ~2.6 times more its' armour
(per D-t of ship) than the Terrier rather than the ~5.5 times it pays now.

  If installation is counted in HG's MCr 0.1 per Dt hull cgarge then the
armour could be re-assessed as "material value at TL plus % for forming",
thus giving a more rational (?) basis for costing armoured ships.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:54:41 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)

>From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
...
>>>>  So, at maximum sensor range (IIRC?) a single "broadside" will inflict
...
>All aproaches from behind the planet to remain hidden for the examples below.

  yeah, but that only works because SFB is 2-D :)

...
>>  Unless the crews are pirates, I suspect. One guy watching the boards
>>wouldn't work? People make lots of jokes about computers using vacuum
>>tubes in Trav, but then they assume that software will never get past
>>the pong level?
>
>But the guns will be unmaned if the crew is standing down.  That was my
>point.  You will not have everybody at their station all the time.  You just
>agreed with me.  The pirate knows when he will attack an can have his crew
>on station.  The SDB never knows when all hell will break loose.

  I didn't agree - I implied that maybe automation (toggled by a human
for offensive weapons) would handle a few minutes of the engagement at
some degraded function. You disagree with that premise?

...
>Stop 50 missles on balistic targeting with no gunners in the turrets and 3
>seconds warning?  Real good crew.

  I don't know where ballistic targetting came into this, but I doubt
that the PD lasers are run by Mk. I eyeballs. It's possible that there
may be automation in PD functions, even at TL 6-7.

  Three seconds? Engagement range? d=1/2at^2? Show me, please.

...
>>others habitations (the Alabama (?) comes to mind).
>
>Then who builds the merc cruisers, armed merchants, and the corsairs?

  I'll assume that they're built at shipyards? If you're playing in the
Imperium, then logically they'd be shipyards under 3I supervision, with
instructions about building warships without end-user certificates, no
Scout Ships of Doom, maybe submitting paperwork to INI so they can start
by looking at vessel capabilities?

  I doubt that most campaigns (CT/HG) would allow merchants to buy missile
bays, PA barbettes, and meson guns.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:04:40 +0800
From: Colin Hutchinson <chutchin@cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 

This Colin did not :)

>Colin Writes
>>>A typical heplar ship has about 4-12 hours of thrust, assuming they don't
>>>dip into PP or J fuel. As comepared to an MT design having 28 DAYS of
>>>continuous thrust. Under MT, it is possible to design craft with crews of
>>>10 or so, which can thrust for YEARS (which would get you a mre 99.9% C,
>>>even tho by the accelleration formulae, you'd wind up at supralight speeds;
>>>the formulae do not include relatavistic effects).

he did:
>>You are under-rating Heplar ships I thionk.  More likely30-100g turns or
>>15-50 g hours.
>
>
>Heplar may be more realistic, but it meant (IME) PC's taking running jumps
>constantly, and spending about 3 times as long to get to/from jump points,
>and GG's became accessable only via jump, as did the outter system. One
>group of PC's nearly died off due to a misjump using TNE Rules, which put


Same happened to a group of mine, lots of time to kill as they coasted home!

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:31:33 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Tommy Grav <tommy.grav@astro.uio.no>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges (long and tedious)

On Thu, 22 Oct 1998, Merrick Burkhardt wrote:

>You don't scan at 3ls. You scan the sky. The sky is a surface to a
>telescope--distance isn't a factor in scanning (other than the fact
>that farther objects are fainter). I suppose you might ask "What is
>the minimum integration time to detect a 53K BB at 3ls?"

Lets look at this

    L = 4*pi*sigma*R^2*T^4 is the luminosity 

Asume R = 25m, T = 53K

    L = 3513 W

The absolute magnitude is then 

    M = 62

Which at 3ls = 9.51E-08 ly = 2.92E-8 pc gives an apparent magnitude
of 
    m = 2 

which with a moderate sized telescope and a CCD would take under a
minute to detect. 

I have done detections of comets at distances of over 1AU using
30s exposures with the 2.5 Nordical Optical Telescope.
 
Tommy Grav
- -------------------------------------------------------------
tommy.grav@astro.uio.no     http://www.uio.no/~tommygr/  
Institute of Astrophysics, UiO, No  
IMTU tn++t4+tg+ ru+ge++ !3i jt+au+st+ls hi++dr-so++zh-sy-sw++ 
 

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:18:02 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400, Fred and Evelyn Wolke
<thewolkes@earthlink.net>
>>if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
>
>Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
>anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
>anything there.
>
>If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
>Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
>away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
>better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
>locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
>out.

Well, IMO, a transponder is never going to be able to "prove" who you are
and I thought saying they existed for that reason didn't work.

If they exist, I think they would be mostly to aid navigation (ships are easier
to track and you don't have to take time to call them up to find out who they
are).   It does have some benefit to security because it complicates some
situations because ships have to commit to sneaking up (since once they
are detected they have to explain why their transponders were off which
they may or may not be able to do).

That is why I think they exist.

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:41:42 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*

>From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
>Subject: Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*
...
>Fair point. I was thinking factor 9 missiles (3x turret) and factor 9
>missile bays. Of course, you could (shock horror) ignore the USP limits!

  You could get around this by adding three lines (#1 listed as second set
of batteries, and 2/3 as #batts/batts bearing). Kind of an ugly way to do
it though, and it starts to screw with the HG simplicity concept.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:41:37 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB 
...
>They're lead by this really *SHORT* Vargr wearing a beret, right?

  Actually they're lead by the Public Accounts auditor who's looking
into why the new ship class can't power it's fusion gun :(  You could
just install batteries in the spare space (although this shouldn't
really work in HG/Striker). 

  Alternatively, allow HG designs to be non-standard sizes (i.e., tonnage
may be any value of one or above - <1 would require scaling down output
per Striker) and simply enter EP's output, while listing the USP for damage 
purposes as Pn with all fractions dropped.

  Or just design the ship properly the first time...

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:04:40 +0800
From: Colin Hutchinson <chutchin@cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 

This Colin did not :)

>Colin Writes
>>>A typical heplar ship has about 4-12 hours of thrust, assuming they don't
>>>dip into PP or J fuel. As comepared to an MT design having 28 DAYS of
>>>continuous thrust. Under MT, it is possible to design craft with crews of
>>>10 or so, which can thrust for YEARS (which would get you a mre 99.9% C,
>>>even tho by the accelleration formulae, you'd wind up at supralight speeds;
>>>the formulae do not include relatavistic effects).

he did:
>>You are under-rating Heplar ships I thionk.  More likely30-100g turns or
>>15-50 g hours.
>
>
>Heplar may be more realistic, but it meant (IME) PC's taking running jumps
>constantly, and spending about 3 times as long to get to/from jump points,
>and GG's became accessable only via jump, as did the outter system. One
>group of PC's nearly died off due to a misjump using TNE Rules, which put


Same happened to a group of mine, lots of time to kill as they coasted home!

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:19:06 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 

>>
>>  Is there really much difference in practice between a HEPLAR and
>>CT-era "thruster" equipped ship? It was fairly rare for most ships
>>to try near-light cruises, and missiles (and small craft in Mayday)
>>already had burn limits.
>>
>>
>AThe short answer is that Heplar has at least one foot in reality.  More
>seriously it makes a great deal of difference in space combate, try playing
>BL/BR assuming Thruster plates instaed of HEPLAR.  If you run out of juice,
>that is IT.  On a good day you get tpo orbit the sun.
>
Oh, one other problem with heplars: they eat a large power chunk, in
ADDITION to needing plenty of fuel of their own. And MT/FF&S1 pp's (which
are basically identical) do eat a goodly ammount of fuel.

Colin Writes
>>A typical heplar ship has about 4-12 hours of thrust, assuming they don't
>>dip into PP or J fuel. As comepared to an MT design having 28 DAYS of
>>continuous thrust. Under MT, it is possible to design craft with crews of
>>10 or so, which can thrust for YEARS (which would get you a mre 99.9% C,
>>even tho by the accelleration formulae, you'd wind up at supralight speeds;
>>the formulae do not include relatavistic effects).
>>
>You are under-rating Heplar ships I thionk.  More likely30-100g turns or
>15-50 g hours.

Check TNE, BL. G-Turns of thrust are 1/2 hour of 1G. I was a little low,
but the ships which need endurance lack it severely, and those which don't
have it.
looking in TNE Mk1 Mod 1
Scout: 80 G-turns with 2G, so we get 20 hours of max thrust
the far trader (Jayhawk A2) has 48 GT, 1G, so 24 hours of thrust
the free trader, 56 G-T, or 28 Ghours, and 1g
The Lord Baltimore Yacht: 32G-T with 4G, so 8 hours
gazelle 112 G-T, 3G With tanks 18h45m max thrust.
	77.6 G-T 5G without tanks  7h45m max thrust
Lab SHip: 96g-t 1G, 48 hours
Patrol Cruiser: 60G-T 4G; 7h30m at max burn
SDB: 112G-T, 4G; 14 hours
Fat Trader: 60G-T 1G; 30 hours
Donosev: 104G-T 2G; 26 hours
Subsidized Liner: 76 G-turns 1G; 38 hours
Merc Cruiser: 48G-T 2G; 12 hours

None of the above includes jump fuel. Low is 7h30m, high is 48.
Of the above, commercial craft (merchants & lab ship): low 24 high 48
Military (rest except yacht): low 7h30m high 26h

Total mission delta-v is usually measured in G-Hours... from launch to
refuel, whether that is far point or RTB. If RTB, that means accellerate,
coast, decellerate, do whatever, accellerate back, coast, decellerate, land.

Heplar may be more realistic, but it meant (IME) PC's taking running jumps
constantly, and spending about 3 times as long to get to/from jump points,
and GG's became accessable only via jump, as did the outter system. One
group of PC's nearly died off due to a misjump using TNE Rules, which put
them in the system, at several thousand AU. (T-Plates can get very tricky
on distances like these, because you run smack into relativity issures, but
with accelleration to 10PSL, 1000au becomes roughly (using an 8.5 lm AU,
not right,but fairly close)(8.5m x 10 x 1000) 85000minutes = 60 days. With
heplar, forget it... find a snowball and jump if you can. If you can't,
find a low berth, rig the PP to maintain the LB ONLY and run on as little
power as possible to maintain operation) and pray. Mind you, if the locals
like you, in 6 days they will know you exist, and may send help.

With T-plates, run as little as possible (LS, MD, computer, G-comps,
passive sensor for nav fix) till you hit 10 PSL. THen shut down sensors at
MD at 5PSL or 10PSL, and go to only one computer, and ration the food. (as
established before, water will be recycled if only to keep it out of the
machinery.) You can usually take your remaining (MT/FF&S1) usually 19 days,
and multiply by 5 (you can run at 20% or less often... I can see running a
plant stablely for as low as 10% output). With a T-plate universe, 1000AU
is reachable. Damned inconvinient, but reachable.

in a T-plate universe, the outer system is still a long trip, but is at
least doable with standard craft. In a Heplar (which is STILL
unrealistically efficient, IIRC) universe, a mainworld orbiting a GG is
barely going to have reasonable travel times in the GG's moon-system, and
going from planet to planet is much easier by jump in most cases.

(NOTE: I am NOT trying to encourage a Near-C rock discussion)
BTW, is there a formula for time-dilation effects that is simple enough to
use? (I don't do calculus, only simple algebra and statisics.)

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:31:33 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Tommy Grav <tommy.grav@astro.uio.no>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges (long and tedious)

On Thu, 22 Oct 1998, Merrick Burkhardt wrote:

>You don't scan at 3ls. You scan the sky. The sky is a surface to a
>telescope--distance isn't a factor in scanning (other than the fact
>that farther objects are fainter). I suppose you might ask "What is
>the minimum integration time to detect a 53K BB at 3ls?"

Lets look at this

    L = 4*pi*sigma*R^2*T^4 is the luminosity 

Asume R = 25m, T = 53K

    L = 3513 W

The absolute magnitude is then 

    M = 62

Which at 3ls = 9.51E-08 ly = 2.92E-8 pc gives an apparent magnitude
of 
    m = 2 

which with a moderate sized telescope and a CCD would take under a
minute to detect. 

I have done detections of comets at distances of over 1AU using
30s exposures with the 2.5 Nordical Optical Telescope.
 
Tommy Grav
- -------------------------------------------------------------
tommy.grav@astro.uio.no     http://www.uio.no/~tommygr/  
Institute of Astrophysics, UiO, No  
IMTU tn++t4+tg+ ru+ge++ !3i jt+au+st+ls hi++dr-so++zh-sy-sw++ 
 

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1011
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Friday, October 23 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1012



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re HEPlaR
SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard
re: Travellerish fiction
Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV
Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*
Re: GT transponders
Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 
Re HEPlaR
re: Travellerish fiction
SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard
Re: Piracy: Cease!
Re: Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV 
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 
Re: Travellerish fiction 
Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism
Loading/Unloading
Re: GT Space Combat

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:20:35 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re HEPlaR

>From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
...
>OH YEAH! Heplar burns fuel. CT/MT SHIPS and Small Craft do not use fuel for
>maneuver (solely for power). So in CT/MT, as long as the PP holds out, you
>can keep thrusting. Under TNE's HEPlar, your heplar fuel was often enough
>for an extra jump-1, and only gave you a few HOURS of thust. Since T-plates
...

  I appreciate that your powered maneuver duration is drastically reduced, but
is that a bad thing, and does it really affect how most ships behave in Trav?

  Given that the economics of ship financing have largely killed gas giant
refuelling IIRC (YMMV), at least for shippers in well-travelled areas, then
making M-drive cruises to the outer system longer hardly matters. It will
make some differences to ship designs, esp. for intra-system use, but it
may actually make certain activities easier out there.

  I hope that few CT ships went relativistic often; this also largely
solves the "near-C half-brick in a sock" routine, yes?

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:54:41 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)

>From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
...
>>>>  So, at maximum sensor range (IIRC?) a single "broadside" will inflict
...
>All aproaches from behind the planet to remain hidden for the examples below.

  yeah, but that only works because SFB is 2-D :)

...
>>  Unless the crews are pirates, I suspect. One guy watching the boards
>>wouldn't work? People make lots of jokes about computers using vacuum
>>tubes in Trav, but then they assume that software will never get past
>>the pong level?
>
>But the guns will be unmaned if the crew is standing down.  That was my
>point.  You will not have everybody at their station all the time.  You just
>agreed with me.  The pirate knows when he will attack an can have his crew
>on station.  The SDB never knows when all hell will break loose.

  I didn't agree - I implied that maybe automation (toggled by a human
for offensive weapons) would handle a few minutes of the engagement at
some degraded function. You disagree with that premise?

...
>Stop 50 missles on balistic targeting with no gunners in the turrets and 3
>seconds warning?  Real good crew.

  I don't know where ballistic targetting came into this, but I doubt
that the PD lasers are run by Mk. I eyeballs. It's possible that there
may be automation in PD functions, even at TL 6-7.

  Three seconds? Engagement range? d=1/2at^2? Show me, please.

...
>>others habitations (the Alabama (?) comes to mind).
>
>Then who builds the merc cruisers, armed merchants, and the corsairs?

  I'll assume that they're built at shipyards? If you're playing in the
Imperium, then logically they'd be shipyards under 3I supervision, with
instructions about building warships without end-user certificates, no
Scout Ships of Doom, maybe submitting paperwork to INI so they can start
by looking at vessel capabilities?

  I doubt that most campaigns (CT/HG) would allow merchants to buy missile
bays, PA barbettes, and meson guns.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:54:36 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
...
>>   Has anyone ever figured out why armoured hulls use the cost formula
>> of [MCr 0.3 (+ 0.1 per armour factor) per ton] in High Guard? I can
>> see the explanation that it's different materials and engineering work
>> in upgrading the whole structure (somewhat like compartmentalization
...
>When you look at it, yeah, it's expensive, but not compared to egines and 
>such.  And the price applies *ONLY* to the armour; my SDB design I posted the 
>other day has 80 dt of armour at a cost of 56MCr.  The hull ran 96MCr, and the 
>power plant ran 576MCr.  Power plants don't get cheaper (relatively) until you 
>hit TL14!

  Yes, but the Terrier SDB is carrying (f4) 10% at MCr 0.7 /ton, while
the Rabid Poodle is maxxed out for combat at (f12) 26% at MCr 1.5 /ton.
At TL 12 they're presumably using superdense, which is KCr 14/m^3 in
slabs, so a D-ton should cost MCr 0.196 plus forming and engineering?
(which gives the 1000 Dt Poodle an armour allocation around 50,000 tons!)

  If the "2+2a" formula for armour in HG accounts for engineering and
compartmentalization with the fixed 2% of ship D-tonnage, then the "2a"
should be linear cost based on the material and its' forming/installation
cost(?). If so, then the Poodle would pay ~2.6 times more its' armour
(per D-t of ship) than the Terrier rather than the ~5.5 times it pays now.

  If installation is counted in HG's MCr 0.1 per Dt hull cgarge then the
armour could be re-assessed as "material value at TL plus % for forming",
thus giving a more rational (?) basis for costing armoured ships.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:54:55 +1300
From: pbroeder@wave.co.nz
Subject: re: Travellerish fiction

> What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H. Beam
Piper:
>
>       Little Fuzzy
>       4-Day Planet
>       Uller Uprising
>       Space Viking

        The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
        Fuzzy Sapiens
        Fuzzies and Other People


> There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the top of
my
> head.

More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
the moment.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You missed 'lone star planet','federation','empire','first cycle'

no i do NOT lend books :)

Jonathan, new zealand

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:41:37 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB 
...
>They're lead by this really *SHORT* Vargr wearing a beret, right?

  Actually they're lead by the Public Accounts auditor who's looking
into why the new ship class can't power it's fusion gun :(  You could
just install batteries in the spare space (although this shouldn't
really work in HG/Striker). 

  Alternatively, allow HG designs to be non-standard sizes (i.e., tonnage
may be any value of one or above - <1 would require scaling down output
per Striker) and simply enter EP's output, while listing the USP for damage 
purposes as Pn with all fractions dropped.

  Or just design the ship properly the first time...

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:41:42 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*

>From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
>Subject: Re: GURPS: Traveller *Nuclear Missiles*
...
>Fair point. I was thinking factor 9 missiles (3x turret) and factor 9
>missile bays. Of course, you could (shock horror) ignore the USP limits!

  You could get around this by adding three lines (#1 listed as second set
of batteries, and 2/3 as #batts/batts bearing). Kind of an ugly way to do
it though, and it starts to screw with the HG simplicity concept.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:18:02 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400, Fred and Evelyn Wolke
<thewolkes@earthlink.net>
>>if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
>
>Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
>anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
>anything there.
>
>If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
>Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
>away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
>better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
>locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
>out.

Well, IMO, a transponder is never going to be able to "prove" who you are
and I thought saying they existed for that reason didn't work.

If they exist, I think they would be mostly to aid navigation (ships are easier
to track and you don't have to take time to call them up to find out who they
are).   It does have some benefit to security because it complicates some
situations because ships have to commit to sneaking up (since once they
are detected they have to explain why their transponders were off which
they may or may not be able to do).

That is why I think they exist.

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:19:06 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 

>>
>>  Is there really much difference in practice between a HEPLAR and
>>CT-era "thruster" equipped ship? It was fairly rare for most ships
>>to try near-light cruises, and missiles (and small craft in Mayday)
>>already had burn limits.
>>
>>
>AThe short answer is that Heplar has at least one foot in reality.  More
>seriously it makes a great deal of difference in space combate, try playing
>BL/BR assuming Thruster plates instaed of HEPLAR.  If you run out of juice,
>that is IT.  On a good day you get tpo orbit the sun.
>
Oh, one other problem with heplars: they eat a large power chunk, in
ADDITION to needing plenty of fuel of their own. And MT/FF&S1 pp's (which
are basically identical) do eat a goodly ammount of fuel.

Colin Writes
>>A typical heplar ship has about 4-12 hours of thrust, assuming they don't
>>dip into PP or J fuel. As comepared to an MT design having 28 DAYS of
>>continuous thrust. Under MT, it is possible to design craft with crews of
>>10 or so, which can thrust for YEARS (which would get you a mre 99.9% C,
>>even tho by the accelleration formulae, you'd wind up at supralight speeds;
>>the formulae do not include relatavistic effects).
>>
>You are under-rating Heplar ships I thionk.  More likely30-100g turns or
>15-50 g hours.

Check TNE, BL. G-Turns of thrust are 1/2 hour of 1G. I was a little low,
but the ships which need endurance lack it severely, and those which don't
have it.
looking in TNE Mk1 Mod 1
Scout: 80 G-turns with 2G, so we get 20 hours of max thrust
the far trader (Jayhawk A2) has 48 GT, 1G, so 24 hours of thrust
the free trader, 56 G-T, or 28 Ghours, and 1g
The Lord Baltimore Yacht: 32G-T with 4G, so 8 hours
gazelle 112 G-T, 3G With tanks 18h45m max thrust.
	77.6 G-T 5G without tanks  7h45m max thrust
Lab SHip: 96g-t 1G, 48 hours
Patrol Cruiser: 60G-T 4G; 7h30m at max burn
SDB: 112G-T, 4G; 14 hours
Fat Trader: 60G-T 1G; 30 hours
Donosev: 104G-T 2G; 26 hours
Subsidized Liner: 76 G-turns 1G; 38 hours
Merc Cruiser: 48G-T 2G; 12 hours

None of the above includes jump fuel. Low is 7h30m, high is 48.
Of the above, commercial craft (merchants & lab ship): low 24 high 48
Military (rest except yacht): low 7h30m high 26h

Total mission delta-v is usually measured in G-Hours... from launch to
refuel, whether that is far point or RTB. If RTB, that means accellerate,
coast, decellerate, do whatever, accellerate back, coast, decellerate, land.

Heplar may be more realistic, but it meant (IME) PC's taking running jumps
constantly, and spending about 3 times as long to get to/from jump points,
and GG's became accessable only via jump, as did the outter system. One
group of PC's nearly died off due to a misjump using TNE Rules, which put
them in the system, at several thousand AU. (T-Plates can get very tricky
on distances like these, because you run smack into relativity issures, but
with accelleration to 10PSL, 1000au becomes roughly (using an 8.5 lm AU,
not right,but fairly close)(8.5m x 10 x 1000) 85000minutes = 60 days. With
heplar, forget it... find a snowball and jump if you can. If you can't,
find a low berth, rig the PP to maintain the LB ONLY and run on as little
power as possible to maintain operation) and pray. Mind you, if the locals
like you, in 6 days they will know you exist, and may send help.

With T-plates, run as little as possible (LS, MD, computer, G-comps,
passive sensor for nav fix) till you hit 10 PSL. THen shut down sensors at
MD at 5PSL or 10PSL, and go to only one computer, and ration the food. (as
established before, water will be recycled if only to keep it out of the
machinery.) You can usually take your remaining (MT/FF&S1) usually 19 days,
and multiply by 5 (you can run at 20% or less often... I can see running a
plant stablely for as low as 10% output). With a T-plate universe, 1000AU
is reachable. Damned inconvinient, but reachable.

in a T-plate universe, the outer system is still a long trip, but is at
least doable with standard craft. In a Heplar (which is STILL
unrealistically efficient, IIRC) universe, a mainworld orbiting a GG is
barely going to have reasonable travel times in the GG's moon-system, and
going from planet to planet is much easier by jump in most cases.

(NOTE: I am NOT trying to encourage a Near-C rock discussion)
BTW, is there a formula for time-dilation effects that is simple enough to
use? (I don't do calculus, only simple algebra and statisics.)

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:20:35 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re HEPlaR

>From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
...
>OH YEAH! Heplar burns fuel. CT/MT SHIPS and Small Craft do not use fuel for
>maneuver (solely for power). So in CT/MT, as long as the PP holds out, you
>can keep thrusting. Under TNE's HEPlar, your heplar fuel was often enough
>for an extra jump-1, and only gave you a few HOURS of thust. Since T-plates
...

  I appreciate that your powered maneuver duration is drastically reduced, but
is that a bad thing, and does it really affect how most ships behave in Trav?

  Given that the economics of ship financing have largely killed gas giant
refuelling IIRC (YMMV), at least for shippers in well-travelled areas, then
making M-drive cruises to the outer system longer hardly matters. It will
make some differences to ship designs, esp. for intra-system use, but it
may actually make certain activities easier out there.

  I hope that few CT ships went relativistic often; this also largely
solves the "near-C half-brick in a sock" routine, yes?

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:54:55 +1300
From: pbroeder@wave.co.nz
Subject: re: Travellerish fiction

> What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H. Beam
Piper:
>
>       Little Fuzzy
>       4-Day Planet
>       Uller Uprising
>       Space Viking

        The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
        Fuzzy Sapiens
        Fuzzies and Other People


> There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the top of
my
> head.

More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
the moment.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You missed 'lone star planet','federation','empire','first cycle'

no i do NOT lend books :)

Jonathan, new zealand

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:54:41 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)

>From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
...
>>>>  So, at maximum sensor range (IIRC?) a single "broadside" will inflict
...
>All aproaches from behind the planet to remain hidden for the examples below.

  yeah, but that only works because SFB is 2-D :)

...
>>  Unless the crews are pirates, I suspect. One guy watching the boards
>>wouldn't work? People make lots of jokes about computers using vacuum
>>tubes in Trav, but then they assume that software will never get past
>>the pong level?
>
>But the guns will be unmaned if the crew is standing down.  That was my
>point.  You will not have everybody at their station all the time.  You just
>agreed with me.  The pirate knows when he will attack an can have his crew
>on station.  The SDB never knows when all hell will break loose.

  I didn't agree - I implied that maybe automation (toggled by a human
for offensive weapons) would handle a few minutes of the engagement at
some degraded function. You disagree with that premise?

...
>Stop 50 missles on balistic targeting with no gunners in the turrets and 3
>seconds warning?  Real good crew.

  I don't know where ballistic targetting came into this, but I doubt
that the PD lasers are run by Mk. I eyeballs. It's possible that there
may be automation in PD functions, even at TL 6-7.

  Three seconds? Engagement range? d=1/2at^2? Show me, please.

...
>>others habitations (the Alabama (?) comes to mind).
>
>Then who builds the merc cruisers, armed merchants, and the corsairs?

  I'll assume that they're built at shipyards? If you're playing in the
Imperium, then logically they'd be shipyards under 3I supervision, with
instructions about building warships without end-user certificates, no
Scout Ships of Doom, maybe submitting paperwork to INI so they can start
by looking at vessel capabilities?

  I doubt that most campaigns (CT/HG) would allow merchants to buy missile
bays, PA barbettes, and meson guns.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:54:36 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
...
>>   Has anyone ever figured out why armoured hulls use the cost formula
>> of [MCr 0.3 (+ 0.1 per armour factor) per ton] in High Guard? I can
>> see the explanation that it's different materials and engineering work
>> in upgrading the whole structure (somewhat like compartmentalization
...
>When you look at it, yeah, it's expensive, but not compared to egines and 
>such.  And the price applies *ONLY* to the armour; my SDB design I posted the 
>other day has 80 dt of armour at a cost of 56MCr.  The hull ran 96MCr, and the 
>power plant ran 576MCr.  Power plants don't get cheaper (relatively) until you 
>hit TL14!

  Yes, but the Terrier SDB is carrying (f4) 10% at MCr 0.7 /ton, while
the Rabid Poodle is maxxed out for combat at (f12) 26% at MCr 1.5 /ton.
At TL 12 they're presumably using superdense, which is KCr 14/m^3 in
slabs, so a D-ton should cost MCr 0.196 plus forming and engineering?
(which gives the 1000 Dt Poodle an armour allocation around 50,000 tons!)

  If the "2+2a" formula for armour in HG accounts for engineering and
compartmentalization with the fixed 2% of ship D-tonnage, then the "2a"
should be linear cost based on the material and its' forming/installation
cost(?). If so, then the Poodle would pay ~2.6 times more its' armour
(per D-t of ship) than the Terrier rather than the ~5.5 times it pays now.

  If installation is counted in HG's MCr 0.1 per Dt hull cgarge then the
armour could be re-assessed as "material value at TL plus % for forming",
thus giving a more rational (?) basis for costing armoured ships.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 01:33:13 +0200
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <greimann@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy: Cease!

>
>Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?
I have to disagree, 
I think there have been some interesting arguments this time around.
Although the Piracy theme will never be resolved, the discussion
is interesting nonetheless!
Volker
- ---
Volker A. Greimann, greimann@geocities.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 06:45:28 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV 

> >They're lead by this really *SHORT* Vargr wearing a beret, right?
> 
>   Actually they're lead by the Public Accounts auditor who's looking
> into why the new ship class can't power it's fusion gun :(  You could
> just install batteries in the spare space (although this shouldn't
> really work in HG/Striker). 
> 
>   Alternatively, allow HG designs to be non-standard sizes (i.e., tonnage
> may be any value of one or above - <1 would require scaling down output
> per Striker) and simply enter EP's output, while listing the USP for damage 
> purposes as Pn with all fractions dropped.

Thing is, HG lets you do odd-sized hulls.  A size code 9 ship is anything from 
900 to 999 tons.  Just watch your decimal points.

>   Or just design the ship properly the first time...

That, too.

BTW, you didn't answer my question.  <grin>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 07:14:24 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 

> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> ...
> >>   Has anyone ever figured out why armoured hulls use the cost formula
> >> of [MCr 0.3 (+ 0.1 per armour factor) per ton] in High Guard? I can
> >> see the explanation that it's different materials and engineering work
> >> in upgrading the whole structure (somewhat like compartmentalization
> ...
> >When you look at it, yeah, it's expensive, but not compared to egines and 
> >such.  And the price applies *ONLY* to the armour; my SDB design I posted the 
> >other day has 80 dt of armour at a cost of 56MCr.  The hull ran 96MCr, and the 
> >power plant ran 576MCr.  Power plants don't get cheaper (relatively) until you 
> >hit TL14!
> 
>   Yes, but the Terrier SDB is carrying (f4) 10% at MCr 0.7 /ton, while
> the Rabid Poodle is maxxed out for combat at (f12) 26% at MCr 1.5 /ton.
> At TL 12 they're presumably using superdense, which is KCr 14/m^3 in
> slabs, so a D-ton should cost MCr 0.196 plus forming and engineering?
> (which gives the 1000 Dt Poodle an armour allocation around 50,000 tons!)
> 
>   If the "2+2a" formula for armour in HG accounts for engineering and
> compartmentalization with the fixed 2% of ship D-tonnage, then the "2a"
> should be linear cost based on the material and its' forming/installation
> cost(?). If so, then the Poodle would pay ~2.6 times more its' armour
> (per D-t of ship) than the Terrier rather than the ~5.5 times it pays now.
> 
>   If installation is counted in HG's MCr 0.1 per Dt hull cgarge then the
> armour could be re-assessed as "material value at TL plus % for forming",
> thus giving a more rational (?) basis for costing armoured ships.


You're using some other stuff rather than straight HG.  Under HG, your hull 
costs the same whether it's mild steel or ferrocement or superdense.  Cost of 
materials is factored into it already.  If you're gonna evaluate a HG design, 
set your FS&S on the coffee table and take stuff right from HG.  I see the 
figures for armour bulk as reasonable for HG as it factors in 'inferior' 
materials at lower tech levels.  The lower your tech, the more bulk you need 
to get the same armour protection on your hull and the more bracing you need 
because your 'state of the art' is still under developement.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 07:17:21 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Travellerish fiction 

> > What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H. Beam
> Piper:
> >
> >       Little Fuzzy
> >       4-Day Planet
> >       Uller Uprising
> >       Space Viking
> 
>         The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
>         Fuzzy Sapiens
>         Fuzzies and Other People

I knew there were two more Piper Fuzzy books, as well as two 'other' Fuzzy 
books; I had them all at one time.  *(

> > There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the top of
> my
> > head.
> 
> More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
> the moment.
> 
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> You missed 'lone star planet','federation','empire','first cycle'

Lone Star Planet was printed up as a double with Four Day Planet.  It's in a 
box around here *somewhere*, or else over my little brother's place in 
Cleveland (I gotta get over there Real Soon Now & get the rest of my stuff...)

> no i do NOT lend books :)

You'll get my paperbacks when you pry my cold dead fingers from around them.  
And you *BETTER* treat 'em right, or I'm coming back to haunt you.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:14:02 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism

Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> writes:
>Interesting tightrope one must walk to be a pirate. Scary enough
>to cow a merchant captain, but not scary enough to send the
>governor calling for the IN. Effective enough to make a profit,
>minor enough not to be worth the while of a light cruiser. Bold
>enough to take a prize, patient enough to wait for that sliver of
>perfect time when a prize can be taken without too much chance
>of loss..

Callous enough to steal someone's livelihood, tender enough to release
orphans...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 04:17:01 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Loading/Unloading

AS threatened, I found the tables in FASA's Battletech, and will present an
adaptation for use with traveller (I am not reprinting theirs... its in
Battlespace, page 56). Also factored in are my experiences working in a
- -10c wharehouse.

			Minutes per metric ton**
Equipment Used		0-G	Vacc 1-G Air
Battle Dress (or equiv)	4	2	2
5 man in VaccSuits	4	3	3
5 man in clothes*	3	2	2
1 man with LRTP's	2	-	-
1 man w/Pallet Jacks**	-	3	2

This table basically assumes times from ready on boards to loaded in cargo
or vice versa; times really should be doubled for moving ship to ship.
Times should be doubled for medium break-bulk (loose boxes and crates
instead of containerized or shrinkwrapped onto pallets) and times 10 for
small items (125L boxes {25cm cubes}).

* in vaccum assumes LD Vacc suit or tailored vaccsuit.
** assume SG 4 (4MT per 1Td) as a good average if you don't want to figure
out masses from traveller cargos yourself.
*** assumes pallatized loads that are secure on the pallet. Iv'e moved up
to a 1/2 ton pallet of icecream at the rates shown, moving the goods from
loose to a pallet 2m from the shelves, while in a -10c freezer. Moving the
pallet the 10-15 meters to shrink-wrap took another 2 minutes on average,
including opening and closing the 1/4-ton sliding door. Shrink wrap took
another 5 minutes, and then it was a fairly stable unit. The guys who
worked the wharehouse (I worked the co-located icecream plant) could load
and move faster than I could. BTW, a 1/2ton pallet of ice cream is about 2m
tall, and uses a 1.5x1.5m pallet which is about 7-12 cm tall it's self,
weighing about 10kg. Lined up pallets go on trucks at the loading-dock at
the rate of about 1-2 per minute, depending on skill and depth of refer
van, at least that's what I've seen done. A full van can be unloaded to the
dock (which is level with the floor of the reefer van floor) in under 15
minutes for a fully palletized load in a 40' trailer. And about as long to
get the load into the freezer, using about 5 men for each task.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:22:30 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:11:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat
Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> we ran the practice for our PBeM TCS game...here are some conclusions:
Since I wasn't there...is there any log of what happened?
***********
Doh!!

I *knew* there was somthing I had to do befor getting on IRC last
night.....I accidently overwrote my log....maybe hal has a copy...

Hal?

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1012
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Friday, October 23 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1013



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Formal for mass-based jump limits
Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others
Re: The Imperial Fleet
Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)
re : TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch
Re: New Deck plans
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 
re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!
Jump Signature (was: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud)
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)
re: Fighters
The Luriani (revised part 1/2)
The Luriani (revised part 2/2)

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:45:06 +0000
From: "Jens Maskus" <Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de>
Subject: Formal for mass-based jump limits

On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:02:37 -0700 (PDT), Anthony Jackson wrote:

>Any opinion on making the jump limit based on object mass, rather than
>diameter?  If you base it on, say, the local tidal strength (rate of change of
>gravitational force) it remains a fixed multiple of radius for objects of
>constant density, and allows resolving questions about jumping near a comet or
>other large gas cloud.
>

Jumplimit 
[AU]=(SQRT(MassTerrstrial*5,9742E024/(0,000025*9,80665/0,0000000000667259)))/14960
0000000


For Terra You must use solar mass in and you will get around 5 AU!

Jens Maskus

Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:37:34 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:53:25 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others
> In mail you write:
>
> > What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H. Beam
Piper:
> >
> >       Little Fuzzy
> >       4-Day Planet
> >       Uller Uprising
> >       Space Viking
>
>    The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
>    Fuzzy Sapiens
>    Fuzzies and Other People
>
>
> > There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the top of
my
> > head.
>
> More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
> the moment.
'Federation'?  '4-Day Planet' is bundled up with 'Lone Star Planet' in my
copy.
***************
Also:
 Empire
'The Worlds of H. Beam Piper'
'Paratime'
'Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen'
and the sequels (not by piper) but still good:
Great Kings War and 2 short stories Kalvan Kingmaker and The Seige of
tar-Hostigos

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:39:59 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com> writes:
>Was the Sydkai the Anti-Piracy vessel published in MTJ#3 by several
>authors, one of which was TML's own Rob Prior? I really found that
>vessel to be interesting. I was also disappointed that the illustration
>didn't seem to match the description. I seem to remember a revolving
>small craft loading mechanism but didn't see that the drawing matched.
>As I recall, it was a weak performance design, optimized for duration on
>station.

Design by George MacLure, text be me (Robert Prior), editing by DGP (Joe
or Gary, I think). Given the amount of editing and feedback, the coauthor
status is appropriate. Illustration was down after I wrote my text, and I
was happy enough with it.

The Sydkai was intended to operate for months without resupply. Optimized
is correct -- George optimized that ship down to the cubic metre. We had
noticed that the standard naval designs had short durations and required a
fair amount of logistical support, so we came up with a vessel optimized
for patrolling and sufficiently armed for fighting pirates.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:45:53 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:32:28 -0400
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)
Hi All,

Ah hell, here's the whole list AFAIK
Note the ones without a mark I am actively seeking! Nudge, nudge, wink,
wink



with John J. McGuire
[ ]  Crisis in 2140 (1957)
***************
this one was published as double with 'Gunner Cade' the book is in a box at
home, so I don't know the autor.

Non-Genre Fiction
[ ]  Murder in the Gunroom (1953)
**********
this is the only one I don't have, anyone have an idea of how to get one
(other than get real luck in a used bookshop?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:42:26 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re : TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch

Based on an anti-shipping missile design?

Ummm, Ditzie, you _did_ remember to remove the proximity fuse
and detonator, right?

Oh, I see...but you did do more with it than just slap a "For Emergency
Use Only" sticker on it, right?

Walt Smith

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:04:14 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: New Deck plans

>>THe PDF file for the Twain Class 200 sdt Free Trader has been added to
>the
>>Jump Point web page. That makes two PDF files, both Free Traders. Take a
>>look and grab the file(s) and let me know what you think.
>>
>>Jump Point can be found at http://users.citnet.com/letterworks
>
>WOW! Now those are deckplans!

The deck plans look great, but theexploded view at the back just has funny
symbols rather than words. Did you include the fonts when you made the
PDF? If not, could you do that next time? (OK, could you do it with these
and repost?)

If you _did_ include the fonts, then I guess I need some help with Acrobat
Reader.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:16:05 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 

bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh) writes:
>>Actually, long-term sensor use (strategic sensors?) woul make a nice
>>addition to the Definative Sensor Rules.
>A week's worth of searching adds about +1 (+0.5 for one-day scans, +0.5 
>because you scan only 30 degree arcs.) (Oops - make that two weeks.) 
>For simplicitly, you could instead assume that the sensor detects
>everyting
>out to (sensitivity+signature)=0.0 with no modifiers if you don't want to
>have
>to roll...

Perfect. Just what I was looking for. Many thanks.

So with one station, it takes about two weeks to scan the sky. A pirate
ship is detectable for about a day every rendezvous, which gives a 1/14
chance of being detected, about a 93% chance of being undetected. For two
rendezvous, the chance of remaining undetected is 93%^2 = 86%, and so on. 
If I've done my math correctly, that means that after ten rendezvous there
is better than a 50% chance that the base has been detected. Hardly a
long-term proposition.

This also has implications for deep-penetration spy bases.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:12:27 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!

I've been making an effort to take the debate in directions I've not
seen in the time I've been on the list - specifically, trying to get the
discussion more towards numbers than ideology.

The sensor discussion spin-off, Oort Clouds, Fleet preparedness
levels, interstellar finance and currency transfer, cold gas thrusters,
SDB design theory, small craft in customs inspection roles...I think
this tired old piracy debate has spun off some very good threads lately.

Walt Smith

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:23:31 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Jump Signature (was: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud)

>> -no-one has ever really defined for me how bright a "jump flash" is, or what
>> wavelengths it comes out at, which is why they aren't in the rules. I don't
>> like jump flashes that much myself - ships are easy enough to see as it is,
>> and I would like spies to be able to jump in and out without being instantly
>> detected . . . but if someone gives me numbers I can put them in.
>
>Well, the jump flash properties could be features of the individual drives rather
>than a law of nature.  Thus you could get "stealth" drives that have virtually no
>jump flash, while cheaper drives lack the baffles and enter the system like a
>supernova.  One could even presuppose that each ship has its own jump signature.

I like this idea. Could we assume that unbaffled drives are fairly bright,
getting brighter with age? "Jumpflash baffles" are extra equipment that
reducing the signature of the flash. (Let the gearheads define the
performance parameters.) 

As to jump signature, treat that like sonar signatures now: it takes a
skilled professional to discriminate. Most civilians won't even know how,
because they don't need to know, while experienced navy sensor ops can
sometimes tell you not only who you are but what brand of parts you used
in your last overhaul.

In game terms:

To identify a ship from its jump signature
Edu + Sensor Ops > Impossible
This task is one to two levels easier if the operator is familiar with the
target, one level more difficult of the operator has _not_ had military
training or experience.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:45:05 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)

At 11:49 AM 10/22/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>>>(By the way, if anyone cares, the closest you can see this scout with your
>>>naked eye is about 6000 km (as a 6th magnitude star.))
>>>
>>>
>>So it would be easily visible in orbit?  Or would atmospheric condition make
>>that range much shorter from earth?  This could make for some interesting
>>intel gathering ability on the competion with the aid of a small telescope.
>
>Spaceships in low orbit are indeed easily visible (look at the space shuttle,
>which is about the size of a typical scout...) 6th magnitude stars are visible
>from a good dark site with good eyes, so you could see even medium-high orbits.
>
>>This sensitivity number, what are the units
>They are gaming units from the FFS2/Definitive Sensor Rules. It's a log scale-
>basically it's log(range/5km)+6   (the "5km" and "+6" are there for
>obscure historical reasons) and the sensitivity gives the range at which you
>can detect a "typical" target (a 100-ton 100-MW scout with no special
>masking.) Unitless log numbers are much easier to work with than making poor
>players multiply and divide in real flux units. The log numbers were
>derived, though, from a real model of spacecraft emission and sensor
>sensitivity, done in perfectly reasonable physical units like 
>photons/m2/angstrom (I've never liked "lumens" much - archaic concept.) 
>

Sorry, light is not my normal band.  It's been a few years sence my last
major optical design project.  Most things that can be done with light can
be done cheaper and easier in other ways in the areas that I work in at
least.  Most of my work requires real time data with loop times of a second
or less.

>>>[PEMS-15.5 system]
>>>would probably take a month o
>>>two to really find the scout, at a cost of MCr 500,000 for the system.
>>Pricey!  Wonder what the resale value of that would be for a pirate...>
>>Why steal a shutle with 2 250,000Mcr satalites just waiting to be grabed?
>>Or are they stations?  Crew rotation would take a jump capable ship for a
>>station but it's doable.  Say a 3 month on, 3 month off duty schedule with
>>one full spare crew to fill in for sickness or injury.
>
>That was the example for a high-population world. The sensors are on
>stations, somewhere at around 10 AU (so you can reach them with 
>non-jump-capable ships), and presumably heavily armed and guarded...
>the sensor array itself masses 50,000 tonnes and is spread out over a tenth 
>of a square kilometer, so it won't fit in most pirate ships. 
>

Yeow! Thats one big mother!  Just out of curiousty and as an adventure seed,
what kind of salvage could be gotten from such an array?  As in credit per
ton of the array or support equipment like computers salvaged?  What type of
computer would this base need to run the array?  The rest of the bases gear
would be standard stuff I would assume.  Say if one of these sensor bases
were knocked out with a bioweapon by an enemy spy during a war and the PC
hear a rumor and decide to collect the Credit and accidentally bring back
the bioweapon as well. (Evil grin)

>I'm restraining myself from getting into the thermodynamic arguments, so I
>will ask only: "what happens to the electricity you generate with your
>magic thermocouples?" 
>

Bruce they are not magic.  No more so that your photo integration technique.
Look in any Omega temperture catalog for simple examples.  They are called
thermal couples.  They do not absorb much heat they just produce electicity
in the presents of heat by converting the molecutar motion caused by heat
into electron motion.  It is a standard condition of dissimiler junctions.
You were right about your baliwick and I admited it once I had the hard
data.  Look at a thermal couple catalog and you will see their basic
operation is as I have discribed.  The why is real long and technical as it
gets into the nature of matter and was part of the theory I was taught 15
years ago in coledge.  This effect is being harness in the last few years to
produce solid state devices that can heat or cool and devices that when
exposed to a heat gradiant produce a decent amount of power, as compared to
basic thermal couples.  When just heated they produce less power.  There is
no magic.  The efficency of these devices is low in the power production
mode.  (less that 10% and varies greatly with type and designed for application)

As for the electricity it goes back into the system to allow a lower total
drain on the batteries.  I supposed a ship running only on batteries to cut
its signature.  The converters were to reuse some of the heat to limit
battery draw and the waste heat associated with battery discharge.  It would
be better to reuse the heat than just waste it.  In effect though you only
reduce the total signature by part of the theoritical saving as when the
heat signature drops, power from the converters drop as well and the power
used per second by the system for work would remain constant once
homeostasis is reached.  Depending on the performance curves of year 5000
thermoelectic devices the heat signature saving could be as high as half the
battery's waste heat.  If you insulated the battery compartment and lined it
with thermoelectrics you might see less saving at a considerable cost saving
over lining the hull.  Doing both would produce the best results but cost
the most.

Why do you find the concept fo thermoelectic devices so odd?  You already
work with one of their relatives the photoelectric device.  Thermoelectric
devices are just IR tuned solar cells in theory in practise their makeup is
simpler in some ways and different in others do to a much greater temperture
range.

The current market has been using thermoelectric cooler/heaters for the last
3 years that I am aware of.  Those warmer/ice chests that plug into your
cigerete lighter was one of the first consumer products to use this tech.

The cost/effeciency problem (like with solar cells) are keeping their market
presence low.  Until price per watt drops by a facter of 1000 or more you
are not likly to see these devices outside research labs or satalites.  Oh,
did I mention that one of the other variation on this theme is used in
nuclear batteries?  They are all basicly the same concept.  Some form of
energy is use to push the electron accross the potential barrier of the
junction and free it to flow as electricity.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:45:22 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Fighters

>"if the bloody things get through", of course, is the hard part - 
>for reasonable laser technology
>(let alone the really good lasers in GT or just-plain-T) hitting an
>incoming kinetic impact missile is remarkably easy; certainly for the
>space/price of a figher you can fit in a point defence laser that
>can eat up many many times its weight in impact missiles (at least
>in FFS2; but presumably also in GURPS - it'll be interesting to try
>this once I get a copy of GURPS.) 
>
>Bruce
>


Gurps is pretty much the same.  With a good gunners and tageting software
it's 1 laser one dead missle per turn.  The only way to get misile hits is a
large salvo that closes fast enough to overwhelm the defenses.  It is doable
but not very cost effective.  Those misiles are pricy.

I have my book with me so I looked it up.  I was just reading the space
combat section when this came up.

Do to turn limits in the combat situation you have to shoot a ship or a
missle but not both with each laser.  A scout with one triple laser turret
fired on by 9 missles from 2 seconds out will be hit by three missles if the
gunners involved do not miss.

1st second shoot three misiles  (likely but not curtain)  gunner skill 15 +
15 accuacy +4 aiming +10 computer (very good comp.) +2 active sensor +10
defensive fire  +4 rof =60 - 41 for range 1 = 19  You must role less the 21
on three d6 but 17 and 18 always fail.

With this you can have a 10 or less to kill a missle at 30 hexes.  The
problem is how fast are the misile moving 1g = 1 hex per second accel.
misiles have 6g/TL10 10g/TL12 and a 3 space combat turn duration.

2nd second shoot three missles and get hit by the other three. range 0 role
to hit = 21

3 missles hit if missle gunner role his success number.

missile cost 22kcr each.

Charles L.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:34:27 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

The Luriani

Race Card

Race Name: Luriani
Homeworld: Daramm/Ley 0812 A76AA87-E (1110)
Environment: Land amphibian
Ecological Niche: Hunter
Native Skills: Music
Characteristics:
  1.Strength 2d
  2.Dexterity 2d
  3.Endurance 2d+1
  4.Intelligence 2d
  5.Education 2d
  6.Social Standing 2d-1
Symmetry: Bilateral
Limb groups: Two
Braincase: Head
Armour: None
Weaponry: None
Senses:
  1.Smell/Taste
  2.Touch
  3.Sight (normal)
  4.Hearing (normal)
Aging: As per standard Human
Gender: Dual
Components: ?????
Caste: Not applicable
Remarks: The race can store oxygen in their fat cells sufficient for 30 minutes 
and can reach depths of 500m (at standard atmospheric pressure) unaided.

Homeworld: Daramm/Ley 0812 A76A986-B Hi Wa 320 Lu K0 V (in 98)

Physiology

Unlike most known Human races, the Luriani are a discrete species (Homo 
luriani) and are not interfertile with other Humans. However significant portions 
of the Luriani genome were utilised by Rule of Man geneticists in the 
"construction" of the Scanians, thus the Luriani are interfertile with this branch 
of Humaniti. Matings with other branches of Humaniti will only produce sterile 
offspring.

Physiologically the Luriani are unmistakably human, but they do possess a 
number of unique identifying physical characteristics, however these 
characteristics are only apparent on a close physical inspection. The Luriani 
posses a transparent second eyelid which protects their eyes from pressure 
and irritants, as well as acting to improve their vision under water. They 
possess muscles that can seal the inner ear, protecting it at extreme depths. 
They naturally produce a number of body oils that protect them from cold and 
irritants. Both their feet and hands are webbed. However, their most notable 
adaptations are the fat cells they posses which store oxygen. This allows them 
to collapse their lungs and reach far greater depths (around 500m) than other 
Humans, as well as permitting them to remain in an oxygen free environment 
for up to thirty minutes.

However, distinctive as all of these characteristics are, they are not the most 
remarkable modifications to the Luriani. The most remarkable and influential 
adaptations in the Luriani are found in their brains. At least 93% of all Luriani 
are right brain dominant and their language centres are located in the regions of 
the brain more usually associated with music and singing. These modifications, 
coupled with their close ties with the aquatic environment have produced the 
distinctive features of the Luriani culture.

Culture

Luriani culture is strongly influenced by the right hemisphere nature of their 
brain. The Luriani are a creative, passionate and artistic people. The usual 
Imperial stereotype of the hotblooded Luriani artist does in fact have some 
basis in truth. Luriani music and art frequently reflects the emotional tension 
that lies beneath the surface of their society. Few Humans can fail to be at 
least slightly affected by the pulsating up-tempo bass rhythms of Luriani music, 
even more so when coupled with the sensual nature of Luriani dance. However, 
as with all stereotypes, this ignores the vast sweep of Luriani culture.

Many outside observers characterise Luriani society as being communal; in 
fact the Luriani are very strongly individualistic, but they utilise a form of group 
marriage in which a number of adults will form a distinct family grouping. Any 
children born into the family are regarded as brothers and sisters and all the 
adults will regard them as their children. Because of this, the universal Human 
incest taboo is slightly altered amongst the Luriani. It is accepted that some 
"siblings" will form relationships with their "brothers and sisters" during pubity. 
Such relationships are discouraged, but they are tolerated as long as the 
children do not share a biological parent. However, the relationships between 
the adults within the family are in a constant state of flux.

The Luriani believe in individual and family honour. The Luriani code of honour 
evolved as a mechanism to limit the negative effects of the Lurianis emotional 
nature. Luriani honour holds that effort and intent are far more important than 
actual results; Luriani mythology is replete with stories and examples of heroic 
failure. The three basic tenets of Luriani honour are protect your family; offer 
hospitality to all that seek it; and treat your foes fairly. Unlike many other 
honour codes, the Luriani code does not feature a physical duelling element, 
rather matters of personal honour are settled by "contests. In a contest, the 
two parties will attempt to complete some task or demonstrate mastery of a 
skill, usually artistic. As long as both parties have made given their best, there 
is no stain on ones honour for loosing such a contest. When it comes to 
warfare, the Luriani hold that this is a matter for nations and tribes, not 
individuals; thus war does not remove a Lurianis obligations on a personal 
level, even when serving in the military.

Art

Art is one of the most important elements of Luriani culture, outside of the 
Protectorate art is the most widely recognised aspect of their culture. Luriani 
art reflects the turbulent and restless nature of their society, very little Luriani 
art can be classified as static, the essence of their art is the movement and 
energy found in their culture. The most prominent Luriani art form is of course 
music, but they are also drawn to most other performance arts (dance is 
almost as widely practiced as music). Other art forms such as painting and 
sculpture are less common, but none the less are still considered noble and 
honourable professions.

Luriani music is distinctive and unique; the most obvious defining characteristic 
is its 10/8 time signature. However, it also possesses a number of other very 
distinctive characteristics. Virtually all Luriani music makes extensive use of 
the voice as an instrument; and slight differences in Luriani physiology has 
resulted their vocal cords being longer than the Human norm, contributing to 
the strong base tendencies in their music. Luriani singing also features a 
secondary voiced note when inhaling in addition to the usual note when 
exhaling, leading to a distinctive "breathy" sound (this effect is remarkably 
difficult for non-Luriani to reproduce, lacking the Lurianis internal independent 
oxygen source).

Fashion

Traditional Luriani clothing and appearance is almost as distinctive and powerful 
as their music. Many have likened their fashions to those of the Vargr. 
Traditional Luriani clothing is lightweight and lose fitting, intended to 
simultaneously functional and sensual. Luriani fashions are intended to be 
provocative and revealing, whilst maintaining a sense of mystery. The concept 
of utilitarian clothing that does not serve this purpose appears to be entirely 
alien to the Luriani. Thus, all Luriani clothing has to serve this dual purpose (the 
Luriani were scandalised by the Solomani and their "sack-like ship suits"). 
Luriani fashions do not use muted or subdued colours; their clothing features 
many irregular blocks of strong discordant colours with sharp dividing lines 
between them. These blocks swirl and interlock, with the intention of giving a 
sense of movement and energy. The intention of the designer is to draw 
attention to certain parts of the body and away from others. Likewise, the 
Luriani make extensive use of body decorations. Rather than using permanent 
forms of body markings such as tattoos, the Luriani use a variety of body 
paints and dyes to adorn themselves. The final result is that the average Luriani 
is a sight to behold; dressed in their vibrant clothing with their bodies painted 
and dyed in many bright contrasting colours and shapes; one can not fail to 
recognise them immediately.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:34:27 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The Luriani (revised part 2/2)

History

The Luriani are a Human minor race transported to their new home by the 
mysterious Ancients some 300,000 years ago. Whilst the Luriani are 
unmistakably Human they have several unique and distinct characteristics 
which are a result of both natural evolution and genetic tampering by the 
Ancients. The Luriani are often referred to as "aquatic" Humans. This is not 
strictly true, for although they are far more at home in a water environment than 
most Humans these adaptations do not go as far as the Solomani geenered 
Scanians. Luriani have distinctively webbed hands and feet; certain fat cells 
have the ability to store oxygen which allows the Luriani to remain submerged 
for up to 30 minutes and reach depths of up to 500 metres without any artificial 
assistance. They possess a clear second eyelid under the first that greatly 
enhances their vision underwater. However perhaps their most striking 
modifications are not readily apparent at all. Unlike virtually all other Human 
races, the Luriani are overwhelmingly right brain dominant and their language 
ability is located in the centre of the brain which normally deals with singing 
rather than the classic speech centres. It would appear that these 
modifications were introduced to enable the Luriani to function well in a three 
dimensional environment. This has lead to further speculation that the Ancients 
intended to make the Luriani fully aquatic but the Final War intervened, leaving 
the Luriani "unfinished. Because of these modifications the Luriani are 
overwhelmingly (at least 93%) lefthanded, intensely creative and artistic, and 
have a strong tendency towards music and other performance arts.

Daramm (the Luriani homeworld) is officially classified as a waterworld, with 
only 5% of its surface being land. However, this is still 19.7 million km2. 
Daramm is a normal world with eleven continental plates, but these are mostly 
below sea level. Thus, Daramm is covered by a large number of continental 
sized island archipelagos surrounded by shallow (150m to 300m) seas. These 
"continents" are surrounded by deep (2000m to 5000m) oceans. It would 
appear that the Ancients initially deposited the Luriani on several islands in one 
of these archipelagos.

The semi-aquatic nature of the Luriani enabled them to utilise the shallow seas 
around their island homes for hunting and gathering, thus allowing for far greater 
populations and development than might have otherwise been expected. 
However eventually the restricted nature of their island homes started to limit 
their development. These growing pressures lead to the development of 
seafaring on Daramm far before the Luriani had even developed anything even 
remotely like civilisation. It is theorised that the creative nature of the Luriani 
brain played a crucial role in this. Thus in approximately -250,000 the Luriani 
developed seagoing vessels whilst they were still a primitive hunter-gatherer 
society. By -150,000, the Luriani had developed oceangoing vessels capable of 
circumnavigating their entire world despite still possessing only a TL0 culture. It 
was the possession of this maritime capacity that preserved the remarkable 
homogeneity of Luriani culture, despite being separated by thousands of 
kilometres of water, each Luriani settlement was connected by a web of 
voyaging ships. Indeed some Luriani lived out their entire lives at sea, only 
setting foot on land to gather supplies or build new ships.

Given this voyaging culture it was only natural that the Luriani should quickly 
come to the concept of trade and commerce, thus giving rise to the first signs 
of Luriani civilisation. By -100,000 the Luriani had developed a thriving world 
spanning barter economy. The huge nomadic voyaging ships travelling between 
islands, trading with the various island communities. However with the rise of 
trade came the rise of piracy and warfare. Both the seagoing nomads and the 
island dwelling settlements found a need for fighters to defend against the 
depredations of raiders, which would eventually evolve into the Luriani warrior 
class. Thus by -30,000 the Luriani had established a world spanning trading 
civilisation complete with organised warfare, despite the fact that they were still 
a TL0 hunter gatherer culture without any domesticated animals or form of 
agriculture.

Over the next 23,000 years the Luriani gradually improved their technology and 
culture. In around -28,000 the first signs of agriculture appeared on a number of 
islands, animals were domesticated around -25,000. Metalworking was 
achieved around -15,000. When Vilani influenced traders contacted the Luriani 
in -7500 they had advanced to a solid TL3. The Luriani were to prove to be 
extremely adept in absorbing advanced technology; and by -7200 they had 
achieved TL9 and were launching their first "voyaging" ships to the stars. By -
6000 they had established a vigorous interstellar culture encompassing over 30 
worlds (most located to spinward of Daramm). However the Luriani never 
grasped the concept of an interstellar state (much as they have never truly 
developed a world spaning government) and their worlds remained a loose 
grouping closely bound by their voyaging culture. However, this somewhat 
idyllic situation was not to remain.

In -5400 the Vilani began the Consolidation Wars. Initially the Vilani ignored the 
Luriani. Located far to trailing on the fringes of explored space, the Vilani 
regarded their independent worlds as a minor threat compared with the many 
organised interstellar states that they faced. This was to prove to be a 
miscalculation on the Vilani's part. When in around -4700 the Vilani began 
efforts to incorporate the Luriani they responded by rapidly forming a united 
front to face the common enemy. Early Vilani attempts to incorporate the 
Luriani by economic pressure failed and in 4582 the Vilani opened the Luriani 
Consolidation War.

The initial Vilani offensives were turned back with heavy losses in the face of 
determined resistance. The Luriani proved to be formidable opponents for the 
Vilani, the nature of their brains made three-dimensional combat second nature 
to the Luriani and their warrior class made very efficient fighters. However 
eventually the superior economic weight of the Vilani began to tell and one by 
one the Luriani worlds fell to the advancing Vilani fleets. In -4547 Daramm fell 
and the Luriani were defeated. Despite several revolts they were to remain 
under Vilani rule until the coming of the Solomani in 2223.

When the Vilani conquered the Luriani in -4547 they attempted to impose their 
culture on the Luriani; Vilani governors were placed in control of Luriani worlds 
and the Luriani were expected to conform to Vilani cultural norms. These efforts 
were less than successful, though the Luriani did remain firmly under the 
control of the Vilani, their culture remained largely intact, the Vilani were never 
able to stamp out the emotional and independent nature of the Luriani. Thus 
when the Solomani arrived in the Ley sector in -2223 they were greeted as 
liberators by the Luriani. They allied themselves with the Terrans and a number 
of Luriani units served in the Terran forces during their final drive on Vland, 
proving that they had lost none of their fighting abilities. With the final defeat of 
the Vilani in -2219 the Luriani expected that the Solomani would restore their 
independence. However they were to be sadly disappointed. Unlike the Geonee 
or Suerrat, the Luriani were not granted autonomy under the Rule of Man. 
Naturally this bred resentment with in the Luriani and in -2186 the Luriani 
rebelled against the Rule of Man. What followed was a tragedy for the Luriani. 
Isolated with only a limited production base, the Luriani faced an alliance of 
both Terran and Vilani forces. The Luriani hoped that the other minor races 
would come to their aid. These hopes proved futile and the Luriani were 
gradually worn down and in -2180 their final stronghold fell and in a cruel turn of 
fate, the Luriani again came under Vilani occupation. However under the Rule of 
Man, Luriani art and music found a wide audience amongst the Solomani; and 
this lead to widespread sympathy for the fate of the Luriani. Finally, in -1932 
Empress Juliana established the Luriani Cultural Region. With this, the each 
individual Luriani world was granted internal self-rule, answering to a Solomani 
planetary governor, with the entire region under the control of a military governor 
general.

With the collapse of the Rule of Man in -1776, the Solomani governor general of 
the Luriani Cultural Region found herself isolated and vulnerable. Admiral 
Martinez solved her problems by reaching an agreement with the Luriani. She 
transformed the Luriani Cultural Region into the Luriani Protectorate. Under this 
compromise, her fleet provided protection for the Luriani in return for support, 
while the Luriani worlds were allowed to retain their independence. The 
Protectorate continued to exist into the Long Night; the Protectorate gradually 
evolved into a unique government. The Solomani provided the much needed 
skills to administer a large-scale interstellar government, whilst the Luriani 
provided the necessary support facilities and their warrior class came to 
dominate the Protectorate fleet. Eventually however the Long Night claimed the 
Protectorate, by -1200 the Protectorate fleet had dwindled to just a handful of 
vessels and contact between the worlds had all but ceased. In -1183, Protector 
De Valine acknowledged that the Protectorate could no longer defend the 
Luriani worlds. The Solomani settled on the Luriani worlds and the Luriani 
Protectorate succumbed to the Long Night.

The situation remained unchanged until the coming of the Syleans. The Sylean 
Federation Scout Service reached the Luriani in -29. The arrival of the SFSS 
reawakened the Luriani's desires for the stars, Daramm had been able to retain 
TL8 throughout the Long Night, and the Solomani remained a distinct racial 
grouping. Given the prod of the Syleans arrival, the Luriani applied themselves 
to regaining the stars. It took the Luriani just 30 years to recover to TL9 and 
begin to reestablish the Protectorate. By 12, the Luriani Protectorate was a 
thriving interstellar community once more, encompassing most worlds within 5 
parsecs of Daramm. The Protectorate was a curious state, one that the new 
Imperium found hard to understand or deal with. The bulk of the population was 
Luriani by culture, but virtually all the higher levels of administration were 
provided by the Solomani Verasti (Protectors). Eventually the Imperium was 
forced to do something about the Luriani. Initially they tried to incorporate the 
Luriani through diplomatic means and initially this appeared to be a making 
progress, but negotiations stumbled on the Protectorate demand to be allowed 
to retain its identity within the Empire. It was then that Archduke Ishargi of 
Gateway made a huge error of judgement. Believing that a show of force would 
soften the Lurianis negotiating stance, Archduke Ishargi took a sizeable 
Imperial squadron and jumped to Rurur (an important frontier system inside the 
Protectorate). The result was a disaster. By sheer fluke, a substantial portion of 
the Protectorate fleet was conducting exercises in the Rurur system at the 
time. The Protectorate commander (Admiral Sherin) took this action to be the 
opening of an invasion and engaged the Imperial forces. In the resulting Luriani 
War (93-96), the Protectorate forces showed that the Luriani had lost none of 
their flare for three-dimensional warfare and inflicted several sharp defeats on 
the Imperial forces. Eventually cooler heads on both sides prevailed and a face 
saving negotiated settlement was reached. However the Luriani War was to 
leave a legacy of mistrust and tensions between the Protectorate and the 
Imperium remained high for many decades after the war.

With the end of the Luriani War Emperor Artemsus appointed an Imperial born 
Verasti, Duke Sirean of Dirir, as the new Archduke of Gateway (Archduke 
Ishargi had been killed at Rurur). Sirean chose to concentrate his efforts on 
incorporating the rimward portions of Ley sector, whilst attempting to repair 
relations with the Protectorate. Eventually this policy was to bear fruit. By 160, 
the memories of the Luriani War were fading and relations between the 
Protectorate and the Imperium were beginning to improve. However, by this 
time the situation elsewhere had changed. In the Domain of Antares events 
were moving towards the Julian War and securing the rimward flank of Antares 
had become a matter of some urgency. In 162, Archduke Acla reopened 
negotiations with the Protectorate regarding incorporation. These negotiations 
proceeded slowly as a considerable legacy of mistrust remained and had not 
yielded any positive results by the outbreak of the Julian War in 175. 
Throughout most of the Julian War the Protectorate chose to remain neutral 
until the Star Legion drove into Ley in 185. At this point, much to the surprise of 
the Imperium, the Protectorate offered an alliance and joined the War on the 
Imperial side. Though the entry of the Protectorate had little effect on the 
ultimate outcome of the war, Luriani forces were an important factor in halting 
and turning back the Star Legions drive into Ley. With the end of the war in 
191, negotiations resumed on a more positive note and in 202 the Protectorate 
was incorporated into the Imperium.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1013
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Friday, October 23 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1014



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

re: Piracy Redux
Re: GT Transponders
Old Topics: Aslan Females
Re: GT transponders
re: Fighters
The Luriani (revised part 0/2)
Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: GT transponders
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Where's Lucan?
Imperial fleet stations
Re: Loading/Unloading
Re: Stupidity and piracy
Re: Re UWP Cultural Extensions
Re: The Imperial Navy
The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Hey?? Where's the next spreadsheet version???
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:24:14 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy Redux

Ian Whitchurch wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
<excellent summary of a pirate's probable career profile snipped>

But, for me, the above explains piracy in the Third Imperium.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I think Ian's post was quite to the point. Well said and well done.

Walt Smith

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:46:30 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT Transponders

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 22:55:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Re: GT Transponders

and through automatic monitoring of
transponder signals, makes it easier to respond to any problems
("traffic control reports Beowulf's transponder signal suddenly went off
the air -- something's wrong, send a cutter or SDB to investigate").
**************
hey theres an idea....add a mayday button to the transponder....

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:39:00 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Old Topics: Aslan Females

I keep seeing this as part of the "old topics done to death" gag line,
but realize I've never actually seen the debate, for example,

"_Lesbian Aslan_ Pirates Hurling Near-C Rocks at Kinetic-Kill
Missile Armed Fighters"

Was there some kind of debate ages ago about Aslan females
getting tired of babysitting Aslan males and going off on their own
than I missed?

Walt Smith

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:44:07 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:02:20 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: GT transponders
Fred and Evelyn Wolke wrote:
>

>
IIRC, transponders only respond to specific signals (based in concept, I
would suspect, on World War II-era IFF devices).  If that's the case,
then, unless the pirate had the current IFF codes for whatever force
he/she/it was trying to impersonate, the transponder wouldn't respond
appropriately to being interrogated by the IFF, and would therefore be
marked as hostile.
**********
GT transponders ar like airline transponders....they pretty much just
broacast a here I am, look at me signal...along with a registry and
origination/destination info.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:49:22 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: re: Fighters

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:19:16 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Fighters

Oh goody - a KKM debate to go with the fighter debate and the piracy
debate and the transponder debate...
"if the bloody things get through", of course, is the hard part -
for reasonable laser technology
(let alone the really good lasers in GT or just-plain-T) hitting an
incoming kinetic impact missile is remarkably easy; certainly for the
space/price of a figher you can fit in a point defence laser that
can eat up many many times its weight in impact missiles (at least
in FFS2; but presumably also in GURPS - it'll be interesting to try
this once I get a copy of GURPS.)
*************8
in the practice combat we ran for our TCS campaign, a 200DT SDB was hit by
8 missiles. 4 of them got through the point defense.  the vector was
small(only 3 hexes) and she had heavy armor (IIRC DR4000) so she was only
crippled.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:34:27 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The Luriani (revised part 0/2)

I've been doing some work on the Luriani recently (including moving them from 
Fornast to Ley sector). The work is far from finished and needs a lot of general 
polishing yet, but I though it might be interesting. As usual comments are most 
welcome.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:58:45 -0400
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

Hi all,

Rob Prior wrote:
> Design by George MacLure, text be me (Robert Prior), editing by DGP (Joe
> or Gary, I think). Given the amount of editing and feedback, the coauthor
> status is appropriate. Illustration was down after I wrote my text, and I
> was happy enough with it.
> 
> The Sydkai was intended to operate for months without resupply. Optimized
> is correct -- George optimized that ship down to the cubic metre. We had
> noticed that the standard naval designs had short durations and required a
> fair amount of logistical support, so we came up with a vessel optimized
> for patrolling and sufficiently armed for fighting pirates.

Don't get me wrong I liked the illustration well enough, I just couldn't
see where the revolving loader was loacated. Ever do deck plans for that
thing? :^>

It is a shame you were never paid for the article. Perhaps we have
discovered  new "Canon" of Trav Authors getting screwed.

Bye all

Glenn

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:41:21 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

> ***************I'M OVER HERE!!!!!********************LOOK AT
>ME!!!!!!!!!!!!*******************.
>
>if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
anything there.
**************
that is about all they do say...they come sealed, with regeistry info, but
the destination info is input by the ships navegator.


If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
out.
*****************
even better to just turn it off, having your transponder picked up will
result in a +4 to scan you with other systems, and if you don't match......

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:30:54 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>A space ship doesn't have a planet for a heat sink, every joule it
>absorbs or produces has to go somewhere. It either raises the internal
>energy (temperature) of the ship, or is radiated into space. The
>energy going into the system, from every source, has to balance with
>the energy within it or radiated out. So, if you produce internally,
>or absorb externally, 100 joules per second then your local system
>will either radiate away 100 joules per second or increase in internal
>temperature until, eventually, whatever heat sink you have in the
>local system is overloaded and the energy radiates away. At no point
>will the the energy produced/absorbed not be balanced with the energy
>of the system minus any it radiates away.

For reference:

My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
are really hot!  After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)

The solutions are:

1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
realistic sensor rules.

2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.

3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
mechanism).

Possibly we should have a new geek code?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:49:42 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Where's Lucan?

Gary (TravelrTNE@aol.com) writes:

>>And there is one person it is even more odd wasn't informed: Dulinor! D. has
>>met the real Strephon many times. What are the odds that he is not going to
>>detect the imposture after a few minutes' talk? Not good. And he has grown
> 
>He didn't get to talk to him IIRC.

Yes, but the Grand Chamberlain or whatever the master of ceremonies is called
could hardly have expected that, now could he? As far as he is concerned,
Dulinor has asked for a formal meeting with the Emperor, precisely one where
it would be inappropiate to use a substitute. The Emperor is unavailable. A
few minutes after the meeting starts Dulinor can be expected to realize that
he is not facing the Emperor. Wouldn't you have told him in advance and
most humbly begged his pardon? I would.

OH, I forget, the Grand Chamberlain was not informed. (In fact, no one appears
to know that the impostor is missing from his usual appartment either). I
guess Iolanthe went to fetch the stand-in himself. Well, substitute Iolanthe
for the Grand Chamberlain in the argument above.


      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: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:15:49 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Imperial fleet stations

Gary (TravelrTNE@aol.com) writes:

>It's clear that regular fleets are being alluded to.  Of the fleets, mentioned
>as belonging to the Corridor Fleet, three of these are Fornast (A ,B, and E).
>The 41st is in Zarushagar/A.  It seems to be an error.  Besides Corridor Fleet
>has 16 numbered fleets (in 9 subsectors), not 4.  My bet is someone goofed.

So is mine. All I said was that the evidence is conflicting.
 
>It would be easy for me to assume this is one more error of which MT was
>replete.

As a matter of curiosity I sat down and made a list of the fleets from the
map in _Rebellion_. As it is 320 lines long I won't post it, but anyone
who wants a copy can just e-mail me for it.
Summary: The following fleets are not shown on the map: 77th, 118th, 131st,
189th, 256th, 274th, 303rd, 315th, 316th, 317th, 318th, 319th, 320th.

Ignoring the four fleets mentioned in the text as constituting the Corridor
Fleet (presumably erroneously), the following fleet numbers are duplicated:
108th, 128th, 179th, 193th, 212th, 213th (triplicated!), 214th, 255th, 260th.

Also there are a number of subsectors with a sliver of Imperial worlds in them
that does not have fleets assigned, some of the slivers quite as big as those
of some subsectors that do have fleets. I didn't list them or try to go
deeper into that.


      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: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:17:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: Loading/Unloading

William F. Hostman writes:
> AS threatened, I found the tables in FASA's Battletech, and will present an
> adaptation for use with traveller (I am not reprinting theirs... its in
> Battlespace, page 56). Also factored in are my experiences working in a
> -10c wharehouse.
> 
>                Minutes per metric ton**

Hm.. I suspect that loading time is dependent on the # of components, their
size, and the size of the door you're moving them through.  Filling a
compartment with 10 10-ton boxes and 10,000 10-kilogram boxes is not equal.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:26:19 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Stupidity and piracy

Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> writes:

>My view exactly (referring to piracy being neither practical nor
>sensible).  I would, however, point out that piracy, like trying to
>become a professional athlete to get out of poverty, need not be
>profitable _on average_.  It must only be _thought_ to be profitable to
>occur.  For every John Dillinger, there are countless unsuccessful bank
>robbers.  It's the Dillingers that get the publicity, thus creating in
>some minds the impression that a career as a bank robber is a fine
>idea.  The thought of getting something for nothing is quite attractive,
>and I can see some ships' crews (and even some heavily-in-debt ships'
>owners) concluding that piracy would be an easy way to make a fast MCr
>or 20.  Add in the occasional story about some pirate pulling off some
>incredible stunt, with a gigacredit or two lost to this pirate, and you
>have the recipe for some truly stupid behavior.  (Including [or
>especially] on the part of PCs....)

There's no shortage of people willing to try something stupid in order to
get rich. No argument there. But to rob a bank all you need is a $50 gun
(or a $5 toy gun). How many stupid fools that owns (or controls) a MCr30
tool do you think there would be?

>Bottom line, IMO:  99.99% of the time, piracy is little more than a
>quick ticket to the nomination round of the Darwin Award.  However, it's
>the successful .01% that gets 95% of the publicity, thus attracting more
>fools (and, admittedly, the occasional genius/lucky fool) to piracy as a
>way of life.

With those odds you need 1000 fools with MCr30 tools for each successful
pirate you get. Just how many successful pirates do you think that would
make for?


      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: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:17:45 -0700
From: "Suz Dollar" <suzd@goodnet.com>
Subject: Re: Re UWP Cultural Extensions

> >> .8) how much they appreciate/trust the media...
> >
> >How often is the media relevant to your campaigning?
> >It rarely comes up in mine.

Media has played a large role in one of the games I am in currently, in 
the form of one very pushy reporter. He went from being the biggest 
thorn in our side to the only NPC in the game we trusted in fairly short 
order.

In other games, knowing how the media operates in conjunction/relation 
to the government is very important. For some reason we always check 
the news channels for information. Of course, if there is a great deal of 
censorship going on, or the media is all owned, overtly or covertly, by 
one source/political persuasion/etc. then that information is suspect at 
best and should be viewed as such.

I would say that this information is important.

Suz

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:07:27 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

Gary (TravelrTNE@aol.com) writes:

>"A numbered fleet, depending on its mission, may have between two and 10
>squadrons amounting to between 50 and 200 ships."  We're previously told a
>squadron is 3-10 ships.

Where? Not previously in that particular essay. Elsewhere we're told that
CruRons typically have 4-8 cruisers and we're told of some BatRons that have
8 battleships. And elsewhere we're told of some squadrons with 4-5 capital
ships. 

>Then the minimum 2 squadron fleet (of even the max of 10 ships/squadron)
>would only be 20 ships.

Unless they're atypical. We have at least one example of an oversized
squadron.

But I'll back down and say that there are discrepancies either way, so your
interpretation is also possible. The real kicker is that it is difficult
enough to spend the canonical naval budget if we assume 2000 capital ships
per sector. If we assume only 1000 capital ships we either have to reduce
the budget drastically or see the number of auxiliaries go through the
roof (you can get hundreds of escorts for the price of ONE battleship.)

I know what you're going to say: Then let's reduce the budget. That's
certainly an option. Let's examine it: 

Let's take a look at the figure I've been using to base the Imperial budget
on, an average of 3% of GWP on military spending.

First question: Is it canonical?

Answer: Yes. Despite what anyone may think, _Striker_ is no less canonical
than any other official source. And _Striker_, Book 2, p. 38 says:

"The average expenditure of a nation or world on its military is 3% of GNP;
on worlds where the state of international tension is high, this may range
as high as 15%; where little conflict has been experienced for extended
periods of time the military budget may be as low as 1% of GNP.
        The total military budget must be divided between the army and the
navy. The proportion allocated to the army averages 40% on most worlds, but
averages only 6% on worlds with vacuum or trace atmospheres. Planetary
defenses are jointly funded by the army and navy; the referee must decide
what effect this will have on the army budget.
        On Imperial worlds, roughly 30% of the total military budget goes to
the Imperium for maintenance of the Imperial military. On independent worlds,
the entire budget is available for local defense."

Second question: Does this figure conflict with other canonical material?

Answer: Yes, of course. That's why we're having this discussion. What
information we have about the Imperial Navy strength seems to indicate a
much lower figure. If the 1000 combat ship per sector figure is for the
regular navy only, then 3% appears to be 2-3 times too big; if the figure
includes the colonial fleets too, then the figure appears 4-6 times too big.
Unless the peacetime IN has a HUGE number of ships laid up in ordinary, that
is.

Also, the figure is low if compared to the figures that _Trillion Credit
Squadron_ and _Pocket Empires_ provide. TCS use 5% on the Navy alone, no
mention of the army; PE figures are fluid, but can reach 20-30% IIRC (I may
be a bit off here).

Q: Could the _Striker_ information be explained away as changed from the
correct one to enhance game play?

A: I don't see how. Does _Striker_ games work better if the armies are three
or six times bigger than the 'real' armies? What possible reason could there
be for giving too high a figure? I can see why you may want to reduce the
forces involved to simplify game play (That's how I explain the forces in the
_Fifth Frontier War_ boardgame). But why make them too high?

Q: So is 3% of GWP unrealistic in itself? Can we dismiss it on the grounds
that no society could possibly afford such heavy expenditures?

A: No. Real World examples makes it abundantly clear that at least some
societies can survive with peacetime expenditures far higher than that. That
dosen't mean that someone laying down ground rules for the economies of high
tech or high population societies in his SF gameworld couldn't claim that
such societies are less able to afford military spendings. At least no one
could point to a Real World example of a TL 15 high-pop society and
contradict him. But that's not the case here. _Sriker_ says that high-tech,
high-population societies CAN afford it, and the Real World does not say them
nay. So we can't dismiss it as inherently unrealistic.

Q: Is it unrealistically low, then? During the cold war some societies spent
far more than that, and the Imperium is in two or three cold wars at the
moment (Confederation, Consulate, League).

A: Perhaps a little. But OTOH, the Imperium is bigger than both (or all
three) its cold war opponents together. Not much bigger, but bigger. So I'd
be inclined to accept it, just to avoid making things worse.

Q: So why can't we reduce it to 1 or 0.5%?

A: That, as I've had pointed out to me repeatedly, is not a question of
logic but of individual perception of plausibility. I for one have trouble
enough accepting the 3% as realistic, given the Imperium's history of
conflict with the Solomani and Zhodani, but I'm quite aware that others
are... less sceptical. All I can say is that I do not accept that 0.5% is
so obviously far more likely than 3%.

Q: But adjusting the Imperial force levels would also create canon trouble,
wouldn't it?

A: Yes. Whichever way you resolve the discrepancy you get into trouble. But
on the one hand we have a general rule and on the other specific details. If
you settle on a plausible general rule and try to fix as many of the specific
details as you can, you end up with a basic system that works well. If you
change the general rule to something implausible then you wind up with a
system that does not work well, laying down problems for the future.



      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: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:35:38 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

Charles R Hensley writes:

>Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
> 
>>>The reserve fleets will be next to useless for anti piracy as they are
>>>manned by reservists and thus spend most of their time in orbit around 
>>>the high tech, high population worlds in the subsector they are
>>>assigned.
>>
>>This is a totally unwarranted assumption. Nowhere in the rules do I
>>find any support for the idea that the colonial fleets and the system
>>defense forces are not trained to the same standard as the regular navy.
>>On the contrary, the character generation implies (I put it no higher
>>than that, the CGR being a tricky thing to draw evidence from) that
>>there is no difference at all.
>
>FSotSI pg 6
>"The primary activity a reserve fleet undertakes is training."

Heh. That could also mean that they are in better training than the idle,
slothful Imperial Navy ;-). But OK, I'll give you that. Only, whare does
it say that the training takes place in orbit around the high population
worlds?
 
>"Colonial squadrons are equipped with obsolescent (but still servicable,
>rather than obsolete) ships and with personnel with somewhat less
>training and experience."

Again, I'll grant you that. Now tell me, if the colonial spacemen serve the
same number of years and get the same training as Imperial spacemen, how can
this be true?

>RS pg 27
>"Reserve fleets are equipped with obsolescent - but still useful -
>starships which have been retired from front-line Imperial service; they
>are staffed by personnel serving in the Reserves (technically in the
>service of the Imperium, but without the status of strict Imperial Navy
>duty)."

So it says. But does it make sense? Try this little thought experiment:

You're the Duchess Delphine of Mora. You and the IN Quartermaster General for
Mora have just pocketed two checks for this year's Imperial naval budget
split right down the middle (You've also got a check for Mora System's
military budget, but we'll ignore that since you got that one wearing a
different hat). On your budget you have a post named "New ships: 25%" (25% of
10% is 2.5%; this will completely replace your fleet in 40 years). According
to _High Guard_ you may procure the ships from any shipyard inside the
subsector. Obviously you're also allowed to buy them from the IN. So you lean
across the table and ask the QM if he has any good bargains. "Why yes," he
replies, "As usually the Navy is getting rid of 1/40th of its ships. I can
offer you some lovely 40 year old TL 14 ships for 25% of original price. Of
course, you have to pay as much for maintaining them as if they were new.[*]"

[*] Propably more, but let's not open that can of worms.

So you have the choice between buying some obsolescent, 40 year old, TL 14
clunkers from the IN or to buy some brand new, top of the line, TL 15 ships
from your own shipyards. What would YOU prefer?

But let's say you are a glowing patriot or have some other reason to buy
from the IN. Let's also say that your need for different ship types exactly
match the mix the IN can offer you. Let's further say that none of the ships
the IN built 40 years ago have been lost since. You've now spent one fourth
of your procurement budget. What do you do with the rest? Do you ask if you
can buy a few more ships from the IN? In that case the QM will regretfully
inform you that his colleagues have sold all the obsolescent ships of their
subsectors to your fellow dukes. There are no more ships to be had. So how-
ever reluctant you are to benefit your subsector with procurement orders, it
looks like you will have to order a few new ships from your local shipyards.
Of course, if you are lucky enough to have some TL 13 or 14 planets with
shipyards, you can avoid the awful prospect of getting TL 15 ships in your
navy. And if you really insist, I suppose you can get them to use old designs
so that the ship is obsolescent from the start.

From experience I know that there are people who don't recognize a _reductio
ad absurdum_ argument when they see it (I'm not referring to you, but there
are some), so I'll be specific: The above scenario shows (IMO) that the
concept of a colonial fleet consisting solely of obsolescent IN castoffs does
not agree with the procurement rules. "But it says so right here in the
book!" I hear you cry. Yes it does. Another discrepancy. Is there a way to
explain it away? I believe so:

Some subsector fleets ARE exactly as the description has it, composed of
obsolescent IN castoffs. The Duke of Lunion, for example, would be happy to
buy obsolescent IN ships, because the best he can procure locally is TL 13
(I still think he'd buy some local TL 13 designs, but maybe not). And dukes
of subsectors with TL 14 high-pop planets would still be interested in IN
TL 15 retirees. Even dukes with TL 15 planets would buy _some_ ships from
the IN. And those are the ships the public hears about. "DELPHINE BUYS
CLUNKERS! BUY LOCAL, SAYS UNION BOSS!!!" the headlines of the opposition
press and the yellow press will say, forgetting to mention that she is only
buying a few clunkers and many local ships.

What do you think? Generally I dislike "that's not the truth, that's what the
public thinks is the truth" explanations, but if they are the best one can
come up with I think they're better than nothing.

>...the 50-200 ship numbers do not specify if this is combatant only or
>non-combatants and combatants.

No, but it is quite likely. I'll grant you that they _could_ be speaking of
both kind. But just above the text has specifically mentioned that auxiliaries
are excluded. Later when they do begin to talk about auxiliaries too they
specifically mention them and even state that they are often ignored when
figuring ship totals.

>I would say this is both combatants and non-combatants, thus the average
>31.25 combatants per fleet would be a good number.

For reasons I've stated in my reply to Gary, I disagree. 

>>the Imperial Navy propably have huge numbers of ships laid up and that
>>that is the reason the peacetime navy is so comparatively small?
> 
>The navy has huge reserves at the depots, but Norris did not have access
>to a depot.  also the Corridor depot has been depleted in the many
>frontier wars.

He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority of
the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check? Not
IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out around
the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't it?
Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
reactivate them.



      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: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 11:36:15 -0500
From: "Andy Akins" <igor@ames.net>
Subject: Hey?? Where's the next spreadsheet version???

Several people have emailed me about the next version of the FF&S
spreadsheet.

I'm still working on it, but some events in the RW have prevented me from
devoting as much time as I'd like. In short, my wife and I are expecting a
child (our second) next month, and there has been some complications with
her pregnancy - nothing awful, but definately more important than fixing the
spreadsheet (sorry - she's a lot cuter than most of you guys :) ).

FYI, the next version has the following:
  Fixed a problem with backup passive sensor costs.
  Fixed the power use of grav compensators.
  Fixed a volume problem with life support in the Excel Version (it was
including fuel).
  Fixed Power Plant scaling error.
  Added multiple TL ability to all weapon systems
  Added Brilliant Lances format USP
  Added Battle Rider format USP

It will be out ASAP.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Andrew Akins                                                         |
| Home: igor@ames.net - http://www.ames.net/igor/ - AOL IM: Iowa Akins |
| Work: andya@cms-gt.com - http://www.cms-gt.com/ - AOL IM: CMS AndyA  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| IMTU: tc++(**) ru+ ge 3i+ jt- au+ ls+ kk+ hi+ as+ va+ dr+ so+ zh+    |
|       vi+ da+                                                        |
| Geek: GCS d- s+:+ a- C++ W++ w+++(-)$ PS+ PE t- 5++ X+ R+++ tv+      |
|       b+++ DI+ D-- G e+ h---- r+++ y++++                             |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:42:18 -0400
From: "Dan Eveland" <develand@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

How does the space shuttle handle heat build-up?

Dan


- -----Original Message-----
From: Rob Prior <Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 12:20 PM
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)


>Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>>A space ship doesn't have a planet for a heat sink, every joule it
>>absorbs or produces has to go somewhere. It either raises the internal
>>energy (temperature) of the ship, or is radiated into space. The
>>energy going into the system, from every source, has to balance with
>>the energy within it or radiated out. So, if you produce internally,
>>or absorb externally, 100 joules per second then your local system
>>will either radiate away 100 joules per second or increase in internal
>>temperature until, eventually, whatever heat sink you have in the
>>local system is overloaded and the energy radiates away. At no point
>>will the the energy produced/absorbed not be balanced with the energy
>>of the system minus any it radiates away.
>
>For reference:
>
>My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
>should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
>are really hot!  After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
>statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
>catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
>repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)
>
>The solutions are:
>
>1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
>realistic sensor rules.
>
>2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.
>
>3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
>maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
>mechanism).
>
>Possibly we should have a new geek code?
>

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1014
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Friday, October 23 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1015



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud
Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.
RE: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Formal for mass-based jump limits
piracy and sensors
hiding in the Oort cloud
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
re: Piracy: Cease!
Traveller Data file for GURPS Character Assistance?
re: Fighters
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Jumping from 100 diameters
Re: Fighters
Re: Mutiny
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)
Re: UWP Cultural Extension

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:48:33 PDT
From: "John Lambert" <hovtej@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud

I just rejoined the TML after a long absence and got in on the middle of 
the discussion of finding ships in the Oort Cloud. 

Most of the calculations appear to be assuming that all of the energy is 
radiated uniformly in all directions from the hull in the form of heat. 
As has been pointed out, the energy has to go somewhere, but there are 
other ways of getting rid of it. One approach would be to convert the 
heat to another form of energy, say laser light or microwaves, that 
could be directed outward into interstellar space. The process would not 
be 100% efficient, but should reduce the signature of the ship 
significantly as seen from inside the solar system. Another ship further 
out passing through the radiated beam, however, would see a tremendous 
signature. A starting guess would be that, with improved technologies, 
90% or more of a ship's excess energy could be beamed away from the 
inner solar system. This would be a form of stealth and would require 
special equipment.

Since very few ships spend much time outside of the Oort cloud, it would 
be very unlikely that the beamed energy would be detected. 

Glad to be back on the TML!
Later,
John Lambert

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:54:04 -0400
From: "Shade" <jwatts@catt.com>
Subject: Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.

It comes from a topic I started a long time ago that had to do with a
Aslan-Vargr " sex study " that was published on the list a VERY long time
ago.  

It was basicly done to death and is generally regarded as a sore subject.

Just to let ya know....  it was established in that " study " that a great
percentage of Aslan females were lesbian or bisexual.


Shade


The problem with religious texts is that the answers
arent in the BACK, either. 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:01:00 -0700
From: "Brian Mays" <bmays@genscope.com>
Subject: RE: UWP Cultural Extension

>Jeff Zeitlin wrote:
>
>> Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
>> - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
>> States since the mid-1980s.
>
>The what?!  I was raised in Texas and now live in Boston.
>Both with large Latino communities, to say the least,
>and I haven't noticed any change but for the positive in
>the last 30 years.
>
>Bloo>

I live in the Bay Area (San Francisco), and whenever there is ANY kind of
economic down-turn, the Latino immigrants are the first to be targeted for
scapegoating.  Right now, now that the economy is great, the "problem" is
ignored.  But I'm SURE as soon as the job market takes a dive, we'll have
more anti-immigrant propositions on the ballot.  It's pretty disgusting,
really.

Brian

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:01:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: Formal for mass-based jump limits

Jens Maskus writes:
> 
> Jumplimit 
>
[AU]=(SQRT(MassTerrstrial*5,9742E024/(0,000025*9,80665/0,0000000000667259)))/14960
> 0000000

_tidal_ strength -- which is the derivative of gravitational force.  Distance =
(MassTerrestrial)^1/3 * 4.2 light-seconds.  Works out to about .6 AU for the
sun; this is actually more generous than the standard rules.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:10:57 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: piracy and sensors

>    m = 2
Of course, at 53 K effecitve temperature, there's a fairly large bolometric
coorrection to get the visual magnitude...

>with the 2.5 Nordical Optical Telescope.
'course, maybe in Norway it's cold enough to do good 60 micron observations
from the ground :-)

Bruce

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:16:29 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: hiding in the Oort cloud

>So with one station, it takes about two weeks to scan the sky. A pirate
>ship is detectable for about a day every rendezvous, 
One can probably think of tricks to make the rendezvous harder to
detect. For example, put a big honkin tractor (TNE/T4) on the
pirate base to reel ships in without having them use any of their
own fuel...I also haven't really done the analysis for how far away
from the base you're likely to arrive due to usual jump errors (some
TU's would have jump errors be bigger that far from a big mass); 
maybe an ion drive or chemical drive could get you to the base.
(Using HEPlaR would be like writing "come and kill me" in big letters
even if you only used it for a few minutes...)

Bruce

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:22:29 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

>How does the space shuttle handle heat?

Dinky little radiators on the inside of the cargo bay doors (this is why
they have to open the doors within a few hours of launch.) I don't know how hot
they run, but probably only a hundred C or so. The shuttle's advantage 
is that its life support and functions only require a few kilowatts - it
has much less heat to dispose of than a traveller ship. (In fact, sunlight
heat loading might be a major part of the problem.)

I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
special high-temp radiators...

Bruce

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:50:37 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Piracy: Cease!

dberry@hooked.net wrote:

>Folks, we go through this every six months.


I disagree - this debate has run at some level for nearly 18 months.... it
just gets more noticeable when Hans and David join in ;-)

>The TML is now swamped by the
>latest incarnation of the Piracy Threads That Would Not Die.  With all
>respect to those involved, nothing is ever going to be agreed to, since the
>final decision is a matter of persoanl gaming taste.  *Both* sides can make
>convincing cases for their sides.
>
>Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?

Yeah... if we must have a re-run, can't we re-open the fighter debate? That
was more fun...

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:41:29 -0700
From: Mike Wittek <mwittek@thelair.cnchost.com>
Subject: Traveller Data file for GURPS Character Assistance?

All:
Has anybody seen or heard of someone that has made the Traveller data
files for GURPS Character Assistant program?

Thanks,
- --
Mike Wittek | Vacaville, California
mailto:mwittek@thelair.cnchost.com | http://www.thelair.cnchost.com
     "Democracy isn't just the best form of government; It's the only
one even remotely worth a damn. Only democracy guarantees that people
get what they deserve."   --Zena Marley

DISCLAIMER: All that I write is my own opinion, and my opinion may not
be the opinion of my school or electronic courier. For that matter, it
may not be your opinion, but deal with it.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 13:47:15 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: re: Fighters

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:45:22 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Fighters


Gurps is pretty much the same.  With a good gunners and tageting software
it's 1 laser one dead missle per turn.  The only way to get misile hits is
a
large salvo that closes fast enough to overwhelm the defenses.  It is
doable
but not very cost effective.  Those misiles are pricy.
*****************
I agreee about the chances to hit,  in the game we ran one turret stopped 4
missiles (but 4 more got through)

I have my book with me so I looked it up.  I was just reading the space
combat section when this came up.
Do to turn limits in the combat situation you have to shoot a ship or a
missle but not both with each laser.
************
GT 169  a weapon may be fired in point defense even it it engaged another
target in the direct fire phase.



1st second shoot three misiles  (likely but not curtain)  gunner skill 15 +
15 accuacy +4 aiming +10 computer (very good comp.) +2 active sensor +10
defensive fire  +4 rof =60 - 41 for range 1 = 19  You must role less the 21
on three d6 but 17 and 18 always fail.
*************
I get: 15+15acc +10comp +2 active sensor +10pd +4rof -39 Range (PD fire may
only be taken against ramming attempts.) = 17 or less for the first missile
each additional missile engaged is a further -2 to hit. he does however
have 3 lasers so can roll 3 times on each attempt.  this gives him
17,15,13,11,9,7,5,3,1 that he needs to roll against for point defense...so
most likely 2-3 missile hits.


With this you can have a 10 or less to kill a missle at 30 hexes.
*****************888
the TL 12 lasers only have a range of 8 hexes.


 The
problem is how fast are the misile moving 1g = 1 hex per second
********************
per turn...not per second (turns are 20 min long)




3 missles hit if missle gunner role his success number.
***************
it is actually a contest of skills for the pilot of the ship and the
missile gunner this hapens before PD fire, and missile that miss can be
ignored for that turn (they may have enough Dv to loop around and come
back).


**********8
what Charles neglects to mention is the effects of velocity on damage...if
there is only a modest vector differnce between the ship and the missile
(say 5 hexes) even one can do massive damage to a scout....

the missile (best case only one gets through) will do 6dx500 (5). the scout
has DR 200, so effective DR is 40....assuming average damage for the
missile 3.5*6*500=10,500 -40 = 10,460. the scout has 15,000 Hp and so will
take 6 critical hits (6 rolls on the major damage table) almost certan to
be crippled, possibly a floating wreck....)

.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 11:46:00 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

 
> I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
> need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
> power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
> require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
> special high-temp radiators...

I guess the turret radiators could be facing away from the launch
side--you always know that at least the guy you're shooting at won't
see that radiation :-)

Drives are the other big culprit. Traveller TL15 military ships do
6gs. That's a lot of power.

- -Merrick

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 13:59:46 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:35:38 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Charles R Hensley writes:
>Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
>

Again, I'll grant you that. Now tell me, if the colonial spacemen serve the
same number of years and get the same training as Imperial spacemen, how
can
this be true?
***********
they don't see as much combat.




Some subsector fleets ARE exactly as the description has it, composed of
obsolescent IN castoffs. The Duke of Lunion, for example, would be happy to
buy obsolescent IN ships, because the best he can procure locally is TL 13
(I still think he'd buy some local TL 13 designs, but maybe not). And dukes
of subsectors with TL 14 high-pop planets would still be interested in IN
TL 15 retirees. Even dukes with TL 15 planets would buy _some_ ships from
the IN. And those are the ships the public hears about. "DELPHINE BUYS
CLUNKERS! BUY LOCAL, SAYS UNION BOSS!!!" the headlines of the opposition
press and the yellow press will say, forgetting to mention that she is only
buying a few clunkers and many local ships.
****************
Agreed



He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority of
the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check? Not
IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out
around
the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't it?
Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
reactivate them.
**************
it does make sens form a security standpoint,....if they are all in one
area less chance of theft or sabotage.........

same argument used for keeping all the planes togerther at pearl harbor.

:)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:54:31 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Jumping from 100 diameters

The piracy thread made me think of this...but based on what has been stated
about jump drives, a significant number of jumps from inhabited worlds _cannot_
be made from the 100D limit.  Specifically:

Any world in the life-zone for a K or M star will probably be within the 100D
limit for the _star_.  A world in the inner part of the life zone for a G star
will also be within 100D.

Even if you aren't within 100D of the star, you need to _miss_ that 100D sphere
around the star (at both ends).  If the planet's orbital plane is not
particularly inclined relative to the jump direction, for a significant
fraction of the year (depending on exact angle and size of star) you'll have
the star in the way -- for earth, jumping to somewhere on the ecliptic would
require travelling a good part of an AU for about 5 months of the year.

For our worst examples, the spinward marches include a number of M II giants...
the concept of having to travel 5-10 AU to jump would be rather unappealing to
most merchants ;).

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:57:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: Fighters

Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> *************
> I get: 15+15acc +10comp +2 active sensor +10pd +4rof -39 Range (PD fire may
> only be taken against ramming attempts.) = 17 or less for the first missile
> each additional missile engaged is a further -2 to hit. he does however
> have 3 lasers so can roll 3 times on each attempt.  this gives him
> 17,15,13,11,9,7,5,3,1 that he needs to roll against for point defense...so
> most likely 2-3 missile hits.

That's incorrect.  A single gunner controls a single _turret_.  If he wanted to
fire the three weapons separately (rather than as a battery) he'd be at -4 to
all of them.  He gets one shot, with a +1 for the # of weapons (this is a
problem, it means triple turrets are useless because you get the same bonus
from a double turret, but...)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:12:25 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Mutiny

>I've been wondering: considering that mutiny is one of the more
>sensible sources of pirate ships we've discussed, how big a ship
>could a mutiny believably take place on?
*snip*
>Is a 400tn _Gazelle_ Close Escort or _Luuru Kilaalum_ (sp?)
>Patrol Cruiser too big? How about an 800tn _Broadsword_
>Mercenary Cruiser? A 1200tn _Kinunir_ Battle Cruiser?

Funny you should mention the Gazelle; The text in Traders and Gunboats
(Supplement 7 of the LBBs) indicated that the layout of decks in the
Gazelle was *specifically* designed to seperate the enlisted crew from the
officers and provide the officers with a defensable bridge area in the
event of a mutiny.

>Then there is the question: you've offed the Captain and a senior
>officer or two, as well as any loyal crew. Where do you get
>replacements? I don't see too many crew mutinying as a unit -
>unless we're talking Vargr of course.

Comments of others aside, and other factors affecting piracy
notwithstanding, I don't think its difficult for an undercrewed ship to
operate.  Like the sailing ships of old, military vessels are heavily
overcrewed due to the needs of combat and the desire for extra coverage for
watches and such.  If procedures are changed, maintenance schedules allowed
to slip, etc, a vessel like a Gazelle could be run with only 4 crewmembers
(out of 12) for most of the time (I'm thinking two watchstanders, one in
engineering, one on the bridge, in rotating 8 or 12 hour shifts).

A British Frigate in the West Indies mutinied in the late 1700s over the
behavior of their captain (described in _The Black Ship_ I can't recall the
vessels name).  They did not turn pirate, but they turned themselves in to
a Spainish port, where some stayed awhile, but most dispersed themselves to
the four winds, some even returning home to England, several signed on
privateers or pirates, many went to America, and many simply were not heard
of again.  All the ones we know about were eventually hung.  Some, however,
seem to have successfully mutinied.

I believe that of the 130 or so on board, 30-50 were "active" mutineers,
60-80 were "passive participants" who obeyed orders of the mutineers once
the killing was over, and the remainder were either killed and thrown
overboard or just thrown overboard.  Several asked that they be considered
prisoners of war when they arrived in the Spainish port.  I think that with
treatment of the more professional Imp Navy personnel you would expect many
fewer to participate or allow a mutiny to occur, so I would not expect an
Imperial Navy vessel much larger than a Gazelle to be subject to a mutiny.

Other navies (local navies with SDBs) might be different.

Now, a British Frigate in 1800 could not, in the end, escape the British
Navy and remain on Earth, so there is not really a good analogy to an
Imperial Navy ship near an open border, like the Vargr Extents or the
Trojan Reach, where many local nation-states would pay nicely for a
Gazelle.  On the other paw, The Imperial Navy would do it's damndest (like
the RN) to hunt down and kill every last perpetrator of a mutiny in hopes
that this would discourage imitators.

In any case there is that reference to mutiny in LBB Supp. 7 which even
prompted a *design change* on a common Impy Navy ship.

Pete


Peter H. Brenton
MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center
(617) 253-3185
pbrenton@mit.edu

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:31 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

>Even if you use that 100 joules as efficiently as possible you aren't
>going to get more work out of it than 100 joules worth. If you do then
>you've got a perpetual energy/motion machine, and I want to buy stock!
>I'm sure you don't mean that. ;->
>

No I did not, The thermalelectrics were ment to cut signature by
suplimenting the battery power so that less power would need to be draw from
the batteries.  Discharging batteries causes true waste heat.  Reusing power
by partial heat recovery does not produce any more waste heat than the heat
caused by the use of that power.  It is more efficient than battery power as
far as waste heat is concurned but because the system is loosing heat into
space you will need to replace that lost power from the batteries but not as
much as you would have to without the heat recovery system.

The idea is to reduce the heat signature too 300k or less by running only on
battery power.  No operating fussion plant.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:34 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 06:01 PM 10/22/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Fred and Evelyn Wolke writes:
>> 
>> >A scout ship could not radiate 1MW with a living crew.
>> 
>> Then the ship MUST be doing SOMETHING with the energy besides radiating
>> it... because (at least in GT) the power is measured in MW for practically
>> everything.
>
>In GT, only weapons, drives, active sensors, and artificial gravity have
>significant power consumption, and most of these probably dump a lot of energy
>directly to space.  The assertion that a scout ship can't radiate a megawatt is
>false, though -- it just requires a heat pump to a fairly hot radiator vane.
>

One able to survive some rigorous treatment.  20000k is a lot of heat.  What
happens when this ship lands in water?  The vane will make a tempting target
for laser gunners.  No vane no power.  The ship would burn up without it if
the reater is running.  If you use those efficency numbers.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:36 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 09:38 PM 10/22/98 -0600, you wrote:
>At 06:48 pm 10/22/98 +0000, you wrote:
>>If the signal is less than the threshold of detection of a singal
>element of
>>the array no amount of intergration with improve the signal because
>it was
>
>	Given that REALWORLD sensors right now have "threshold of detection"
>equal to a single photon (not 100% of the time, but up there), I'm
>not worried ... unless you're emitting fractional photons?
>

You know that is not posible.  I've already eat my crow on this subject
thank you.  I do not care for left overs (Grin).

Seriously though I did learn a lot about current astrological tech. I did
not know.  It was worth the effort for that alone.  Now that I have the
background theory I makes sence.  I still am curious about the integration
time require for 3 ls detection of a scout ship.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:38 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 08:51 PM 10/22/98 -0400, you wrote:
>
>>A scout ship could not radiate 1MW with a living crew.
>
>Then the ship MUST be doing SOMETHING with the energy besides radiating
>it... because (at least in GT) the power is measured in MW for practically
>everything.
>
>So, therefore, there MUST be some kind of anti-entropic 'miracle heat sink'.
>
>And the whole debate about infrared and sensors has to be re-thought...
>*****
>

Or you have a very vunerable very important 'super heat sink' sticking out
the back of your ship at 20000k/m^2

Or fussion power plant would better than we think.

Or maybe it's cold fussion.

I do not have an answer.  But that high temp. heat vane worries me.  It's to
good a target.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:40 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

>Most traveller power goes to the drives, so the power radiates
>there. You have to assume that even a t-plate has a hot exhaust, and
>that it takes a lot of the energy with it (that and whatever gravtic
>energy is lost... a good handwave). Th Scout with the drives off
>drops its power by about 100MW.
>

Ok, sounds good, but what is your exhaust?  Very hot H2?

PS: already ate crow on the imaging issue.  Finally got the data I needed to
'see the light' if you'll excuse the pun.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:42 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)

At 12:54 AM 10/23/98 -0700, you wrote:
>>From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
>>Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
>...
>>>>>  So, at maximum sensor range (IIRC?) a single "broadside" will inflict
>...
>>All aproaches from behind the planet to remain hidden for the examples below.
>
>  yeah, but that only works because SFB is 2-D :)
>
>...
>>>  Unless the crews are pirates, I suspect. One guy watching the boards
>>>wouldn't work? People make lots of jokes about computers using vacuum
>>>tubes in Trav, but then they assume that software will never get past
>>>the pong level?
>>
>>But the guns will be unmaned if the crew is standing down.  That was my
>>point.  You will not have everybody at their station all the time.  You just
>>agreed with me.  The pirate knows when he will attack an can have his crew
>>on station.  The SDB never knows when all hell will break loose.
>
>  I didn't agree - I implied that maybe automation (toggled by a human
>for offensive weapons) would handle a few minutes of the engagement at
>some degraded function. You disagree with that premise?
>

Good point and one that I will consede too.  A ship in this situation would
be foolish not to have the best gunner programs money can buy.

>...
>>Stop 50 missles on balistic targeting with no gunners in the turrets and 3
>>seconds warning?  Real good crew.
>
>  I don't know where ballistic targetting came into this, but I doubt

No targeting laser to give the attack away.  That's what balistic targeting
is for.

>that the PD lasers are run by Mk. I eyeballs. It's possible that there
>may be automation in PD functions, even at TL 6-7.
>
>  Three seconds? Engagement range? d=1/2at^2? Show me, please.
>

If the attacker speed is high (.5c) then 3 seconds is about all the warning
you get from c speed sensors.  Range is not that important, it rate of
closure that count.  If you close in three second for the detection point 3
second is all they get but this is a mute point anyway.  The sensor
discussion killed this type of pirate anyway.

>...
>>>others habitations (the Alabama (?) comes to mind).
>>
>>Then who builds the merc cruisers, armed merchants, and the corsairs?
>
>  I'll assume that they're built at shipyards? If you're playing in the
>Imperium, then logically they'd be shipyards under 3I supervision, with
>instructions about building warships without end-user certificates, no
>Scout Ships of Doom, maybe submitting paperwork to INI so they can start
>by looking at vessel capabilities?
>
>  I doubt that most campaigns (CT/HG) would allow merchants to buy missile
>bays, PA barbettes, and meson guns.
>

True but what about mercinary companies?  Where do pirates start any way?

But that is mute.  The sensor discussion did it for me.  A system with a
good sensor array and a few well stationed SDBs out at about 50 dias. would
be pirate proof to all but a AHL class pirate making a full scale attack and
short of a really improbable mutiny that is not going to happen.

You win.  Pirate don't work in defended systems.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 11:19:55 -0700
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

>>Jeff Zeitlin wrote:
>>
>>> Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
>>> - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
>>> States since the mid-1980s.
>>
>>The what?!  I was raised in Texas and now live in Boston.
>>Both with large Latino communities, to say the least,
>>and I haven't noticed any change but for the positive in
>>the last 30 years.
>>
>>Bloo>
>
>I live in the Bay Area (San Francisco), and whenever there is ANY kind of
>economic down-turn, the Latino immigrants are the first to be targeted for
>scapegoating.  Right now, now that the economy is great, the "problem" is
>ignored.  But I'm SURE as soon as the job market takes a dive, we'll have
>more anti-immigrant propositions on the ballot.  It's pretty disgusting,
>really.
>
>Brian
>

ummmm....

Since my first reaction to reading these comments was to jump in, I'm sure
we could generate a nice volume of discussion on the topic.

But is it really Traveller?

douglas

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1015
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Friday, October 23 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1016



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Physreps
re: Old Topics: Aslan Females
Thank You
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
My apology
re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!
Re: GT transponders
Hot Ships...and I don't mean stolen! ( was Re: Perpetual Motion )
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
RE: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females
Done to Death (was Thank You)
Re: piracy and sensors
re: Fighters
re: Fighters
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)
Re: Mutiny

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:31 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Physreps

>Anybody else do this kind of thing?  Suggestions, comments?
>

I like it.  The closest I got was index cards with a weapon's stats and a
*picture* of the weapon (usually clipped from somewhere - like a photocopy
of something from a nontrav GDW sourcebook) pasted to the front.

Pete

                      Peter H. Brenton : pbrenton@mit.edu
"A Good Traveller has no fixed plans and no intent on arriving."
  -Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:26:38 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Old Topics: Aslan Females

Drat, there was a debate on Hot Bi Aslani Babes and I missed it. :o)

Walt Smith

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 11:42:57 -0700
From: "Leo Hale" <lhale@panlabs.com>
Subject: Thank You

     I want you to know sir, that the following two posts were the only
reason I did not cancel my subscription to the TML today.  I can take a
small amount of people differences comming out in posts to the list, but
there comes a point when arguments should be moved to some other format.  I
do not have a filter option, so I am forced to see every single post made
to the list.  Piracy, Sensors, Transponders, & Fleet sizes are all subjects
that have been worked to death.  It was very refreshing to find a post with
both fore thought and solid work involved.  Again thank you.

Leo


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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:34:27 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

*SNIP*
- ------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:34:27 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The Luriani (revised part 2/2)

*SNIP*

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:51:48 EDT
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

In a message dated 10/22/98 17:08:53 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
prevattec@worldnet.att.net writes:

<< As for SFB 2 stingers 2 at range 0 on the front shield on a Fed. CA will
net
 about 20-30 internals (if memory serves). 12 stingers 2 = one CA in bpv.  At
 range 0 more CA.
 
 A CA on a CA (better example) at range 0 with just overloads will do 34
 interals.  (16x4=64 30 box shield)  Add phaser for an extra 34 points.
 Think you could win with 64 internals at WS0 or 1?  At range 1, about the
 same.  At range 4, 25-35 internals including 2 trop and 4 phasers.  At
 ranges 8 and average rolls, 10-15 internal including 1 torp and two phasers.
  >>

	I guess I'll rise to the bait on this one as well:  A Fed CA/CC is one of the
few starships in SFB to be able to withstand a full alpha strike on the #1
shield (no shield reinforcement assumed) by another CA/CC/DN and STILL be
combat-capable.  This ability is also shared by some Hydran vessels (the Cen
Hull hits for the Hydrans and the Labs for the Feds, acting as the "7th
shield").

	I have proved this (usually to everyones amazement) many many times; as for
credentials, I have been playing SFB since before the supplements came out
(the little books that is), as well as being a member of Battle Group Phoenix
(TFG playtest group for SFB) for 2 years and becoming a Rated Ace in 1994.

 If you want to nitpik everything to death then you'll need too start
footnoting everything you say as well.  I still have not gotten threshold
sensor numbers for these sensors yet.  No one has explained how a 100ton
scout can radiate 10MWs of heat per second as some say it does.  If you want
do carry on this discussion under the debating rules I can do that.  We will
both have to start by proving our primices.  Can you prove a 100MW power
plant has 10MWs of waste heat and a 100ton scout can radiate it without
killing the crew?

	Perhaps the best way to begin is for you to establish YOUR
credentials/qualifications.  You have made some references to your expertise,
but I have seen nothing to back those references up.  As for the debate, may I
respectfully suggest that you consider taking the question t the Trav-Tech
list and solicit thier opinions?  They are a fairly authoritative source of
info (and they will back thier arguments up w/ numbers and proofs...something
I have not noticed in your posts).  The subscription address is
Majordomo@qrc.com and in the body send:

subscribe trav-tech prevattec@worldnet.att.net

>>As for converting
heat to electricity by a solid state means check any thermalcouple reference
book or catalog for a very elementery form of this technology.<<

	Perhaps you would be so kind as to post the names of these reference
materials or catalogs for the very technology that you describe?  Magazine
articles, program references, anything???

	

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:59:16 EDT
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: My apology

	Dear Charles,

	I wish to apologize for the tone of my last email on the TML...I reacted to
what I considered to be an attack on my intelligence, and obviously
overreacted.  I am glad to see that you and Bruce have figured out where the
mistakes were made and how, and it serves as a humbling reminder to me that I
don't always know absolutely everything.

	As to the list at large, I would like to apologize to everyone here for
having wasted the bandwidth on possibly inflaming things even further than
they were.  I will in the future make every effort not to react personally to
things like this (and also to quit writing email while taking painkillers!
:-)

	Again, my sincere apologies to all involved,
	Ed Jenkins (DustyLV769@aol.com)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:00:44 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
...
>seen in the time I've been on the list - specifically, trying to get the
>discussion more towards numbers than ideology.

  That's easy enough for you to say, you reactionary capitalist running-
proto-Vargr, you don't have the Vice-Chair waiting to recommend you for
re-education...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:07:06 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400, Fred and Evelyn Wolke
<thewolkes@earthlink.net>
>>if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
>
>Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
>anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
>anything there.
>
>If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
>Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
>away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
>better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
>locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
>out.

Well, IMO, a transponder is never going to be able to "prove" who you are
and I thought saying they existed for that reason didn't work.

If they exist, I think they would be mostly to aid navigation (ships are easier
to track and you don't have to take time to call them up to find out who they
are).   It does have some benefit to security because it complicates some
situations because ships have to commit to sneaking up (since once they
are detected they have to explain why their transponders were off which
they may or may not be able to do).

That is why I think they exist.

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:34 -0500
From: Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Hot Ships...and I don't mean stolen! ( was Re: Perpetual Motion )

Rob Prior wrote:

> For reference:
 
> My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
> should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
> are really hot!  

Yeah, Traveller ships in all versions draw *way* too much power. 

> After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
> statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
> catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
> repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)

<g>

> The solutions are:
 
> 1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
> realistic sensor rules.
 
> 2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.
 
> 3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
> maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
> mechanism).

As tough as it would be to do, I'd vote for 1.

Bruce Macintosh added...

> I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
> need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
> power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
> require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
> special high-temp radiators...

No, I don't think we could get the power requirements down to
*realistic* levels, but we could (and should) lower them to more
reasonable ones. As for weapons, of course, they are going to be
*very* power hungry, and that shouldn't change. Ships with beam
weapons are going to need big fusion engines. OTOH, we don't have run
those big fusion engines at full power 24 hours a day do we? Well, it
*seems* like we always have, but I've never thought that was very
reasonable.

As a mind experiment, let's say a 100 dton Type S Scout has an 80MW
fusion engine that it can throttle back to 5% of maximum output, so it
will always be producing 4MW while it's running. 

When it is drifting through space with minimal life support, using
passive sensors and maintaining only a trickle charge to the drives or
weapons, let's say, it *requires* only 2 MW's. So maybe it turns off
the fusion engine and runs off of stored power (fuel cells, batteries,
powercells, etc) only occasionally powering the engine back up to
recharge the batteries, or, if your TU won't allow for turning fusion
engines on and off like gasoline engines (I wouldn't allow *quite*
that much leeway ;), runs the fusion engine at it's lowest possible
level (4MW) it can. Combined with a little stealthing shouldn't that
drop the range of detection *way* down?

Now, if our Scout uses it's drives, active sensors, or *heaven forbid*
it's weapons, it will increase it's power consumption, and have to
stoke the fusion engine up to higher levels. Suddenly, it's a "hotter"
object visible on sensors at a longer range, but not necessarily from
every direction. 

If the power is going mainly to the drives, and the drives dispose of
*most* of the extra energy in one direction..aft, then our Scout's
detection level might not go up much in any direction except from the
rear. 

IMO, active sensors should be like spotlights, in that where ever the
ship aims them it can resolve a target much better, but is also much
easier to detect. 

Beam weapons are a different case. I suspect they will never be all
that efficient, so a lot of the power they consume will have to be
dealt with separately. Putting special high-temp radiators on their
turrets, in their bays, and around their spinal mounts is probably the
best way to handle them, too.  In any case, a ship using beam weapons
should light up like a Christmas Tree, but that doesn't bother me in
the least. Once the firing starts all bets are off anyway.

Eris

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:33:20 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

steve daniels wrote:
> 
> Jeff Zeitlin wrote:
> 
> > Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
> > - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
> > States since the mid-1980s.
> 
> The what?!  I was raised in Texas and now live in Boston.
> Both with large Latino communities, to say the least,
> and I haven't noticed any change but for the positive in
> the last 30 years.
>

Actually, I think he's referring to the growing anti-immigration (legal
and otherwise) sentiment, which is most often aimed at Latinos as the
most obvious, and most mentioned in the press. This is in contrast to
the _true_ situation...in NYC one of the largest groups of illegal
aliens are Irish. More to the point, it is disproportionately latinos
who are stopped and interrogated as to their citizenship status...I have
known people who were told they should carry their birth certificates
with them so they don't get deported. Deported to where I don't know,
since they were born here, like their parents were...

ObTrav: This is actually a great example of xenophobia rating in
action:"They look different, they talk funny, they must be ________
(fib)"

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:47:36 -0700
From: "Brian Mays" <bmays@genscope.com>
Subject: RE: UWP Cultural Extension

>ummmm....
>
>Since my first reaction to reading these comments was to jump in, I'm sure
>we could generate a nice volume of discussion on the topic.
>
>But is it really Traveller?
>
>douglas

Consider it a cultural extension . . .

;)

Seriously, no, it's not Traveller. However, it could be.  How do GM's deal
with prejudice (economically induced or otherwise) in their games?  Say a
player wants to be a vargr in the time period directly after the 5th
Frontier War (or for any period, for that matter).  Do you have NPC's
actively harrass him/her?  Or do you use "minority" races/cultures in plots
to get your PC's riled up over injustice?

I ran a game in the Glisten subsector after the 5th Frontier war.  One of
the players was a baron, who had a maid who was a Sword-Worlder emigre.  The
players, most of whom were, at the time, unfamiliar with the Traveller
universe, thought she was just a bit of color with a funny accent, until
they saw how various NPC's reacted to her.  She became quite the divisive
issue, as the Baron and several others defended her honor, while a few
players began to wonder . . .

While the Traveller universe is wonderful for "boldly going," military
campaigns, and economic adventures, there's also LOTS of room for social
issues to create adventures.

Brian (just trying to get away from the #*$()&%!!! PIRATE THREAD!) Mays

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:51:31 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females

Walter Smith wrote:

> "_Lesbian Aslan_ Pirates Hurling Near-C Rocks at Kinetic-Kill
> Missile Armed Fighters"
> 

No, the Aslan lesbians arose out of discussions of Aslan society and the
consequences of the high Female:male ratio of the race, the details of
which I remember only dimly...the debate was actually short lived, but
it was such a good addition to the tagline that it's sort of stuck...

And you forgot 'Virus-infested', it belongs in there somewhere, probably
before Near-C ;-)

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:46:03 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Done to Death (was Thank You)

Leo Hale wrote: (re Andrew Moffatt-Vallance's post on the Luriani)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I do not have a filter option, so I am forced to see every single post made
to the list.  Piracy, Sensors, Transponders, & Fleet sizes are all subjects
that have been worked to death.  It was very refreshing to find a post with
both fore thought and solid work involved.  Again thank you.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Seems we have a call here for less debate, more Library Data.

There must be an alien race around my filing cabinet somewhere
that I haven't posted to the list yet...

But seriously...someone mentioned that the re-debate of old topics
may be a good sign, possible evidence of new blood on the list. I would
agree quite a bit - there have actually been a couple of debates I've
missed all together, though I'll restrain myself from even mentioning
them lest I run the risk of starting them again...

(I suppose it wouldn't be a good idea to tell Leo that the post he liked
so much - "fore thought and solid work" - is pretty much a repost of
work long in progress, rather than something newer than the debates
that have become so old to him?  <G> )

Walt Smith

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:05:03 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Tommy Grav <tommy.grav@astro.uio.no>
Subject: Re: piracy and sensors

On Fri, 23 Oct 1998, Bruce Alan Macintosh wrote:

>
>>    m = 2
>Of course, at 53 K effecitve temperature, there's a fairly large bolometric
>coorrection to get the visual magnitude...

Well the bolometric is a total radiation so assuming future CCD's have a 
broader frequency range it might not be to far of.

>
>>with the 2.5 Nordical Optical Telescope.
>'course, maybe in Norway it's cold enough to do good 60 micron observations
>from the ground :-)

Of course its cold in Norway :-), but unfurtnatly the NOT is on La Palma
in the Canary Islands. It is a 2.5m telescope (i forgot the m in my latest post)

>Bruce


Tommy Grav
- -------------------------------------------------------------
tommy.grav@astro.uio.no     http://www.uio.no/~tommygr/  
Institute of Astrophysics, UiO, No  
IMTU tn++t4+tg+ ru+ge++ !3i jt+au+st+ls hi++dr-so++zh-sy-sw++ 
 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:08:00 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Fighters

>"if the bloody things get through", of course, is the hard part - 
>for reasonable laser technology
>(let alone the really good lasers in GT or just-plain-T) hitting an
>incoming kinetic impact missile is remarkably easy; certainly for the
>space/price of a figher you can fit in a point defence laser that
>can eat up many many times its weight in impact missiles (at least
>in FFS2; but presumably also in GURPS - it'll be interesting to try
>this once I get a copy of GURPS.) 
>
>Bruce
>


Gurps is pretty much the same.  With a good gunners and tageting software
it's 1 laser one dead missle per turn.  The only way to get misile hits is a
large salvo that closes fast enough to overwhelm the defenses.  It is doable
but not very cost effective.  Those misiles are pricy.

Sorry have to make some corrections.   I missed some things in sidebars ect.

I have my book with me so I looked it up.  I was just reading the space
combat section when this came up.

Do to turn limits in the combat situation you have to shoot a ship or a
missle but not both with each laser.  A scout with one triple laser turret
fired on by 9 missles from 2 seconds out will be hit by three missles if the
gunners involved do not miss.

1st second shoot three misiles: gunner skill 15 (above average professional)
+ 15 accuacy (limited to gunner shill) +4 aiming +10 computer (very good
comp.) +2 active sensor +4 rof =50 - 41 for range 1 = 9  You must role less
the 9 on three d6 but 17 and 18 always fail.

I assume here that you hit.

2nd second shoot three missles and get hit by the other three. range 0 role
to hit = 21  (including a +10 for point defense bonus and shorter range)

3 missles hit if misile gunner roles his success number for colition damage
plus explosion

missile cost 22kcr each.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:08:06 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Fighters

At 01:47 PM 10/23/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:45:22 +0000
>From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
>Subject: re: Fighters
>
>
>Gurps is pretty much the same.  With a good gunners and tageting software
>it's 1 laser one dead missle per turn.  The only way to get misile hits is
>a
>large salvo that closes fast enough to overwhelm the defenses.  It is
>doable
>but not very cost effective.  Those misiles are pricy.
>*****************
>I agreee about the chances to hit,  in the game we ran one turret stopped 4
>missiles (but 4 more got through)
>
>I have my book with me so I looked it up.  I was just reading the space
>combat section when this came up.
>Do to turn limits in the combat situation you have to shoot a ship or a
>missle but not both with each laser.
>************
>GT 169  a weapon may be fired in point defense even it it engaged another
>target in the direct fire phase.
>
>
>
>1st second shoot three misiles  (likely but not curtain)  gunner skill 15 +
>15 accuacy +4 aiming +10 computer (very good comp.) +2 active sensor +10
>defensive fire  +4 rof =60 - 41 for range 1 = 19  You must role less the 21
>on three d6 but 17 and 18 always fail.
>*************
>I get: 15+15acc +10comp +2 active sensor +10pd +4rof -39 Range (PD fire may
>only be taken against ramming attempts.) = 17 or less for the first missile

Yep, caught that and corrected it and reposted.  (sigh, why didn't I catch
that the firsth time.)  Missed the pd completely though.

>each additional missile engaged is a further -2 to hit. he does however
>have 3 lasers so can roll 3 times on each attempt.  this gives him
>17,15,13,11,9,7,5,3,1 that he needs to roll against for point defense...so
>most likely 2-3 missile hits.

Damn!, missed that you can ingage different targets several times with the
same weapon.

I want a ROF 30 Gattling laser cannon for point defense.  No range to speek
of but +15 ROF fire bonus to swat misiles...lot's of missles.  Also good for
crowd control on planet. (Evil Grin)

>
>
>With this you can have a 10 or less to kill a missle at 30 hexes.
>*****************888
>the TL 12 lasers only have a range of 8 hexes.
>

not according to the table on page 173 1/2d = 10 or 13.  Max is much more.
Love that acc works out to max range.

Note: there is a miss print on the last page.  Hexes are 2000miles not 10,000.

This makes a ship with a high vector very dangerious.  His misiles move fast
and hit hard!

Misiles are nasty again in GT.

Note:  1 small nuke = radioactive gas cloud where ship use to be on a direct
hit.

I think your SDB may need some more armor.

I don't have my vehicle book with me.  Do you loose DR from an attack?  Only
on 6s?  How does this work?

Humm...Some extra E_banks in case you loose the reacter would be a good
design idea.  Plus a spare reacter of course.

>
> The
>problem is how fast are the misile moving 1g = 1 hex per second
>********************
>per turn...not per second (turns are 20 min long)
>
>
>
>
>3 missles hit if missle gunner role his success number.
>***************
>it is actually a contest of skills for the pilot of the ship and the
>missile gunner this hapens before PD fire, and missile that miss can be
>ignored for that turn (they may have enough Dv to loop around and come
>back).
>

Ouch!  Hire that wonder kid pilot!  He's BETTER than armor!

"I don't know what he would have cost but he would have been worth it!" Head
bad guy to 'personel manager' in Under Seige.

>
>**********8
>what Charles neglects to mention is the effects of velocity on damage...if
>there is only a modest vector differnce between the ship and the missile
>(say 5 hexes) even one can do massive damage to a scout....
>
>the missile (best case only one gets through) will do 6dx500 (5). the scout
>has DR 200, so effective DR is 40....assuming average damage for the
>missile 3.5*6*500=10,500 -40 = 10,460. the scout has 15,000 Hp and so will
>take 6 critical hits (6 rolls on the major damage table) almost certan to
>be crippled, possibly a floating wreck....)
>

Good point.  Misiles have gotten REAL nasty!  and the SDB need a lot more armor.

I hope to have a group up and running in a few weeks (first time I'll be
home) to test out some of this.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:08:09 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

At 09:30 AM 10/23/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>>A space ship doesn't have a planet for a heat sink, every joule it
>>absorbs or produces has to go somewhere. It either raises the internal
>>energy (temperature) of the ship, or is radiated into space. The
>>energy going into the system, from every source, has to balance with
>>the energy within it or radiated out. So, if you produce internally,
>>or absorb externally, 100 joules per second then your local system
>>will either radiate away 100 joules per second or increase in internal
>>temperature until, eventually, whatever heat sink you have in the
>>local system is overloaded and the energy radiates away. At no point
>>will the the energy produced/absorbed not be balanced with the energy
>>of the system minus any it radiates away.
>
>For reference:
>
>My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
>should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
>are really hot!  After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
>statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
>catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
>repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)
>
>The solutions are:
>
>1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
>realistic sensor rules.
>
>2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.
>
>3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
>maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
>mechanism).
>

4) Assume a higher power plant efficency or cold fussion power plants.
Everything else stays the same and no need for monster radiaters.

>Possibly we should have a new geek code?
>

Maybe.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:14:14 EDT
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

In a message dated 10/23/98 11:05:01 AM Central Daylight Time,
a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:

<< The Luriani
 
  >>
Most people reading this will say "Huh?" because they aren't working from or
consulting the Minor Race Generation Tables.

Marc

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:05 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Mutiny

>From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
>Subject: Re: Mutiny
...
>Funny you should mention the Gazelle; The text in Traders and Gunboats
>(Supplement 7 of the LBBs) indicated that the layout of decks in the
>Gazelle was *specifically* designed to seperate the enlisted crew from the
>officers and provide the officers with a defensable bridge area in the
>event of a mutiny.

  Think about it. Gazelle: 3-400 Dt of tin-can. You're assigned to
accompany an AHL in its' Fleet Intruder role.

  At least mutineers get a meal and a bed before they die :)

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1016
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Friday, October 23 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1017



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 
Re Loading
Re: SFB, automation, stuff
Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2) 
Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 
Re: Piracy
Re: Piracy
Re: Perpetual Motion
Re: Sten
Re: Freelance Traveller
Re: Transponder's true nature
Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)
Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.
Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females
Re: New Deck plans to Rob Prior
Re: "It Isn't Traveller"
Re: New Deck plans
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: hiding in the Oort cloud

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:09 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

>Subject: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
...
>Again, I'll grant you that. Now tell me, if the colonial spacemen serve the
>same number of years and get the same training as Imperial spacemen, how
>can this be true?
>***********
>they don't see as much combat.

  There's a reasonable basis for the belief that training is more
important than combat experience in (historical, anyway) naval 
combat.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:38:13 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

At 18:31 22/10/98 -0700, David P. Summers wrote:
>Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:39:19 -0400, "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
>
>>Which brings up the question to me, why don't our fighters, heavy or
>>otherwise have enough firepower to knock out a capitol ship?  Seems to me
>>that we should have equivalent weapons in the Trav era that are available to
>>carriers/fighters today.
>
>Why?  Just because weapons are leading over armor today doesn't mean this
>should
>always hold.

I read (I forget where) a theory that naval military technology since the
end of the classic period has been driven by the quest to find a decisive
ship sinking weapon like the ram was in the heyday of the trireme. The
argument is that until the invention of workable explosive shells ships
didn't get sunk (to all intents and purposes) in combat, instead after
hours of bettering they became incapable of resisting boarding parties.
Note that aside from subs and aircraft WWI and WWII BBs were in a similar
situation, though they did tend to sink in the end. Given that this state
of affiars lasted for over 1500 years, I can see no reason why it shouldn't
be able to exist in the far future.

IMO one problem Traveller ship combat has is that people want the feeling
that you get having mighty ship pounding away at each other like a WWI
slugfest, but they also want the quick thrill of the cat and mouse game of
fire and maneuver and these are two fairly incompatible desires.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:52:12 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 

At 23:19 22/10/98 -0800, William F. Hostman wrote:

>Oh, one other problem with heplars: they eat a large power chunk, in
>ADDITION to needing plenty of fuel of their own. And MT/FF&S1 pp's (which
>are basically identical) do eat a goodly ammount of fuel.

IIRC MT fusion plants use about 0.05 kl/hr/MW, maybe divided by 3 because
of efficiency for 0.01667 kl/hr. FF&S1 fusion plants use about 0.1
kl/year/MW which is about 1500 times more efficient.

>Heplar may be more realistic, but it meant (IME) PC's taking running jumps
>constantly, and spending about 3 times as long to get to/from jump points,
>and GG's became accessable only via jump, as did the outter system. One
>group of PC's nearly died off due to a misjump using TNE Rules, which put
>them in the system, at several thousand AU. (T-Plates can get very tricky
>on distances like these, because you run smack into relativity issures, but
>with accelleration to 10PSL, 1000au becomes roughly (using an 8.5 lm AU,
>not right,but fairly close)(8.5m x 10 x 1000) 85000minutes = 60 days. With
>heplar, forget it... find a snowball and jump if you can. If you can't,
>find a low berth, rig the PP to maintain the LB ONLY and run on as little
>power as possible to maintain operation) and pray. Mind you, if the locals
>like you, in 6 days they will know you exist, and may send help.
>
>With T-plates, run as little as possible (LS, MD, computer, G-comps,
>passive sensor for nav fix) till you hit 10 PSL. THen shut down sensors at
>MD at 5PSL or 10PSL, and go to only one computer, and ration the food. (as
>established before, water will be recycled if only to keep it out of the
>machinery.) You can usually take your remaining (MT/FF&S1) usually 19 days,
>and multiply by 5 (you can run at 20% or less often... I can see running a
>plant stablely for as low as 10% output). With a T-plate universe, 1000AU
>is reachable. Damned inconvinient, but reachable.
>
>in a T-plate universe, the outer system is still a long trip, but is at
>least doable with standard craft. In a Heplar (which is STILL
>unrealistically efficient, IIRC) universe, a mainworld orbiting a GG is
>barely going to have reasonable travel times in the GG's moon-system, and
>going from planet to planet is much easier by jump in most cases.
>
>(NOTE: I am NOT trying to encourage a Near-C rock discussion)
>BTW, is there a formula for time-dilation effects that is simple enough to
>use? (I don't do calculus, only simple algebra and statisics.)

So what limit, if any, do you put on the distance from a gravity source
that a T-plate can be and still function? If it's 1000 or 2000 diameters a
misjump of more than a few hundred AU will kill a T-plate ship's crew far
more certainly than a HEPlaR's, especially as the HEPlaR fuel supply may be
enough to allow a jump.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 13:24:42 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Loading

>Hm.. I suspect that loading time is dependent on the # of components, their
>size, and the size of the door you're moving them through.  Filling a
>compartment with 10 10-ton boxes and 10,000 10-kilogram boxes is not equal.

I believe I said something to that effect.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:39:20 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: SFB, automation, stuff

>Subject: Re: SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)
...
>Good point and one that I will consede too.  A ship in this situation would
>be foolish not to have the best gunner programs money can buy.

  Perhaps only if the IN doesn't believe in "lowest bid wins" procurement :>

...
>If the attacker speed is high (.5c) then 3 seconds is about all the warning
...

  Wouldn't it be simpler to use your near-C crowbars against the local
naval base instead? :>  I'm not going to touch relativistic stuff in
this thread - see the drives discussion.
  
...
>>  I doubt that most campaigns (CT/HG) would allow merchants to buy missile
>>bays, PA barbettes, and meson guns.
>
>True but what about mercinary companies?  Where do pirates start any way?

  A common theory is that mercenary companies with the correct licences
could use higher-end gear - not unreasonably given the Imperial tendency
to use them as low political cost proxies within the 3I itself.

  As for pirates, to a large extent it's relative armament that counts -
a knife is enough when your target has only a sweaty brow...

>But that is mute.  The sensor discussion did it for me. 
/.../ Pirate don't work in defended systems.

  Actually, I suspect that it would be very hard to build a system with
anything like near-universal fast response defenses, unless it had very
few traffic nexi to protect, or very large resources. So, while a Pop 7
mainworld may be effectively inviolable the outer system defenses amy be
quite porous - which would make a good case for not using starships for
certain commercial missions.

  Likewise, a Jump from the (safe) mainworld to a large and well-protected
facility not within a 100-D effect would be quite safe.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:44:20 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2) 

> In a message dated 10/23/98 11:05:01 AM Central Daylight Time,
> a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:
> 
> << The Luriani
>  
>   >>
> Most people reading this will say "Huh?" because they aren't working from or
> consulting the Minor Race Generation Tables.

Those the tables you were mailing out, Marc?  If so, I haven't gotten my set 
yet.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:45:31 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 

> > From: Keven R. Pittsinger <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> > > > > Yeah, now somebody tell Bruce *who* plays Al Bester on B5. I
> haven't
> > > > > got the heart. ;->
> > > > Walter Koenig.  Doesn't ring a bell?  Try 'Ensign Chekov(TM)' from
> 'That
> > > > Nameless Paramount/Desilu Sci Fi Hack of Wagon Train(TM)' circa 1964.
> > > > <grin>
> > > You forgot the cheesy movies as well...  Circa 1980s & early 1990s...
> > Good thing you didn't *name* 'em, you'd have to (TM) them.  <ducking>
> 
> Why name them?  While they were watchable, they are not standards of movie
> making...

Cause Paramount trademarked them.  Wouldn't wanna get in trouble now, would we?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:53:53 -0400
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy

- -----Original Message-----
From: Joseph R. Dietrich <yikes@evansville.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Thursday, October 22, 1998 10:51 AM
Subject: Re: Piracy


>>>>The reserve fleets will be next to useless for anti piracy as they are
>>>>manned by reservists and thus spend most of their time in orbit around
>>>>the high tech, high population worlds in the subsector they are
assigned.
>>>
>>>This is a totally unwarranted assumption. Nowhere in the rules do I find
>>>any support for the idea that the colonial fleets and the system defense
>>>forces are not trained to the same standard as the regular navy. [...]
>>
>>FSotSI pg 6 [...]
>
>[snip of references]
>
>>I believe this implies that reserve and colonial units are not as well
>>equipped or trained as Regular fleets.
>
>"Not as well equipped or trained" does not mean "next to useless for anti
>piracy." If the difference is TL 14 BBs v. TL 15 BBs (or cruisers, or
>whatever), then I would say that the Colonial fleets are more than adequate
>to deal with pirates. After all, Defense CruRon Regina (the SDB example in
>_FSSI_) is a *CruRon*.
>
>Nor are reservist or colonial units necessarily incompetent, which is what
>the first statement above implies. They are simply not front-line units.
>"Somewhat less training and experience" could be Gunnery 3 instead of
>Gunnery 4, for example.
>
>Joseph R. Dietrich

I think that you misunderstood what he was saying.  Reservists by nature are
NOT out in the space lanes in their ships.  An example of Reserve activity
would be that they meet one weekend a month and go active for two weeks in
the summer.  This would then cause one to believe that the ships of the
Reserve Fleet are ALMOST moth-balled and would take some time to bring
on-line.  Reservists routinely take they active duty period fixing up there
"vehicles" and training to maintain their standards for going to war.  You
would see the occasional Reserve Ship out and about just so they can blow
the cob webs out.  Think for a minute, if you are only on active duty for
two weeks and a jump takes one week then you would only be able to take your
ship out and right back and be done for the year.

Thom Harris

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:59:50 -0400
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy

- -----Original Message-----
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
To: traveller@mpgn.com <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 1998 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: Piracy


>>First of all, the 1000 ships per sector is for the regular fleet only.
>It
>>dosen't include subsector fleets (which recieves the same amount of
>funds
>>as the regular fleet, though they spend them differently) and it
>dosen't
>>include planetary navies. Most especially it does not not include
>auxiliaries.
>>Yet most auxiliaries would be quite capable of giving a pirate a hard
>time.
>>
>
>According to the Rebellion Sourcebook:
>"Each SECTOR of the Imperium Theoretically has a group of fleets
>numbering about 1000 ships."  The way I read this is that the total
>number of major combatants in each sector should be 1000 if at full
>strength.  "Reserve fleets are technically considered part of a named
>fleet..."  This indicates to me that the reserves are included in this
>number also.   "At thier lowest level, Imperial ships are organized into
>squadrons (from three to 10 similar ships). Squadrons are grouped into
>permanant numbered fleets (usually three to 10 squadrons per fleet)..."
>This makes a Numbered Fleet between 9 and 100 major combatants.  With 16
>numbered fleets and 16 reserve fleets this brings the number of ships
>per sector to between 288 and 3200 ships.
>
>FSSI shows that the average size of a squadron is 5 combat ships, 3
>scouts, and 4 non-combatants.
>
>The reserve fleets will be next to useless for anti piracy as they are
>manned by reservists and thus spend most of thier time in orbit around
>the high tech, high population worlds in the subsector they are
>assigned.  Although these could be operated almost continously as
>additional sensor platforms. This would have the benifit that pirates
>would not visit these worlds very often.  Also the Navy would keep the
>squadrons together so that they will be ready to fit as a group.  This
>is good for both sides if the navy catches the pirate then it is a
>search and destroy mission, for the pirate they know there is better
>hunting elsewhere and leave.
>
>Charles
>
As Charles has pointed out, the Reserve Fleet is just that HELD IN RESERVE.
Reservists (by today's standards and I can't see why it would change at all)
spend two weeks on active duty a year.  They meet one weekend a month.
Reservists would probably augment the IN and the sub-sector navy when on
active duty for their two weeks.  They might possibly work on their ships to
help keep them up and ready for deployment.  Either way you look at it the
Reserve Forces are not there in ANY numbers that would be of any help to the
pirate interdiction role.
Thom Harris

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:05:16 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion

>From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
>Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
...
>The solutions are:
>
>1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
>realistic sensor rules.

  This may not be that much of a problem for HG/Striker: 1 HG EP is 252MW
from Striker (@TL F, 14m^3 of fuser gets 6mw/cube x3 for volume efficiency
for 18 ea., or 252 total). Later you start to realize that energy weapons
are assumed to be firing continuously throughout every second of a combat
turn (and presumably so with spacecraft?) even though beam lasers only have
+2 to hit over a low ROF large bore CPR gun (and +1 of that should be long-
range accuracy over ballistic rounds).

  Thus, you could probably reduce fusion plant output by 75% and reduce
energy weapon ROF by a similar degree without too much difficulty. This
also makes batteries that much more practical for use in HG.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:36:10 -0400
From: "Jeff/Michelle Norton" <jmnorton@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Sten

    The first 5 books were good. My step-dad gave me The Wolf Worlds to read
one boring summer day WAAAAY back in the early eighties. Read it in two
days, then, reread what I rushed through... Kids will be kids...
    The only cool things about the series were:
    1) How Sten started off on Vulcan, and , got that neat crystal and
formed it into that wicked knife. Just wonder where I could find some of
that crystal...
    2) Alex Killgore's brogue and how it cut in-and-out at unusual times.
The jokes were the worst, except the one about the 'wee snakes'
    3) Also, Killgore being from a heavy-g world.
    4) The Emperor, in the first few books was unusual for a regent
    5) And, of course, AM2 (Wonder if the 3I has any of this stuff...)

    I'm not sure, but the war in the middle books were based on WW2. I
thought that was the basis. Seemed too much a coincidence. Though, the book
on the POW camp read like the Colditz Story/ Great Escape...

    Simple observations from a fan.

    Jeff Norton

    The Calgary doesn't always come to the rescue...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:53:22 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Re: Freelance Traveller

On Thu, 22 Oct 1998 22:01:24 -0400, Fred and Evelyn Wolke
<thewolkes@earthlink.net> wrote:

>>(3) May I have a copy of the completed article (if it's going to
>>be completed) for Freelance Traveller?

>PMI, but what is Freelance Traveller?

Freelance Traveller is 
(1) My web site 
(2) A resource for Traveller players and referees 
(3) A webzine for Traveller players and referees 
(4) Fan-supported - If fans don't write and send me stuff,
Freelance Traveller doesn't survive 
(5) Located at http://www.tightbeam.com/FreelanceTraveller and
mirrored at http://w3.execnet.com/jeffz (although the mirror will
be moving soon).  Why not give it a visit?
(6) Highly acclaimed (but only by those who think highly of it)
(7) All of the above - this ain't a multiple choice question!
- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:42:14 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Transponder's true nature

  They complain that they don't want to discuss piracy? Well, we can
make them regret _that_ :>  *

>From: "Andy Akins" <igor@ames.net>
>Subject: Re: Transponder's true nature
...
>> Infection was
>> also made easy by computer control of tight-beam commo.
...
>I have no problem with  Deyo equipped ships infecting other Deyo equipped
>ships and equipment...I can handwave that away. But I can't rationalize Deyo
>being able to attack and usurp any computer system, Deyo or no. Just doesn't
>work for me. YYMV.

I had a dicsussion this summer with a TML'er where we sort of agreed that:
  - we could deal with transmissions activating other SDG transponders.
  - it was internally consistent for "Virus" to spread itself physically
by etching additional circuitry to reach another system (see A:13 /GK).
  - it made no sense whatever for Virus to spread via fiber-optic lines
or broadcast transmissions to non-SDG components.
  : therefore, if common Imperial comp tech used linkages through which
Virus could physically spread, then that should have been stated.

  IIRC, neither of used Virus (or played TNE).

        Steven Hudson

  * - sorry - my "Leroy" file ready racks are empty...

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:56:41 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

From:           	CardSharks@aol.com
Date sent:      	Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:14:14 EDT

>In a message dated 10/23/98 11:05:01 AM Central Daylight Time,
>a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:

><< The Luriani

>Most people reading this will say "Huh?" because they aren't working from or
>consulting the Minor Race Generation Tables.

I dont think so, you're underestimating the quality of your own work :*>.

One of the things that struck me when I first saw your minor race generation 
tables was the utter logical nature of them. Your tables are pretty much self 
explanatory. The only thing I can't figure out is what are "components". Its not 
immediately obvious and I can't find it explained in the text anywhere. The other 
thing that could cause confusion is the Caste "Sport". Its not defined in the text 
and to a neophile I'd imagine it would conjure up images of professional 
atheletes ("hey now theres a race that has a distinct biological gender devoted 
to sports"). but other than that the Minor Race Generation tables are fairly 
much self explanatory.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:01:03 -0700
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.

Shade wrote:

> Just to let ya know....  it was established in that " study " that a great
> percentage of Aslan females were lesbian or bisexual.

 Wasn't that the thread that also spawned the pelvic mounted plasma guns?

- --
Ave et vale.
Evyn,
Warleader of the Clan MacDude
Solus Stellamilitia Ludus, 1998 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:04:22 -0700
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females

Walter Smith wrote:

> "_Lesbian Aslan_ Pirates Hurling Near-C Rocks at Kinetic-Kill
> Missile Armed Fighters"
>
> Was there some kind of debate ages ago about Aslan females
> getting tired of babysitting Aslan males and going off on their own
> than I missed?

It was right up there with the K'Kree barbque recipes.
And for the record blackened K'Kree Doesn't require
plasma weapons, but they help.

- --
Ave et vale.
Evyn,
Warleader of the Clan MacDude
Solus Stellamilitia Ludus, 1998 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:50:23 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans to Rob Prior

Rob,
Hum, sorry about that. I am very new to Acrobat and DID NOT include the
fonts. I will repost just as soon as I figure out how to correct the
problem. Sorry to all for the mistake, it will be corrected.

P.S.
If anyone knows how to do this please send me a private post, it would save
a bit of time in correcting the files.

thanks for that and all the kind words
Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

- -----Original Message-----
From: Rob Prior <Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 9:23 AM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans


>The deck plans look great, but theexploded view at the back just has funny
>symbols rather than words. Did you include the fonts when you made the
>PDF? If not, could you do that next time? (OK, could you do it with these
>and repost?)
>
>If you _did_ include the fonts, then I guess I need some help with Acrobat
>Reader.
>

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 17:39:58 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller"

On 10/22/98 at 11:19 PM,  "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net> said:

>Heplar may be more realistic, but it meant (IME) PC's taking running
>jumps constantly, and spending about 3 times as long to get to/from
>jump points, and GG's became accessable only via jump, as did the
>outter system. 

>in a T-plate universe, the outer system is still a long trip, but is
>at least doable with standard craft. In a Heplar (which is STILL
>unrealistically efficient, IIRC) universe, a mainworld orbiting a GG
>is barely going to have reasonable travel times in the GG's
>moon-system, and going from planet to planet is much easier by jump
>in most cases.


Stutterwarp. STL only stutterwarp.


Eris,
    the heretic

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 17:53:37 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans

On 10/23/98 at 09:04 AM,  Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior) said:

>>WOW! Now those are deckplans!

Yeah, Mike, great jobs on them.

>The deck plans look great, but theexploded view at the back just has
>funny symbols rather than words. Did you include the fonts when you
>made the PDF? If not, could you do that next time? (OK, could you do
>it with these and repost?)

>If you _did_ include the fonts, then I guess I need some help with
>Acrobat Reader.

I didn't get them either, so if it's not the fonts, then there's two
of us needing help.  ;->

Michael, could you include the scale for the deckplans.  Are the
squares 1, 1.5 or 2 meters?

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 17:10:13 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

On 10/22/98 at 10:24 PM,  steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com> said:

>Jeff Zeitlin wrote:

>> Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
>> - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
>> States since the mid-1980s.

>The what?!  I was raised in Texas and now live in Boston. Both with
>large Latino communities, to say the least, and I haven't noticed any change >but for the positive in the last 30 years.

Personally, where I live, I have noticed a slowly *improving*
attitude toward all minorities during the last 30 years.  I
certainly haven't seen strong anti-latino feelings since the
mid-80's.

Well now, maybe you mean the fact that many Americans don't like the
idea of aliens flooding across our borders?  If that's it, the
disquiet isn't specifically anti-latino, it's more anti-immigration,
especially illegal immigration, it just so happens that the mass of
the illegal immigrates come from Central American countries.  I
think this is more an economic issue than anything, but like most
things you can make it a racial one if you try.  

Xenophobia is something else.  It's an *unreasonable* fear of
outsiders.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 18:29:34 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: hiding in the Oort cloud

On 10/23/98 at 10:16 AM,  bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh) said:

>>So with one station, it takes about two weeks to scan the sky. A pirate
>>ship is detectable for about a day every rendezvous, 

>One can probably think of tricks to make the rendezvous harder to
>detect. For example, put a big honkin tractor (TNE/T4) on the pirate
>base to reel ships in without having them use any of their own
>fuel...

Heck, if the base is on/in a really big ice chunk all the ship has
to do is fire a harpoon attached to a line into the iceball and
either the base or the ship can reel the two together.  No muss, no
fuss, low energy approach.

IMTU, of course, that base has to be near a brown dwarf or gas
giant.

Eris

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1017
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Friday, October 23 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1018



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Sten 
Sensors in GURPS
Re: Efficient 100-D Control
Re: Current Tech: Shortstop
: Re: The Imperial Fleet
re: Old Topics: Aslan Females
Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
T-plate operational limits
Re Reserves
Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Re: : Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: Fighters
Radiators
Where to find Deckplans on the Web
Re: : Re: The Imperial Fleet

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 18:49:54 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

On 10/23/98 at 11:46 AM,  Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com> said:

> 
>> I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
>> need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
>> power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
>> require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
>> special high-temp radiators...

>I guess the turret radiators could be facing away from the launch
>side--you always know that at least the guy you're shooting at won't
>see that radiation :-)

Sure, but if you're shooting is any good your target is going to
know ding-dang well where you're at, so I don't see the reason for
hiding from your target once you start shooting.  ;-> Ok, I really
do, and having radiators scattered around the hull is a good idea.

>Drives are the other big culprit. Traveller TL15 military ships do
>6gs. That's a lot of power.

No question about that.

My approach is to use a different technology for in-system maneuver,
but that only works for heretics like me ;-> For people that use
HEPlaR, or for that matter TPlates, a maneuvering ship is going to
be *very* detectable from at least one direction.  All I can suggest
is to postulate very good baffling to limit the area of exhaust
plume exposure.

That and being able to bank the fusion engine back to single digit
power levels when you aren't maneuvering or using weapons.

Eris

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:03:47 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

Hmm,

how about a "homogeneity" rating in the cultural extension.
High value, and their all the same.
Low value and its the rainbow of cultural, if not also racial, stock.

Bloo

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 19:57:02 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Sten 

>     The first 5 books were good. My step-dad gave me The Wolf Worlds to read
> one boring summer day WAAAAY back in the early eighties. Read it in two
> days, then, reread what I rushed through... Kids will be kids...
>     The only cool things about the series were:
>     1) How Sten started off on Vulcan, and , got that neat crystal and
> formed it into that wicked knife. Just wonder where I could find some of
> that crystal...
>     2) Alex Killgore's brogue and how it cut in-and-out at unusual times.
> The jokes were the worst, except the one about the 'wee snakes'

'Spotted snakes'.  I shudder every time I think about them.  <grin>

>     3) Also, Killgore being from a heavy-g world.
>     4) The Emperor, in the first few books was unusual for a regent
>     5) And, of course, AM2 (Wonder if the 3I has any of this stuff...)
> 
>     I'm not sure, but the war in the middle books were based on WW2. I
> thought that was the basis. Seemed too much a coincidence. Though, the book
> on the POW camp read like the Colditz Story/ Great Escape...

Yeah, I picked up on all those nifty lil in-house things.  Cool, weren't they?

Keven
 
tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:03:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Sensors in GURPS

- --0-2078917053-909187425=:31899
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII

I've been experimenting on and off with rewriting gurps sensors in a way which
made more sense than what's in the standard rules; I'm not very sure of all my
numbers, but I decided to post this so comments can be made -- so please, make
comments ;).  Much of the issue here was some straightforward reality checks --
I wanted to make it so you can see nearby stars, while spotting a person from a
mile away is pretty difficult even if you know where to look.
- --0-2078917053-909187425=:31899
Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Description: sensor.rules.gurps

I can't make too many promises about the accuracy of these tables, they 
are largely an attempt to generate sane results from the game system,
particularly in making sure that nearby stars aren't invisible, while a
person a mile away is hard to see.  Ranges are based on the standard range
tables, but extended to ranges which might be interesting in space.

1)  Converting Sensor Stats for these rules:
    If scan is 0-20, do not adjust.
    If scan is 20-36, halve and add 10 (round normally).
    If scan is 37+, divide by 3 and add 16 (round normally).
    Note that these are atmospheric scan values -- GT lists space scan
    values, which are 6 higher.  Subtract the +6 for space before converting.
    For reference, eyes have scan 10.  The relevant GT sensors are:
    Cockpit/10: passive (29/2+10)=25, active(33/2+10)=27, radscan(29/2+10)=25
    Cockpit/12: passive (31/2+10)=26, active(34/2+10)=27, radscan(31/2+10)=26
    Basic/10: passive (32/2+10)=26, active(35/2+10)=28, radscan(31/2+10)=26
    Basic/12: passive (32/2+10)=26, active(36/2+10)=28, radscan(35/2+10)=28
    Command/10: passive (33/2+10)=27, active(36/2+10)=28, radscan(32/2+10)=26
    Command/12: passive (35/2+10)=28, active(37/3+16)=28, radscan(38/3+16)=29

2)  Determining 'signature'
*   Visual signature is equal to size modifier, plus chameleon surface.  In
    space, the black paint used in stealth coatings acts as a chameleon 
    surface -- subtract (TL-4) for basic, (TL-2) for radical.  Basic black
    paint reduces signature by 3.  A reflective or white surface adds 2.
*   Radar signature uses the normal computations and _halves_ them -- thus,
    base value is (size/2), subtract (TL-4)/2 for basic, (TL-4) for radical.
    For convenience, assume Lidar uses the Radar signature.  Note that a
    ship currently _using_ active sensors has a signature of (scan-TL) 
    and can be detected by a radscanner.
*   IR signature uses either the size modifier of the vehicle, _or_ a 
    function of power consumption and expected waste heat; this number is
    usually significantly greater (and is, in fact, probably higher than
    the numbers I use).  In any case, emissions cloaking reduces this,
    by (TL-4)/2 for basic, (TL-4) for radical.  The major power users on
    a ship are as follows:
    Artificial Gravity: 1 MW per 50 spaces or fraction thereof.
    Jump Drive: 10 MW per unit of J-drive.  Not usually very relevant, but
        important if a ship exits jump and then goes cold.
    Manuever Drive: 1 MW per 10 tons thrust.
    Weapons Fire: 16 MW for TL 10 laser, 18 for TL 12; 400 MW for bay
        PAW/meson, 19000 for spinal PAW/meson.
    Add up power consumption: signature is +8 for 1 MW, +9 for 2 MW, +10
        for 5 MW, and +3 per *10.  In situations where a ship's signature
        _changes_, IR signature will drop by 1 per 10 minutes (2/turn); it
        will rise essentially immediately (<1 turn).  Add +1 to IR signature
        per TL below 10 -- lower tech engines are less efficient (these
        numbers assume about 10% heat emissions).  A human has a base 
        emitted signature of +0.
    Example: a TL 10 merchant (size +8) has around 600 tons thrust (60 MW)
        and 4 MW for artificial gravity.  Signature is +13; drops to +9 if
        not using thrust, +8 if all major power shut off.
    Example 2: a TL 10 400tn raider (size +9) has 6000 tons thrust (600 MW)
        and 8 MW for artificial gravity, but radical EM cloaking.  Signature
        is +10 with drive active, +4 with artificial gravity online,
        +3 with all major power shut off.
*   Natural Objects: generally speaking, the size modifier of a natural
    object should be the negative of a range modifier equal to its diameter,
    +2 (natural objects are generally spherical).   Normal modifiers apply;
    signature will usually be within a point of the size modifier.
    A star has a visual signature of 76-1.2*absolute magnitude (70 for
    sol).

3)  Signature of 'Events':
    Certain short-term events are reasonably likely to be spotted, most 
    notably weapons fire and jumping.
    An energy weapon firing has a signature based on its power output --
    use 10* its normal power requirement and compute based on that.
    Specifically, this works out to +12 for lasers, +16 for bay weapons,
    +21 for spinal weapons.
    Nuclear weapons have a signature of +14 for 0.001 kT, and +3 per *10.
    A starship jumping insystem has a signature of 17 + 3log10(# of J);
    this works out to 5+(size*1.5), +1 for J-3 or higher, and lasts
    for a minute (giving +2 detection).

4)  Detection Process:
    If this is initial detection, simply add up range, signature, and all
    relevant modifiers; if the total is less than zero double the result.
    Use this as a modifier for a sensor operations roll.

    If this is _not_ initial detection, use the above process, but you can
    usually assume that the bonus for field of view will be +5.

    Special case: resolving the shape of an object is very different from
    detection, at least in space -- it is, in fact, sufficiently different
    to warrant a completely different detection process.  For resolving the
    shape, apply _only_ the following modifiers:
        Time (maximum +2), Focus (maximum +2), Target Size, Range,
        Intervening Atmosphere, -2 if using thermal sensors or lidar, -6
        if using imaging radar.

    Special case: objects which are quite near each other.  Treat as per
    resolving the shape of an object, but use the size modifier for the
    distance between the objects.

    What you roll will determine what information you get:
    Success by 0-2: detection.
        For optical sensors, gives direction and relative brightness.
        For radar sensors, gives range and apparent signature.
        For thermal sensors, gives direction and relative brightness.
        For shape resolution, gives size and general shape.
    Success by 3-5: recognition
        For optical sensors, as above plus exact color.
        For radar sensors, as above plus exact velocity.
        For thermal sensors, as above plus temperature.
        For shape resolution, gives sufficient information to identify a
            class of vehicle or entity.  Battle damage will be visible, etc.
    Success by 6+: identification
        For optical/thermal sensors, spectral analysis may be performed, and
            a time-based brightness curve generated.  For objects which have
            known spectral lines, velocity to/away (to within 1 km/sec)
            may be determined.
        For radar sensors, a time-based brightness profile may be generated,
            allowing determinations about rotation and some sorts of shape
            computation.
        for shape resolution, gives sufficient information to identify a
            particular vehicle or person.

4)  Determine Range.  This is an extended table of range modifiers, optimized
    for space.
Range           Mod     Range           Mod     Range           Mod
1000 miles      -35     1500 miles      -36     2000 miles      -37
3000 miles      -38     4500 miles      -39     7000 miles      -40
1 hex(10k mile) -41     2 hexes         -43     3 hexes         -44
5 hexes         -45     7 hexes         -46     10 hexes        -47
15 hexes        -48     1 light-second  -49     2 ls            -51
3 ls            -52     5 ls            -53     7 ls            -54
10 ls           -55     15 ls           -56     20 ls           -57
30 ls           -58     0.1 AU          -59     0.15 AU         -60
0.2 AU          -61     0.3 AU          -62     0.5 AU          -63
0.7 AU          -64     1 AU            -65     1.5 AU          -66
2 AU            -67     3 AU            -68     4.5 AU          -69
7 AU            -70     10 AU           -71     15 AU           -72
20 AU           -73     30 AU           -74     45 AU           -75
70 AU           -76     100 AU          -77     150 AU          -78
200 AU          -79     300 AU          -80     450 AU          -81
700 AU (.01 ly) -82     1000 AU         -83     1500 AU         -84
2000 AU         -85     3000 AU         -86     .1 light-year   -87
.15 ly          -88     .2 ly           -89     .3 ly           -90
.45 ly          -91     .7 ly           -92     1 ly (.3 pc)    -93
1.5 ly (.5 pc)  -94     2 ly (.7 pc)    -95     1 pc            -96
2 pc            -98     3 pc            -99     5 pc            -100
7 pc            -101    10 pc           -102    15 pc           -103

Initial Detection Roll:
    Add up all modifiers; if < 0, _double_ (this is a hack -- an expert
    operator (skill 18) shouldn't have 10x the detection range of a moderate
    skill (skill 12) operator.  This reduces it to about 3x, but the expert
    will be much more reliable).  Roll electronics/sensor operation at this
    modifier.

Basic Table of Modifiers:
Modifier                                Visual  Radar   Thermal
Turn Length (the human eye is limited to a +2 bonus).  Use the scan time or
    the duration of the event being observed, whichever is _less_.
    1 second                            -2      -2      -2
    2 seconds                           -1      -1      -1
    4 seconds                           +0      +0      +0
    15 seconds                          +1      +1      +1
    1 minute                            +2      +2      +2
    4 minutes                           +3      +3      +3
    15 minutes                          +4      +4      +4
    1 hour                              +5      +5      +5
Limited Focal Area (the human eye is limited to a +3 bonus)
    360 degree arc                      -2      -2      -2
    180 degree arc (peripheral vision)  -1      -1      -1
    120 degree arc (normal vision)      +0      +0      +0
    60 degree arc                       +1      +1      +1
    30 degree arc                       +2      +2      +2
    12 degree arc(1/5 range)            +3      +3      +3
    6 degree arc (1/10 range)           +4      +4      +4
    3 degree arc (1/20 range)           +5      +5      +5
Location of target (use the best; not applicable to shape resolution)
    -On ground, daytime                 +0      -2      -2(2)
    -On ground, nighttime               +0(1)   -2      -2(3)
    -On ground, nighttime/vacuum        +0(1)   +0      +0(3)
    -Near ground, daytime               +2      +2      -2(2)
    -Near ground, nighttime             +2(1)   +2      +0(3)
    -Near ground, nighttime/vacuum      +2(1)   +4      +2(3)
    (1) assumes some form of night vision apparatus.  Otherwise, apply
        normal darkness modifiers.
    (2) if has an emitted signature, give +1 if = size-1, +2 if (size),
        +4 if (size+1), +6 if greater than size+1; this is in addition to
        using emitted signature rather than size modifier.  Reasonably
        likely to be applicable to spacecraft.  For reference, this gives 
        a +2 for spotting humans.
    (3) as above, but add +1 to emitted signature when computing bonus.
    -Silhoutte against space, nighttime +14(*)  +8      +8
    *   assumes a truly dark sky.  Near a city will be much worse.
    -Silhoutte against space, daytime   +2      +8      +2
    -Silhoutte against space, vacuum    +14     +12     +12 
        -near planet or asteroid        -3      -3      -3
        -silhoutte against primary       *      -8       *
            Use the 'shape resolution' case, described above, but with a +2
            bonus for anti-chameleon.  You can only see an object against
            a star by seeing black spot, and that's _much_ harder than seeing 
            an illuminated object against space.
        -solar corona                   -6      -6      -6
            Note that lighting modifiers will usually negate the vision mod,
            and are reasonably likely to negate the IR modifier as well.
        -target within inner zone       +0      -3      +0
Target Behavior (only applies to initial detection)
    Target moving against backdrop      +2      +2      +2
        Means 'moving by normal resolution of sensor in one turn'.  To
        determine this, take (range mod)-(size mod of distance)+scan.
        For even the lowest-grade space sensors this means that an 
        object moving at orbital velocity around a planet an AU away
        appears to be moving, so this modifier usually applies to detecting
        ships.
    Significant velocity towards/away   +0      +2      +0
        Assumes a doppler radar of some kind.
Intervening atmosphere (if -10 or worse vision is totally blocked)
    Thin (per 5 miles, or to space)     -0      -0      -1
    Moderate (as above)                 -1      -0*     -2
    Dense (as above)                    -2      -1*     -4
        *Add additional -1 if going into space, due to layers in the upper
        atmosphere.
    Clouds (per 50 yards)               -5      -0      -1
    Gas Giant Atmosphere (choose X)     -x      -x/2    -x
Lighting
    Brightness of Primary (X=Sig-70)    +x(1)   +0      +0(2)
    Nearness of Primary (X=range+67)    +x(1)   +0      +0(2)
    Shadow of Planet                    -12     +0      +0(2)
    (1) only if silhoutted against space.
    (2) modifier applies to signature based on size, but not signature
        based on power consumption; max -6 if object is warm enough for
        humans to survive.
    
Simplifications for space combat:
    In general, for space combat purposes, you will have a +12 for IR/radar
    in space, a +4 for turn length, a -2 for 360 scan, and a +2 for a
    moving object (negating this is quite hard, though not impossible), for
    a total of +16 to scan; this gives a TL 10 basic bridge a 42 passive, a
    TL 12 command bridge a 44.  This allows a ship which is mostly powered
    down to evade detection at reasonable ranges, but is significantly 
    better range than what GT normally gives.

Example:
    For a human to spot alpha centaurus (signature +71, range -97), at night:
    +10 scan, +71 signature, -97 range, +14 terrain, -1 atmosphere, total 
    -3, doubled to -6.  Probably not going to spot it randomly.  However,
    scan a 30 degree arc (+2) and spend 15 seconds (+1) and you've got 
    a pretty good chance.

Example 2: for a merchant (scan 26 passive, net 42) to detect a pirate
    with no drives, but running artificial gravity (signature +4) at half
    the jump limit (2 light-seconds, range -51): total -5, doubled to -10,
    virtually zero chance.  The pirate, meanwhile, has a TL 10 command 
    bridge with scan 27, net 43, target signature +13, net +5 -- no problem.
    If the pirate kicks in his drives signature jumps to +10, for a +1 to
    scan -- depends on the alertness of the operator.

- --0-2078917053-909187425=:31899--

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:42:27 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Efficient 100-D Control

Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> wrote:


>For any historically-challenged subscribers to the list, HMS ROYAL OAK
>was sunk in October 1939 by a U-boat (U-39?) that did just that:
>penetrated the main British naval base (Scapa Flow).

I'm sorry. Recent evidence shows that the Royal Oak was scuttled by her
crew to prevent the German U-Boat crew boarding her, stealing her and
obtaining valuable information... ;-)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:53:35 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Current Tech: Shortstop

"David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net> wrote:


>	How many people on the list very deliberately did NOT sign up from
>work, even though that's a more convenient/timely way to participate,
>simply because they didn't want to explain things ...?

Me for one. My employer (Unilever) wouldn't take nicely to the volume of
traffic on this list, so I connect from home.

I know Nick Munn (those TML fogey's around will know the name) doesn't
connect as he works from the UK civil service and they tend to get a little
jumpy about usage, and topics like nukes, sensors, encryption etc. Shame -
I miss some of his comments.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 01:11:41 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: : Re: The Imperial Fleet

 Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com> wrote:


>It is a shame you were never paid for the article. Perhaps we have
>discovered  new "Canon" of Trav Authors getting screwed.

You mean to support the T4 IG canon that the authors never get paid ;-)

Not funny when you talk to people like Andy Lilly et al. who did a lot of
work getting material out for IG with tight deadlines. And never got paid.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 01:09:10 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Old Topics: Aslan Females

Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> wrote:

>I keep seeing this as part of the "old topics done to death" gag line,
>but realize I've never actually seen the debate, for example,
>
>"_Lesbian Aslan_ Pirates Hurling Near-C Rocks at Kinetic-Kill
>Missile Armed Fighters"
>
>Was there some kind of debate ages ago about Aslan females
>getting tired of babysitting Aslan males and going off on their own
>than I missed?

I posted something a fair while ago (12 months) that was a query in from
one of my games about how Aslan would consider casual sexual relationships.
It all happened at Dinomn when the Empress Nicholle got into port, and the
female Aslan engineer was bored with all the humans and disappeared... the
thread kind of degenerated after a few interesting posts (Wildstar's being
one of the most memorable).

http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/Kira.html

relates a little of the tale from another player's perspective.

Dom

(Wondering if these threads are taking up the role of uber-myths of the
type found in Robert Holdstock's _Mythago Wood_ ... a life of their own.
Indeed, are Hans and David real, or are they figments of a TML 'racial'
memory, the mythical arch-proponents of the two sides to the debate,
endlessly developing)

(Maybe not)

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:33:51 EDT
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

In a message dated 10/23/98 9:33:28 AM Pacific Daylight Time, rancke@diku.dk
writes:

<< He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority of
 the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check? Not
 IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out around
 the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't it?
 Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
 reactivate them.
  >>

True; but you don't want them close enough to an unstable border that they
would be vunerable to a raid or shipjacking ala' the Zid Rachele incident at
Lunion (which had a zillion ships orbiting a naval facility, though I think
there were yards insystem)...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:26:14 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: T-plate operational limits

Rupert Boleyn queries me thusly:
>
>So what limit, if any, do you put on the distance from a gravity source
>that a T-plate can be and still function? If it's 1000 or 2000 diameters a
>misjump of more than a few hundred AU will kill a T-plate ship's crew far
>more certainly than a HEPlaR's, especially as the HEPlaR fuel supply may be
>enough to allow a jump.
>
MT does not have a limit on T-plate efficiency; My campiagns do not either.
I will not retrofit the T-Plate efficiency onto MT as I run it. IMO, it
defeats too much previous cannon (including TCS, to some degree), is ill
thought, and makes no sense. IMTU, True Recationless Thrusters push against
themost significant gravity wells, and thus the objects creating them, and
thus truly are not reactionless, but use the mass of planets, stars, dark
matter, interstellar gasses, etc., as reaction mass. Just like IMTU, a
repulsor CAN be used for fine maneuving in docks.

Since I don't run TNE anymore (the combat system is BROKEN, and I've tried
dozens of fixes, and just don't like any of them), and don't  like T4
except for the Psionics rules and number of skills per term, my players
don't expect me to use "questionable" items from the newer canon. If I were
running T4, I'd use the limits, and if T5 has the limits, when running T5
I'll use the limits.

TL 9 anti-grav-thrusters are limited to about 1000 diameters, and no full
thrust after 100 diameters, and I limit gravitic modules (vehicular type)
to 10 diameters for full thrust, and no thrust past 100 diameters.


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:31:21 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Reserves

Thom Harris Writes
>
>I think that you misunderstood what he was saying.  Reservists by nature are
>NOT out in the space lanes in their ships.  An example of Reserve activity
>would be that they meet one weekend a month and go active for two weeks in
>the summer.  This would then cause one to believe that the ships of the
>Reserve Fleet are ALMOST moth-balled and would take some time to bring
>on-line.  Reservists routinely take they active duty period fixing up there
>"vehicles" and training to maintain their standards for going to war.  You
>would see the occasional Reserve Ship out and about just so they can blow
>the cob webs out.  Think for a minute, if you are only on active duty for
>two weeks and a jump takes one week then you would only be able to take your
>ship out and right back and be done for the year.
>
This assumes the term reserves is used in the same context it is for the
United States: part time military personell.

I don't see this in the Imperium (it is canon for the solomani confed
tho... AM 6 IIRC). Rather the reserve fleets are used in the WWII european
sense: units not intended for first line combat assignments, but able
enough to respond as backups and reliefs to front-liners. Colonials woould
fill the same role for the reserve units.


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:37:10 EDT
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

In a message dated 10/23/98 10:59:56 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:

<< it does make sens form a security standpoint,....if they are all in one
 area less chance of theft or sabotage.........
 
 same argument used for keeping all the planes togerther at pearl harbor.
 
 :)
  >>

Hopefully; this time they'll PATROL....

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 19:59:34 -0500
From: David Lightfinger <lightfinger@home.com>
Subject: Re: : Re: The Imperial Fleet

SD Mooney wrote:
> 
>  Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com> wrote:
> 
> >It is a shame you were never paid for the article. Perhaps we have
> >discovered  new "Canon" of Trav Authors getting screwed.
> 
> You mean to support the T4 IG canon that the authors never get paid ;-)
> 
> Not funny when you talk to people like Andy Lilly et al. who did a lot of
> work getting material out for IG with tight deadlines. And never got paid.
> 

Unfortunately, this is very common in the industry. I had to wait almost
2 years before Hero Games paid me for the Champions material I had
written for them.

- --David

ps. I will note SJG does NOT follow industry trend, and pays on time.
Thus, you should see more GURPS:Traveller material coming out in their
announcements soon, as some of us old fogeys gear up to put in queries
and proposals to them :-)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:10:30 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Fighters

Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> *************

> I get: 15+15acc +10comp +2 active sensor +10pd +4rof -39 Range (PD fire may
> only be taken against ramming attempts.) = 17 or less for the first missile
> each additional missile engaged is a further -2 to hit. he does however
> have 3 lasers so can roll 3 times on each attempt.  this gives him
> 17,15,13,11,9,7,5,3,1 that he needs to roll against for point defense...so
> most likely 2-3 missile hits.
Note that if you increase the number of lasers and missile proportionally
the lasers pull ahead (since each laser can engage each missile, albeit
at the increasing minuses...) If you manage the sequences right, X 
laser turrets will pretty much always stop 2*X missiles...

Anthony writes:
>That's incorrect.  A single gunner controls a single _turret_.  If he wanted to
>fire the three weapons separately (rather than as a battery) he'd be at -4 to
>all of them.  He gets one shot, with a +1 for the # of weapons (this is a
>problem, it means triple turrets are useless because you get the same bonus
>from a double turret, but...)
Is this really the way triple turrets work? This needs to be clarified.
I assumed that if a single gunner fires all three lasers in a triple
turret he/she made a to-hit roll independently, with no modifiers, for
each. Otherwise (as you note) triple turrets are near-useless.

Bruce

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:19:30 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Radiators

>4) Assume a higher power plant efficency or cold fussion power plants.
>Everything else stays the same and no need for monster radiaters.
Cold fusion is actually worse for percentage of waste energy than hot
fusion (basic thermodynamics.) 

To go with higher power plant efficiency (and the TL13-15
power plants in FFS2 are already up at about 99%), 
you also have to assume that all devices on the ship are very efficient-
that none of the power that goes into your maneuver drive, for example,
comes out as heat. (Since maneuver drives already create energy, maybe
this isn't a bad assumption.) You need superconducting cables everywhere,
etc...

One certainly can assume that the power plant radiators run at lower 
levels most of the time - non-combat, or landing, for example. One 
could also assume that they include air-cooling modes for operating in
an atmosphere (so you don't bake everyone below you...just blow very 
hot air above you.) (Another reason for ships to still use the 
"blast pits" seen on old starport maps...) 

Another way to get rid of excess heat would be to vent very very very
hot plasma (accounting for CT-style fuel consumption for power plants),
but that makes you incredibly easy to detect, since you can't 
baffle the plasma.

I think (in my Copious Spare Time) I may work on the "Conservative
Sensor Rules" - a rules set that assumes (somehow) lower total heat
production, and that sensor technology develops more slowly...

Bruce

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:25:06 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Where to find Deckplans on the Web

Does anyone know of a good source on the Web for deckplans for Traveller ships?

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:45:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brannon Boren <brannonb@animal.blarg.net>
Subject: Re: : Re: The Imperial Fleet

On Fri, 23 Oct 1998, David Lightfinger wrote:

> Unfortunately, this is very common in the industry. I had to wait almost
> 2 years before Hero Games paid me for the Champions material I had
> written for them.

Ditto. After the second time my royalty check from ICE bounced I got a
little miffed. I did finally get them to cough up the money they owed me
after quite a long battle. I think told them I needed to buy a kidney or
something...

> ps. I will note SJG does NOT follow industry trend, and pays on time.
> Thus, you should see more GURPS:Traveller material coming out in their
> announcements soon, as some of us old fogeys gear up to put in queries
> and proposals to them :-)

I'd love to do work on Traveller, but I just can't get behind GURPS as a
system. Feel like collaborating?

Ben 

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1018
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1019



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

The Sunbeard Declaration
Re: The colonial fleets
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Mutiny
Pyramid Chat on Tuesday
Pyramid Chat on Tuesday
GT Lasers
Re: Where to find Deckplans on the Web 
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV 
Re: Piracy: Cease!
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 
Re: Travellerish fiction 
Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism
Loading/Unloading
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Jump Signature (was: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud)
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: Mutiny 
Planetary development  (Was: The Sunbeard Declaration)
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: New Deck plans revised files added

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:49:06
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: The Sunbeard Declaration

I think we have the framework of a deal on the Great TML Piracy debate of
1997-8.

#1 : Mainworlds with either signifigant trade or signifigant economies can
and will defend their space out to about their 100 diameter limits.

#2 : These defenses will make piracy in and around mainworlds unprofitable.

#3 : These defenses do not extend to the entire system.

#4 : Most career pirates concentrate on the unsafe outsystems.

#5 : Shippers apply risk premiums to trade with either unsafe systems or
outsystems.

#6 : Merchant ships specialising in trading in unsafe areas tend to be
heavily armed

#7 : Merchant ships specialising in trading in safe areas tend to be
lightly armed or unarmed

#8 : The best markets for stolen starships and cargos are in other states,
however unsafe areas will buy commodities they know to be stolen at heavily
discounted rates

#9 : Pirate ships will tend to be converted merchants, as unsafe areas tend
not to be profitable enough to justify custom-built warships. Safe areas
tend to be too dangerous for even custom built warships to operate in for
long enough to defray their build costs. Pirate warships may exist from
mutinous or rebel crews.

A corrollory of #4 and #5 is that Outsystems will tend to remain
underdeveloped, as they cannot develop until they are secure, and they are
not worth securing until they are developed.

Now, are all the principals of the GPD happy with this so we can put this
in the FAQ ?

Ian Whitchurch

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 21:11:46 -0500
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets

Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:

<snip>>FSotSI pg 6
>>"The primary activity a reserve fleet undertakes is training."
>
>Heh. That could also mean that they are in better training than the
idle,
>slothful Imperial Navy ;-). But OK, I'll give you that. Only, whare
does
>it say that the training takes place in orbit around the high
population
>worlds?

I based my statement on US Reservists, i.e. 1 weekend a month and 2
weeks a year.
at this rate the ships would not be able to leave orbit and get the
crews back to thier regular jobs in time.  If the reserves work
differently IYTU then I made a bad assumption.

<snip>
>So it says. But does it make sense? Try this little thought experiment:

<snip good explination>
>Some subsector fleets ARE exactly as the description has it, composed
of
>obsolescent IN castoffs. The Duke of Lunion, for example, would be
happy to
>buy obsolescent IN ships, because the best he can procure locally is TL
13
>(I still think he'd buy some local TL 13 designs, but maybe not). And
dukes
>of subsectors with TL 14 high-pop planets would still be interested in
IN
>TL 15 retirees. Even dukes with TL 15 planets would buy _some_ ships
from
>the IN. And those are the ships the public hears about. "DELPHINE BUYS
>CLUNKERS! BUY LOCAL, SAYS UNION BOSS!!!" the headlines of the
opposition
>press and the yellow press will say, forgetting to mention that she is
only
>buying a few clunkers and many local ships.

well I cannot argue your logic here (including the snipped part)

<snip>
>>I would say this is both combatants and non-combatants, thus the
average
>>31.25 combatants per fleet would be a good number.
>
>For reasons I've stated in my reply to Gary, I disagree.

well IMTU i will disagree with you

<snip>
>He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority
of
>the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check?
Not
>IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out
around
>the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't
it?
>Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
>reactivate them.

I think we are talking different time frames.  and I agree that one
depot per domain is poor planning

Charles

BTW I am getting out of these discussions due to a lack of time and it
requires economic knowledge I don't have.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 21:13:02 -0500
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

	
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

steve daniels wrote:

>Jeff Zeitlin wrote:
>
>> Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
>> - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
>> States since the mid-1980s.
>
>The what?!  I was raised in Texas and now live in Boston.
>Both with large Latino communities, to say the least,
>and I haven't noticed any change but for the positive in
>the last 30 years.

Bloo, I think he is talking about Florida and California

Charles

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:31:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Re: Mutiny

Another case for mutiny is the "political" mutiny. The most obvious ones
were during the civil war period, where a fleet commander aims for the
iridium throne, but I suspect that some might take place within colonial
or planetary navies. Not all those non-charismatic oligarchies or
dictators or theocrats got their jobs by election, and not all
democracies or bureacracies are stable ones. People usually think of "army
coups" but there is no reason they can't happen in the navy. I expect
there are a few backwater worlds where coups and counter-coups may result
in divided crews. The captain supports the new regime, his first officer
is a loyalist, and so on -- an attempt at peacefully sequestering the
other side fails, and fighting rages through the ship -- and maybe even
several ships in a particular squadron. This would make a good scenario,
actually.

It could also justify an interesting kind of pirate: some of the ships on
the losing side (if they have jump drive) might decline to surrender or
fight to the finish, and instead depart for a life of crime to support
themselves in the hopes of an eventual return. Remember, it ain't just
Vargr who have coups...

- -David

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:46:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Pyramid Chat on Tuesday

I'll be hosting a Pyramid Chat on tuesday, 8 PM central, on "GURPS
Traveller spaceship design, operations and combat" where any pyramid
subscribers are welcome to ask me questions regarding the appropriate Trav
rules. Loren should be there for at least part of the chat as well.

- -David

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:46:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Pyramid Chat on Tuesday

I'll be hosting a Pyramid Chat on tuesday, 8 PM central, on "GURPS
Traveller spaceship design, operations and combat" where any pyramid
subscribers are welcome to ask me questions regarding the appropriate Trav
rules. Loren should be there for at least part of the chat as well.

- -David

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:49:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: GT Lasers

Yes, if you have a triple laser turret, you may fire all three of the
lasers, rolling individually to hit, against the same target, at no
penalty.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:48:34 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Where to find Deckplans on the Web 

> Does anyone know of a good source on the Web for deckplans for Traveller ships?

You check the Deckplans Webring?

I'm on it at:

http://www.glasscity.net/users/jamstar/traveller/boats.html

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:50:23 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

- -----Original Message-----
From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans



>I didn't get them either, so if it's not the fonts, then there's two
>of us needing help.  ;->
>
>Michael, could you include the scale for the deckplans.  Are the
>squares 1, 1.5 or 2 meters?
>
>Eris


Ok, I've revised the fonts and attempted to imbed them. I've also added the
scale, 1.5 m per square (I'm a traditionalist when it comes to deck plans).
Any way, please try the files again and let me know it they work all right.
I tried them on my lap top and they showed up alright on it so I hope
they'll be ok.

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 06:45:28 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV 

> >They're lead by this really *SHORT* Vargr wearing a beret, right?
> 
>   Actually they're lead by the Public Accounts auditor who's looking
> into why the new ship class can't power it's fusion gun :(  You could
> just install batteries in the spare space (although this shouldn't
> really work in HG/Striker). 
> 
>   Alternatively, allow HG designs to be non-standard sizes (i.e., tonnage
> may be any value of one or above - <1 would require scaling down output
> per Striker) and simply enter EP's output, while listing the USP for damage 
> purposes as Pn with all fractions dropped.

Thing is, HG lets you do odd-sized hulls.  A size code 9 ship is anything from 
900 to 999 tons.  Just watch your decimal points.

>   Or just design the ship properly the first time...

That, too.

BTW, you didn't answer my question.  <grin>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 01:33:13 +0200
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <greimann@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy: Cease!

>
>Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?
I have to disagree, 
I think there have been some interesting arguments this time around.
Although the Piracy theme will never be resolved, the discussion
is interesting nonetheless!
Volker
- ---
Volker A. Greimann, greimann@geocities.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 07:14:24 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 

> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> ...
> >>   Has anyone ever figured out why armoured hulls use the cost formula
> >> of [MCr 0.3 (+ 0.1 per armour factor) per ton] in High Guard? I can
> >> see the explanation that it's different materials and engineering work
> >> in upgrading the whole structure (somewhat like compartmentalization
> ...
> >When you look at it, yeah, it's expensive, but not compared to egines and 
> >such.  And the price applies *ONLY* to the armour; my SDB design I posted the 
> >other day has 80 dt of armour at a cost of 56MCr.  The hull ran 96MCr, and the 
> >power plant ran 576MCr.  Power plants don't get cheaper (relatively) until you 
> >hit TL14!
> 
>   Yes, but the Terrier SDB is carrying (f4) 10% at MCr 0.7 /ton, while
> the Rabid Poodle is maxxed out for combat at (f12) 26% at MCr 1.5 /ton.
> At TL 12 they're presumably using superdense, which is KCr 14/m^3 in
> slabs, so a D-ton should cost MCr 0.196 plus forming and engineering?
> (which gives the 1000 Dt Poodle an armour allocation around 50,000 tons!)
> 
>   If the "2+2a" formula for armour in HG accounts for engineering and
> compartmentalization with the fixed 2% of ship D-tonnage, then the "2a"
> should be linear cost based on the material and its' forming/installation
> cost(?). If so, then the Poodle would pay ~2.6 times more its' armour
> (per D-t of ship) than the Terrier rather than the ~5.5 times it pays now.
> 
>   If installation is counted in HG's MCr 0.1 per Dt hull cgarge then the
> armour could be re-assessed as "material value at TL plus % for forming",
> thus giving a more rational (?) basis for costing armoured ships.


You're using some other stuff rather than straight HG.  Under HG, your hull 
costs the same whether it's mild steel or ferrocement or superdense.  Cost of 
materials is factored into it already.  If you're gonna evaluate a HG design, 
set your FS&S on the coffee table and take stuff right from HG.  I see the 
figures for armour bulk as reasonable for HG as it factors in 'inferior' 
materials at lower tech levels.  The lower your tech, the more bulk you need 
to get the same armour protection on your hull and the more bracing you need 
because your 'state of the art' is still under developement.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 07:17:21 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Travellerish fiction 

> > What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H. Beam
> Piper:
> >
> >       Little Fuzzy
> >       4-Day Planet
> >       Uller Uprising
> >       Space Viking
> 
>         The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
>         Fuzzy Sapiens
>         Fuzzies and Other People

I knew there were two more Piper Fuzzy books, as well as two 'other' Fuzzy 
books; I had them all at one time.  *(

> > There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the top of
> my
> > head.
> 
> More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
> the moment.
> 
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> You missed 'lone star planet','federation','empire','first cycle'

Lone Star Planet was printed up as a double with Four Day Planet.  It's in a 
box around here *somewhere*, or else over my little brother's place in 
Cleveland (I gotta get over there Real Soon Now & get the rest of my stuff...)

> no i do NOT lend books :)

You'll get my paperbacks when you pry my cold dead fingers from around them.  
And you *BETTER* treat 'em right, or I'm coming back to haunt you.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:14:02 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism

Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> writes:
>Interesting tightrope one must walk to be a pirate. Scary enough
>to cow a merchant captain, but not scary enough to send the
>governor calling for the IN. Effective enough to make a profit,
>minor enough not to be worth the while of a light cruiser. Bold
>enough to take a prize, patient enough to wait for that sliver of
>perfect time when a prize can be taken without too much chance
>of loss..

Callous enough to steal someone's livelihood, tender enough to release
orphans...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 04:17:01 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Loading/Unloading

AS threatened, I found the tables in FASA's Battletech, and will present an
adaptation for use with traveller (I am not reprinting theirs... its in
Battlespace, page 56). Also factored in are my experiences working in a
- -10c wharehouse.

			Minutes per metric ton**
Equipment Used		0-G	Vacc 1-G Air
Battle Dress (or equiv)	4	2	2
5 man in VaccSuits	4	3	3
5 man in clothes*	3	2	2
1 man with LRTP's	2	-	-
1 man w/Pallet Jacks**	-	3	2

This table basically assumes times from ready on boards to loaded in cargo
or vice versa; times really should be doubled for moving ship to ship.
Times should be doubled for medium break-bulk (loose boxes and crates
instead of containerized or shrinkwrapped onto pallets) and times 10 for
small items (125L boxes {25cm cubes}).

* in vaccum assumes LD Vacc suit or tailored vaccsuit.
** assume SG 4 (4MT per 1Td) as a good average if you don't want to figure
out masses from traveller cargos yourself.
*** assumes pallatized loads that are secure on the pallet. Iv'e moved up
to a 1/2 ton pallet of icecream at the rates shown, moving the goods from
loose to a pallet 2m from the shelves, while in a -10c freezer. Moving the
pallet the 10-15 meters to shrink-wrap took another 2 minutes on average,
including opening and closing the 1/4-ton sliding door. Shrink wrap took
another 5 minutes, and then it was a fairly stable unit. The guys who
worked the wharehouse (I worked the co-located icecream plant) could load
and move faster than I could. BTW, a 1/2ton pallet of ice cream is about 2m
tall, and uses a 1.5x1.5m pallet which is about 7-12 cm tall it's self,
weighing about 10kg. Lined up pallets go on trucks at the loading-dock at
the rate of about 1-2 per minute, depending on skill and depth of refer
van, at least that's what I've seen done. A full van can be unloaded to the
dock (which is level with the floor of the reefer van floor) in under 15
minutes for a fully palletized load in a 40' trailer. And about as long to
get the load into the freezer, using about 5 men for each task.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 22:10:17 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

On 10/23/98 at 10:50 PM,  "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com> said:

>>Michael, could you include the scale for the deckplans.  Are the
>>squares 1, 1.5 or 2 meters?

>Ok, I've revised the fonts and attempted to imbed them. I've also
>added the scale, 1.5 m per square (I'm a traditionalist when it comes
>to deck plans). Any way, please try the files again and let me know
>it they work all right. I tried them on my lap top and they showed up
>alright on it so I hope they'll be ok.

Thanks, Mike. I will. BTW, what software did you use for your plans?

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:14:16 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

At 12:42 PM 10/23/98 -0400, you wrote:
>How does the space shuttle handle heat build-up?

It has big radiators in the cargo bay that flip out as soon as it hits
orbit.  It also uses as little power as possible... the crew generate more
heat than the electrics.  They also use a lot of low-resistance wiring
(read: fiber-optics and pure copper) to minimise heat buildup from that
source.
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:23:55 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Jump Signature (was: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud)

>I like this idea. Could we assume that unbaffled drives are fairly bright,
>getting brighter with age? "Jumpflash baffles" are extra equipment that
>reducing the signature of the flash. (Let the gearheads define the
>performance parameters.) 
>
>As to jump signature, treat that like sonar signatures now: it takes a
>skilled professional to discriminate. Most civilians won't even know how,
>because they don't need to know, while experienced navy sensor ops can
>sometimes tell you not only who you are but what brand of parts you used
>in your last overhaul.
>
>In game terms:
>
>To identify a ship from its jump signature
>Edu + Sensor Ops > Impossible
>This task is one to two levels easier if the operator is familiar with the
>target, one level more difficult of the operator has _not_ had military
>training or experience.

Something else to consider is that there are presently computerised sonar
analysis programs... I was thinking more along the lines of a database of
registered starships, and their jump signatures.  Of course, this adds a
lot to the xboat traffic, but there you go...
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 22:47:22 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

On 10/23/98 at 10:50 PM,  "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com> said:

>I tried them on my lap top and they showed up alright on it so I hope
>they'll be ok.

Michael, they look good and printed out just fine.  It seemed like the size of the Twain.pdf file went way up, I might be wrong as I was downloading it through a dialup this time rather than a faster network connection.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:57:06 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Mutiny 

> 
> Another case for mutiny is the "political" mutiny. The most obvious ones
> were during the civil war period, where a fleet commander aims for the
> iridium throne, but I suspect that some might take place within colonial
> or planetary navies. Not all those non-charismatic oligarchies or
> dictators or theocrats got their jobs by election, and not all
> democracies or bureacracies are stable ones. People usually think of "army
> coups" but there is no reason they can't happen in the navy. I expect
> there are a few backwater worlds where coups and counter-coups may result
> in divided crews. The captain supports the new regime, his first officer
> is a loyalist, and so on -- an attempt at peacefully sequestering the
> other side fails, and fighting rages through the ship -- and maybe even
> several ships in a particular squadron. This would make a good scenario,
> actually.
> 
> It could also justify an interesting kind of pirate: some of the ships on
> the losing side (if they have jump drive) might decline to surrender or
> fight to the finish, and instead depart for a life of crime to support
> themselves in the hopes of an eventual return. Remember, it ain't just
> Vargr who have coups...

Somebody did something like that earlier in the summer.  Pretty cool post, IIRC.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:55:39 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Planetary development  (Was: The Sunbeard Declaration)

>A corrollory of #4 and #5 is that Outsystems will tend to remain
>underdeveloped, as they cannot develop until they are secure, and they are
>not worth securing until they are developed.

I like this... it explains why systems where every planet is developed out
the wazoo.

Now the question is, how does a new colony get started at all?
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:46:23 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

- -----Original Message-----
From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 11:33 PM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added


>
>Thanks, Mike. I will. BTW, what software did you use for your plans?
>
>Eris
>--


Coreldraw 6.

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:58:48 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

- -----Original Message-----
From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Saturday, October 24, 1998 12:10 AM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added


>Michael, they look good and printed out just fine.  It seemed like the size
of the Twain.pdf file went way up, I might be wrong as I was downloading it
through a dialup this time rather than a faster network connection.
>
>Eris

There was some increase to about 652kb, from imbedding the fonts I believe,
still a reasonable size compared to the ~1.5 meg in the original Corel file
and much higher in JPEG formats. I'd really like to suggest .PDF as a
standard, if the Acrobat package wasn't so expensive. I'm a bit luck to have
it available on my work network, so I can dial it up and use it.

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1019
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1020



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: GT Lasers
Re: Piper (Murder in the Gunroom)
Re: The Imperial Navy
re: Piracy Question
Re: Piracy: Cease!
Jumping from 100 diameters
Re: GT transponders
Re: Physreps
T-plate operational limits
Re Reserves
Planetary development  (Was: The Sunbeard Declaration)
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: Piper (Murder in the Gunroom)
Re: GT Lasers
re: Old Topics: Aslan Females
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism
re : TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch
Re: GT Space Combat
Re: GT Space Combat
re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!
Re: New Deck plans
Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)
re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!
re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!
Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:25:36 -0400
From: "N. Eric Phillips" <stilleon@io.com>
Subject: Re: GT Lasers

- -----Original Message-----
From: David L. Pulver <dlpulver@kos.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 10:46 PM
Subject: GT Lasers


>Yes, if you have a triple laser turret, you may fire all three of the
>lasers, rolling individually to hit, against the same target, at no
>penalty.


And against different targets? Does the -4 apply then?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 21:39:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Piper (Murder in the Gunroom)

- ---Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com wrote:
>
> Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:32:28 -0400
> From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
> Subject: Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)
> Hi All,
> 
> Ah hell, here's the whole list AFAIK
> Note the ones without a mark I am actively seeking! Nudge, nudge,
wink,
> wink
> 
> 
> 
> with John J. McGuire
> [ ]  Crisis in 2140 (1957)
> ***************
> this one was published as double with 'Gunner Cade' the book is in a
box at
> home, so I don't know the autor.
> 
> Non-Genre Fiction
> [ ]  Murder in the Gunroom (1953)
> **********
> this is the only one I don't have, anyone have an idea of how to get
one
> (other than get real luck in a used bookshop?
> 
Murder in the Gunroom has been republished. Check Amazon.com to see if
you can still get a copy. 

_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:57:41 EDT
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

> >"A numbered fleet, depending on its mission, may have between two and 10
> >squadrons amounting to between 50 and 200 ships."  We're previously told a
> >squadron is 3-10 ships.
> 
> Where? Not previously in that particular essay. Elsewhere we're told that

Yes, *in that particular essay.*  In the header, first paragraph... "At their
lowest level, Imperial ships are organized into squadrons (from three to 10
similar ships)."

> Answer: Yes. Despite what anyone may think, _Striker_ is no less canonical
> than any other official source. And _Striker_, Book 2, p. 38 says:

Striker should be left to it's primary purpose and that's miniatures gaming.
The econ stuff was obviously not throught through the background.  

> Also, the figure is low if compared to the figures that _Trillion Credit
> Squadron_ and _Pocket Empires_ provide. TCS use 5% on the Navy alone, no
> mention of the army; PE figures are fluid, but can reach 20-30% IIRC (I may
> be a bit off here).

IMO, none of those are credible for disecting the economics of the Third
Imperium (or any polity of the OTU).  It's obvious GDW didn't use Striker or
TCS (or anything even remotely resembling Pocket Empires) in creating the
background.  All of them are made to be playable *games* (specificially games
for players to have pet "pocket empires" and polities and go to war w/ each
other) and to not simulate "reality" (such as it is) for the OTU.


Gary

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:57:36 EDT
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: re: Piracy Question

You're right bout Free Traders.  I would think that megacorp freighters would
dominate the X-boat routes everywhere, pretty much, the number and frequency
roughly decreasing as the distance from the Imperial core does.  W/ Free
Traders squeaking by in the cracks.

> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>    Even in the fringes, does anyone hold the existence of any Sunbeards as
> possible?
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Someone think it possible, otherwise there wouldn't be any piracy debates
> going on. I'll bet that even a large fraction of the anti-piracy camp
> will give you "possible". "Common", "practical", or "sensible" would
> be a different matter entirely.

By Sunbeard, I meant career pirate. "Sunbeard, Scourge of Seven Sectors.
Har!" Career meaning like 5+ term pirate.  I find it more than plausible the
odd merchant can't keep up w/ his payments, etc and decides to start preying
on his competitors, (or gets shanghaied), etc. Eventually he either gets
caught, "retires", or gets dead, though, even on the fringe.  And it's more
than possible that megacorporate raiders as well as the possible forces of the
brigandish member-world (soon to be visited by the IN), though the megacorp
raiders are likely to have an "out" in their contract.  To say nothing of the
foreign (Zho, Solomani, etc) raiders who are better described as privateer.
  
Gary

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 01:33:13 +0200
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <greimann@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy: Cease!

>
>Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?
I have to disagree, 
I think there have been some interesting arguments this time around.
Although the Piracy theme will never be resolved, the discussion
is interesting nonetheless!
Volker
- ---
Volker A. Greimann, greimann@geocities.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:54:31 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Jumping from 100 diameters

The piracy thread made me think of this...but based on what has been stated
about jump drives, a significant number of jumps from inhabited worlds _cannot_
be made from the 100D limit.  Specifically:

Any world in the life-zone for a K or M star will probably be within the 100D
limit for the _star_.  A world in the inner part of the life zone for a G star
will also be within 100D.

Even if you aren't within 100D of the star, you need to _miss_ that 100D sphere
around the star (at both ends).  If the planet's orbital plane is not
particularly inclined relative to the jump direction, for a significant
fraction of the year (depending on exact angle and size of star) you'll have
the star in the way -- for earth, jumping to somewhere on the ecliptic would
require travelling a good part of an AU for about 5 months of the year.

For our worst examples, the spinward marches include a number of M II giants...
the concept of having to travel 5-10 AU to jump would be rather unappealing to
most merchants ;).

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:07:06 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400, Fred and Evelyn Wolke
<thewolkes@earthlink.net>
>>if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
>
>Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
>anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
>anything there.
>
>If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
>Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
>away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
>better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
>locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
>out.

Well, IMO, a transponder is never going to be able to "prove" who you are
and I thought saying they existed for that reason didn't work.

If they exist, I think they would be mostly to aid navigation (ships are easier
to track and you don't have to take time to call them up to find out who they
are).   It does have some benefit to security because it complicates some
situations because ships have to commit to sneaking up (since once they
are detected they have to explain why their transponders were off which
they may or may not be able to do).

That is why I think they exist.

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:31 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Physreps

>Anybody else do this kind of thing?  Suggestions, comments?
>

I like it.  The closest I got was index cards with a weapon's stats and a
*picture* of the weapon (usually clipped from somewhere - like a photocopy
of something from a nontrav GDW sourcebook) pasted to the front.

Pete

                      Peter H. Brenton : pbrenton@mit.edu
"A Good Traveller has no fixed plans and no intent on arriving."
  -Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:26:14 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: T-plate operational limits

Rupert Boleyn queries me thusly:
>
>So what limit, if any, do you put on the distance from a gravity source
>that a T-plate can be and still function? If it's 1000 or 2000 diameters a
>misjump of more than a few hundred AU will kill a T-plate ship's crew far
>more certainly than a HEPlaR's, especially as the HEPlaR fuel supply may be
>enough to allow a jump.
>
MT does not have a limit on T-plate efficiency; My campiagns do not either.
I will not retrofit the T-Plate efficiency onto MT as I run it. IMO, it
defeats too much previous cannon (including TCS, to some degree), is ill
thought, and makes no sense. IMTU, True Recationless Thrusters push against
themost significant gravity wells, and thus the objects creating them, and
thus truly are not reactionless, but use the mass of planets, stars, dark
matter, interstellar gasses, etc., as reaction mass. Just like IMTU, a
repulsor CAN be used for fine maneuving in docks.

Since I don't run TNE anymore (the combat system is BROKEN, and I've tried
dozens of fixes, and just don't like any of them), and don't  like T4
except for the Psionics rules and number of skills per term, my players
don't expect me to use "questionable" items from the newer canon. If I were
running T4, I'd use the limits, and if T5 has the limits, when running T5
I'll use the limits.

TL 9 anti-grav-thrusters are limited to about 1000 diameters, and no full
thrust after 100 diameters, and I limit gravitic modules (vehicular type)
to 10 diameters for full thrust, and no thrust past 100 diameters.


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:31:21 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Reserves

Thom Harris Writes
>
>I think that you misunderstood what he was saying.  Reservists by nature are
>NOT out in the space lanes in their ships.  An example of Reserve activity
>would be that they meet one weekend a month and go active for two weeks in
>the summer.  This would then cause one to believe that the ships of the
>Reserve Fleet are ALMOST moth-balled and would take some time to bring
>on-line.  Reservists routinely take they active duty period fixing up there
>"vehicles" and training to maintain their standards for going to war.  You
>would see the occasional Reserve Ship out and about just so they can blow
>the cob webs out.  Think for a minute, if you are only on active duty for
>two weeks and a jump takes one week then you would only be able to take your
>ship out and right back and be done for the year.
>
This assumes the term reserves is used in the same context it is for the
United States: part time military personell.

I don't see this in the Imperium (it is canon for the solomani confed
tho... AM 6 IIRC). Rather the reserve fleets are used in the WWII european
sense: units not intended for first line combat assignments, but able
enough to respond as backups and reliefs to front-liners. Colonials woould
fill the same role for the reserve units.


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:55:39 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Planetary development  (Was: The Sunbeard Declaration)

>A corrollory of #4 and #5 is that Outsystems will tend to remain
>underdeveloped, as they cannot develop until they are secure, and they are
>not worth securing until they are developed.

I like this... it explains why systems where every planet is developed out
the wazoo.

Now the question is, how does a new colony get started at all?
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:46:23 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

- -----Original Message-----
From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 11:33 PM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added


>
>Thanks, Mike. I will. BTW, what software did you use for your plans?
>
>Eris
>--


Coreldraw 6.

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:58:48 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

- -----Original Message-----
From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Saturday, October 24, 1998 12:10 AM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added


>Michael, they look good and printed out just fine.  It seemed like the size
of the Twain.pdf file went way up, I might be wrong as I was downloading it
through a dialup this time rather than a faster network connection.
>
>Eris

There was some increase to about 652kb, from imbedding the fonts I believe,
still a reasonable size compared to the ~1.5 meg in the original Corel file
and much higher in JPEG formats. I'd really like to suggest .PDF as a
standard, if the Acrobat package wasn't so expensive. I'm a bit luck to have
it available on my work network, so I can dial it up and use it.

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 21:39:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Piper (Murder in the Gunroom)

- ---Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com wrote:
>
> Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:32:28 -0400
> From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
> Subject: Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)
> Hi All,
> 
> Ah hell, here's the whole list AFAIK
> Note the ones without a mark I am actively seeking! Nudge, nudge,
wink,
> wink
> 
> 
> 
> with John J. McGuire
> [ ]  Crisis in 2140 (1957)
> ***************
> this one was published as double with 'Gunner Cade' the book is in a
box at
> home, so I don't know the autor.
> 
> Non-Genre Fiction
> [ ]  Murder in the Gunroom (1953)
> **********
> this is the only one I don't have, anyone have an idea of how to get
one
> (other than get real luck in a used bookshop?
> 
Murder in the Gunroom has been republished. Check Amazon.com to see if
you can still get a copy. 

_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:25:36 -0400
From: "N. Eric Phillips" <stilleon@io.com>
Subject: Re: GT Lasers

- -----Original Message-----
From: David L. Pulver <dlpulver@kos.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 10:46 PM
Subject: GT Lasers


>Yes, if you have a triple laser turret, you may fire all three of the
>lasers, rolling individually to hit, against the same target, at no
>penalty.


And against different targets? Does the -4 apply then?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:26:38 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Old Topics: Aslan Females

Drat, there was a debate on Hot Bi Aslani Babes and I missed it. :o)

Walt Smith

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:03:47 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

Hmm,

how about a "homogeneity" rating in the cultural extension.
High value, and their all the same.
Low value and its the rainbow of cultural, if not also racial, stock.

Bloo

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:14:02 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism

Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> writes:
>Interesting tightrope one must walk to be a pirate. Scary enough
>to cow a merchant captain, but not scary enough to send the
>governor calling for the IN. Effective enough to make a profit,
>minor enough not to be worth the while of a light cruiser. Bold
>enough to take a prize, patient enough to wait for that sliver of
>perfect time when a prize can be taken without too much chance
>of loss..

Callous enough to steal someone's livelihood, tender enough to release
orphans...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:42:26 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re : TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch

Based on an anti-shipping missile design?

Ummm, Ditzie, you _did_ remember to remove the proximity fuse
and detonator, right?

Oh, I see...but you did do more with it than just slap a "For Emergency
Use Only" sticker on it, right?

Walt Smith

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:22:30 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:11:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat
Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> we ran the practice for our PBeM TCS game...here are some conclusions:
Since I wasn't there...is there any log of what happened?
***********
Doh!!

I *knew* there was somthing I had to do befor getting on IRC last
night.....I accidently overwrote my log....maybe hal has a copy...

Hal?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:22:30 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:11:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat
Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> we ran the practice for our PBeM TCS game...here are some conclusions:
Since I wasn't there...is there any log of what happened?
***********
Doh!!

I *knew* there was somthing I had to do befor getting on IRC last
night.....I accidently overwrote my log....maybe hal has a copy...

Hal?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:00:44 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
...
>seen in the time I've been on the list - specifically, trying to get the
>discussion more towards numbers than ideology.

  That's easy enough for you to say, you reactionary capitalist running-
proto-Vargr, you don't have the Vice-Chair waiting to recommend you for
re-education...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:04:14 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: New Deck plans

>>THe PDF file for the Twain Class 200 sdt Free Trader has been added to
>the
>>Jump Point web page. That makes two PDF files, both Free Traders. Take a
>>look and grab the file(s) and let me know what you think.
>>
>>Jump Point can be found at http://users.citnet.com/letterworks
>
>WOW! Now those are deckplans!

The deck plans look great, but theexploded view at the back just has funny
symbols rather than words. Did you include the fonts when you made the
PDF? If not, could you do that next time? (OK, could you do it with these
and repost?)

If you _did_ include the fonts, then I guess I need some help with Acrobat
Reader.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:45:53 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:32:28 -0400
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)
Hi All,

Ah hell, here's the whole list AFAIK
Note the ones without a mark I am actively seeking! Nudge, nudge, wink,
wink



with John J. McGuire
[ ]  Crisis in 2140 (1957)
***************
this one was published as double with 'Gunner Cade' the book is in a box at
home, so I don't know the autor.

Non-Genre Fiction
[ ]  Murder in the Gunroom (1953)
**********
this is the only one I don't have, anyone have an idea of how to get one
(other than get real luck in a used bookshop?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:12:27 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!

I've been making an effort to take the debate in directions I've not
seen in the time I've been on the list - specifically, trying to get the
discussion more towards numbers than ideology.

The sensor discussion spin-off, Oort Clouds, Fleet preparedness
levels, interstellar finance and currency transfer, cold gas thrusters,
SDB design theory, small craft in customs inspection roles...I think
this tired old piracy debate has spun off some very good threads lately.

Walt Smith

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:12:27 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!

I've been making an effort to take the debate in directions I've not
seen in the time I've been on the list - specifically, trying to get the
discussion more towards numbers than ideology.

The sensor discussion spin-off, Oort Clouds, Fleet preparedness
levels, interstellar finance and currency transfer, cold gas thrusters,
SDB design theory, small craft in customs inspection roles...I think
this tired old piracy debate has spun off some very good threads lately.

Walt Smith

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:01:03 -0700
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.

Shade wrote:

> Just to let ya know....  it was established in that " study " that a great
> percentage of Aslan females were lesbian or bisexual.

 Wasn't that the thread that also spawned the pelvic mounted plasma guns?

- --
Ave et vale.
Evyn,
Warleader of the Clan MacDude
Solus Stellamilitia Ludus, 1998 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:40 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

>Most traveller power goes to the drives, so the power radiates
>there. You have to assume that even a t-plate has a hot exhaust, and
>that it takes a lot of the energy with it (that and whatever gravtic
>energy is lost... a good handwave). Th Scout with the drives off
>drops its power by about 100MW.
>

Ok, sounds good, but what is your exhaust?  Very hot H2?

PS: already ate crow on the imaging issue.  Finally got the data I needed to
'see the light' if you'll excuse the pun.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:33:51 EDT
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

In a message dated 10/23/98 9:33:28 AM Pacific Daylight Time, rancke@diku.dk
writes:

<< He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority of
 the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check? Not
 IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out around
 the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't it?
 Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
 reactivate them.
  >>

True; but you don't want them close enough to an unstable border that they
would be vunerable to a raid or shipjacking ala' the Zid Rachele incident at
Lunion (which had a zillion ships orbiting a naval facility, though I think
there were yards insystem)...

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1020
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1021



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

: Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: Efficient 100-D Control
Re: Fighters
Re: The Imperial Navy
re: Piracy Question
Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females
Formal for mass-based jump limits
Formal for mass-based jump limits
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: New Deck plans
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 
Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others
Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: "It Isn't Traveller"
Re: hiding in the Oort cloud
Re: Efficient 100-D Control
Re: Current Tech: Shortstop
Re: Stupidity and piracy
re: Fighters
Re: : Re: The Imperial Fleet
re: Piracy: Cease!
Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: Perpetual Motion

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 01:11:41 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: : Re: The Imperial Fleet

 Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com> wrote:


>It is a shame you were never paid for the article. Perhaps we have
>discovered  new "Canon" of Trav Authors getting screwed.

You mean to support the T4 IG canon that the authors never get paid ;-)

Not funny when you talk to people like Andy Lilly et al. who did a lot of
work getting material out for IG with tight deadlines. And never got paid.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:42:27 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Efficient 100-D Control

Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> wrote:


>For any historically-challenged subscribers to the list, HMS ROYAL OAK
>was sunk in October 1939 by a U-boat (U-39?) that did just that:
>penetrated the main British naval base (Scapa Flow).

I'm sorry. Recent evidence shows that the Royal Oak was scuttled by her
crew to prevent the German U-Boat crew boarding her, stealing her and
obtaining valuable information... ;-)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:57:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: Fighters

Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> *************
> I get: 15+15acc +10comp +2 active sensor +10pd +4rof -39 Range (PD fire may
> only be taken against ramming attempts.) = 17 or less for the first missile
> each additional missile engaged is a further -2 to hit. he does however
> have 3 lasers so can roll 3 times on each attempt.  this gives him
> 17,15,13,11,9,7,5,3,1 that he needs to roll against for point defense...so
> most likely 2-3 missile hits.

That's incorrect.  A single gunner controls a single _turret_.  If he wanted to
fire the three weapons separately (rather than as a battery) he'd be at -4 to
all of them.  He gets one shot, with a +1 for the # of weapons (this is a
problem, it means triple turrets are useless because you get the same bonus
from a double turret, but...)

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:57:41 EDT
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

> >"A numbered fleet, depending on its mission, may have between two and 10
> >squadrons amounting to between 50 and 200 ships."  We're previously told a
> >squadron is 3-10 ships.
> 
> Where? Not previously in that particular essay. Elsewhere we're told that

Yes, *in that particular essay.*  In the header, first paragraph... "At their
lowest level, Imperial ships are organized into squadrons (from three to 10
similar ships)."

> Answer: Yes. Despite what anyone may think, _Striker_ is no less canonical
> than any other official source. And _Striker_, Book 2, p. 38 says:

Striker should be left to it's primary purpose and that's miniatures gaming.
The econ stuff was obviously not throught through the background.  

> Also, the figure is low if compared to the figures that _Trillion Credit
> Squadron_ and _Pocket Empires_ provide. TCS use 5% on the Navy alone, no
> mention of the army; PE figures are fluid, but can reach 20-30% IIRC (I may
> be a bit off here).

IMO, none of those are credible for disecting the economics of the Third
Imperium (or any polity of the OTU).  It's obvious GDW didn't use Striker or
TCS (or anything even remotely resembling Pocket Empires) in creating the
background.  All of them are made to be playable *games* (specificially games
for players to have pet "pocket empires" and polities and go to war w/ each
other) and to not simulate "reality" (such as it is) for the OTU.


Gary

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:57:36 EDT
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: re: Piracy Question

You're right bout Free Traders.  I would think that megacorp freighters would
dominate the X-boat routes everywhere, pretty much, the number and frequency
roughly decreasing as the distance from the Imperial core does.  W/ Free
Traders squeaking by in the cracks.

> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>    Even in the fringes, does anyone hold the existence of any Sunbeards as
> possible?
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Someone think it possible, otherwise there wouldn't be any piracy debates
> going on. I'll bet that even a large fraction of the anti-piracy camp
> will give you "possible". "Common", "practical", or "sensible" would
> be a different matter entirely.

By Sunbeard, I meant career pirate. "Sunbeard, Scourge of Seven Sectors.
Har!" Career meaning like 5+ term pirate.  I find it more than plausible the
odd merchant can't keep up w/ his payments, etc and decides to start preying
on his competitors, (or gets shanghaied), etc. Eventually he either gets
caught, "retires", or gets dead, though, even on the fringe.  And it's more
than possible that megacorporate raiders as well as the possible forces of the
brigandish member-world (soon to be visited by the IN), though the megacorp
raiders are likely to have an "out" in their contract.  To say nothing of the
foreign (Zho, Solomani, etc) raiders who are better described as privateer.
  
Gary

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:04:22 -0700
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females

Walter Smith wrote:

> "_Lesbian Aslan_ Pirates Hurling Near-C Rocks at Kinetic-Kill
> Missile Armed Fighters"
>
> Was there some kind of debate ages ago about Aslan females
> getting tired of babysitting Aslan males and going off on their own
> than I missed?

It was right up there with the K'Kree barbque recipes.
And for the record blackened K'Kree Doesn't require
plasma weapons, but they help.

- --
Ave et vale.
Evyn,
Warleader of the Clan MacDude
Solus Stellamilitia Ludus, 1998 

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:45:06 +0000
From: "Jens Maskus" <Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de>
Subject: Formal for mass-based jump limits

On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:02:37 -0700 (PDT), Anthony Jackson wrote:

>Any opinion on making the jump limit based on object mass, rather than
>diameter?  If you base it on, say, the local tidal strength (rate of change of
>gravitational force) it remains a fixed multiple of radius for objects of
>constant density, and allows resolving questions about jumping near a comet or
>other large gas cloud.
>

Jumplimit 
[AU]=(SQRT(MassTerrstrial*5,9742E024/(0,000025*9,80665/0,0000000000667259)))/14960
0000000


For Terra You must use solar mass in and you will get around 5 AU!

Jens Maskus

Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:45:06 +0000
From: "Jens Maskus" <Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de>
Subject: Formal for mass-based jump limits

On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:02:37 -0700 (PDT), Anthony Jackson wrote:

>Any opinion on making the jump limit based on object mass, rather than
>diameter?  If you base it on, say, the local tidal strength (rate of change of
>gravitational force) it remains a fixed multiple of radius for objects of
>constant density, and allows resolving questions about jumping near a comet or
>other large gas cloud.
>

Jumplimit 
[AU]=(SQRT(MassTerrstrial*5,9742E024/(0,000025*9,80665/0,0000000000667259)))/14960
0000000


For Terra You must use solar mass in and you will get around 5 AU!

Jens Maskus

Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:38 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 08:51 PM 10/22/98 -0400, you wrote:
>
>>A scout ship could not radiate 1MW with a living crew.
>
>Then the ship MUST be doing SOMETHING with the energy besides radiating
>it... because (at least in GT) the power is measured in MW for practically
>everything.
>
>So, therefore, there MUST be some kind of anti-entropic 'miracle heat sink'.
>
>And the whole debate about infrared and sensors has to be re-thought...
>*****
>

Or you have a very vunerable very important 'super heat sink' sticking out
the back of your ship at 20000k/m^2

Or fussion power plant would better than we think.

Or maybe it's cold fussion.

I do not have an answer.  But that high temp. heat vane worries me.  It's to
good a target.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 17:53:37 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans

On 10/23/98 at 09:04 AM,  Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior) said:

>>WOW! Now those are deckplans!

Yeah, Mike, great jobs on them.

>The deck plans look great, but theexploded view at the back just has
>funny symbols rather than words. Did you include the fonts when you
>made the PDF? If not, could you do that next time? (OK, could you do
>it with these and repost?)

>If you _did_ include the fonts, then I guess I need some help with
>Acrobat Reader.

I didn't get them either, so if it's not the fonts, then there's two
of us needing help.  ;->

Michael, could you include the scale for the deckplans.  Are the
squares 1, 1.5 or 2 meters?

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:16:05 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 

bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh) writes:
>>Actually, long-term sensor use (strategic sensors?) woul make a nice
>>addition to the Definative Sensor Rules.
>A week's worth of searching adds about +1 (+0.5 for one-day scans, +0.5 
>because you scan only 30 degree arcs.) (Oops - make that two weeks.) 
>For simplicitly, you could instead assume that the sensor detects
>everyting
>out to (sensitivity+signature)=0.0 with no modifiers if you don't want to
>have
>to roll...

Perfect. Just what I was looking for. Many thanks.

So with one station, it takes about two weeks to scan the sky. A pirate
ship is detectable for about a day every rendezvous, which gives a 1/14
chance of being detected, about a 93% chance of being undetected. For two
rendezvous, the chance of remaining undetected is 93%^2 = 86%, and so on. 
If I've done my math correctly, that means that after ten rendezvous there
is better than a 50% chance that the base has been detected. Hardly a
long-term proposition.

This also has implications for deep-penetration spy bases.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:37:34 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:53:25 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others
> In mail you write:
>
> > What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H. Beam
Piper:
> >
> >       Little Fuzzy
> >       4-Day Planet
> >       Uller Uprising
> >       Space Viking
>
>    The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
>    Fuzzy Sapiens
>    Fuzzies and Other People
>
>
> > There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the top of
my
> > head.
>
> More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
> the moment.
'Federation'?  '4-Day Planet' is bundled up with 'Lone Star Planet' in my
copy.
***************
Also:
 Empire
'The Worlds of H. Beam Piper'
'Paratime'
'Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen'
and the sequels (not by piper) but still good:
Great Kings War and 2 short stories Kalvan Kingmaker and The Seige of
tar-Hostigos

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:39:59 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com> writes:
>Was the Sydkai the Anti-Piracy vessel published in MTJ#3 by several
>authors, one of which was TML's own Rob Prior? I really found that
>vessel to be interesting. I was also disappointed that the illustration
>didn't seem to match the description. I seem to remember a revolving
>small craft loading mechanism but didn't see that the drawing matched.
>As I recall, it was a weak performance design, optimized for duration on
>station.

Design by George MacLure, text be me (Robert Prior), editing by DGP (Joe
or Gary, I think). Given the amount of editing and feedback, the coauthor
status is appropriate. Illustration was down after I wrote my text, and I
was happy enough with it.

The Sydkai was intended to operate for months without resupply. Optimized
is correct -- George optimized that ship down to the cubic metre. We had
noticed that the standard naval designs had short durations and required a
fair amount of logistical support, so we came up with a vessel optimized
for patrolling and sufficiently armed for fighting pirates.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 17:39:58 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller"

On 10/22/98 at 11:19 PM,  "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net> said:

>Heplar may be more realistic, but it meant (IME) PC's taking running
>jumps constantly, and spending about 3 times as long to get to/from
>jump points, and GG's became accessable only via jump, as did the
>outter system. 

>in a T-plate universe, the outer system is still a long trip, but is
>at least doable with standard craft. In a Heplar (which is STILL
>unrealistically efficient, IIRC) universe, a mainworld orbiting a GG
>is barely going to have reasonable travel times in the GG's
>moon-system, and going from planet to planet is much easier by jump
>in most cases.


Stutterwarp. STL only stutterwarp.


Eris,
    the heretic

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 18:29:34 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: hiding in the Oort cloud

On 10/23/98 at 10:16 AM,  bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh) said:

>>So with one station, it takes about two weeks to scan the sky. A pirate
>>ship is detectable for about a day every rendezvous, 

>One can probably think of tricks to make the rendezvous harder to
>detect. For example, put a big honkin tractor (TNE/T4) on the pirate
>base to reel ships in without having them use any of their own
>fuel...

Heck, if the base is on/in a really big ice chunk all the ship has
to do is fire a harpoon attached to a line into the iceball and
either the base or the ship can reel the two together.  No muss, no
fuss, low energy approach.

IMTU, of course, that base has to be near a brown dwarf or gas
giant.

Eris

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:32:17 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: Efficient 100-D Control

SD Mooney wrote:
> 
> Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> wrote:
> 
> >For any historically-challenged subscribers to the list, HMS ROYAL OAK
> >was sunk in October 1939 by a U-boat (U-39?) that did just that:
> >penetrated the main British naval base (Scapa Flow).
> 
> I'm sorry. Recent evidence shows that the Royal Oak was scuttled by her
> crew to prevent the German U-Boat crew boarding her, stealing her and
> obtaining valuable information... ;-)
> 
> Dom
> 
Perhaps so, but exactly what "valuable information" did the Templars
have on board HMS ROYAL OAK? >;-)

<<snip sig file>>

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:53:35 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Current Tech: Shortstop

"David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net> wrote:


>	How many people on the list very deliberately did NOT sign up from
>work, even though that's a more convenient/timely way to participate,
>simply because they didn't want to explain things ...?

Me for one. My employer (Unilever) wouldn't take nicely to the volume of
traffic on this list, so I connect from home.

I know Nick Munn (those TML fogey's around will know the name) doesn't
connect as he works from the UK civil service and they tend to get a little
jumpy about usage, and topics like nukes, sensors, encryption etc. Shame -
I miss some of his comments.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:21:02 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: Stupidity and piracy

Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
> 
> Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> writes:
> 
<<snips own description of fools turning to piracy, based on distorted
accounts of successful pirates>>
> 
> There's no shortage of people willing to try something stupid in order to
> get rich. No argument there. But to rob a bank all you need is a $50 gun
> (or a $5 toy gun). How many stupid fools that owns (or controls) a MCr30
> tool do you think there would be?
> 
Including those ship owners who find themselves facing ship repossession
due to default on the ship mortgage, and crews who think that mutiny and
piracy would, **_in their case_** (the odds being, of course against
them) be more profitable than their current wages, not many.  But a few.

> >Bottom line, IMO:  99.99% of the time, piracy is little more than a
> >quick ticket to the nomination round of the Darwin Award.  However, it's
> >the successful .01% that gets 95% of the publicity, thus attracting more
> >fools (and, admittedly, the occasional genius/lucky fool) to piracy as a
> >way of life.
> 
> With those odds you need 1000 fools with MCr30 tools for each successful
> pirate you get. Just how many successful pirates do you think that would
> make for?
> 
One or two, per sector, per _decade_, pulling off a sufficiently
profitable heist might serve to inspire enough morons to give piracy a
shot.  Most pirates would quickly perish, but one or two _might_ succeed
in a newsworthy heist.  Those who perish quickly still count as pirates
during their (deservedly) short career.

I don't think that piracy (as distinct from commerce raiding,
privateering, etc.) is worth the effort.  I merely point out that, given
the vast number of starships out there in private hands, some folks will
decide that they can beat the odds, and succeed in piracy.  Whether they
succeed or not doesn't keep them from trying.

>       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

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:49:22 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: re: Fighters

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:19:16 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Fighters

Oh goody - a KKM debate to go with the fighter debate and the piracy
debate and the transponder debate...
"if the bloody things get through", of course, is the hard part -
for reasonable laser technology
(let alone the really good lasers in GT or just-plain-T) hitting an
incoming kinetic impact missile is remarkably easy; certainly for the
space/price of a figher you can fit in a point defence laser that
can eat up many many times its weight in impact missiles (at least
in FFS2; but presumably also in GURPS - it'll be interesting to try
this once I get a copy of GURPS.)
*************8
in the practice combat we ran for our TCS campaign, a 200DT SDB was hit by
8 missiles. 4 of them got through the point defense.  the vector was
small(only 3 hexes) and she had heavy armor (IIRC DR4000) so she was only
crippled.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 19:59:34 -0500
From: David Lightfinger <lightfinger@home.com>
Subject: Re: : Re: The Imperial Fleet

SD Mooney wrote:
> 
>  Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com> wrote:
> 
> >It is a shame you were never paid for the article. Perhaps we have
> >discovered  new "Canon" of Trav Authors getting screwed.
> 
> You mean to support the T4 IG canon that the authors never get paid ;-)
> 
> Not funny when you talk to people like Andy Lilly et al. who did a lot of
> work getting material out for IG with tight deadlines. And never got paid.
> 

Unfortunately, this is very common in the industry. I had to wait almost
2 years before Hero Games paid me for the Champions material I had
written for them.

- --David

ps. I will note SJG does NOT follow industry trend, and pays on time.
Thus, you should see more GURPS:Traveller material coming out in their
announcements soon, as some of us old fogeys gear up to put in queries
and proposals to them :-)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:50:37 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Piracy: Cease!

dberry@hooked.net wrote:

>Folks, we go through this every six months.


I disagree - this debate has run at some level for nearly 18 months.... it
just gets more noticeable when Hans and David join in ;-)

>The TML is now swamped by the
>latest incarnation of the Piracy Threads That Would Not Die.  With all
>respect to those involved, nothing is ever going to be agreed to, since the
>final decision is a matter of persoanl gaming taste.  *Both* sides can make
>convincing cases for their sides.
>
>Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?

Yeah... if we must have a re-run, can't we re-open the fighter debate? That
was more fun...

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:58:45 -0400
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

Hi all,

Rob Prior wrote:
> Design by George MacLure, text be me (Robert Prior), editing by DGP (Joe
> or Gary, I think). Given the amount of editing and feedback, the coauthor
> status is appropriate. Illustration was down after I wrote my text, and I
> was happy enough with it.
> 
> The Sydkai was intended to operate for months without resupply. Optimized
> is correct -- George optimized that ship down to the cubic metre. We had
> noticed that the standard naval designs had short durations and required a
> fair amount of logistical support, so we came up with a vessel optimized
> for patrolling and sufficiently armed for fighting pirates.

Don't get me wrong I liked the illustration well enough, I just couldn't
see where the revolving loader was loacated. Ever do deck plans for that
thing? :^>

It is a shame you were never paid for the article. Perhaps we have
discovered  new "Canon" of Trav Authors getting screwed.

Bye all

Glenn

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:05:16 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion

>From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
>Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
...
>The solutions are:
>
>1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
>realistic sensor rules.

  This may not be that much of a problem for HG/Striker: 1 HG EP is 252MW
from Striker (@TL F, 14m^3 of fuser gets 6mw/cube x3 for volume efficiency
for 18 ea., or 252 total). Later you start to realize that energy weapons
are assumed to be firing continuously throughout every second of a combat
turn (and presumably so with spacecraft?) even though beam lasers only have
+2 to hit over a low ROF large bore CPR gun (and +1 of that should be long-
range accuracy over ballistic rounds).

  Thus, you could probably reduce fusion plant output by 75% and reduce
energy weapon ROF by a similar degree without too much difficulty. This
also makes batteries that much more practical for use in HG.

        Steven Hudson

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1021
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1022



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Freelance Traveller
Re: GT transponders
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 
Re: Fighters
Re: Sten
Re: Mutiny
Done to Death (was Thank You)
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud
Radiators
Re: Transponder's true nature
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Where's Lucan?
Re: Jump Signature (was: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud)
The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)
Re: Mutiny 
Re: GT Lasers
Re: SFB, automation, stuff
Imperial fleet stations

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:53:22 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Re: Freelance Traveller

On Thu, 22 Oct 1998 22:01:24 -0400, Fred and Evelyn Wolke
<thewolkes@earthlink.net> wrote:

>>(3) May I have a copy of the completed article (if it's going to
>>be completed) for Freelance Traveller?

>PMI, but what is Freelance Traveller?

Freelance Traveller is 
(1) My web site 
(2) A resource for Traveller players and referees 
(3) A webzine for Traveller players and referees 
(4) Fan-supported - If fans don't write and send me stuff,
Freelance Traveller doesn't survive 
(5) Located at http://www.tightbeam.com/FreelanceTraveller and
mirrored at http://w3.execnet.com/jeffz (although the mirror will
be moving soon).  Why not give it a visit?
(6) Highly acclaimed (but only by those who think highly of it)
(7) All of the above - this ain't a multiple choice question!
- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:41:21 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

> ***************I'M OVER HERE!!!!!********************LOOK AT
>ME!!!!!!!!!!!!*******************.
>
>if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
anything there.
**************
that is about all they do say...they come sealed, with regeistry info, but
the destination info is input by the ships navegator.


If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
out.
*****************
even better to just turn it off, having your transponder picked up will
result in a +4 to scan you with other systems, and if you don't match......

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:50:23 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

- -----Original Message-----
From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans



>I didn't get them either, so if it's not the fonts, then there's two
>of us needing help.  ;->
>
>Michael, could you include the scale for the deckplans.  Are the
>squares 1, 1.5 or 2 meters?
>
>Eris


Ok, I've revised the fonts and attempted to imbed them. I've also added the
scale, 1.5 m per square (I'm a traditionalist when it comes to deck plans).
Any way, please try the files again and let me know it they work all right.
I tried them on my lap top and they showed up alright on it so I hope
they'll be ok.

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:45:31 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 

> > From: Keven R. Pittsinger <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> > > > > Yeah, now somebody tell Bruce *who* plays Al Bester on B5. I
> haven't
> > > > > got the heart. ;->
> > > > Walter Koenig.  Doesn't ring a bell?  Try 'Ensign Chekov(TM)' from
> 'That
> > > > Nameless Paramount/Desilu Sci Fi Hack of Wagon Train(TM)' circa 1964.
> > > > <grin>
> > > You forgot the cheesy movies as well...  Circa 1980s & early 1990s...
> > Good thing you didn't *name* 'em, you'd have to (TM) them.  <ducking>
> 
> Why name them?  While they were watchable, they are not standards of movie
> making...

Cause Paramount trademarked them.  Wouldn't wanna get in trouble now, would we?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:10:30 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Fighters

Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> *************

> I get: 15+15acc +10comp +2 active sensor +10pd +4rof -39 Range (PD fire may
> only be taken against ramming attempts.) = 17 or less for the first missile
> each additional missile engaged is a further -2 to hit. he does however
> have 3 lasers so can roll 3 times on each attempt.  this gives him
> 17,15,13,11,9,7,5,3,1 that he needs to roll against for point defense...so
> most likely 2-3 missile hits.
Note that if you increase the number of lasers and missile proportionally
the lasers pull ahead (since each laser can engage each missile, albeit
at the increasing minuses...) If you manage the sequences right, X 
laser turrets will pretty much always stop 2*X missiles...

Anthony writes:
>That's incorrect.  A single gunner controls a single _turret_.  If he wanted to
>fire the three weapons separately (rather than as a battery) he'd be at -4 to
>all of them.  He gets one shot, with a +1 for the # of weapons (this is a
>problem, it means triple turrets are useless because you get the same bonus
>from a double turret, but...)
Is this really the way triple turrets work? This needs to be clarified.
I assumed that if a single gunner fires all three lasers in a triple
turret he/she made a to-hit roll independently, with no modifiers, for
each. Otherwise (as you note) triple turrets are near-useless.

Bruce

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:36:10 -0400
From: "Jeff/Michelle Norton" <jmnorton@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Sten

    The first 5 books were good. My step-dad gave me The Wolf Worlds to read
one boring summer day WAAAAY back in the early eighties. Read it in two
days, then, reread what I rushed through... Kids will be kids...
    The only cool things about the series were:
    1) How Sten started off on Vulcan, and , got that neat crystal and
formed it into that wicked knife. Just wonder where I could find some of
that crystal...
    2) Alex Killgore's brogue and how it cut in-and-out at unusual times.
The jokes were the worst, except the one about the 'wee snakes'
    3) Also, Killgore being from a heavy-g world.
    4) The Emperor, in the first few books was unusual for a regent
    5) And, of course, AM2 (Wonder if the 3I has any of this stuff...)

    I'm not sure, but the war in the middle books were based on WW2. I
thought that was the basis. Seemed too much a coincidence. Though, the book
on the POW camp read like the Colditz Story/ Great Escape...

    Simple observations from a fan.

    Jeff Norton

    The Calgary doesn't always come to the rescue...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:31:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Re: Mutiny

Another case for mutiny is the "political" mutiny. The most obvious ones
were during the civil war period, where a fleet commander aims for the
iridium throne, but I suspect that some might take place within colonial
or planetary navies. Not all those non-charismatic oligarchies or
dictators or theocrats got their jobs by election, and not all
democracies or bureacracies are stable ones. People usually think of "army
coups" but there is no reason they can't happen in the navy. I expect
there are a few backwater worlds where coups and counter-coups may result
in divided crews. The captain supports the new regime, his first officer
is a loyalist, and so on -- an attempt at peacefully sequestering the
other side fails, and fighting rages through the ship -- and maybe even
several ships in a particular squadron. This would make a good scenario,
actually.

It could also justify an interesting kind of pirate: some of the ships on
the losing side (if they have jump drive) might decline to surrender or
fight to the finish, and instead depart for a life of crime to support
themselves in the hopes of an eventual return. Remember, it ain't just
Vargr who have coups...

- -David

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:46:03 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Done to Death (was Thank You)

Leo Hale wrote: (re Andrew Moffatt-Vallance's post on the Luriani)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I do not have a filter option, so I am forced to see every single post made
to the list.  Piracy, Sensors, Transponders, & Fleet sizes are all subjects
that have been worked to death.  It was very refreshing to find a post with
both fore thought and solid work involved.  Again thank you.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Seems we have a call here for less debate, more Library Data.

There must be an alien race around my filing cabinet somewhere
that I haven't posted to the list yet...

But seriously...someone mentioned that the re-debate of old topics
may be a good sign, possible evidence of new blood on the list. I would
agree quite a bit - there have actually been a couple of debates I've
missed all together, though I'll restrain myself from even mentioning
them lest I run the risk of starting them again...

(I suppose it wouldn't be a good idea to tell Leo that the post he liked
so much - "fore thought and solid work" - is pretty much a repost of
work long in progress, rather than something newer than the debates
that have become so old to him?  <G> )

Walt Smith

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:48:33 PDT
From: "John Lambert" <hovtej@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud

I just rejoined the TML after a long absence and got in on the middle of 
the discussion of finding ships in the Oort Cloud. 

Most of the calculations appear to be assuming that all of the energy is 
radiated uniformly in all directions from the hull in the form of heat. 
As has been pointed out, the energy has to go somewhere, but there are 
other ways of getting rid of it. One approach would be to convert the 
heat to another form of energy, say laser light or microwaves, that 
could be directed outward into interstellar space. The process would not 
be 100% efficient, but should reduce the signature of the ship 
significantly as seen from inside the solar system. Another ship further 
out passing through the radiated beam, however, would see a tremendous 
signature. A starting guess would be that, with improved technologies, 
90% or more of a ship's excess energy could be beamed away from the 
inner solar system. This would be a form of stealth and would require 
special equipment.

Since very few ships spend much time outside of the Oort cloud, it would 
be very unlikely that the beamed energy would be detected. 

Glad to be back on the TML!
Later,
John Lambert

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:19:30 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Radiators

>4) Assume a higher power plant efficency or cold fussion power plants.
>Everything else stays the same and no need for monster radiaters.
Cold fusion is actually worse for percentage of waste energy than hot
fusion (basic thermodynamics.) 

To go with higher power plant efficiency (and the TL13-15
power plants in FFS2 are already up at about 99%), 
you also have to assume that all devices on the ship are very efficient-
that none of the power that goes into your maneuver drive, for example,
comes out as heat. (Since maneuver drives already create energy, maybe
this isn't a bad assumption.) You need superconducting cables everywhere,
etc...

One certainly can assume that the power plant radiators run at lower 
levels most of the time - non-combat, or landing, for example. One 
could also assume that they include air-cooling modes for operating in
an atmosphere (so you don't bake everyone below you...just blow very 
hot air above you.) (Another reason for ships to still use the 
"blast pits" seen on old starport maps...) 

Another way to get rid of excess heat would be to vent very very very
hot plasma (accounting for CT-style fuel consumption for power plants),
but that makes you incredibly easy to detect, since you can't 
baffle the plasma.

I think (in my Copious Spare Time) I may work on the "Conservative
Sensor Rules" - a rules set that assumes (somehow) lower total heat
production, and that sensor technology develops more slowly...

Bruce

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:42:14 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Transponder's true nature

  They complain that they don't want to discuss piracy? Well, we can
make them regret _that_ :>  *

>From: "Andy Akins" <igor@ames.net>
>Subject: Re: Transponder's true nature
...
>> Infection was
>> also made easy by computer control of tight-beam commo.
...
>I have no problem with  Deyo equipped ships infecting other Deyo equipped
>ships and equipment...I can handwave that away. But I can't rationalize Deyo
>being able to attack and usurp any computer system, Deyo or no. Just doesn't
>work for me. YYMV.

I had a dicsussion this summer with a TML'er where we sort of agreed that:
  - we could deal with transmissions activating other SDG transponders.
  - it was internally consistent for "Virus" to spread itself physically
by etching additional circuitry to reach another system (see A:13 /GK).
  - it made no sense whatever for Virus to spread via fiber-optic lines
or broadcast transmissions to non-SDG components.
  : therefore, if common Imperial comp tech used linkages through which
Virus could physically spread, then that should have been stated.

  IIRC, neither of used Virus (or played TNE).

        Steven Hudson

  * - sorry - my "Leroy" file ready racks are empty...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:30:54 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>A space ship doesn't have a planet for a heat sink, every joule it
>absorbs or produces has to go somewhere. It either raises the internal
>energy (temperature) of the ship, or is radiated into space. The
>energy going into the system, from every source, has to balance with
>the energy within it or radiated out. So, if you produce internally,
>or absorb externally, 100 joules per second then your local system
>will either radiate away 100 joules per second or increase in internal
>temperature until, eventually, whatever heat sink you have in the
>local system is overloaded and the energy radiates away. At no point
>will the the energy produced/absorbed not be balanced with the energy
>of the system minus any it radiates away.

For reference:

My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
are really hot!  After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)

The solutions are:

1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
realistic sensor rules.

2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.

3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
mechanism).

Possibly we should have a new geek code?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:33:20 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

steve daniels wrote:
> 
> Jeff Zeitlin wrote:
> 
> > Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
> > - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
> > States since the mid-1980s.
> 
> The what?!  I was raised in Texas and now live in Boston.
> Both with large Latino communities, to say the least,
> and I haven't noticed any change but for the positive in
> the last 30 years.
>

Actually, I think he's referring to the growing anti-immigration (legal
and otherwise) sentiment, which is most often aimed at Latinos as the
most obvious, and most mentioned in the press. This is in contrast to
the _true_ situation...in NYC one of the largest groups of illegal
aliens are Irish. More to the point, it is disproportionately latinos
who are stopped and interrogated as to their citizenship status...I have
known people who were told they should carry their birth certificates
with them so they don't get deported. Deported to where I don't know,
since they were born here, like their parents were...

ObTrav: This is actually a great example of xenophobia rating in
action:"They look different, they talk funny, they must be ________
(fib)"

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:49:42 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Where's Lucan?

Gary (TravelrTNE@aol.com) writes:

>>And there is one person it is even more odd wasn't informed: Dulinor! D. has
>>met the real Strephon many times. What are the odds that he is not going to
>>detect the imposture after a few minutes' talk? Not good. And he has grown
> 
>He didn't get to talk to him IIRC.

Yes, but the Grand Chamberlain or whatever the master of ceremonies is called
could hardly have expected that, now could he? As far as he is concerned,
Dulinor has asked for a formal meeting with the Emperor, precisely one where
it would be inappropiate to use a substitute. The Emperor is unavailable. A
few minutes after the meeting starts Dulinor can be expected to realize that
he is not facing the Emperor. Wouldn't you have told him in advance and
most humbly begged his pardon? I would.

OH, I forget, the Grand Chamberlain was not informed. (In fact, no one appears
to know that the impostor is missing from his usual appartment either). I
guess Iolanthe went to fetch the stand-in himself. Well, substitute Iolanthe
for the Grand Chamberlain in the argument above.


      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: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:23:55 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Jump Signature (was: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud)

>I like this idea. Could we assume that unbaffled drives are fairly bright,
>getting brighter with age? "Jumpflash baffles" are extra equipment that
>reducing the signature of the flash. (Let the gearheads define the
>performance parameters.) 
>
>As to jump signature, treat that like sonar signatures now: it takes a
>skilled professional to discriminate. Most civilians won't even know how,
>because they don't need to know, while experienced navy sensor ops can
>sometimes tell you not only who you are but what brand of parts you used
>in your last overhaul.
>
>In game terms:
>
>To identify a ship from its jump signature
>Edu + Sensor Ops > Impossible
>This task is one to two levels easier if the operator is familiar with the
>target, one level more difficult of the operator has _not_ had military
>training or experience.

Something else to consider is that there are presently computerised sonar
analysis programs... I was thinking more along the lines of a database of
registered starships, and their jump signatures.  Of course, this adds a
lot to the xboat traffic, but there you go...
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 13:59:46 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:35:38 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Charles R Hensley writes:
>Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
>

Again, I'll grant you that. Now tell me, if the colonial spacemen serve the
same number of years and get the same training as Imperial spacemen, how
can
this be true?
***********
they don't see as much combat.




Some subsector fleets ARE exactly as the description has it, composed of
obsolescent IN castoffs. The Duke of Lunion, for example, would be happy to
buy obsolescent IN ships, because the best he can procure locally is TL 13
(I still think he'd buy some local TL 13 designs, but maybe not). And dukes
of subsectors with TL 14 high-pop planets would still be interested in IN
TL 15 retirees. Even dukes with TL 15 planets would buy _some_ ships from
the IN. And those are the ships the public hears about. "DELPHINE BUYS
CLUNKERS! BUY LOCAL, SAYS UNION BOSS!!!" the headlines of the opposition
press and the yellow press will say, forgetting to mention that she is only
buying a few clunkers and many local ships.
****************
Agreed



He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority of
the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check? Not
IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out
around
the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't it?
Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
reactivate them.
**************
it does make sens form a security standpoint,....if they are all in one
area less chance of theft or sabotage.........

same argument used for keeping all the planes togerther at pearl harbor.

:)

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:56:41 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

From:           	CardSharks@aol.com
Date sent:      	Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:14:14 EDT

>In a message dated 10/23/98 11:05:01 AM Central Daylight Time,
>a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:

><< The Luriani

>Most people reading this will say "Huh?" because they aren't working from or
>consulting the Minor Race Generation Tables.

I dont think so, you're underestimating the quality of your own work :*>.

One of the things that struck me when I first saw your minor race generation 
tables was the utter logical nature of them. Your tables are pretty much self 
explanatory. The only thing I can't figure out is what are "components". Its not 
immediately obvious and I can't find it explained in the text anywhere. The other 
thing that could cause confusion is the Caste "Sport". Its not defined in the text 
and to a neophile I'd imagine it would conjure up images of professional 
atheletes ("hey now theres a race that has a distinct biological gender devoted 
to sports"). but other than that the Minor Race Generation tables are fairly 
much self explanatory.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:57:06 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Mutiny 

> 
> Another case for mutiny is the "political" mutiny. The most obvious ones
> were during the civil war period, where a fleet commander aims for the
> iridium throne, but I suspect that some might take place within colonial
> or planetary navies. Not all those non-charismatic oligarchies or
> dictators or theocrats got their jobs by election, and not all
> democracies or bureacracies are stable ones. People usually think of "army
> coups" but there is no reason they can't happen in the navy. I expect
> there are a few backwater worlds where coups and counter-coups may result
> in divided crews. The captain supports the new regime, his first officer
> is a loyalist, and so on -- an attempt at peacefully sequestering the
> other side fails, and fighting rages through the ship -- and maybe even
> several ships in a particular squadron. This would make a good scenario,
> actually.
> 
> It could also justify an interesting kind of pirate: some of the ships on
> the losing side (if they have jump drive) might decline to surrender or
> fight to the finish, and instead depart for a life of crime to support
> themselves in the hopes of an eventual return. Remember, it ain't just
> Vargr who have coups...

Somebody did something like that earlier in the summer.  Pretty cool post, IIRC.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:20:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Re: GT Lasers

> And against different targets? Does the -4 apply then.

If you fire against three different targets, yes. If you target one laser
against one target and two against the other, it would drop to -2, etc.

You could say this simulates running your Multi-Target program instead of
your Predict (CT computer rules reference).

[Sometime we'll have to include stats for Anti-Hijack in GT, I suppose...]

- -David

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:39:20 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: SFB, automation, stuff

>Subject: Re: SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)
...
>Good point and one that I will consede too.  A ship in this situation would
>be foolish not to have the best gunner programs money can buy.

  Perhaps only if the IN doesn't believe in "lowest bid wins" procurement :>

...
>If the attacker speed is high (.5c) then 3 seconds is about all the warning
...

  Wouldn't it be simpler to use your near-C crowbars against the local
naval base instead? :>  I'm not going to touch relativistic stuff in
this thread - see the drives discussion.
  
...
>>  I doubt that most campaigns (CT/HG) would allow merchants to buy missile
>>bays, PA barbettes, and meson guns.
>
>True but what about mercinary companies?  Where do pirates start any way?

  A common theory is that mercenary companies with the correct licences
could use higher-end gear - not unreasonably given the Imperial tendency
to use them as low political cost proxies within the 3I itself.

  As for pirates, to a large extent it's relative armament that counts -
a knife is enough when your target has only a sweaty brow...

>But that is mute.  The sensor discussion did it for me. 
/.../ Pirate don't work in defended systems.

  Actually, I suspect that it would be very hard to build a system with
anything like near-universal fast response defenses, unless it had very
few traffic nexi to protect, or very large resources. So, while a Pop 7
mainworld may be effectively inviolable the outer system defenses amy be
quite porous - which would make a good case for not using starships for
certain commercial missions.

  Likewise, a Jump from the (safe) mainworld to a large and well-protected
facility not within a 100-D effect would be quite safe.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:15:49 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Imperial fleet stations

Gary (TravelrTNE@aol.com) writes:

>It's clear that regular fleets are being alluded to.  Of the fleets, mentioned
>as belonging to the Corridor Fleet, three of these are Fornast (A ,B, and E).
>The 41st is in Zarushagar/A.  It seems to be an error.  Besides Corridor Fleet
>has 16 numbered fleets (in 9 subsectors), not 4.  My bet is someone goofed.

So is mine. All I said was that the evidence is conflicting.
 
>It would be easy for me to assume this is one more error of which MT was
>replete.

As a matter of curiosity I sat down and made a list of the fleets from the
map in _Rebellion_. As it is 320 lines long I won't post it, but anyone
who wants a copy can just e-mail me for it.
Summary: The following fleets are not shown on the map: 77th, 118th, 131st,
189th, 256th, 274th, 303rd, 315th, 316th, 317th, 318th, 319th, 320th.

Ignoring the four fleets mentioned in the text as constituting the Corridor
Fleet (presumably erroneously), the following fleet numbers are duplicated:
108th, 128th, 179th, 193th, 212th, 213th (triplicated!), 214th, 255th, 260th.

Also there are a number of subsectors with a sliver of Imperial worlds in them
that does not have fleets assigned, some of the slivers quite as big as those
of some subsectors that do have fleets. I didn't list them or try to go
deeper into that.


      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

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1022
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1023



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

The Sunbeard Declaration
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
re: Fighters
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Stupidity and piracy
Re: Piracy
Re: The colonial fleets
re: Fighters
Re: Piracy
Re: Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV 
Re: Travellerish fiction 
Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:49:06
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: The Sunbeard Declaration

I think we have the framework of a deal on the Great TML Piracy debate of
1997-8.

#1 : Mainworlds with either signifigant trade or signifigant economies can
and will defend their space out to about their 100 diameter limits.

#2 : These defenses will make piracy in and around mainworlds unprofitable.

#3 : These defenses do not extend to the entire system.

#4 : Most career pirates concentrate on the unsafe outsystems.

#5 : Shippers apply risk premiums to trade with either unsafe systems or
outsystems.

#6 : Merchant ships specialising in trading in unsafe areas tend to be
heavily armed

#7 : Merchant ships specialising in trading in safe areas tend to be
lightly armed or unarmed

#8 : The best markets for stolen starships and cargos are in other states,
however unsafe areas will buy commodities they know to be stolen at heavily
discounted rates

#9 : Pirate ships will tend to be converted merchants, as unsafe areas tend
not to be profitable enough to justify custom-built warships. Safe areas
tend to be too dangerous for even custom built warships to operate in for
long enough to defray their build costs. Pirate warships may exist from
mutinous or rebel crews.

A corrollory of #4 and #5 is that Outsystems will tend to remain
underdeveloped, as they cannot develop until they are secure, and they are
not worth securing until they are developed.

Now, are all the principals of the GPD happy with this so we can put this
in the FAQ ?

Ian Whitchurch

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:38:13 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

At 18:31 22/10/98 -0700, David P. Summers wrote:
>Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:39:19 -0400, "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
>
>>Which brings up the question to me, why don't our fighters, heavy or
>>otherwise have enough firepower to knock out a capitol ship?  Seems to me
>>that we should have equivalent weapons in the Trav era that are available to
>>carriers/fighters today.
>
>Why?  Just because weapons are leading over armor today doesn't mean this
>should
>always hold.

I read (I forget where) a theory that naval military technology since the
end of the classic period has been driven by the quest to find a decisive
ship sinking weapon like the ram was in the heyday of the trireme. The
argument is that until the invention of workable explosive shells ships
didn't get sunk (to all intents and purposes) in combat, instead after
hours of bettering they became incapable of resisting boarding parties.
Note that aside from subs and aircraft WWI and WWII BBs were in a similar
situation, though they did tend to sink in the end. Given that this state
of affiars lasted for over 1500 years, I can see no reason why it shouldn't
be able to exist in the far future.

IMO one problem Traveller ship combat has is that people want the feeling
that you get having mighty ship pounding away at each other like a WWI
slugfest, but they also want the quick thrill of the cat and mouse game of
fire and maneuver and these are two fairly incompatible desires.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:08:00 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Fighters

>"if the bloody things get through", of course, is the hard part - 
>for reasonable laser technology
>(let alone the really good lasers in GT or just-plain-T) hitting an
>incoming kinetic impact missile is remarkably easy; certainly for the
>space/price of a figher you can fit in a point defence laser that
>can eat up many many times its weight in impact missiles (at least
>in FFS2; but presumably also in GURPS - it'll be interesting to try
>this once I get a copy of GURPS.) 
>
>Bruce
>


Gurps is pretty much the same.  With a good gunners and tageting software
it's 1 laser one dead missle per turn.  The only way to get misile hits is a
large salvo that closes fast enough to overwhelm the defenses.  It is doable
but not very cost effective.  Those misiles are pricy.

Sorry have to make some corrections.   I missed some things in sidebars ect.

I have my book with me so I looked it up.  I was just reading the space
combat section when this came up.

Do to turn limits in the combat situation you have to shoot a ship or a
missle but not both with each laser.  A scout with one triple laser turret
fired on by 9 missles from 2 seconds out will be hit by three missles if the
gunners involved do not miss.

1st second shoot three misiles: gunner skill 15 (above average professional)
+ 15 accuacy (limited to gunner shill) +4 aiming +10 computer (very good
comp.) +2 active sensor +4 rof =50 - 41 for range 1 = 9  You must role less
the 9 on three d6 but 17 and 18 always fail.

I assume here that you hit.

2nd second shoot three missles and get hit by the other three. range 0 role
to hit = 21  (including a +10 for point defense bonus and shorter range)

3 missles hit if misile gunner roles his success number for colition damage
plus explosion

missile cost 22kcr each.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:08:09 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

At 09:30 AM 10/23/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>>A space ship doesn't have a planet for a heat sink, every joule it
>>absorbs or produces has to go somewhere. It either raises the internal
>>energy (temperature) of the ship, or is radiated into space. The
>>energy going into the system, from every source, has to balance with
>>the energy within it or radiated out. So, if you produce internally,
>>or absorb externally, 100 joules per second then your local system
>>will either radiate away 100 joules per second or increase in internal
>>temperature until, eventually, whatever heat sink you have in the
>>local system is overloaded and the energy radiates away. At no point
>>will the the energy produced/absorbed not be balanced with the energy
>>of the system minus any it radiates away.
>
>For reference:
>
>My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
>should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
>are really hot!  After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
>statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
>catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
>repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)
>
>The solutions are:
>
>1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
>realistic sensor rules.
>
>2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.
>
>3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
>maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
>mechanism).
>

4) Assume a higher power plant efficency or cold fussion power plants.
Everything else stays the same and no need for monster radiaters.

>Possibly we should have a new geek code?
>

Maybe.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:42:18 -0400
From: "Dan Eveland" <develand@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

How does the space shuttle handle heat build-up?

Dan


- -----Original Message-----
From: Rob Prior <Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 12:20 PM
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)


>Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>>A space ship doesn't have a planet for a heat sink, every joule it
>>absorbs or produces has to go somewhere. It either raises the internal
>>energy (temperature) of the ship, or is radiated into space. The
>>energy going into the system, from every source, has to balance with
>>the energy within it or radiated out. So, if you produce internally,
>>or absorb externally, 100 joules per second then your local system
>>will either radiate away 100 joules per second or increase in internal
>>temperature until, eventually, whatever heat sink you have in the
>>local system is overloaded and the energy radiates away. At no point
>>will the the energy produced/absorbed not be balanced with the energy
>>of the system minus any it radiates away.
>
>For reference:
>
>My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
>should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
>are really hot!  After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
>statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
>catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
>repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)
>
>The solutions are:
>
>1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
>realistic sensor rules.
>
>2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.
>
>3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
>maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
>mechanism).
>
>Possibly we should have a new geek code?
>

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:26:19 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Stupidity and piracy

Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> writes:

>My view exactly (referring to piracy being neither practical nor
>sensible).  I would, however, point out that piracy, like trying to
>become a professional athlete to get out of poverty, need not be
>profitable _on average_.  It must only be _thought_ to be profitable to
>occur.  For every John Dillinger, there are countless unsuccessful bank
>robbers.  It's the Dillingers that get the publicity, thus creating in
>some minds the impression that a career as a bank robber is a fine
>idea.  The thought of getting something for nothing is quite attractive,
>and I can see some ships' crews (and even some heavily-in-debt ships'
>owners) concluding that piracy would be an easy way to make a fast MCr
>or 20.  Add in the occasional story about some pirate pulling off some
>incredible stunt, with a gigacredit or two lost to this pirate, and you
>have the recipe for some truly stupid behavior.  (Including [or
>especially] on the part of PCs....)

There's no shortage of people willing to try something stupid in order to
get rich. No argument there. But to rob a bank all you need is a $50 gun
(or a $5 toy gun). How many stupid fools that owns (or controls) a MCr30
tool do you think there would be?

>Bottom line, IMO:  99.99% of the time, piracy is little more than a
>quick ticket to the nomination round of the Darwin Award.  However, it's
>the successful .01% that gets 95% of the publicity, thus attracting more
>fools (and, admittedly, the occasional genius/lucky fool) to piracy as a
>way of life.

With those odds you need 1000 fools with MCr30 tools for each successful
pirate you get. Just how many successful pirates do you think that would
make for?


      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: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:53:53 -0400
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy

- -----Original Message-----
From: Joseph R. Dietrich <yikes@evansville.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Thursday, October 22, 1998 10:51 AM
Subject: Re: Piracy


>>>>The reserve fleets will be next to useless for anti piracy as they are
>>>>manned by reservists and thus spend most of their time in orbit around
>>>>the high tech, high population worlds in the subsector they are
assigned.
>>>
>>>This is a totally unwarranted assumption. Nowhere in the rules do I find
>>>any support for the idea that the colonial fleets and the system defense
>>>forces are not trained to the same standard as the regular navy. [...]
>>
>>FSotSI pg 6 [...]
>
>[snip of references]
>
>>I believe this implies that reserve and colonial units are not as well
>>equipped or trained as Regular fleets.
>
>"Not as well equipped or trained" does not mean "next to useless for anti
>piracy." If the difference is TL 14 BBs v. TL 15 BBs (or cruisers, or
>whatever), then I would say that the Colonial fleets are more than adequate
>to deal with pirates. After all, Defense CruRon Regina (the SDB example in
>_FSSI_) is a *CruRon*.
>
>Nor are reservist or colonial units necessarily incompetent, which is what
>the first statement above implies. They are simply not front-line units.
>"Somewhat less training and experience" could be Gunnery 3 instead of
>Gunnery 4, for example.
>
>Joseph R. Dietrich

I think that you misunderstood what he was saying.  Reservists by nature are
NOT out in the space lanes in their ships.  An example of Reserve activity
would be that they meet one weekend a month and go active for two weeks in
the summer.  This would then cause one to believe that the ships of the
Reserve Fleet are ALMOST moth-balled and would take some time to bring
on-line.  Reservists routinely take they active duty period fixing up there
"vehicles" and training to maintain their standards for going to war.  You
would see the occasional Reserve Ship out and about just so they can blow
the cob webs out.  Think for a minute, if you are only on active duty for
two weeks and a jump takes one week then you would only be able to take your
ship out and right back and be done for the year.

Thom Harris

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 21:11:46 -0500
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets

Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:

<snip>>FSotSI pg 6
>>"The primary activity a reserve fleet undertakes is training."
>
>Heh. That could also mean that they are in better training than the
idle,
>slothful Imperial Navy ;-). But OK, I'll give you that. Only, whare
does
>it say that the training takes place in orbit around the high
population
>worlds?

I based my statement on US Reservists, i.e. 1 weekend a month and 2
weeks a year.
at this rate the ships would not be able to leave orbit and get the
crews back to thier regular jobs in time.  If the reserves work
differently IYTU then I made a bad assumption.

<snip>
>So it says. But does it make sense? Try this little thought experiment:

<snip good explination>
>Some subsector fleets ARE exactly as the description has it, composed
of
>obsolescent IN castoffs. The Duke of Lunion, for example, would be
happy to
>buy obsolescent IN ships, because the best he can procure locally is TL
13
>(I still think he'd buy some local TL 13 designs, but maybe not). And
dukes
>of subsectors with TL 14 high-pop planets would still be interested in
IN
>TL 15 retirees. Even dukes with TL 15 planets would buy _some_ ships
from
>the IN. And those are the ships the public hears about. "DELPHINE BUYS
>CLUNKERS! BUY LOCAL, SAYS UNION BOSS!!!" the headlines of the
opposition
>press and the yellow press will say, forgetting to mention that she is
only
>buying a few clunkers and many local ships.

well I cannot argue your logic here (including the snipped part)

<snip>
>>I would say this is both combatants and non-combatants, thus the
average
>>31.25 combatants per fleet would be a good number.
>
>For reasons I've stated in my reply to Gary, I disagree.

well IMTU i will disagree with you

<snip>
>He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority
of
>the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check?
Not
>IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out
around
>the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't
it?
>Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
>reactivate them.

I think we are talking different time frames.  and I agree that one
depot per domain is poor planning

Charles

BTW I am getting out of these discussions due to a lack of time and it
requires economic knowledge I don't have.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 13:47:15 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: re: Fighters

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:45:22 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Fighters


Gurps is pretty much the same.  With a good gunners and tageting software
it's 1 laser one dead missle per turn.  The only way to get misile hits is
a
large salvo that closes fast enough to overwhelm the defenses.  It is
doable
but not very cost effective.  Those misiles are pricy.
*****************
I agreee about the chances to hit,  in the game we ran one turret stopped 4
missiles (but 4 more got through)

I have my book with me so I looked it up.  I was just reading the space
combat section when this came up.
Do to turn limits in the combat situation you have to shoot a ship or a
missle but not both with each laser.
************
GT 169  a weapon may be fired in point defense even it it engaged another
target in the direct fire phase.



1st second shoot three misiles  (likely but not curtain)  gunner skill 15 +
15 accuacy +4 aiming +10 computer (very good comp.) +2 active sensor +10
defensive fire  +4 rof =60 - 41 for range 1 = 19  You must role less the 21
on three d6 but 17 and 18 always fail.
*************
I get: 15+15acc +10comp +2 active sensor +10pd +4rof -39 Range (PD fire may
only be taken against ramming attempts.) = 17 or less for the first missile
each additional missile engaged is a further -2 to hit. he does however
have 3 lasers so can roll 3 times on each attempt.  this gives him
17,15,13,11,9,7,5,3,1 that he needs to roll against for point defense...so
most likely 2-3 missile hits.


With this you can have a 10 or less to kill a missle at 30 hexes.
*****************888
the TL 12 lasers only have a range of 8 hexes.


 The
problem is how fast are the misile moving 1g = 1 hex per second
********************
per turn...not per second (turns are 20 min long)




3 missles hit if missle gunner role his success number.
***************
it is actually a contest of skills for the pilot of the ship and the
missile gunner this hapens before PD fire, and missile that miss can be
ignored for that turn (they may have enough Dv to loop around and come
back).


**********8
what Charles neglects to mention is the effects of velocity on damage...if
there is only a modest vector differnce between the ship and the missile
(say 5 hexes) even one can do massive damage to a scout....

the missile (best case only one gets through) will do 6dx500 (5). the scout
has DR 200, so effective DR is 40....assuming average damage for the
missile 3.5*6*500=10,500 -40 = 10,460. the scout has 15,000 Hp and so will
take 6 critical hits (6 rolls on the major damage table) almost certan to
be crippled, possibly a floating wreck....)

.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:59:50 -0400
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy

- -----Original Message-----
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
To: traveller@mpgn.com <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 1998 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: Piracy


>>First of all, the 1000 ships per sector is for the regular fleet only.
>It
>>dosen't include subsector fleets (which recieves the same amount of
>funds
>>as the regular fleet, though they spend them differently) and it
>dosen't
>>include planetary navies. Most especially it does not not include
>auxiliaries.
>>Yet most auxiliaries would be quite capable of giving a pirate a hard
>time.
>>
>
>According to the Rebellion Sourcebook:
>"Each SECTOR of the Imperium Theoretically has a group of fleets
>numbering about 1000 ships."  The way I read this is that the total
>number of major combatants in each sector should be 1000 if at full
>strength.  "Reserve fleets are technically considered part of a named
>fleet..."  This indicates to me that the reserves are included in this
>number also.   "At thier lowest level, Imperial ships are organized into
>squadrons (from three to 10 similar ships). Squadrons are grouped into
>permanant numbered fleets (usually three to 10 squadrons per fleet)..."
>This makes a Numbered Fleet between 9 and 100 major combatants.  With 16
>numbered fleets and 16 reserve fleets this brings the number of ships
>per sector to between 288 and 3200 ships.
>
>FSSI shows that the average size of a squadron is 5 combat ships, 3
>scouts, and 4 non-combatants.
>
>The reserve fleets will be next to useless for anti piracy as they are
>manned by reservists and thus spend most of thier time in orbit around
>the high tech, high population worlds in the subsector they are
>assigned.  Although these could be operated almost continously as
>additional sensor platforms. This would have the benifit that pirates
>would not visit these worlds very often.  Also the Navy would keep the
>squadrons together so that they will be ready to fit as a group.  This
>is good for both sides if the navy catches the pirate then it is a
>search and destroy mission, for the pirate they know there is better
>hunting elsewhere and leave.
>
>Charles
>
As Charles has pointed out, the Reserve Fleet is just that HELD IN RESERVE.
Reservists (by today's standards and I can't see why it would change at all)
spend two weeks on active duty a year.  They meet one weekend a month.
Reservists would probably augment the IN and the sub-sector navy when on
active duty for their two weeks.  They might possibly work on their ships to
help keep them up and ready for deployment.  Either way you look at it the
Reserve Forces are not there in ANY numbers that would be of any help to the
pirate interdiction role.
Thom Harris

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 06:45:28 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV 

> >They're lead by this really *SHORT* Vargr wearing a beret, right?
> 
>   Actually they're lead by the Public Accounts auditor who's looking
> into why the new ship class can't power it's fusion gun :(  You could
> just install batteries in the spare space (although this shouldn't
> really work in HG/Striker). 
> 
>   Alternatively, allow HG designs to be non-standard sizes (i.e., tonnage
> may be any value of one or above - <1 would require scaling down output
> per Striker) and simply enter EP's output, while listing the USP for damage 
> purposes as Pn with all fractions dropped.

Thing is, HG lets you do odd-sized hulls.  A size code 9 ship is anything from 
900 to 999 tons.  Just watch your decimal points.

>   Or just design the ship properly the first time...

That, too.

BTW, you didn't answer my question.  <grin>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 07:17:21 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Travellerish fiction 

> > What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H. Beam
> Piper:
> >
> >       Little Fuzzy
> >       4-Day Planet
> >       Uller Uprising
> >       Space Viking
> 
>         The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
>         Fuzzy Sapiens
>         Fuzzies and Other People

I knew there were two more Piper Fuzzy books, as well as two 'other' Fuzzy 
books; I had them all at one time.  *(

> > There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the top of
> my
> > head.
> 
> More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
> the moment.
> 
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> You missed 'lone star planet','federation','empire','first cycle'

Lone Star Planet was printed up as a double with Four Day Planet.  It's in a 
box around here *somewhere*, or else over my little brother's place in 
Cleveland (I gotta get over there Real Soon Now & get the rest of my stuff...)

> no i do NOT lend books :)

You'll get my paperbacks when you pry my cold dead fingers from around them.  
And you *BETTER* treat 'em right, or I'm coming back to haunt you.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:52:12 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 

At 23:19 22/10/98 -0800, William F. Hostman wrote:

>Oh, one other problem with heplars: they eat a large power chunk, in
>ADDITION to needing plenty of fuel of their own. And MT/FF&S1 pp's (which
>are basically identical) do eat a goodly ammount of fuel.

IIRC MT fusion plants use about 0.05 kl/hr/MW, maybe divided by 3 because
of efficiency for 0.01667 kl/hr. FF&S1 fusion plants use about 0.1
kl/year/MW which is about 1500 times more efficient.

>Heplar may be more realistic, but it meant (IME) PC's taking running jumps
>constantly, and spending about 3 times as long to get to/from jump points,
>and GG's became accessable only via jump, as did the outter system. One
>group of PC's nearly died off due to a misjump using TNE Rules, which put
>them in the system, at several thousand AU. (T-Plates can get very tricky
>on distances like these, because you run smack into relativity issures, but
>with accelleration to 10PSL, 1000au becomes roughly (using an 8.5 lm AU,
>not right,but fairly close)(8.5m x 10 x 1000) 85000minutes = 60 days. With
>heplar, forget it... find a snowball and jump if you can. If you can't,
>find a low berth, rig the PP to maintain the LB ONLY and run on as little
>power as possible to maintain operation) and pray. Mind you, if the locals
>like you, in 6 days they will know you exist, and may send help.
>
>With T-plates, run as little as possible (LS, MD, computer, G-comps,
>passive sensor for nav fix) till you hit 10 PSL. THen shut down sensors at
>MD at 5PSL or 10PSL, and go to only one computer, and ration the food. (as
>established before, water will be recycled if only to keep it out of the
>machinery.) You can usually take your remaining (MT/FF&S1) usually 19 days,
>and multiply by 5 (you can run at 20% or less often... I can see running a
>plant stablely for as low as 10% output). With a T-plate universe, 1000AU
>is reachable. Damned inconvinient, but reachable.
>
>in a T-plate universe, the outer system is still a long trip, but is at
>least doable with standard craft. In a Heplar (which is STILL
>unrealistically efficient, IIRC) universe, a mainworld orbiting a GG is
>barely going to have reasonable travel times in the GG's moon-system, and
>going from planet to planet is much easier by jump in most cases.
>
>(NOTE: I am NOT trying to encourage a Near-C rock discussion)
>BTW, is there a formula for time-dilation effects that is simple enough to
>use? (I don't do calculus, only simple algebra and statisics.)

So what limit, if any, do you put on the distance from a gravity source
that a T-plate can be and still function? If it's 1000 or 2000 diameters a
misjump of more than a few hundred AU will kill a T-plate ship's crew far
more certainly than a HEPlaR's, especially as the HEPlaR fuel supply may be
enough to allow a jump.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:36 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 09:38 PM 10/22/98 -0600, you wrote:
>At 06:48 pm 10/22/98 +0000, you wrote:
>>If the signal is less than the threshold of detection of a singal
>element of
>>the array no amount of intergration with improve the signal because
>it was
>
>	Given that REALWORLD sensors right now have "threshold of detection"
>equal to a single photon (not 100% of the time, but up there), I'm
>not worried ... unless you're emitting fractional photons?
>

You know that is not posible.  I've already eat my crow on this subject
thank you.  I do not care for left overs (Grin).

Seriously though I did learn a lot about current astrological tech. I did
not know.  It was worth the effort for that alone.  Now that I have the
background theory I makes sence.  I still am curious about the integration
time require for 3 ls detection of a scout ship.

Charles L.

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1023
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1024



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Loading/Unloading
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 
Re: The Imperial Navy
Re: Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV 
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)
Re: New Deck plans to Rob Prior
The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 04:17:01 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Loading/Unloading

AS threatened, I found the tables in FASA's Battletech, and will present an
adaptation for use with traveller (I am not reprinting theirs... its in
Battlespace, page 56). Also factored in are my experiences working in a
- -10c wharehouse.

			Minutes per metric ton**
Equipment Used		0-G	Vacc 1-G Air
Battle Dress (or equiv)	4	2	2
5 man in VaccSuits	4	3	3
5 man in clothes*	3	2	2
1 man with LRTP's	2	-	-
1 man w/Pallet Jacks**	-	3	2

This table basically assumes times from ready on boards to loaded in cargo
or vice versa; times really should be doubled for moving ship to ship.
Times should be doubled for medium break-bulk (loose boxes and crates
instead of containerized or shrinkwrapped onto pallets) and times 10 for
small items (125L boxes {25cm cubes}).

* in vaccum assumes LD Vacc suit or tailored vaccsuit.
** assume SG 4 (4MT per 1Td) as a good average if you don't want to figure
out masses from traveller cargos yourself.
*** assumes pallatized loads that are secure on the pallet. Iv'e moved up
to a 1/2 ton pallet of icecream at the rates shown, moving the goods from
loose to a pallet 2m from the shelves, while in a -10c freezer. Moving the
pallet the 10-15 meters to shrink-wrap took another 2 minutes on average,
including opening and closing the 1/4-ton sliding door. Shrink wrap took
another 5 minutes, and then it was a fairly stable unit. The guys who
worked the wharehouse (I worked the co-located icecream plant) could load
and move faster than I could. BTW, a 1/2ton pallet of ice cream is about 2m
tall, and uses a 1.5x1.5m pallet which is about 7-12 cm tall it's self,
weighing about 10kg. Lined up pallets go on trucks at the loading-dock at
the rate of about 1-2 per minute, depending on skill and depth of refer
van, at least that's what I've seen done. A full van can be unloaded to the
dock (which is level with the floor of the reefer van floor) in under 15
minutes for a fully palletized load in a 40' trailer. And about as long to
get the load into the freezer, using about 5 men for each task.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:34 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 06:01 PM 10/22/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Fred and Evelyn Wolke writes:
>> 
>> >A scout ship could not radiate 1MW with a living crew.
>> 
>> Then the ship MUST be doing SOMETHING with the energy besides radiating
>> it... because (at least in GT) the power is measured in MW for practically
>> everything.
>
>In GT, only weapons, drives, active sensors, and artificial gravity have
>significant power consumption, and most of these probably dump a lot of energy
>directly to space.  The assertion that a scout ship can't radiate a megawatt is
>false, though -- it just requires a heat pump to a fairly hot radiator vane.
>

One able to survive some rigorous treatment.  20000k is a lot of heat.  What
happens when this ship lands in water?  The vane will make a tempting target
for laser gunners.  No vane no power.  The ship would burn up without it if
the reater is running.  If you use those efficency numbers.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:31 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

>Even if you use that 100 joules as efficiently as possible you aren't
>going to get more work out of it than 100 joules worth. If you do then
>you've got a perpetual energy/motion machine, and I want to buy stock!
>I'm sure you don't mean that. ;->
>

No I did not, The thermalelectrics were ment to cut signature by
suplimenting the battery power so that less power would need to be draw from
the batteries.  Discharging batteries causes true waste heat.  Reusing power
by partial heat recovery does not produce any more waste heat than the heat
caused by the use of that power.  It is more efficient than battery power as
far as waste heat is concurned but because the system is loosing heat into
space you will need to replace that lost power from the batteries but not as
much as you would have to without the heat recovery system.

The idea is to reduce the heat signature too 300k or less by running only on
battery power.  No operating fussion plant.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 07:14:24 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 

> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> ...
> >>   Has anyone ever figured out why armoured hulls use the cost formula
> >> of [MCr 0.3 (+ 0.1 per armour factor) per ton] in High Guard? I can
> >> see the explanation that it's different materials and engineering work
> >> in upgrading the whole structure (somewhat like compartmentalization
> ...
> >When you look at it, yeah, it's expensive, but not compared to egines and 
> >such.  And the price applies *ONLY* to the armour; my SDB design I posted the 
> >other day has 80 dt of armour at a cost of 56MCr.  The hull ran 96MCr, and the 
> >power plant ran 576MCr.  Power plants don't get cheaper (relatively) until you 
> >hit TL14!
> 
>   Yes, but the Terrier SDB is carrying (f4) 10% at MCr 0.7 /ton, while
> the Rabid Poodle is maxxed out for combat at (f12) 26% at MCr 1.5 /ton.
> At TL 12 they're presumably using superdense, which is KCr 14/m^3 in
> slabs, so a D-ton should cost MCr 0.196 plus forming and engineering?
> (which gives the 1000 Dt Poodle an armour allocation around 50,000 tons!)
> 
>   If the "2+2a" formula for armour in HG accounts for engineering and
> compartmentalization with the fixed 2% of ship D-tonnage, then the "2a"
> should be linear cost based on the material and its' forming/installation
> cost(?). If so, then the Poodle would pay ~2.6 times more its' armour
> (per D-t of ship) than the Terrier rather than the ~5.5 times it pays now.
> 
>   If installation is counted in HG's MCr 0.1 per Dt hull cgarge then the
> armour could be re-assessed as "material value at TL plus % for forming",
> thus giving a more rational (?) basis for costing armoured ships.


You're using some other stuff rather than straight HG.  Under HG, your hull 
costs the same whether it's mild steel or ferrocement or superdense.  Cost of 
materials is factored into it already.  If you're gonna evaluate a HG design, 
set your FS&S on the coffee table and take stuff right from HG.  I see the 
figures for armour bulk as reasonable for HG as it factors in 'inferior' 
materials at lower tech levels.  The lower your tech, the more bulk you need 
to get the same armour protection on your hull and the more bracing you need 
because your 'state of the art' is still under developement.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:07:27 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

Gary (TravelrTNE@aol.com) writes:

>"A numbered fleet, depending on its mission, may have between two and 10
>squadrons amounting to between 50 and 200 ships."  We're previously told a
>squadron is 3-10 ships.

Where? Not previously in that particular essay. Elsewhere we're told that
CruRons typically have 4-8 cruisers and we're told of some BatRons that have
8 battleships. And elsewhere we're told of some squadrons with 4-5 capital
ships. 

>Then the minimum 2 squadron fleet (of even the max of 10 ships/squadron)
>would only be 20 ships.

Unless they're atypical. We have at least one example of an oversized
squadron.

But I'll back down and say that there are discrepancies either way, so your
interpretation is also possible. The real kicker is that it is difficult
enough to spend the canonical naval budget if we assume 2000 capital ships
per sector. If we assume only 1000 capital ships we either have to reduce
the budget drastically or see the number of auxiliaries go through the
roof (you can get hundreds of escorts for the price of ONE battleship.)

I know what you're going to say: Then let's reduce the budget. That's
certainly an option. Let's examine it: 

Let's take a look at the figure I've been using to base the Imperial budget
on, an average of 3% of GWP on military spending.

First question: Is it canonical?

Answer: Yes. Despite what anyone may think, _Striker_ is no less canonical
than any other official source. And _Striker_, Book 2, p. 38 says:

"The average expenditure of a nation or world on its military is 3% of GNP;
on worlds where the state of international tension is high, this may range
as high as 15%; where little conflict has been experienced for extended
periods of time the military budget may be as low as 1% of GNP.
        The total military budget must be divided between the army and the
navy. The proportion allocated to the army averages 40% on most worlds, but
averages only 6% on worlds with vacuum or trace atmospheres. Planetary
defenses are jointly funded by the army and navy; the referee must decide
what effect this will have on the army budget.
        On Imperial worlds, roughly 30% of the total military budget goes to
the Imperium for maintenance of the Imperial military. On independent worlds,
the entire budget is available for local defense."

Second question: Does this figure conflict with other canonical material?

Answer: Yes, of course. That's why we're having this discussion. What
information we have about the Imperial Navy strength seems to indicate a
much lower figure. If the 1000 combat ship per sector figure is for the
regular navy only, then 3% appears to be 2-3 times too big; if the figure
includes the colonial fleets too, then the figure appears 4-6 times too big.
Unless the peacetime IN has a HUGE number of ships laid up in ordinary, that
is.

Also, the figure is low if compared to the figures that _Trillion Credit
Squadron_ and _Pocket Empires_ provide. TCS use 5% on the Navy alone, no
mention of the army; PE figures are fluid, but can reach 20-30% IIRC (I may
be a bit off here).

Q: Could the _Striker_ information be explained away as changed from the
correct one to enhance game play?

A: I don't see how. Does _Striker_ games work better if the armies are three
or six times bigger than the 'real' armies? What possible reason could there
be for giving too high a figure? I can see why you may want to reduce the
forces involved to simplify game play (That's how I explain the forces in the
_Fifth Frontier War_ boardgame). But why make them too high?

Q: So is 3% of GWP unrealistic in itself? Can we dismiss it on the grounds
that no society could possibly afford such heavy expenditures?

A: No. Real World examples makes it abundantly clear that at least some
societies can survive with peacetime expenditures far higher than that. That
dosen't mean that someone laying down ground rules for the economies of high
tech or high population societies in his SF gameworld couldn't claim that
such societies are less able to afford military spendings. At least no one
could point to a Real World example of a TL 15 high-pop society and
contradict him. But that's not the case here. _Sriker_ says that high-tech,
high-population societies CAN afford it, and the Real World does not say them
nay. So we can't dismiss it as inherently unrealistic.

Q: Is it unrealistically low, then? During the cold war some societies spent
far more than that, and the Imperium is in two or three cold wars at the
moment (Confederation, Consulate, League).

A: Perhaps a little. But OTOH, the Imperium is bigger than both (or all
three) its cold war opponents together. Not much bigger, but bigger. So I'd
be inclined to accept it, just to avoid making things worse.

Q: So why can't we reduce it to 1 or 0.5%?

A: That, as I've had pointed out to me repeatedly, is not a question of
logic but of individual perception of plausibility. I for one have trouble
enough accepting the 3% as realistic, given the Imperium's history of
conflict with the Solomani and Zhodani, but I'm quite aware that others
are... less sceptical. All I can say is that I do not accept that 0.5% is
so obviously far more likely than 3%.

Q: But adjusting the Imperial force levels would also create canon trouble,
wouldn't it?

A: Yes. Whichever way you resolve the discrepancy you get into trouble. But
on the one hand we have a general rule and on the other specific details. If
you settle on a plausible general rule and try to fix as many of the specific
details as you can, you end up with a basic system that works well. If you
change the general rule to something implausible then you wind up with a
system that does not work well, laying down problems for the future.



      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: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 06:45:28 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV 

> >They're lead by this really *SHORT* Vargr wearing a beret, right?
> 
>   Actually they're lead by the Public Accounts auditor who's looking
> into why the new ship class can't power it's fusion gun :(  You could
> just install batteries in the spare space (although this shouldn't
> really work in HG/Striker). 
> 
>   Alternatively, allow HG designs to be non-standard sizes (i.e., tonnage
> may be any value of one or above - <1 would require scaling down output
> per Striker) and simply enter EP's output, while listing the USP for damage 
> purposes as Pn with all fractions dropped.

Thing is, HG lets you do odd-sized hulls.  A size code 9 ship is anything from 
900 to 999 tons.  Just watch your decimal points.

>   Or just design the ship properly the first time...

That, too.

BTW, you didn't answer my question.  <grin>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:45:05 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)

At 11:49 AM 10/22/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>>>(By the way, if anyone cares, the closest you can see this scout with your
>>>naked eye is about 6000 km (as a 6th magnitude star.))
>>>
>>>
>>So it would be easily visible in orbit?  Or would atmospheric condition make
>>that range much shorter from earth?  This could make for some interesting
>>intel gathering ability on the competion with the aid of a small telescope.
>
>Spaceships in low orbit are indeed easily visible (look at the space shuttle,
>which is about the size of a typical scout...) 6th magnitude stars are visible
>from a good dark site with good eyes, so you could see even medium-high orbits.
>
>>This sensitivity number, what are the units
>They are gaming units from the FFS2/Definitive Sensor Rules. It's a log scale-
>basically it's log(range/5km)+6   (the "5km" and "+6" are there for
>obscure historical reasons) and the sensitivity gives the range at which you
>can detect a "typical" target (a 100-ton 100-MW scout with no special
>masking.) Unitless log numbers are much easier to work with than making poor
>players multiply and divide in real flux units. The log numbers were
>derived, though, from a real model of spacecraft emission and sensor
>sensitivity, done in perfectly reasonable physical units like 
>photons/m2/angstrom (I've never liked "lumens" much - archaic concept.) 
>

Sorry, light is not my normal band.  It's been a few years sence my last
major optical design project.  Most things that can be done with light can
be done cheaper and easier in other ways in the areas that I work in at
least.  Most of my work requires real time data with loop times of a second
or less.

>>>[PEMS-15.5 system]
>>>would probably take a month o
>>>two to really find the scout, at a cost of MCr 500,000 for the system.
>>Pricey!  Wonder what the resale value of that would be for a pirate...>
>>Why steal a shutle with 2 250,000Mcr satalites just waiting to be grabed?
>>Or are they stations?  Crew rotation would take a jump capable ship for a
>>station but it's doable.  Say a 3 month on, 3 month off duty schedule with
>>one full spare crew to fill in for sickness or injury.
>
>That was the example for a high-population world. The sensors are on
>stations, somewhere at around 10 AU (so you can reach them with 
>non-jump-capable ships), and presumably heavily armed and guarded...
>the sensor array itself masses 50,000 tonnes and is spread out over a tenth 
>of a square kilometer, so it won't fit in most pirate ships. 
>

Yeow! Thats one big mother!  Just out of curiousty and as an adventure seed,
what kind of salvage could be gotten from such an array?  As in credit per
ton of the array or support equipment like computers salvaged?  What type of
computer would this base need to run the array?  The rest of the bases gear
would be standard stuff I would assume.  Say if one of these sensor bases
were knocked out with a bioweapon by an enemy spy during a war and the PC
hear a rumor and decide to collect the Credit and accidentally bring back
the bioweapon as well. (Evil grin)

>I'm restraining myself from getting into the thermodynamic arguments, so I
>will ask only: "what happens to the electricity you generate with your
>magic thermocouples?" 
>

Bruce they are not magic.  No more so that your photo integration technique.
Look in any Omega temperture catalog for simple examples.  They are called
thermal couples.  They do not absorb much heat they just produce electicity
in the presents of heat by converting the molecutar motion caused by heat
into electron motion.  It is a standard condition of dissimiler junctions.
You were right about your baliwick and I admited it once I had the hard
data.  Look at a thermal couple catalog and you will see their basic
operation is as I have discribed.  The why is real long and technical as it
gets into the nature of matter and was part of the theory I was taught 15
years ago in coledge.  This effect is being harness in the last few years to
produce solid state devices that can heat or cool and devices that when
exposed to a heat gradiant produce a decent amount of power, as compared to
basic thermal couples.  When just heated they produce less power.  There is
no magic.  The efficency of these devices is low in the power production
mode.  (less that 10% and varies greatly with type and designed for application)

As for the electricity it goes back into the system to allow a lower total
drain on the batteries.  I supposed a ship running only on batteries to cut
its signature.  The converters were to reuse some of the heat to limit
battery draw and the waste heat associated with battery discharge.  It would
be better to reuse the heat than just waste it.  In effect though you only
reduce the total signature by part of the theoritical saving as when the
heat signature drops, power from the converters drop as well and the power
used per second by the system for work would remain constant once
homeostasis is reached.  Depending on the performance curves of year 5000
thermoelectic devices the heat signature saving could be as high as half the
battery's waste heat.  If you insulated the battery compartment and lined it
with thermoelectrics you might see less saving at a considerable cost saving
over lining the hull.  Doing both would produce the best results but cost
the most.

Why do you find the concept fo thermoelectic devices so odd?  You already
work with one of their relatives the photoelectric device.  Thermoelectric
devices are just IR tuned solar cells in theory in practise their makeup is
simpler in some ways and different in others do to a much greater temperture
range.

The current market has been using thermoelectric cooler/heaters for the last
3 years that I am aware of.  Those warmer/ice chests that plug into your
cigerete lighter was one of the first consumer products to use this tech.

The cost/effeciency problem (like with solar cells) are keeping their market
presence low.  Until price per watt drops by a facter of 1000 or more you
are not likly to see these devices outside research labs or satalites.  Oh,
did I mention that one of the other variation on this theme is used in
nuclear batteries?  They are all basicly the same concept.  Some form of
energy is use to push the electron accross the potential barrier of the
junction and free it to flow as electricity.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:50:23 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans to Rob Prior

Rob,
Hum, sorry about that. I am very new to Acrobat and DID NOT include the
fonts. I will repost just as soon as I figure out how to correct the
problem. Sorry to all for the mistake, it will be corrected.

P.S.
If anyone knows how to do this please send me a private post, it would save
a bit of time in correcting the files.

thanks for that and all the kind words
Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

- -----Original Message-----
From: Rob Prior <Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 9:23 AM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans


>The deck plans look great, but theexploded view at the back just has funny
>symbols rather than words. Did you include the fonts when you made the
>PDF? If not, could you do that next time? (OK, could you do it with these
>and repost?)
>
>If you _did_ include the fonts, then I guess I need some help with Acrobat
>Reader.
>

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:35:38 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

Charles R Hensley writes:

>Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
> 
>>>The reserve fleets will be next to useless for anti piracy as they are
>>>manned by reservists and thus spend most of their time in orbit around 
>>>the high tech, high population worlds in the subsector they are
>>>assigned.
>>
>>This is a totally unwarranted assumption. Nowhere in the rules do I
>>find any support for the idea that the colonial fleets and the system
>>defense forces are not trained to the same standard as the regular navy.
>>On the contrary, the character generation implies (I put it no higher
>>than that, the CGR being a tricky thing to draw evidence from) that
>>there is no difference at all.
>
>FSotSI pg 6
>"The primary activity a reserve fleet undertakes is training."

Heh. That could also mean that they are in better training than the idle,
slothful Imperial Navy ;-). But OK, I'll give you that. Only, whare does
it say that the training takes place in orbit around the high population
worlds?
 
>"Colonial squadrons are equipped with obsolescent (but still servicable,
>rather than obsolete) ships and with personnel with somewhat less
>training and experience."

Again, I'll grant you that. Now tell me, if the colonial spacemen serve the
same number of years and get the same training as Imperial spacemen, how can
this be true?

>RS pg 27
>"Reserve fleets are equipped with obsolescent - but still useful -
>starships which have been retired from front-line Imperial service; they
>are staffed by personnel serving in the Reserves (technically in the
>service of the Imperium, but without the status of strict Imperial Navy
>duty)."

So it says. But does it make sense? Try this little thought experiment:

You're the Duchess Delphine of Mora. You and the IN Quartermaster General for
Mora have just pocketed two checks for this year's Imperial naval budget
split right down the middle (You've also got a check for Mora System's
military budget, but we'll ignore that since you got that one wearing a
different hat). On your budget you have a post named "New ships: 25%" (25% of
10% is 2.5%; this will completely replace your fleet in 40 years). According
to _High Guard_ you may procure the ships from any shipyard inside the
subsector. Obviously you're also allowed to buy them from the IN. So you lean
across the table and ask the QM if he has any good bargains. "Why yes," he
replies, "As usually the Navy is getting rid of 1/40th of its ships. I can
offer you some lovely 40 year old TL 14 ships for 25% of original price. Of
course, you have to pay as much for maintaining them as if they were new.[*]"

[*] Propably more, but let's not open that can of worms.

So you have the choice between buying some obsolescent, 40 year old, TL 14
clunkers from the IN or to buy some brand new, top of the line, TL 15 ships
from your own shipyards. What would YOU prefer?

But let's say you are a glowing patriot or have some other reason to buy
from the IN. Let's also say that your need for different ship types exactly
match the mix the IN can offer you. Let's further say that none of the ships
the IN built 40 years ago have been lost since. You've now spent one fourth
of your procurement budget. What do you do with the rest? Do you ask if you
can buy a few more ships from the IN? In that case the QM will regretfully
inform you that his colleagues have sold all the obsolescent ships of their
subsectors to your fellow dukes. There are no more ships to be had. So how-
ever reluctant you are to benefit your subsector with procurement orders, it
looks like you will have to order a few new ships from your local shipyards.
Of course, if you are lucky enough to have some TL 13 or 14 planets with
shipyards, you can avoid the awful prospect of getting TL 15 ships in your
navy. And if you really insist, I suppose you can get them to use old designs
so that the ship is obsolescent from the start.

>From experience I know that there are people who don't recognize a _reductio
ad absurdum_ argument when they see it (I'm not referring to you, but there
are some), so I'll be specific: The above scenario shows (IMO) that the
concept of a colonial fleet consisting solely of obsolescent IN castoffs does
not agree with the procurement rules. "But it says so right here in the
book!" I hear you cry. Yes it does. Another discrepancy. Is there a way to
explain it away? I believe so:

Some subsector fleets ARE exactly as the description has it, composed of
obsolescent IN castoffs. The Duke of Lunion, for example, would be happy to
buy obsolescent IN ships, because the best he can procure locally is TL 13
(I still think he'd buy some local TL 13 designs, but maybe not). And dukes
of subsectors with TL 14 high-pop planets would still be interested in IN
TL 15 retirees. Even dukes with TL 15 planets would buy _some_ ships from
the IN. And those are the ships the public hears about. "DELPHINE BUYS
CLUNKERS! BUY LOCAL, SAYS UNION BOSS!!!" the headlines of the opposition
press and the yellow press will say, forgetting to mention that she is only
buying a few clunkers and many local ships.

What do you think? Generally I dislike "that's not the truth, that's what the
public thinks is the truth" explanations, but if they are the best one can
come up with I think they're better than nothing.

>...the 50-200 ship numbers do not specify if this is combatant only or
>non-combatants and combatants.

No, but it is quite likely. I'll grant you that they _could_ be speaking of
both kind. But just above the text has specifically mentioned that auxiliaries
are excluded. Later when they do begin to talk about auxiliaries too they
specifically mention them and even state that they are often ignored when
figuring ship totals.

>I would say this is both combatants and non-combatants, thus the average
>31.25 combatants per fleet would be a good number.

For reasons I've stated in my reply to Gary, I disagree. 

>>the Imperial Navy propably have huge numbers of ships laid up and that
>>that is the reason the peacetime navy is so comparatively small?
> 
>The navy has huge reserves at the depots, but Norris did not have access
>to a depot.  also the Corridor depot has been depleted in the many
>frontier wars.

He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority of
the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check? Not
IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out around
the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't it?
Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
reactivate them.



      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: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:34:27 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

The Luriani

Race Card

Race Name: Luriani
Homeworld: Daramm/Ley 0812 A76AA87-E (1110)
Environment: Land amphibian
Ecological Niche: Hunter
Native Skills: Music
Characteristics:
  1.Strength 2d
  2.Dexterity 2d
  3.Endurance 2d+1
  4.Intelligence 2d
  5.Education 2d
  6.Social Standing 2d-1
Symmetry: Bilateral
Limb groups: Two
Braincase: Head
Armour: None
Weaponry: None
Senses:
  1.Smell/Taste
  2.Touch
  3.Sight (normal)
  4.Hearing (normal)
Aging: As per standard Human
Gender: Dual
Components: ?????
Caste: Not applicable
Remarks: The race can store oxygen in their fat cells sufficient for 30 minutes 
and can reach depths of 500m (at standard atmospheric pressure) unaided.

Homeworld: Daramm/Ley 0812 A76A986-B Hi Wa 320 Lu K0 V (in 98)

Physiology

Unlike most known Human races, the Luriani are a discrete species (Homo 
luriani) and are not interfertile with other Humans. However significant portions 
of the Luriani genome were utilised by Rule of Man geneticists in the 
"construction" of the Scanians, thus the Luriani are interfertile with this branch 
of Humaniti. Matings with other branches of Humaniti will only produce sterile 
offspring.

Physiologically the Luriani are unmistakably human, but they do possess a 
number of unique identifying physical characteristics, however these 
characteristics are only apparent on a close physical inspection. The Luriani 
posses a transparent second eyelid which protects their eyes from pressure 
and irritants, as well as acting to improve their vision under water. They 
possess muscles that can seal the inner ear, protecting it at extreme depths. 
They naturally produce a number of body oils that protect them from cold and 
irritants. Both their feet and hands are webbed. However, their most notable 
adaptations are the fat cells they posses which store oxygen. This allows them 
to collapse their lungs and reach far greater depths (around 500m) than other 
Humans, as well as permitting them to remain in an oxygen free environment 
for up to thirty minutes.

However, distinctive as all of these characteristics are, they are not the most 
remarkable modifications to the Luriani. The most remarkable and influential 
adaptations in the Luriani are found in their brains. At least 93% of all Luriani 
are right brain dominant and their language centres are located in the regions of 
the brain more usually associated with music and singing. These modifications, 
coupled with their close ties with the aquatic environment have produced the 
distinctive features of the Luriani culture.

Culture

Luriani culture is strongly influenced by the right hemisphere nature of their 
brain. The Luriani are a creative, passionate and artistic people. The usual 
Imperial stereotype of the hotblooded Luriani artist does in fact have some 
basis in truth. Luriani music and art frequently reflects the emotional tension 
that lies beneath the surface of their society. Few Humans can fail to be at 
least slightly affected by the pulsating up-tempo bass rhythms of Luriani music, 
even more so when coupled with the sensual nature of Luriani dance. However, 
as with all stereotypes, this ignores the vast sweep of Luriani culture.

Many outside observers characterise Luriani society as being communal; in 
fact the Luriani are very strongly individualistic, but they utilise a form of group 
marriage in which a number of adults will form a distinct family grouping. Any 
children born into the family are regarded as brothers and sisters and all the 
adults will regard them as their children. Because of this, the universal Human 
incest taboo is slightly altered amongst the Luriani. It is accepted that some 
"siblings" will form relationships with their "brothers and sisters" during pubity. 
Such relationships are discouraged, but they are tolerated as long as the 
children do not share a biological parent. However, the relationships between 
the adults within the family are in a constant state of flux.

The Luriani believe in individual and family honour. The Luriani code of honour 
evolved as a mechanism to limit the negative effects of the Lurianis emotional 
nature. Luriani honour holds that effort and intent are far more important than 
actual results; Luriani mythology is replete with stories and examples of heroic 
failure. The three basic tenets of Luriani honour are protect your family; offer 
hospitality to all that seek it; and treat your foes fairly. Unlike many other 
honour codes, the Luriani code does not feature a physical duelling element, 
rather matters of personal honour are settled by "contests. In a contest, the 
two parties will attempt to complete some task or demonstrate mastery of a 
skill, usually artistic. As long as both parties have made given their best, there 
is no stain on ones honour for loosing such a contest. When it comes to 
warfare, the Luriani hold that this is a matter for nations and tribes, not 
individuals; thus war does not remove a Lurianis obligations on a personal 
level, even when serving in the military.

Art

Art is one of the most important elements of Luriani culture, outside of the 
Protectorate art is the most widely recognised aspect of their culture. Luriani 
art reflects the turbulent and restless nature of their society, very little Luriani 
art can be classified as static, the essence of their art is the movement and 
energy found in their culture. The most prominent Luriani art form is of course 
music, but they are also drawn to most other performance arts (dance is 
almost as widely practiced as music). Other art forms such as painting and 
sculpture are less common, but none the less are still considered noble and 
honourable professions.

Luriani music is distinctive and unique; the most obvious defining characteristic 
is its 10/8 time signature. However, it also possesses a number of other very 
distinctive characteristics. Virtually all Luriani music makes extensive use of 
the voice as an instrument; and slight differences in Luriani physiology has 
resulted their vocal cords being longer than the Human norm, contributing to 
the strong base tendencies in their music. Luriani singing also features a 
secondary voiced note when inhaling in addition to the usual note when 
exhaling, leading to a distinctive "breathy" sound (this effect is remarkably 
difficult for non-Luriani to reproduce, lacking the Lurianis internal independent 
oxygen source).

Fashion

Traditional Luriani clothing and appearance is almost as distinctive and powerful 
as their music. Many have likened their fashions to those of the Vargr. 
Traditional Luriani clothing is lightweight and lose fitting, intended to 
simultaneously functional and sensual. Luriani fashions are intended to be 
provocative and revealing, whilst maintaining a sense of mystery. The concept 
of utilitarian clothing that does not serve this purpose appears to be entirely 
alien to the Luriani. Thus, all Luriani clothing has to serve this dual purpose (the 
Luriani were scandalised by the Solomani and their "sack-like ship suits"). 
Luriani fashions do not use muted or subdued colours; their clothing features 
many irregular blocks of strong discordant colours with sharp dividing lines 
between them. These blocks swirl and interlock, with the intention of giving a 
sense of movement and energy. The intention of the designer is to draw 
attention to certain parts of the body and away from others. Likewise, the 
Luriani make extensive use of body decorations. Rather than using permanent 
forms of body markings such as tattoos, the Luriani use a variety of body 
paints and dyes to adorn themselves. The final result is that the average Luriani 
is a sight to behold; dressed in their vibrant clothing with their bodies painted 
and dyed in many bright contrasting colours and shapes; one can not fail to 
recognise them immediately.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1024
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1025



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Where to find Deckplans on the Web
GT Lasers
Re: Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
The Luriani (revised part 2/2)
Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)
Pyramid Chat on Tuesday
Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
re: Piracy Redux
Re: Formal for mass-based jump limits
Re: The Luriani 
Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 
Reservists (Re: Piracy)
Re: GT Transponders
Pyramid Chat on Tuesday
Old Topics: Aslan Females
Re Loading
Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.
Re: Loading/Unloading
hiding in the Oort cloud
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: GT transponders

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:25:06 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Where to find Deckplans on the Web

Does anyone know of a good source on the Web for deckplans for Traveller ships?

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:49:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: GT Lasers

Yes, if you have a triple laser turret, you may fire all three of the
lasers, rolling individually to hit, against the same target, at no
penalty.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:31:26
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
>Subject: re : TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch
>
>Based on an anti-shipping missile design?
>
>Ummm, Ditzie, you _did_ remember to remove the proximity fuse
>and detonator, right?
>
>Oh, I see...but you did do more with it than just slap a "For Emergency
>Use Only" sticker on it, right?
>
>Walt Smith

Welll, the proximity fuse and detonator weren't on the specs, becuase it
was a blind command-controlled missile (sensors, even cheap LIDARs, are
expensive).

But Ditzie will check ...

Ian

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 17:10:13 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

On 10/22/98 at 10:24 PM,  steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com> said:

>Jeff Zeitlin wrote:

>> Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
>> - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
>> States since the mid-1980s.

>The what?!  I was raised in Texas and now live in Boston. Both with
>large Latino communities, to say the least, and I haven't noticed any change >but for the positive in the last 30 years.

Personally, where I live, I have noticed a slowly *improving*
attitude toward all minorities during the last 30 years.  I
certainly haven't seen strong anti-latino feelings since the
mid-80's.

Well now, maybe you mean the fact that many Americans don't like the
idea of aliens flooding across our borders?  If that's it, the
disquiet isn't specifically anti-latino, it's more anti-immigration,
especially illegal immigration, it just so happens that the mass of
the illegal immigrates come from Central American countries.  I
think this is more an economic issue than anything, but like most
things you can make it a racial one if you try.  

Xenophobia is something else.  It's an *unreasonable* fear of
outsiders.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:34:27 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The Luriani (revised part 2/2)

History

The Luriani are a Human minor race transported to their new home by the 
mysterious Ancients some 300,000 years ago. Whilst the Luriani are 
unmistakably Human they have several unique and distinct characteristics 
which are a result of both natural evolution and genetic tampering by the 
Ancients. The Luriani are often referred to as "aquatic" Humans. This is not 
strictly true, for although they are far more at home in a water environment than 
most Humans these adaptations do not go as far as the Solomani geenered 
Scanians. Luriani have distinctively webbed hands and feet; certain fat cells 
have the ability to store oxygen which allows the Luriani to remain submerged 
for up to 30 minutes and reach depths of up to 500 metres without any artificial 
assistance. They possess a clear second eyelid under the first that greatly 
enhances their vision underwater. However perhaps their most striking 
modifications are not readily apparent at all. Unlike virtually all other Human 
races, the Luriani are overwhelmingly right brain dominant and their language 
ability is located in the centre of the brain which normally deals with singing 
rather than the classic speech centres. It would appear that these 
modifications were introduced to enable the Luriani to function well in a three 
dimensional environment. This has lead to further speculation that the Ancients 
intended to make the Luriani fully aquatic but the Final War intervened, leaving 
the Luriani "unfinished. Because of these modifications the Luriani are 
overwhelmingly (at least 93%) lefthanded, intensely creative and artistic, and 
have a strong tendency towards music and other performance arts.

Daramm (the Luriani homeworld) is officially classified as a waterworld, with 
only 5% of its surface being land. However, this is still 19.7 million km2. 
Daramm is a normal world with eleven continental plates, but these are mostly 
below sea level. Thus, Daramm is covered by a large number of continental 
sized island archipelagos surrounded by shallow (150m to 300m) seas. These 
"continents" are surrounded by deep (2000m to 5000m) oceans. It would 
appear that the Ancients initially deposited the Luriani on several islands in one 
of these archipelagos.

The semi-aquatic nature of the Luriani enabled them to utilise the shallow seas 
around their island homes for hunting and gathering, thus allowing for far greater 
populations and development than might have otherwise been expected. 
However eventually the restricted nature of their island homes started to limit 
their development. These growing pressures lead to the development of 
seafaring on Daramm far before the Luriani had even developed anything even 
remotely like civilisation. It is theorised that the creative nature of the Luriani 
brain played a crucial role in this. Thus in approximately -250,000 the Luriani 
developed seagoing vessels whilst they were still a primitive hunter-gatherer 
society. By -150,000, the Luriani had developed oceangoing vessels capable of 
circumnavigating their entire world despite still possessing only a TL0 culture. It 
was the possession of this maritime capacity that preserved the remarkable 
homogeneity of Luriani culture, despite being separated by thousands of 
kilometres of water, each Luriani settlement was connected by a web of 
voyaging ships. Indeed some Luriani lived out their entire lives at sea, only 
setting foot on land to gather supplies or build new ships.

Given this voyaging culture it was only natural that the Luriani should quickly 
come to the concept of trade and commerce, thus giving rise to the first signs 
of Luriani civilisation. By -100,000 the Luriani had developed a thriving world 
spanning barter economy. The huge nomadic voyaging ships travelling between 
islands, trading with the various island communities. However with the rise of 
trade came the rise of piracy and warfare. Both the seagoing nomads and the 
island dwelling settlements found a need for fighters to defend against the 
depredations of raiders, which would eventually evolve into the Luriani warrior 
class. Thus by -30,000 the Luriani had established a world spanning trading 
civilisation complete with organised warfare, despite the fact that they were still 
a TL0 hunter gatherer culture without any domesticated animals or form of 
agriculture.

Over the next 23,000 years the Luriani gradually improved their technology and 
culture. In around -28,000 the first signs of agriculture appeared on a number of 
islands, animals were domesticated around -25,000. Metalworking was 
achieved around -15,000. When Vilani influenced traders contacted the Luriani 
in -7500 they had advanced to a solid TL3. The Luriani were to prove to be 
extremely adept in absorbing advanced technology; and by -7200 they had 
achieved TL9 and were launching their first "voyaging" ships to the stars. By -
6000 they had established a vigorous interstellar culture encompassing over 30 
worlds (most located to spinward of Daramm). However the Luriani never 
grasped the concept of an interstellar state (much as they have never truly 
developed a world spaning government) and their worlds remained a loose 
grouping closely bound by their voyaging culture. However, this somewhat 
idyllic situation was not to remain.

In -5400 the Vilani began the Consolidation Wars. Initially the Vilani ignored the 
Luriani. Located far to trailing on the fringes of explored space, the Vilani 
regarded their independent worlds as a minor threat compared with the many 
organised interstellar states that they faced. This was to prove to be a 
miscalculation on the Vilani's part. When in around -4700 the Vilani began 
efforts to incorporate the Luriani they responded by rapidly forming a united 
front to face the common enemy. Early Vilani attempts to incorporate the 
Luriani by economic pressure failed and in 4582 the Vilani opened the Luriani 
Consolidation War.

The initial Vilani offensives were turned back with heavy losses in the face of 
determined resistance. The Luriani proved to be formidable opponents for the 
Vilani, the nature of their brains made three-dimensional combat second nature 
to the Luriani and their warrior class made very efficient fighters. However 
eventually the superior economic weight of the Vilani began to tell and one by 
one the Luriani worlds fell to the advancing Vilani fleets. In -4547 Daramm fell 
and the Luriani were defeated. Despite several revolts they were to remain 
under Vilani rule until the coming of the Solomani in 2223.

When the Vilani conquered the Luriani in -4547 they attempted to impose their 
culture on the Luriani; Vilani governors were placed in control of Luriani worlds 
and the Luriani were expected to conform to Vilani cultural norms. These efforts 
were less than successful, though the Luriani did remain firmly under the 
control of the Vilani, their culture remained largely intact, the Vilani were never 
able to stamp out the emotional and independent nature of the Luriani. Thus 
when the Solomani arrived in the Ley sector in -2223 they were greeted as 
liberators by the Luriani. They allied themselves with the Terrans and a number 
of Luriani units served in the Terran forces during their final drive on Vland, 
proving that they had lost none of their fighting abilities. With the final defeat of 
the Vilani in -2219 the Luriani expected that the Solomani would restore their 
independence. However they were to be sadly disappointed. Unlike the Geonee 
or Suerrat, the Luriani were not granted autonomy under the Rule of Man. 
Naturally this bred resentment with in the Luriani and in -2186 the Luriani 
rebelled against the Rule of Man. What followed was a tragedy for the Luriani. 
Isolated with only a limited production base, the Luriani faced an alliance of 
both Terran and Vilani forces. The Luriani hoped that the other minor races 
would come to their aid. These hopes proved futile and the Luriani were 
gradually worn down and in -2180 their final stronghold fell and in a cruel turn of 
fate, the Luriani again came under Vilani occupation. However under the Rule of 
Man, Luriani art and music found a wide audience amongst the Solomani; and 
this lead to widespread sympathy for the fate of the Luriani. Finally, in -1932 
Empress Juliana established the Luriani Cultural Region. With this, the each 
individual Luriani world was granted internal self-rule, answering to a Solomani 
planetary governor, with the entire region under the control of a military governor 
general.

With the collapse of the Rule of Man in -1776, the Solomani governor general of 
the Luriani Cultural Region found herself isolated and vulnerable. Admiral 
Martinez solved her problems by reaching an agreement with the Luriani. She 
transformed the Luriani Cultural Region into the Luriani Protectorate. Under this 
compromise, her fleet provided protection for the Luriani in return for support, 
while the Luriani worlds were allowed to retain their independence. The 
Protectorate continued to exist into the Long Night; the Protectorate gradually 
evolved into a unique government. The Solomani provided the much needed 
skills to administer a large-scale interstellar government, whilst the Luriani 
provided the necessary support facilities and their warrior class came to 
dominate the Protectorate fleet. Eventually however the Long Night claimed the 
Protectorate, by -1200 the Protectorate fleet had dwindled to just a handful of 
vessels and contact between the worlds had all but ceased. In -1183, Protector 
De Valine acknowledged that the Protectorate could no longer defend the 
Luriani worlds. The Solomani settled on the Luriani worlds and the Luriani 
Protectorate succumbed to the Long Night.

The situation remained unchanged until the coming of the Syleans. The Sylean 
Federation Scout Service reached the Luriani in -29. The arrival of the SFSS 
reawakened the Luriani's desires for the stars, Daramm had been able to retain 
TL8 throughout the Long Night, and the Solomani remained a distinct racial 
grouping. Given the prod of the Syleans arrival, the Luriani applied themselves 
to regaining the stars. It took the Luriani just 30 years to recover to TL9 and 
begin to reestablish the Protectorate. By 12, the Luriani Protectorate was a 
thriving interstellar community once more, encompassing most worlds within 5 
parsecs of Daramm. The Protectorate was a curious state, one that the new 
Imperium found hard to understand or deal with. The bulk of the population was 
Luriani by culture, but virtually all the higher levels of administration were 
provided by the Solomani Verasti (Protectors). Eventually the Imperium was 
forced to do something about the Luriani. Initially they tried to incorporate the 
Luriani through diplomatic means and initially this appeared to be a making 
progress, but negotiations stumbled on the Protectorate demand to be allowed 
to retain its identity within the Empire. It was then that Archduke Ishargi of 
Gateway made a huge error of judgement. Believing that a show of force would 
soften the Lurianis negotiating stance, Archduke Ishargi took a sizeable 
Imperial squadron and jumped to Rurur (an important frontier system inside the 
Protectorate). The result was a disaster. By sheer fluke, a substantial portion of 
the Protectorate fleet was conducting exercises in the Rurur system at the 
time. The Protectorate commander (Admiral Sherin) took this action to be the 
opening of an invasion and engaged the Imperial forces. In the resulting Luriani 
War (93-96), the Protectorate forces showed that the Luriani had lost none of 
their flare for three-dimensional warfare and inflicted several sharp defeats on 
the Imperial forces. Eventually cooler heads on both sides prevailed and a face 
saving negotiated settlement was reached. However the Luriani War was to 
leave a legacy of mistrust and tensions between the Protectorate and the 
Imperium remained high for many decades after the war.

With the end of the Luriani War Emperor Artemsus appointed an Imperial born 
Verasti, Duke Sirean of Dirir, as the new Archduke of Gateway (Archduke 
Ishargi had been killed at Rurur). Sirean chose to concentrate his efforts on 
incorporating the rimward portions of Ley sector, whilst attempting to repair 
relations with the Protectorate. Eventually this policy was to bear fruit. By 160, 
the memories of the Luriani War were fading and relations between the 
Protectorate and the Imperium were beginning to improve. However, by this 
time the situation elsewhere had changed. In the Domain of Antares events 
were moving towards the Julian War and securing the rimward flank of Antares 
had become a matter of some urgency. In 162, Archduke Acla reopened 
negotiations with the Protectorate regarding incorporation. These negotiations 
proceeded slowly as a considerable legacy of mistrust remained and had not 
yielded any positive results by the outbreak of the Julian War in 175. 
Throughout most of the Julian War the Protectorate chose to remain neutral 
until the Star Legion drove into Ley in 185. At this point, much to the surprise of 
the Imperium, the Protectorate offered an alliance and joined the War on the 
Imperial side. Though the entry of the Protectorate had little effect on the 
ultimate outcome of the war, Luriani forces were an important factor in halting 
and turning back the Star Legions drive into Ley. With the end of the war in 
191, negotiations resumed on a more positive note and in 202 the Protectorate 
was incorporated into the Imperium.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:14:14 EDT
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

In a message dated 10/23/98 11:05:01 AM Central Daylight Time,
a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:

<< The Luriani
 
  >>
Most people reading this will say "Huh?" because they aren't working from or
consulting the Minor Race Generation Tables.

Marc

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:46:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Pyramid Chat on Tuesday

I'll be hosting a Pyramid Chat on tuesday, 8 PM central, on "GURPS
Traveller spaceship design, operations and combat" where any pyramid
subscribers are welcome to ask me questions regarding the appropriate Trav
rules. Loren should be there for at least part of the chat as well.

- -David

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:37:10 EDT
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

In a message dated 10/23/98 10:59:56 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:

<< it does make sens form a security standpoint,....if they are all in one
 area less chance of theft or sabotage.........
 
 same argument used for keeping all the planes togerther at pearl harbor.
 
 :)
  >>

Hopefully; this time they'll PATROL....

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:24:14 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy Redux

Ian Whitchurch wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
<excellent summary of a pirate's probable career profile snipped>

But, for me, the above explains piracy in the Third Imperium.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I think Ian's post was quite to the point. Well said and well done.

Walt Smith

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:01:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: Formal for mass-based jump limits

Jens Maskus writes:
> 
> Jumplimit 
>
[AU]=(SQRT(MassTerrstrial*5,9742E024/(0,000025*9,80665/0,0000000000667259)))/14960
> 0000000

_tidal_ strength -- which is the derivative of gravitational force.  Distance =
(MassTerrestrial)^1/3 * 4.2 light-seconds.  Works out to about .6 AU for the
sun; this is actually more generous than the standard rules.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:33:23 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: The Luriani 

> From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>

Great stuff, great stuff...

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:43:31 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

> >Again, I'll grant you that. Now tell me, if the colonial spacemen serve
the
> >same number of years and get the same training as Imperial spacemen, how
> >can this be true?
> >***********
> >they don't see as much combat.
>   There's a reasonable basis for the belief that training is more
> important than combat experience in (historical, anyway) naval 
> combat.

Just a thought, but aren't colonial fleets like the reserve fleets of the
3I?

So if they are the reserve fleets of the 3I, maybe they are made up of
revervists who serve one weekend a month & 2 weeks a year, but by this time
it may be 1 week a month & 1 month a year...  I.e. all those characters who
are not in the military might be members of the colonial fleets, thats how
they got their military skills...

Also, many of the sector, sub-sector, & planetary fleets might also come
into this...  I.e. a colonial fleet might be made up of this sub-sector
fleet providing the CrusRon, this planet providing the DestRon, & the
reservists providing the TankRon...

Also another thought (I know this is kinda jumbled, but I am typing this as
I think of it), is that maybe the Navy starts off the characters in their
first active term in a colonial fleet to gain some safe experience, then
moves him over to a active fleet, then as he or she gets older, they are
transfered back to the colonial fleet to train new members of the fleet...

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:45:17 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 

> From: Keven R. Pittsinger <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> > > > > > Yeah, now somebody tell Bruce *who* plays Al Bester on B5. I
> > haven't
> > > > > > got the heart. ;->
> > > > > Walter Koenig.  Doesn't ring a bell?  Try 'Ensign Chekov(TM)'
from
> > 'That
> > > > > Nameless Paramount/Desilu Sci Fi Hack of Wagon Train(TM)' circa
1964.
> > > > > <grin>
> > > > You forgot the cheesy movies as well...  Circa 1980s & early
1990s...
> > > Good thing you didn't *name* 'em, you'd have to (TM) them.  <ducking>
> > 
> > Why name them?  While they were watchable, they are not standards of
movie
> > making...
> Cause Paramount trademarked them.  Wouldn't wanna get in trouble now,
would we?

Of course not..  I do not want to have Paramount's lawyers come after me...

> Keven

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:51:48 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Reservists (Re: Piracy)

With all this talk about the Reservists in the 3I, I thought I would put my
thoughts,such as they are down.

1. Maybe the 3I has the Reservists serve 2 days a months, not just one
weekend a month, but two days.  And three weeks a year, instead of the two
weeks currently.

This would fix the problem many have with the jump in & jump out.

2.Or the 3I could have reservists serve one month out of every year & one
day a month.  This would have the same amount of days as the current plan.

3. Or someone else could come up with an another idea.

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:46:30 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT Transponders

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 22:55:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Re: GT Transponders

and through automatic monitoring of
transponder signals, makes it easier to respond to any problems
("traffic control reports Beowulf's transponder signal suddenly went off
the air -- something's wrong, send a cutter or SDB to investigate").
**************
hey theres an idea....add a mayday button to the transponder....

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:46:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Pyramid Chat on Tuesday

I'll be hosting a Pyramid Chat on tuesday, 8 PM central, on "GURPS
Traveller spaceship design, operations and combat" where any pyramid
subscribers are welcome to ask me questions regarding the appropriate Trav
rules. Loren should be there for at least part of the chat as well.

- -David

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:39:00 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Old Topics: Aslan Females

I keep seeing this as part of the "old topics done to death" gag line,
but realize I've never actually seen the debate, for example,

"_Lesbian Aslan_ Pirates Hurling Near-C Rocks at Kinetic-Kill
Missile Armed Fighters"

Was there some kind of debate ages ago about Aslan females
getting tired of babysitting Aslan males and going off on their own
than I missed?

Walt Smith

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 13:24:42 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Loading

>Hm.. I suspect that loading time is dependent on the # of components, their
>size, and the size of the door you're moving them through.  Filling a
>compartment with 10 10-ton boxes and 10,000 10-kilogram boxes is not equal.

I believe I said something to that effect.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:09 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

>Subject: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
...
>Again, I'll grant you that. Now tell me, if the colonial spacemen serve the
>same number of years and get the same training as Imperial spacemen, how
>can this be true?
>***********
>they don't see as much combat.

  There's a reasonable basis for the belief that training is more
important than combat experience in (historical, anyway) naval 
combat.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:54:04 -0400
From: "Shade" <jwatts@catt.com>
Subject: Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.

It comes from a topic I started a long time ago that had to do with a
Aslan-Vargr " sex study " that was published on the list a VERY long time
ago.  

It was basicly done to death and is generally regarded as a sore subject.

Just to let ya know....  it was established in that " study " that a great
percentage of Aslan females were lesbian or bisexual.


Shade


The problem with religious texts is that the answers
arent in the BACK, either. 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:17:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: Loading/Unloading

William F. Hostman writes:
> AS threatened, I found the tables in FASA's Battletech, and will present an
> adaptation for use with traveller (I am not reprinting theirs... its in
> Battlespace, page 56). Also factored in are my experiences working in a
> -10c wharehouse.
> 
>                Minutes per metric ton**

Hm.. I suspect that loading time is dependent on the # of components, their
size, and the size of the door you're moving them through.  Filling a
compartment with 10 10-ton boxes and 10,000 10-kilogram boxes is not equal.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:16:29 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: hiding in the Oort cloud

>So with one station, it takes about two weeks to scan the sky. A pirate
>ship is detectable for about a day every rendezvous, 
One can probably think of tricks to make the rendezvous harder to
detect. For example, put a big honkin tractor (TNE/T4) on the
pirate base to reel ships in without having them use any of their
own fuel...I also haven't really done the analysis for how far away
from the base you're likely to arrive due to usual jump errors (some
TU's would have jump errors be bigger that far from a big mass); 
maybe an ion drive or chemical drive could get you to the base.
(Using HEPlaR would be like writing "come and kill me" in big letters
even if you only used it for a few minutes...)

Bruce

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 21:13:02 -0500
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

	
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

steve daniels wrote:

>Jeff Zeitlin wrote:
>
>> Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
>> - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
>> States since the mid-1980s.
>
>The what?!  I was raised in Texas and now live in Boston.
>Both with large Latino communities, to say the least,
>and I haven't noticed any change but for the positive in
>the last 30 years.

Bloo, I think he is talking about Florida and California

Charles

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 22:47:22 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

On 10/23/98 at 10:50 PM,  "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com> said:

>I tried them on my lap top and they showed up alright on it so I hope
>they'll be ok.

Michael, they look good and printed out just fine.  It seemed like the size of the Twain.pdf file went way up, I might be wrong as I was downloading it through a dialup this time rather than a faster network connection.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:44:07 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:02:20 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: GT transponders
Fred and Evelyn Wolke wrote:
>

>
IIRC, transponders only respond to specific signals (based in concept, I
would suspect, on World War II-era IFF devices).  If that's the case,
then, unless the pirate had the current IFF codes for whatever force
he/she/it was trying to impersonate, the transponder wouldn't respond
appropriately to being interrogated by the IFF, and would therefore be
marked as hostile.
**********
GT transponders ar like airline transponders....they pretty much just
broacast a here I am, look at me signal...along with a registry and
origination/destination info.

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1025
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1026



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Mutiny
Re Reserves
re: Piracy Question
Formal for mass-based jump limits
Formal for mass-based jump limits
Re: Where to find Deckplans on the Web 
Deja Vu all over again!
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Traveller Data file for GURPS Character Assistance?
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism
Re: GT Space Combat
Re: GT Space Combat
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!
Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females
Re: New Deck plans
Re: Physreps
Re: Piracy: Cease!
Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2) 
Re: GT Lasers
Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Re: : Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
: Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Efficient 100-D Control

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:05 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Mutiny

>From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
>Subject: Re: Mutiny
...
>Funny you should mention the Gazelle; The text in Traders and Gunboats
>(Supplement 7 of the LBBs) indicated that the layout of decks in the
>Gazelle was *specifically* designed to seperate the enlisted crew from the
>officers and provide the officers with a defensable bridge area in the
>event of a mutiny.

  Think about it. Gazelle: 3-400 Dt of tin-can. You're assigned to
accompany an AHL in its' Fleet Intruder role.

  At least mutineers get a meal and a bed before they die :)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:31:21 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Reserves

Thom Harris Writes
>
>I think that you misunderstood what he was saying.  Reservists by nature are
>NOT out in the space lanes in their ships.  An example of Reserve activity
>would be that they meet one weekend a month and go active for two weeks in
>the summer.  This would then cause one to believe that the ships of the
>Reserve Fleet are ALMOST moth-balled and would take some time to bring
>on-line.  Reservists routinely take they active duty period fixing up there
>"vehicles" and training to maintain their standards for going to war.  You
>would see the occasional Reserve Ship out and about just so they can blow
>the cob webs out.  Think for a minute, if you are only on active duty for
>two weeks and a jump takes one week then you would only be able to take your
>ship out and right back and be done for the year.
>
This assumes the term reserves is used in the same context it is for the
United States: part time military personell.

I don't see this in the Imperium (it is canon for the solomani confed
tho... AM 6 IIRC). Rather the reserve fleets are used in the WWII european
sense: units not intended for first line combat assignments, but able
enough to respond as backups and reliefs to front-liners. Colonials woould
fill the same role for the reserve units.


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:57:36 EDT
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: re: Piracy Question

You're right bout Free Traders.  I would think that megacorp freighters would
dominate the X-boat routes everywhere, pretty much, the number and frequency
roughly decreasing as the distance from the Imperial core does.  W/ Free
Traders squeaking by in the cracks.

> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>    Even in the fringes, does anyone hold the existence of any Sunbeards as
> possible?
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Someone think it possible, otherwise there wouldn't be any piracy debates
> going on. I'll bet that even a large fraction of the anti-piracy camp
> will give you "possible". "Common", "practical", or "sensible" would
> be a different matter entirely.

By Sunbeard, I meant career pirate. "Sunbeard, Scourge of Seven Sectors.
Har!" Career meaning like 5+ term pirate.  I find it more than plausible the
odd merchant can't keep up w/ his payments, etc and decides to start preying
on his competitors, (or gets shanghaied), etc. Eventually he either gets
caught, "retires", or gets dead, though, even on the fringe.  And it's more
than possible that megacorporate raiders as well as the possible forces of the
brigandish member-world (soon to be visited by the IN), though the megacorp
raiders are likely to have an "out" in their contract.  To say nothing of the
foreign (Zho, Solomani, etc) raiders who are better described as privateer.
  
Gary

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:45:06 +0000
From: "Jens Maskus" <Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de>
Subject: Formal for mass-based jump limits

On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:02:37 -0700 (PDT), Anthony Jackson wrote:

>Any opinion on making the jump limit based on object mass, rather than
>diameter?  If you base it on, say, the local tidal strength (rate of change of
>gravitational force) it remains a fixed multiple of radius for objects of
>constant density, and allows resolving questions about jumping near a comet or
>other large gas cloud.
>

Jumplimit 
[AU]=(SQRT(MassTerrstrial*5,9742E024/(0,000025*9,80665/0,0000000000667259)))/14960
0000000


For Terra You must use solar mass in and you will get around 5 AU!

Jens Maskus

Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de

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

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:45:06 +0000
From: "Jens Maskus" <Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de>
Subject: Formal for mass-based jump limits

On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:02:37 -0700 (PDT), Anthony Jackson wrote:

>Any opinion on making the jump limit based on object mass, rather than
>diameter?  If you base it on, say, the local tidal strength (rate of change of
>gravitational force) it remains a fixed multiple of radius for objects of
>constant density, and allows resolving questions about jumping near a comet or
>other large gas cloud.
>

Jumplimit 
[AU]=(SQRT(MassTerrstrial*5,9742E024/(0,000025*9,80665/0,0000000000667259)))/14960
0000000


For Terra You must use solar mass in and you will get around 5 AU!

Jens Maskus

Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:48:34 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Where to find Deckplans on the Web 

> Does anyone know of a good source on the Web for deckplans for Traveller ships?

You check the Deckplans Webring?

I'm on it at:

http://www.glasscity.net/users/jamstar/traveller/boats.html

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 98 01:54:40 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Deja Vu all over again!

Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and over
again?

Eris

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:22:29 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

>How does the space shuttle handle heat?

Dinky little radiators on the inside of the cargo bay doors (this is why
they have to open the doors within a few hours of launch.) I don't know how hot
they run, but probably only a hundred C or so. The shuttle's advantage 
is that its life support and functions only require a few kilowatts - it
has much less heat to dispose of than a traveller ship. (In fact, sunlight
heat loading might be a major part of the problem.)

I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
special high-temp radiators...

Bruce

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:41:29 -0700
From: Mike Wittek <mwittek@thelair.cnchost.com>
Subject: Traveller Data file for GURPS Character Assistance?

All:
Has anybody seen or heard of someone that has made the Traveller data
files for GURPS Character Assistant program?

Thanks,
- --
Mike Wittek | Vacaville, California
mailto:mwittek@thelair.cnchost.com | http://www.thelair.cnchost.com
     "Democracy isn't just the best form of government; It's the only
one even remotely worth a damn. Only democracy guarantees that people
get what they deserve."   --Zena Marley

DISCLAIMER: All that I write is my own opinion, and my opinion may not
be the opinion of my school or electronic courier. For that matter, it
may not be your opinion, but deal with it.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:03:47 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

Hmm,

how about a "homogeneity" rating in the cultural extension.
High value, and their all the same.
Low value and its the rainbow of cultural, if not also racial, stock.

Bloo

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:14:02 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism

Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> writes:
>Interesting tightrope one must walk to be a pirate. Scary enough
>to cow a merchant captain, but not scary enough to send the
>governor calling for the IN. Effective enough to make a profit,
>minor enough not to be worth the while of a light cruiser. Bold
>enough to take a prize, patient enough to wait for that sliver of
>perfect time when a prize can be taken without too much chance
>of loss..

Callous enough to steal someone's livelihood, tender enough to release
orphans...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:22:30 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:11:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat
Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> we ran the practice for our PBeM TCS game...here are some conclusions:
Since I wasn't there...is there any log of what happened?
***********
Doh!!

I *knew* there was somthing I had to do befor getting on IRC last
night.....I accidently overwrote my log....maybe hal has a copy...

Hal?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:22:30 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:11:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat
Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> we ran the practice for our PBeM TCS game...here are some conclusions:
Since I wasn't there...is there any log of what happened?
***********
Doh!!

I *knew* there was somthing I had to do befor getting on IRC last
night.....I accidently overwrote my log....maybe hal has a copy...

Hal?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 11:46:00 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

 
> I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
> need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
> power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
> require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
> special high-temp radiators...

I guess the turret radiators could be facing away from the launch
side--you always know that at least the guy you're shooting at won't
see that radiation :-)

Drives are the other big culprit. Traveller TL15 military ships do
6gs. That's a lot of power.

- -Merrick

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:00:44 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
...
>seen in the time I've been on the list - specifically, trying to get the
>discussion more towards numbers than ideology.

  That's easy enough for you to say, you reactionary capitalist running-
proto-Vargr, you don't have the Vice-Chair waiting to recommend you for
re-education...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:51:31 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females

Walter Smith wrote:

> "_Lesbian Aslan_ Pirates Hurling Near-C Rocks at Kinetic-Kill
> Missile Armed Fighters"
> 

No, the Aslan lesbians arose out of discussions of Aslan society and the
consequences of the high Female:male ratio of the race, the details of
which I remember only dimly...the debate was actually short lived, but
it was such a good addition to the tagline that it's sort of stuck...

And you forgot 'Virus-infested', it belongs in there somewhere, probably
before Near-C ;-)

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:04:14 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: New Deck plans

>>THe PDF file for the Twain Class 200 sdt Free Trader has been added to
>the
>>Jump Point web page. That makes two PDF files, both Free Traders. Take a
>>look and grab the file(s) and let me know what you think.
>>
>>Jump Point can be found at http://users.citnet.com/letterworks
>
>WOW! Now those are deckplans!

The deck plans look great, but theexploded view at the back just has funny
symbols rather than words. Did you include the fonts when you made the
PDF? If not, could you do that next time? (OK, could you do it with these
and repost?)

If you _did_ include the fonts, then I guess I need some help with Acrobat
Reader.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:31 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Physreps

>Anybody else do this kind of thing?  Suggestions, comments?
>

I like it.  The closest I got was index cards with a weapon's stats and a
*picture* of the weapon (usually clipped from somewhere - like a photocopy
of something from a nontrav GDW sourcebook) pasted to the front.

Pete

                      Peter H. Brenton : pbrenton@mit.edu
"A Good Traveller has no fixed plans and no intent on arriving."
  -Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 01:33:13 +0200
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <greimann@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy: Cease!

>
>Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?
I have to disagree, 
I think there have been some interesting arguments this time around.
Although the Piracy theme will never be resolved, the discussion
is interesting nonetheless!
Volker
- ---
Volker A. Greimann, greimann@geocities.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:44:20 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2) 

> In a message dated 10/23/98 11:05:01 AM Central Daylight Time,
> a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:
> 
> << The Luriani
>  
>   >>
> Most people reading this will say "Huh?" because they aren't working from or
> consulting the Minor Race Generation Tables.

Those the tables you were mailing out, Marc?  If so, I haven't gotten my set 
yet.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:25:36 -0400
From: "N. Eric Phillips" <stilleon@io.com>
Subject: Re: GT Lasers

- -----Original Message-----
From: David L. Pulver <dlpulver@kos.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 10:46 PM
Subject: GT Lasers


>Yes, if you have a triple laser turret, you may fire all three of the
>lasers, rolling individually to hit, against the same target, at no
>penalty.


And against different targets? Does the -4 apply then?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:45:53 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:32:28 -0400
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)
Hi All,

Ah hell, here's the whole list AFAIK
Note the ones without a mark I am actively seeking! Nudge, nudge, wink,
wink



with John J. McGuire
[ ]  Crisis in 2140 (1957)
***************
this one was published as double with 'Gunner Cade' the book is in a box at
home, so I don't know the autor.

Non-Genre Fiction
[ ]  Murder in the Gunroom (1953)
**********
this is the only one I don't have, anyone have an idea of how to get one
(other than get real luck in a used bookshop?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 22:10:17 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

On 10/23/98 at 10:50 PM,  "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com> said:

>>Michael, could you include the scale for the deckplans.  Are the
>>squares 1, 1.5 or 2 meters?

>Ok, I've revised the fonts and attempted to imbed them. I've also
>added the scale, 1.5 m per square (I'm a traditionalist when it comes
>to deck plans). Any way, please try the files again and let me know
>it they work all right. I tried them on my lap top and they showed up
>alright on it so I hope they'll be ok.

Thanks, Mike. I will. BTW, what software did you use for your plans?

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:40 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

>Most traveller power goes to the drives, so the power radiates
>there. You have to assume that even a t-plate has a hot exhaust, and
>that it takes a lot of the energy with it (that and whatever gravtic
>energy is lost... a good handwave). Th Scout with the drives off
>drops its power by about 100MW.
>

Ok, sounds good, but what is your exhaust?  Very hot H2?

PS: already ate crow on the imaging issue.  Finally got the data I needed to
'see the light' if you'll excuse the pun.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:33:51 EDT
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

In a message dated 10/23/98 9:33:28 AM Pacific Daylight Time, rancke@diku.dk
writes:

<< He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority of
 the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check? Not
 IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out around
 the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't it?
 Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
 reactivate them.
  >>

True; but you don't want them close enough to an unstable border that they
would be vunerable to a raid or shipjacking ala' the Zid Rachele incident at
Lunion (which had a zillion ships orbiting a naval facility, though I think
there were yards insystem)...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:45:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brannon Boren <brannonb@animal.blarg.net>
Subject: Re: : Re: The Imperial Fleet

On Fri, 23 Oct 1998, David Lightfinger wrote:

> Unfortunately, this is very common in the industry. I had to wait almost
> 2 years before Hero Games paid me for the Champions material I had
> written for them.

Ditto. After the second time my royalty check from ICE bounced I got a
little miffed. I did finally get them to cough up the money they owed me
after quite a long battle. I think told them I needed to buy a kidney or
something...

> ps. I will note SJG does NOT follow industry trend, and pays on time.
> Thus, you should see more GURPS:Traveller material coming out in their
> announcements soon, as some of us old fogeys gear up to put in queries
> and proposals to them :-)

I'd love to do work on Traveller, but I just can't get behind GURPS as a
system. Feel like collaborating?

Ben 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:46:23 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

- -----Original Message-----
From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 11:33 PM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added


>
>Thanks, Mike. I will. BTW, what software did you use for your plans?
>
>Eris
>--


Coreldraw 6.

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 01:11:41 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: : Re: The Imperial Fleet

 Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com> wrote:


>It is a shame you were never paid for the article. Perhaps we have
>discovered  new "Canon" of Trav Authors getting screwed.

You mean to support the T4 IG canon that the authors never get paid ;-)

Not funny when you talk to people like Andy Lilly et al. who did a lot of
work getting material out for IG with tight deadlines. And never got paid.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:14:16 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

At 12:42 PM 10/23/98 -0400, you wrote:
>How does the space shuttle handle heat build-up?

It has big radiators in the cargo bay that flip out as soon as it hits
orbit.  It also uses as little power as possible... the crew generate more
heat than the electrics.  They also use a lot of low-resistance wiring
(read: fiber-optics and pure copper) to minimise heat buildup from that
source.
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:42:27 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Efficient 100-D Control

Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> wrote:


>For any historically-challenged subscribers to the list, HMS ROYAL OAK
>was sunk in October 1939 by a U-boat (U-39?) that did just that:
>penetrated the main British naval base (Scapa Flow).

I'm sorry. Recent evidence shows that the Royal Oak was scuttled by her
crew to prevent the German U-Boat crew boarding her, stealing her and
obtaining valuable information... ;-)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1026
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1027



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Planetary development  (Was: The Sunbeard Declaration)
The Luriani (revised part 0/2)
Re: Piper (Murder in the Gunroom)
Re: Re UWP Cultural Extensions
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: GT transponders
Jump Signature (was: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud)
Re: The Imperial Navy
T-plate operational limits
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
re: Fighters
Re: Travellerish fiction 
Re: Sten 
re: Old Topics: Aslan Females
Thank You
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
re: Fighters

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:55:39 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Planetary development  (Was: The Sunbeard Declaration)

>A corrollory of #4 and #5 is that Outsystems will tend to remain
>underdeveloped, as they cannot develop until they are secure, and they are
>not worth securing until they are developed.

I like this... it explains why systems where every planet is developed out
the wazoo.

Now the question is, how does a new colony get started at all?
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:34:27 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The Luriani (revised part 0/2)

I've been doing some work on the Luriani recently (including moving them from 
Fornast to Ley sector). The work is far from finished and needs a lot of general 
polishing yet, but I though it might be interesting. As usual comments are most 
welcome.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 21:39:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Piper (Murder in the Gunroom)

- ---Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com wrote:
>
> Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:32:28 -0400
> From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
> Subject: Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)
> Hi All,
> 
> Ah hell, here's the whole list AFAIK
> Note the ones without a mark I am actively seeking! Nudge, nudge,
wink,
> wink
> 
> 
> 
> with John J. McGuire
> [ ]  Crisis in 2140 (1957)
> ***************
> this one was published as double with 'Gunner Cade' the book is in a
box at
> home, so I don't know the autor.
> 
> Non-Genre Fiction
> [ ]  Murder in the Gunroom (1953)
> **********
> this is the only one I don't have, anyone have an idea of how to get
one
> (other than get real luck in a used bookshop?
> 
Murder in the Gunroom has been republished. Check Amazon.com to see if
you can still get a copy. 

_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:17:45 -0700
From: "Suz Dollar" <suzd@goodnet.com>
Subject: Re: Re UWP Cultural Extensions

> >> .8) how much they appreciate/trust the media...
> >
> >How often is the media relevant to your campaigning?
> >It rarely comes up in mine.

Media has played a large role in one of the games I am in currently, in 
the form of one very pushy reporter. He went from being the biggest 
thorn in our side to the only NPC in the game we trusted in fairly short 
order.

In other games, knowing how the media operates in conjunction/relation 
to the government is very important. For some reason we always check 
the news channels for information. Of course, if there is a great deal of 
censorship going on, or the media is all owned, overtly or covertly, by 
one source/political persuasion/etc. then that information is suspect at 
best and should be viewed as such.

I would say that this information is important.

Suz

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:58:48 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

- -----Original Message-----
From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Saturday, October 24, 1998 12:10 AM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added


>Michael, they look good and printed out just fine.  It seemed like the size
of the Twain.pdf file went way up, I might be wrong as I was downloading it
through a dialup this time rather than a faster network connection.
>
>Eris

There was some increase to about 652kb, from imbedding the fonts I believe,
still a reasonable size compared to the ~1.5 meg in the original Corel file
and much higher in JPEG formats. I'd really like to suggest .PDF as a
standard, if the Acrobat package wasn't so expensive. I'm a bit luck to have
it available on my work network, so I can dial it up and use it.

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:07:06 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400, Fred and Evelyn Wolke
<thewolkes@earthlink.net>
>>if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
>
>Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
>anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
>anything there.
>
>If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
>Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
>away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
>better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
>locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
>out.

Well, IMO, a transponder is never going to be able to "prove" who you are
and I thought saying they existed for that reason didn't work.

If they exist, I think they would be mostly to aid navigation (ships are easier
to track and you don't have to take time to call them up to find out who they
are).   It does have some benefit to security because it complicates some
situations because ships have to commit to sneaking up (since once they
are detected they have to explain why their transponders were off which
they may or may not be able to do).

That is why I think they exist.

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:23:31 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Jump Signature (was: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud)

>> -no-one has ever really defined for me how bright a "jump flash" is, or
>what
>> wavelengths it comes out at, which is why they aren't in the rules. I
>don't
>> like jump flashes that much myself - ships are easy enough to see as it
>is,
>> and I would like spies to be able to jump in and out without being
>instantly
>> detected . . . but if someone gives me numbers I can put them in.
>
>Well, the jump flash properties could be features of the individual
>drives rather
>than a law of nature.  Thus you could get "stealth" drives that have
>virtually no
>jump flash, while cheaper drives lack the baffles and enter the system
>like a
>supernova.  One could even presuppose that each ship has its own jump
>signature.

I like this idea. Could we assume that unbaffled drives are fairly bright,
getting brighter with age? "Jumpflash baffles" are extra equipment that
reducing the signature of the flash. (Let the gearheads define the
performance parameters.) 

As to jump signature, treat that like sonar signatures now: it takes a
skilled professional to discriminate. Most civilians won't even know how,
because they don't need to know, while experienced navy sensor ops can
sometimes tell you not only who you are but what brand of parts you used
in your last overhaul.

In game terms:

To identify a ship from its jump signature
Edu + Sensor Ops > Impossible
This task is one to two levels easier if the operator is familiar with the
target, one level more difficult of the operator has _not_ had military
training or experience.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:57:41 EDT
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

> >"A numbered fleet, depending on its mission, may have between two and 10
> >squadrons amounting to between 50 and 200 ships."  We're previously told a
> >squadron is 3-10 ships.
> 
> Where? Not previously in that particular essay. Elsewhere we're told that

Yes, *in that particular essay.*  In the header, first paragraph... "At their
lowest level, Imperial ships are organized into squadrons (from three to 10
similar ships)."

> Answer: Yes. Despite what anyone may think, _Striker_ is no less canonical
> than any other official source. And _Striker_, Book 2, p. 38 says:

Striker should be left to it's primary purpose and that's miniatures gaming.
The econ stuff was obviously not throught through the background.  

> Also, the figure is low if compared to the figures that _Trillion Credit
> Squadron_ and _Pocket Empires_ provide. TCS use 5% on the Navy alone, no
> mention of the army; PE figures are fluid, but can reach 20-30% IIRC (I may
> be a bit off here).

IMO, none of those are credible for disecting the economics of the Third
Imperium (or any polity of the OTU).  It's obvious GDW didn't use Striker or
TCS (or anything even remotely resembling Pocket Empires) in creating the
background.  All of them are made to be playable *games* (specificially games
for players to have pet "pocket empires" and polities and go to war w/ each
other) and to not simulate "reality" (such as it is) for the OTU.


Gary

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:26:14 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: T-plate operational limits

Rupert Boleyn queries me thusly:
>
>So what limit, if any, do you put on the distance from a gravity source
>that a T-plate can be and still function? If it's 1000 or 2000 diameters a
>misjump of more than a few hundred AU will kill a T-plate ship's crew far
>more certainly than a HEPlaR's, especially as the HEPlaR fuel supply may be
>enough to allow a jump.
>
MT does not have a limit on T-plate efficiency; My campiagns do not either.
I will not retrofit the T-Plate efficiency onto MT as I run it. IMO, it
defeats too much previous cannon (including TCS, to some degree), is ill
thought, and makes no sense. IMTU, True Recationless Thrusters push against
themost significant gravity wells, and thus the objects creating them, and
thus truly are not reactionless, but use the mass of planets, stars, dark
matter, interstellar gasses, etc., as reaction mass. Just like IMTU, a
repulsor CAN be used for fine maneuving in docks.

Since I don't run TNE anymore (the combat system is BROKEN, and I've tried
dozens of fixes, and just don't like any of them), and don't  like T4
except for the Psionics rules and number of skills per term, my players
don't expect me to use "questionable" items from the newer canon. If I were
running T4, I'd use the limits, and if T5 has the limits, when running T5
I'll use the limits.

TL 9 anti-grav-thrusters are limited to about 1000 diameters, and no full
thrust after 100 diameters, and I limit gravitic modules (vehicular type)
to 10 diameters for full thrust, and no thrust past 100 diameters.


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 11:19:55 -0700
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

>>Jeff Zeitlin wrote:
>>
>>> Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
>>> - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
>>> States since the mid-1980s.
>>
>>The what?!  I was raised in Texas and now live in Boston.
>>Both with large Latino communities, to say the least,
>>and I haven't noticed any change but for the positive in
>>the last 30 years.
>>
>>Bloo>
>
>I live in the Bay Area (San Francisco), and whenever there is ANY kind of
>economic down-turn, the Latino immigrants are the first to be targeted for
>scapegoating.  Right now, now that the economy is great, the "problem" is
>ignored.  But I'm SURE as soon as the job market takes a dive, we'll have
>more anti-immigrant propositions on the ballot.  It's pretty disgusting,
>really.
>
>Brian
>

ummmm....

Since my first reaction to reading these comments was to jump in, I'm sure
we could generate a nice volume of discussion on the topic.

But is it really Traveller?

douglas

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:08:06 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Fighters

At 01:47 PM 10/23/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:45:22 +0000
>From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
>Subject: re: Fighters
>
>
>Gurps is pretty much the same.  With a good gunners and tageting software
>it's 1 laser one dead missle per turn.  The only way to get misile hits is
>a
>large salvo that closes fast enough to overwhelm the defenses.  It is
>doable
>but not very cost effective.  Those misiles are pricy.
>*****************
>I agreee about the chances to hit,  in the game we ran one turret stopped 4
>missiles (but 4 more got through)
>
>I have my book with me so I looked it up.  I was just reading the space
>combat section when this came up.
>Do to turn limits in the combat situation you have to shoot a ship or a
>missle but not both with each laser.
>************
>GT 169  a weapon may be fired in point defense even it it engaged another
>target in the direct fire phase.
>
>
>
>1st second shoot three misiles  (likely but not curtain)  gunner skill 15 +
>15 accuacy +4 aiming +10 computer (very good comp.) +2 active sensor +10
>defensive fire  +4 rof =60 - 41 for range 1 = 19  You must role less the 21
>on three d6 but 17 and 18 always fail.
>*************
>I get: 15+15acc +10comp +2 active sensor +10pd +4rof -39 Range (PD fire may
>only be taken against ramming attempts.) = 17 or less for the first missile

Yep, caught that and corrected it and reposted.  (sigh, why didn't I catch
that the firsth time.)  Missed the pd completely though.

>each additional missile engaged is a further -2 to hit. he does however
>have 3 lasers so can roll 3 times on each attempt.  this gives him
>17,15,13,11,9,7,5,3,1 that he needs to roll against for point defense...so
>most likely 2-3 missile hits.

Damn!, missed that you can ingage different targets several times with the
same weapon.

I want a ROF 30 Gattling laser cannon for point defense.  No range to speek
of but +15 ROF fire bonus to swat misiles...lot's of missles.  Also good for
crowd control on planet. (Evil Grin)

>
>
>With this you can have a 10 or less to kill a missle at 30 hexes.
>*****************888
>the TL 12 lasers only have a range of 8 hexes.
>

not according to the table on page 173 1/2d = 10 or 13.  Max is much more.
Love that acc works out to max range.

Note: there is a miss print on the last page.  Hexes are 2000miles not 10,000.

This makes a ship with a high vector very dangerious.  His misiles move fast
and hit hard!

Misiles are nasty again in GT.

Note:  1 small nuke = radioactive gas cloud where ship use to be on a direct
hit.

I think your SDB may need some more armor.

I don't have my vehicle book with me.  Do you loose DR from an attack?  Only
on 6s?  How does this work?

Humm...Some extra E_banks in case you loose the reacter would be a good
design idea.  Plus a spare reacter of course.

>
> The
>problem is how fast are the misile moving 1g = 1 hex per second
>********************
>per turn...not per second (turns are 20 min long)
>
>
>
>
>3 missles hit if missle gunner role his success number.
>***************
>it is actually a contest of skills for the pilot of the ship and the
>missile gunner this hapens before PD fire, and missile that miss can be
>ignored for that turn (they may have enough Dv to loop around and come
>back).
>

Ouch!  Hire that wonder kid pilot!  He's BETTER than armor!

"I don't know what he would have cost but he would have been worth it!" Head
bad guy to 'personel manager' in Under Seige.

>
>**********8
>what Charles neglects to mention is the effects of velocity on damage...if
>there is only a modest vector differnce between the ship and the missile
>(say 5 hexes) even one can do massive damage to a scout....
>
>the missile (best case only one gets through) will do 6dx500 (5). the scout
>has DR 200, so effective DR is 40....assuming average damage for the
>missile 3.5*6*500=10,500 -40 = 10,460. the scout has 15,000 Hp and so will
>take 6 critical hits (6 rolls on the major damage table) almost certan to
>be crippled, possibly a floating wreck....)
>

Good point.  Misiles have gotten REAL nasty!  and the SDB need a lot more armor.

I hope to have a group up and running in a few weeks (first time I'll be
home) to test out some of this.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 07:17:21 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Travellerish fiction 

> > What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H. Beam
> Piper:
> >
> >       Little Fuzzy
> >       4-Day Planet
> >       Uller Uprising
> >       Space Viking
> 
>         The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
>         Fuzzy Sapiens
>         Fuzzies and Other People

I knew there were two more Piper Fuzzy books, as well as two 'other' Fuzzy 
books; I had them all at one time.  *(

> > There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the top of
> my
> > head.
> 
> More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
> the moment.
> 
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> You missed 'lone star planet','federation','empire','first cycle'

Lone Star Planet was printed up as a double with Four Day Planet.  It's in a 
box around here *somewhere*, or else over my little brother's place in 
Cleveland (I gotta get over there Real Soon Now & get the rest of my stuff...)

> no i do NOT lend books :)

You'll get my paperbacks when you pry my cold dead fingers from around them.  
And you *BETTER* treat 'em right, or I'm coming back to haunt you.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 19:57:02 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Sten 

>     The first 5 books were good. My step-dad gave me The Wolf Worlds to read
> one boring summer day WAAAAY back in the early eighties. Read it in two
> days, then, reread what I rushed through... Kids will be kids...
>     The only cool things about the series were:
>     1) How Sten started off on Vulcan, and , got that neat crystal and
> formed it into that wicked knife. Just wonder where I could find some of
> that crystal...
>     2) Alex Killgore's brogue and how it cut in-and-out at unusual times.
> The jokes were the worst, except the one about the 'wee snakes'

'Spotted snakes'.  I shudder every time I think about them.  <grin>

>     3) Also, Killgore being from a heavy-g world.
>     4) The Emperor, in the first few books was unusual for a regent
>     5) And, of course, AM2 (Wonder if the 3I has any of this stuff...)
> 
>     I'm not sure, but the war in the middle books were based on WW2. I
> thought that was the basis. Seemed too much a coincidence. Though, the book
> on the POW camp read like the Colditz Story/ Great Escape...

Yeah, I picked up on all those nifty lil in-house things.  Cool, weren't they?

Keven
 
tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 01:09:10 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Old Topics: Aslan Females

Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> wrote:

>I keep seeing this as part of the "old topics done to death" gag line,
>but realize I've never actually seen the debate, for example,
>
>"_Lesbian Aslan_ Pirates Hurling Near-C Rocks at Kinetic-Kill
>Missile Armed Fighters"
>
>Was there some kind of debate ages ago about Aslan females
>getting tired of babysitting Aslan males and going off on their own
>than I missed?

I posted something a fair while ago (12 months) that was a query in from
one of my games about how Aslan would consider casual sexual relationships.
It all happened at Dinomn when the Empress Nicholle got into port, and the
female Aslan engineer was bored with all the humans and disappeared... the
thread kind of degenerated after a few interesting posts (Wildstar's being
one of the most memorable).

http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/Kira.html

relates a little of the tale from another player's perspective.

Dom

(Wondering if these threads are taking up the role of uber-myths of the
type found in Robert Holdstock's _Mythago Wood_ ... a life of their own.
Indeed, are Hans and David real, or are they figments of a TML 'racial'
memory, the mythical arch-proponents of the two sides to the debate,
endlessly developing)

(Maybe not)

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 11:42:57 -0700
From: "Leo Hale" <lhale@panlabs.com>
Subject: Thank You

     I want you to know sir, that the following two posts were the only
reason I did not cancel my subscription to the TML today.  I can take a
small amount of people differences comming out in posts to the list, but
there comes a point when arguments should be moved to some other format.  I
do not have a filter option, so I am forced to see every single post made
to the list.  Piracy, Sensors, Transponders, & Fleet sizes are all subjects
that have been worked to death.  It was very refreshing to find a post with
both fore thought and solid work involved.  Again thank you.

Leo


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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:34:27 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

*SNIP*
- ------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:34:27 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The Luriani (revised part 2/2)

*SNIP*

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 18:49:54 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

On 10/23/98 at 11:46 AM,  Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com> said:

> 
>> I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
>> need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
>> power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
>> require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
>> special high-temp radiators...

>I guess the turret radiators could be facing away from the launch
>side--you always know that at least the guy you're shooting at won't
>see that radiation :-)

Sure, but if you're shooting is any good your target is going to
know ding-dang well where you're at, so I don't see the reason for
hiding from your target once you start shooting.  ;-> Ok, I really
do, and having radiators scattered around the hull is a good idea.

>Drives are the other big culprit. Traveller TL15 military ships do
>6gs. That's a lot of power.

No question about that.

My approach is to use a different technology for in-system maneuver,
but that only works for heretics like me ;-> For people that use
HEPlaR, or for that matter TPlates, a maneuvering ship is going to
be *very* detectable from at least one direction.  All I can suggest
is to postulate very good baffling to limit the area of exhaust
plume exposure.

That and being able to bank the fusion engine back to single digit
power levels when you aren't maneuvering or using weapons.

Eris

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:45:22 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Fighters

>"if the bloody things get through", of course, is the hard part - 
>for reasonable laser technology
>(let alone the really good lasers in GT or just-plain-T) hitting an
>incoming kinetic impact missile is remarkably easy; certainly for the
>space/price of a figher you can fit in a point defence laser that
>can eat up many many times its weight in impact missiles (at least
>in FFS2; but presumably also in GURPS - it'll be interesting to try
>this once I get a copy of GURPS.) 
>
>Bruce
>


Gurps is pretty much the same.  With a good gunners and tageting software
it's 1 laser one dead missle per turn.  The only way to get misile hits is a
large salvo that closes fast enough to overwhelm the defenses.  It is doable
but not very cost effective.  Those misiles are pricy.

I have my book with me so I looked it up.  I was just reading the space
combat section when this came up.

Do to turn limits in the combat situation you have to shoot a ship or a
missle but not both with each laser.  A scout with one triple laser turret
fired on by 9 missles from 2 seconds out will be hit by three missles if the
gunners involved do not miss.

1st second shoot three misiles  (likely but not curtain)  gunner skill 15 +
15 accuacy +4 aiming +10 computer (very good comp.) +2 active sensor +10
defensive fire  +4 rof =60 - 41 for range 1 = 19  You must role less the 21
on three d6 but 17 and 18 always fail.

With this you can have a 10 or less to kill a missle at 30 hexes.  The
problem is how fast are the misile moving 1g = 1 hex per second accel.
misiles have 6g/TL10 10g/TL12 and a 3 space combat turn duration.

2nd second shoot three missles and get hit by the other three. range 0 role
to hit = 21

3 missles hit if missle gunner role his success number.

missile cost 22kcr each.

Charles L.

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1027
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1028



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism
Re: Deja Vu all over again!
Re: Piracy: Cease!
Loading/Unloading
Loading/Unloading
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)
Re: Mutiny
Hot Ships...and I don't mean stolen! ( was Re: Perpetual Motion )
Sensors in GURPS

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:14:02 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism

Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> writes:
>Interesting tightrope one must walk to be a pirate. Scary enough
>to cow a merchant captain, but not scary enough to send the
>governor calling for the IN. Effective enough to make a profit,
>minor enough not to be worth the while of a light cruiser. Bold
>enough to take a prize, patient enough to wait for that sliver of
>perfect time when a prize can be taken without too much chance
>of loss..

Callous enough to steal someone's livelihood, tender enough to release
orphans...

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 20:41:53 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again!

From:           	"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Date sent:      	Sat, 24 Oct 98 01:54:40 -0500

>Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and over
>again?

No, I was just about to post and ask exactly that. Maybe we've accidently 
slipped into the Paramount SF universe (tm) and are stuck in one of their 
interminable temporal anomolies :*>.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 01:33:13 +0200
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <greimann@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy: Cease!

>
>Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?
I have to disagree, 
I think there have been some interesting arguments this time around.
Although the Piracy theme will never be resolved, the discussion
is interesting nonetheless!
Volker
- ---
Volker A. Greimann, greimann@geocities.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 04:17:01 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Loading/Unloading

AS threatened, I found the tables in FASA's Battletech, and will present an
adaptation for use with traveller (I am not reprinting theirs... its in
Battlespace, page 56). Also factored in are my experiences working in a
- -10c wharehouse.

			Minutes per metric ton**
Equipment Used		0-G	Vacc 1-G Air
Battle Dress (or equiv)	4	2	2
5 man in VaccSuits	4	3	3
5 man in clothes*	3	2	2
1 man with LRTP's	2	-	-
1 man w/Pallet Jacks**	-	3	2

This table basically assumes times from ready on boards to loaded in cargo
or vice versa; times really should be doubled for moving ship to ship.
Times should be doubled for medium break-bulk (loose boxes and crates
instead of containerized or shrinkwrapped onto pallets) and times 10 for
small items (125L boxes {25cm cubes}).

* in vaccum assumes LD Vacc suit or tailored vaccsuit.
** assume SG 4 (4MT per 1Td) as a good average if you don't want to figure
out masses from traveller cargos yourself.
*** assumes pallatized loads that are secure on the pallet. Iv'e moved up
to a 1/2 ton pallet of icecream at the rates shown, moving the goods from
loose to a pallet 2m from the shelves, while in a -10c freezer. Moving the
pallet the 10-15 meters to shrink-wrap took another 2 minutes on average,
including opening and closing the 1/4-ton sliding door. Shrink wrap took
another 5 minutes, and then it was a fairly stable unit. The guys who
worked the wharehouse (I worked the co-located icecream plant) could load
and move faster than I could. BTW, a 1/2ton pallet of ice cream is about 2m
tall, and uses a 1.5x1.5m pallet which is about 7-12 cm tall it's self,
weighing about 10kg. Lined up pallets go on trucks at the loading-dock at
the rate of about 1-2 per minute, depending on skill and depth of refer
van, at least that's what I've seen done. A full van can be unloaded to the
dock (which is level with the floor of the reefer van floor) in under 15
minutes for a fully palletized load in a 40' trailer. And about as long to
get the load into the freezer, using about 5 men for each task.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 04:17:01 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Loading/Unloading

AS threatened, I found the tables in FASA's Battletech, and will present an
adaptation for use with traveller (I am not reprinting theirs... its in
Battlespace, page 56). Also factored in are my experiences working in a
- -10c wharehouse.

			Minutes per metric ton**
Equipment Used		0-G	Vacc 1-G Air
Battle Dress (or equiv)	4	2	2
5 man in VaccSuits	4	3	3
5 man in clothes*	3	2	2
1 man with LRTP's	2	-	-
1 man w/Pallet Jacks**	-	3	2

This table basically assumes times from ready on boards to loaded in cargo
or vice versa; times really should be doubled for moving ship to ship.
Times should be doubled for medium break-bulk (loose boxes and crates
instead of containerized or shrinkwrapped onto pallets) and times 10 for
small items (125L boxes {25cm cubes}).

* in vaccum assumes LD Vacc suit or tailored vaccsuit.
** assume SG 4 (4MT per 1Td) as a good average if you don't want to figure
out masses from traveller cargos yourself.
*** assumes pallatized loads that are secure on the pallet. Iv'e moved up
to a 1/2 ton pallet of icecream at the rates shown, moving the goods from
loose to a pallet 2m from the shelves, while in a -10c freezer. Moving the
pallet the 10-15 meters to shrink-wrap took another 2 minutes on average,
including opening and closing the 1/4-ton sliding door. Shrink wrap took
another 5 minutes, and then it was a fairly stable unit. The guys who
worked the wharehouse (I worked the co-located icecream plant) could load
and move faster than I could. BTW, a 1/2ton pallet of ice cream is about 2m
tall, and uses a 1.5x1.5m pallet which is about 7-12 cm tall it's self,
weighing about 10kg. Lined up pallets go on trucks at the loading-dock at
the rate of about 1-2 per minute, depending on skill and depth of refer
van, at least that's what I've seen done. A full van can be unloaded to the
dock (which is level with the floor of the reefer van floor) in under 15
minutes for a fully palletized load in a 40' trailer. And about as long to
get the load into the freezer, using about 5 men for each task.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 07:14:24 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 

> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> ...
> >>   Has anyone ever figured out why armoured hulls use the cost formula
> >> of [MCr 0.3 (+ 0.1 per armour factor) per ton] in High Guard? I can
> >> see the explanation that it's different materials and engineering work
> >> in upgrading the whole structure (somewhat like compartmentalization
> ...
> >When you look at it, yeah, it's expensive, but not compared to egines and 
> >such.  And the price applies *ONLY* to the armour; my SDB design I posted the 
> >other day has 80 dt of armour at a cost of 56MCr.  The hull ran 96MCr, and the 
> >power plant ran 576MCr.  Power plants don't get cheaper (relatively) until you 
> >hit TL14!
> 
>   Yes, but the Terrier SDB is carrying (f4) 10% at MCr 0.7 /ton, while
> the Rabid Poodle is maxxed out for combat at (f12) 26% at MCr 1.5 /ton.
> At TL 12 they're presumably using superdense, which is KCr 14/m^3 in
> slabs, so a D-ton should cost MCr 0.196 plus forming and engineering?
> (which gives the 1000 Dt Poodle an armour allocation around 50,000 tons!)
> 
>   If the "2+2a" formula for armour in HG accounts for engineering and
> compartmentalization with the fixed 2% of ship D-tonnage, then the "2a"
> should be linear cost based on the material and its' forming/installation
> cost(?). If so, then the Poodle would pay ~2.6 times more its' armour
> (per D-t of ship) than the Terrier rather than the ~5.5 times it pays now.
> 
>   If installation is counted in HG's MCr 0.1 per Dt hull cgarge then the
> armour could be re-assessed as "material value at TL plus % for forming",
> thus giving a more rational (?) basis for costing armoured ships.


You're using some other stuff rather than straight HG.  Under HG, your hull 
costs the same whether it's mild steel or ferrocement or superdense.  Cost of 
materials is factored into it already.  If you're gonna evaluate a HG design, 
set your FS&S on the coffee table and take stuff right from HG.  I see the 
figures for armour bulk as reasonable for HG as it factors in 'inferior' 
materials at lower tech levels.  The lower your tech, the more bulk you need 
to get the same armour protection on your hull and the more bracing you need 
because your 'state of the art' is still under developement.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:51:48 EDT
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

In a message dated 10/22/98 17:08:53 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
prevattec@worldnet.att.net writes:

<< As for SFB 2 stingers 2 at range 0 on the front shield on a Fed. CA will
net
 about 20-30 internals (if memory serves). 12 stingers 2 = one CA in bpv.  At
 range 0 more CA.
 
 A CA on a CA (better example) at range 0 with just overloads will do 34
 interals.  (16x4=64 30 box shield)  Add phaser for an extra 34 points.
 Think you could win with 64 internals at WS0 or 1?  At range 1, about the
 same.  At range 4, 25-35 internals including 2 trop and 4 phasers.  At
 ranges 8 and average rolls, 10-15 internal including 1 torp and two phasers.
  >>

	I guess I'll rise to the bait on this one as well:  A Fed CA/CC is one of the
few starships in SFB to be able to withstand a full alpha strike on the #1
shield (no shield reinforcement assumed) by another CA/CC/DN and STILL be
combat-capable.  This ability is also shared by some Hydran vessels (the Cen
Hull hits for the Hydrans and the Labs for the Feds, acting as the "7th
shield").

	I have proved this (usually to everyones amazement) many many times; as for
credentials, I have been playing SFB since before the supplements came out
(the little books that is), as well as being a member of Battle Group Phoenix
(TFG playtest group for SFB) for 2 years and becoming a Rated Ace in 1994.

 If you want to nitpik everything to death then you'll need too start
footnoting everything you say as well.  I still have not gotten threshold
sensor numbers for these sensors yet.  No one has explained how a 100ton
scout can radiate 10MWs of heat per second as some say it does.  If you want
do carry on this discussion under the debating rules I can do that.  We will
both have to start by proving our primices.  Can you prove a 100MW power
plant has 10MWs of waste heat and a 100ton scout can radiate it without
killing the crew?

	Perhaps the best way to begin is for you to establish YOUR
credentials/qualifications.  You have made some references to your expertise,
but I have seen nothing to back those references up.  As for the debate, may I
respectfully suggest that you consider taking the question t the Trav-Tech
list and solicit thier opinions?  They are a fairly authoritative source of
info (and they will back thier arguments up w/ numbers and proofs...something
I have not noticed in your posts).  The subscription address is
Majordomo@qrc.com and in the body send:

subscribe trav-tech prevattec@worldnet.att.net

>>As for converting
heat to electricity by a solid state means check any thermalcouple reference
book or catalog for a very elementery form of this technology.<<

	Perhaps you would be so kind as to post the names of these reference
materials or catalogs for the very technology that you describe?  Magazine
articles, program references, anything???

	

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:42 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)

At 12:54 AM 10/23/98 -0700, you wrote:
>>From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
>>Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
>...
>>>>>  So, at maximum sensor range (IIRC?) a single "broadside" will inflict
>...
>>All aproaches from behind the planet to remain hidden for the examples below.
>
>  yeah, but that only works because SFB is 2-D :)
>
>...
>>>  Unless the crews are pirates, I suspect. One guy watching the boards
>>>wouldn't work? People make lots of jokes about computers using vacuum
>>>tubes in Trav, but then they assume that software will never get past
>>>the pong level?
>>
>>But the guns will be unmaned if the crew is standing down.  That was my
>>point.  You will not have everybody at their station all the time.  You just
>>agreed with me.  The pirate knows when he will attack an can have his crew
>>on station.  The SDB never knows when all hell will break loose.
>
>  I didn't agree - I implied that maybe automation (toggled by a human
>for offensive weapons) would handle a few minutes of the engagement at
>some degraded function. You disagree with that premise?
>

Good point and one that I will consede too.  A ship in this situation would
be foolish not to have the best gunner programs money can buy.

>...
>>Stop 50 missles on balistic targeting with no gunners in the turrets and 3
>>seconds warning?  Real good crew.
>
>  I don't know where ballistic targetting came into this, but I doubt

No targeting laser to give the attack away.  That's what balistic targeting
is for.

>that the PD lasers are run by Mk. I eyeballs. It's possible that there
>may be automation in PD functions, even at TL 6-7.
>
>  Three seconds? Engagement range? d=1/2at^2? Show me, please.
>

If the attacker speed is high (.5c) then 3 seconds is about all the warning
you get from c speed sensors.  Range is not that important, it rate of
closure that count.  If you close in three second for the detection point 3
second is all they get but this is a mute point anyway.  The sensor
discussion killed this type of pirate anyway.

>...
>>>others habitations (the Alabama (?) comes to mind).
>>
>>Then who builds the merc cruisers, armed merchants, and the corsairs?
>
>  I'll assume that they're built at shipyards? If you're playing in the
>Imperium, then logically they'd be shipyards under 3I supervision, with
>instructions about building warships without end-user certificates, no
>Scout Ships of Doom, maybe submitting paperwork to INI so they can start
>by looking at vessel capabilities?
>
>  I doubt that most campaigns (CT/HG) would allow merchants to buy missile
>bays, PA barbettes, and meson guns.
>

True but what about mercinary companies?  Where do pirates start any way?

But that is mute.  The sensor discussion did it for me.  A system with a
good sensor array and a few well stationed SDBs out at about 50 dias. would
be pirate proof to all but a AHL class pirate making a full scale attack and
short of a really improbable mutiny that is not going to happen.

You win.  Pirate don't work in defended systems.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:12:25 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Mutiny

>I've been wondering: considering that mutiny is one of the more
>sensible sources of pirate ships we've discussed, how big a ship
>could a mutiny believably take place on?
*snip*
>Is a 400tn _Gazelle_ Close Escort or _Luuru Kilaalum_ (sp?)
>Patrol Cruiser too big? How about an 800tn _Broadsword_
>Mercenary Cruiser? A 1200tn _Kinunir_ Battle Cruiser?

Funny you should mention the Gazelle; The text in Traders and Gunboats
(Supplement 7 of the LBBs) indicated that the layout of decks in the
Gazelle was *specifically* designed to seperate the enlisted crew from the
officers and provide the officers with a defensable bridge area in the
event of a mutiny.

>Then there is the question: you've offed the Captain and a senior
>officer or two, as well as any loyal crew. Where do you get
>replacements? I don't see too many crew mutinying as a unit -
>unless we're talking Vargr of course.

Comments of others aside, and other factors affecting piracy
notwithstanding, I don't think its difficult for an undercrewed ship to
operate.  Like the sailing ships of old, military vessels are heavily
overcrewed due to the needs of combat and the desire for extra coverage for
watches and such.  If procedures are changed, maintenance schedules allowed
to slip, etc, a vessel like a Gazelle could be run with only 4 crewmembers
(out of 12) for most of the time (I'm thinking two watchstanders, one in
engineering, one on the bridge, in rotating 8 or 12 hour shifts).

A British Frigate in the West Indies mutinied in the late 1700s over the
behavior of their captain (described in _The Black Ship_ I can't recall the
vessels name).  They did not turn pirate, but they turned themselves in to
a Spainish port, where some stayed awhile, but most dispersed themselves to
the four winds, some even returning home to England, several signed on
privateers or pirates, many went to America, and many simply were not heard
of again.  All the ones we know about were eventually hung.  Some, however,
seem to have successfully mutinied.

I believe that of the 130 or so on board, 30-50 were "active" mutineers,
60-80 were "passive participants" who obeyed orders of the mutineers once
the killing was over, and the remainder were either killed and thrown
overboard or just thrown overboard.  Several asked that they be considered
prisoners of war when they arrived in the Spainish port.  I think that with
treatment of the more professional Imp Navy personnel you would expect many
fewer to participate or allow a mutiny to occur, so I would not expect an
Imperial Navy vessel much larger than a Gazelle to be subject to a mutiny.

Other navies (local navies with SDBs) might be different.

Now, a British Frigate in 1800 could not, in the end, escape the British
Navy and remain on Earth, so there is not really a good analogy to an
Imperial Navy ship near an open border, like the Vargr Extents or the
Trojan Reach, where many local nation-states would pay nicely for a
Gazelle.  On the other paw, The Imperial Navy would do it's damndest (like
the RN) to hunt down and kill every last perpetrator of a mutiny in hopes
that this would discourage imitators.

In any case there is that reference to mutiny in LBB Supp. 7 which even
prompted a *design change* on a common Impy Navy ship.

Pete


Peter H. Brenton
MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center
(617) 253-3185
pbrenton@mit.edu

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:34 -0500
From: Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Hot Ships...and I don't mean stolen! ( was Re: Perpetual Motion )

Rob Prior wrote:

> For reference:
 
> My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
> should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
> are really hot!  

Yeah, Traveller ships in all versions draw *way* too much power. 

> After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
> statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
> catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
> repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)

<g>

> The solutions are:
 
> 1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
> realistic sensor rules.
 
> 2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.
 
> 3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
> maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
> mechanism).

As tough as it would be to do, I'd vote for 1.

Bruce Macintosh added...

> I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
> need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
> power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
> require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
> special high-temp radiators...

No, I don't think we could get the power requirements down to
*realistic* levels, but we could (and should) lower them to more
reasonable ones. As for weapons, of course, they are going to be
*very* power hungry, and that shouldn't change. Ships with beam
weapons are going to need big fusion engines. OTOH, we don't have run
those big fusion engines at full power 24 hours a day do we? Well, it
*seems* like we always have, but I've never thought that was very
reasonable.

As a mind experiment, let's say a 100 dton Type S Scout has an 80MW
fusion engine that it can throttle back to 5% of maximum output, so it
will always be producing 4MW while it's running. 

When it is drifting through space with minimal life support, using
passive sensors and maintaining only a trickle charge to the drives or
weapons, let's say, it *requires* only 2 MW's. So maybe it turns off
the fusion engine and runs off of stored power (fuel cells, batteries,
powercells, etc) only occasionally powering the engine back up to
recharge the batteries, or, if your TU won't allow for turning fusion
engines on and off like gasoline engines (I wouldn't allow *quite*
that much leeway ;), runs the fusion engine at it's lowest possible
level (4MW) it can. Combined with a little stealthing shouldn't that
drop the range of detection *way* down?

Now, if our Scout uses it's drives, active sensors, or *heaven forbid*
it's weapons, it will increase it's power consumption, and have to
stoke the fusion engine up to higher levels. Suddenly, it's a "hotter"
object visible on sensors at a longer range, but not necessarily from
every direction. 

If the power is going mainly to the drives, and the drives dispose of
*most* of the extra energy in one direction..aft, then our Scout's
detection level might not go up much in any direction except from the
rear. 

IMO, active sensors should be like spotlights, in that where ever the
ship aims them it can resolve a target much better, but is also much
easier to detect. 

Beam weapons are a different case. I suspect they will never be all
that efficient, so a lot of the power they consume will have to be
dealt with separately. Putting special high-temp radiators on their
turrets, in their bays, and around their spinal mounts is probably the
best way to handle them, too.  In any case, a ship using beam weapons
should light up like a Christmas Tree, but that doesn't bother me in
the least. Once the firing starts all bets are off anyway.

Eris

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:03:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Sensors in GURPS

- --0-2078917053-909187425=:31899
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII

I've been experimenting on and off with rewriting gurps sensors in a way which
made more sense than what's in the standard rules; I'm not very sure of all my
numbers, but I decided to post this so comments can be made -- so please, make
comments ;).  Much of the issue here was some straightforward reality checks --
I wanted to make it so you can see nearby stars, while spotting a person from a
mile away is pretty difficult even if you know where to look.
- --0-2078917053-909187425=:31899
Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Description: sensor.rules.gurps

I can't make too many promises about the accuracy of these tables, they 
are largely an attempt to generate sane results from the game system,
particularly in making sure that nearby stars aren't invisible, while a
person a mile away is hard to see.  Ranges are based on the standard range
tables, but extended to ranges which might be interesting in space.

1)  Converting Sensor Stats for these rules:
    If scan is 0-20, do not adjust.
    If scan is 20-36, halve and add 10 (round normally).
    If scan is 37+, divide by 3 and add 16 (round normally).
    Note that these are atmospheric scan values -- GT lists space scan
    values, which are 6 higher.  Subtract the +6 for space before converting.
    For reference, eyes have scan 10.  The relevant GT sensors are:
    Cockpit/10: passive (29/2+10)=25, active(33/2+10)=27, radscan(29/2+10)=25
    Cockpit/12: passive (31/2+10)=26, active(34/2+10)=27, radscan(31/2+10)=26
    Basic/10: passive (32/2+10)=26, active(35/2+10)=28, radscan(31/2+10)=26
    Basic/12: passive (32/2+10)=26, active(36/2+10)=28, radscan(35/2+10)=28
    Command/10: passive (33/2+10)=27, active(36/2+10)=28, radscan(32/2+10)=26
    Command/12: passive (35/2+10)=28, active(37/3+16)=28, radscan(38/3+16)=29

2)  Determining 'signature'
*   Visual signature is equal to size modifier, plus chameleon surface.  In
    space, the black paint used in stealth coatings acts as a chameleon 
    surface -- subtract (TL-4) for basic, (TL-2) for radical.  Basic black
    paint reduces signature by 3.  A reflective or white surface adds 2.
*   Radar signature uses the normal computations and _halves_ them -- thus,
    base value is (size/2), subtract (TL-4)/2 for basic, (TL-4) for radical.
    For convenience, assume Lidar uses the Radar signature.  Note that a
    ship currently _using_ active sensors has a signature of (scan-TL) 
    and can be detected by a radscanner.
*   IR signature uses either the size modifier of the vehicle, _or_ a 
    function of power consumption and expected waste heat; this number is
    usually significantly greater (and is, in fact, probably higher than
    the numbers I use).  In any case, emissions cloaking reduces this,
    by (TL-4)/2 for basic, (TL-4) for radical.  The major power users on
    a ship are as follows:
    Artificial Gravity: 1 MW per 50 spaces or fraction thereof.
    Jump Drive: 10 MW per unit of J-drive.  Not usually very relevant, but
        important if a ship exits jump and then goes cold.
    Manuever Drive: 1 MW per 10 tons thrust.
    Weapons Fire: 16 MW for TL 10 laser, 18 for TL 12; 400 MW for bay
        PAW/meson, 19000 for spinal PAW/meson.
    Add up power consumption: signature is +8 for 1 MW, +9 for 2 MW, +10
        for 5 MW, and +3 per *10.  In situations where a ship's signature
        _changes_, IR signature will drop by 1 per 10 minutes (2/turn); it
        will rise essentially immediately (<1 turn).  Add +1 to IR signature
        per TL below 10 -- lower tech engines are less efficient (these
        numbers assume about 10% heat emissions).  A human has a base 
        emitted signature of +0.
    Example: a TL 10 merchant (size +8) has around 600 tons thrust (60 MW)
        and 4 MW for artificial gravity.  Signature is +13; drops to +9 if
        not using thrust, +8 if all major power shut off.
    Example 2: a TL 10 400tn raider (size +9) has 6000 tons thrust (600 MW)
        and 8 MW for artificial gravity, but radical EM cloaking.  Signature
        is +10 with drive active, +4 with artificial gravity online,
        +3 with all major power shut off.
*   Natural Objects: generally speaking, the size modifier of a natural
    object should be the negative of a range modifier equal to its diameter,
    +2 (natural objects are generally spherical).   Normal modifiers apply;
    signature will usually be within a point of the size modifier.
    A star has a visual signature of 76-1.2*absolute magnitude (70 for
    sol).

3)  Signature of 'Events':
    Certain short-term events are reasonably likely to be spotted, most 
    notably weapons fire and jumping.
    An energy weapon firing has a signature based on its power output --
    use 10* its normal power requirement and compute based on that.
    Specifically, this works out to +12 for lasers, +16 for bay weapons,
    +21 for spinal weapons.
    Nuclear weapons have a signature of +14 for 0.001 kT, and +3 per *10.
    A starship jumping insystem has a signature of 17 + 3log10(# of J);
    this works out to 5+(size*1.5), +1 for J-3 or higher, and lasts
    for a minute (giving +2 detection).

4)  Detection Process:
    If this is initial detection, simply add up range, signature, and all
    relevant modifiers; if the total is less than zero double the result.
    Use this as a modifier for a sensor operations roll.

    If this is _not_ initial detection, use the above process, but you can
    usually assume that the bonus for field of view will be +5.

    Special case: resolving the shape of an object is very different from
    detection, at least in space -- it is, in fact, sufficiently different
    to warrant a completely different detection process.  For resolving the
    shape, apply _only_ the following modifiers:
        Time (maximum +2), Focus (maximum +2), Target Size, Range,
        Intervening Atmosphere, -2 if using thermal sensors or lidar, -6
        if using imaging radar.

    Special case: objects which are quite near each other.  Treat as per
    resolving the shape of an object, but use the size modifier for the
    distance between the objects.

    What you roll will determine what information you get:
    Success by 0-2: detection.
        For optical sensors, gives direction and relative brightness.
        For radar sensors, gives range and apparent signature.
        For thermal sensors, gives direction and relative brightness.
        For shape resolution, gives size and general shape.
    Success by 3-5: recognition
        For optical sensors, as above plus exact color.
        For radar sensors, as above plus exact velocity.
        For thermal sensors, as above plus temperature.
        For shape resolution, gives sufficient information to identify a
            class of vehicle or entity.  Battle damage will be visible, etc.
    Success by 6+: identification
        For optical/thermal sensors, spectral analysis may be performed, and
            a time-based brightness curve generated.  For objects which have
            known spectral lines, velocity to/away (to within 1 km/sec)
            may be determined.
        For radar sensors, a time-based brightness profile may be generated,
            allowing determinations about rotation and some sorts of shape
            computation.
        for shape resolution, gives sufficient information to identify a
            particular vehicle or person.

4)  Determine Range.  This is an extended table of range modifiers, optimized
    for space.
Range           Mod     Range           Mod     Range           Mod
1000 miles      -35     1500 miles      -36     2000 miles      -37
3000 miles      -38     4500 miles      -39     7000 miles      -40
1 hex(10k mile) -41     2 hexes         -43     3 hexes         -44
5 hexes         -45     7 hexes         -46     10 hexes        -47
15 hexes        -48     1 light-second  -49     2 ls            -51
3 ls            -52     5 ls            -53     7 ls            -54
10 ls           -55     15 ls           -56     20 ls           -57
30 ls           -58     0.1 AU          -59     0.15 AU         -60
0.2 AU          -61     0.3 AU          -62     0.5 AU          -63
0.7 AU          -64     1 AU            -65     1.5 AU          -66
2 AU            -67     3 AU            -68     4.5 AU          -69
7 AU            -70     10 AU           -71     15 AU           -72
20 AU           -73     30 AU           -74     45 AU           -75
70 AU           -76     100 AU          -77     150 AU          -78
200 AU          -79     300 AU          -80     450 AU          -81
700 AU (.01 ly) -82     1000 AU         -83     1500 AU         -84
2000 AU         -85     3000 AU         -86     .1 light-year   -87
.15 ly          -88     .2 ly           -89     .3 ly           -90
.45 ly          -91     .7 ly           -92     1 ly (.3 pc)    -93
1.5 ly (.5 pc)  -94     2 ly (.7 pc)    -95     1 pc            -96
2 pc            -98     3 pc            -99     5 pc            -100
7 pc            -101    10 pc           -102    15 pc           -103

Initial Detection Roll:
    Add up all modifiers; if < 0, _double_ (this is a hack -- an expert
    operator (skill 18) shouldn't have 10x the detection range of a moderate
    skill (skill 12) operator.  This reduces it to about 3x, but the expert
    will be much more reliable).  Roll electronics/sensor operation at this
    modifier.

Basic Table of Modifiers:
Modifier                                Visual  Radar   Thermal
Turn Length (the human eye is limited to a +2 bonus).  Use the scan time or
    the duration of the event being observed, whichever is _less_.
    1 second                            -2      -2      -2
    2 seconds                           -1      -1      -1
    4 seconds                           +0      +0      +0
    15 seconds                          +1      +1      +1
    1 minute                            +2      +2      +2
    4 minutes                           +3      +3      +3
    15 minutes                          +4      +4      +4
    1 hour                              +5      +5      +5
Limited Focal Area (the human eye is limited to a +3 bonus)
    360 degree arc                      -2      -2      -2
    180 degree arc (peripheral vision)  -1      -1      -1
    120 degree arc (normal vision)      +0      +0      +0
    60 degree arc                       +1      +1      +1
    30 degree arc                       +2      +2      +2
    12 degree arc(1/5 range)            +3      +3      +3
    6 degree arc (1/10 range)           +4      +4      +4
    3 degree arc (1/20 range)           +5      +5      +5
Location of target (use the best; not applicable to shape resolution)
    -On ground, daytime                 +0      -2      -2(2)
    -On ground, nighttime               +0(1)   -2      -2(3)
    -On ground, nighttime/vacuum        +0(1)   +0      +0(3)
    -Near ground, daytime               +2      +2      -2(2)
    -Near ground, nighttime             +2(1)   +2      +0(3)
    -Near ground, nighttime/vacuum      +2(1)   +4      +2(3)
    (1) assumes some form of night vision apparatus.  Otherwise, apply
        normal darkness modifiers.
    (2) if has an emitted signature, give +1 if = size-1, +2 if (size),
        +4 if (size+1), +6 if greater than size+1; this is in addition to
        using emitted signature rather than size modifier.  Reasonably
        likely to be applicable to spacecraft.  For reference, this gives 
        a +2 for spotting humans.
    (3) as above, but add +1 to emitted signature when computing bonus.
    -Silhoutte against space, nighttime +14(*)  +8      +8
    *   assumes a truly dark sky.  Near a city will be much worse.
    -Silhoutte against space, daytime   +2      +8      +2
    -Silhoutte against space, vacuum    +14     +12     +12 
        -near planet or asteroid        -3      -3      -3
        -silhoutte against primary       *      -8       *
            Use the 'shape resolution' case, described above, but with a +2
            bonus for anti-chameleon.  You can only see an object against
            a star by seeing black spot, and that's _much_ harder than seeing 
            an illuminated object against space.
        -solar corona                   -6      -6      -6
            Note that lighting modifiers will usually negate the vision mod,
            and are reasonably likely to negate the IR modifier as well.
        -target within inner zone       +0      -3      +0
Target Behavior (only applies to initial detection)
    Target moving against backdrop      +2      +2      +2
        Means 'moving by normal resolution of sensor in one turn'.  To
        determine this, take (range mod)-(size mod of distance)+scan.
        For even the lowest-grade space sensors this means that an 
        object moving at orbital velocity around a planet an AU away
        appears to be moving, so this modifier usually applies to detecting
        ships.
    Significant velocity towards/away   +0      +2      +0
        Assumes a doppler radar of some kind.
Intervening atmosphere (if -10 or worse vision is totally blocked)
    Thin (per 5 miles, or to space)     -0      -0      -1
    Moderate (as above)                 -1      -0*     -2
    Dense (as above)                    -2      -1*     -4
        *Add additional -1 if going into space, due to layers in the upper
        atmosphere.
    Clouds (per 50 yards)               -5      -0      -1
    Gas Giant Atmosphere (choose X)     -x      -x/2    -x
Lighting
    Brightness of Primary (X=Sig-70)    +x(1)   +0      +0(2)
    Nearness of Primary (X=range+67)    +x(1)   +0      +0(2)
    Shadow of Planet                    -12     +0      +0(2)
    (1) only if silhoutted against space.
    (2) modifier applies to signature based on size, but not signature
        based on power consumption; max -6 if object is warm enough for
        humans to survive.
    
Simplifications for space combat:
    In general, for space combat purposes, you will have a +12 for IR/radar
    in space, a +4 for turn length, a -2 for 360 scan, and a +2 for a
    moving object (negating this is quite hard, though not impossible), for
    a total of +16 to scan; this gives a TL 10 basic bridge a 42 passive, a
    TL 12 command bridge a 44.  This allows a ship which is mostly powered
    down to evade detection at reasonable ranges, but is significantly 
    better range than what GT normally gives.

Example:
    For a human to spot alpha centaurus (signature +71, range -97), at night:
    +10 scan, +71 signature, -97 range, +14 terrain, -1 atmosphere, total 
    -3, doubled to -6.  Probably not going to spot it randomly.  However,
    scan a 30 degree arc (+2) and spend 15 seconds (+1) and you've got 
    a pretty good chance.

Example 2: for a merchant (scan 26 passive, net 42) to detect a pirate
    with no drives, but running artificial gravity (signature +4) at half
    the jump limit (2 light-seconds, range -51): total -5, doubled to -10,
    virtually zero chance.  The pirate, meanwhile, has a TL 10 command 
    bridge with scan 27, net 43, target signature +13, net +5 -- no problem.
    If the pirate kicks in his drives signature jumps to +10, for a +1 to
    scan -- depends on the alertness of the operator.

- --0-2078917053-909187425=:31899--

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1028
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1029



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Deja Vu all over again!
Re: Piracy
Re: Deja Vu all over again!
Re: Piracy, Cease and Desist! 
Re: Imperial navy and auxiliaries
Re: Deja Vu all over again! 
Re: Deja Vu all over again! 
Re: Imperial navy and auxiliaries
Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.
re: Piracy: Cease!
Re: Transponder's true nature
re: Done to Death (was Thank You)
Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
TML repeats
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
Re: Efficient 100-D Control
Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)
Re: The Imperial Navy
Re: The Colonial fleet
Re: Polyglot Traveller Lexicon

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 01:53:10 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again!

Yes.  BTW, did anybody see my adventure seed post (piracy)? I either
didn't get it, or I lost it in the pile of repeat transmissions.

That's what I get for not CCing myself.

- -Merrick

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 20:42:34 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Piracy

At 17:53 23/10/98 -0400, Thom Harris wrote:

>I think that you misunderstood what he was saying.  Reservists by nature are
>NOT out in the space lanes in their ships.  An example of Reserve activity
>would be that they meet one weekend a month and go active for two weeks in
>the summer.  This would then cause one to believe that the ships of the
>Reserve Fleet are ALMOST moth-balled and would take some time to bring
>on-line.  Reservists routinely take they active duty period fixing up there
>"vehicles" and training to maintain their standards for going to war.  You
>would see the occasional Reserve Ship out and about just so they can blow
>the cob webs out.  Think for a minute, if you are only on active duty for
>two weeks and a jump takes one week then you would only be able to take your
>ship out and right back and be done for the year.

In the case of the RN of WWII many reservists would be very good at basic
shiphandling, because after leaving the Navy (and joining the reserves)
they went into related jobs - fishing, costal trading, etc.

In the 3I this could well be the case, as well, with the reservists having
jobs on shuttles and in-system shipping. This means that while they may be
a bit rusty with the guns, etc their other skills will be pretty good.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 21:28:17 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again!

At 01:54 24/10/98 -0500, Eris wrote:
>Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and
over again?

I am too. I thought it was my mail program, especially as I chaecked it
settings and they seemed a little off, however this leads me to belive that
it might just be at the other end :(

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 06:12:02 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, Cease and Desist! 

> >From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
> ...
> >seen in the time I've been on the list - specifically, trying to get the
> >discussion more towards numbers than ideology.
> 
>   That's easy enough for you to say, you reactionary capitalist running-
> proto-Vargr, you don't have the Vice-Chair waiting to recommend you for
> re-education...

That's easy enough of you to say, you bleeding heart crypto-socialist 
proto-Aslan.  You're not surrounded by kids chanting to worship a purple 
dinosaur and wanting you to get in touch with your inner child!  <grin>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 12:16:28 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Imperial navy and auxiliaries

Rupert Boleyn writes:
> Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

>Given that this state of affiars lasted for over 1500 years, I can see no
>reason why it shouldn't be able to exist in the far future.

Being possible dosen't mean that it is or isn't there. I think too many
people confuse possible/impossible with established/established not to be.
I think that is partly due to the fact that they are interrelated. But they
are not the same thing.

If something is impossible and the game author says it dosen't exist then
there is no problem.

If something is possible and the author says it exists then it exists.

If it is possible, but the author says it dosen't exist, then it dosen't
exist (but see below).

The problems all arise when something is impossible or almost so and
the author nevertheless says it exist and when something is inevitable
or nearly so and the author says it dosen't exist. That's when we get
all the discussions.

No, I forgot the most frequent source of controversy: When something is
possible and the author in one place says it exists and in another says
it dosen't... ;-)

[By 'author' I mean the collective writers of all canonical material. I'm
not dumping on Marc].



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
"I know there are some people in the world who do not tolerate their
fellow human beings, and I just can't _stand_ people like that!"
                                (after Tom Lehrer)

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 06:25:15 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again! 

> Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and over
again?

Nope.  I just got a pile of 'em I *KNOW* I've read at least once or twice.
Point, click, delete to the rescue...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 06:28:07 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again! 

> From:           	"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
> Date sent:      	Sat, 24 Oct 98 01:54:40 -0500
> 
> >Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and over
> >again?
> 
> No, I was just about to post and ask exactly that. Maybe we've accidently 
> slipped into the Paramount SF universe (tm) and are stuck in one of their 
> interminable temporal anomolies :*>.

Oh, bollocks.  Time to purge the mailserver with a verteron particle spray.  What?
We used that *LAST* episode?  How bout antichroniton particles?  Three weeks ago?
Oh, bollocks, when was the last time we hit something with a wrench??

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 23:31:04 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Imperial navy and auxiliaries

At 12:16 24/10/98 +0200, Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:

[I wrote:]
>>Given that this state of affiars lasted for over 1500 years, I can see no
>>reason why it shouldn't be able to exist in the far future.


>Being possible dosen't mean that it is or isn't there. I think too many
>people confuse possible/impossible with established/established not to be.
>I think that is partly due to the fact that they are interrelated. But they
>are not the same thing.

That wasn't why I wrote what I did. What prompted my comment was the way
many people (including myself from time to time, no doubt) make assumptions
based on the way things are now, assuming that that, for example the ratio
of armour to weapons will follow current trends. This is ignoring the fact
that most of these trends or ratios have been different in the past, often
for most of history, and could well (in fact IMO will probably be different
in the future).

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that the late 20th century is a lousy
place to be looking for examples to support any particular view on the OTU
in the abscence of any real canon.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:10:44 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.

"Shade" <jwatts@catt.com> wrote:

>It comes from a topic I started a long time ago that had to do with a
>Aslan-Vargr " sex study " that was published on the list a VERY long time
>ago.
>
>It was basicly done to death and is generally regarded as a sore subject.
>
>Just to let ya know....  it was established in that " study " that a great
>percentage of Aslan females were lesbian or bisexual.

Ouch! You mean that the discussion happened before last years one? Has
anyone ever plotted the postings on each of these touch topics on a time
axis. There could be an interesting cycle....

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:14:53 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Piracy: Cease!

SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com> wrote:

>Yeah... if we must have a re-run, can't we re-open the fighter debate? That
>was more fun...

"And, as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared" (Mr Ben, BBC TV)

I get to read a restart in the fighter debate the two digests before my
post hit the TML!

Sureal!

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:30:51 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Transponder's true nature

shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson) wrote:

>  They complain that they don't want to discuss piracy? Well, we can
>make them regret _that_ :>  *
<snip>
>  * - sorry - my "Leroy" file ready racks are empty...


About the TL16 RoM - I thought you offered to prove from existing published
sources that this was an underestimate of the tech level, modified by
Imperial propaganda?

;-)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:25:12 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Done to Death (was Thank You)

Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> wrote:

>But seriously...someone mentioned that the re-debate of old topics
>may be a good sign, possible evidence of new blood on the list. I would
>agree quite a bit - there have actually been a couple of debates I've
>missed all together, though I'll restrain myself from even mentioning
>them lest I run the risk of starting them again...

Well, the one I'd like to see would be the Near-C rocks one. I loved the
taster that Roderick and Leonard gave us when Famille Spofulam was trying
to design a deep meson site killer. ;-)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 06:39:59 EDT
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

In a message dated 10/23/98 6:00:04 PM Central Daylight Time,
a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:

<< The only thing I can't figure out is what are "components" >>
Components are the divisions within Gender.

1-gender. all are female
2-gender: male female
3-gender: Male Female Neuter (or) EggBearer Donor (and I forget for the
moment)
4-gender etc
most above 3 have genders labelled 1-n.

Marc

(thanks for the compliment)

M

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:50:48 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

Mike,

>There was some increase to about 652kb, from imbedding the fonts I believe,
>still a reasonable size compared to the ~1.5 meg in the original Corel file
>and much higher in JPEG formats. I'd really like to suggest .PDF as a
>standard, if the Acrobat package wasn't so expensive. I'm a bit luck to have
>it available on my work network, so I can dial it up and use it.

Acrobat is 130 GBP, which is cheap compared to the 400 Office 98, and
300 Illustrator 7.

However, you can get most of the functionality of acrobat by using Adobe
Illustrator, which produces pdf files, and allows you to open them back up.
You just can't optimise them (not in AI7 anyway, v8 might be better). Okay,
I know that would mean converting from Corel... I was lucky and got both my
copies of Photoshop 4 and Illustrtor 7 together for less than the price of
a single package...

The best thing is that the reader is free, and multi-platform.  (Only
downside is that you don't seem to be able to scale to fit a page to your
paper size under Windoze, something which the Mac version does happily.)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:52:42 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: TML repeats

Is the TML resended messages repeatedly? My digests keep on getting repeats
in them and the number each day has jumped!

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 12:09:30 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz> wrote:

>IMO one problem Traveller ship combat has is that people want the feeling
>that you get having mighty ship pounding away at each other like a WWI
>slugfest, but they also want the quick thrill of the cat and mouse game of
>fire and maneuver and these are two fairly incompatible desires.

I agree. If you want cat and mouse (or 'hide and seek with bazookas' which
is how Frank Chadwick described it IIRC) you should play 2300's Starcruiser
(I wish they'd published a bugfixed version of the Naval Architect's Manual
though).

Traveller has always been giant slugfests at capital ship level - like the
big fleet action descriptions in Lensman, or Azimov, or Banks. The nearest
literary thing to both I can think of is Hamilton's _Reality Dysfunction /
Neutronium Alchemist_ books where KKMs and det lasers are standard.

Cat and Mouse only applies for really small ships....

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:57:09 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Efficient 100-D Control

Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> wrote:

>SD Mooney> I'm sorry. Recent evidence shows that the Royal Oak was
>scuttled by her
>> crew to prevent the German U-Boat crew boarding her, stealing her and
>> obtaining valuable information... ;-)
>>
>> Dom
>>
>Perhaps so, but exactly what "valuable information" did the Templars
>have on board HMS ROYAL OAK? >;-)

If I tell you, how can I Ryleh on you not telling THEM?

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 00:23:09 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

From:           	CardSharks@aol.com
Date sent:      	Sat, 24 Oct 1998 06:39:59 EDT

>In a message dated 10/23/98 6:00:04 PM Central Daylight Time,
>a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:

><< The only thing I can't figure out is what are "components" >>

>Components are the divisions within Gender.

Doh!! </sound of hand hitting forehead> All makes perfect sense now.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 13:31:30 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

Gary (TravelrTNE@aol.com) writes:

>>>"A numbered fleet, depending on its mission, may have between two and 10
>>>squadrons amounting to between 50 and 200 ships."  We're previously told a
>>>squadron is 3-10 ships.
>> 
>>Where? Not previously in that particular essay.
> 
>Yes, *in that particular essay.*  In the header, first paragraph...

You're right. I can't understand how I missed that. I looked it over
specifically to find it and still missed it. My brain must have tuned it
out. The human mind is a funny thing... and I don't mean funny ha ha.

>"At their lowest level, Imperial ships are organized into squadrons (from
>three to 10 similar ships)."

Apparently I'm not the only one whose brain tunes out things it dosen't want
to notice. Later in the same line you quote it says "(usually three to 10
squadrons per fleet)". Usually. Usually dosen't mean always. So the 50 ship
fleets could have unusual numbers of fleets. For that matter, although the
text says that squadrons at most have 10 similar ships, we have one canonical
example of oversized squadrons, so that isn't as set in stone as you think,
either.

>>Answer: Yes. Despite what anyone may think, _Striker_ is no less canonical
>>than any other official source. And _Striker_, Book 2, p. 38 says:
> 
>Striker should be left to it's primary purpose and that's miniatures gaming.

That's your opinion, and you're welcome to it. My arguments are based on the
assumption that it is canonical.

>The econ stuff was obviously not thought through the background.  

Oh, you noticed that, did you? Only it is the other way around. That part of
the background that has the Imperium, an interstellar state surrounded by
several hostile states of the same order of magnitude as itself spending
about one third of what Canada does today on it's defense, is the part that
wasn't thought through. The figures in _Striker_ were thought through (well,
maybe not thought through, just taken from the real world). That's the true
problem with _Striker_ and _TCS_. Not that they say something inconsistent
with other parts of the canon, but that the other parts of the canon are
implausible. If I thought a defense budget of 0.5% made sense then I'd be
the first to advocate lowering the _Striker_ figures to match the other
parts of the canon. I addressed that very point in another part of the
same post. Maybe your brain tuned it out?

>>Also, the figure is low if compared to the figures that _Trillion Credit
>>Squadron_ and _Pocket Empires_ provide. TCS use 5% on the Navy alone, no
>>mention of the army; PE figures are fluid, but can reach 20-30% IIRC (I may
>>be a bit off here).
> 
>IMO, none of those are credible for disecting the economics of the Third
>Imperium (or any polity of the OTU).

Well, that settles it, I guess. You don't think they are credible. In that
case those of us who thinks they are credible should obviously realize that
your opinion is more valuable than ours and shut up. I see it all so clearly
now.

I suppose it would be too much to expect your Illustrious Savantcy to provide
us stupid morons with credible figures to base our future calculations on?

In other words, Gary, if you don't think the _Striker_ figures are credible,
then you obviously must have some figures that you think are. I mean, I can't
for a moment imagine that the only reason you don't think them credible is
that that would force you to acknowledge that the subsection of the Traveller
background you like has a few glitches here and there.

>It's obvious GDW didn't use Striker or TCS (or anything even remotely
>resembling Pocket Empires) in creating the background. 

Obviously not. If they had, the problem wouldn't exist.

>All of them are made to be playable *games* (specificially games for
>players to have pet "pocket empires" and polities and go to war w/ each
>other) and to not simulate "reality" (such as it is) for the OTU.

All of them were made to be playable games based on the Traveller background.
You may as well claim that each of the adventures were made to be a playable
adventure and not to reflect reality "such as it is" for the OTU. That rather
misses the point. The true value of the Traveller Universe to me is that I
can mine it for background material for my personal TU. As such the historical
background and adventures are important to me. And it is especially important
to me that they are mutually consistent. And that is why, as important as the
background is, the underlying rules and mechanics IMO are even more important,
because if they are in order, they will force _future_ Traveller authors
to produce stuff that is also compatible. Otherwise we get one author having
four KINUNIR class ships defending a whole subsector while the neighboring
is defended by several BatRons. We get planets with 50 inhabitants buying
50,000 T monitors, we get low population empires giving multi-billion empires
a hard time, etc. And, in the present case, we get authors who write an
adventure involving small mercenary actions calculating a world's military
forces from _Striker_ and getting one result and authors writing a smuggling
adventure getting the same figures from _FFW_ and getting two different
results.

Maybe you think that keeping a mismatched puzzle piece, thus ensuring that
the picture can never be complete, is preferable to losing one or two of
your favorite pieces. That's a matter of opinion. We disagree. Fine. But
when you berate me for advocating trimming some of the pieces to make them
fit on the grounds that a) They fit, only I am too stupid to realize that,
or b) they belong to a different picture, then I come close to losing my
patience with you.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
"Facts are stubborn things, but not half so stubborn as fallacies."
                - Stella Maynard in "Anne of the Island"

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 13:38:54 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: The Colonial fleet

Seth Kimmel writes:

>In a message dated 10/23/98 9:33:28 AM Pacific Daylight Time, rancke@diku.dk
>writes:
> 
><< He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority of
>  the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check? Not
>  IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out around
>  the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't it?
>  Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
>  reactivate them.
>  >>
> 
>True; but you don't want them close enough to an unstable border that they
>would be vunerable to a raid or shipjacking ala' the Zid Rachele incident at
>Lunion (which had a zillion ships orbiting a naval facility, though I think
>there were yards insystem)...

It was a system in Pretoria/Deneb IIRC. Thanks for reminding me of that. It
is a datum about the Imperial Navy that I had forgotten. But it does show
that some ships are laid up outside the depots. So does _Arrival Vengeance_
BTW.
My own opinion is that there are a lot of ships in the Depots, but more
outside them. 



      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: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 18:30:05 GMT
From: traveller-m2n@zwieracz.pse.pl
Subject: Re: Polyglot Traveller Lexicon

On 16 Oct 98 04:58:37 GMT, neo@total.net disseminated foul capitalist
propaganda by writing:

[...]
>It occurs to me that TML members speak a wide variety of languages, and
>many of us might find uses for a multilingual lexicon of a few Traveller
>terms. Perhaps we might ask TMLers who speak languages other than English
>to provide translations for the following terms...

OK. Here's some stuff in Polish. 

>Spaceport
Port kosmiczny
>Starport
Port gwiezdny
>Highport
Stacja orbitalna
>Downport
Stacja naziemna
>Base
Baza
>Company
Firma, przedsiebiorstwo
>Corporation
Korporacja
>   etc?
etc. 

;)))

>Also, words for governmental bodies, ie:
>
>Assembly
Zgromadzenie
>Parliament
Parlament
>Legislature
Legislatura
>Council
Rada
>Bureau
Biuro
>Administration
Administracja
>   etc.
[...]
>Certainly, inventing names in foreign languages can be iffy, and the
>results will often be technically wrong. Fortunately, the game takes place
>thousands of years in the future, so one can always blame linguistic drift.

Good one. ;)

Leslie
- -- 
Leszek Karlik, aka Mike leslie@zwieracz.terrorgarden.waw.pl
Hard SF junkie; UIN 6947998; FIAWOL; YMMV IMAO SNAFU TANJ
  IMTU ?tc t4+ to(CORPS)++ ru-- ge++ !3I jt au- he++ 
  merc+ !st ls !kk hi++ as+ !so !vi !sy say++
"Bystanters only count as visual cover." - Jasper Merendino

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1029
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1030



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Deja Vu all over again!
Hmmm
Law and fanzines
Ken Pick articles
Why jump takes constant time...
Re: Mutiny
Re: Space Viking (OT)
Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber
Anti-Hijack Program for GT
Re: hiding in the Oort cloud
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Star Gypsies
The Reserve Fleet (Was: Piracy)
Re: Fuzzies (was re: Travellerish Fiction)

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:49:07 +0000
From: "Carlos Alos-Ferrer" <Carlos.Alos-Ferrer@univie.ac.at>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

From: "Brian Mays" <bmays@genscope.com>

>Seriously, no, it's not Traveller. However, it could be.  How do 
>GM's deal with prejudice (economically induced or otherwise) in 
>their games?  Say a player wants to be a vargr in the time period 
>directly after the 5th Frontier War (or for any period, for that 
>matter).  Do you have NPC's actively harrass him/her?  Or do you use 
>"minority" races/cultures in plots to get your PC's riled up over 
>injustice?

	Why, I wouldn't know how to think about an interstellar society 
*without* lots of prejudice going on. Some examples OTMH:

	1) "Capital-guys": People from the mainworlds will always have 
prejudices against the "colonists" in other worlds. In the same way, 
citizens from the startowns will tend to have prejudices against 
people from the "countryside". And it works the other way. When the 
players leave the startown and head to another part of the planet 
during an adventure in an important, not-a-backwater world, iamgine 
their surprise when the inhabitants regard them as "stupid 
starpeople"... but it is logical, since the startown citizens treat 
them the same way.
	So, there will always be possibilities for a group of traders 
willing to land in some location of the world other than the 
starport... you know, why should we pay our taxes just to support 
those startowners whims?

	2) Races. Almost in any planet where you have a sizeable racial 
minority, economic problems may cause an increase in 
racism. Thus, if you visit ten such planets, you MUST see at least 
one case (and that is optimistic). But, which hi-pop world is not 
going to have a sizeable racial minority? A Vargr player arrives in a 
Hipop world, and suddenly he realizes that the local population 
accuses the Vargr minority of all the planet's problems. He will be 
actively harrassed, in some cases. A nice plot is always to help some 
members of a minority to escape their foreordained destiny as 
scapegoats for some Big Guy. Specially, when the minority has its own 
prejudices and is just looking for a bunch of stupid humans to accuse 
instead... either way, the Big Guy turns into a Big Problem for the 
rest of the campaign.

	3) Nobles. Do you really think that an imperial noble is going to be 
admired by the populace in any republican, democratic world? Of 
course you would always have examples like the democratic US, where 
the courts of *foreign* kings are much admired (<quickly 
ducking for cover>), but if you are a convinced democrat, one thing 
is admitting to form part of a distant Imperium that does not meddle 
in your planet's affairs, and a much different thing is to have to do 
a favor to that Imperial Knight who believes he is something just 
because he can prove his father was a Baron... so, allow one player 
to be a Knight. And, them, make him realize that it is not always 
wise to say so at the first opportunity.

>Brian (just trying to get away from the #*$()&%!!! PIRATE THREAD!)
>Mays

Carlos (fully understanding your aim) Alos-Ferrer
- -----------------------------------------------
Carlos Alos-Ferrer
Department of Economics, University of Vienna.
Hohenstaufengasse, 9. 1010 Vienna (Austria)
Tlf: (+43-1) 4277 37438  Fax: (+43-1) 4277 9374
- -----------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:19:39 -0400
From: John H Bogan Jr <jbogan@pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again!

At 01:54 AM 10/24/1998 -0500, you wrote:
>Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and
over again?

No. I'm getting repeats too.

JB

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:20:12 EDT
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Hmmm

TravelrTNE@aol.com opined:

> I know there's In Nomine, etc, and that G:T is obviously
> going to be more than one product, but I believe it's been confirmed there
> will be no overall plotline for the background of G:T's alternate universe...
> Course, i'd be happy to learn i'm wrong.

I, for one, would be interested in knowing who confirmed that to you, where
and when.

Loren Wiseman
   GURPS Traveller Line Editor
    SJ Games

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:08:44 +0000
From: "Carlos Alos-Ferrer" <Carlos.Alos-Ferrer@univie.ac.at>
Subject: Law and fanzines

	Somebody knows what is the current international legal status of 
fanzines? Suppose you want to print one, send it worldwide, and 
charge production & shipping costs. In practice, you are selling it. 
Assume it is a fanzine about Traveller. Something sounds illegal in 
this, even if you acknowledge all TMs <ducking>.
	Carlos Alos-Ferrer

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:29:38 +0000
From: "Carlos Alos-Ferrer" <Carlos.Alos-Ferrer@univie.ac.at>
Subject: Ken Pick articles

Ken Pick published three good articles on "filling the gaps" in the 
evolution of weapons in MT in Challenge. I have two of them, which 
are short but good and useful. I never got a copy of the 
third: "Missing Links", on Challenge 64. Anybody knows what exactly 
was in there?
Thanks,
Carlos Alos-Ferrer
(seems I am in asking-for-help mode today ;-) )

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:06:17 +0000
From: "Carlos Alos-Ferrer" <Carlos.Alos-Ferrer@univie.ac.at>
Subject: Why jump takes constant time...

	I remember, OTMH, that some time ago, somebody posted some notes 
explaining why jump time is constant, making it analogous to the 
physical fact (which I do not remember clearly) that the falling time 
through an hypotetical tunnel  (?) between two points in the surface 
of a sphere (planet) is constant, regardless of where the points are.
	Somebody has it handy?
	Thanks
	Carlos Alos-Ferrer

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:32:02 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Mutiny

In mail you write:

>>I've been wondering: considering that mutiny is one of the more
>>sensible sources of pirate ships we've discussed, how big a ship
>>could a mutiny believably take place on?

A Soviet destroyer or cruiser attempted mutiny in the Baltic. They
*almost* made it to Swedish waters. And there are *strong* suspicions
about that Soviet sub that ran aground near Seden in the mid 80s. 

In the case of the surface ship, it was the *officers* mutinying (which
technically makes it "barratry"). This is *far* easier to get away with
once you set it up. It's just that in any society where the officers
would *consider* such a thing, it's gonna be hard to set up. 

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

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 04:07:42 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Space Viking (OT)

In mail you write:

> I was reading an afterword in a Jerry Pournelle book (he and Piper were
> close) where he mentions that someone had picked up 'Space Viking' and
> written a sequel.  Unfortunately, I've never been able to find it.  Does
> anyone know anything about it?

Pournelle has written (or is still writing) "Return of Space Viking"
(working title). He hasn't put a lot of effort into it recently since
it's not terribly salable right now. Maybe in another 10 years or so
(which is about when Piper will be "rediscovered" again). 

There's also a sequel to "Great King's War" (which was a sequel to
"Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen") written, but unsold. The editors don't
think they'll sell, so the manuscripts just sit there.

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

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 03:34:57 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber

In mail you write:

> Actually, I did read the Armageddon Inheritance, liked it,and recycled
> it (sold it back) to pick up In Death Ground. Poor deal, maybe I should
> try to get it back. It's tough trying to afford the current stuff with
> spare change.

I remembered your comment while out book shopping today. Upon checking
the notes inside the few Weber books I could find (they sell fast!) I
think I found out *why* "In Death Ground" is the way it is.

According to the blurbs in one of the other books, that series is based
on a computer wargame. No *wonder* it's solid battles. 

> BTW, should I read In Enemy Hands out of order. I've read 1,2,3,4
> already. I guess I should say should I stop reading In Enemy Hands now
> while I still can. ;-)

I'd say you should. You'll spoil a few things in the books you haven't
read. 

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

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 06:26:06 -0600
From: Christopher Thrash <thrash@io.com>
Subject: Anti-Hijack Program for GT

>
>Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:20:20 -0400 (EDT)
>From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
>Subject: Re: GT Lasers
>
>> And against different targets? Does the -4 apply then.
>
>If you fire against three different targets, yes. If you target one laser
>against one target and two against the other, it would drop to -2, etc.
>
>You could say this simulates running your Multi-Target program instead of
>your Predict (CT computer rules reference).
>
>[Sometime we'll have to include stats for Anti-Hijack in GT, I suppose...]
>

"Security and Anti-hijacking

	"The ship comes with electronic locks. Consider installing after-market
intruder defenses (including digital cameras, motion sensors, and weapons)
and a high-security alarm system (Cr 3,000; effective skill 20). If the
ship is equipped with internal sensors, an Anti-Hijack program (Expert
System: Criminoloy-14, Cr 10,000, Complexity 5) can alert the Captain to
suspicious patterns of activity."

Close enough? Usual rules for increased skill at the cost of increased cost
and complexity apply, of course.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 04:13:34 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: hiding in the Oort cloud

In mail you write:

>>So with one station, it takes about two weeks to scan the sky. A pirate
>>ship is detectable for about a day every rendezvous, 

> One can probably think of tricks to make the rendezvous harder to
> detect. For example, put a big honkin tractor (TNE/T4) on the
> pirate base to reel ships in without having them use any of their
> own fuel...I also haven't really done the analysis for how far away
> from the base you're likely to arrive due to usual jump errors (some
> TU's would have jump errors be bigger that far from a big mass); 
> maybe an ion drive or chemical drive could get you to the base.
> (Using HEPlaR would be like writing "come and kill me" in big letters
> even if you only used it for a few minutes...)

Radio the base (use low power). They send out a tug. The tug uses mass
drivers. Load them with ice, rock, whatever. Fling it away at high
speed. The Isp isn't the greatest, but it's low signature and rugged. 

In fact, you can load the "buckets" on the mass driver with *powdered*
rock/slag/ice. This makes the exhaust spread out fairly fast. That way
if a later ship pops up in the path of your exhaust, it won't get hurt
(unless it pops up *really* close).

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

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 03:43:39 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

In mail you write:

> For reference:
>
> My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
> should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
> are really hot!  After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
> statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
> catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
> repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)
>
> The solutions are:
>
> 1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
> realistic sensor rules.

While *some* power requirements *are* out of line (communications, for
example), others, such as manever drives *aren't*. In fact manuever
drives tend to be too *low*. Weapons are pretty much ok these days.

> 2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.

Pretty much the way I see it.

> 3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
> maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
> mechanism).

And then try to explain how it is that we can do better *now* than TL15
can. :-)

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

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 03:57:55 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

In mail you write:

>>The solutions are:
>>
>>1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
>>realistic sensor rules.
>>
>>2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.
>>
>>3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
>>maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
>>mechanism).
>>
>
> 4) Assume a higher power plant efficency or cold fussion power plants.
> Everything else stays the same and no need for monster radiaters.

You keep missing the point. If your ship's systems use 100 MW then you
*have* to radiate 100 MW of "waste heat". That's in *addition* to any
inefficiencies in the production of the power being used. 

Waste heat is what happens to the energy *after* it has been used for
its intended purpose. 

A laser or particle beam will carry away energy in a form *other* than
waste heat. And to some extent, so does radio/radar/lidar. But the
power used by *all* other ship's systems winds up as waste heat *after*
performing its job. (Actually, so does the power going into the weapons
and radio, etc. It's just that they turn into waste heat elsewhere)

So if the manuever drive uses 50 MW, then it has to radiate away 50 MW
of *heat*. And any attempt to recover energy from that will merely
degrade the performance of the drive.

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

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 03:47:01 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

In mail you write:

>
>>How does the space shuttle handle heat?
>
> Dinky little radiators on the inside of the cargo bay doors (this is
> why they have to open the doors within a few hours of launch.) I
> don't know how hot they run, but probably only a hundred C or so.

They don't even run *that* hot. Since the goal is to keep the inside of
the Shuttle at room temp, that means that the radiators are at room
temp or only a bit above. 

Remember, only in designs where you need to play games with stealth
will the radiators *not* be the lowest temp part of the system! To get
them *not* to be the lowest temp part requires running active
refrigeration, which greatly complicates things.

Also, they aren't all that "dinky" they cover the *entire* inner
surface of the bay doors. 

> The shuttle's advantage is that its life support and functions only
> require a few kilowatts - it has much less heat to dispose of than a
> traveller ship. (In fact, sunlight heat loading might be a major part
> of the problem.)

Sunlight loading is a problem, but not a major one. Remember that
equilibrium temp at 1 AU is below freezing. The big problem is that the
crew, life support, and electronics pump out a *lot* of heat.

> I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
> need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
> power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
> require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
> special high-temp radiators...

I kinda figure that the really high power systems have their own
radiators that operate at very high temps, partly because the extra
efficiency gained by having the "sink" end of things at a lower temp
isn't worth the increased area. 

So the power plant may well have small radiators that are *literally*
white hot. After all, that's only about 3000 K, and with the "source"
end at several million K, the diff between 300 K and 3000 K isn't worth
the hassle.

Weapons and possibly thrusters would maybe have red-hot radiators. And
life support would have ice-cold radiators. But the majority of the
signature would be from the red-hot and white-hot ones.

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

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:06:20 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Star Gypsies

In mail you write:

>> ObTrav: What is the tech level of a planet which has access to high-tech
>> items, but shuns some of them for cultural reasons, or is committed to
>> keeping technology hidden behind a more 'natural' facade. For instance,
>> maybe jets are used to get from city to city, but for short journeys
>> everyday people use horses and wagons...
>
> Horses & wagons don't work so hot in big cities.  And you'd need at least a 
> *couple* big cities to support building stuff like jets, *unless* your tech 
> is so high that your factoreis are highly automated.

Actually, you can do the same thing if you restrict the really high
tech to *small* items, with only a few larger items.

> But anyways, the TL of the planet is the TL of most readily availiable 
> devices.  Lifestyle choices wouldn't enter into this.  If they have the 
> capacity to build air rafts, who cares what they use to get to work?

> I could see a planet where they have high tech and choose to make
> their availiable tech be fairly 'green'.  Local transport would be
> 'skimmer pads' (kind of like a gravitic skateboard, if you can get
> teh cost down) powered by batteries.  Long range transport would be
> by maglev tunnels.  All industry would either be in space or
> underground.  This planet's technologies would *not* be sustainable
> in event of catastrophe...

No, try a setup where long range transport is little used (with high
tech communications, you don't need to move *people* around very fast,
and materials aren't in a big rush). And where folks are much more into
"appropriate technology". 

Sort of like the situation in the "Tinker" culture under the Peace
Authority in Vinge's "The Peace War". 

*No* heavy industry. But "cottage" electronics and related fields give
you a super internet, as well as all sorts of sustainable *very* high
tech, but low volume, low power gizmos. 

Picture a culture with a planetwide comm and computer net, much of it
using dedicated fiber lines (ie no signature worth mentioning), long
range transport mostly wind, water and muscle powered, with higher tech
vehicles scattered around, but limited to stuff that *can* be
maintained without a heavy industrial base.

So you'd have sailing ships, dirigibles, some aircraft, some CG
vehicles (after all electronics *can* be maintained with "light"
industry, and the structural stuff can be kept to "blacksmith" level.
The "engines" are the hard part). 

Likewise, large "heavy" weapons would be uncommon, but personal and
"squad" level weapons would be as good as any in the galaxy.

Basicly, think of the tech as limited to what a "garage" level machine
shop (or electronics fab) can handle. With several of each in every
village. 

Population centers would be limited to village/small town. And there'd
be a *few* places building larger items. 

Such a setup could maintain a very high tech level. They'd just be
*lightly* industrialized. They might be able to produce a starship of
as much as a few hundred tons. But that'd require doing some tooling up
at the larger towns, and the rate of constructiion would be low. But
the smaller the item, the easier it'd be to build locally.

As far as *small* items, treat them like Afghani gunsmiths. Hand a
local "techsmith" a weapon, or electronics package, and in a week or
two, he's likely to hand you back *two*, and you may have trouble
determining which is the original. 

ps. I know it's not as *efficient* to have a "backyard" size chip
foundry. But it *is* doable. We just don't have the incentive. Another
culture might be willing to go with the higher costs as a valid
trade-off for keeping things locally supportable.

It'd be a *weird* culture from our point of view. And it'd be *damned*
hard to conquer. Probably more trouble than it's worth. Which may be
the whole idea. 

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

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 14:14:56 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: The Reserve Fleet (Was: Piracy)

Thom Harris writes:
> Subject: Re: Piracy
> 
> - -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph R. Dietrich <yikes@evansville.net>
> To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
> Date: Thursday, October 22, 1998 10:51 AM
> Subject: Re: Piracy
> 
> 
> >>>>The reserve fleets will be next to useless for anti piracy as they are
> >>>>manned by reservists and thus spend most of their time in orbit around
> >>>>the high tech, high population worlds in the subsector they are
> assigned.
> >>>
> >>>This is a totally unwarranted assumption. Nowhere in the rules do I find
> >>>any support for the idea that the colonial fleets and the system defense
> >>>forces are not trained to the same standard as the regular navy. [...]
> >>
> >>FSotSI pg 6 [...]
> >
> >[snip of references]
> >
> >>I believe this implies that reserve and colonial units are not as well
> >>equipped or trained as Regular fleets.
> >
> >"Not as well equipped or trained" does not mean "next to useless for anti
> >piracy." If the difference is TL 14 BBs v. TL 15 BBs (or cruisers, or
> >whatever), then I would say that the Colonial fleets are more than adequate
> >to deal with pirates. After all, Defense CruRon Regina (the SDB example in
> >_FSSI_) is a *CruRon*.
> >
> >Nor are reservist or colonial units necessarily incompetent, which is what
> >the first statement above implies. They are simply not front-line units.
> >"Somewhat less training and experience" could be Gunnery 3 instead of
> >Gunnery 4, for example.
> >
> >Joseph R. Dietrich
> 
> I think that you misunderstood what he was saying.  Reservists by nature are
> NOT out in the space lanes in their ships.  An example of Reserve activity
> would be that they meet one weekend a month and go active for two weeks in
> the summer.  This would then cause one to believe that the ships of the
> Reserve Fleet are ALMOST moth-balled and would take some time to bring
> on-line.  Reservists routinely take they active duty period fixing up there
> "vehicles" and training to maintain their standards for going to war.  You
> would see the occasional Reserve Ship out and about just so they can blow
> the cob webs out.  Think for a minute, if you are only on active duty for
> two weeks and a jump takes one week then you would only be able to take your
> ship out and right back and be done for the year.
> 
> Thom Harris
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
Charles R Hensley writes:

>Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
> 
>Where does it say that the training takes place in orbit around the high
>population worlds?
>
>I based my statement on US Reservists, i.e. 1 weekend a month and 2
>weeks a year.

As others have told you, the Imperial Reserve Fleets are not that kind of
reserves. The term is confusing and I suggest using 'colonial' instead.
Colonial fleets are raised and supported at the subsector level and not
stationed outside their subsectors except in emergencies whereas the
regular fleets are raised Imperium-wide and stationed wherever there is
need of them. That's the only difference. You can have as long and
illustrious a full-time career in the colonial fleets as you can in the
regular. And the same goes for the planetary navies, for that matter.
There does not even seem to be any difference in your chances of getting
a particular mission nor of getting decorations and promotions, though I
admit that that is rather implausible and should propably be considered
a misleading effect of the CGS. 

Back when I was playing in a TCS campaign I did talk to my Referee about
just that kind of reserves, and we worked out several different levels of
preparedness for my ships. Unfortunately I can't recall the specifics and
my files are on some floppies somewhere. The lowest was mothballed (pumped
full of inert gas and stuck inside asteroids). That had an initial cost, I
forget how much (1%?), but no 1% per year upkeep. Reactivating took a
complete refit (25% of original cost). The 1% per year was sticking them in
a parking orbit with a caretaker crew and giving them an annual maintenance.
That needed the 10% refit from canon rules to get it going. Maintaining
reserves like you are thinking of (except they spent one month instead of
two weeks each year) cost, I think, 2%. They could be activated without a
refit, but still needed time to train a crew. Having  a full-time crew
working six identical ships two months each in rotation cost 4% but meant
that they could be activated almost overnight, with a 1/6th trained crew as
cadre for each. 

>at this rate the ships would not be able to leave orbit and get the
>crews back to their regular jobs in time.  If the reserves work
>differently IYTU then I made a bad assumption.

It dosen't matter how they work IMTU. What I am trying to discuss is how
they work or at least may mork in the OTU.
 
><snip>
>>>I would say this is both combatants and non-combatants, thus the
>>>average 31.25 combatants per fleet would be a good number.
>>
>>For reasons I've stated in my reply to Gary, I disagree.
> 
>well IMTU i will disagree with you

And if I didn't think it presumptuous of me (since it would imply that I had
any right to interfere with YTU) I would give you my blessing to do so.
 


      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: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:49:33 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Fuzzies (was re: Travellerish Fiction)

In mail you write:

> Leonard Erikson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> BTW, with regards to the "kobolds" thread elsewhere on the list, I
> think Fuzzies would be a fun race to work up. They *may* be a bit less
> intelligent than humans, but that's not a big handicap. 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> IMO, considering the evidence presented in the books, the Fuzzies
> may have been _more_ intelligent. Dropped in the middle of a planet
> full of big predators and few usable food sources, the fragile little
> fellows survived.

I'm ignoring the two non-Piper books, and sticking with the three books
by Piper. BTW, the third Piper book when it was finally unearthed
(several years after those "sequels" to the first two) makes it pretty
likely that the Fuzzies are native (for that matter, certian biological
details in the first two books made it rather likely).

> Faced with a First Contact situation, they made
> friendly relations and allies before the language barrier was even
> broken. As adults, they learned an alien tongue - spoken at a
> wavelength they generally don't speak in - with relative ease.
> Add to that the complete failure of a professional psychiatrist to
> cause lasting mental aberrations in a Fuzzy, no matter how he
> tried.

We actually have two *interesting* results in the third Fuzzy book.
You see, as part of the trial of the "fuzzy fagin" people from book 2,
it becomes necessary to show that Fuzzies can lie, otherwise it won't
be possible to veridicate them. 

Trying to teach Fuzzies to lie almost drives the human pyschs nuts, and
does come rather close to threatening the stability of a couple of
Fuzzies. 

> Longer term evidence of their inborn mental stability: they've
> been living for generations with horrible predators and a chemical
> imbalance that makes most of their babies be horribly twisted
> stillbirths, yet they still play, laugh and love each other.

Human cultures *do* adapt to similar circumstances. 

> They're sane, friendly and resourceful. Piper created a race
> that I hope we encounter some day - because if nothing else,
> Fuzzies seemed to have a talent for bringing out the best in
> humans.

Well, I think they'd be a great addition to Traveller. Of course, the
legal situation makes them unlikely to ever be official, but we can
have fun. I once started to work them up for my D&D campaign. Picture a
party of adventurers suddenly surrounded by a bunch of 2-foot tall
Fuzzies bearing the sort of "choppo-diggos" shown on the book covers.
:-) 

Oh yes, the original Hoka stories by Poul Anderson & Gordon R. Dickson
have been re-released ("Hoka! Hoka! Hoka!"). They are another race fit
to drive characters nuts. Having both Fuzzies *and* Hokas in the same
campaign might be a bit much. :-)

Getting back to Fuzzies though, I can see them mostly winding up in the
Scouts. They'd make a great partner on a "one man" Scout. I'm not sure
how they'd do in Army or Marines. Navy is another possibility as is
Merchant and "Rogue".

For a truly *silly* bit of cross-threading, it occurs to me that a
standard "Free Trader" or "Fat Trader" could *easily* hold an entire
Fuzzy *clan*. Maybe the Fuzzies are the "Space Gypsies". It'd be a
*lot* more practical for them, given that a 2 foot Fuzzy requires
1/27th the space, air and food that a 6 foot human does (actually,
given that they'd need a higher metabolism to maintain body heat, even
*with* their fur we might want to double or even triple those figures).
With automated cargo handling (pretty much a given) their size wouldn't
be a handicap.

I also like the interesting possibilities during negotiations:

Captain: Yeek! {He expects us to think *this* junk is valuable?}
Steward: Yeek! {Well, we *do* have those synthetic sunstones we've been
                trying to unload for the last year...}
Broker: Excuse me?
Captain: Sorry, we just saying you got much good stuff here.

:-)

Also, going by stuff from Piper's books I expect to see a lot of
Fuzzies in education and medicine (especially nursing and pysch rehab
work). 

Hey! That's it. Fuzzies in the Army/Marines are combat medics. They can
get to wounded more easily, and being small doesn't matter for most
first aid. 

They'd do good in civilian rescue work too. They can get into places a
human can't, and they'd be great for reassuring kids (how tend to get
into places adults can't). 

Other Fuzzy things to design:

.22 caliber "rifle" and "pistol".
??? caliber "heavy rifle"

I figure a .22 rifle and pistol would be normal weapons. The .22LR is
useful, and standard. I can't really think of any other round that
*could* be used in a "pistol" for them. A rifle in the same caliber (a
*very* cut down carbine) is still quite useful. 

The "heavy rifle" would be the Fuzzy equivalent of the 600 nitro or the
like. A standard caliber, but picked to be the heaviest that an
"average" Fuzzy can safely handle. Needed to keep them from becoming
"snacks" for the local lion equivalent. 

Fuzzy comm gear would be slightly non-standard (and more expensive)
mostly because it needs to be smaller and lighter *and* it needs to
have three "settings": normal audio, ultrasonic only, and both at once.

The ultrasound only would be useful for stealth operations. Normal only
would interoperate best with standard comm gear. And "both" would allow
for carrying on both normal and ultra communication at the same time.

<snicker>

I just had this *lovely* image pop into my head. A Fuzzy DI teaching a
survival course. During the portions of such training where you get
dumped in the wild to practice your skills, he's notorious for popping
up unexpectedly. Usually immediately after you've done something
*stupid*. First indication you have is the Yeek! followed by some pithy
comment in pidgin (Fuzzies *can* speak proper Standard, they just don't
see the point except on formal occasions). 

"You think animal dumb? *Blind* animal see this is trap!"

"Oh! Maybeso you bait trap with self? Very smart... Not!"

This gives him quite a reputation, and is annoying as hell. On the
other hand, it does show that he's paying attention. :-)

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

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1030
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1031



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

multiple copies of messages
Digest Messed Up?
Tonight on TML...
Re: Radiators
Sensors in GURPS
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Luriani subcultures
Re: Law and fanzines
Re: Travellerish Fiction -- Weber
Digest Messed Up?
Re: Sensors in GURPS
Re: The Imperial Navy
This is test #(xx+4)
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re Economica
Re: Loading / unloading table
"Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )
Re: 
Re: The Imperial fleet
Re: Capital Ships of WWII

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:47:22 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: multiple copies of messages

What's up with this? I'm getting 3-4 copies of old messages - like a 
horrible nightmare, the piracy thread continuing from the grave...\

Bruce

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:01:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Digest Messed Up?

The digest seems to be sending multiple copies of itself to me, over and
over...

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 12:02:21 -0400
From: cmdrx <cmdrx@magicnet.net>
Subject: Tonight on TML...

(To all the phytonites in TMLand...)

"Tonight on TML we will discuss the phenomenon of Deja Vu.  That bizzare
feeling we sometimes get that we've experienced something be..."

"Tonight on TML we will discuss the phenomenon of Deja Vu.  That bizzare
feeling we sometimes get that we've experienced something be..."

"Tonight on TML we will discuss the phenomenon of Deja Vu.  That bizzare
feeling we sometimes get that we've experienced something be..."

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:07:15 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Tommy Grav <tommy.grav@astro.uio.no>
Subject: Re: Radiators

On Fri, 23 Oct 1998, Bruce Alan Macintosh wrote:

>Another way to get rid of excess heat would be to vent very very very
>hot plasma (accounting for CT-style fuel consumption for power plants),
>but that makes you incredibly easy to detect, since you can't 
>baffle the plasma.

How would this affect sensors. Could the plasma be used to fill up the 
pixels in a passive sensor and therefor help the ship hide in a combat 
situation where it has already been detected and the enemy has no active
sensors.

>Bruce

Tommy Grav
- -------------------------------------------------------------
tommy.grav@astro.uio.no     http://www.uio.no/~tommygr/  
Institute of Astrophysics, UiO, No  
IMTU tn++t4+tg+ ru+ge++ !3i jt+au+st+ls hi++dr-so++zh-sy-sw++ 
 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:23:01 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Sensors in GURPS

>Modifier                                Visual  Radar   Thermal
>Turn Length (the human eye is limited to a +2 bonus).  Use the scan time or
>    the duration of the event being observed, whichever is _less_.
>    1 second                            -2      -2      -2
>    2 seconds                           -1      -1      -1
>    4 seconds                           +0      +0      +0
>    15 seconds                          +1      +1      +1
I wonder if we need a GTL "Gurps Tech List" for these technical 
issues? I suppose such a thing already exists on io.com/Pyramid, but
I'm damned if I'm going to pay money for the sake of helping improve
their design...

Anyway, for the background-limited case (which starship visible and
IR sensors are), sensitivity (in the sense of "faintest object that
can be detected") only goes up as the square root of the time you
spend looking. Hence to get a +3 in GURPS terms (target 3.3 times
further away and hence ten times dimmer) you need to scan 100 times
longer, not 10-15; to get a +6 you need to scan 10,000 times longer.
The field-of-view modifiers are complicated too...
The human eye, on the other hand, is not background-limited (and
short exposures from visible-light sensors might not quite be
BG-limited either). It's hard to make a system that models both the
scaling laws for human eyes (which can't really integrate, have
aberration-limited resolution, and moderately low efficiency) and
staring infrared arrays hooked up to big telescopes...

Bruce

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:28:45 -0400
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

Having replied to the original message in concurrence with your post I will
only add that the H.M.S. Rodney also fired torpedoes at the Bismarck.  There
was thought to have been one hit out of 6, IIRC.  This would be the only
time in history that a battleship was attacked by torpedoes by another
battleship and further, the only time that one also was hit by a torpedo
from BB to BB.  I know that some historians don't consider Rodney a
battleship but I contend that any ship that is firing 16" guns SHOULD be
considered a BB.  Some historians didn't list Bismarck as a battleship
either....YMMV
Thom Harris
- -----Original Message-----
From: DustyLV769@aol.com <DustyLV769@aol.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 1998 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII


>In a message dated 10/20/98 2:17:53 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
>a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:
>
>The RN assertion that the HMS Dorsetshire torpedoed Bismark, causing her to
>sink, is nothing more than wartime morale-building propoganda:  Dr Ballard
>discovered no signs of any damage to the belt armor/waterline of the side
of
>the ship struck by the "torpedoes".
>
>DustyLV769@aol.com

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:19:06 -0400
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

This is not aimed at anyone and is CERTAINLY not conclusive but there was
evidence when Dr. Ballard dove on the Bismarck that she had sufficient
damage to sink without being scuttled.  There was also evidence that the
scuttle pitcocks had been opened to hasten the sinking.  His premise was she
could not defend herself and she was tough enough to take the pounding to
remain afloat awhile longer.  This is based on his (Dr. Ballard's) analysis
of the photo's.  A damned interesting piece of work.
A side note: The main turrets had fallen out of their sockets when she
turned over and were found on the ocean floor around the Bismarck along with
numerous pieces of other debris.
Thom Harris

- -----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 1998 12:11 AM
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII


From:           "Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Date sent:      Mon, 19 Oct 1998 22:29:25 -0500

>The Bismark was not destroyed by planes (or the British navy, the German
>Scuttled her) but she was hunted and disabled by plane launched torpedoes
as
>I recall.

Arghhhh. I have seen this argument so often and it annoys me every time.
Their
is no evidence that the Bismark was scuttled. And even if it was all that
ment
was her sinking was hastened.

Andrew etc.

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

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 03:19:07 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Luriani subcultures

Luriani Subcultures

Two distinct subcultures exist within Luriani society: the Verasti Dtareen and 
the Mmarislusant. Both of these subcultures are the result of the incorporation 
of non-Luriani humans into Luriani society. The Verasti Dtareen are the 
descendants of Admiral Martinezs fleet and Solomani settlers from the Rule of 
Man era. Whilst the Mmarislusant are the descendants of the Vilani colonists 
planted amongst the Luriani during the Vilani occupation.

The Mmarislusant

The Luriani word Mmarislusant literally translates as victims of history. During 
the Ziru Sirka numerous Vilani were settled on the Luriani worlds in an attempt 
to assimilate the Luriani. These attempts proved to be fruitless, but the 
colonists remained when the First Protectorate was formed and presented a 
unique problem for the new state. The solution adopted is an interesting 
example of the Luriani Code of Honour. While the Luriani bore (and continued to 
bear even into the late 3rd Imperium) a grudge against the Ziru Sirka, the 
Luriani could not hold these individual Vilani responsible for the actions of their 
government. Similarly, the Tenets of Hospitality required that while they were 
not regarded as citizens, they had to be treated as honoured guests. Thus, the 
Protectorate went to considerable lengths to ensure that these Vilani were able 
to continue their lives as before. State funded Vilani schools were established 
and great efforts were made to encourage the Vilani to retain their distinct 
identity. As a result the Mmarislusant preserve much of the original culture and 
language of the Ziru Sirka and are closer to it than most supposedly traditional 
Vilani elsewhere.

Over time, the Mmarislusant came to be valued members of Luriani society, 
well respected for their bureaucratic and diplomatic skills. In 1372 citizenship 
was extended to them and they were gradually incorporated into the 
administrative structure of the Protectorate. By the founding of the Second 
Protectorate in 8, they had come to regard themselves as members of Luriani 
society and had become an important part of government and corporate life 
within it. It is interesting to note that with the incorporation of the Protectorate 
into the Third Imperium, the Mmarislusant have resisted all efforts to reintegrate 
them into mainstream Vilani culture.

The Verasti Dtareen

The term Verasti Dtareen is usually translated as Terran Protectors or 
Protectors from Terra. Unlike the Mmarislusant the Verasti Dtareen were 
regarded as members of Luriani society from the founding of the First 
Protectorate. The Verasti Dtareen provided the Protectorate with the vital 
administrative skills required to manage an interstellar state. Initially they also 
formed the bulk of the Protectorates military forces. However, as the 
Protectorate evolved they were gradually replaced in this role by Luriani, but 
they came to form the administrative core of society, providing it with a stability 
and focus it had previously lacked.

The Verasti Dtareens culture is an intriguing fusion of Luriani and Solomani 
traditions. Exposure to the Luriani has resulted in their adoption of many Luriani 
cultural norms (such as group marriages and the Luriani Code of Honour). In 
many ways the Verasti Dtareen are a less extreme version of the Luriani. They 
are prone to displays of emotion that most Solomani would feel uncomfortable 
with, they are strongly drawn towards music and the arts, and they hold to the 
Luriani precepts of honour. However they are also expected to behave with far 
greater restraint than would be expected of a Luriani, and retain many cultural 
rituals from their Solomani heritage.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 14:32:05 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: Law and fanzines

Carlos Alos-Ferrer wrote:

>         Somebody knows what is the current international legal status of
> fanzines? Suppose you want to print one, send it worldwide, and
> charge production & shipping costs. In practice, you are selling it.
> Assume it is a fanzine about Traveller. Something sounds illegal in
> this, even if you acknowledge all TMs <ducking>.
>         Carlos Alos-Ferrer

That would be, at a minimum, a violation of the Traveller trademark.
You need a license from Far Future Enterprises to put the Traveller
name on it.  This will apply to the whole 'zine and not just the title.

Bloo

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 14:37:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction -- Weber

Regarding In Death Ground -- remember, it's based on the Starfire (Task
Force Game) board game universe, and is also not just Weber: it's
co-authored by Steve White.

White and Weber started out as a writing team with the Starfire novels.
Since then Weber has gone onto greater success on his own, although White
has also written a number of solo books. Occasionally they get back
together for more massive fleet destruction in the Starfire universe...

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:01:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Digest Messed Up?

The digest seems to be sending multiple copies of itself to me, over and
over...

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 12:21:06 -0700
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Re: Sensors in GURPS

At 09:23 AM 10/24/98 -0700, you wrote:

>I wonder if we need a GTL "Gurps Tech List" for these technical 
>issues? I suppose such a thing already exists on io.com/Pyramid, but
>I'm damned if I'm going to pay money for the sake of helping improve
>their design...

Umm... You are aware that the $15/year subscription to Pyramid is more than
a chance to improve SJG products, right?

In the three-odd months I've been reading Pyramid on-line, I've gotten
dozens of ideas for my game, decided to buy two products based on the
reviews, and been amused by John Kovalic's Murphy's Rules.

Hell, _Surpressed Transmission_ is worth the subscription cost alone.  Add
in that it's updated weekly, and you get a gaming magazine for 28 cents a
week!  I rarely even bother with the message boards, since I don't play
GURPS.
- --

+--------------------------------------+
|Douglas E. Berry    dberry@hooked.net |
|   http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/     |
+--------------------------------------+
| "In the long run luck is given       |
|  only to the efficient."             |
|     -Helmuth von Moltke, German Army |
+--------------------------------------+

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:30:21 EDT
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

In a message dated 10/23/98 9:31:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time, rancke@diku.dk
writes:

<< Answer: Yes, of course. That's why we're having this discussion. What
 information we have about the Imperial Navy strength seems to indicate a
 much lower figure. If the 1000 combat ship per sector figure is for the
 regular navy only, then 3% appears to be 2-3 times too big; if the figure
 includes the colonial fleets too, then the figure appears 4-6 times too big.
 Unless the peacetime IN has a HUGE number of ships laid up in ordinary, that
 is. >>


	Or that the IN has a large number of ships that are of a lower TL than
15!!

	Most people seem to assume that the entire IN is made up of TL 15
vessels, but this is not at all true (Book 5 High Guard) :"The Imperial Navy
may procure ships of up to TL15, although it also procures vessels at TL 10 thru
14".  As is very obvious from both HG and MT, lower TL ships are considerably
more expensive than thier higher tech counterparts.  But there is no TL
adjustment for the budgets.

	It is also difficult to build highly agile warships below TL15 (esp in MT)
At TL13-14, you need twice the space for a power plant as you would at
TL15...and it's 3x at 10-12.

DustyLV769@aol.com

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:25:45 -0500
From: "Leif O. Pihl" <pihlx001@tc.umn.edu>
Subject: This is test #(xx+4)

TEST

If I can see this message in the Traveller-digest Mailing List, I'll know
that others can see my E-mail.

LP

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leif O. Pihl
pager/voicemail: (612) 534-5235
           home: (612) 729-8277
        ICQ no.: 16954097
www.isa.org/~twinc/                                      ISA Twin Cities' page
www.memorial4x4.org                       MN-Go4 Wheelers' Memorial Event page
umn.edu/~pihlx001/                                 personal page [out of date]
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/LPsJeepTJ/             Leif's Jeep TJ site
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/geneology/Blomfeldt.html       family tree
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:29:48 EDT
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

In a message dated 10/24/98 11:21:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
thomharr@mediaone.net writes:

<< Having replied to the original message in concurrence with your post I will
 only add that the H.M.S. Rodney also fired torpedoes at the Bismarck.  There
 was thought to have been one hit out of 6, IIRC.  >>

	After seeing this post, I seem to remember having read this in the book "Sink
the Bismarck"  I am not sure about the hits, however.  In making the post, I
utilized my memories from having read 2 very good books:  The one mentioned
above (which was written from the RN perspective) and the book (whose title
escapes me at the moment) written by Baron von Mullenhiem-Rechberg, who was
the 4th Gunnery Officer and senior surviving officer.

	I do believe that an order was given to scuttle the ship...most likely just
as the combat began.  There was no doubt among the crew that this was a lost
battle from the get-go; this is confirmed by the German account.  An order to
scuttle would prevent the British from possibly boarding:  I realize this
statement seems somewhat silly from the perspective of gaining useful
info...but don't underestimate the value that raising the White Ensign on the
Bismarck would have had on public morale, esp since the Bismarck had days
earlier sank the pride of the RN!!

DustyLV769@aol.com

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 13:03:56 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Economica

Hans was commenting on how striker has some problems meshing with other
canon, as there is a large gap left of unspent military funding...

I was thinking: Striker winds up with X% going to the impies. Y% actually
is needed for the imperial navy. The difference might be going to the
subsector navies.... and don't forget theat the scout service would pull
it's cut from that allocation, as would the Marines and probably houscarls
and special (SS and Sector Level) special units.


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 20:33:03 +0200
From: Guillem Plasencia <guillemp@ciberia.es>
Subject: Re: Loading / unloading table

> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:17:56 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
> Subject: Re: Loading/Unloading
>
> William F. Hostman writes:
> > AS threatened, I found the tables in FASA's Battletech, and will present an
> > adaptation for use with traveller (I am not reprinting theirs... its in
> > Battlespace, page 56). Also factored in are my experiences working in a
> > -10c wharehouse.
> >
> >                Minutes per metric ton**
>
> Hm.. I suspect that loading time is dependent on the # of components, their
> size, and the size of the door you're moving them through.  Filling a
> compartment with 10 10-ton boxes and 10,000 10-kilogram boxes is not equal.

I think this may help....

                        Minutes per metric ton
Equipment Used          0-G     Vacc 1-G Air
Battle Dress (or equiv) 4       2       2
5 man in VaccSuits      4       3       3
5 man in clothes*       3       2       2
1 man with LRTP's       2       -       -
1 man w/Pallet Jacks**  -       3       2

If you suppose this is the time it gets to load/unload one pack of one
metric ton,
then you should simply multiply this time with the number of such a pack
(one-ton
weighted).

If the packs are less than one ton of weigth, then simply multiply the
time by the
fraction of weigth...

As i don't explain well, here goes an example:

Lets say you have 30 packs of 100 kg each, then it would take 5 men with
clothes in
1-G air :
2 minutes*30 packs* (100 kg/ 1000 kg) = 6 minutes to load/unload them.

Guillem Plasencia
guillemp@ciberia.es

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:16:41 -0500
From: "Leif O. Pihl" <pihlx001@tc.umn.edu>
Subject: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )

Dear Sir(s)/Madam(s):

I am a past Traveller fan and collector who has only just recently re-vived
my interest in Traveller via GURPS Traveller.  As such, I am no longer
familiar with the contents of my Traveller collection, and can not find
what I'm looking for...      I hope you can help.

I remember SOMEWHERE in my collection of stuff (probably in the T1
supplements) is a floorplan of the 400 ton Subsidized Merchant.  (I can't
find it!!!)
On that same floorplan is a detail showing the (rough) dimensions of a
"Standard" cargo module for convenient loading onto the ship.

 * Can any of you tell me the dimensions of said cargo module or

 * Can any of you tell me what the source material is that I am talking about?


Thank you,

LP



- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leif O. Pihl
pager/voicemail: (612) 534-5235
           home: (612) 729-8277
        ICQ no.: 16954097
www.isa.org/~twinc/                                      ISA Twin Cities' page
www.memorial4x4.org                       MN-Go4 Wheelers' Memorial Event page
umn.edu/~pihlx001/                                 personal page [out of date]
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/LPsJeepTJ/             Leif's Jeep TJ site
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/geneology/Blomfeldt.html       family tree
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 14:21:41 PDT
From: "Paul Zumstein" <pzumstein@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: 

>From: "Leif O. Pihl" <pihlx001@tc.umn.edu>
>Subject: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )
>
>I remember SOMEWHERE in my collection of stuff (probably in the T1
>supplements) is a floorplan of the 400 ton Subsidized Merchant.  (I 
can't
>find it!!!)
>On that same floorplan is a detail showing the (rough) dimensions of a
>"Standard" cargo module for convenient loading onto the ship.
>
> * Can any of you tell me the dimensions of said cargo module or
>
> * Can any of you tell me what the source material is that I am talking 
about?
>

I believe you can find this information in "Supplement 7 - Traders and 
Gunboats".

PZ

PS The cargo module size was 4 tons.



______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 23:24:39 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: The Imperial fleet

Charles Prevatte writes:

>FS says that the ordinary (mothball fleet) in the the Corrador subsecter.
>Just from the AHL and Plackwell ships there are a lot of tons of capital
>ships there.

You're misinterpreting an ambiguous word. The reserves in Corridor are
the regular ships stationed in Corridor. What you call the mothball fleet
(ship in ordinary) is something else.
 
>>Would you care to explain how they managed to time their approach to
>>coincide with the victim leaving? And you still haven't told me how long
>>they spend on the approach.
> 
>Cold gas manuver and the planets gravity well for breaking and slingshoting
>just like the apolo missions.

What I meant was that you have to start the run in before your intended
victim leaves the starport.

>Time would be about equal to the time it takes to boost out from the planet
>to 100 dia. You have more initial speed but you do not accelerate.

How did you get the higher initial speed if not by accelerating? And before
you cliam that you built up the speed before you jumped into the system,
that means your timing problem becomes even bigger.

>This lets to match speeds with either a freshly arrived ship or one on the
>way out.

A freshly arrived ship and one that is outbound is have very different
vectors.

>>You can maintain a scedule for outbound ships at the expense of losing
>>about a day per jump (which comes to several jumps per year, which is why
>I don't think it would be used), but there's no way you can time an arrival
>>closer than plus/minus a day or so.
> 
>Wait a minute here.  A planet moves a long distance in a day.  Almost
>100dias for earth.  A similar planet with a shorter year would be imposible
>to hit with that kind of time slop facter with and regularity.

One explanation (not canonical, but compatible with canon) is that jumpspace
navigation lets you aim for a spot relative to any sufficiently large
gravity point source.
  
>Jump time = 168 hours +- 10%

Well, the rules differ slightly from version to version. Another version is
7 days +- 1 day.
 
>Canon says the jump is 'straght line travel' that can not intersect the 100
>dia limit of any object over 1 mile.

I think that is right in at least one version of the rules (maybe more).
OTOH this effect is totally ignored in other versions. I don't think it
has ever been mentioned as part of the background events.

>Problem people.  What if the planet you want to go to is on the oposite side
>on it's sun from you when you want to jump?  Do you wait half of that
>planet's year?

>I don't think that the colonial and subsector fleets are the same thing.

Sometimes they are and sometimes they're not. Subsector fleets are sometimes
used for both kinds of numbered fleet, both the regular and the colonial.
But in other cases it is used for that fleet which is raised and maintained
by the subsector, and that is the colonial or, as it is also sometimes
called, the Imperial Reserve fleet.

>I think we are both saying the same thing. That there is the IN and a local
>forces both present in the Marches Secter.

Right. Individual planets pay 30% of their military budget to the Imperium.
The subsector government retains half of that and turns over the other half
to the regular forces.

>>>>No I don't. I have accounted for planetary armies, because I have assigned
>>>>70% of the canonical 3% to planetary forces (No, I tell a small lie: I have
>>> 
>>>but does canon say thats the break down?
>>
>>Yes.
> 
>In something other than Striker?  I think our problem may be the the
>economic system in Striker maybe oversimplified to speed play.  I don't have
>Striker but I am looking for it so I can say for sure.  I'm just fishing for
>an answer.

Certainly _Striker_ simplifies the matter. It says "roughly 30%" which
indicates that there may be variations in that figure or that it is not
exactly 30%. Maybe the true figure is 29% or 31%. My point is that it is
certainlynot going to be 5% or 10%.

>I'm looking for a source other than striker to confirm the numbers.

Well, _TCS_ says Cr500 per citizen (which works out as 5% under my
assumptions) for the navy alone. So _Striker_ gives a lower figure than
TCS.

>>>Maintainence would go up with ship and base age.
>>
>>The highest mountain in Scotland is Ben Nevis.
> 
>I do not understand this comment.

Sorry. That was a bit snide. What I should have said was: The 10% maintenance
figure is a simplified one that applies to a whole navy consisting of ships
of all ages. It's an average. So although old ships surely cost more than 10%
to maintain, the newest ships of the navy will cost correspondingly less to
maintain.

Also, the actual physical maintenance seems to be the least of the 10%
figure. Far more goes to ship replacement, personnel, pensions, support
structures, bases, training camps, etc. So the difference is propably
not all that great.


      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: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 21:42:44 GMT
From: johnl@vnet.net (John Lansford)
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

On Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:28:45 -0400, you wrote:

>Having replied to the original message in concurrence with your post I will
>only add that the H.M.S. Rodney also fired torpedoes at the Bismarck.  There
>was thought to have been one hit out of 6, IIRC.  This would be the only
>time in history that a battleship was attacked by torpedoes by another
>battleship and further, the only time that one also was hit by a torpedo
>from BB to BB.  I know that some historians don't consider Rodney a
>battleship but I contend that any ship that is firing 16" guns SHOULD be
>considered a BB.  Some historians didn't list Bismarck as a battleship
>either....YMMV

Let's see. HMS Rodney had a battleship's guns (16"), a BB's armor, and
a BB's speed  for the time (21 knots). I know of no historian that
would consider Rodney anything but a battleship. 

The same goes for Bismarck. She had the guns, the armor, and better
speed than a contemporary BB. Just because she had more speed than the
ones before her doesn't disqualify her as a BB, any more than Prince
of Wales or North Carolina wasn't a BB.

John Lansford

The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1031
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1032



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: 
Pyramid ( was Sensors in GURPS)
Re: Law and fanzines
Re: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )
Re: Law and fanzines
Re: The Imperial fleet
Re: Naval Procurement
Re: Jumping from 100 diameters
Re: Piracy: Cease!
Re: Physreps
Re: GT transponders
T-plate operational limits
Re: Piracy: Cease!
Re: GT transponders
Re: Sten
Re: Freelance Traveller
Re: SFB, automation, stuff
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: GT Transponders
Re Loading
Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.
Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2) 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:45:00 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: 

 
> >On that same floorplan is a detail showing the (rough) dimensions of a
> >"Standard" cargo module for convenient loading onto the ship.
> >
> > * Can any of you tell me the dimensions of said cargo module or

3.85tons (<3m x <3m x 6m) Has doors on the end like a modern cargo
container (^--these are just shy of 3m to fit the ceiling height, I
belive)

> > * Can any of you tell me what the source material is that I am talking 
> about?

Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats
 
- -Merrick

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 98 16:43:54 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Pyramid ( was Sensors in GURPS)

On 10/24/98 at 12:21 PM,  dberry@hooked.net said:

>>I wonder if we need a GTL "Gurps Tech List" for these technical 
>>issues? I suppose such a thing already exists on io.com/Pyramid,

Not really.  The only list I'm aware of is a general one, it gets
quite technical at times, but isn't like TTL, it's more like
TML...only with a *very* broad range of topics (and a low signal to
noise ratio, IMO).  It's a free list, btw, not part of Pyramid.  

The on-line boards that require a Pyramid subscription aren't
particularly interesting to me because they only do online reading
and replying.  That's *supposed* to change..we'll see.

>> but I'm damned if I'm going to pay money for the sake of helping
>> improve their design...

No, you shouldn't pay for the subscription for that reason.  Not
unless you *want* to, of course. ;->

>Umm... You are aware that the $15/year subscription to Pyramid is
>more than a chance to improve SJG products, right?

>In the three-odd months I've been reading Pyramid on-line, I've
>gotten dozens of ideas for my game, decided to buy two products based
>on the reviews, and been amused by John Kovalic's Murphy's Rules.

What Doug said.  There is a lot of value here, whether you play
GURPS or not.  In the last few months, there have been two *very*
good Traveller articles.  The archives have a number of general
adventures that can be adapted to Traveller...one that really
interested me was aimed at a 1930's adventure in Central America,
but set it on a jerkwater planet in the Deep (or Marches) and it
would work just as well.  Then there are the product reviews, news
and...

>Hell, _Surpressed Transmission_ is worth the subscription cost
>alone.   

Well, almost.  ;-> Ken Hite's column is good, but I'm not sure I'd
pay $15 a year *just* for that.  However, it does contribute to the
worth of the subscription.

>Add in that it's updated weekly, and you get a gaming magazine for 28
>cents a week!  I rarely even bother with the message boards, since I
>don't play GURPS.

I don't bother with the message boards because I can't read and
reply offline.  ;->

I never make it to the weekly "chats" because of my work schedule,
but I enjoy reading the transcripts.  You know there have been
several chats about non-SJG games, the new Star Trek game comes to
mind.  I bet SJG would be happy to arrange conferences where
Travellerites could discuss things Traveller.  Maybe Marc could tell
us about T5 at one.


Eris

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 98 16:49:33 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Law and fanzines

On 10/24/98 at 02:32 PM,  steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com> said:

>>         Somebody knows what is the current international legal status of
>> fanzines? Suppose you want to print one, send it worldwide, and
>> charge production & shipping costs. In practice, you are selling it.
>> Assume it is a fanzine about Traveller. Something sounds illegal in
>> this, even if you acknowledge all TMs <ducking>.
>>         Carlos Alos-Ferrer

>That would be, at a minimum, a violation of the Traveller trademark.
>You need a license from Far Future Enterprises to put the Traveller
>name on it.  This will apply to the whole 'zine and not just the
>title.

Hum, well speaking as a total layman...I know you couldn't put
Traveller in the title, but does it require a license to produce a
fanzine *about* a trademarked game?  If the fanzine acknowledged
trademarks and didn't use copywrited material, wouldn't it be legal
to publish fan originated material?

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 17:59:21 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )

- -----Original Message-----
From: Leif O. Pihl <pihlx001@tc.umn.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Saturday, October 24, 1998 5:35 PM
Subject: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )



> * Can any of you tell me the dimensions of said cargo module or
>
> * Can any of you tell me what the source material is that I am talking
about?
>
>
>Thank you,
>
>LP
Leif,

There are 2 possible places you could have seen the 400 sdt "Fat" Trader,
either in Suppliment 7 Traders and Gunboats, or the Traveller Adventure,
large format book. The standard cargo container is 3.85 tons and typically
measures 6 x 3 x 3 meters. I have a page of these containers (suitable for
cut out and use in a 1/2 inch scale) included in my Cargo Master class Free
Trader deck plans found at my web site (address in sig.)

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 18:21:25 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: Law and fanzines

Eris Reddoch wrote:

> Hum, well speaking as a total layman...I know you couldn't put
> Traveller in the title, but does it require a license to produce a
> fanzine *about* a trademarked game?  If the fanzine acknowledged
> trademarks and didn't use copywrited material, wouldn't it be legal
> to publish fan originated material?

It depends a bit.  At the least, is smells of trademark dilution via
sponsorship confusion.  I.E., it might appear to be sponsored
and the consumer might think its official or authorized by the
trademark owning party.  Thats called trading on the goodwill
of the mark holder, exactly what trademark is about preventing.

Having said that, very, very clear disclaimers might help.
As does the non-profit nature.  But in the end, its going to depend
on the exact nature of the fanzine.  If it was all Traveller stuff, its
probably going to violate trademark without a license.

IMO, better in this situation to get Mr. Miller's blessing than
to try to get forgiveness later.

Bloo

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:28:11 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: The Imperial fleet

 
> >Canon says the jump is 'straght line travel' that can not intersect the 100
> >dia limit of any object over 1 mile.
> 
> I think that is right in at least one version of the rules (maybe more).
> OTOH this effect is totally ignored in other versions. I don't think it
> has ever been mentioned as part of the background events.
>
> >Problem people.  What if the planet you want to go to is on the oposite side
> >on it's sun from you when you want to jump?  Do you wait half of that
> >planet's year?
 
This raises some interesting ideas. If you think about it for a
while, it makes the idea of popping in-system at only 100D from
Mainworld kind of unlikely (a good thing, IMHO).

I did a Q&D sketch at http://www.rt66.com/~merrick/jumpglop.html to
show what I mean (easier to draw than try to do it in ascii :-)

The bottom line is that there are many times when you might well
have to spend a few days in normal space to jump. Also, if pre-jump
velocity is conserved, then you'd want to break at least a little be
fore jumping (instead of accelerating straight for 2 days, then
jumping).

- -Merrick

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

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 08:26:19
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Naval Procurement

>From: DustyLV769@aol.com
>Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy
>
>In a message dated 10/23/98 9:31:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time, rancke@diku.dk
>writes:
>
>	Or that the IN has a large number of ships that are of a lower TL than 15!!
>
>	Most people seem to assume that the entire IN is made up of TL 15 vessels,
>but this is not at all true (Book 5 High Guard) :"The Imperial Navy may
>procure ships of up to TL15, although it also procures vessels at TL 10 thru
>14".  As is very obvious from both HG and MT, lower TL ships are considerably
>more expensive than thier higher tech counterparts.  But there is no TL
>adjustment for the budgets.
>

Yes, but you can crunch one in by using the exchange rates table in Striker.

>	It is also difficult to build highly agile warships below TL15 (esp in MT)
>At TL13-14, you need twice the space for a power plant as you would at
>TL15...and it's 3x at 10-12.

Lets assume we have 2 worlds, one TL15 and one TL12, and a Navy that needs
some real warships and some tankers. Now, TL12 warships suck, when compared
to TL15 warships, but jump-3 TL12 tankers arent too bad.

So the Navy commissions the tankers from the TL12 world, and has them built
there (leading to nice 'Imperium Signs Massive Defense Contract with Us !'
headlines and lots of dinner invites for the Vice-Admiral in charge of
procurement). The real warships get built at the hi-tech shipyard.

It is pushing the analogy a bit, but modern militaries do build new
contruction of obsolescent designs for reasons of economy (how long did the
A4 and A6 gets built for, anyway ?).

Ian Whitchurch 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 18:43:07 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Jumping from 100 diameters

Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com> writes:
>For our worst examples, the spinward marches include a number of M II
>giants...
>the concept of having to travel 5-10 AU to jump would be rather
>unappealing to
>most merchants ;).

I did a couple of worlds like that a decade ago, for my Twilight's Peak
campaign. They break from canon, in that I placed the giants where I
wanted them for plot purposes, rather than where the Spinward Marches
sourcebooks say they should be, but then it's MY Traveller universe :-)

One had the primary belt being well inside the jump interdiction zone
(what I called it). The system used solar sails to boost refined ores out
to the jump limit where they were picked up by merchants.  The culture was
actually pretty reasonable, but didn't bother explaining things to
strangers because everyone knew that _everyone_ knew how things worked
(belts get very few tourists, so most of the belter hadn't met anyone from
outsystem before).

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 01:33:13 +0200
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <greimann@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy: Cease!

>
>Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?
I have to disagree, 
I think there have been some interesting arguments this time around.
Although the Piracy theme will never be resolved, the discussion
is interesting nonetheless!
Volker
- ---
Volker A. Greimann, greimann@geocities.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:31 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Physreps

>Anybody else do this kind of thing?  Suggestions, comments?
>

I like it.  The closest I got was index cards with a weapon's stats and a
*picture* of the weapon (usually clipped from somewhere - like a photocopy
of something from a nontrav GDW sourcebook) pasted to the front.

Pete

                      Peter H. Brenton : pbrenton@mit.edu
"A Good Traveller has no fixed plans and no intent on arriving."
  -Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:07:06 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400, Fred and Evelyn Wolke
<thewolkes@earthlink.net>
>>if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
>
>Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
>anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
>anything there.
>
>If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
>Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
>away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
>better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
>locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
>out.

Well, IMO, a transponder is never going to be able to "prove" who you are
and I thought saying they existed for that reason didn't work.

If they exist, I think they would be mostly to aid navigation (ships are easier
to track and you don't have to take time to call them up to find out who they
are).   It does have some benefit to security because it complicates some
situations because ships have to commit to sneaking up (since once they
are detected they have to explain why their transponders were off which
they may or may not be able to do).

That is why I think they exist.

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:26:14 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: T-plate operational limits

Rupert Boleyn queries me thusly:
>
>So what limit, if any, do you put on the distance from a gravity source
>that a T-plate can be and still function? If it's 1000 or 2000 diameters a
>misjump of more than a few hundred AU will kill a T-plate ship's crew far
>more certainly than a HEPlaR's, especially as the HEPlaR fuel supply may be
>enough to allow a jump.
>
MT does not have a limit on T-plate efficiency; My campiagns do not either.
I will not retrofit the T-Plate efficiency onto MT as I run it. IMO, it
defeats too much previous cannon (including TCS, to some degree), is ill
thought, and makes no sense. IMTU, True Recationless Thrusters push against
themost significant gravity wells, and thus the objects creating them, and
thus truly are not reactionless, but use the mass of planets, stars, dark
matter, interstellar gasses, etc., as reaction mass. Just like IMTU, a
repulsor CAN be used for fine maneuving in docks.

Since I don't run TNE anymore (the combat system is BROKEN, and I've tried
dozens of fixes, and just don't like any of them), and don't  like T4
except for the Psionics rules and number of skills per term, my players
don't expect me to use "questionable" items from the newer canon. If I were
running T4, I'd use the limits, and if T5 has the limits, when running T5
I'll use the limits.

TL 9 anti-grav-thrusters are limited to about 1000 diameters, and no full
thrust after 100 diameters, and I limit gravitic modules (vehicular type)
to 10 diameters for full thrust, and no thrust past 100 diameters.


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 01:33:13 +0200
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <greimann@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy: Cease!

>
>Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?
I have to disagree, 
I think there have been some interesting arguments this time around.
Although the Piracy theme will never be resolved, the discussion
is interesting nonetheless!
Volker
- ---
Volker A. Greimann, greimann@geocities.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:07:06 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400, Fred and Evelyn Wolke
<thewolkes@earthlink.net>
>>if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
>
>Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
>anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
>anything there.
>
>If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
>Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
>away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
>better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
>locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
>out.

Well, IMO, a transponder is never going to be able to "prove" who you are
and I thought saying they existed for that reason didn't work.

If they exist, I think they would be mostly to aid navigation (ships are easier
to track and you don't have to take time to call them up to find out who they
are).   It does have some benefit to security because it complicates some
situations because ships have to commit to sneaking up (since once they
are detected they have to explain why their transponders were off which
they may or may not be able to do).

That is why I think they exist.

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:36:10 -0400
From: "Jeff/Michelle Norton" <jmnorton@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Sten

    The first 5 books were good. My step-dad gave me The Wolf Worlds to read
one boring summer day WAAAAY back in the early eighties. Read it in two
days, then, reread what I rushed through... Kids will be kids...
    The only cool things about the series were:
    1) How Sten started off on Vulcan, and , got that neat crystal and
formed it into that wicked knife. Just wonder where I could find some of
that crystal...
    2) Alex Killgore's brogue and how it cut in-and-out at unusual times.
The jokes were the worst, except the one about the 'wee snakes'
    3) Also, Killgore being from a heavy-g world.
    4) The Emperor, in the first few books was unusual for a regent
    5) And, of course, AM2 (Wonder if the 3I has any of this stuff...)

    I'm not sure, but the war in the middle books were based on WW2. I
thought that was the basis. Seemed too much a coincidence. Though, the book
on the POW camp read like the Colditz Story/ Great Escape...

    Simple observations from a fan.

    Jeff Norton

    The Calgary doesn't always come to the rescue...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:53:22 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Re: Freelance Traveller

On Thu, 22 Oct 1998 22:01:24 -0400, Fred and Evelyn Wolke
<thewolkes@earthlink.net> wrote:

>>(3) May I have a copy of the completed article (if it's going to
>>be completed) for Freelance Traveller?

>PMI, but what is Freelance Traveller?

Freelance Traveller is 
(1) My web site 
(2) A resource for Traveller players and referees 
(3) A webzine for Traveller players and referees 
(4) Fan-supported - If fans don't write and send me stuff,
Freelance Traveller doesn't survive 
(5) Located at http://www.tightbeam.com/FreelanceTraveller and
mirrored at http://w3.execnet.com/jeffz (although the mirror will
be moving soon).  Why not give it a visit?
(6) Highly acclaimed (but only by those who think highly of it)
(7) All of the above - this ain't a multiple choice question!
- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:39:20 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: SFB, automation, stuff

>Subject: Re: SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)
...
>Good point and one that I will consede too.  A ship in this situation would
>be foolish not to have the best gunner programs money can buy.

  Perhaps only if the IN doesn't believe in "lowest bid wins" procurement :>

...
>If the attacker speed is high (.5c) then 3 seconds is about all the warning
...

  Wouldn't it be simpler to use your near-C crowbars against the local
naval base instead? :>  I'm not going to touch relativistic stuff in
this thread - see the drives discussion.
  
...
>>  I doubt that most campaigns (CT/HG) would allow merchants to buy missile
>>bays, PA barbettes, and meson guns.
>
>True but what about mercinary companies?  Where do pirates start any way?

  A common theory is that mercenary companies with the correct licences
could use higher-end gear - not unreasonably given the Imperial tendency
to use them as low political cost proxies within the 3I itself.

  As for pirates, to a large extent it's relative armament that counts -
a knife is enough when your target has only a sweaty brow...

>But that is mute.  The sensor discussion did it for me. 
/.../ Pirate don't work in defended systems.

  Actually, I suspect that it would be very hard to build a system with
anything like near-universal fast response defenses, unless it had very
few traffic nexi to protect, or very large resources. So, while a Pop 7
mainworld may be effectively inviolable the outer system defenses amy be
quite porous - which would make a good case for not using starships for
certain commercial missions.

  Likewise, a Jump from the (safe) mainworld to a large and well-protected
facility not within a 100-D effect would be quite safe.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:42:18 -0400
From: "Dan Eveland" <develand@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

How does the space shuttle handle heat build-up?

Dan


- -----Original Message-----
From: Rob Prior <Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 12:20 PM
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)


>Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>>A space ship doesn't have a planet for a heat sink, every joule it
>>absorbs or produces has to go somewhere. It either raises the internal
>>energy (temperature) of the ship, or is radiated into space. The
>>energy going into the system, from every source, has to balance with
>>the energy within it or radiated out. So, if you produce internally,
>>or absorb externally, 100 joules per second then your local system
>>will either radiate away 100 joules per second or increase in internal
>>temperature until, eventually, whatever heat sink you have in the
>>local system is overloaded and the energy radiates away. At no point
>>will the the energy produced/absorbed not be balanced with the energy
>>of the system minus any it radiates away.
>
>For reference:
>
>My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
>should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
>are really hot!  After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
>statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
>catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
>repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)
>
>The solutions are:
>
>1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
>realistic sensor rules.
>
>2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.
>
>3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
>maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
>mechanism).
>
>Possibly we should have a new geek code?
>

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:46:30 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT Transponders

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 22:55:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Re: GT Transponders

and through automatic monitoring of
transponder signals, makes it easier to respond to any problems
("traffic control reports Beowulf's transponder signal suddenly went off
the air -- something's wrong, send a cutter or SDB to investigate").
**************
hey theres an idea....add a mayday button to the transponder....

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 13:24:42 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Loading

>Hm.. I suspect that loading time is dependent on the # of components, their
>size, and the size of the door you're moving them through.  Filling a
>compartment with 10 10-ton boxes and 10,000 10-kilogram boxes is not equal.

I believe I said something to that effect.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:54:04 -0400
From: "Shade" <jwatts@catt.com>
Subject: Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.

It comes from a topic I started a long time ago that had to do with a
Aslan-Vargr " sex study " that was published on the list a VERY long time
ago.  

It was basicly done to death and is generally regarded as a sore subject.

Just to let ya know....  it was established in that " study " that a great
percentage of Aslan females were lesbian or bisexual.


Shade


The problem with religious texts is that the answers
arent in the BACK, either. 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:09 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

>Subject: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
...
>Again, I'll grant you that. Now tell me, if the colonial spacemen serve the
>same number of years and get the same training as Imperial spacemen, how
>can this be true?
>***********
>they don't see as much combat.

  There's a reasonable basis for the belief that training is more
important than combat experience in (historical, anyway) naval 
combat.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:44:20 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2) 

> In a message dated 10/23/98 11:05:01 AM Central Daylight Time,
> a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:
> 
> << The Luriani
>  
>   >>
> Most people reading this will say "Huh?" because they aren't working from or
> consulting the Minor Race Generation Tables.

Those the tables you were mailing out, Marc?  If so, I haven't gotten my set 
yet.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1032
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1033



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: : Re: The Imperial Fleet
Extended System Generation
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Travellerish fiction 
Loading/Unloading
Re: Mutiny
Re: Piracy, Cease and Desist! 
Ken Pick articles
Why jump takes constant time...
Re: The Imperial fleet
Re: Law and fanzines
Re: Naval Procurement
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re:Physreps
Re: Deja Vu all over again!
Hmmm
Re: The Luriani 
TML repeats
Re: GT Lasers
Re: Deja Vu all over again!
Law and fanzines
re: Piracy: Cease!
Re: Transponder's true nature

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 22:10:17 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

On 10/23/98 at 10:50 PM,  "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com> said:

>>Michael, could you include the scale for the deckplans.  Are the
>>squares 1, 1.5 or 2 meters?

>Ok, I've revised the fonts and attempted to imbed them. I've also
>added the scale, 1.5 m per square (I'm a traditionalist when it comes
>to deck plans). Any way, please try the files again and let me know
>it they work all right. I tried them on my lap top and they showed up
>alright on it so I hope they'll be ok.

Thanks, Mike. I will. BTW, what software did you use for your plans?

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:45:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brannon Boren <brannonb@animal.blarg.net>
Subject: Re: : Re: The Imperial Fleet

On Fri, 23 Oct 1998, David Lightfinger wrote:

> Unfortunately, this is very common in the industry. I had to wait almost
> 2 years before Hero Games paid me for the Champions material I had
> written for them.

Ditto. After the second time my royalty check from ICE bounced I got a
little miffed. I did finally get them to cough up the money they owed me
after quite a long battle. I think told them I needed to buy a kidney or
something...

> ps. I will note SJG does NOT follow industry trend, and pays on time.
> Thus, you should see more GURPS:Traveller material coming out in their
> announcements soon, as some of us old fogeys gear up to put in queries
> and proposals to them :-)

I'd love to do work on Traveller, but I just can't get behind GURPS as a
system. Feel like collaborating?

Ben 

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

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 08:56:19
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Extended System Generation

I've been re-reading Scouts (LBB 6), and a couple of things are striking me
about it.

Firstly, there tend to be lots of worlds and moons in a system. This is
important if you are rolling for special resources per world.

Secondly, there tends to be multiple refuelling points per system, even
ignoring the Oort cloud. Most systems have at least one planet with some
water, or an asteroid belt (ice asteroids) or multiple gas giants. It is
still most cost-effective to fuel up at the starport (time is money), but
this isnt your only option.

Has anyone done an entire subsector using extended system generation ?

Ian Whitchurch

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:14:16 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

At 12:42 PM 10/23/98 -0400, you wrote:
>How does the space shuttle handle heat build-up?

It has big radiators in the cargo bay that flip out as soon as it hits
orbit.  It also uses as little power as possible... the crew generate more
heat than the electrics.  They also use a lot of low-resistance wiring
(read: fiber-optics and pure copper) to minimise heat buildup from that
source.
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 07:17:21 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Travellerish fiction 

> > What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H. Beam
> Piper:
> >
> >       Little Fuzzy
> >       4-Day Planet
> >       Uller Uprising
> >       Space Viking
> 
>         The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
>         Fuzzy Sapiens
>         Fuzzies and Other People

I knew there were two more Piper Fuzzy books, as well as two 'other' Fuzzy 
books; I had them all at one time.  *(

> > There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the top of
> my
> > head.
> 
> More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
> the moment.
> 
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> You missed 'lone star planet','federation','empire','first cycle'

Lone Star Planet was printed up as a double with Four Day Planet.  It's in a 
box around here *somewhere*, or else over my little brother's place in 
Cleveland (I gotta get over there Real Soon Now & get the rest of my stuff...)

> no i do NOT lend books :)

You'll get my paperbacks when you pry my cold dead fingers from around them.  
And you *BETTER* treat 'em right, or I'm coming back to haunt you.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 04:17:01 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Loading/Unloading

AS threatened, I found the tables in FASA's Battletech, and will present an
adaptation for use with traveller (I am not reprinting theirs... its in
Battlespace, page 56). Also factored in are my experiences working in a
- -10c wharehouse.

			Minutes per metric ton**
Equipment Used		0-G	Vacc 1-G Air
Battle Dress (or equiv)	4	2	2
5 man in VaccSuits	4	3	3
5 man in clothes*	3	2	2
1 man with LRTP's	2	-	-
1 man w/Pallet Jacks**	-	3	2

This table basically assumes times from ready on boards to loaded in cargo
or vice versa; times really should be doubled for moving ship to ship.
Times should be doubled for medium break-bulk (loose boxes and crates
instead of containerized or shrinkwrapped onto pallets) and times 10 for
small items (125L boxes {25cm cubes}).

* in vaccum assumes LD Vacc suit or tailored vaccsuit.
** assume SG 4 (4MT per 1Td) as a good average if you don't want to figure
out masses from traveller cargos yourself.
*** assumes pallatized loads that are secure on the pallet. Iv'e moved up
to a 1/2 ton pallet of icecream at the rates shown, moving the goods from
loose to a pallet 2m from the shelves, while in a -10c freezer. Moving the
pallet the 10-15 meters to shrink-wrap took another 2 minutes on average,
including opening and closing the 1/4-ton sliding door. Shrink wrap took
another 5 minutes, and then it was a fairly stable unit. The guys who
worked the wharehouse (I worked the co-located icecream plant) could load
and move faster than I could. BTW, a 1/2ton pallet of ice cream is about 2m
tall, and uses a 1.5x1.5m pallet which is about 7-12 cm tall it's self,
weighing about 10kg. Lined up pallets go on trucks at the loading-dock at
the rate of about 1-2 per minute, depending on skill and depth of refer
van, at least that's what I've seen done. A full van can be unloaded to the
dock (which is level with the floor of the reefer van floor) in under 15
minutes for a fully palletized load in a 40' trailer. And about as long to
get the load into the freezer, using about 5 men for each task.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:12:25 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Mutiny

>I've been wondering: considering that mutiny is one of the more
>sensible sources of pirate ships we've discussed, how big a ship
>could a mutiny believably take place on?
*snip*
>Is a 400tn _Gazelle_ Close Escort or _Luuru Kilaalum_ (sp?)
>Patrol Cruiser too big? How about an 800tn _Broadsword_
>Mercenary Cruiser? A 1200tn _Kinunir_ Battle Cruiser?

Funny you should mention the Gazelle; The text in Traders and Gunboats
(Supplement 7 of the LBBs) indicated that the layout of decks in the
Gazelle was *specifically* designed to seperate the enlisted crew from the
officers and provide the officers with a defensable bridge area in the
event of a mutiny.

>Then there is the question: you've offed the Captain and a senior
>officer or two, as well as any loyal crew. Where do you get
>replacements? I don't see too many crew mutinying as a unit -
>unless we're talking Vargr of course.

Comments of others aside, and other factors affecting piracy
notwithstanding, I don't think its difficult for an undercrewed ship to
operate.  Like the sailing ships of old, military vessels are heavily
overcrewed due to the needs of combat and the desire for extra coverage for
watches and such.  If procedures are changed, maintenance schedules allowed
to slip, etc, a vessel like a Gazelle could be run with only 4 crewmembers
(out of 12) for most of the time (I'm thinking two watchstanders, one in
engineering, one on the bridge, in rotating 8 or 12 hour shifts).

A British Frigate in the West Indies mutinied in the late 1700s over the
behavior of their captain (described in _The Black Ship_ I can't recall the
vessels name).  They did not turn pirate, but they turned themselves in to
a Spainish port, where some stayed awhile, but most dispersed themselves to
the four winds, some even returning home to England, several signed on
privateers or pirates, many went to America, and many simply were not heard
of again.  All the ones we know about were eventually hung.  Some, however,
seem to have successfully mutinied.

I believe that of the 130 or so on board, 30-50 were "active" mutineers,
60-80 were "passive participants" who obeyed orders of the mutineers once
the killing was over, and the remainder were either killed and thrown
overboard or just thrown overboard.  Several asked that they be considered
prisoners of war when they arrived in the Spainish port.  I think that with
treatment of the more professional Imp Navy personnel you would expect many
fewer to participate or allow a mutiny to occur, so I would not expect an
Imperial Navy vessel much larger than a Gazelle to be subject to a mutiny.

Other navies (local navies with SDBs) might be different.

Now, a British Frigate in 1800 could not, in the end, escape the British
Navy and remain on Earth, so there is not really a good analogy to an
Imperial Navy ship near an open border, like the Vargr Extents or the
Trojan Reach, where many local nation-states would pay nicely for a
Gazelle.  On the other paw, The Imperial Navy would do it's damndest (like
the RN) to hunt down and kill every last perpetrator of a mutiny in hopes
that this would discourage imitators.

In any case there is that reference to mutiny in LBB Supp. 7 which even
prompted a *design change* on a common Impy Navy ship.

Pete


Peter H. Brenton
MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center
(617) 253-3185
pbrenton@mit.edu

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 06:12:02 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, Cease and Desist! 

> >From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
> ...
> >seen in the time I've been on the list - specifically, trying to get the
> >discussion more towards numbers than ideology.
> 
>   That's easy enough for you to say, you reactionary capitalist running-
> proto-Vargr, you don't have the Vice-Chair waiting to recommend you for
> re-education...

That's easy enough of you to say, you bleeding heart crypto-socialist 
proto-Aslan.  You're not surrounded by kids chanting to worship a purple 
dinosaur and wanting you to get in touch with your inner child!  <grin>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:29:38 +0000
From: "Carlos Alos-Ferrer" <Carlos.Alos-Ferrer@univie.ac.at>
Subject: Ken Pick articles

Ken Pick published three good articles on "filling the gaps" in the 
evolution of weapons in MT in Challenge. I have two of them, which 
are short but good and useful. I never got a copy of the 
third: "Missing Links", on Challenge 64. Anybody knows what exactly 
was in there?
Thanks,
Carlos Alos-Ferrer
(seems I am in asking-for-help mode today ;-) )

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:06:17 +0000
From: "Carlos Alos-Ferrer" <Carlos.Alos-Ferrer@univie.ac.at>
Subject: Why jump takes constant time...

	I remember, OTMH, that some time ago, somebody posted some notes 
explaining why jump time is constant, making it analogous to the 
physical fact (which I do not remember clearly) that the falling time 
through an hypotetical tunnel  (?) between two points in the surface 
of a sphere (planet) is constant, regardless of where the points are.
	Somebody has it handy?
	Thanks
	Carlos Alos-Ferrer

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:28:11 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: The Imperial fleet

 
> >Canon says the jump is 'straght line travel' that can not intersect the 100
> >dia limit of any object over 1 mile.
> 
> I think that is right in at least one version of the rules (maybe more).
> OTOH this effect is totally ignored in other versions. I don't think it
> has ever been mentioned as part of the background events.
>
> >Problem people.  What if the planet you want to go to is on the oposite side
> >on it's sun from you when you want to jump?  Do you wait half of that
> >planet's year?
 
This raises some interesting ideas. If you think about it for a
while, it makes the idea of popping in-system at only 100D from
Mainworld kind of unlikely (a good thing, IMHO).

I did a Q&D sketch at http://www.rt66.com/~merrick/jumpglop.html to
show what I mean (easier to draw than try to do it in ascii :-)

The bottom line is that there are many times when you might well
have to spend a few days in normal space to jump. Also, if pre-jump
velocity is conserved, then you'd want to break at least a little be
fore jumping (instead of accelerating straight for 2 days, then
jumping).

- -Merrick

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 18:21:25 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: Law and fanzines

Eris Reddoch wrote:

> Hum, well speaking as a total layman...I know you couldn't put
> Traveller in the title, but does it require a license to produce a
> fanzine *about* a trademarked game?  If the fanzine acknowledged
> trademarks and didn't use copywrited material, wouldn't it be legal
> to publish fan originated material?

It depends a bit.  At the least, is smells of trademark dilution via
sponsorship confusion.  I.E., it might appear to be sponsored
and the consumer might think its official or authorized by the
trademark owning party.  Thats called trading on the goodwill
of the mark holder, exactly what trademark is about preventing.

Having said that, very, very clear disclaimers might help.
As does the non-profit nature.  But in the end, its going to depend
on the exact nature of the fanzine.  If it was all Traveller stuff, its
probably going to violate trademark without a license.

IMO, better in this situation to get Mr. Miller's blessing than
to try to get forgiveness later.

Bloo

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

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 08:26:19
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Naval Procurement

>From: DustyLV769@aol.com
>Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy
>
>In a message dated 10/23/98 9:31:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time, rancke@diku.dk
>writes:
>
>	Or that the IN has a large number of ships that are of a lower TL than 15!!
>
>	Most people seem to assume that the entire IN is made up of TL 15 vessels,
>but this is not at all true (Book 5 High Guard) :"The Imperial Navy may
>procure ships of up to TL15, although it also procures vessels at TL 10 thru
>14".  As is very obvious from both HG and MT, lower TL ships are considerably
>more expensive than thier higher tech counterparts.  But there is no TL
>adjustment for the budgets.
>

Yes, but you can crunch one in by using the exchange rates table in Striker.

>	It is also difficult to build highly agile warships below TL15 (esp in MT)
>At TL13-14, you need twice the space for a power plant as you would at
>TL15...and it's 3x at 10-12.

Lets assume we have 2 worlds, one TL15 and one TL12, and a Navy that needs
some real warships and some tankers. Now, TL12 warships suck, when compared
to TL15 warships, but jump-3 TL12 tankers arent too bad.

So the Navy commissions the tankers from the TL12 world, and has them built
there (leading to nice 'Imperium Signs Massive Defense Contract with Us !'
headlines and lots of dinner invites for the Vice-Admiral in charge of
procurement). The real warships get built at the hi-tech shipyard.

It is pushing the analogy a bit, but modern militaries do build new
contruction of obsolescent designs for reasons of economy (how long did the
A4 and A6 gets built for, anyway ?).

Ian Whitchurch 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:19:07 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>Well now, maybe you mean the fact that many Americans don't like the
>idea of aliens flooding across our borders?  If that's it, the
>disquiet isn't specifically anti-latino, it's more anti-immigration,
>especially illegal immigration, it just so happens that the mass of
>the illegal immigrates come from Central American countries.  I
>think this is more an economic issue than anything, but like most
>things you can make it a racial one if you try.  

I suspect it is more that the mass of obviously different immigrants
(legal and not) comes from Latin America.

I've noticed up here that, even though I'm an immigrant, everyone assumes
I was born here, while many of my friends get asked when they arrived
(when they were born here). Sadly, the assumption seems to be that if you
aren't white, you immigrated.

This is why I'd never vote Reform, BTW: they either want to kick me out
because I'm really an immigrant, or most of my friends because they aren't
white.  I'm offended either way.

ObTrav: There should definately be a characteristic for how offworlders
are regarded. This would range from "Kill on sight" through "Some of my
best friends but I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one" and "People
like us" to "Godlike beings with infinite knowledge and wisdom".

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:02:31 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

>>My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
>>should be glowing red when running at full power. 
[snip]
>
>>
>>The solutions are:
>>
>>1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
>>realistic sensor rules.
>>
>>2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of
>starships.
>>
>>3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
>>maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
>>mechanism).
>
>4) Assume a higher power plant efficency or cold fussion power plants.
>Everything else stays the same and no need for monster radiaters.

You'd still need to lower the power plant output. Traveller power plants
are actually 100% efficient, in that we've always assumed that they
produce exactly as much power as the ship consumes. This is _not_
accurate, and everyone knows it, but that's "canon". Thus, a ship with a
150MW power plant is actually a ship who's systems _consume_ 150MW. If you
add in the true inefficiencies of power plants then it would need a larger
power plant.

Take a look at the power requirements of various ship systems in MT, TNe,
or T4.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 18:53:16 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re:Physreps

>>Anybody else do this kind of thing?  Suggestions, comments?
>>
>
>I like it.  The closest I got was index cards with a weapon's stats and a
>*picture* of the weapon (usually clipped from somewhere - like a photocopy
>of something from a nontrav GDW sourcebook) pasted to the front.

I did this when playing Dream Park with my kids. I made equipment cards
for every piece of equipment, with the name and  apicture on front and
name, description, and game stats on the back. Any equipment on hand (ie
ready for use) was set upright in front of the player (using little
stands). This meant I could easily see who had what ready, and the kids
could easily see what their gear could do.

I extended the idea to stuff from Space: 1889, but didn't actually make
the cards--lack of time and less need, that group being all adults with
better memories and longer attention spans.

Used equipment sheets with MegaTraveller. In fact, many of those published
by DGP were my designs: grashfalt, cargo container...

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:19:39 -0400
From: John H Bogan Jr <jbogan@pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again!

At 01:54 AM 10/24/1998 -0500, you wrote:
>Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and
over again?

No. I'm getting repeats too.

JB

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:20:12 EDT
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Hmmm

TravelrTNE@aol.com opined:

> I know there's In Nomine, etc, and that G:T is obviously
> going to be more than one product, but I believe it's been confirmed there
> will be no overall plotline for the background of G:T's alternate
universe...
> Course, i'd be happy to learn i'm wrong.

I, for one, would be interested in knowing who confirmed that to you, where
and when.

Loren Wiseman
   GURPS Traveller Line Editor
    SJ Games

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:33:23 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: The Luriani 

> From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>

Great stuff, great stuff...

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:52:42 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: TML repeats

Is the TML resended messages repeatedly? My digests keep on getting repeats
in them and the number each day has jumped!

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:20:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Re: GT Lasers

> And against different targets? Does the -4 apply then.

If you fire against three different targets, yes. If you target one laser
against one target and two against the other, it would drop to -2, etc.

You could say this simulates running your Multi-Target program instead of
your Predict (CT computer rules reference).

[Sometime we'll have to include stats for Anti-Hijack in GT, I suppose...]

- -David

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:22:55 EDT
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again!

In a message dated 10/24/98 10:56:05 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
jbogan@pipeline.com writes:

<< At 01:54 AM 10/24/1998 -0500, you wrote:
 >Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and
 over again?
 
 No. I'm getting repeats too.
 
 JB
 
  >>

and me....

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:08:44 +0000
From: "Carlos Alos-Ferrer" <Carlos.Alos-Ferrer@univie.ac.at>
Subject: Law and fanzines

	Somebody knows what is the current international legal status of 
fanzines? Suppose you want to print one, send it worldwide, and 
charge production & shipping costs. In practice, you are selling it. 
Assume it is a fanzine about Traveller. Something sounds illegal in 
this, even if you acknowledge all TMs <ducking>.
	Carlos Alos-Ferrer

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:14:53 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Piracy: Cease!

SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com> wrote:

>Yeah... if we must have a re-run, can't we re-open the fighter debate? That
>was more fun...

"And, as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared" (Mr Ben, BBC TV)

I get to read a restart in the fighter debate the two digests before my
post hit the TML!

Sureal!

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:30:51 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Transponder's true nature

shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson) wrote:

>  They complain that they don't want to discuss piracy? Well, we can
>make them regret _that_ :>  *
<snip>
>  * - sorry - my "Leroy" file ready racks are empty...


About the TL16 RoM - I thought you offered to prove from existing published
sources that this was an underestimate of the tech level, modified by
Imperial propaganda?

;-)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1033
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Subj:	<B> Traveller-digest V1998 #1034
Date:	10/24/98 4:41:35 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From:	owner-traveller-digest@mpgn.com (Traveller-digest)
Sender:	owner-traveller-digest@mpgn.com
Reply-to:	traveller@mpgn.com
To:	traveller-digest@Phaser.ShowCase.MPGN.COM


Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1034



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Efficient 100-D Control
Reservists (Re: Piracy)
Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.
Re: Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch
Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 
Re: The Reserve Fleet (Was: Piracy)
Re:New Deck plans revised files added
Re: Polyglot Traveller Lexicon
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Re: Imperial navy and auxiliaries
Where to find Deckplans on the Web
Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)
Pyramid Chat on Tuesday
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism
Re: GT Space Combat
Re: GT Space Combat
re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!
Re: New Deck plans
Re: GT Lasers
Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Planetary development  (Was: The Sunbeard Declaration)

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:57:09 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Efficient 100-D Control

Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> wrote:

>SD Mooney> I'm sorry. Recent evidence shows that the Royal Oak was
>scuttled by her
>> crew to prevent the German U-Boat crew boarding her, stealing her and
>> obtaining valuable information... ;-)
>>
>> Dom
>>
>Perhaps so, but exactly what "valuable information" did the Templars
>have on board HMS ROYAL OAK? >;-)

If I tell you, how can I Ryleh on you not telling THEM?

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:51:48 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Reservists (Re: Piracy)

With all this talk about the Reservists in the 3I, I thought I would put my
thoughts,such as they are down.

1. Maybe the 3I has the Reservists serve 2 days a months, not just one
weekend a month, but two days.  And three weeks a year, instead of the two
weeks currently.

This would fix the problem many have with the jump in & jump out.

2.Or the 3I could have reservists serve one month out of every year & one
day a month.  This would have the same amount of days as the current plan.

3. Or someone else could come up with an another idea.

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:10:44 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.

"Shade" <jwatts@catt.com> wrote:

>It comes from a topic I started a long time ago that had to do with a
>Aslan-Vargr " sex study " that was published on the list a VERY long time
>ago.
>
>It was basicly done to death and is generally regarded as a sore subject.
>
>Just to let ya know....  it was established in that " study " that a great
>percentage of Aslan females were lesbian or bisexual.

Ouch! You mean that the discussion happened before last years one? Has
anyone ever plotted the postings on each of these touch topics on a time
axis. There could be an interesting cycle....

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:31:26
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
>Subject: re : TL13 Anti-Shipping Missile/Customs Launch
>
>Based on an anti-shipping missile design?
>
>Ummm, Ditzie, you _did_ remember to remove the proximity fuse
>and detonator, right?
>
>Oh, I see...but you did do more with it than just slap a "For Emergency
>Use Only" sticker on it, right?
>
>Walt Smith

Welll, the proximity fuse and detonator weren't on the specs, becuase it
was a blind command-controlled missile (sensors, even cheap LIDARs, are
expensive).

But Ditzie will check ...

Ian

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:45:17 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 

> From: Keven R. Pittsinger <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> > > > > > Yeah, now somebody tell Bruce *who* plays Al Bester on B5. I
> > haven't
> > > > > > got the heart. ;->
> > > > > Walter Koenig.  Doesn't ring a bell?  Try 'Ensign Chekov(TM)'
from
> > 'That
> > > > > Nameless Paramount/Desilu Sci Fi Hack of Wagon Train(TM)' circa
1964.
> > > > > <grin>
> > > > You forgot the cheesy movies as well...  Circa 1980s & early
1990s...
> > > Good thing you didn't *name* 'em, you'd have to (TM) them.  <ducking>
> > 
> > Why name them?  While they were watchable, they are not standards of
movie
> > making...
> Cause Paramount trademarked them.  Wouldn't wanna get in trouble now,
would we?

Of course not..  I do not want to have Paramount's lawyers come after me...

> Keven

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:28:48 EDT
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Reserve Fleet (Was: Piracy)

In a message dated 10/24/98 11:05:46 AM Pacific Daylight Time, rancke@diku.dk
writes:

<< You can have as long and
 illustrious a full-time career in the colonial fleets as you can in the
 regular. And the same goes for the planetary navies, for that matter. >>

but knowing human nature; I bet that the snobs and status conscious will
rangle duty with the "regulars" and look down their noses at the "colonials"
(just remember to say that word so the contempt drips off the tongue...:-)
)...

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:28:20 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re:New Deck plans revised files added

"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>Michael, they look good and printed out just fine.  It seemed like the
>size of the Twain.pdf file went way up, I might be wrong as I was
>downloading it through a dialup this time rather than a faster network
>connection.

This will happen. I PDFed a bunch of assignments so kids could download
them from home, and file size went from 12k to 138k! I started using fewer
fonts after that.

Then the ISP deleted the web site by mistake, and hasn't resurrected it
yet, while the official web site is not available (even though we're
paying for it) because the central office managers are busy playing power
games instead of making learning happen. (I work for the school board.)
Blrk. Two evenings of my time wasted.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 18:30:05 GMT
From: traveller-m2n@zwieracz.pse.pl
Subject: Re: Polyglot Traveller Lexicon

On 16 Oct 98 04:58:37 GMT, neo@total.net disseminated foul capitalist
propaganda by writing:

[...]
>It occurs to me that TML members speak a wide variety of languages, and
>many of us might find uses for a multilingual lexicon of a few Traveller
>terms. Perhaps we might ask TMLers who speak languages other than English
>to provide translations for the following terms...

OK. Here's some stuff in Polish. 

>Spaceport
Port kosmiczny
>Starport
Port gwiezdny
>Highport
Stacja orbitalna
>Downport
Stacja naziemna
>Base
Baza
>Company
Firma, przedsiebiorstwo
>Corporation
Korporacja
>   etc?
etc. 

;)))

>Also, words for governmental bodies, ie:
>
>Assembly
Zgromadzenie
>Parliament
Parlament
>Legislature
Legislatura
>Council
Rada
>Bureau
Biuro
>Administration
Administracja
>   etc.
[...]
>Certainly, inventing names in foreign languages can be iffy, and the
>results will often be technically wrong. Fortunately, the game takes place
>thousands of years in the future, so one can always blame linguistic drift.

Good one. ;)

Leslie
- -- 
Leszek Karlik, aka Mike leslie@zwieracz.terrorgarden.waw.pl
Hard SF junkie; UIN 6947998; FIAWOL; YMMV IMAO SNAFU TANJ
  IMTU ?tc t4+ to(CORPS)++ ru-- ge++ !3I jt au- he++ 
  merc+ !st ls !kk hi++ as+ !so !vi !sy say++
"Bystanters only count as visual cover." - Jasper Merendino

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 12:09:30 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz> wrote:

>IMO one problem Traveller ship combat has is that people want the feeling
>that you get having mighty ship pounding away at each other like a WWI
>slugfest, but they also want the quick thrill of the cat and mouse game of
>fire and maneuver and these are two fairly incompatible desires.

I agree. If you want cat and mouse (or 'hide and seek with bazookas' which
is how Frank Chadwick described it IIRC) you should play 2300's Starcruiser
(I wish they'd published a bugfixed version of the Naval Architect's Manual
though).

Traveller has always been giant slugfests at capital ship level - like the
big fleet action descriptions in Lensman, or Azimov, or Banks. The nearest
literary thing to both I can think of is Hamilton's _Reality Dysfunction /
Neutronium Alchemist_ books where KKMs and det lasers are standard.

Cat and Mouse only applies for really small ships....

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:43:31 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

> >Again, I'll grant you that. Now tell me, if the colonial spacemen serve
the
> >same number of years and get the same training as Imperial spacemen, how
> >can this be true?
> >***********
> >they don't see as much combat.
>   There's a reasonable basis for the belief that training is more
> important than combat experience in (historical, anyway) naval 
> combat.

Just a thought, but aren't colonial fleets like the reserve fleets of the
3I?

So if they are the reserve fleets of the 3I, maybe they are made up of
revervists who serve one weekend a month & 2 weeks a year, but by this time
it may be 1 week a month & 1 month a year...  I.e. all those characters who
are not in the military might be members of the colonial fleets, thats how
they got their military skills...

Also, many of the sector, sub-sector, & planetary fleets might also come
into this...  I.e. a colonial fleet might be made up of this sub-sector
fleet providing the CrusRon, this planet providing the DestRon, & the
reservists providing the TankRon...

Also another thought (I know this is kinda jumbled, but I am typing this as
I think of it), is that maybe the Navy starts off the characters in their
first active term in a colonial fleet to gain some safe experience, then
moves him over to a active fleet, then as he or she gets older, they are
transfered back to the colonial fleet to train new members of the fleet...

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 12:16:28 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Imperial navy and auxiliaries

Rupert Boleyn writes:
> Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

>Given that this state of affiars lasted for over 1500 years, I can see no
>reason why it shouldn't be able to exist in the far future.

Being possible dosen't mean that it is or isn't there. I think too many
people confuse possible/impossible with established/established not to be.
I think that is partly due to the fact that they are interrelated. But they
are not the same thing.

If something is impossible and the game author says it dosen't exist then
there is no problem.

If something is possible and the author says it exists then it exists.

If it is possible, but the author says it dosen't exist, then it dosen't
exist (but see below).

The problems all arise when something is impossible or almost so and
the author nevertheless says it exist and when something is inevitable
or nearly so and the author says it dosen't exist. That's when we get
all the discussions.

No, I forgot the most frequent source of controversy: When something is
possible and the author in one place says it exists and in another says
it dosen't... ;-)

[By 'author' I mean the collective writers of all canonical material. I'm
not dumping on Marc].



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
"I know there are some people in the world who do not tolerate their
fellow human beings, and I just can't _stand_ people like that!"
                                (after Tom Lehrer)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:25:06 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Where to find Deckplans on the Web

Does anyone know of a good source on the Web for deckplans for Traveller ships?

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:14:14 EDT
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

In a message dated 10/23/98 11:05:01 AM Central Daylight Time,
a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:

<< The Luriani
 
  >>
Most people reading this will say "Huh?" because they aren't working from or
consulting the Minor Race Generation Tables.

Marc

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:46:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Pyramid Chat on Tuesday

I'll be hosting a Pyramid Chat on tuesday, 8 PM central, on "GURPS
Traveller spaceship design, operations and combat" where any pyramid
subscribers are welcome to ask me questions regarding the appropriate Trav
rules. Loren should be there for at least part of the chat as well.

- -David

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:03:47 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

Hmm,

how about a "homogeneity" rating in the cultural extension.
High value, and their all the same.
Low value and its the rainbow of cultural, if not also racial, stock.

Bloo

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:33:12 EDT
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

In a message dated 10/24/98 11:21:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
thomharr@mediaone.net writes:

<<  I know that some historians don't consider Rodney a
 battleship but I contend that any ship that is firing 16" guns SHOULD be
 considered a BB.  Some historians didn't list Bismarck as a battleship
 either....YMMV >>

They most certainly are.... At the best; I would conceed that the treaty
designed Rodney wasn't a superdreadnought (far too slow at 23 knots), and that
the Bismark was...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:37:10 EDT
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

In a message dated 10/23/98 10:59:56 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:

<< it does make sens form a security standpoint,....if they are all in one
 area less chance of theft or sabotage.........
 
 same argument used for keeping all the planes togerther at pearl harbor.
 
 :)
  >>

Hopefully; this time they'll PATROL....

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:14:02 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism

Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> writes:
>Interesting tightrope one must walk to be a pirate. Scary enough
>to cow a merchant captain, but not scary enough to send the
>governor calling for the IN. Effective enough to make a profit,
>minor enough not to be worth the while of a light cruiser. Bold
>enough to take a prize, patient enough to wait for that sliver of
>perfect time when a prize can be taken without too much chance
>of loss..

Callous enough to steal someone's livelihood, tender enough to release
orphans...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:22:30 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:11:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat
Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> we ran the practice for our PBeM TCS game...here are some conclusions:
Since I wasn't there...is there any log of what happened?
***********
Doh!!

I *knew* there was somthing I had to do befor getting on IRC last
night.....I accidently overwrote my log....maybe hal has a copy...

Hal?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:22:30 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:11:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: GT Space Combat
Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> we ran the practice for our PBeM TCS game...here are some conclusions:
Since I wasn't there...is there any log of what happened?
***********
Doh!!

I *knew* there was somthing I had to do befor getting on IRC last
night.....I accidently overwrote my log....maybe hal has a copy...

Hal?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:00:44 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
...
>seen in the time I've been on the list - specifically, trying to get the
>discussion more towards numbers than ideology.

  That's easy enough for you to say, you reactionary capitalist running-
proto-Vargr, you don't have the Vice-Chair waiting to recommend you for
re-education...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:04:14 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: New Deck plans

>>THe PDF file for the Twain Class 200 sdt Free Trader has been added to
>the
>>Jump Point web page. That makes two PDF files, both Free Traders. Take a
>>look and grab the file(s) and let me know what you think.
>>
>>Jump Point can be found at http://users.citnet.com/letterworks
>
>WOW! Now those are deckplans!

The deck plans look great, but theexploded view at the back just has funny
symbols rather than words. Did you include the fonts when you made the
PDF? If not, could you do that next time? (OK, could you do it with these
and repost?)

If you _did_ include the fonts, then I guess I need some help with Acrobat
Reader.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:25:36 -0400
From: "N. Eric Phillips" <stilleon@io.com>
Subject: Re: GT Lasers

- -----Original Message-----
From: David L. Pulver <dlpulver@kos.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 10:46 PM
Subject: GT Lasers


>Yes, if you have a triple laser turret, you may fire all three of the
>lasers, rolling individually to hit, against the same target, at no
>penalty.


And against different targets? Does the -4 apply then?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:45:53 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:32:28 -0400
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)
Hi All,

Ah hell, here's the whole list AFAIK
Note the ones without a mark I am actively seeking! Nudge, nudge, wink,
wink



with John J. McGuire
[ ]  Crisis in 2140 (1957)
***************
this one was published as double with 'Gunner Cade' the book is in a box at
home, so I don't know the autor.

Non-Genre Fiction
[ ]  Murder in the Gunroom (1953)
**********
this is the only one I don't have, anyone have an idea of how to get one
(other than get real luck in a used bookshop?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:46:23 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

- -----Original Message-----
From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 11:33 PM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added


>
>Thanks, Mike. I will. BTW, what software did you use for your plans?
>
>Eris
>--


Coreldraw 6.

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:46:23 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

- -----Original Message-----
From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 11:33 PM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added


>
>Thanks, Mike. I will. BTW, what software did you use for your plans?
>
>Eris
>--


Coreldraw 6.

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:55:39 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Planetary development  (Was: The Sunbeard Declaration)

>A corrollory of #4 and #5 is that Outsystems will tend to remain
>underdeveloped, as they cannot develop until they are secure, and they are
>not worth securing until they are developed.

I like this... it explains why systems where every planet is developed out
the wazoo.

Now the question is, how does a new colony get started at all?
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1034
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1035



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Piper (Murder in the Gunroom)
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Radiators
Re: Transponder's true nature
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re Reserves
Re Reserves
Re: Jump Signature (was: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud)
The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)
Re: Mutiny 
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
re: Fighters
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 21:39:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Piper (Murder in the Gunroom)

- ---Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com wrote:
>
> Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:32:28 -0400
> From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
> Subject: Piper (was Travellerish Fiction)
> Hi All,
> 
> Ah hell, here's the whole list AFAIK
> Note the ones without a mark I am actively seeking! Nudge, nudge,
wink,
> wink
> 
> 
> 
> with John J. McGuire
> [ ]  Crisis in 2140 (1957)
> ***************
> this one was published as double with 'Gunner Cade' the book is in a
box at
> home, so I don't know the autor.
> 
> Non-Genre Fiction
> [ ]  Murder in the Gunroom (1953)
> **********
> this is the only one I don't have, anyone have an idea of how to get
one
> (other than get real luck in a used bookshop?
> 
Murder in the Gunroom has been republished. Check Amazon.com to see if
you can still get a copy. 

_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:58:48 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

- -----Original Message-----
From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Saturday, October 24, 1998 12:10 AM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added


>Michael, they look good and printed out just fine.  It seemed like the size
of the Twain.pdf file went way up, I might be wrong as I was downloading it
through a dialup this time rather than a faster network connection.
>
>Eris

There was some increase to about 652kb, from imbedding the fonts I believe,
still a reasonable size compared to the ~1.5 meg in the original Corel file
and much higher in JPEG formats. I'd really like to suggest .PDF as a
standard, if the Acrobat package wasn't so expensive. I'm a bit luck to have
it available on my work network, so I can dial it up and use it.

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:19:30 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Radiators

>4) Assume a higher power plant efficency or cold fussion power plants.
>Everything else stays the same and no need for monster radiaters.
Cold fusion is actually worse for percentage of waste energy than hot
fusion (basic thermodynamics.) 

To go with higher power plant efficiency (and the TL13-15
power plants in FFS2 are already up at about 99%), 
you also have to assume that all devices on the ship are very efficient-
that none of the power that goes into your maneuver drive, for example,
comes out as heat. (Since maneuver drives already create energy, maybe
this isn't a bad assumption.) You need superconducting cables everywhere,
etc...

One certainly can assume that the power plant radiators run at lower 
levels most of the time - non-combat, or landing, for example. One 
could also assume that they include air-cooling modes for operating in
an atmosphere (so you don't bake everyone below you...just blow very 
hot air above you.) (Another reason for ships to still use the 
"blast pits" seen on old starport maps...) 

Another way to get rid of excess heat would be to vent very very very
hot plasma (accounting for CT-style fuel consumption for power plants),
but that makes you incredibly easy to detect, since you can't 
baffle the plasma.

I think (in my Copious Spare Time) I may work on the "Conservative
Sensor Rules" - a rules set that assumes (somehow) lower total heat
production, and that sensor technology develops more slowly...

Bruce

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:42:14 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Transponder's true nature

  They complain that they don't want to discuss piracy? Well, we can
make them regret _that_ :>  *

>From: "Andy Akins" <igor@ames.net>
>Subject: Re: Transponder's true nature
...
>> Infection was
>> also made easy by computer control of tight-beam commo.
...
>I have no problem with  Deyo equipped ships infecting other Deyo equipped
>ships and equipment...I can handwave that away. But I can't rationalize Deyo
>being able to attack and usurp any computer system, Deyo or no. Just doesn't
>work for me. YYMV.

I had a dicsussion this summer with a TML'er where we sort of agreed that:
  - we could deal with transmissions activating other SDG transponders.
  - it was internally consistent for "Virus" to spread itself physically
by etching additional circuitry to reach another system (see A:13 /GK).
  - it made no sense whatever for Virus to spread via fiber-optic lines
or broadcast transmissions to non-SDG components.
  : therefore, if common Imperial comp tech used linkages through which
Virus could physically spread, then that should have been stated.

  IIRC, neither of used Virus (or played TNE).

        Steven Hudson

  * - sorry - my "Leroy" file ready racks are empty...

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 17:10:13 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

On 10/22/98 at 10:24 PM,  steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com> said:

>Jeff Zeitlin wrote:

>> Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
>> - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
>> States since the mid-1980s.

>The what?!  I was raised in Texas and now live in Boston. Both with
>large Latino communities, to say the least, and I haven't noticed any change >but for the positive in the last 30 years.

Personally, where I live, I have noticed a slowly *improving*
attitude toward all minorities during the last 30 years.  I
certainly haven't seen strong anti-latino feelings since the
mid-80's.

Well now, maybe you mean the fact that many Americans don't like the
idea of aliens flooding across our borders?  If that's it, the
disquiet isn't specifically anti-latino, it's more anti-immigration,
especially illegal immigration, it just so happens that the mass of
the illegal immigrates come from Central American countries.  I
think this is more an economic issue than anything, but like most
things you can make it a racial one if you try.  

Xenophobia is something else.  It's an *unreasonable* fear of
outsiders.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:30:54 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>A space ship doesn't have a planet for a heat sink, every joule it
>absorbs or produces has to go somewhere. It either raises the internal
>energy (temperature) of the ship, or is radiated into space. The
>energy going into the system, from every source, has to balance with
>the energy within it or radiated out. So, if you produce internally,
>or absorb externally, 100 joules per second then your local system
>will either radiate away 100 joules per second or increase in internal
>temperature until, eventually, whatever heat sink you have in the
>local system is overloaded and the energy radiates away. At no point
>will the the energy produced/absorbed not be balanced with the energy
>of the system minus any it radiates away.

For reference:

My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
are really hot!  After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)

The solutions are:

1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
realistic sensor rules.

2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.

3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
mechanism).

Possibly we should have a new geek code?

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:33:20 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

steve daniels wrote:
> 
> Jeff Zeitlin wrote:
> 
> > Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
> > - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
> > States since the mid-1980s.
> 
> The what?!  I was raised in Texas and now live in Boston.
> Both with large Latino communities, to say the least,
> and I haven't noticed any change but for the positive in
> the last 30 years.
>

Actually, I think he's referring to the growing anti-immigration (legal
and otherwise) sentiment, which is most often aimed at Latinos as the
most obvious, and most mentioned in the press. This is in contrast to
the _true_ situation...in NYC one of the largest groups of illegal
aliens are Irish. More to the point, it is disproportionately latinos
who are stopped and interrogated as to their citizenship status...I have
known people who were told they should carry their birth certificates
with them so they don't get deported. Deported to where I don't know,
since they were born here, like their parents were...

ObTrav: This is actually a great example of xenophobia rating in
action:"They look different, they talk funny, they must be ________
(fib)"

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:31:21 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Reserves

Thom Harris Writes
>
>I think that you misunderstood what he was saying.  Reservists by nature are
>NOT out in the space lanes in their ships.  An example of Reserve activity
>would be that they meet one weekend a month and go active for two weeks in
>the summer.  This would then cause one to believe that the ships of the
>Reserve Fleet are ALMOST moth-balled and would take some time to bring
>on-line.  Reservists routinely take they active duty period fixing up there
>"vehicles" and training to maintain their standards for going to war.  You
>would see the occasional Reserve Ship out and about just so they can blow
>the cob webs out.  Think for a minute, if you are only on active duty for
>two weeks and a jump takes one week then you would only be able to take your
>ship out and right back and be done for the year.
>
This assumes the term reserves is used in the same context it is for the
United States: part time military personell.

I don't see this in the Imperium (it is canon for the solomani confed
tho... AM 6 IIRC). Rather the reserve fleets are used in the WWII european
sense: units not intended for first line combat assignments, but able
enough to respond as backups and reliefs to front-liners. Colonials woould
fill the same role for the reserve units.


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:31:21 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Reserves

Thom Harris Writes
>
>I think that you misunderstood what he was saying.  Reservists by nature are
>NOT out in the space lanes in their ships.  An example of Reserve activity
>would be that they meet one weekend a month and go active for two weeks in
>the summer.  This would then cause one to believe that the ships of the
>Reserve Fleet are ALMOST moth-balled and would take some time to bring
>on-line.  Reservists routinely take they active duty period fixing up there
>"vehicles" and training to maintain their standards for going to war.  You
>would see the occasional Reserve Ship out and about just so they can blow
>the cob webs out.  Think for a minute, if you are only on active duty for
>two weeks and a jump takes one week then you would only be able to take your
>ship out and right back and be done for the year.
>
This assumes the term reserves is used in the same context it is for the
United States: part time military personell.

I don't see this in the Imperium (it is canon for the solomani confed
tho... AM 6 IIRC). Rather the reserve fleets are used in the WWII european
sense: units not intended for first line combat assignments, but able
enough to respond as backups and reliefs to front-liners. Colonials woould
fill the same role for the reserve units.


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:23:55 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Jump Signature (was: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud)

>I like this idea. Could we assume that unbaffled drives are fairly bright,
>getting brighter with age? "Jumpflash baffles" are extra equipment that
>reducing the signature of the flash. (Let the gearheads define the
>performance parameters.) 
>
>As to jump signature, treat that like sonar signatures now: it takes a
>skilled professional to discriminate. Most civilians won't even know how,
>because they don't need to know, while experienced navy sensor ops can
>sometimes tell you not only who you are but what brand of parts you used
>in your last overhaul.
>
>In game terms:
>
>To identify a ship from its jump signature
>Edu + Sensor Ops > Impossible
>This task is one to two levels easier if the operator is familiar with the
>target, one level more difficult of the operator has _not_ had military
>training or experience.

Something else to consider is that there are presently computerised sonar
analysis programs... I was thinking more along the lines of a database of
registered starships, and their jump signatures.  Of course, this adds a
lot to the xboat traffic, but there you go...
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 13:59:46 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:35:38 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Charles R Hensley writes:
>Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
>

Again, I'll grant you that. Now tell me, if the colonial spacemen serve the
same number of years and get the same training as Imperial spacemen, how
can
this be true?
***********
they don't see as much combat.




Some subsector fleets ARE exactly as the description has it, composed of
obsolescent IN castoffs. The Duke of Lunion, for example, would be happy to
buy obsolescent IN ships, because the best he can procure locally is TL 13
(I still think he'd buy some local TL 13 designs, but maybe not). And dukes
of subsectors with TL 14 high-pop planets would still be interested in IN
TL 15 retirees. Even dukes with TL 15 planets would buy _some_ ships from
the IN. And those are the ships the public hears about. "DELPHINE BUYS
CLUNKERS! BUY LOCAL, SAYS UNION BOSS!!!" the headlines of the opposition
press and the yellow press will say, forgetting to mention that she is only
buying a few clunkers and many local ships.
****************
Agreed



He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority of
the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check? Not
IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out
around
the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't it?
Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
reactivate them.
**************
it does make sens form a security standpoint,....if they are all in one
area less chance of theft or sabotage.........

same argument used for keeping all the planes togerther at pearl harbor.

:)

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:56:41 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

From:           	CardSharks@aol.com
Date sent:      	Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:14:14 EDT

>In a message dated 10/23/98 11:05:01 AM Central Daylight Time,
>a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:

><< The Luriani

>Most people reading this will say "Huh?" because they aren't working from or
>consulting the Minor Race Generation Tables.

I dont think so, you're underestimating the quality of your own work :*>.

One of the things that struck me when I first saw your minor race generation 
tables was the utter logical nature of them. Your tables are pretty much self 
explanatory. The only thing I can't figure out is what are "components". Its not 
immediately obvious and I can't find it explained in the text anywhere. The other 
thing that could cause confusion is the Caste "Sport". Its not defined in the text 
and to a neophile I'd imagine it would conjure up images of professional 
atheletes ("hey now theres a race that has a distinct biological gender devoted 
to sports"). but other than that the Minor Race Generation tables are fairly 
much self explanatory.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 23:57:06 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Mutiny 

> 
> Another case for mutiny is the "political" mutiny. The most obvious ones
> were during the civil war period, where a fleet commander aims for the
> iridium throne, but I suspect that some might take place within colonial
> or planetary navies. Not all those non-charismatic oligarchies or
> dictators or theocrats got their jobs by election, and not all
> democracies or bureacracies are stable ones. People usually think of "army
> coups" but there is no reason they can't happen in the navy. I expect
> there are a few backwater worlds where coups and counter-coups may result
> in divided crews. The captain supports the new regime, his first officer
> is a loyalist, and so on -- an attempt at peacefully sequestering the
> other side fails, and fighting rages through the ship -- and maybe even
> several ships in a particular squadron. This would make a good scenario,
> actually.
> 
> It could also justify an interesting kind of pirate: some of the ships on
> the losing side (if they have jump drive) might decline to surrender or
> fight to the finish, and instead depart for a life of crime to support
> themselves in the hopes of an eventual return. Remember, it ain't just
> Vargr who have coups...

Somebody did something like that earlier in the summer.  Pretty cool post, IIRC.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:49:07 +0000
From: "Carlos Alos-Ferrer" <Carlos.Alos-Ferrer@univie.ac.at>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

From: "Brian Mays" <bmays@genscope.com>

>Seriously, no, it's not Traveller. However, it could be.  How do 
>GM's deal with prejudice (economically induced or otherwise) in 
>their games?  Say a player wants to be a vargr in the time period 
>directly after the 5th Frontier War (or for any period, for that 
>matter).  Do you have NPC's actively harrass him/her?  Or do you use 
>"minority" races/cultures in plots to get your PC's riled up over 
>injustice?

	Why, I wouldn't know how to think about an interstellar society 
*without* lots of prejudice going on. Some examples OTMH:

	1) "Capital-guys": People from the mainworlds will always have 
prejudices against the "colonists" in other worlds. In the same way, 
citizens from the startowns will tend to have prejudices against 
people from the "countryside". And it works the other way. When the 
players leave the startown and head to another part of the planet 
during an adventure in an important, not-a-backwater world, iamgine 
their surprise when the inhabitants regard them as "stupid 
starpeople"... but it is logical, since the startown citizens treat 
them the same way.
	So, there will always be possibilities for a group of traders 
willing to land in some location of the world other than the 
starport... you know, why should we pay our taxes just to support 
those startowners whims?

	2) Races. Almost in any planet where you have a sizeable racial 
minority, economic problems may cause an increase in 
racism. Thus, if you visit ten such planets, you MUST see at least 
one case (and that is optimistic). But, which hi-pop world is not 
going to have a sizeable racial minority? A Vargr player arrives in a 
Hipop world, and suddenly he realizes that the local population 
accuses the Vargr minority of all the planet's problems. He will be 
actively harrassed, in some cases. A nice plot is always to help some 
members of a minority to escape their foreordained destiny as 
scapegoats for some Big Guy. Specially, when the minority has its own 
prejudices and is just looking for a bunch of stupid humans to accuse 
instead... either way, the Big Guy turns into a Big Problem for the 
rest of the campaign.

	3) Nobles. Do you really think that an imperial noble is going to be 
admired by the populace in any republican, democratic world? Of 
course you would always have examples like the democratic US, where 
the courts of *foreign* kings are much admired (<quickly 
ducking for cover>), but if you are a convinced democrat, one thing 
is admitting to form part of a distant Imperium that does not meddle 
in your planet's affairs, and a much different thing is to have to do 
a favor to that Imperial Knight who believes he is something just 
because he can prove his father was a Baron... so, allow one player 
to be a Knight. And, them, make him realize that it is not always 
wise to say so at the first opportunity.

>Brian (just trying to get away from the #*$()&%!!! PIRATE THREAD!)
>Mays

Carlos (fully understanding your aim) Alos-Ferrer
- -----------------------------------------------
Carlos Alos-Ferrer
Department of Economics, University of Vienna.
Hohenstaufengasse, 9. 1010 Vienna (Austria)
Tlf: (+43-1) 4277 37438  Fax: (+43-1) 4277 9374
- -----------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:38:13 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

At 18:31 22/10/98 -0700, David P. Summers wrote:
>Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:39:19 -0400, "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
>
>>Which brings up the question to me, why don't our fighters, heavy or
>>otherwise have enough firepower to knock out a capitol ship?  Seems to me
>>that we should have equivalent weapons in the Trav era that are available to
>>carriers/fighters today.
>
>Why?  Just because weapons are leading over armor today doesn't mean this
>should
>always hold.

I read (I forget where) a theory that naval military technology since the
end of the classic period has been driven by the quest to find a decisive
ship sinking weapon like the ram was in the heyday of the trireme. The
argument is that until the invention of workable explosive shells ships
didn't get sunk (to all intents and purposes) in combat, instead after
hours of bettering they became incapable of resisting boarding parties.
Note that aside from subs and aircraft WWI and WWII BBs were in a similar
situation, though they did tend to sink in the end. Given that this state
of affiars lasted for over 1500 years, I can see no reason why it shouldn't
be able to exist in the far future.

IMO one problem Traveller ship combat has is that people want the feeling
that you get having mighty ship pounding away at each other like a WWI
slugfest, but they also want the quick thrill of the cat and mouse game of
fire and maneuver and these are two fairly incompatible desires.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:08:00 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Fighters

>"if the bloody things get through", of course, is the hard part - 
>for reasonable laser technology
>(let alone the really good lasers in GT or just-plain-T) hitting an
>incoming kinetic impact missile is remarkably easy; certainly for the
>space/price of a figher you can fit in a point defence laser that
>can eat up many many times its weight in impact missiles (at least
>in FFS2; but presumably also in GURPS - it'll be interesting to try
>this once I get a copy of GURPS.) 
>
>Bruce
>


Gurps is pretty much the same.  With a good gunners and tageting software
it's 1 laser one dead missle per turn.  The only way to get misile hits is a
large salvo that closes fast enough to overwhelm the defenses.  It is doable
but not very cost effective.  Those misiles are pricy.

Sorry have to make some corrections.   I missed some things in sidebars ect.

I have my book with me so I looked it up.  I was just reading the space
combat section when this came up.

Do to turn limits in the combat situation you have to shoot a ship or a
missle but not both with each laser.  A scout with one triple laser turret
fired on by 9 missles from 2 seconds out will be hit by three missles if the
gunners involved do not miss.

1st second shoot three misiles: gunner skill 15 (above average professional)
+ 15 accuacy (limited to gunner shill) +4 aiming +10 computer (very good
comp.) +2 active sensor +4 rof =50 - 41 for range 1 = 9  You must role less
the 9 on three d6 but 17 and 18 always fail.

I assume here that you hit.

2nd second shoot three missles and get hit by the other three. range 0 role
to hit = 21  (including a +10 for point defense bonus and shorter range)

3 missles hit if misile gunner roles his success number for colition damage
plus explosion

missile cost 22kcr each.

Charles L.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:08:09 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

At 09:30 AM 10/23/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>>A space ship doesn't have a planet for a heat sink, every joule it
>>absorbs or produces has to go somewhere. It either raises the internal
>>energy (temperature) of the ship, or is radiated into space. The
>>energy going into the system, from every source, has to balance with
>>the energy within it or radiated out. So, if you produce internally,
>>or absorb externally, 100 joules per second then your local system
>>will either radiate away 100 joules per second or increase in internal
>>temperature until, eventually, whatever heat sink you have in the
>>local system is overloaded and the energy radiates away. At no point
>>will the the energy produced/absorbed not be balanced with the energy
>>of the system minus any it radiates away.
>
>For reference:
>
>My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
>should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
>are really hot!  After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
>statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
>catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
>repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)
>
>The solutions are:
>
>1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
>realistic sensor rules.
>
>2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.
>
>3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
>maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
>mechanism).
>

4) Assume a higher power plant efficency or cold fussion power plants.
Everything else stays the same and no need for monster radiaters.

>Possibly we should have a new geek code?
>

Maybe.

Charles L.

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

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1035
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1036



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

The Luriani (revised part 1/2)
The Luriani (revised part 2/2)
Re: Deja Vu all over again!
Re: Why jump takes constant time...
Deja Vu all over again!
Re: Efficient 100-D Control
Re: The Imperial Navy
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Sensors in GURPS
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
"Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )
The Rubber Messages
Re: hiding in the Oort cloud
"Standard Cargo Modules" -- a thank you.
How do I eliminate the duplicate copies of this list!?!?!?

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:34:27 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

The Luriani

Race Card

Race Name: Luriani
Homeworld: Daramm/Ley 0812 A76AA87-E (1110)
Environment: Land amphibian
Ecological Niche: Hunter
Native Skills: Music
Characteristics:
  1.Strength 2d
  2.Dexterity 2d
  3.Endurance 2d+1
  4.Intelligence 2d
  5.Education 2d
  6.Social Standing 2d-1
Symmetry: Bilateral
Limb groups: Two
Braincase: Head
Armour: None
Weaponry: None
Senses:
  1.Smell/Taste
  2.Touch
  3.Sight (normal)
  4.Hearing (normal)
Aging: As per standard Human
Gender: Dual
Components: ?????
Caste: Not applicable
Remarks: The race can store oxygen in their fat cells sufficient for 30 minutes 
and can reach depths of 500m (at standard atmospheric pressure) unaided.

Homeworld: Daramm/Ley 0812 A76A986-B Hi Wa 320 Lu K0 V (in 98)

Physiology

Unlike most known Human races, the Luriani are a discrete species (Homo 
luriani) and are not interfertile with other Humans. However significant portions 
of the Luriani genome were utilised by Rule of Man geneticists in the 
"construction" of the Scanians, thus the Luriani are interfertile with this branch 
of Humaniti. Matings with other branches of Humaniti will only produce sterile 
offspring.

Physiologically the Luriani are unmistakably human, but they do possess a 
number of unique identifying physical characteristics, however these 
characteristics are only apparent on a close physical inspection. The Luriani 
posses a transparent second eyelid which protects their eyes from pressure 
and irritants, as well as acting to improve their vision under water. They 
possess muscles that can seal the inner ear, protecting it at extreme depths. 
They naturally produce a number of body oils that protect them from cold and 
irritants. Both their feet and hands are webbed. However, their most notable 
adaptations are the fat cells they posses which store oxygen. This allows them 
to collapse their lungs and reach far greater depths (around 500m) than other 
Humans, as well as permitting them to remain in an oxygen free environment 
for up to thirty minutes.

However, distinctive as all of these characteristics are, they are not the most 
remarkable modifications to the Luriani. The most remarkable and influential 
adaptations in the Luriani are found in their brains. At least 93% of all Luriani 
are right brain dominant and their language centres are located in the regions of 
the brain more usually associated with music and singing. These modifications, 
coupled with their close ties with the aquatic environment have produced the 
distinctive features of the Luriani culture.

Culture

Luriani culture is strongly influenced by the right hemisphere nature of their 
brain. The Luriani are a creative, passionate and artistic people. The usual 
Imperial stereotype of the hotblooded Luriani artist does in fact have some 
basis in truth. Luriani music and art frequently reflects the emotional tension 
that lies beneath the surface of their society. Few Humans can fail to be at 
least slightly affected by the pulsating up-tempo bass rhythms of Luriani music, 
even more so when coupled with the sensual nature of Luriani dance. However, 
as with all stereotypes, this ignores the vast sweep of Luriani culture.

Many outside observers characterise Luriani society as being communal; in 
fact the Luriani are very strongly individualistic, but they utilise a form of group 
marriage in which a number of adults will form a distinct family grouping. Any 
children born into the family are regarded as brothers and sisters and all the 
adults will regard them as their children. Because of this, the universal Human 
incest taboo is slightly altered amongst the Luriani. It is accepted that some 
"siblings" will form relationships with their "brothers and sisters" during pubity. 
Such relationships are discouraged, but they are tolerated as long as the 
children do not share a biological parent. However, the relationships between 
the adults within the family are in a constant state of flux.

The Luriani believe in individual and family honour. The Luriani code of honour 
evolved as a mechanism to limit the negative effects of the Lurianis emotional 
nature. Luriani honour holds that effort and intent are far more important than 
actual results; Luriani mythology is replete with stories and examples of heroic 
failure. The three basic tenets of Luriani honour are protect your family; offer 
hospitality to all that seek it; and treat your foes fairly. Unlike many other 
honour codes, the Luriani code does not feature a physical duelling element, 
rather matters of personal honour are settled by "contests. In a contest, the 
two parties will attempt to complete some task or demonstrate mastery of a 
skill, usually artistic. As long as both parties have made given their best, there 
is no stain on ones honour for loosing such a contest. When it comes to 
warfare, the Luriani hold that this is a matter for nations and tribes, not 
individuals; thus war does not remove a Lurianis obligations on a personal 
level, even when serving in the military.

Art

Art is one of the most important elements of Luriani culture, outside of the 
Protectorate art is the most widely recognised aspect of their culture. Luriani 
art reflects the turbulent and restless nature of their society, very little Luriani 
art can be classified as static, the essence of their art is the movement and 
energy found in their culture. The most prominent Luriani art form is of course 
music, but they are also drawn to most other performance arts (dance is 
almost as widely practiced as music). Other art forms such as painting and 
sculpture are less common, but none the less are still considered noble and 
honourable professions.

Luriani music is distinctive and unique; the most obvious defining characteristic 
is its 10/8 time signature. However, it also possesses a number of other very 
distinctive characteristics. Virtually all Luriani music makes extensive use of 
the voice as an instrument; and slight differences in Luriani physiology has 
resulted their vocal cords being longer than the Human norm, contributing to 
the strong base tendencies in their music. Luriani singing also features a 
secondary voiced note when inhaling in addition to the usual note when 
exhaling, leading to a distinctive "breathy" sound (this effect is remarkably 
difficult for non-Luriani to reproduce, lacking the Lurianis internal independent 
oxygen source).

Fashion

Traditional Luriani clothing and appearance is almost as distinctive and powerful 
as their music. Many have likened their fashions to those of the Vargr. 
Traditional Luriani clothing is lightweight and lose fitting, intended to 
simultaneously functional and sensual. Luriani fashions are intended to be 
provocative and revealing, whilst maintaining a sense of mystery. The concept 
of utilitarian clothing that does not serve this purpose appears to be entirely 
alien to the Luriani. Thus, all Luriani clothing has to serve this dual purpose (the 
Luriani were scandalised by the Solomani and their "sack-like ship suits"). 
Luriani fashions do not use muted or subdued colours; their clothing features 
many irregular blocks of strong discordant colours with sharp dividing lines 
between them. These blocks swirl and interlock, with the intention of giving a 
sense of movement and energy. The intention of the designer is to draw 
attention to certain parts of the body and away from others. Likewise, the 
Luriani make extensive use of body decorations. Rather than using permanent 
forms of body markings such as tattoos, the Luriani use a variety of body 
paints and dyes to adorn themselves. The final result is that the average Luriani 
is a sight to behold; dressed in their vibrant clothing with their bodies painted 
and dyed in many bright contrasting colours and shapes; one can not fail to 
recognise them immediately.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:34:27 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The Luriani (revised part 2/2)

History

The Luriani are a Human minor race transported to their new home by the 
mysterious Ancients some 300,000 years ago. Whilst the Luriani are 
unmistakably Human they have several unique and distinct characteristics 
which are a result of both natural evolution and genetic tampering by the 
Ancients. The Luriani are often referred to as "aquatic" Humans. This is not 
strictly true, for although they are far more at home in a water environment than 
most Humans these adaptations do not go as far as the Solomani geenered 
Scanians. Luriani have distinctively webbed hands and feet; certain fat cells 
have the ability to store oxygen which allows the Luriani to remain submerged 
for up to 30 minutes and reach depths of up to 500 metres without any artificial 
assistance. They possess a clear second eyelid under the first that greatly 
enhances their vision underwater. However perhaps their most striking 
modifications are not readily apparent at all. Unlike virtually all other Human 
races, the Luriani are overwhelmingly right brain dominant and their language 
ability is located in the centre of the brain which normally deals with singing 
rather than the classic speech centres. It would appear that these 
modifications were introduced to enable the Luriani to function well in a three 
dimensional environment. This has lead to further speculation that the Ancients 
intended to make the Luriani fully aquatic but the Final War intervened, leaving 
the Luriani "unfinished. Because of these modifications the Luriani are 
overwhelmingly (at least 93%) lefthanded, intensely creative and artistic, and 
have a strong tendency towards music and other performance arts.

Daramm (the Luriani homeworld) is officially classified as a waterworld, with 
only 5% of its surface being land. However, this is still 19.7 million km2. 
Daramm is a normal world with eleven continental plates, but these are mostly 
below sea level. Thus, Daramm is covered by a large number of continental 
sized island archipelagos surrounded by shallow (150m to 300m) seas. These 
"continents" are surrounded by deep (2000m to 5000m) oceans. It would 
appear that the Ancients initially deposited the Luriani on several islands in one 
of these archipelagos.

The semi-aquatic nature of the Luriani enabled them to utilise the shallow seas 
around their island homes for hunting and gathering, thus allowing for far greater 
populations and development than might have otherwise been expected. 
However eventually the restricted nature of their island homes started to limit 
their development. These growing pressures lead to the development of 
seafaring on Daramm far before the Luriani had even developed anything even 
remotely like civilisation. It is theorised that the creative nature of the Luriani 
brain played a crucial role in this. Thus in approximately -250,000 the Luriani 
developed seagoing vessels whilst they were still a primitive hunter-gatherer 
society. By -150,000, the Luriani had developed oceangoing vessels capable of 
circumnavigating their entire world despite still possessing only a TL0 culture. It 
was the possession of this maritime capacity that preserved the remarkable 
homogeneity of Luriani culture, despite being separated by thousands of 
kilometres of water, each Luriani settlement was connected by a web of 
voyaging ships. Indeed some Luriani lived out their entire lives at sea, only 
setting foot on land to gather supplies or build new ships.

Given this voyaging culture it was only natural that the Luriani should quickly 
come to the concept of trade and commerce, thus giving rise to the first signs 
of Luriani civilisation. By -100,000 the Luriani had developed a thriving world 
spanning barter economy. The huge nomadic voyaging ships travelling between 
islands, trading with the various island communities. However with the rise of 
trade came the rise of piracy and warfare. Both the seagoing nomads and the 
island dwelling settlements found a need for fighters to defend against the 
depredations of raiders, which would eventually evolve into the Luriani warrior 
class. Thus by -30,000 the Luriani had established a world spanning trading 
civilisation complete with organised warfare, despite the fact that they were still 
a TL0 hunter gatherer culture without any domesticated animals or form of 
agriculture.

Over the next 23,000 years the Luriani gradually improved their technology and 
culture. In around -28,000 the first signs of agriculture appeared on a number of 
islands, animals were domesticated around -25,000. Metalworking was 
achieved around -15,000. When Vilani influenced traders contacted the Luriani 
in -7500 they had advanced to a solid TL3. The Luriani were to prove to be 
extremely adept in absorbing advanced technology; and by -7200 they had 
achieved TL9 and were launching their first "voyaging" ships to the stars. By -
6000 they had established a vigorous interstellar culture encompassing over 30 
worlds (most located to spinward of Daramm). However the Luriani never 
grasped the concept of an interstellar state (much as they have never truly 
developed a world spaning government) and their worlds remained a loose 
grouping closely bound by their voyaging culture. However, this somewhat 
idyllic situation was not to remain.

In -5400 the Vilani began the Consolidation Wars. Initially the Vilani ignored the 
Luriani. Located far to trailing on the fringes of explored space, the Vilani 
regarded their independent worlds as a minor threat compared with the many 
organised interstellar states that they faced. This was to prove to be a 
miscalculation on the Vilani's part. When in around -4700 the Vilani began 
efforts to incorporate the Luriani they responded by rapidly forming a united 
front to face the common enemy. Early Vilani attempts to incorporate the 
Luriani by economic pressure failed and in 4582 the Vilani opened the Luriani 
Consolidation War.

The initial Vilani offensives were turned back with heavy losses in the face of 
determined resistance. The Luriani proved to be formidable opponents for the 
Vilani, the nature of their brains made three-dimensional combat second nature 
to the Luriani and their warrior class made very efficient fighters. However 
eventually the superior economic weight of the Vilani began to tell and one by 
one the Luriani worlds fell to the advancing Vilani fleets. In -4547 Daramm fell 
and the Luriani were defeated. Despite several revolts they were to remain 
under Vilani rule until the coming of the Solomani in 2223.

When the Vilani conquered the Luriani in -4547 they attempted to impose their 
culture on the Luriani; Vilani governors were placed in control of Luriani worlds 
and the Luriani were expected to conform to Vilani cultural norms. These efforts 
were less than successful, though the Luriani did remain firmly under the 
control of the Vilani, their culture remained largely intact, the Vilani were never 
able to stamp out the emotional and independent nature of the Luriani. Thus 
when the Solomani arrived in the Ley sector in -2223 they were greeted as 
liberators by the Luriani. They allied themselves with the Terrans and a number 
of Luriani units served in the Terran forces during their final drive on Vland, 
proving that they had lost none of their fighting abilities. With the final defeat of 
the Vilani in -2219 the Luriani expected that the Solomani would restore their 
independence. However they were to be sadly disappointed. Unlike the Geonee 
or Suerrat, the Luriani were not granted autonomy under the Rule of Man. 
Naturally this bred resentment with in the Luriani and in -2186 the Luriani 
rebelled against the Rule of Man. What followed was a tragedy for the Luriani. 
Isolated with only a limited production base, the Luriani faced an alliance of 
both Terran and Vilani forces. The Luriani hoped that the other minor races 
would come to their aid. These hopes proved futile and the Luriani were 
gradually worn down and in -2180 their final stronghold fell and in a cruel turn of 
fate, the Luriani again came under Vilani occupation. However under the Rule of 
Man, Luriani art and music found a wide audience amongst the Solomani; and 
this lead to widespread sympathy for the fate of the Luriani. Finally, in -1932 
Empress Juliana established the Luriani Cultural Region. With this, the each 
individual Luriani world was granted internal self-rule, answering to a Solomani 
planetary governor, with the entire region under the control of a military governor 
general.

With the collapse of the Rule of Man in -1776, the Solomani governor general of 
the Luriani Cultural Region found herself isolated and vulnerable. Admiral 
Martinez solved her problems by reaching an agreement with the Luriani. She 
transformed the Luriani Cultural Region into the Luriani Protectorate. Under this 
compromise, her fleet provided protection for the Luriani in return for support, 
while the Luriani worlds were allowed to retain their independence. The 
Protectorate continued to exist into the Long Night; the Protectorate gradually 
evolved into a unique government. The Solomani provided the much needed 
skills to administer a large-scale interstellar government, whilst the Luriani 
provided the necessary support facilities and their warrior class came to 
dominate the Protectorate fleet. Eventually however the Long Night claimed the 
Protectorate, by -1200 the Protectorate fleet had dwindled to just a handful of 
vessels and contact between the worlds had all but ceased. In -1183, Protector 
De Valine acknowledged that the Protectorate could no longer defend the 
Luriani worlds. The Solomani settled on the Luriani worlds and the Luriani 
Protectorate succumbed to the Long Night.

The situation remained unchanged until the coming of the Syleans. The Sylean 
Federation Scout Service reached the Luriani in -29. The arrival of the SFSS 
reawakened the Luriani's desires for the stars, Daramm had been able to retain 
TL8 throughout the Long Night, and the Solomani remained a distinct racial 
grouping. Given the prod of the Syleans arrival, the Luriani applied themselves 
to regaining the stars. It took the Luriani just 30 years to recover to TL9 and 
begin to reestablish the Protectorate. By 12, the Luriani Protectorate was a 
thriving interstellar community once more, encompassing most worlds within 5 
parsecs of Daramm. The Protectorate was a curious state, one that the new 
Imperium found hard to understand or deal with. The bulk of the population was 
Luriani by culture, but virtually all the higher levels of administration were 
provided by the Solomani Verasti (Protectors). Eventually the Imperium was 
forced to do something about the Luriani. Initially they tried to incorporate the 
Luriani through diplomatic means and initially this appeared to be a making 
progress, but negotiations stumbled on the Protectorate demand to be allowed 
to retain its identity within the Empire. It was then that Archduke Ishargi of 
Gateway made a huge error of judgement. Believing that a show of force would 
soften the Lurianis negotiating stance, Archduke Ishargi took a sizeable 
Imperial squadron and jumped to Rurur (an important frontier system inside the 
Protectorate). The result was a disaster. By sheer fluke, a substantial portion of 
the Protectorate fleet was conducting exercises in the Rurur system at the 
time. The Protectorate commander (Admiral Sherin) took this action to be the 
opening of an invasion and engaged the Imperial forces. In the resulting Luriani 
War (93-96), the Protectorate forces showed that the Luriani had lost none of 
their flare for three-dimensional warfare and inflicted several sharp defeats on 
the Imperial forces. Eventually cooler heads on both sides prevailed and a face 
saving negotiated settlement was reached. However the Luriani War was to 
leave a legacy of mistrust and tensions between the Protectorate and the 
Imperium remained high for many decades after the war.

With the end of the Luriani War Emperor Artemsus appointed an Imperial born 
Verasti, Duke Sirean of Dirir, as the new Archduke of Gateway (Archduke 
Ishargi had been killed at Rurur). Sirean chose to concentrate his efforts on 
incorporating the rimward portions of Ley sector, whilst attempting to repair 
relations with the Protectorate. Eventually this policy was to bear fruit. By 160, 
the memories of the Luriani War were fading and relations between the 
Protectorate and the Imperium were beginning to improve. However, by this 
time the situation elsewhere had changed. In the Domain of Antares events 
were moving towards the Julian War and securing the rimward flank of Antares 
had become a matter of some urgency. In 162, Archduke Acla reopened 
negotiations with the Protectorate regarding incorporation. These negotiations 
proceeded slowly as a considerable legacy of mistrust remained and had not 
yielded any positive results by the outbreak of the Julian War in 175. 
Throughout most of the Julian War the Protectorate chose to remain neutral 
until the Star Legion drove into Ley in 185. At this point, much to the surprise of 
the Imperium, the Protectorate offered an alliance and joined the War on the 
Imperial side. Though the entry of the Protectorate had little effect on the 
ultimate outcome of the war, Luriani forces were an important factor in halting 
and turning back the Star Legions drive into Ley. With the end of the war in 
191, negotiations resumed on a more positive note and in 202 the Protectorate 
was incorporated into the Imperium.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 14:36:08 -0700
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again!

Eris Reddoch wrote:

> Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and over again?

Yes, And so am I. I also got weird message bounce message from some server
down in kiwi land.

- --
Ave et vale.
Evyn,
Warleader of the Clan MacDude
Solus Stellamilitia Ludus, 1998 

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 20:51:21 EDT
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Why jump takes constant time...

In a message dated 10/24/98 12:57:35 PM Central Daylight Time, Carlos.Alos-
Ferrer@univie.ac.at writes:

<< explaining why jump time is constant, making it analogous to the 
 physical fact (which I do not remember clearly) that the falling time 
 through an hypotetical tunnel  (?) between two points in the surface 
 of a sphere (planet) is constant, regardless of where the points are.
 	Somebody has it handy? >>

please copy me at FarFuture@AOL.com if anyone has the answer.

Marc

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 98 01:54:40 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Deja Vu all over again!

Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and over again?

Eris

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:32:17 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: Efficient 100-D Control

SD Mooney wrote:
> 
> Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> wrote:
> 
> >For any historically-challenged subscribers to the list, HMS ROYAL OAK
> >was sunk in October 1939 by a U-boat (U-39?) that did just that:
> >penetrated the main British naval base (Scapa Flow).
> 
> I'm sorry. Recent evidence shows that the Royal Oak was scuttled by her
> crew to prevent the German U-Boat crew boarding her, stealing her and
> obtaining valuable information... ;-)
> 
> Dom
> 
Perhaps so, but exactly what "valuable information" did the Templars
have on board HMS ROYAL OAK? >;-)

<<snip sig file>>

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:30:21 EDT
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

In a message dated 10/23/98 9:31:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time, rancke@diku.dk
writes:

<< Answer: Yes, of course. That's why we're having this discussion. What
 information we have about the Imperial Navy strength seems to indicate a
 much lower figure. If the 1000 combat ship per sector figure is for the
 regular navy only, then 3% appears to be 2-3 times too big; if the figure
 includes the colonial fleets too, then the figure appears 4-6 times too big.
 Unless the peacetime IN has a HUGE number of ships laid up in ordinary, that
 is. >>


	Or that the IN has a large number of ships that are of a lower TL than 15!!

	Most people seem to assume that the entire IN is made up of TL 15 vessels,
but this is not at all true (Book 5 High Guard) :"The Imperial Navy may
procure ships of up to TL15, although it also procures vessels at TL 10 thru
14".  As is very obvious from both HG and MT, lower TL ships are considerably
more expensive than thier higher tech counterparts.  But there is no TL
adjustment for the budgets.

	It is also difficult to build highly agile warships below TL15 (esp in MT)
At TL13-14, you need twice the space for a power plant as you would at
TL15...and it's 3x at 10-12.

DustyLV769@aol.com

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:29:48 EDT
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

In a message dated 10/24/98 11:21:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
thomharr@mediaone.net writes:

<< Having replied to the original message in concurrence with your post I will
 only add that the H.M.S. Rodney also fired torpedoes at the Bismarck.  There
 was thought to have been one hit out of 6, IIRC.  >>

	After seeing this post, I seem to remember having read this in the book "Sink
the Bismarck"  I am not sure about the hits, however.  In making the post, I
utilized my memories from having read 2 very good books:  The one mentioned
above (which was written from the RN perspective) and the book (whose title
escapes me at the moment) written by Baron von Mullenhiem-Rechberg, who was
the 4th Gunnery Officer and senior surviving officer.

	I do believe that an order was given to scuttle the ship...most likely just
as the combat began.  There was no doubt among the crew that this was a lost
battle from the get-go; this is confirmed by the German account.  An order to
scuttle would prevent the British from possibly boarding:  I realize this
statement seems somewhat silly from the perspective of gaining useful
info...but don't underestimate the value that raising the White Ensign on the
Bismarck would have had on public morale, esp since the Bismarck had days
earlier sank the pride of the RN!!

DustyLV769@aol.com

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:23:01 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Sensors in GURPS

>Modifier                                Visual  Radar   Thermal
>Turn Length (the human eye is limited to a +2 bonus).  Use the scan time or
>    the duration of the event being observed, whichever is _less_.
>    1 second                            -2      -2      -2
>    2 seconds                           -1      -1      -1
>    4 seconds                           +0      +0      +0
>    15 seconds                          +1      +1      +1
I wonder if we need a GTL "Gurps Tech List" for these technical 
issues? I suppose such a thing already exists on io.com/Pyramid, but
I'm damned if I'm going to pay money for the sake of helping improve
their design...

Anyway, for the background-limited case (which starship visible and
IR sensors are), sensitivity (in the sense of "faintest object that
can be detected") only goes up as the square root of the time you
spend looking. Hence to get a +3 in GURPS terms (target 3.3 times
further away and hence ten times dimmer) you need to scan 100 times
longer, not 10-15; to get a +6 you need to scan 10,000 times longer.
The field-of-view modifiers are complicated too...
The human eye, on the other hand, is not background-limited (and
short exposures from visible-light sensors might not quite be
BG-limited either). It's hard to make a system that models both the
scaling laws for human eyes (which can't really integrate, have
aberration-limited resolution, and moderately low efficiency) and
staring infrared arrays hooked up to big telescopes...

Bruce

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:28:45 -0400
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

Having replied to the original message in concurrence with your post I will
only add that the H.M.S. Rodney also fired torpedoes at the Bismarck.  There
was thought to have been one hit out of 6, IIRC.  This would be the only
time in history that a battleship was attacked by torpedoes by another
battleship and further, the only time that one also was hit by a torpedo
from BB to BB.  I know that some historians don't consider Rodney a
battleship but I contend that any ship that is firing 16" guns SHOULD be
considered a BB.  Some historians didn't list Bismarck as a battleship
either....YMMV
Thom Harris
- -----Original Message-----
From: DustyLV769@aol.com <DustyLV769@aol.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 1998 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII


>In a message dated 10/20/98 2:17:53 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
>a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:
>
>The RN assertion that the HMS Dorsetshire torpedoed Bismark, causing her to
>sink, is nothing more than wartime morale-building propoganda:  Dr Ballard
>discovered no signs of any damage to the belt armor/waterline of the side
of
>the ship struck by the "torpedoes".
>
>DustyLV769@aol.com

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:16:41 -0500
From: "Leif O. Pihl" <pihlx001@tc.umn.edu>
Subject: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )

Dear Sir(s)/Madam(s):

I am a past Traveller fan and collector who has only just recently re-vived
my interest in Traveller via GURPS Traveller.  As such, I am no longer
familiar with the contents of my Traveller collection, and can not find
what I'm looking for...      I hope you can help.

I remember SOMEWHERE in my collection of stuff (probably in the T1
supplements) is a floorplan of the 400 ton Subsidized Merchant.  (I can't
find it!!!)
On that same floorplan is a detail showing the (rough) dimensions of a
"Standard" cargo module for convenient loading onto the ship.

 * Can any of you tell me the dimensions of said cargo module or

 * Can any of you tell me what the source material is that I am talking about?


Thank you,

LP



- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leif O. Pihl
pager/voicemail: (612) 534-5235
           home: (612) 729-8277
        ICQ no.: 16954097
www.isa.org/~twinc/                                      ISA Twin Cities' page
www.memorial4x4.org                       MN-Go4 Wheelers' Memorial Event page
umn.edu/~pihlx001/                                 personal page [out of date]
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/LPsJeepTJ/             Leif's Jeep TJ site
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/geneology/Blomfeldt.html       family tree
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:44:48 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: The Rubber Messages

Frank G. Pitt wrote to me thusly:
[snip]
>I've unsubscribed for the meantime, until I can figure out what's going
>on. Hopefully that will prevent any further problems on the list.
>
>Thank's for the warning Will, this could have gone exponential pretty
>quickly, hopefully we've caught it before too much has been duplicated.
>
>Apologies to all concerned.
>
>Frankie

He's working with MSExchange via a dial-up, and it seems his box has been
sending the mails back to the list as he recieved them.... so he didn't see
a one of the duplicates.

- -wil

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 04:13:34 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: hiding in the Oort cloud

In mail you write:

>>So with one station, it takes about two weeks to scan the sky. A pirate
>>ship is detectable for about a day every rendezvous, 

> One can probably think of tricks to make the rendezvous harder to
> detect. For example, put a big honkin tractor (TNE/T4) on the
> pirate base to reel ships in without having them use any of their
> own fuel...I also haven't really done the analysis for how far away
> from the base you're likely to arrive due to usual jump errors (some
> TU's would have jump errors be bigger that far from a big mass); 
> maybe an ion drive or chemical drive could get you to the base.
> (Using HEPlaR would be like writing "come and kill me" in big letters
> even if you only used it for a few minutes...)

Radio the base (use low power). They send out a tug. The tug uses mass
drivers. Load them with ice, rock, whatever. Fling it away at high
speed. The Isp isn't the greatest, but it's low signature and rugged. 

In fact, you can load the "buckets" on the mass driver with *powdered*
rock/slag/ice. This makes the exhaust spread out fairly fast. That way
if a later ship pops up in the path of your exhaust, it won't get hurt
(unless it pops up *really* close).

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:55:52 -0500
From: "Leif O. Pihl" <pihlx001@tc.umn.edu>
Subject: "Standard Cargo Modules" -- a thank you.

Thanks for info...   now to do the GURPS Vehicles rules...
am making a "smart" Morgue for Battle Armor.
later,     LP

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leif O. Pihl
pager/voicemail: (612) 534-5235
           home: (612) 729-8277
        ICQ no.: 16954097
www.isa.org/~twinc/                                      ISA Twin Cities' page
www.memorial4x4.org                       MN-Go4 Wheelers' Memorial Event page
umn.edu/~pihlx001/                                 personal page [out of date]
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/LPsJeepTJ/             Leif's Jeep TJ site
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/geneology/Blomfeldt.html       family tree
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------6

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:55:52 -0500
From: "Leif O. Pihl" <pihlx001@tc.umn.edu>
Subject: How do I eliminate the duplicate copies of this list!?!?!?

To whome it may concearn:

Although I am now able to post messages to this list, I now receive TWO
copies of each "Traveller-Digest"!!!

Does anyone have a suggestion as to how I solve this problem, or who I send
E-mail to about it?

Tanks,      LP


- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leif O. Pihl
pager/voicemail: (612) 534-5235
           home: (612) 729-8277
        ICQ no.: 16954097
www.isa.org/~twinc/                                      ISA Twin Cities' page
www.memorial4x4.org                       MN-Go4 Wheelers' Memorial Event page
umn.edu/~pihlx001/                                 personal page [out of date]
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/LPsJeepTJ/             Leif's Jeep TJ site
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/geneology/Blomfeldt.html       family tree
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------6

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1036
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1037



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Imperial navy and auxiliaries
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: Loading / unloading table
Re: The Colonial fleet
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Piracy
Re: Physreps
hiding in the Oort cloud
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: The Imperial fleet
Re: Mutiny
Re: GT transponders
Re: Where to find Deckplans on the Web 
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Re: Stupidity and piracy
: Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: Efficient 100-D Control
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 03:43:39 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

In mail you write:

> For reference:
>
> My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
> should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
> are really hot!  After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
> statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
> catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
> repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)
>
> The solutions are:
>
> 1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
> realistic sensor rules.

While *some* power requirements *are* out of line (communications, for
example), others, such as manever drives *aren't*. In fact manuever
drives tend to be too *low*. Weapons are pretty much ok these days.

> 2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.

Pretty much the way I see it.

> 3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
> maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
> mechanism).

And then try to explain how it is that we can do better *now* than TL15
can. :-)

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:19:06 -0400
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

This is not aimed at anyone and is CERTAINLY not conclusive but there was
evidence when Dr. Ballard dove on the Bismarck that she had sufficient
damage to sink without being scuttled.  There was also evidence that the
scuttle pitcocks had been opened to hasten the sinking.  His premise was she
could not defend herself and she was tough enough to take the pounding to
remain afloat awhile longer.  This is based on his (Dr. Ballard's) analysis
of the photo's.  A damned interesting piece of work.
A side note: The main turrets had fallen out of their sockets when she
turned over and were found on the ocean floor around the Bismarck along with
numerous pieces of other debris.
Thom Harris

- -----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 1998 12:11 AM
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII


From:           "Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Date sent:      Mon, 19 Oct 1998 22:29:25 -0500

>The Bismark was not destroyed by planes (or the British navy, the German
>Scuttled her) but she was hunted and disabled by plane launched torpedoes
as
>I recall.

Arghhhh. I have seen this argument so often and it annoys me every time.
Their
is no evidence that the Bismark was scuttled. And even if it was all that
ment
was her sinking was hastened.

Andrew etc.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 23:31:04 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Imperial navy and auxiliaries

At 12:16 24/10/98 +0200, Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:

[I wrote:]
>>Given that this state of affiars lasted for over 1500 years, I can see no
>>reason why it shouldn't be able to exist in the far future.


>Being possible dosen't mean that it is or isn't there. I think too many
>people confuse possible/impossible with established/established not to be.
>I think that is partly due to the fact that they are interrelated. But they
>are not the same thing.

That wasn't why I wrote what I did. What prompted my comment was the way
many people (including myself from time to time, no doubt) make assumptions
based on the way things are now, assuming that that, for example the ratio
of armour to weapons will follow current trends. This is ignoring the fact
that most of these trends or ratios have been different in the past, often
for most of history, and could well (in fact IMO will probably be different
in the future).

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that the late 20th century is a lousy
place to be looking for examples to support any particular view on the OTU
in the abscence of any real canon.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:50:48 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

Mike,

>There was some increase to about 652kb, from imbedding the fonts I believe,
>still a reasonable size compared to the ~1.5 meg in the original Corel file
>and much higher in JPEG formats. I'd really like to suggest .PDF as a
>standard, if the Acrobat package wasn't so expensive. I'm a bit luck to have
>it available on my work network, so I can dial it up and use it.

Acrobat is 130 GBP, which is cheap compared to the 400 Office 98, and
300 Illustrator 7.

However, you can get most of the functionality of acrobat by using Adobe
Illustrator, which produces pdf files, and allows you to open them back up.
You just can't optimise them (not in AI7 anyway, v8 might be better). Okay,
I know that would mean converting from Corel... I was lucky and got both my
copies of Photoshop 4 and Illustrtor 7 together for less than the price of
a single package...

The best thing is that the reader is free, and multi-platform.  (Only
downside is that you don't seem to be able to scale to fit a page to your
paper size under Windoze, something which the Mac version does happily.)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 20:33:03 +0200
From: Guillem Plasencia <guillemp@ciberia.es>
Subject: Re: Loading / unloading table

> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:17:56 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
> Subject: Re: Loading/Unloading
>
> William F. Hostman writes:
> > AS threatened, I found the tables in FASA's Battletech, and will present an
> > adaptation for use with traveller (I am not reprinting theirs... its in
> > Battlespace, page 56). Also factored in are my experiences working in a
> > -10c wharehouse.
> >
> >                Minutes per metric ton**
>
> Hm.. I suspect that loading time is dependent on the # of components, their
> size, and the size of the door you're moving them through.  Filling a
> compartment with 10 10-ton boxes and 10,000 10-kilogram boxes is not equal.

I think this may help....

                        Minutes per metric ton
Equipment Used          0-G     Vacc 1-G Air
Battle Dress (or equiv) 4       2       2
5 man in VaccSuits      4       3       3
5 man in clothes*       3       2       2
1 man with LRTP's       2       -       -
1 man w/Pallet Jacks**  -       3       2

If you suppose this is the time it gets to load/unload one pack of one
metric ton,
then you should simply multiply this time with the number of such a pack
(one-ton
weighted).

If the packs are less than one ton of weigth, then simply multiply the
time by the
fraction of weigth...

As i don't explain well, here goes an example:

Lets say you have 30 packs of 100 kg each, then it would take 5 men with
clothes in
1-G air :
2 minutes*30 packs* (100 kg/ 1000 kg) = 6 minutes to load/unload them.

Guillem Plasencia
guillemp@ciberia.es

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 13:38:54 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: The Colonial fleet

Seth Kimmel writes:

>In a message dated 10/23/98 9:33:28 AM Pacific Daylight Time, rancke@diku.dk
>writes:
> 
><< He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority of
>  the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check? Not
>  IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out around
>  the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't it?
>  Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
>  reactivate them.
>  >>
> 
>True; but you don't want them close enough to an unstable border that they
>would be vunerable to a raid or shipjacking ala' the Zid Rachele incident at
>Lunion (which had a zillion ships orbiting a naval facility, though I think
>there were yards insystem)...

It was a system in Pretoria/Deneb IIRC. Thanks for reminding me of that. It
is a datum about the Imperial Navy that I had forgotten. But it does show
that some ships are laid up outside the depots. So does _Arrival Vengeance_
BTW.
My own opinion is that there are a lot of ships in the Depots, but more
outside them. 



      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: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 03:57:55 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

In mail you write:

>>The solutions are:
>>
>>1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
>>realistic sensor rules.
>>
>>2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.
>>
>>3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
>>maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
>>mechanism).
>>
>
> 4) Assume a higher power plant efficency or cold fussion power plants.
> Everything else stays the same and no need for monster radiaters.

You keep missing the point. If your ship's systems use 100 MW then you
*have* to radiate 100 MW of "waste heat". That's in *addition* to any
inefficiencies in the production of the power being used. 

Waste heat is what happens to the energy *after* it has been used for
its intended purpose. 

A laser or particle beam will carry away energy in a form *other* than
waste heat. And to some extent, so does radio/radar/lidar. But the
power used by *all* other ship's systems winds up as waste heat *after*
performing its job. (Actually, so does the power going into the weapons
and radio, etc. It's just that they turn into waste heat elsewhere)

So if the manuever drive uses 50 MW, then it has to radiate away 50 MW
of *heat*. And any attempt to recover energy from that will merely
degrade the performance of the drive.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 20:42:34 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Piracy

At 17:53 23/10/98 -0400, Thom Harris wrote:

>I think that you misunderstood what he was saying.  Reservists by nature are
>NOT out in the space lanes in their ships.  An example of Reserve activity
>would be that they meet one weekend a month and go active for two weeks in
>the summer.  This would then cause one to believe that the ships of the
>Reserve Fleet are ALMOST moth-balled and would take some time to bring
>on-line.  Reservists routinely take they active duty period fixing up there
>"vehicles" and training to maintain their standards for going to war.  You
>would see the occasional Reserve Ship out and about just so they can blow
>the cob webs out.  Think for a minute, if you are only on active duty for
>two weeks and a jump takes one week then you would only be able to take your
>ship out and right back and be done for the year.

In the case of the RN of WWII many reservists would be very good at basic
shiphandling, because after leaving the Navy (and joining the reserves)
they went into related jobs - fishing, costal trading, etc.

In the 3I this could well be the case, as well, with the reservists having
jobs on shuttles and in-system shipping. This means that while they may be
a bit rusty with the guns, etc their other skills will be pretty good.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:31 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Physreps

>Anybody else do this kind of thing?  Suggestions, comments?
>

I like it.  The closest I got was index cards with a weapon's stats and a
*picture* of the weapon (usually clipped from somewhere - like a photocopy
of something from a nontrav GDW sourcebook) pasted to the front.

Pete

                      Peter H. Brenton : pbrenton@mit.edu
"A Good Traveller has no fixed plans and no intent on arriving."
  -Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:16:29 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: hiding in the Oort cloud

>So with one station, it takes about two weeks to scan the sky. A pirate
>ship is detectable for about a day every rendezvous, 
One can probably think of tricks to make the rendezvous harder to
detect. For example, put a big honkin tractor (TNE/T4) on the
pirate base to reel ships in without having them use any of their
own fuel...I also haven't really done the analysis for how far away
from the base you're likely to arrive due to usual jump errors (some
TU's would have jump errors be bigger that far from a big mass); 
maybe an ion drive or chemical drive could get you to the base.
(Using HEPlaR would be like writing "come and kill me" in big letters
even if you only used it for a few minutes...)

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 21:13:02 -0500
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

	
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

steve daniels wrote:

>Jeff Zeitlin wrote:
>
>> Not necessarily; xenophobia may have nothing to do with religion
>> - like the strong anti-Latino feeling in much of the United
>> States since the mid-1980s.
>
>The what?!  I was raised in Texas and now live in Boston.
>Both with large Latino communities, to say the least,
>and I haven't noticed any change but for the positive in
>the last 30 years.

Bloo, I think he is talking about Florida and California

Charles

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 22:47:22 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

On 10/23/98 at 10:50 PM,  "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com> said:

>I tried them on my lap top and they showed up alright on it so I hope
>they'll be ok.

Michael, they look good and printed out just fine.  It seemed like the size of the Twain.pdf file went way up, I might be wrong as I was downloading it through a dialup this time rather than a faster network connection.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 98 19:43:20 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: The Imperial fleet

On 10/24/98 at 04:28 PM,  Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com> said:

>This raises some interesting ideas. If you think about it for a
>while, it makes the idea of popping in-system at only 100D from
>Mainworld kind of unlikely (a good thing, IMHO).

>I did a Q&D sketch at http://www.rt66.com/~merrick/jumpglop.html to
>show what I mean (easier to draw than try to do it in ascii :-)

Good sketch.

Most of a local year inner planets are going to be occluded by the
primary's hyperlimit.  This will mean ships will spend a good bit of
time travelling insystem irregardless. 

Now, let's figure out an algorithm for just how far. ;->

>The bottom line is that there are many times when you might well have
>to spend a few days in normal space to jump. Also, if pre-jump
>velocity is conserved, then you'd want to break at least a little be
>fore jumping (instead of accelerating straight for 2 days, then
>jumping).

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:05 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Mutiny

>From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
>Subject: Re: Mutiny
...
>Funny you should mention the Gazelle; The text in Traders and Gunboats
>(Supplement 7 of the LBBs) indicated that the layout of decks in the
>Gazelle was *specifically* designed to seperate the enlisted crew from the
>officers and provide the officers with a defensable bridge area in the
>event of a mutiny.

  Think about it. Gazelle: 3-400 Dt of tin-can. You're assigned to
accompany an AHL in its' Fleet Intruder role.

  At least mutineers get a meal and a bed before they die :)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:44:07 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:02:20 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: GT transponders
Fred and Evelyn Wolke wrote:
>

>
IIRC, transponders only respond to specific signals (based in concept, I
would suspect, on World War II-era IFF devices).  If that's the case,
then, unless the pirate had the current IFF codes for whatever force
he/she/it was trying to impersonate, the transponder wouldn't respond
appropriately to being interrogated by the IFF, and would therefore be
marked as hostile.
**********
GT transponders ar like airline transponders....they pretty much just
broacast a here I am, look at me signal...along with a registry and
origination/destination info.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:48:34 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Where to find Deckplans on the Web 

> Does anyone know of a good source on the Web for deckplans for Traveller ships?

You check the Deckplans Webring?

I'm on it at:

http://www.glasscity.net/users/jamstar/traveller/boats.html

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:40 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

>Most traveller power goes to the drives, so the power radiates
>there. You have to assume that even a t-plate has a hot exhaust, and
>that it takes a lot of the energy with it (that and whatever gravtic
>energy is lost... a good handwave). Th Scout with the drives off
>drops its power by about 100MW.
>

Ok, sounds good, but what is your exhaust?  Very hot H2?

PS: already ate crow on the imaging issue.  Finally got the data I needed to
'see the light' if you'll excuse the pun.

Charles L.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:33:51 EDT
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

In a message dated 10/23/98 9:33:28 AM Pacific Daylight Time, rancke@diku.dk
writes:

<< He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority of
 the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check? Not
 IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out around
 the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't it?
 Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
 reactivate them.
  >>

True; but you don't want them close enough to an unstable border that they
would be vunerable to a raid or shipjacking ala' the Zid Rachele incident at
Lunion (which had a zillion ships orbiting a naval facility, though I think
there were yards insystem)...

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:21:02 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: Stupidity and piracy

Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
> 
> Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> writes:
> 
<<snips own description of fools turning to piracy, based on distorted
accounts of successful pirates>>
> 
> There's no shortage of people willing to try something stupid in order to
> get rich. No argument there. But to rob a bank all you need is a $50 gun
> (or a $5 toy gun). How many stupid fools that owns (or controls) a MCr30
> tool do you think there would be?
> 
Including those ship owners who find themselves facing ship repossession
due to default on the ship mortgage, and crews who think that mutiny and
piracy would, **_in their case_** (the odds being, of course against
them) be more profitable than their current wages, not many.  But a few.

> >Bottom line, IMO:  99.99% of the time, piracy is little more than a
> >quick ticket to the nomination round of the Darwin Award.  However, it's
> >the successful .01% that gets 95% of the publicity, thus attracting more
> >fools (and, admittedly, the occasional genius/lucky fool) to piracy as a
> >way of life.
> 
> With those odds you need 1000 fools with MCr30 tools for each successful
> pirate you get. Just how many successful pirates do you think that would
> make for?
> 
One or two, per sector, per _decade_, pulling off a sufficiently
profitable heist might serve to inspire enough morons to give piracy a
shot.  Most pirates would quickly perish, but one or two _might_ succeed
in a newsworthy heist.  Those who perish quickly still count as pirates
during their (deservedly) short career.

I don't think that piracy (as distinct from commerce raiding,
privateering, etc.) is worth the effort.  I merely point out that, given
the vast number of starships out there in private hands, some folks will
decide that they can beat the odds, and succeed in piracy.  Whether they
succeed or not doesn't keep them from trying.

>       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

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 01:11:41 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: : Re: The Imperial Fleet

 Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com> wrote:


>It is a shame you were never paid for the article. Perhaps we have
>discovered  new "Canon" of Trav Authors getting screwed.

You mean to support the T4 IG canon that the authors never get paid ;-)

Not funny when you talk to people like Andy Lilly et al. who did a lot of
work getting material out for IG with tight deadlines. And never got paid.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:42:27 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Efficient 100-D Control

Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> wrote:


>For any historically-challenged subscribers to the list, HMS ROYAL OAK
>was sunk in October 1939 by a U-boat (U-39?) that did just that:
>penetrated the main British naval base (Scapa Flow).

I'm sorry. Recent evidence shows that the Royal Oak was scuttled by her
crew to prevent the German U-Boat crew boarding her, stealing her and
obtaining valuable information... ;-)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 03:47:01 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

In mail you write:

>
>>How does the space shuttle handle heat?
>
> Dinky little radiators on the inside of the cargo bay doors (this is
> why they have to open the doors within a few hours of launch.) I
> don't know how hot they run, but probably only a hundred C or so.

They don't even run *that* hot. Since the goal is to keep the inside of
the Shuttle at room temp, that means that the radiators are at room
temp or only a bit above. 

Remember, only in designs where you need to play games with stealth
will the radiators *not* be the lowest temp part of the system! To get
them *not* to be the lowest temp part requires running active
refrigeration, which greatly complicates things.

Also, they aren't all that "dinky" they cover the *entire* inner
surface of the bay doors. 

> The shuttle's advantage is that its life support and functions only
> require a few kilowatts - it has much less heat to dispose of than a
> traveller ship. (In fact, sunlight heat loading might be a major part
> of the problem.)

Sunlight loading is a problem, but not a major one. Remember that
equilibrium temp at 1 AU is below freezing. The big problem is that the
crew, life support, and electronics pump out a *lot* of heat.

> I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
> need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
> power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
> require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
> special high-temp radiators...

I kinda figure that the really high power systems have their own
radiators that operate at very high temps, partly because the extra
efficiency gained by having the "sink" end of things at a lower temp
isn't worth the increased area. 

So the power plant may well have small radiators that are *literally*
white hot. After all, that's only about 3000 K, and with the "source"
end at several million K, the diff between 300 K and 3000 K isn't worth
the hassle.

Weapons and possibly thrusters would maybe have red-hot radiators. And
life support would have ice-cold radiators. But the majority of the
signature would be from the red-hot and white-hot ones.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1037
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1038



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Formal for mass-based jump limits
Formal for mass-based jump limits
Re: New Deck plans
re: Fighters
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 
Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others
Re: hiding in the Oort cloud
Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: Current Tech: Shortstop
Re: : Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
re: Piracy: Cease!
Pyramid ( was Sensors in GURPS)
Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: Perpetual Motion
Re: GT transponders
Re: New Deck plans revised files added
Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:45:06 +0000
From: "Jens Maskus" <Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de>
Subject: Formal for mass-based jump limits

On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:02:37 -0700 (PDT), Anthony Jackson wrote:

>Any opinion on making the jump limit based on object mass, rather than
>diameter?  If you base it on, say, the local tidal strength (rate of change of
>gravitational force) it remains a fixed multiple of radius for objects of
>constant density, and allows resolving questions about jumping near a comet or
>other large gas cloud.
>

Jumplimit 
[AU]=(SQRT(MassTerrstrial*5,9742E024/(0,000025*9,80665/0,0000000000667259)))/14960
0000000


For Terra You must use solar mass in and you will get around 5 AU!

Jens Maskus

Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 12:45:06 +0000
From: "Jens Maskus" <Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de>
Subject: Formal for mass-based jump limits

On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:02:37 -0700 (PDT), Anthony Jackson wrote:

>Any opinion on making the jump limit based on object mass, rather than
>diameter?  If you base it on, say, the local tidal strength (rate of change of
>gravitational force) it remains a fixed multiple of radius for objects of
>constant density, and allows resolving questions about jumping near a comet or
>other large gas cloud.
>

Jumplimit 
[AU]=(SQRT(MassTerrstrial*5,9742E024/(0,000025*9,80665/0,0000000000667259)))/14960
0000000


For Terra You must use solar mass in and you will get around 5 AU!

Jens Maskus

Jens.Maskus@stud.uni-hannover.de

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 17:53:37 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans

On 10/23/98 at 09:04 AM,  Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior) said:

>>WOW! Now those are deckplans!

Yeah, Mike, great jobs on them.

>The deck plans look great, but theexploded view at the back just has
>funny symbols rather than words. Did you include the fonts when you
>made the PDF? If not, could you do that next time? (OK, could you do
>it with these and repost?)

>If you _did_ include the fonts, then I guess I need some help with
>Acrobat Reader.

I didn't get them either, so if it's not the fonts, then there's two
of us needing help.  ;->

Michael, could you include the scale for the deckplans.  Are the
squares 1, 1.5 or 2 meters?

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:49:22 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: re: Fighters

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:19:16 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Fighters

Oh goody - a KKM debate to go with the fighter debate and the piracy
debate and the transponder debate...
"if the bloody things get through", of course, is the hard part -
for reasonable laser technology
(let alone the really good lasers in GT or just-plain-T) hitting an
incoming kinetic impact missile is remarkably easy; certainly for the
space/price of a figher you can fit in a point defence laser that
can eat up many many times its weight in impact missiles (at least
in FFS2; but presumably also in GURPS - it'll be interesting to try
this once I get a copy of GURPS.)
*************8
in the practice combat we ran for our TCS campaign, a 200DT SDB was hit by
8 missiles. 4 of them got through the point defense.  the vector was
small(only 3 hexes) and she had heavy armor (IIRC DR4000) so she was only
crippled.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:38 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 08:51 PM 10/22/98 -0400, you wrote:
>
>>A scout ship could not radiate 1MW with a living crew.
>
>Then the ship MUST be doing SOMETHING with the energy besides radiating
>it... because (at least in GT) the power is measured in MW for practically
>everything.
>
>So, therefore, there MUST be some kind of anti-entropic 'miracle heat sink'.
>
>And the whole debate about infrared and sensors has to be re-thought...
>*****
>

Or you have a very vunerable very important 'super heat sink' sticking out
the back of your ship at 20000k/m^2

Or fussion power plant would better than we think.

Or maybe it's cold fussion.

I do not have an answer.  But that high temp. heat vane worries me.  It's to
good a target.

Charles L.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:16:05 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud 

bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh) writes:
>>Actually, long-term sensor use (strategic sensors?) woul make a nice
>>addition to the Definative Sensor Rules.
>A week's worth of searching adds about +1 (+0.5 for one-day scans, +0.5 
>because you scan only 30 degree arcs.) (Oops - make that two weeks.) 
>For simplicitly, you could instead assume that the sensor detects
>everyting
>out to (sensitivity+signature)=0.0 with no modifiers if you don't want to
>have
>to roll...

Perfect. Just what I was looking for. Many thanks.

So with one station, it takes about two weeks to scan the sky. A pirate
ship is detectable for about a day every rendezvous, which gives a 1/14
chance of being detected, about a 93% chance of being undetected. For two
rendezvous, the chance of remaining undetected is 93%^2 = 86%, and so on. 
If I've done my math correctly, that means that after ten rendezvous there
is better than a 50% chance that the base has been detected. Hardly a
long-term proposition.

This also has implications for deep-penetration spy bases.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:37:34 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:53:25 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber and others
> In mail you write:
>
> > What's on my 'gotta have' list is just about everything by H. Beam
Piper:
> >
> >       Little Fuzzy
> >       4-Day Planet
> >       Uller Uprising
> >       Space Viking
>
>    The Cosmic Computer (aka "Junkyard Planet")
>    Fuzzy Sapiens
>    Fuzzies and Other People
>
>
> > There's a couple others, too, but I can't remember them off the top of
my
> > head.
>
> More than a couple. There are at least 4 more that I don't recall at
> the moment.
'Federation'?  '4-Day Planet' is bundled up with 'Lone Star Planet' in my
copy.
***************
Also:
 Empire
'The Worlds of H. Beam Piper'
'Paratime'
'Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen'
and the sequels (not by piper) but still good:
Great Kings War and 2 short stories Kalvan Kingmaker and The Seige of
tar-Hostigos

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 18:29:34 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: hiding in the Oort cloud

On 10/23/98 at 10:16 AM,  bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh) said:

>>So with one station, it takes about two weeks to scan the sky. A pirate
>>ship is detectable for about a day every rendezvous, 

>One can probably think of tricks to make the rendezvous harder to
>detect. For example, put a big honkin tractor (TNE/T4) on the pirate
>base to reel ships in without having them use any of their own
>fuel...

Heck, if the base is on/in a really big ice chunk all the ship has
to do is fire a harpoon attached to a line into the iceball and
either the base or the ship can reel the two together.  No muss, no
fuss, low energy approach.

IMTU, of course, that base has to be near a brown dwarf or gas
giant.

Eris

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:39:59 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com> writes:
>Was the Sydkai the Anti-Piracy vessel published in MTJ#3 by several
>authors, one of which was TML's own Rob Prior? I really found that
>vessel to be interesting. I was also disappointed that the illustration
>didn't seem to match the description. I seem to remember a revolving
>small craft loading mechanism but didn't see that the drawing matched.
>As I recall, it was a weak performance design, optimized for duration on
>station.

Design by George MacLure, text be me (Robert Prior), editing by DGP (Joe
or Gary, I think). Given the amount of editing and feedback, the coauthor
status is appropriate. Illustration was down after I wrote my text, and I
was happy enough with it.

The Sydkai was intended to operate for months without resupply. Optimized
is correct -- George optimized that ship down to the cubic metre. We had
noticed that the standard naval designs had short durations and required a
fair amount of logistical support, so we came up with a vessel optimized
for patrolling and sufficiently armed for fighting pirates.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:53:35 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Current Tech: Shortstop

"David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net> wrote:


>	How many people on the list very deliberately did NOT sign up from
>work, even though that's a more convenient/timely way to participate,
>simply because they didn't want to explain things ...?

Me for one. My employer (Unilever) wouldn't take nicely to the volume of
traffic on this list, so I connect from home.

I know Nick Munn (those TML fogey's around will know the name) doesn't
connect as he works from the UK civil service and they tend to get a little
jumpy about usage, and topics like nukes, sensors, encryption etc. Shame -
I miss some of his comments.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 19:59:34 -0500
From: David Lightfinger <lightfinger@home.com>
Subject: Re: : Re: The Imperial Fleet

SD Mooney wrote:
> 
>  Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com> wrote:
> 
> >It is a shame you were never paid for the article. Perhaps we have
> >discovered  new "Canon" of Trav Authors getting screwed.
> 
> You mean to support the T4 IG canon that the authors never get paid ;-)
> 
> Not funny when you talk to people like Andy Lilly et al. who did a lot of
> work getting material out for IG with tight deadlines. And never got paid.
> 

Unfortunately, this is very common in the industry. I had to wait almost
2 years before Hero Games paid me for the Champions material I had
written for them.

- --David

ps. I will note SJG does NOT follow industry trend, and pays on time.
Thus, you should see more GURPS:Traveller material coming out in their
announcements soon, as some of us old fogeys gear up to put in queries
and proposals to them :-)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:36 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 09:38 PM 10/22/98 -0600, you wrote:
>At 06:48 pm 10/22/98 +0000, you wrote:
>>If the signal is less than the threshold of detection of a singal
>element of
>>the array no amount of intergration with improve the signal because
>it was
>
>	Given that REALWORLD sensors right now have "threshold of detection"
>equal to a single photon (not 100% of the time, but up there), I'm
>not worried ... unless you're emitting fractional photons?
>

You know that is not posible.  I've already eat my crow on this subject
thank you.  I do not care for left overs (Grin).

Seriously though I did learn a lot about current astrological tech. I did
not know.  It was worth the effort for that alone.  Now that I have the
background theory I makes sence.  I still am curious about the integration
time require for 3 ls detection of a scout ship.

Charles L.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:50:37 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Piracy: Cease!

dberry@hooked.net wrote:

>Folks, we go through this every six months.


I disagree - this debate has run at some level for nearly 18 months.... it
just gets more noticeable when Hans and David join in ;-)

>The TML is now swamped by the
>latest incarnation of the Piracy Threads That Would Not Die.  With all
>respect to those involved, nothing is ever going to be agreed to, since the
>final decision is a matter of persoanl gaming taste.  *Both* sides can make
>convincing cases for their sides.
>
>Can't we all just let it lie alongside the fractional-c rock debate?

Yeah... if we must have a re-run, can't we re-open the fighter debate? That
was more fun...

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 98 16:43:54 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Pyramid ( was Sensors in GURPS)

On 10/24/98 at 12:21 PM,  dberry@hooked.net said:

>>I wonder if we need a GTL "Gurps Tech List" for these technical 
>>issues? I suppose such a thing already exists on io.com/Pyramid,

Not really.  The only list I'm aware of is a general one, it gets
quite technical at times, but isn't like TTL, it's more like
TML...only with a *very* broad range of topics (and a low signal to
noise ratio, IMO).  It's a free list, btw, not part of Pyramid.  

The on-line boards that require a Pyramid subscription aren't
particularly interesting to me because they only do online reading
and replying.  That's *supposed* to change..we'll see.

>> but I'm damned if I'm going to pay money for the sake of helping
>> improve their design...

No, you shouldn't pay for the subscription for that reason.  Not
unless you *want* to, of course. ;->

>Umm... You are aware that the $15/year subscription to Pyramid is
>more than a chance to improve SJG products, right?

>In the three-odd months I've been reading Pyramid on-line, I've
>gotten dozens of ideas for my game, decided to buy two products based
>on the reviews, and been amused by John Kovalic's Murphy's Rules.

What Doug said.  There is a lot of value here, whether you play
GURPS or not.  In the last few months, there have been two *very*
good Traveller articles.  The archives have a number of general
adventures that can be adapted to Traveller...one that really
interested me was aimed at a 1930's adventure in Central America,
but set it on a jerkwater planet in the Deep (or Marches) and it
would work just as well.  Then there are the product reviews, news
and...

>Hell, _Surpressed Transmission_ is worth the subscription cost
>alone.   

Well, almost.  ;-> Ken Hite's column is good, but I'm not sure I'd
pay $15 a year *just* for that.  However, it does contribute to the
worth of the subscription.

>Add in that it's updated weekly, and you get a gaming magazine for 28
>cents a week!  I rarely even bother with the message boards, since I
>don't play GURPS.

I don't bother with the message boards because I can't read and
reply offline.  ;->

I never make it to the weekly "chats" because of my work schedule,
but I enjoy reading the transcripts.  You know there have been
several chats about non-SJG games, the new Star Trek game comes to
mind.  I bet SJG would be happy to arrange conferences where
Travellerites could discuss things Traveller.  Maybe Marc could tell
us about T5 at one.


Eris

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:58:45 -0400
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

Hi all,

Rob Prior wrote:
> Design by George MacLure, text be me (Robert Prior), editing by DGP (Joe
> or Gary, I think). Given the amount of editing and feedback, the coauthor
> status is appropriate. Illustration was down after I wrote my text, and I
> was happy enough with it.
> 
> The Sydkai was intended to operate for months without resupply. Optimized
> is correct -- George optimized that ship down to the cubic metre. We had
> noticed that the standard naval designs had short durations and required a
> fair amount of logistical support, so we came up with a vessel optimized
> for patrolling and sufficiently armed for fighting pirates.

Don't get me wrong I liked the illustration well enough, I just couldn't
see where the revolving loader was loacated. Ever do deck plans for that
thing? :^>

It is a shame you were never paid for the article. Perhaps we have
discovered  new "Canon" of Trav Authors getting screwed.

Bye all

Glenn

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:34 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 06:01 PM 10/22/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Fred and Evelyn Wolke writes:
>> 
>> >A scout ship could not radiate 1MW with a living crew.
>> 
>> Then the ship MUST be doing SOMETHING with the energy besides radiating
>> it... because (at least in GT) the power is measured in MW for practically
>> everything.
>
>In GT, only weapons, drives, active sensors, and artificial gravity have
>significant power consumption, and most of these probably dump a lot of energy
>directly to space.  The assertion that a scout ship can't radiate a megawatt is
>false, though -- it just requires a heat pump to a fairly hot radiator vane.
>

One able to survive some rigorous treatment.  20000k is a lot of heat.  What
happens when this ship lands in water?  The vane will make a tempting target
for laser gunners.  No vane no power.  The ship would burn up without it if
the reater is running.  If you use those efficency numbers.

Charles L.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:05:16 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion

>From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
>Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
...
>The solutions are:
>
>1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
>realistic sensor rules.

  This may not be that much of a problem for HG/Striker: 1 HG EP is 252MW
from Striker (@TL F, 14m^3 of fuser gets 6mw/cube x3 for volume efficiency
for 18 ea., or 252 total). Later you start to realize that energy weapons
are assumed to be firing continuously throughout every second of a combat
turn (and presumably so with spacecraft?) even though beam lasers only have
+2 to hit over a low ROF large bore CPR gun (and +1 of that should be long-
range accuracy over ballistic rounds).

  Thus, you could probably reduce fusion plant output by 75% and reduce
energy weapon ROF by a similar degree without too much difficulty. This
also makes batteries that much more practical for use in HG.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:41:21 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

> ***************I'M OVER HERE!!!!!********************LOOK AT
>ME!!!!!!!!!!!!*******************.
>
>if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
anything there.
**************
that is about all they do say...they come sealed, with regeistry info, but
the destination info is input by the ships navegator.


If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
out.
*****************
even better to just turn it off, having your transponder picked up will
result in a +4 to scan you with other systems, and if you don't match......

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:50:23 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans revised files added

- -----Original Message-----
From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans



>I didn't get them either, so if it's not the fonts, then there's two
>of us needing help.  ;->
>
>Michael, could you include the scale for the deckplans.  Are the
>squares 1, 1.5 or 2 meters?
>
>Eris


Ok, I've revised the fonts and attempted to imbed them. I've also added the
scale, 1.5 m per square (I'm a traditionalist when it comes to deck plans).
Any way, please try the files again and let me know it they work all right.
I tried them on my lap top and they showed up alright on it so I hope
they'll be ok.

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:45:31 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 

> > From: Keven R. Pittsinger <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> > > > > Yeah, now somebody tell Bruce *who* plays Al Bester on B5. I
> haven't
> > > > > got the heart. ;->
> > > > Walter Koenig.  Doesn't ring a bell?  Try 'Ensign Chekov(TM)' from
> 'That
> > > > Nameless Paramount/Desilu Sci Fi Hack of Wagon Train(TM)' circa 1964.
> > > > <grin>
> > > You forgot the cheesy movies as well...  Circa 1980s & early 1990s...
> > Good thing you didn't *name* 'em, you'd have to (TM) them.  <ducking>
> 
> Why name them?  While they were watchable, they are not standards of movie
> making...

Cause Paramount trademarked them.  Wouldn't wanna get in trouble now, would we?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:31 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

>Even if you use that 100 joules as efficiently as possible you aren't
>going to get more work out of it than 100 joules worth. If you do then
>you've got a perpetual energy/motion machine, and I want to buy stock!
>I'm sure you don't mean that. ;->
>

No I did not, The thermalelectrics were ment to cut signature by
suplimenting the battery power so that less power would need to be draw from
the batteries.  Discharging batteries causes true waste heat.  Reusing power
by partial heat recovery does not produce any more waste heat than the heat
caused by the use of that power.  It is more efficient than battery power as
far as waste heat is concurned but because the system is loosing heat into
space you will need to replace that lost power from the batteries but not as
much as you would have to without the heat recovery system.

The idea is to reduce the heat signature too 300k or less by running only on
battery power.  No operating fussion plant.

Charles L.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 06:45:28 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Correction: Re: "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV 

> >They're lead by this really *SHORT* Vargr wearing a beret, right?
> 
>   Actually they're lead by the Public Accounts auditor who's looking
> into why the new ship class can't power it's fusion gun :(  You could
> just install batteries in the spare space (although this shouldn't
> really work in HG/Striker). 
> 
>   Alternatively, allow HG designs to be non-standard sizes (i.e., tonnage
> may be any value of one or above - <1 would require scaling down output
> per Striker) and simply enter EP's output, while listing the USP for damage 
> purposes as Pn with all fractions dropped.

Thing is, HG lets you do odd-sized hulls.  A size code 9 ship is anything from 
900 to 999 tons.  Just watch your decimal points.

>   Or just design the ship properly the first time...

That, too.

BTW, you didn't answer my question.  <grin>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1038
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1039



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Fighters
re: Piracy Question
Re: New Deck plans to Rob Prior
Re: The Imperial Navy
Jump Signature (was: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud)
Re: Sten 
re: Old Topics: Aslan Females
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
T-plate operational limits
T-plate operational limits
re: Fighters
Loading/Unloading
Re: Star Gypsies
Re: Piracy
Luriani subcultures

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:10:30 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Fighters

Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> *************

> I get: 15+15acc +10comp +2 active sensor +10pd +4rof -39 Range (PD fire may
> only be taken against ramming attempts.) = 17 or less for the first missile
> each additional missile engaged is a further -2 to hit. he does however
> have 3 lasers so can roll 3 times on each attempt.  this gives him
> 17,15,13,11,9,7,5,3,1 that he needs to roll against for point defense...so
> most likely 2-3 missile hits.
Note that if you increase the number of lasers and missile proportionally
the lasers pull ahead (since each laser can engage each missile, albeit
at the increasing minuses...) If you manage the sequences right, X 
laser turrets will pretty much always stop 2*X missiles...

Anthony writes:
>That's incorrect.  A single gunner controls a single _turret_.  If he wanted to
>fire the three weapons separately (rather than as a battery) he'd be at -4 to
>all of them.  He gets one shot, with a +1 for the # of weapons (this is a
>problem, it means triple turrets are useless because you get the same bonus
>from a double turret, but...)
Is this really the way triple turrets work? This needs to be clarified.
I assumed that if a single gunner fires all three lasers in a triple
turret he/she made a to-hit roll independently, with no modifiers, for
each. Otherwise (as you note) triple turrets are near-useless.

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:57:36 EDT
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: re: Piracy Question

You're right bout Free Traders.  I would think that megacorp freighters would
dominate the X-boat routes everywhere, pretty much, the number and frequency
roughly decreasing as the distance from the Imperial core does.  W/ Free
Traders squeaking by in the cracks.

> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>    Even in the fringes, does anyone hold the existence of any Sunbeards as
> possible?
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Someone think it possible, otherwise there wouldn't be any piracy debates
> going on. I'll bet that even a large fraction of the anti-piracy camp
> will give you "possible". "Common", "practical", or "sensible" would
> be a different matter entirely.

By Sunbeard, I meant career pirate. "Sunbeard, Scourge of Seven Sectors.
Har!" Career meaning like 5+ term pirate.  I find it more than plausible the
odd merchant can't keep up w/ his payments, etc and decides to start preying
on his competitors, (or gets shanghaied), etc. Eventually he either gets
caught, "retires", or gets dead, though, even on the fringe.  And it's more
than possible that megacorporate raiders as well as the possible forces of the
brigandish member-world (soon to be visited by the IN), though the megacorp
raiders are likely to have an "out" in their contract.  To say nothing of the
foreign (Zho, Solomani, etc) raiders who are better described as privateer.
  
Gary

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:50:23 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: New Deck plans to Rob Prior

Rob,
Hum, sorry about that. I am very new to Acrobat and DID NOT include the
fonts. I will repost just as soon as I figure out how to correct the
problem. Sorry to all for the mistake, it will be corrected.

P.S.
If anyone knows how to do this please send me a private post, it would save
a bit of time in correcting the files.

thanks for that and all the kind words
Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

- -----Original Message-----
From: Rob Prior <Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 9:23 AM
Subject: Re: New Deck plans


>The deck plans look great, but theexploded view at the back just has funny
>symbols rather than words. Did you include the fonts when you made the
>PDF? If not, could you do that next time? (OK, could you do it with these
>and repost?)
>
>If you _did_ include the fonts, then I guess I need some help with Acrobat
>Reader.
>

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 00:57:41 EDT
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

> >"A numbered fleet, depending on its mission, may have between two and 10
> >squadrons amounting to between 50 and 200 ships."  We're previously told a
> >squadron is 3-10 ships.
> 
> Where? Not previously in that particular essay. Elsewhere we're told that

Yes, *in that particular essay.*  In the header, first paragraph... "At their
lowest level, Imperial ships are organized into squadrons (from three to 10
similar ships)."

> Answer: Yes. Despite what anyone may think, _Striker_ is no less canonical
> than any other official source. And _Striker_, Book 2, p. 38 says:

Striker should be left to it's primary purpose and that's miniatures gaming.
The econ stuff was obviously not throught through the background.  

> Also, the figure is low if compared to the figures that _Trillion Credit
> Squadron_ and _Pocket Empires_ provide. TCS use 5% on the Navy alone, no
> mention of the army; PE figures are fluid, but can reach 20-30% IIRC (I may
> be a bit off here).

IMO, none of those are credible for disecting the economics of the Third
Imperium (or any polity of the OTU).  It's obvious GDW didn't use Striker or
TCS (or anything even remotely resembling Pocket Empires) in creating the
background.  All of them are made to be playable *games* (specificially games
for players to have pet "pocket empires" and polities and go to war w/ each
other) and to not simulate "reality" (such as it is) for the OTU.


Gary

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:23:31 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Jump Signature (was: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud)

>> -no-one has ever really defined for me how bright a "jump flash" is, or
>what
>> wavelengths it comes out at, which is why they aren't in the rules. I
>don't
>> like jump flashes that much myself - ships are easy enough to see as it
>is,
>> and I would like spies to be able to jump in and out without being
>instantly
>> detected . . . but if someone gives me numbers I can put them in.
>
>Well, the jump flash properties could be features of the individual
>drives rather
>than a law of nature.  Thus you could get "stealth" drives that have
>virtually no
>jump flash, while cheaper drives lack the baffles and enter the system
>like a
>supernova.  One could even presuppose that each ship has its own jump
>signature.

I like this idea. Could we assume that unbaffled drives are fairly bright,
getting brighter with age? "Jumpflash baffles" are extra equipment that
reducing the signature of the flash. (Let the gearheads define the
performance parameters.) 

As to jump signature, treat that like sonar signatures now: it takes a
skilled professional to discriminate. Most civilians won't even know how,
because they don't need to know, while experienced navy sensor ops can
sometimes tell you not only who you are but what brand of parts you used
in your last overhaul.

In game terms:

To identify a ship from its jump signature
Edu + Sensor Ops > Impossible
This task is one to two levels easier if the operator is familiar with the
target, one level more difficult of the operator has _not_ had military
training or experience.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 19:57:02 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Sten 

>     The first 5 books were good. My step-dad gave me The Wolf Worlds to read
> one boring summer day WAAAAY back in the early eighties. Read it in two
> days, then, reread what I rushed through... Kids will be kids...
>     The only cool things about the series were:
>     1) How Sten started off on Vulcan, and , got that neat crystal and
> formed it into that wicked knife. Just wonder where I could find some of
> that crystal...
>     2) Alex Killgore's brogue and how it cut in-and-out at unusual times.
> The jokes were the worst, except the one about the 'wee snakes'

'Spotted snakes'.  I shudder every time I think about them.  <grin>

>     3) Also, Killgore being from a heavy-g world.
>     4) The Emperor, in the first few books was unusual for a regent
>     5) And, of course, AM2 (Wonder if the 3I has any of this stuff...)
> 
>     I'm not sure, but the war in the middle books were based on WW2. I
> thought that was the basis. Seemed too much a coincidence. Though, the book
> on the POW camp read like the Colditz Story/ Great Escape...

Yeah, I picked up on all those nifty lil in-house things.  Cool, weren't they?

Keven
 
tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 01:09:10 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Old Topics: Aslan Females

Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> wrote:

>I keep seeing this as part of the "old topics done to death" gag line,
>but realize I've never actually seen the debate, for example,
>
>"_Lesbian Aslan_ Pirates Hurling Near-C Rocks at Kinetic-Kill
>Missile Armed Fighters"
>
>Was there some kind of debate ages ago about Aslan females
>getting tired of babysitting Aslan males and going off on their own
>than I missed?

I posted something a fair while ago (12 months) that was a query in from
one of my games about how Aslan would consider casual sexual relationships.
It all happened at Dinomn when the Empress Nicholle got into port, and the
female Aslan engineer was bored with all the humans and disappeared... the
thread kind of degenerated after a few interesting posts (Wildstar's being
one of the most memorable).

http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/Kira.html

relates a little of the tale from another player's perspective.

Dom

(Wondering if these threads are taking up the role of uber-myths of the
type found in Robert Holdstock's _Mythago Wood_ ... a life of their own.
Indeed, are Hans and David real, or are they figments of a TML 'racial'
memory, the mythical arch-proponents of the two sides to the debate,
endlessly developing)

(Maybe not)

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 18:49:54 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

On 10/23/98 at 11:46 AM,  Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com> said:

> 
>> I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
>> need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
>> power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
>> require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
>> special high-temp radiators...

>I guess the turret radiators could be facing away from the launch
>side--you always know that at least the guy you're shooting at won't
>see that radiation :-)

Sure, but if you're shooting is any good your target is going to
know ding-dang well where you're at, so I don't see the reason for
hiding from your target once you start shooting.  ;-> Ok, I really
do, and having radiators scattered around the hull is a good idea.

>Drives are the other big culprit. Traveller TL15 military ships do
>6gs. That's a lot of power.

No question about that.

My approach is to use a different technology for in-system maneuver,
but that only works for heretics like me ;-> For people that use
HEPlaR, or for that matter TPlates, a maneuvering ship is going to
be *very* detectable from at least one direction.  All I can suggest
is to postulate very good baffling to limit the area of exhaust
plume exposure.

That and being able to bank the fusion engine back to single digit
power levels when you aren't maneuvering or using weapons.

Eris

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:26:14 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: T-plate operational limits

Rupert Boleyn queries me thusly:
>
>So what limit, if any, do you put on the distance from a gravity source
>that a T-plate can be and still function? If it's 1000 or 2000 diameters a
>misjump of more than a few hundred AU will kill a T-plate ship's crew far
>more certainly than a HEPlaR's, especially as the HEPlaR fuel supply may be
>enough to allow a jump.
>
MT does not have a limit on T-plate efficiency; My campiagns do not either.
I will not retrofit the T-Plate efficiency onto MT as I run it. IMO, it
defeats too much previous cannon (including TCS, to some degree), is ill
thought, and makes no sense. IMTU, True Recationless Thrusters push against
themost significant gravity wells, and thus the objects creating them, and
thus truly are not reactionless, but use the mass of planets, stars, dark
matter, interstellar gasses, etc., as reaction mass. Just like IMTU, a
repulsor CAN be used for fine maneuving in docks.

Since I don't run TNE anymore (the combat system is BROKEN, and I've tried
dozens of fixes, and just don't like any of them), and don't  like T4
except for the Psionics rules and number of skills per term, my players
don't expect me to use "questionable" items from the newer canon. If I were
running T4, I'd use the limits, and if T5 has the limits, when running T5
I'll use the limits.

TL 9 anti-grav-thrusters are limited to about 1000 diameters, and no full
thrust after 100 diameters, and I limit gravitic modules (vehicular type)
to 10 diameters for full thrust, and no thrust past 100 diameters.


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:26:14 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: T-plate operational limits

Rupert Boleyn queries me thusly:
>
>So what limit, if any, do you put on the distance from a gravity source
>that a T-plate can be and still function? If it's 1000 or 2000 diameters a
>misjump of more than a few hundred AU will kill a T-plate ship's crew far
>more certainly than a HEPlaR's, especially as the HEPlaR fuel supply may be
>enough to allow a jump.
>
MT does not have a limit on T-plate efficiency; My campiagns do not either.
I will not retrofit the T-Plate efficiency onto MT as I run it. IMO, it
defeats too much previous cannon (including TCS, to some degree), is ill
thought, and makes no sense. IMTU, True Recationless Thrusters push against
themost significant gravity wells, and thus the objects creating them, and
thus truly are not reactionless, but use the mass of planets, stars, dark
matter, interstellar gasses, etc., as reaction mass. Just like IMTU, a
repulsor CAN be used for fine maneuving in docks.

Since I don't run TNE anymore (the combat system is BROKEN, and I've tried
dozens of fixes, and just don't like any of them), and don't  like T4
except for the Psionics rules and number of skills per term, my players
don't expect me to use "questionable" items from the newer canon. If I were
running T4, I'd use the limits, and if T5 has the limits, when running T5
I'll use the limits.

TL 9 anti-grav-thrusters are limited to about 1000 diameters, and no full
thrust after 100 diameters, and I limit gravitic modules (vehicular type)
to 10 diameters for full thrust, and no thrust past 100 diameters.


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:45:22 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Fighters

>"if the bloody things get through", of course, is the hard part - 
>for reasonable laser technology
>(let alone the really good lasers in GT or just-plain-T) hitting an
>incoming kinetic impact missile is remarkably easy; certainly for the
>space/price of a figher you can fit in a point defence laser that
>can eat up many many times its weight in impact missiles (at least
>in FFS2; but presumably also in GURPS - it'll be interesting to try
>this once I get a copy of GURPS.) 
>
>Bruce
>


Gurps is pretty much the same.  With a good gunners and tageting software
it's 1 laser one dead missle per turn.  The only way to get misile hits is a
large salvo that closes fast enough to overwhelm the defenses.  It is doable
but not very cost effective.  Those misiles are pricy.

I have my book with me so I looked it up.  I was just reading the space
combat section when this came up.

Do to turn limits in the combat situation you have to shoot a ship or a
missle but not both with each laser.  A scout with one triple laser turret
fired on by 9 missles from 2 seconds out will be hit by three missles if the
gunners involved do not miss.

1st second shoot three misiles  (likely but not curtain)  gunner skill 15 +
15 accuacy +4 aiming +10 computer (very good comp.) +2 active sensor +10
defensive fire  +4 rof =60 - 41 for range 1 = 19  You must role less the 21
on three d6 but 17 and 18 always fail.

With this you can have a 10 or less to kill a missle at 30 hexes.  The
problem is how fast are the misile moving 1g = 1 hex per second accel.
misiles have 6g/TL10 10g/TL12 and a 3 space combat turn duration.

2nd second shoot three missles and get hit by the other three. range 0 role
to hit = 21

3 missles hit if missle gunner role his success number.

missile cost 22kcr each.

Charles L.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 04:17:01 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Loading/Unloading

AS threatened, I found the tables in FASA's Battletech, and will present an
adaptation for use with traveller (I am not reprinting theirs... its in
Battlespace, page 56). Also factored in are my experiences working in a
- -10c wharehouse.

			Minutes per metric ton**
Equipment Used		0-G	Vacc 1-G Air
Battle Dress (or equiv)	4	2	2
5 man in VaccSuits	4	3	3
5 man in clothes*	3	2	2
1 man with LRTP's	2	-	-
1 man w/Pallet Jacks**	-	3	2

This table basically assumes times from ready on boards to loaded in cargo
or vice versa; times really should be doubled for moving ship to ship.
Times should be doubled for medium break-bulk (loose boxes and crates
instead of containerized or shrinkwrapped onto pallets) and times 10 for
small items (125L boxes {25cm cubes}).

* in vaccum assumes LD Vacc suit or tailored vaccsuit.
** assume SG 4 (4MT per 1Td) as a good average if you don't want to figure
out masses from traveller cargos yourself.
*** assumes pallatized loads that are secure on the pallet. Iv'e moved up
to a 1/2 ton pallet of icecream at the rates shown, moving the goods from
loose to a pallet 2m from the shelves, while in a -10c freezer. Moving the
pallet the 10-15 meters to shrink-wrap took another 2 minutes on average,
including opening and closing the 1/4-ton sliding door. Shrink wrap took
another 5 minutes, and then it was a fairly stable unit. The guys who
worked the wharehouse (I worked the co-located icecream plant) could load
and move faster than I could. BTW, a 1/2ton pallet of ice cream is about 2m
tall, and uses a 1.5x1.5m pallet which is about 7-12 cm tall it's self,
weighing about 10kg. Lined up pallets go on trucks at the loading-dock at
the rate of about 1-2 per minute, depending on skill and depth of refer
van, at least that's what I've seen done. A full van can be unloaded to the
dock (which is level with the floor of the reefer van floor) in under 15
minutes for a fully palletized load in a 40' trailer. And about as long to
get the load into the freezer, using about 5 men for each task.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:06:20 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Star Gypsies

In mail you write:

>> ObTrav: What is the tech level of a planet which has access to high-tech
>> items, but shuns some of them for cultural reasons, or is committed to
>> keeping technology hidden behind a more 'natural' facade. For instance,
>> maybe jets are used to get from city to city, but for short journeys
>> everyday people use horses and wagons...
>
> Horses & wagons don't work so hot in big cities.  And you'd need at least a 
> *couple* big cities to support building stuff like jets, *unless* your tech 
> is so high that your factoreis are highly automated.

Actually, you can do the same thing if you restrict the really high
tech to *small* items, with only a few larger items.

> But anyways, the TL of the planet is the TL of most readily availiable 
> devices.  Lifestyle choices wouldn't enter into this.  If they have the 
> capacity to build air rafts, who cares what they use to get to work?

> I could see a planet where they have high tech and choose to make
> their availiable tech be fairly 'green'.  Local transport would be
> 'skimmer pads' (kind of like a gravitic skateboard, if you can get
> teh cost down) powered by batteries.  Long range transport would be
> by maglev tunnels.  All industry would either be in space or
> underground.  This planet's technologies would *not* be sustainable
> in event of catastrophe...

No, try a setup where long range transport is little used (with high
tech communications, you don't need to move *people* around very fast,
and materials aren't in a big rush). And where folks are much more into
"appropriate technology". 

Sort of like the situation in the "Tinker" culture under the Peace
Authority in Vinge's "The Peace War". 

*No* heavy industry. But "cottage" electronics and related fields give
you a super internet, as well as all sorts of sustainable *very* high
tech, but low volume, low power gizmos. 

Picture a culture with a planetwide comm and computer net, much of it
using dedicated fiber lines (ie no signature worth mentioning), long
range transport mostly wind, water and muscle powered, with higher tech
vehicles scattered around, but limited to stuff that *can* be
maintained without a heavy industrial base.

So you'd have sailing ships, dirigibles, some aircraft, some CG
vehicles (after all electronics *can* be maintained with "light"
industry, and the structural stuff can be kept to "blacksmith" level.
The "engines" are the hard part). 

Likewise, large "heavy" weapons would be uncommon, but personal and
"squad" level weapons would be as good as any in the galaxy.

Basicly, think of the tech as limited to what a "garage" level machine
shop (or electronics fab) can handle. With several of each in every
village. 

Population centers would be limited to village/small town. And there'd
be a *few* places building larger items. 

Such a setup could maintain a very high tech level. They'd just be
*lightly* industrialized. They might be able to produce a starship of
as much as a few hundred tons. But that'd require doing some tooling up
at the larger towns, and the rate of constructiion would be low. But
the smaller the item, the easier it'd be to build locally.

As far as *small* items, treat them like Afghani gunsmiths. Hand a
local "techsmith" a weapon, or electronics package, and in a week or
two, he's likely to hand you back *two*, and you may have trouble
determining which is the original. 

ps. I know it's not as *efficient* to have a "backyard" size chip
foundry. But it *is* doable. We just don't have the incentive. Another
culture might be willing to go with the higher costs as a valid
trade-off for keeping things locally supportable.

It'd be a *weird* culture from our point of view. And it'd be *damned*
hard to conquer. Probably more trouble than it's worth. Which may be
the whole idea. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:53:53 -0400
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy

- -----Original Message-----
From: Joseph R. Dietrich <yikes@evansville.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Thursday, October 22, 1998 10:51 AM
Subject: Re: Piracy


>>>>The reserve fleets will be next to useless for anti piracy as they are
>>>>manned by reservists and thus spend most of their time in orbit around
>>>>the high tech, high population worlds in the subsector they are
assigned.
>>>
>>>This is a totally unwarranted assumption. Nowhere in the rules do I find
>>>any support for the idea that the colonial fleets and the system defense
>>>forces are not trained to the same standard as the regular navy. [...]
>>
>>FSotSI pg 6 [...]
>
>[snip of references]
>
>>I believe this implies that reserve and colonial units are not as well
>>equipped or trained as Regular fleets.
>
>"Not as well equipped or trained" does not mean "next to useless for anti
>piracy." If the difference is TL 14 BBs v. TL 15 BBs (or cruisers, or
>whatever), then I would say that the Colonial fleets are more than adequate
>to deal with pirates. After all, Defense CruRon Regina (the SDB example in
>_FSSI_) is a *CruRon*.
>
>Nor are reservist or colonial units necessarily incompetent, which is what
>the first statement above implies. They are simply not front-line units.
>"Somewhat less training and experience" could be Gunnery 3 instead of
>Gunnery 4, for example.
>
>Joseph R. Dietrich

I think that you misunderstood what he was saying.  Reservists by nature are
NOT out in the space lanes in their ships.  An example of Reserve activity
would be that they meet one weekend a month and go active for two weeks in
the summer.  This would then cause one to believe that the ships of the
Reserve Fleet are ALMOST moth-balled and would take some time to bring
on-line.  Reservists routinely take they active duty period fixing up there
"vehicles" and training to maintain their standards for going to war.  You
would see the occasional Reserve Ship out and about just so they can blow
the cob webs out.  Think for a minute, if you are only on active duty for
two weeks and a jump takes one week then you would only be able to take your
ship out and right back and be done for the year.

Thom Harris

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 03:19:07 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Luriani subcultures

Luriani Subcultures

Two distinct subcultures exist within Luriani society: the Verasti Dtareen and 
the Mmarislusant. Both of these subcultures are the result of the incorporation 
of non-Luriani humans into Luriani society. The Verasti Dtareen are the 
descendants of Admiral Martinezs fleet and Solomani settlers from the Rule of 
Man era. Whilst the Mmarislusant are the descendants of the Vilani colonists 
planted amongst the Luriani during the Vilani occupation.

The Mmarislusant

The Luriani word Mmarislusant literally translates as victims of history. During 
the Ziru Sirka numerous Vilani were settled on the Luriani worlds in an attempt 
to assimilate the Luriani. These attempts proved to be fruitless, but the 
colonists remained when the First Protectorate was formed and presented a 
unique problem for the new state. The solution adopted is an interesting 
example of the Luriani Code of Honour. While the Luriani bore (and continued to 
bear even into the late 3rd Imperium) a grudge against the Ziru Sirka, the 
Luriani could not hold these individual Vilani responsible for the actions of their 
government. Similarly, the Tenets of Hospitality required that while they were 
not regarded as citizens, they had to be treated as honoured guests. Thus, the 
Protectorate went to considerable lengths to ensure that these Vilani were able 
to continue their lives as before. State funded Vilani schools were established 
and great efforts were made to encourage the Vilani to retain their distinct 
identity. As a result the Mmarislusant preserve much of the original culture and 
language of the Ziru Sirka and are closer to it than most supposedly traditional 
Vilani elsewhere.

Over time, the Mmarislusant came to be valued members of Luriani society, 
well respected for their bureaucratic and diplomatic skills. In 1372 citizenship 
was extended to them and they were gradually incorporated into the 
administrative structure of the Protectorate. By the founding of the Second 
Protectorate in 8, they had come to regard themselves as members of Luriani 
society and had become an important part of government and corporate life 
within it. It is interesting to note that with the incorporation of the Protectorate 
into the Third Imperium, the Mmarislusant have resisted all efforts to reintegrate 
them into mainstream Vilani culture.

The Verasti Dtareen

The term Verasti Dtareen is usually translated as Terran Protectors or 
Protectors from Terra. Unlike the Mmarislusant the Verasti Dtareen were 
regarded as members of Luriani society from the founding of the First 
Protectorate. The Verasti Dtareen provided the Protectorate with the vital 
administrative skills required to manage an interstellar state. Initially they also 
formed the bulk of the Protectorates military forces. However, as the 
Protectorate evolved they were gradually replaced in this role by Luriani, but 
they came to form the administrative core of society, providing it with a stability 
and focus it had previously lacked.

The Verasti Dtareens culture is an intriguing fusion of Luriani and Solomani 
traditions. Exposure to the Luriani has resulted in their adoption of many Luriani 
cultural norms (such as group marriages and the Luriani Code of Honour). In 
many ways the Verasti Dtareen are a less extreme version of the Luriani. They 
are prone to displays of emotion that most Solomani would feel uncomfortable 
with, they are strongly drawn towards music and the arts, and they hold to the 
Luriani precepts of honour. However they are also expected to behave with far 
greater restraint than would be expected of a Luriani, and retain many cultural 
rituals from their Solomani heritage.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1039
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1040



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 
Re: The colonial fleets
re: Fighters
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 
Re: Piracy
Re: SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)
Re: The Imperial fleet
Hot Ships...and I don't mean stolen! ( was Re: Perpetual Motion )
Wierd Bounces

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 07:14:24 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 

> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> ...
> >>   Has anyone ever figured out why armoured hulls use the cost formula
> >> of [MCr 0.3 (+ 0.1 per armour factor) per ton] in High Guard? I can
> >> see the explanation that it's different materials and engineering work
> >> in upgrading the whole structure (somewhat like compartmentalization
> ...
> >When you look at it, yeah, it's expensive, but not compared to egines and 
> >such.  And the price applies *ONLY* to the armour; my SDB design I posted the 
> >other day has 80 dt of armour at a cost of 56MCr.  The hull ran 96MCr, and the 
> >power plant ran 576MCr.  Power plants don't get cheaper (relatively) until you 
> >hit TL14!
> 
>   Yes, but the Terrier SDB is carrying (f4) 10% at MCr 0.7 /ton, while
> the Rabid Poodle is maxxed out for combat at (f12) 26% at MCr 1.5 /ton.
> At TL 12 they're presumably using superdense, which is KCr 14/m^3 in
> slabs, so a D-ton should cost MCr 0.196 plus forming and engineering?
> (which gives the 1000 Dt Poodle an armour allocation around 50,000 tons!)
> 
>   If the "2+2a" formula for armour in HG accounts for engineering and
> compartmentalization with the fixed 2% of ship D-tonnage, then the "2a"
> should be linear cost based on the material and its' forming/installation
> cost(?). If so, then the Poodle would pay ~2.6 times more its' armour
> (per D-t of ship) than the Terrier rather than the ~5.5 times it pays now.
> 
>   If installation is counted in HG's MCr 0.1 per Dt hull cgarge then the
> armour could be re-assessed as "material value at TL plus % for forming",
> thus giving a more rational (?) basis for costing armoured ships.


You're using some other stuff rather than straight HG.  Under HG, your hull 
costs the same whether it's mild steel or ferrocement or superdense.  Cost of 
materials is factored into it already.  If you're gonna evaluate a HG design, 
set your FS&S on the coffee table and take stuff right from HG.  I see the 
figures for armour bulk as reasonable for HG as it factors in 'inferior' 
materials at lower tech levels.  The lower your tech, the more bulk you need 
to get the same armour protection on your hull and the more bracing you need 
because your 'state of the art' is still under developement.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 21:11:46 -0500
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets

Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:

<snip>>FSotSI pg 6
>>"The primary activity a reserve fleet undertakes is training."
>
>Heh. That could also mean that they are in better training than the
idle,
>slothful Imperial Navy ;-). But OK, I'll give you that. Only, whare
does
>it say that the training takes place in orbit around the high
population
>worlds?

I based my statement on US Reservists, i.e. 1 weekend a month and 2
weeks a year.
at this rate the ships would not be able to leave orbit and get the
crews back to thier regular jobs in time.  If the reserves work
differently IYTU then I made a bad assumption.

<snip>
>So it says. But does it make sense? Try this little thought experiment:

<snip good explination>
>Some subsector fleets ARE exactly as the description has it, composed
of
>obsolescent IN castoffs. The Duke of Lunion, for example, would be
happy to
>buy obsolescent IN ships, because the best he can procure locally is TL
13
>(I still think he'd buy some local TL 13 designs, but maybe not). And
dukes
>of subsectors with TL 14 high-pop planets would still be interested in
IN
>TL 15 retirees. Even dukes with TL 15 planets would buy _some_ ships
from
>the IN. And those are the ships the public hears about. "DELPHINE BUYS
>CLUNKERS! BUY LOCAL, SAYS UNION BOSS!!!" the headlines of the
opposition
>press and the yellow press will say, forgetting to mention that she is
only
>buying a few clunkers and many local ships.

well I cannot argue your logic here (including the snipped part)

<snip>
>>I would say this is both combatants and non-combatants, thus the
average
>>31.25 combatants per fleet would be a good number.
>
>For reasons I've stated in my reply to Gary, I disagree.

well IMTU i will disagree with you

<snip>
>He had access to the Deneb Depot. And does the notion that the majority
of
>the Imperial reserves are stored at the Depots meet the reality check?
Not
>IMO. The proper place to store ships in ordinary is surely spread out
around
>the shipyards that are going to do the work of reactivating them, isn't
it?
>Otherwise you have a few thousand ships orbiting Depot and no way to
>reactivate them.

I think we are talking different time frames.  and I agree that one
depot per domain is poor planning

Charles

BTW I am getting out of these discussions due to a lack of time and it
requires economic knowledge I don't have.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 13:47:15 -0400
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: re: Fighters

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:45:22 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Fighters


Gurps is pretty much the same.  With a good gunners and tageting software
it's 1 laser one dead missle per turn.  The only way to get misile hits is
a
large salvo that closes fast enough to overwhelm the defenses.  It is
doable
but not very cost effective.  Those misiles are pricy.
*****************
I agreee about the chances to hit,  in the game we ran one turret stopped 4
missiles (but 4 more got through)

I have my book with me so I looked it up.  I was just reading the space
combat section when this came up.
Do to turn limits in the combat situation you have to shoot a ship or a
missle but not both with each laser.
************
GT 169  a weapon may be fired in point defense even it it engaged another
target in the direct fire phase.



1st second shoot three misiles  (likely but not curtain)  gunner skill 15 +
15 accuacy +4 aiming +10 computer (very good comp.) +2 active sensor +10
defensive fire  +4 rof =60 - 41 for range 1 = 19  You must role less the 21
on three d6 but 17 and 18 always fail.
*************
I get: 15+15acc +10comp +2 active sensor +10pd +4rof -39 Range (PD fire may
only be taken against ramming attempts.) = 17 or less for the first missile
each additional missile engaged is a further -2 to hit. he does however
have 3 lasers so can roll 3 times on each attempt.  this gives him
17,15,13,11,9,7,5,3,1 that he needs to roll against for point defense...so
most likely 2-3 missile hits.


With this you can have a 10 or less to kill a missle at 30 hexes.
*****************888
the TL 12 lasers only have a range of 8 hexes.


 The
problem is how fast are the misile moving 1g = 1 hex per second
********************
per turn...not per second (turns are 20 min long)




3 missles hit if missle gunner role his success number.
***************
it is actually a contest of skills for the pilot of the ship and the
missile gunner this hapens before PD fire, and missile that miss can be
ignored for that turn (they may have enough Dv to loop around and come
back).


**********8
what Charles neglects to mention is the effects of velocity on damage...if
there is only a modest vector differnce between the ship and the missile
(say 5 hexes) even one can do massive damage to a scout....

the missile (best case only one gets through) will do 6dx500 (5). the scout
has DR 200, so effective DR is 40....assuming average damage for the
missile 3.5*6*500=10,500 -40 = 10,460. the scout has 15,000 Hp and so will
take 6 critical hits (6 rolls on the major damage table) almost certan to
be crippled, possibly a floating wreck....)

.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:51:48 EDT
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

In a message dated 10/22/98 17:08:53 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
prevattec@worldnet.att.net writes:

<< As for SFB 2 stingers 2 at range 0 on the front shield on a Fed. CA will
net
 about 20-30 internals (if memory serves). 12 stingers 2 = one CA in bpv.  At
 range 0 more CA.
 
 A CA on a CA (better example) at range 0 with just overloads will do 34
 interals.  (16x4=64 30 box shield)  Add phaser for an extra 34 points.
 Think you could win with 64 internals at WS0 or 1?  At range 1, about the
 same.  At range 4, 25-35 internals including 2 trop and 4 phasers.  At
 ranges 8 and average rolls, 10-15 internal including 1 torp and two phasers.
  >>

	I guess I'll rise to the bait on this one as well:  A Fed CA/CC is one of the
few starships in SFB to be able to withstand a full alpha strike on the #1
shield (no shield reinforcement assumed) by another CA/CC/DN and STILL be
combat-capable.  This ability is also shared by some Hydran vessels (the Cen
Hull hits for the Hydrans and the Labs for the Feds, acting as the "7th
shield").

	I have proved this (usually to everyones amazement) many many times; as for
credentials, I have been playing SFB since before the supplements came out
(the little books that is), as well as being a member of Battle Group Phoenix
(TFG playtest group for SFB) for 2 years and becoming a Rated Ace in 1994.

 If you want to nitpik everything to death then you'll need too start
footnoting everything you say as well.  I still have not gotten threshold
sensor numbers for these sensors yet.  No one has explained how a 100ton
scout can radiate 10MWs of heat per second as some say it does.  If you want
do carry on this discussion under the debating rules I can do that.  We will
both have to start by proving our primices.  Can you prove a 100MW power
plant has 10MWs of waste heat and a 100ton scout can radiate it without
killing the crew?

	Perhaps the best way to begin is for you to establish YOUR
credentials/qualifications.  You have made some references to your expertise,
but I have seen nothing to back those references up.  As for the debate, may I
respectfully suggest that you consider taking the question t the Trav-Tech
list and solicit thier opinions?  They are a fairly authoritative source of
info (and they will back thier arguments up w/ numbers and proofs...something
I have not noticed in your posts).  The subscription address is
Majordomo@qrc.com and in the body send:

subscribe trav-tech prevattec@worldnet.att.net

>>As for converting
heat to electricity by a solid state means check any thermalcouple reference
book or catalog for a very elementery form of this technology.<<

	Perhaps you would be so kind as to post the names of these reference
materials or catalogs for the very technology that you describe?  Magazine
articles, program references, anything???

	

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:52:12 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller" 

At 23:19 22/10/98 -0800, William F. Hostman wrote:

>Oh, one other problem with heplars: they eat a large power chunk, in
>ADDITION to needing plenty of fuel of their own. And MT/FF&S1 pp's (which
>are basically identical) do eat a goodly ammount of fuel.

IIRC MT fusion plants use about 0.05 kl/hr/MW, maybe divided by 3 because
of efficiency for 0.01667 kl/hr. FF&S1 fusion plants use about 0.1
kl/year/MW which is about 1500 times more efficient.

>Heplar may be more realistic, but it meant (IME) PC's taking running jumps
>constantly, and spending about 3 times as long to get to/from jump points,
>and GG's became accessable only via jump, as did the outter system. One
>group of PC's nearly died off due to a misjump using TNE Rules, which put
>them in the system, at several thousand AU. (T-Plates can get very tricky
>on distances like these, because you run smack into relativity issures, but
>with accelleration to 10PSL, 1000au becomes roughly (using an 8.5 lm AU,
>not right,but fairly close)(8.5m x 10 x 1000) 85000minutes = 60 days. With
>heplar, forget it... find a snowball and jump if you can. If you can't,
>find a low berth, rig the PP to maintain the LB ONLY and run on as little
>power as possible to maintain operation) and pray. Mind you, if the locals
>like you, in 6 days they will know you exist, and may send help.
>
>With T-plates, run as little as possible (LS, MD, computer, G-comps,
>passive sensor for nav fix) till you hit 10 PSL. THen shut down sensors at
>MD at 5PSL or 10PSL, and go to only one computer, and ration the food. (as
>established before, water will be recycled if only to keep it out of the
>machinery.) You can usually take your remaining (MT/FF&S1) usually 19 days,
>and multiply by 5 (you can run at 20% or less often... I can see running a
>plant stablely for as low as 10% output). With a T-plate universe, 1000AU
>is reachable. Damned inconvinient, but reachable.
>
>in a T-plate universe, the outer system is still a long trip, but is at
>least doable with standard craft. In a Heplar (which is STILL
>unrealistically efficient, IIRC) universe, a mainworld orbiting a GG is
>barely going to have reasonable travel times in the GG's moon-system, and
>going from planet to planet is much easier by jump in most cases.
>
>(NOTE: I am NOT trying to encourage a Near-C rock discussion)
>BTW, is there a formula for time-dilation effects that is simple enough to
>use? (I don't do calculus, only simple algebra and statisics.)

So what limit, if any, do you put on the distance from a gravity source
that a T-plate can be and still function? If it's 1000 or 2000 diameters a
misjump of more than a few hundred AU will kill a T-plate ship's crew far
more certainly than a HEPlaR's, especially as the HEPlaR fuel supply may be
enough to allow a jump.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:59:50 -0400
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy

- -----Original Message-----
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
To: traveller@mpgn.com <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 1998 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: Piracy


>>First of all, the 1000 ships per sector is for the regular fleet only.
>It
>>dosen't include subsector fleets (which recieves the same amount of
>funds
>>as the regular fleet, though they spend them differently) and it
>dosen't
>>include planetary navies. Most especially it does not not include
>auxiliaries.
>>Yet most auxiliaries would be quite capable of giving a pirate a hard
>time.
>>
>
>According to the Rebellion Sourcebook:
>"Each SECTOR of the Imperium Theoretically has a group of fleets
>numbering about 1000 ships."  The way I read this is that the total
>number of major combatants in each sector should be 1000 if at full
>strength.  "Reserve fleets are technically considered part of a named
>fleet..."  This indicates to me that the reserves are included in this
>number also.   "At thier lowest level, Imperial ships are organized into
>squadrons (from three to 10 similar ships). Squadrons are grouped into
>permanant numbered fleets (usually three to 10 squadrons per fleet)..."
>This makes a Numbered Fleet between 9 and 100 major combatants.  With 16
>numbered fleets and 16 reserve fleets this brings the number of ships
>per sector to between 288 and 3200 ships.
>
>FSSI shows that the average size of a squadron is 5 combat ships, 3
>scouts, and 4 non-combatants.
>
>The reserve fleets will be next to useless for anti piracy as they are
>manned by reservists and thus spend most of thier time in orbit around
>the high tech, high population worlds in the subsector they are
>assigned.  Although these could be operated almost continously as
>additional sensor platforms. This would have the benifit that pirates
>would not visit these worlds very often.  Also the Navy would keep the
>squadrons together so that they will be ready to fit as a group.  This
>is good for both sides if the navy catches the pirate then it is a
>search and destroy mission, for the pirate they know there is better
>hunting elsewhere and leave.
>
>Charles
>
As Charles has pointed out, the Reserve Fleet is just that HELD IN RESERVE.
Reservists (by today's standards and I can't see why it would change at all)
spend two weeks on active duty a year.  They meet one weekend a month.
Reservists would probably augment the IN and the sub-sector navy when on
active duty for their two weeks.  They might possibly work on their ships to
help keep them up and ready for deployment.  Either way you look at it the
Reserve Forces are not there in ANY numbers that would be of any help to the
pirate interdiction role.
Thom Harris

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:15:42 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: SFB, automation, stuff (was Re: Piracy...)

At 12:54 AM 10/23/98 -0700, you wrote:
>>From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
>>Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
>...
>>>>>  So, at maximum sensor range (IIRC?) a single "broadside" will inflict
>...
>>All aproaches from behind the planet to remain hidden for the examples below.
>
>  yeah, but that only works because SFB is 2-D :)
>
>...
>>>  Unless the crews are pirates, I suspect. One guy watching the boards
>>>wouldn't work? People make lots of jokes about computers using vacuum
>>>tubes in Trav, but then they assume that software will never get past
>>>the pong level?
>>
>>But the guns will be unmaned if the crew is standing down.  That was my
>>point.  You will not have everybody at their station all the time.  You just
>>agreed with me.  The pirate knows when he will attack an can have his crew
>>on station.  The SDB never knows when all hell will break loose.
>
>  I didn't agree - I implied that maybe automation (toggled by a human
>for offensive weapons) would handle a few minutes of the engagement at
>some degraded function. You disagree with that premise?
>

Good point and one that I will consede too.  A ship in this situation would
be foolish not to have the best gunner programs money can buy.

>...
>>Stop 50 missles on balistic targeting with no gunners in the turrets and 3
>>seconds warning?  Real good crew.
>
>  I don't know where ballistic targetting came into this, but I doubt

No targeting laser to give the attack away.  That's what balistic targeting
is for.

>that the PD lasers are run by Mk. I eyeballs. It's possible that there
>may be automation in PD functions, even at TL 6-7.
>
>  Three seconds? Engagement range? d=1/2at^2? Show me, please.
>

If the attacker speed is high (.5c) then 3 seconds is about all the warning
you get from c speed sensors.  Range is not that important, it rate of
closure that count.  If you close in three second for the detection point 3
second is all they get but this is a mute point anyway.  The sensor
discussion killed this type of pirate anyway.

>...
>>>others habitations (the Alabama (?) comes to mind).
>>
>>Then who builds the merc cruisers, armed merchants, and the corsairs?
>
>  I'll assume that they're built at shipyards? If you're playing in the
>Imperium, then logically they'd be shipyards under 3I supervision, with
>instructions about building warships without end-user certificates, no
>Scout Ships of Doom, maybe submitting paperwork to INI so they can start
>by looking at vessel capabilities?
>
>  I doubt that most campaigns (CT/HG) would allow merchants to buy missile
>bays, PA barbettes, and meson guns.
>

True but what about mercinary companies?  Where do pirates start any way?

But that is mute.  The sensor discussion did it for me.  A system with a
good sensor array and a few well stationed SDBs out at about 50 dias. would
be pirate proof to all but a AHL class pirate making a full scale attack and
short of a really improbable mutiny that is not going to happen.

You win.  Pirate don't work in defended systems.

Charles L.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 23:24:39 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: The Imperial fleet

Charles Prevatte writes:

>FS says that the ordinary (mothball fleet) in the the Corrador subsecter.
>Just from the AHL and Plackwell ships there are a lot of tons of capital
>ships there.

You're misinterpreting an ambiguous word. The reserves in Corridor are
the regular ships stationed in Corridor. What you call the mothball fleet
(ship in ordinary) is something else.
 
>>Would you care to explain how they managed to time their approach to
>>coincide with the victim leaving? And you still haven't told me how long
>>they spend on the approach.
> 
>Cold gas manuver and the planets gravity well for breaking and slingshoting
>just like the apolo missions.

What I meant was that you have to start the run in before your intended
victim leaves the starport.

>Time would be about equal to the time it takes to boost out from the planet
>to 100 dia. You have more initial speed but you do not accelerate.

How did you get the higher initial speed if not by accelerating? And before
you cliam that you built up the speed before you jumped into the system,
that means your timing problem becomes even bigger.

>This lets to match speeds with either a freshly arrived ship or one on the
>way out.

A freshly arrived ship and one that is outbound is have very different
vectors.

>>You can maintain a scedule for outbound ships at the expense of losing
>>about a day per jump (which comes to several jumps per year, which is why
>I don't think it would be used), but there's no way you can time an arrival
>>closer than plus/minus a day or so.
> 
>Wait a minute here.  A planet moves a long distance in a day.  Almost
>100dias for earth.  A similar planet with a shorter year would be imposible
>to hit with that kind of time slop facter with and regularity.

One explanation (not canonical, but compatible with canon) is that jumpspace
navigation lets you aim for a spot relative to any sufficiently large
gravity point source.
  
>Jump time = 168 hours +- 10%

Well, the rules differ slightly from version to version. Another version is
7 days +- 1 day.
 
>Canon says the jump is 'straght line travel' that can not intersect the 100
>dia limit of any object over 1 mile.

I think that is right in at least one version of the rules (maybe more).
OTOH this effect is totally ignored in other versions. I don't think it
has ever been mentioned as part of the background events.

>Problem people.  What if the planet you want to go to is on the oposite side
>on it's sun from you when you want to jump?  Do you wait half of that
>planet's year?

>I don't think that the colonial and subsector fleets are the same thing.

Sometimes they are and sometimes they're not. Subsector fleets are sometimes
used for both kinds of numbered fleet, both the regular and the colonial.
But in other cases it is used for that fleet which is raised and maintained
by the subsector, and that is the colonial or, as it is also sometimes
called, the Imperial Reserve fleet.

>I think we are both saying the same thing. That there is the IN and a local
>forces both present in the Marches Secter.

Right. Individual planets pay 30% of their military budget to the Imperium.
The subsector government retains half of that and turns over the other half
to the regular forces.

>>>>No I don't. I have accounted for planetary armies, because I have assigned
>>>>70% of the canonical 3% to planetary forces (No, I tell a small lie: I have
>>> 
>>>but does canon say thats the break down?
>>
>>Yes.
> 
>In something other than Striker?  I think our problem may be the the
>economic system in Striker maybe oversimplified to speed play.  I don't have
>Striker but I am looking for it so I can say for sure.  I'm just fishing for
>an answer.

Certainly _Striker_ simplifies the matter. It says "roughly 30%" which
indicates that there may be variations in that figure or that it is not
exactly 30%. Maybe the true figure is 29% or 31%. My point is that it is
certainlynot going to be 5% or 10%.

>I'm looking for a source other than striker to confirm the numbers.

Well, _TCS_ says Cr500 per citizen (which works out as 5% under my
assumptions) for the navy alone. So _Striker_ gives a lower figure than
TCS.

>>>Maintainence would go up with ship and base age.
>>
>>The highest mountain in Scotland is Ben Nevis.
> 
>I do not understand this comment.

Sorry. That was a bit snide. What I should have said was: The 10% maintenance
figure is a simplified one that applies to a whole navy consisting of ships
of all ages. It's an average. So although old ships surely cost more than 10%
to maintain, the newest ships of the navy will cost correspondingly less to
maintain.

Also, the actual physical maintenance seems to be the least of the 10%
figure. Far more goes to ship replacement, personnel, pensions, support
structures, bases, training camps, etc. So the difference is propably
not all that great.


      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: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:22:34 -0500
From: Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Hot Ships...and I don't mean stolen! ( was Re: Perpetual Motion )

Rob Prior wrote:

> For reference:
 
> My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
> should be glowing red when running at full power. MegaTraveller starships
> are really hot!  

Yeah, Traveller ships in all versions draw *way* too much power. 

> After verifying that I had given him the correct _gaming_
> statistics, he then decided to lump it under the "suspension of disbelief"
> catagory, and went off muttering about "scientific illiterates trying to
> repeal the law of gravity" -- which is when i told him about contragrav :-)

<g>

> The solutions are:
 
> 1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
> realistic sensor rules.
 
> 2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of starships.
 
> 3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
> maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
> mechanism).

As tough as it would be to do, I'd vote for 1.

Bruce Macintosh added...

> I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
> need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
> power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
> require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
> special high-temp radiators...

No, I don't think we could get the power requirements down to
*realistic* levels, but we could (and should) lower them to more
reasonable ones. As for weapons, of course, they are going to be
*very* power hungry, and that shouldn't change. Ships with beam
weapons are going to need big fusion engines. OTOH, we don't have run
those big fusion engines at full power 24 hours a day do we? Well, it
*seems* like we always have, but I've never thought that was very
reasonable.

As a mind experiment, let's say a 100 dton Type S Scout has an 80MW
fusion engine that it can throttle back to 5% of maximum output, so it
will always be producing 4MW while it's running. 

When it is drifting through space with minimal life support, using
passive sensors and maintaining only a trickle charge to the drives or
weapons, let's say, it *requires* only 2 MW's. So maybe it turns off
the fusion engine and runs off of stored power (fuel cells, batteries,
powercells, etc) only occasionally powering the engine back up to
recharge the batteries, or, if your TU won't allow for turning fusion
engines on and off like gasoline engines (I wouldn't allow *quite*
that much leeway ;), runs the fusion engine at it's lowest possible
level (4MW) it can. Combined with a little stealthing shouldn't that
drop the range of detection *way* down?

Now, if our Scout uses it's drives, active sensors, or *heaven forbid*
it's weapons, it will increase it's power consumption, and have to
stoke the fusion engine up to higher levels. Suddenly, it's a "hotter"
object visible on sensors at a longer range, but not necessarily from
every direction. 

If the power is going mainly to the drives, and the drives dispose of
*most* of the extra energy in one direction..aft, then our Scout's
detection level might not go up much in any direction except from the
rear. 

IMO, active sensors should be like spotlights, in that where ever the
ship aims them it can resolve a target much better, but is also much
easier to detect. 

Beam weapons are a different case. I suspect they will never be all
that efficient, so a lot of the power they consume will have to be
dealt with separately. Putting special high-temp radiators on their
turrets, in their bays, and around their spinal mounts is probably the
best way to handle them, too.  In any case, a ship using beam weapons
should light up like a Christmas Tree, but that doesn't bother me in
the least. Once the firing starts all bets are off anyway.

Eris

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:09:00 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Wierd Bounces

Am I the only one getting these bounces?  The message that 'bounced'
reached the list, I saw it this afternoon. 

<<<
Your message

  To:      traveller@MPGN.COM
  Subject: Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism
  Sent:    Sat, 24 Oct 1998 01:14:02 +1300

did not reach the following recipient(s):

traveller@MPGN.COM on Sun, 25 Oct 1998 12:07:28 +1300
    Unable to deliver the message due to a communications failure
    MSEXCH:IMS:Munden's Bar:MUNDENS:RADAGAST 0 (00120339) Too Many Hops
[snip]
>>>

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1040
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1041



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: The Imperial Navy
Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)
Re: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )
Re: "It Isn't Traveller"
The Reserve Fleet (Was: Piracy)
Re: Fuzzies (was re: Travellerish Fiction)
re: Fighters
multiple copies of messages
Re: Law and fanzines

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 13:31:30 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

Gary (TravelrTNE@aol.com) writes:

>>>"A numbered fleet, depending on its mission, may have between two and 10
>>>squadrons amounting to between 50 and 200 ships."  We're previously told a
>>>squadron is 3-10 ships.
>> 
>>Where? Not previously in that particular essay.
> 
>Yes, *in that particular essay.*  In the header, first paragraph...

You're right. I can't understand how I missed that. I looked it over
specifically to find it and still missed it. My brain must have tuned it
out. The human mind is a funny thing... and I don't mean funny ha ha.

>"At their lowest level, Imperial ships are organized into squadrons (from
>three to 10 similar ships)."

Apparently I'm not the only one whose brain tunes out things it dosen't want
to notice. Later in the same line you quote it says "(usually three to 10
squadrons per fleet)". Usually. Usually dosen't mean always. So the 50 ship
fleets could have unusual numbers of fleets. For that matter, although the
text says that squadrons at most have 10 similar ships, we have one canonical
example of oversized squadrons, so that isn't as set in stone as you think,
either.

>>Answer: Yes. Despite what anyone may think, _Striker_ is no less canonical
>>than any other official source. And _Striker_, Book 2, p. 38 says:
> 
>Striker should be left to it's primary purpose and that's miniatures gaming.

That's your opinion, and you're welcome to it. My arguments are based on the
assumption that it is canonical.

>The econ stuff was obviously not thought through the background.  

Oh, you noticed that, did you? Only it is the other way around. That part of
the background that has the Imperium, an interstellar state surrounded by
several hostile states of the same order of magnitude as itself spending
about one third of what Canada does today on it's defense, is the part that
wasn't thought through. The figures in _Striker_ were thought through (well,
maybe not thought through, just taken from the real world). That's the true
problem with _Striker_ and _TCS_. Not that they say something inconsistent
with other parts of the canon, but that the other parts of the canon are
implausible. If I thought a defense budget of 0.5% made sense then I'd be
the first to advocate lowering the _Striker_ figures to match the other
parts of the canon. I addressed that very point in another part of the
same post. Maybe your brain tuned it out?

>>Also, the figure is low if compared to the figures that _Trillion Credit
>>Squadron_ and _Pocket Empires_ provide. TCS use 5% on the Navy alone, no
>>mention of the army; PE figures are fluid, but can reach 20-30% IIRC (I may
>>be a bit off here).
> 
>IMO, none of those are credible for disecting the economics of the Third
>Imperium (or any polity of the OTU).

Well, that settles it, I guess. You don't think they are credible. In that
case those of us who thinks they are credible should obviously realize that
your opinion is more valuable than ours and shut up. I see it all so clearly
now.

I suppose it would be too much to expect your Illustrious Savantcy to provide
us stupid morons with credible figures to base our future calculations on?

In other words, Gary, if you don't think the _Striker_ figures are credible,
then you obviously must have some figures that you think are. I mean, I can't
for a moment imagine that the only reason you don't think them credible is
that that would force you to acknowledge that the subsection of the Traveller
background you like has a few glitches here and there.

>It's obvious GDW didn't use Striker or TCS (or anything even remotely
>resembling Pocket Empires) in creating the background. 

Obviously not. If they had, the problem wouldn't exist.

>All of them are made to be playable *games* (specificially games for
>players to have pet "pocket empires" and polities and go to war w/ each
>other) and to not simulate "reality" (such as it is) for the OTU.

All of them were made to be playable games based on the Traveller background.
You may as well claim that each of the adventures were made to be a playable
adventure and not to reflect reality "such as it is" for the OTU. That rather
misses the point. The true value of the Traveller Universe to me is that I
can mine it for background material for my personal TU. As such the historical
background and adventures are important to me. And it is especially important
to me that they are mutually consistent. And that is why, as important as the
background is, the underlying rules and mechanics IMO are even more important,
because if they are in order, they will force _future_ Traveller authors
to produce stuff that is also compatible. Otherwise we get one author having
four KINUNIR class ships defending a whole subsector while the neighboring
is defended by several BatRons. We get planets with 50 inhabitants buying
50,000 T monitors, we get low population empires giving multi-billion empires
a hard time, etc. And, in the present case, we get authors who write an
adventure involving small mercenary actions calculating a world's military
forces from _Striker_ and getting one result and authors writing a smuggling
adventure getting the same figures from _FFW_ and getting two different
results.

Maybe you think that keeping a mismatched puzzle piece, thus ensuring that
the picture can never be complete, is preferable to losing one or two of
your favorite pieces. That's a matter of opinion. We disagree. Fine. But
when you berate me for advocating trimming some of the pieces to make them
fit on the grounds that a) They fit, only I am too stupid to realize that,
or b) they belong to a different picture, then I come close to losing my
patience with you.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
"Facts are stubborn things, but not half so stubborn as fallacies."
                - Stella Maynard in "Anne of the Island"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:45:05 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Finding ships in the Oort Cloud (not quite as long or tedious.)

At 11:49 AM 10/22/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>>>(By the way, if anyone cares, the closest you can see this scout with your
>>>naked eye is about 6000 km (as a 6th magnitude star.))
>>>
>>>
>>So it would be easily visible in orbit?  Or would atmospheric condition make
>>that range much shorter from earth?  This could make for some interesting
>>intel gathering ability on the competion with the aid of a small telescope.
>
>Spaceships in low orbit are indeed easily visible (look at the space shuttle,
>which is about the size of a typical scout...) 6th magnitude stars are visible
>from a good dark site with good eyes, so you could see even medium-high orbits.
>
>>This sensitivity number, what are the units
>They are gaming units from the FFS2/Definitive Sensor Rules. It's a log scale-
>basically it's log(range/5km)+6   (the "5km" and "+6" are there for
>obscure historical reasons) and the sensitivity gives the range at which you
>can detect a "typical" target (a 100-ton 100-MW scout with no special
>masking.) Unitless log numbers are much easier to work with than making poor
>players multiply and divide in real flux units. The log numbers were
>derived, though, from a real model of spacecraft emission and sensor
>sensitivity, done in perfectly reasonable physical units like 
>photons/m2/angstrom (I've never liked "lumens" much - archaic concept.) 
>

Sorry, light is not my normal band.  It's been a few years sence my last
major optical design project.  Most things that can be done with light can
be done cheaper and easier in other ways in the areas that I work in at
least.  Most of my work requires real time data with loop times of a second
or less.

>>>[PEMS-15.5 system]
>>>would probably take a month o
>>>two to really find the scout, at a cost of MCr 500,000 for the system.
>>Pricey!  Wonder what the resale value of that would be for a pirate...>
>>Why steal a shutle with 2 250,000Mcr satalites just waiting to be grabed?
>>Or are they stations?  Crew rotation would take a jump capable ship for a
>>station but it's doable.  Say a 3 month on, 3 month off duty schedule with
>>one full spare crew to fill in for sickness or injury.
>
>That was the example for a high-population world. The sensors are on
>stations, somewhere at around 10 AU (so you can reach them with 
>non-jump-capable ships), and presumably heavily armed and guarded...
>the sensor array itself masses 50,000 tonnes and is spread out over a tenth 
>of a square kilometer, so it won't fit in most pirate ships. 
>

Yeow! Thats one big mother!  Just out of curiousty and as an adventure seed,
what kind of salvage could be gotten from such an array?  As in credit per
ton of the array or support equipment like computers salvaged?  What type of
computer would this base need to run the array?  The rest of the bases gear
would be standard stuff I would assume.  Say if one of these sensor bases
were knocked out with a bioweapon by an enemy spy during a war and the PC
hear a rumor and decide to collect the Credit and accidentally bring back
the bioweapon as well. (Evil grin)

>I'm restraining myself from getting into the thermodynamic arguments, so I
>will ask only: "what happens to the electricity you generate with your
>magic thermocouples?" 
>

Bruce they are not magic.  No more so that your photo integration technique.
Look in any Omega temperture catalog for simple examples.  They are called
thermal couples.  They do not absorb much heat they just produce electicity
in the presents of heat by converting the molecutar motion caused by heat
into electron motion.  It is a standard condition of dissimiler junctions.
You were right about your baliwick and I admited it once I had the hard
data.  Look at a thermal couple catalog and you will see their basic
operation is as I have discribed.  The why is real long and technical as it
gets into the nature of matter and was part of the theory I was taught 15
years ago in coledge.  This effect is being harness in the last few years to
produce solid state devices that can heat or cool and devices that when
exposed to a heat gradiant produce a decent amount of power, as compared to
basic thermal couples.  When just heated they produce less power.  There is
no magic.  The efficency of these devices is low in the power production
mode.  (less that 10% and varies greatly with type and designed for application)

As for the electricity it goes back into the system to allow a lower total
drain on the batteries.  I supposed a ship running only on batteries to cut
its signature.  The converters were to reuse some of the heat to limit
battery draw and the waste heat associated with battery discharge.  It would
be better to reuse the heat than just waste it.  In effect though you only
reduce the total signature by part of the theoritical saving as when the
heat signature drops, power from the converters drop as well and the power
used per second by the system for work would remain constant once
homeostasis is reached.  Depending on the performance curves of year 5000
thermoelectic devices the heat signature saving could be as high as half the
battery's waste heat.  If you insulated the battery compartment and lined it
with thermoelectrics you might see less saving at a considerable cost saving
over lining the hull.  Doing both would produce the best results but cost
the most.

Why do you find the concept fo thermoelectic devices so odd?  You already
work with one of their relatives the photoelectric device.  Thermoelectric
devices are just IR tuned solar cells in theory in practise their makeup is
simpler in some ways and different in others do to a much greater temperture
range.

The current market has been using thermoelectric cooler/heaters for the last
3 years that I am aware of.  Those warmer/ice chests that plug into your
cigerete lighter was one of the first consumer products to use this tech.

The cost/effeciency problem (like with solar cells) are keeping their market
presence low.  Until price per watt drops by a facter of 1000 or more you
are not likly to see these devices outside research labs or satalites.  Oh,
did I mention that one of the other variation on this theme is used in
nuclear batteries?  They are all basicly the same concept.  Some form of
energy is use to push the electron accross the potential barrier of the
junction and free it to flow as electricity.

Charles L.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:39:15 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )

There was an equipment sheet for the standard cargo container in the
MegaTraveller Journal. Forget the issue number (and I'm spring-cleaning
the games room, so I can't check right now).

If you can't locat it, email me privately and I'll send you a copy. It was
one of the sheets I designed for DGP that Roger hasn't paid me for yet, so
I feel quite reasonable about letting people use it.

In fact, would there be a demand for MT equipment sheets? I have a lot of
these, and could do them up in PDF format for posting somewhere (maybe
Freelance Traveller)?

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 98 17:39:58 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: "It Isn't Traveller"

On 10/22/98 at 11:19 PM,  "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net> said:

>Heplar may be more realistic, but it meant (IME) PC's taking running
>jumps constantly, and spending about 3 times as long to get to/from
>jump points, and GG's became accessable only via jump, as did the
>outter system. 

>in a T-plate universe, the outer system is still a long trip, but is
>at least doable with standard craft. In a Heplar (which is STILL
>unrealistically efficient, IIRC) universe, a mainworld orbiting a GG
>is barely going to have reasonable travel times in the GG's
>moon-system, and going from planet to planet is much easier by jump
>in most cases.


Stutterwarp. STL only stutterwarp.


Eris,
    the heretic

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 14:14:56 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: The Reserve Fleet (Was: Piracy)

Thom Harris writes:
> Subject: Re: Piracy
> 
> - -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph R. Dietrich <yikes@evansville.net>
> To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
> Date: Thursday, October 22, 1998 10:51 AM
> Subject: Re: Piracy
> 
> 
> >>>>The reserve fleets will be next to useless for anti piracy as they are
> >>>>manned by reservists and thus spend most of their time in orbit around
> >>>>the high tech, high population worlds in the subsector they are
> assigned.
> >>>
> >>>This is a totally unwarranted assumption. Nowhere in the rules do I find
> >>>any support for the idea that the colonial fleets and the system defense
> >>>forces are not trained to the same standard as the regular navy. [...]
> >>
> >>FSotSI pg 6 [...]
> >
> >[snip of references]
> >
> >>I believe this implies that reserve and colonial units are not as well
> >>equipped or trained as Regular fleets.
> >
> >"Not as well equipped or trained" does not mean "next to useless for anti
> >piracy." If the difference is TL 14 BBs v. TL 15 BBs (or cruisers, or
> >whatever), then I would say that the Colonial fleets are more than adequate
> >to deal with pirates. After all, Defense CruRon Regina (the SDB example in
> >_FSSI_) is a *CruRon*.
> >
> >Nor are reservist or colonial units necessarily incompetent, which is what
> >the first statement above implies. They are simply not front-line units.
> >"Somewhat less training and experience" could be Gunnery 3 instead of
> >Gunnery 4, for example.
> >
> >Joseph R. Dietrich
> 
> I think that you misunderstood what he was saying.  Reservists by nature are
> NOT out in the space lanes in their ships.  An example of Reserve activity
> would be that they meet one weekend a month and go active for two weeks in
> the summer.  This would then cause one to believe that the ships of the
> Reserve Fleet are ALMOST moth-balled and would take some time to bring
> on-line.  Reservists routinely take they active duty period fixing up there
> "vehicles" and training to maintain their standards for going to war.  You
> would see the occasional Reserve Ship out and about just so they can blow
> the cob webs out.  Think for a minute, if you are only on active duty for
> two weeks and a jump takes one week then you would only be able to take your
> ship out and right back and be done for the year.
> 
> Thom Harris
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
Charles R Hensley writes:

>Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
> 
>Where does it say that the training takes place in orbit around the high
>population worlds?
>
>I based my statement on US Reservists, i.e. 1 weekend a month and 2
>weeks a year.

As others have told you, the Imperial Reserve Fleets are not that kind of
reserves. The term is confusing and I suggest using 'colonial' instead.
Colonial fleets are raised and supported at the subsector level and not
stationed outside their subsectors except in emergencies whereas the
regular fleets are raised Imperium-wide and stationed wherever there is
need of them. That's the only difference. You can have as long and
illustrious a full-time career in the colonial fleets as you can in the
regular. And the same goes for the planetary navies, for that matter.
There does not even seem to be any difference in your chances of getting
a particular mission nor of getting decorations and promotions, though I
admit that that is rather implausible and should propably be considered
a misleading effect of the CGS. 

Back when I was playing in a TCS campaign I did talk to my Referee about
just that kind of reserves, and we worked out several different levels of
preparedness for my ships. Unfortunately I can't recall the specifics and
my files are on some floppies somewhere. The lowest was mothballed (pumped
full of inert gas and stuck inside asteroids). That had an initial cost, I
forget how much (1%?), but no 1% per year upkeep. Reactivating took a
complete refit (25% of original cost). The 1% per year was sticking them in
a parking orbit with a caretaker crew and giving them an annual maintenance.
That needed the 10% refit from canon rules to get it going. Maintaining
reserves like you are thinking of (except they spent one month instead of
two weeks each year) cost, I think, 2%. They could be activated without a
refit, but still needed time to train a crew. Having  a full-time crew
working six identical ships two months each in rotation cost 4% but meant
that they could be activated almost overnight, with a 1/6th trained crew as
cadre for each. 

>at this rate the ships would not be able to leave orbit and get the
>crews back to their regular jobs in time.  If the reserves work
>differently IYTU then I made a bad assumption.

It dosen't matter how they work IMTU. What I am trying to discuss is how
they work or at least may mork in the OTU.
 
><snip>
>>>I would say this is both combatants and non-combatants, thus the
>>>average 31.25 combatants per fleet would be a good number.
>>
>>For reasons I've stated in my reply to Gary, I disagree.
> 
>well IMTU i will disagree with you

And if I didn't think it presumptuous of me (since it would imply that I had
any right to interfere with YTU) I would give you my blessing to do so.
 


      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: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:49:33 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Fuzzies (was re: Travellerish Fiction)

In mail you write:

> Leonard Erikson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> BTW, with regards to the "kobolds" thread elsewhere on the list, I
> think Fuzzies would be a fun race to work up. They *may* be a bit less
> intelligent than humans, but that's not a big handicap. 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> IMO, considering the evidence presented in the books, the Fuzzies
> may have been _more_ intelligent. Dropped in the middle of a planet
> full of big predators and few usable food sources, the fragile little
> fellows survived.

I'm ignoring the two non-Piper books, and sticking with the three books
by Piper. BTW, the third Piper book when it was finally unearthed
(several years after those "sequels" to the first two) makes it pretty
likely that the Fuzzies are native (for that matter, certian biological
details in the first two books made it rather likely).

> Faced with a First Contact situation, they made
> friendly relations and allies before the language barrier was even
> broken. As adults, they learned an alien tongue - spoken at a
> wavelength they generally don't speak in - with relative ease.
> Add to that the complete failure of a professional psychiatrist to
> cause lasting mental aberrations in a Fuzzy, no matter how he
> tried.

We actually have two *interesting* results in the third Fuzzy book.
You see, as part of the trial of the "fuzzy fagin" people from book 2,
it becomes necessary to show that Fuzzies can lie, otherwise it won't
be possible to veridicate them. 

Trying to teach Fuzzies to lie almost drives the human pyschs nuts, and
does come rather close to threatening the stability of a couple of
Fuzzies. 

> Longer term evidence of their inborn mental stability: they've
> been living for generations with horrible predators and a chemical
> imbalance that makes most of their babies be horribly twisted
> stillbirths, yet they still play, laugh and love each other.

Human cultures *do* adapt to similar circumstances. 

> They're sane, friendly and resourceful. Piper created a race
> that I hope we encounter some day - because if nothing else,
> Fuzzies seemed to have a talent for bringing out the best in
> humans.

Well, I think they'd be a great addition to Traveller. Of course, the
legal situation makes them unlikely to ever be official, but we can
have fun. I once started to work them up for my D&D campaign. Picture a
party of adventurers suddenly surrounded by a bunch of 2-foot tall
Fuzzies bearing the sort of "choppo-diggos" shown on the book covers.
:-) 

Oh yes, the original Hoka stories by Poul Anderson & Gordon R. Dickson
have been re-released ("Hoka! Hoka! Hoka!"). They are another race fit
to drive characters nuts. Having both Fuzzies *and* Hokas in the same
campaign might be a bit much. :-)

Getting back to Fuzzies though, I can see them mostly winding up in the
Scouts. They'd make a great partner on a "one man" Scout. I'm not sure
how they'd do in Army or Marines. Navy is another possibility as is
Merchant and "Rogue".

For a truly *silly* bit of cross-threading, it occurs to me that a
standard "Free Trader" or "Fat Trader" could *easily* hold an entire
Fuzzy *clan*. Maybe the Fuzzies are the "Space Gypsies". It'd be a
*lot* more practical for them, given that a 2 foot Fuzzy requires
1/27th the space, air and food that a 6 foot human does (actually,
given that they'd need a higher metabolism to maintain body heat, even
*with* their fur we might want to double or even triple those figures).
With automated cargo handling (pretty much a given) their size wouldn't
be a handicap.

I also like the interesting possibilities during negotiations:

Captain: Yeek! {He expects us to think *this* junk is valuable?}
Steward: Yeek! {Well, we *do* have those synthetic sunstones we've been
                trying to unload for the last year...}
Broker: Excuse me?
Captain: Sorry, we just saying you got much good stuff here.

:-)

Also, going by stuff from Piper's books I expect to see a lot of
Fuzzies in education and medicine (especially nursing and pysch rehab
work). 

Hey! That's it. Fuzzies in the Army/Marines are combat medics. They can
get to wounded more easily, and being small doesn't matter for most
first aid. 

They'd do good in civilian rescue work too. They can get into places a
human can't, and they'd be great for reassuring kids (how tend to get
into places adults can't). 

Other Fuzzy things to design:

.22 caliber "rifle" and "pistol".
??? caliber "heavy rifle"

I figure a .22 rifle and pistol would be normal weapons. The .22LR is
useful, and standard. I can't really think of any other round that
*could* be used in a "pistol" for them. A rifle in the same caliber (a
*very* cut down carbine) is still quite useful. 

The "heavy rifle" would be the Fuzzy equivalent of the 600 nitro or the
like. A standard caliber, but picked to be the heaviest that an
"average" Fuzzy can safely handle. Needed to keep them from becoming
"snacks" for the local lion equivalent. 

Fuzzy comm gear would be slightly non-standard (and more expensive)
mostly because it needs to be smaller and lighter *and* it needs to
have three "settings": normal audio, ultrasonic only, and both at once.

The ultrasound only would be useful for stealth operations. Normal only
would interoperate best with standard comm gear. And "both" would allow
for carrying on both normal and ultra communication at the same time.

<snicker>

I just had this *lovely* image pop into my head. A Fuzzy DI teaching a
survival course. During the portions of such training where you get
dumped in the wild to practice your skills, he's notorious for popping
up unexpectedly. Usually immediately after you've done something
*stupid*. First indication you have is the Yeek! followed by some pithy
comment in pidgin (Fuzzies *can* speak proper Standard, they just don't
see the point except on formal occasions). 

"You think animal dumb? *Blind* animal see this is trap!"

"Oh! Maybeso you bait trap with self? Very smart... Not!"

This gives him quite a reputation, and is annoying as hell. On the
other hand, it does show that he's paying attention. :-)

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:08:06 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Fighters

At 01:47 PM 10/23/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:45:22 +0000
>From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
>Subject: re: Fighters
>
>
>Gurps is pretty much the same.  With a good gunners and tageting software
>it's 1 laser one dead missle per turn.  The only way to get misile hits is
>a
>large salvo that closes fast enough to overwhelm the defenses.  It is
>doable
>but not very cost effective.  Those misiles are pricy.
>*****************
>I agreee about the chances to hit,  in the game we ran one turret stopped 4
>missiles (but 4 more got through)
>
>I have my book with me so I looked it up.  I was just reading the space
>combat section when this came up.
>Do to turn limits in the combat situation you have to shoot a ship or a
>missle but not both with each laser.
>************
>GT 169  a weapon may be fired in point defense even it it engaged another
>target in the direct fire phase.
>
>
>
>1st second shoot three misiles  (likely but not curtain)  gunner skill 15 +
>15 accuacy +4 aiming +10 computer (very good comp.) +2 active sensor +10
>defensive fire  +4 rof =60 - 41 for range 1 = 19  You must role less the 21
>on three d6 but 17 and 18 always fail.
>*************
>I get: 15+15acc +10comp +2 active sensor +10pd +4rof -39 Range (PD fire may
>only be taken against ramming attempts.) = 17 or less for the first missile

Yep, caught that and corrected it and reposted.  (sigh, why didn't I catch
that the firsth time.)  Missed the pd completely though.

>each additional missile engaged is a further -2 to hit. he does however
>have 3 lasers so can roll 3 times on each attempt.  this gives him
>17,15,13,11,9,7,5,3,1 that he needs to roll against for point defense...so
>most likely 2-3 missile hits.

Damn!, missed that you can ingage different targets several times with the
same weapon.

I want a ROF 30 Gattling laser cannon for point defense.  No range to speek
of but +15 ROF fire bonus to swat misiles...lot's of missles.  Also good for
crowd control on planet. (Evil Grin)

>
>
>With this you can have a 10 or less to kill a missle at 30 hexes.
>*****************888
>the TL 12 lasers only have a range of 8 hexes.
>

not according to the table on page 173 1/2d = 10 or 13.  Max is much more.
Love that acc works out to max range.

Note: there is a miss print on the last page.  Hexes are 2000miles not 10,000.

This makes a ship with a high vector very dangerious.  His misiles move fast
and hit hard!

Misiles are nasty again in GT.

Note:  1 small nuke = radioactive gas cloud where ship use to be on a direct
hit.

I think your SDB may need some more armor.

I don't have my vehicle book with me.  Do you loose DR from an attack?  Only
on 6s?  How does this work?

Humm...Some extra E_banks in case you loose the reacter would be a good
design idea.  Plus a spare reacter of course.

>
> The
>problem is how fast are the misile moving 1g = 1 hex per second
>********************
>per turn...not per second (turns are 20 min long)
>
>
>
>
>3 missles hit if missle gunner role his success number.
>***************
>it is actually a contest of skills for the pilot of the ship and the
>missile gunner this hapens before PD fire, and missile that miss can be
>ignored for that turn (they may have enough Dv to loop around and come
>back).
>

Ouch!  Hire that wonder kid pilot!  He's BETTER than armor!

"I don't know what he would have cost but he would have been worth it!" Head
bad guy to 'personel manager' in Under Seige.

>
>**********8
>what Charles neglects to mention is the effects of velocity on damage...if
>there is only a modest vector differnce between the ship and the missile
>(say 5 hexes) even one can do massive damage to a scout....
>
>the missile (best case only one gets through) will do 6dx500 (5). the scout
>has DR 200, so effective DR is 40....assuming average damage for the
>missile 3.5*6*500=10,500 -40 = 10,460. the scout has 15,000 Hp and so will
>take 6 critical hits (6 rolls on the major damage table) almost certan to
>be crippled, possibly a floating wreck....)
>

Good point.  Misiles have gotten REAL nasty!  and the SDB need a lot more armor.

I hope to have a group up and running in a few weeks (first time I'll be
home) to test out some of this.

Charles L.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:47:22 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: multiple copies of messages

What's up with this? I'm getting 3-4 copies of old messages - like a 
horrible nightmare, the piracy thread continuing from the grave...\

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 00:23:36 GMT
From: aspqrz@curie.dialix.com.au (Phillip McGregor)
Subject: Re: Law and fanzines

On Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:09:27 -0400, Eris Reddoch wrote:

>On 10/24/98 at 02:32 PM,  steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com> said:
>
>>>         Somebody knows what is the current international legal status of
>>> fanzines? Suppose you want to print one, send it worldwide, and
>>> charge production & shipping costs. In practice, you are selling it.
>>> Assume it is a fanzine about Traveller. Something sounds illegal in
>>> this, even if you acknowledge all TMs <ducking>.
>>>         Carlos Alos-Ferrer
>
>>That would be, at a minimum, a violation of the Traveller trademark.
>>You need a license from Far Future Enterprises to put the Traveller
>>name on it.  This will apply to the whole 'zine and not just the
>>title.
>
>Hum, well speaking as a total layman...I know you couldn't put
>Traveller in the title, but does it require a license to produce a
>fanzine *about* a trademarked game?  If the fanzine acknowledged
>trademarks and didn't use copywrited material, wouldn't it be legal
>to publish fan originated material?

When I did "Dark Star" (issue #3 of which will hopefully come out "real soon
now" <sigh>) all I did was send a copy to Imperium Games and Marc Miller (who
actually requested a copy through the TML before his reached him!). There were
no legalistic mutterings at all. I think Eris' comments are 100% spot on.

Phil
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip McGregor | aspqrz@curie.dialix.oz.au | www.fandom.net/~PGD/index.htm
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
YES! StaRPlay:Armageddon and Dark Star are now available from www.hyperbooks.com
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Co-designer, Space Opera (FGU); Author, Rigger Black Book (FASA)

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1041
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 24 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1042



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Deja Vu all over again!
Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)
Tonight on TML...
Re: 
Re: Deja Vu all over again! 
Re: Deja Vu all over again!
Re: 
Re: Law and fanzines
Re Economica
This is test #(xx+4)
Re: Jumping from 100 diameters
Re: Radiators
Re: Mutiny
re: Done to Death (was Thank You)
Re: Space Viking (OT)
Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)
Re: Deja Vu all over again!
Re: Deja Vu all over again! 
Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber
Anti-Hijack Program for GT
Re: Law and fanzines
Re: Sensors in GURPS
Re: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Traveller Data file for GURPS Character Assistance?
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 01:53:10 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again!

Yes.  BTW, did anybody see my adventure seed post (piracy)? I either
didn't get it, or I lost it in the pile of repeat transmissions.

That's what I get for not CCing myself.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 06:39:59 EDT
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

In a message dated 10/23/98 6:00:04 PM Central Daylight Time,
a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:

<< The only thing I can't figure out is what are "components" >>
Components are the divisions within Gender.

1-gender. all are female
2-gender: male female
3-gender: Male Female Neuter (or) EggBearer Donor (and I forget for the
moment)
4-gender etc
most above 3 have genders labelled 1-n.

Marc

(thanks for the compliment)

M

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 12:02:21 -0400
From: cmdrx <cmdrx@magicnet.net>
Subject: Tonight on TML...

(To all the phytonites in TMLand...)

"Tonight on TML we will discuss the phenomenon of Deja Vu.  That bizzare
feeling we sometimes get that we've experienced something be..."

"Tonight on TML we will discuss the phenomenon of Deja Vu.  That bizzare
feeling we sometimes get that we've experienced something be..."

"Tonight on TML we will discuss the phenomenon of Deja Vu.  That bizzare
feeling we sometimes get that we've experienced something be..."

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:45:00 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: 

 
> >On that same floorplan is a detail showing the (rough) dimensions of a
> >"Standard" cargo module for convenient loading onto the ship.
> >
> > * Can any of you tell me the dimensions of said cargo module or

3.85tons (<3m x <3m x 6m) Has doors on the end like a modern cargo
container (^--these are just shy of 3m to fit the ceiling height, I
belive)

> > * Can any of you tell me what the source material is that I am talking 
> about?

Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats
 
- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 06:25:15 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again! 

> Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and over again?

Nope.  I just got a pile of 'em I *KNOW* I've read at least once or twice.  Point, click, delete to the rescue...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 21:28:17 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again!

At 01:54 24/10/98 -0500, Eris wrote:
>Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and
over again?

I am too. I thought it was my mail program, especially as I chaecked it
settings and they seemed a little off, however this leads me to belive that
it might just be at the other end :(

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 14:21:41 PDT
From: "Paul Zumstein" <pzumstein@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: 

>From: "Leif O. Pihl" <pihlx001@tc.umn.edu>
>Subject: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )
>
>I remember SOMEWHERE in my collection of stuff (probably in the T1
>supplements) is a floorplan of the 400 ton Subsidized Merchant.  (I 
can't
>find it!!!)
>On that same floorplan is a detail showing the (rough) dimensions of a
>"Standard" cargo module for convenient loading onto the ship.
>
> * Can any of you tell me the dimensions of said cargo module or
>
> * Can any of you tell me what the source material is that I am talking 
about?
>

I believe you can find this information in "Supplement 7 - Traders and 
Gunboats".

PZ

PS The cargo module size was 4 tons.



______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 14:32:05 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: Law and fanzines

Carlos Alos-Ferrer wrote:

>         Somebody knows what is the current international legal status of
> fanzines? Suppose you want to print one, send it worldwide, and
> charge production & shipping costs. In practice, you are selling it.
> Assume it is a fanzine about Traveller. Something sounds illegal in
> this, even if you acknowledge all TMs <ducking>.
>         Carlos Alos-Ferrer

That would be, at a minimum, a violation of the Traveller trademark.
You need a license from Far Future Enterprises to put the Traveller
name on it.  This will apply to the whole 'zine and not just the title.

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 13:03:56 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Economica

Hans was commenting on how striker has some problems meshing with other
canon, as there is a large gap left of unspent military funding...

I was thinking: Striker winds up with X% going to the impies. Y% actually
is needed for the imperial navy. The difference might be going to the
subsector navies.... and don't forget theat the scout service would pull
it's cut from that allocation, as would the Marines and probably houscarls
and special (SS and Sector Level) special units.


William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:25:45 -0500
From: "Leif O. Pihl" <pihlx001@tc.umn.edu>
Subject: This is test #(xx+4)

TEST

If I can see this message in the Traveller-digest Mailing List, I'll know
that others can see my E-mail.

LP

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leif O. Pihl
pager/voicemail: (612) 534-5235
           home: (612) 729-8277
        ICQ no.: 16954097
www.isa.org/~twinc/                                      ISA Twin Cities' page
www.memorial4x4.org                       MN-Go4 Wheelers' Memorial Event page
umn.edu/~pihlx001/                                 personal page [out of date]
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/LPsJeepTJ/             Leif's Jeep TJ site
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/geneology/Blomfeldt.html       family tree
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 18:43:07 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Jumping from 100 diameters

Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com> writes:
>For our worst examples, the spinward marches include a number of M II
>giants...
>the concept of having to travel 5-10 AU to jump would be rather
>unappealing to
>most merchants ;).

I did a couple of worlds like that a decade ago, for my Twilight's Peak
campaign. They break from canon, in that I placed the giants where I
wanted them for plot purposes, rather than where the Spinward Marches
sourcebooks say they should be, but then it's MY Traveller universe :-)

One had the primary belt being well inside the jump interdiction zone
(what I called it). The system used solar sails to boost refined ores out
to the jump limit where they were picked up by merchants.  The culture was
actually pretty reasonable, but didn't bother explaining things to
strangers because everyone knew that _everyone_ knew how things worked
(belts get very few tourists, so most of the belter hadn't met anyone from
outsystem before).

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:07:15 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Tommy Grav <tommy.grav@astro.uio.no>
Subject: Re: Radiators

On Fri, 23 Oct 1998, Bruce Alan Macintosh wrote:

>Another way to get rid of excess heat would be to vent very very very
>hot plasma (accounting for CT-style fuel consumption for power plants),
>but that makes you incredibly easy to detect, since you can't 
>baffle the plasma.

How would this affect sensors. Could the plasma be used to fill up the 
pixels in a passive sensor and therefor help the ship hide in a combat 
situation where it has already been detected and the enemy has no active
sensors.

>Bruce

Tommy Grav
- -------------------------------------------------------------
tommy.grav@astro.uio.no     http://www.uio.no/~tommygr/  
Institute of Astrophysics, UiO, No  
IMTU tn++t4+tg+ ru+ge++ !3i jt+au+st+ls hi++dr-so++zh-sy-sw++ 
 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:32:02 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Mutiny

In mail you write:

>>I've been wondering: considering that mutiny is one of the more
>>sensible sources of pirate ships we've discussed, how big a ship
>>could a mutiny believably take place on?

A Soviet destroyer or cruiser attempted mutiny in the Baltic. They
*almost* made it to Swedish waters. And there are *strong* suspicions
about that Soviet sub that ran aground near Seden in the mid 80s. 

In the case of the surface ship, it was the *officers* mutinying (which
technically makes it "barratry"). This is *far* easier to get away with
once you set it up. It's just that in any society where the officers
would *consider* such a thing, it's gonna be hard to set up. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:25:12 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Done to Death (was Thank You)

Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> wrote:

>But seriously...someone mentioned that the re-debate of old topics
>may be a good sign, possible evidence of new blood on the list. I would
>agree quite a bit - there have actually been a couple of debates I've
>missed all together, though I'll restrain myself from even mentioning
>them lest I run the risk of starting them again...

Well, the one I'd like to see would be the Near-C rocks one. I loved the
taster that Roderick and Leonard gave us when Famille Spofulam was trying
to design a deep meson site killer. ;-)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 04:07:42 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Space Viking (OT)

In mail you write:

> I was reading an afterword in a Jerry Pournelle book (he and Piper were
> close) where he mentions that someone had picked up 'Space Viking' and
> written a sequel.  Unfortunately, I've never been able to find it.  Does
> anyone know anything about it?

Pournelle has written (or is still writing) "Return of Space Viking"
(working title). He hasn't put a lot of effort into it recently since
it's not terribly salable right now. Maybe in another 10 years or so
(which is about when Piper will be "rediscovered" again). 

There's also a sequel to "Great King's War" (which was a sequel to
"Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen") written, but unsold. The editors don't
think they'll sell, so the manuscripts just sit there.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 00:23:09 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: The Luriani (revised part 1/2)

From:           	CardSharks@aol.com
Date sent:      	Sat, 24 Oct 1998 06:39:59 EDT

>In a message dated 10/23/98 6:00:04 PM Central Daylight Time,
>a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:

><< The only thing I can't figure out is what are "components" >>

>Components are the divisions within Gender.

Doh!! </sound of hand hitting forehead> All makes perfect sense now.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 20:41:53 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again!

From:           	"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Date sent:      	Sat, 24 Oct 98 01:54:40 -0500

>Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and over
>again?

No, I was just about to post and ask exactly that. Maybe we've accidently 
slipped into the Paramount SF universe (tm) and are stuck in one of their 
interminable temporal anomolies :*>.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 06:28:07 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again! 

> From:           	"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
> Date sent:      	Sat, 24 Oct 98 01:54:40 -0500
> 
> >Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and over
> >again?
> 
> No, I was just about to post and ask exactly that. Maybe we've accidently 
> slipped into the Paramount SF universe (tm) and are stuck in one of their 
> interminable temporal anomolies :*>.

Oh, bollocks.  Time to purge the mailserver with a verteron particle spray.  What?  We used that *LAST* episode?  How bout antichroniton particles?  Three weeks ago?  Oh, bollocks, when was the last time we hit something with a wrench??

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 03:34:57 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Travellerish Fiction - Weber

In mail you write:

> Actually, I did read the Armageddon Inheritance, liked it,and recycled
> it (sold it back) to pick up In Death Ground. Poor deal, maybe I should
> try to get it back. It's tough trying to afford the current stuff with
> spare change.

I remembered your comment while out book shopping today. Upon checking
the notes inside the few Weber books I could find (they sell fast!) I
think I found out *why* "In Death Ground" is the way it is.

According to the blurbs in one of the other books, that series is based
on a computer wargame. No *wonder* it's solid battles. 

> BTW, should I read In Enemy Hands out of order. I've read 1,2,3,4
> already. I guess I should say should I stop reading In Enemy Hands now
> while I still can. ;-)

I'd say you should. You'll spoil a few things in the books you haven't
read. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 06:26:06 -0600
From: Christopher Thrash <thrash@io.com>
Subject: Anti-Hijack Program for GT

>
>Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:20:20 -0400 (EDT)
>From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
>Subject: Re: GT Lasers
>
>> And against different targets? Does the -4 apply then.
>
>If you fire against three different targets, yes. If you target one laser
>against one target and two against the other, it would drop to -2, etc.
>
>You could say this simulates running your Multi-Target program instead of
>your Predict (CT computer rules reference).
>
>[Sometime we'll have to include stats for Anti-Hijack in GT, I suppose...]
>

"Security and Anti-hijacking

	"The ship comes with electronic locks. Consider installing after-market
intruder defenses (including digital cameras, motion sensors, and weapons)
and a high-security alarm system (Cr 3,000; effective skill 20). If the
ship is equipped with internal sensors, an Anti-Hijack program (Expert
System: Criminoloy-14, Cr 10,000, Complexity 5) can alert the Captain to
suspicious patterns of activity."

Close enough? Usual rules for increased skill at the cost of increased cost
and complexity apply, of course.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 98 16:49:33 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Law and fanzines

On 10/24/98 at 02:32 PM,  steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com> said:

>>         Somebody knows what is the current international legal status of
>> fanzines? Suppose you want to print one, send it worldwide, and
>> charge production & shipping costs. In practice, you are selling it.
>> Assume it is a fanzine about Traveller. Something sounds illegal in
>> this, even if you acknowledge all TMs <ducking>.
>>         Carlos Alos-Ferrer

>That would be, at a minimum, a violation of the Traveller trademark.
>You need a license from Far Future Enterprises to put the Traveller
>name on it.  This will apply to the whole 'zine and not just the
>title.

Hum, well speaking as a total layman...I know you couldn't put
Traveller in the title, but does it require a license to produce a
fanzine *about* a trademarked game?  If the fanzine acknowledged
trademarks and didn't use copywrited material, wouldn't it be legal
to publish fan originated material?

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 12:21:06 -0700
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Re: Sensors in GURPS

At 09:23 AM 10/24/98 -0700, you wrote:

>I wonder if we need a GTL "Gurps Tech List" for these technical 
>issues? I suppose such a thing already exists on io.com/Pyramid, but
>I'm damned if I'm going to pay money for the sake of helping improve
>their design...

Umm... You are aware that the $15/year subscription to Pyramid is more than
a chance to improve SJG products, right?

In the three-odd months I've been reading Pyramid on-line, I've gotten
dozens of ideas for my game, decided to buy two products based on the
reviews, and been amused by John Kovalic's Murphy's Rules.

Hell, _Surpressed Transmission_ is worth the subscription cost alone.  Add
in that it's updated weekly, and you get a gaming magazine for 28 cents a
week!  I rarely even bother with the message boards, since I don't play
GURPS.
- --

+--------------------------------------+
|Douglas E. Berry    dberry@hooked.net |
|   http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/     |
+--------------------------------------+
| "In the long run luck is given       |
|  only to the efficient."             |
|     -Helmuth von Moltke, German Army |
+--------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 17:59:21 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@citnet.com>
Subject: Re: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )

- -----Original Message-----
From: Leif O. Pihl <pihlx001@tc.umn.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Saturday, October 24, 1998 5:35 PM
Subject: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )



> * Can any of you tell me the dimensions of said cargo module or
>
> * Can any of you tell me what the source material is that I am talking
about?
>
>
>Thank you,
>
>LP
Leif,

There are 2 possible places you could have seen the 400 sdt "Fat" Trader,
either in Suppliment 7 Traders and Gunboats, or the Traveller Adventure,
large format book. The standard cargo container is 3.85 tons and typically
measures 6 x 3 x 3 meters. I have a page of these containers (suitable for
cut out and use in a 1/2 inch scale) included in my Cargo Master class Free
Trader deck plans found at my web site (address in sig.)

Mike Peters, Letterworks@CITnet.com
webpage:"Jump Point" http://users.citnet.com/Letterworks/
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's
sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 21:42:44 GMT
From: johnl@vnet.net (John Lansford)
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

On Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:28:45 -0400, you wrote:

>Having replied to the original message in concurrence with your post I will
>only add that the H.M.S. Rodney also fired torpedoes at the Bismarck.  There
>was thought to have been one hit out of 6, IIRC.  This would be the only
>time in history that a battleship was attacked by torpedoes by another
>battleship and further, the only time that one also was hit by a torpedo
>from BB to BB.  I know that some historians don't consider Rodney a
>battleship but I contend that any ship that is firing 16" guns SHOULD be
>considered a BB.  Some historians didn't list Bismarck as a battleship
>either....YMMV

Let's see. HMS Rodney had a battleship's guns (16"), a BB's armor, and
a BB's speed  for the time (21 knots). I know of no historian that
would consider Rodney anything but a battleship. 

The same goes for Bismarck. She had the guns, the armor, and better
speed than a contemporary BB. Just because she had more speed than the
ones before her doesn't disqualify her as a BB, any more than Prince
of Wales or North Carolina wasn't a BB.

John Lansford

The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:22:29 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

>How does the space shuttle handle heat?

Dinky little radiators on the inside of the cargo bay doors (this is why
they have to open the doors within a few hours of launch.) I don't know how hot
they run, but probably only a hundred C or so. The shuttle's advantage 
is that its life support and functions only require a few kilowatts - it
has much less heat to dispose of than a traveller ship. (In fact, sunlight
heat loading might be a major part of the problem.)

I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
special high-temp radiators...

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:41:29 -0700
From: Mike Wittek <mwittek@thelair.cnchost.com>
Subject: Traveller Data file for GURPS Character Assistance?

All:
Has anybody seen or heard of someone that has made the Traveller data
files for GURPS Character Assistant program?

Thanks,
- --
Mike Wittek | Vacaville, California
mailto:mwittek@thelair.cnchost.com | http://www.thelair.cnchost.com
     "Democracy isn't just the best form of government; It's the only
one even remotely worth a damn. Only democracy guarantees that people
get what they deserve."   --Zena Marley

DISCLAIMER: All that I write is my own opinion, and my opinion may not
be the opinion of my school or electronic courier. For that matter, it
may not be your opinion, but deal with it.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 11:46:00 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

 
> I'm not 100% sure we can redo *everything* to the point where you only
> need a little power and can get by with tiny radiators, though - weapon
> power, for example, will probably always include 10% waste, and always 
> require lots of power. I suppose turrets could have their own dedicated
> special high-temp radiators...

I guess the turret radiators could be facing away from the launch
side--you always know that at least the guy you're shooting at won't
see that radiation :-)

Drives are the other big culprit. Traveller TL15 military ships do
6gs. That's a lot of power.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1042
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Sunday, October 25 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1043



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females
The Luriani (revised part 0/2)
Re: Re UWP Cultural Extensions
Duplicate messages on the list?
!!!Request TML Posting Hiatus until MisPost Fixed!!!
ADMIN -- Bounce Update
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Deja Vu all over again!
Re: Why jump takes constant time...
Re: Deja Vu all over again! 
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Re: Tonight on TML... 
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Deja Vu all over again! 
(GURPS) Batteries, E cell {and others}
Re: Why jump takes constant time...
Re Disturbing Anti-Democratic Trends in Traveller and SFRPGs

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:51:31 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females

Walter Smith wrote:

> "_Lesbian Aslan_ Pirates Hurling Near-C Rocks at Kinetic-Kill
> Missile Armed Fighters"
> 

No, the Aslan lesbians arose out of discussions of Aslan society and the
consequences of the high Female:male ratio of the race, the details of
which I remember only dimly...the debate was actually short lived, but
it was such a good addition to the tagline that it's sort of stuck...

And you forgot 'Virus-infested', it belongs in there somewhere, probably
before Near-C ;-)

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:34:27 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: The Luriani (revised part 0/2)

I've been doing some work on the Luriani recently (including moving them from 
Fornast to Ley sector). The work is far from finished and needs a lot of general 
polishing yet, but I though it might be interesting. As usual comments are most 
welcome.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:17:45 -0700
From: "Suz Dollar" <suzd@goodnet.com>
Subject: Re: Re UWP Cultural Extensions

> >> .8) how much they appreciate/trust the media...
> >
> >How often is the media relevant to your campaigning?
> >It rarely comes up in mine.

Media has played a large role in one of the games I am in currently, in 
the form of one very pushy reporter. He went from being the biggest 
thorn in our side to the only NPC in the game we trusted in fairly short 
order.

In other games, knowing how the media operates in conjunction/relation 
to the government is very important. For some reason we always check 
the news channels for information. Of course, if there is a great deal of 
censorship going on, or the media is all owned, overtly or covertly, by 
one source/political persuasion/etc. then that information is suspect at 
best and should be viewed as such.

I would say that this information is important.

Suz

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 02:54:53 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Duplicate messages on the list?

Just in case it makes a difference, I get the list as a digest.

It seems to me that I've been seeing a _lot_ of duplicate posts
recently - not that I'm receiving duplicate digests (I am,
because I need to get something solved with my email - but that's
not what I'm talking about here), but that messages previously
posted and distributed are being either reposted by the original
sender, or redistributed.  Am I the only one noticing this?  Is
there a problem with someone's mail somewhere?  Is the list
buggy?  Inquiring minds want to know!
- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 22:32:05 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: !!!Request TML Posting Hiatus until MisPost Fixed!!!

This insane bouncing has got to stop.

I'm not posting anything until this stops.
And I'm not reading much either.

If it continues, I'll unsubscribe.

Please, Stop the Madness.

300 posts.  All of them old.

:-(

Bloo
(sticking fingers in ears and humming)

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 23:57:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Rob Miracle <rwm@TanSoft.COM>
Subject: ADMIN -- Bounce Update

After some 10,000 mail messages since Friday, I can sympathize with people
on the list. 

It appears that a site is looping the messages back to the list.  A majority
of the bounces I see is unfortunatly removing the headers so I can't figure
out who its bouncing through.  A few messages, and with the work of a few 
list members, I think I have the bad address unsubscribed.

I don't know what volume of messages are still in queues on the net that are
still going to bounce back, so I'm hoping this will clear up.  If it does not
stop by the morning, I will purse other courses.

Sorry for the problems.

Rob
- -- 
Rob Miracle
rwm@mpgn.com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 21:57:26 -0400
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

There was another book too written by Ladislos Farago (sp?) who writes in a
narrative style similar to William Manchester that also specifies that the
Rodney fired torpedoes on the Bismarck.  To others who replied about my
comment that the Rodney and the Bismarck were not BB's; that is not my
belief just what I've read.  I too put them in the BB class and wonder how
those other historians could consider them anything else......
Thom Harris

- -----Original Message-----
From: DustyLV769@aol.com <DustyLV769@aol.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Saturday, October 24, 1998 9:23 PM
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII


>In a message dated 10/24/98 11:21:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
>thomharr@mediaone.net writes:
>
><< Having replied to the original message in concurrence with your post I
will
> only add that the H.M.S. Rodney also fired torpedoes at the Bismarck.
There
> was thought to have been one hit out of 6, IIRC.  >>
>
> After seeing this post, I seem to remember having read this in the book
"Sink
>the Bismarck"  I am not sure about the hits, however.  In making the post,
I
>utilized my memories from having read 2 very good books:  The one mentioned
>above (which was written from the RN perspective) and the book (whose title
>escapes me at the moment) written by Baron von Mullenhiem-Rechberg, who was
>the 4th Gunnery Officer and senior surviving officer.
>
> I do believe that an order was given to scuttle the ship...most likely
just
>as the combat began.  There was no doubt among the crew that this was a
lost
>battle from the get-go; this is confirmed by the German account.  An order
to
>scuttle would prevent the British from possibly boarding:  I realize this
>statement seems somewhat silly from the perspective of gaining useful
>info...but don't underestimate the value that raising the White Ensign on
the
>Bismarck would have had on public morale, esp since the Bismarck had days
>earlier sank the pride of the RN!!
>
>DustyLV769@aol.com
>
>

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 18:59:46 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again!

> Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and
over again?
> 
> Eris

And over & over again...

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 20:21:58 PDT
From: "John Lambert" <hovtej@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Why jump takes constant time...

Several years ago I published a reference to a report on a theroetical 
tunnel system. If you dig a tunnel in a straight line through the earth 
between two points on the surface, then evcuate the tunnel and have a 
frictionless car drop into the tunnel, the travel time between any two 
points will be the same. I'll have to do some digging to find the 
original reference, but the concept should be easy to work out. I'll try 
to post the details unless someone beats me to it. 

The same concept could be applied to jump travel in Traveller. Our three 
dimensional universe is a surface in some n-dimensional universe. Jump 
travel involves "digging" a tunnel between two points in our 3-D would 
through the other dimensions. Some force, the equivalent of gravity, 
causes the ship to travel between the points in the same length of time, 
regardless of their 3-D separation.

Later,
John Lambert

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:03:15 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again! 

> From: Keven R. Pittsinger <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> > >Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and
over
> > >again?
> > 
> > No, I was just about to post and ask exactly that. Maybe we've
accidently 
> > slipped into the Paramount SF universe (tm) and are stuck in one of
their 
> > interminable temporal anomolies :*>.
> 
> Oh, bollocks.  Time to purge the mailserver with a verteron particle
spray.  What?  We used that *LAST* episode?  How bout antichroniton
particles?  Three weeks ago?  Oh, bollocks, when was the last time we hit
something with a wrench??
> 
> Keven

You know we could try a reverse inverted chronoton particle spray...

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 98 23:33:29 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

On 10/24/98 at 07:19 PM,  Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior) said:

>I suspect it is more that the mass of obviously different immigrants
>(legal and not) comes from Latin America.

I can buy that. Being obviously different is a problem for many people.

>I've noticed up here that, even though I'm an immigrant, everyone
>assumes I was born here, while many of my friends get asked when they
>arrived (when they were born here). Sadly, the assumption seems to be
>that if you aren't white, you immigrated.

Accents and skin color offer first impressions and too many people
depend on first impressions.

>This is why I'd never vote Reform, BTW: they either want to kick me
>out because I'm really an immigrant, or most of my friends because
>they aren't white.  I'm offended either way.

Well, I can't speak to that, not being Canadian, but I understand
your sentiments.

>ObTrav: There should definately be a characteristic for how
>offworlders are regarded. This would range from "Kill on sight"
>through "Some of my best friends but I wouldn't want my daughter to
>marry one" and "People like us" to "Godlike beings with infinite
>knowledge and wisdom".

If the scales are likert (isn't that the word) then a xenophobia
stat would range from worship on one end to kill on sight on the
other.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 98 23:42:21 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

On 10/24/98 at 07:02 PM,  Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior) said:

>You'd still need to lower the power plant output. Traveller power
>plants are actually 100% efficient, in that we've always assumed that
>they produce exactly as much power as the ship consumes. This is
>_not_ accurate, and everyone knows it, but that's "canon". Thus, a
>ship with a 150MW power plant is actually a ship who's systems
>_consume_ 150MW. If you add in the true inefficiencies of power
>plants then it would need a larger power plant.

That is unfortunately all too true.  Maneuver and weapons shouldn't
going to go down in energy consumption, but life support and
electronics can (and I think) should be reduced.  I also think the
idea of running the fusion plant at lower power levels is a good
one. 

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 21:50:41 -0700
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@home.com>
Subject: re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

> I'm not sure that I follow the various Law 0 mentions (including
>someone else's assertion that you build your warships there - although
>payment still hasn't been figured out); do low Law level worlds not
>enforce Imperial law? Are they exempt from law-suits or criminal
>prosecution for aiding and abetting pirates and murderers? If so, then
>nukes are presumably available at fairly modest prices there.

According to M:0, planets like this get all the nukes they need for free
from the Imperial Navy.
- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@home.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 01:12:32 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Tonight on TML... 

> (To all the phytonites in TMLand...)
> 
> "Tonight on TML we will discuss the phenomenon of Deja Vu.  That bizzare
> feeling we sometimes get that we've experienced something be..."
> 
> "Tonight on TML we will discuss the phenomenon of Deja Vu.  That bizzare
> feeling we sometimes get that we've experienced something be..."
> 
> "Tonight on TML we will discuss the phenomenon of Deja Vu.  That bizzare
> feeling we sometimes get that we've experienced something be..."

But isn't that the function of the Bureau of Constant Needless Redundancies 
Department?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 98 00:17:03 -0500
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

On 10/24/98 at 04:29 PM,  DustyLV769@aol.com said:

><< Having replied to the original message in concurrence with your
><< post I will only add that the H.M.S. Rodney also fired torpedoes at the
><< Bismarck.  There was thought to have been one hit out of 6, IIRC.  >>

>	After seeing this post, I seem to remember having read this in the
>book "Sink the Bismarck" 

Guys, it doesn't much matter now if space aliens sank the Bismark
does it?

My question has always been Why?  Why, did Bismark sorte out from
it's harbor? The German's *must* have known the whole British Navy
would go after him.  They couldn't have thought they could take the
whole shebang on with a single ship!

Eris

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 01:17:37 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again! 

> > From: Keven R. Pittsinger <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> > > >Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and
> over
> > > >again?
> > > 
> > > No, I was just about to post and ask exactly that. Maybe we've
> accidently 
> > > slipped into the Paramount SF universe (tm) and are stuck in one of
> their 
> > > interminable temporal anomolies :*>.
> > 
> > Oh, bollocks.  Time to purge the mailserver with a verteron particle
> spray.  What?  We used that *LAST* episode?  How bout antichroniton
> particles?  Three weeks ago?  Oh, bollocks, when was the last time we hit
> something with a wrench??
> > 
> > Keven
> 
> You know we could try a reverse inverted chronoton particle spray...

Werf, set fazers on 'roast turkey'.  Mr O'Bannion, prepare to beam(tm) this hoser into the set of Star Drek: Missing In Action And Loving It(tm).

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 00:23:39 -0500
From: "Leif O. Pihl" <pihlx001@tc.umn.edu>
Subject: (GURPS) Batteries, E cell {and others}

If you look at page 118 of GURPS Traveller, it mentions a "E cell" in
reference to the Battledress.

I have several GURPS books, Traveller, Basic, Space, Compendium 1, Vehicles
and a few others as well.  Nowhere in any of these do I find a reference to
Batteries in general, or an E cell in particular.
(Please note:  I do NOT have Ultra-Tech or Ultra-Tech 2 as I can not find
them in our local stores.)


 * Do any of you know the reference from which GURPS details how it uses
batteries in general, and the specifications of the E cell in particular?

 * If yes, could you please send (or post) a partial summary of A through Z
cells, dimensions, kilowatt-hours, etc., etc... ?


What I really need is the size, weight and capacity of the batterie cells
that are equal or greater capacity to an "E cell".


Thanks,       LP

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leif O. Pihl
pager/voicemail: (612) 534-5235
           home: (612) 729-8277
        ICQ no.: 16954097
www.isa.org/~twinc/                                      ISA Twin Cities' page
www.memorial4x4.org                       MN-Go4 Wheelers' Memorial Event page
umn.edu/~pihlx001/                                 personal page [out of date]
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/LPsJeepTJ/             Leif's Jeep TJ site
www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g018/pihlx001/geneology/Blomfeldt.html       family tree
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------6

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 18:26:57 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Why jump takes constant time...

From:           	CardSharks@aol.com
Date sent:      	Sat, 24 Oct 1998 20:51:21 EDT

>In a message dated 10/24/98 12:57:35 PM Central Daylight Time, Carlos.Alos-
>Ferrer@univie.ac.at writes:
>
><< explaining why jump time is constant, making it analogous to the 
> physical fact (which I do not remember clearly) that the falling time 
> through an hypotetical tunnel  (?) between two points in the surface 
> of a sphere (planet) is constant, regardless of where the points are.
> 	Somebody has it handy? >>
>
>please copy me at FarFuture@AOL.com if anyone has the answer.
>
>Marc

I think this may be what you're looking for (brought to you by the wonders of my 
habits of keeping five years worth of email):

Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 10:08:08 -0700
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@eagle.wbm.ca>
Subject: Traveller Jumpspace Wormhole Theory

Through the miracle of modern technology (Norton Utilities) I have
resurrected the lost message that I attempted to send yesterday...

<cue thunder, cut to scene of dark castle>

"It's ALIVE!!!!"

- - -----begin resurrected message-----

Michael Solomani Mifsud wrote:

> My only beef is that Traveller is such a cool game because, where
> possible, its scientifically accurate.  For a universe like Travller to
> exist, humans have to be able to travel between systems quickly.  The
> current system is workable, but does not agree with our current body of
> knowledge on the subject.  Wormholes/Jump Gates seem to be a workable
> alternative to the current Jump system.

Firstly, nobody knows how to travel faster than light, so there is no
"body of knowledge on the subject." :=>

Wormholes haven't yet been proven to exist, because they haven't been
observed. Blackholes have been pretty much proven, because objects which
are easily explained by black hole theory have been observed.

If you accept current theory about wormholes, and wish to postulate that
in the future larger, stable, wormholes will be able to be made, and if
you feel wormholes are a better method for interstellar travel, then by
all means use wormholes.

BUT... there's no need to throw Traveller Jumpdrives out the window,
just explain them using "wormhole lingo". Nobody knows how long a trip
through a wormhole would take, nor how much energy it would take to
create one. So there's no reason to change the way interstellar travel
in Traveller works.

Here's an example of wormhole theory which agrees with most Traveller
conventions:


TRAVELLER JUMPSPACE WORMHOLE THEORY
- - -----------------------------------

Wormholes connect two places in realspace by "tunnelling" through an
alternate space which we call "Jumpspace". Natural wormholes have been
too small and transient to be used for interstellar travel, and were
never thought to be a viable method for travel over interstellar
distances. The discovery of Jump Drives changed that.

There are three steps necessary for a ship to create a wormhole to
travel over interstellar distances:

Firstly, a course must be plotted through jumpspace. So far,
calculations of beyond 6 parsecs have been found impossible to solve.
Though it has not yet been proven insoluble, mathematicians made it
their "holy grail" ever since Fermat's Last Theorem was proven.

Secondly, a jumpspace field is created around a ship in order to allow
it to enter the wormhole. Matter not within a particle field in
resonance with the wormhole cannot enter. A certain mass equivalent to
aproximately 100 displacement tons or greater is required to enter the
wormhole. Nearby gravitational masses cause the wormhole to become
unstable. As a rule of thumb, distances beyond 100 diameters from large
planetary bodies are relatively safe.

Thirdly, the jumpdrive "drills" the wormhole by creating a massive
energy pulse of exotic particles. These particles are most commonly
created through the fusing of hydrogen; the exact catalytic and doping
process is poorly understood by even the most advanced of Imperial
physicists. The particles are neutrino-like, and pass through most
matter, so building a weapon from a jump-drive is impractical at best.

TRAVEL
- - ------

The ship enters the wormhole, and travels to its calculated destination.
Since the wormhole has been plotted to the destination before entry, the
destination cannot be changed once the ship enters jumpspace.

Time to travel any distance through the wormhole is relatively
invariant, being 168 hours +/- 10%. A ship entering the wormhole is
acted upon by a constant "acceleration" to the midpoint of the trip and
a constant "decceleration" of the same magnitude from the midpoint to
the destination. The "acceleration" varies from wormhole to wormhole,
but has never been found to cause a greater than 10% variation in travel
time.

(Note: Quotes are used because acelleration is only an analogous term.
In a strict sense, the ship isn't acted upon by any force. As an
analogy, imagine a trip through a frictionless tunnel connecting two
points on earth. A trip of any distance would take the same amount of
time)

A side-effect of this property of wormholes is that a fleet using
tight-beam communications to synchronize calculations can use the same
wormhole for travel, by ensuring that their jumpspace fields resonate at
the same frequency. This means that the fleet arrives at its destination
at the same time, whatever the uncertainty in the 10% happens to be.
Each ship must generate its own "portal" to the wormhole, however. 

"Jumpgates", or the external drilling of wormholes, has been found to be
impractical with current Imperial technology because it is imperative
that the drilling process originate from *within the jumpspacee field*.
In other words, once the source generates the wormhole, it *must* enter
the wormhole.

MISJUMPS
- - --------

In general, misjumps occur due to two reasons:

1) Disruption in wormhole stability

Generally caused by gravitational disturbances. The creation of a
wormhole entry point too close to a local planet, for example.

In this case, either the course of the wormhole is altered, and the ship
ends up in a completely undesired location, or, if gravity is strong
enough, the gravitational tidal forces act as a lens, constricting the
wormhole and forcing it to be smaller than intended. In this case, the
ship ends up at its destination in slightly smaller pieces... a
meatgrinder works in a similar fashion.

2) Disruption in jumpspace field intergrity

Generally caused by poor jumpdrive maintenance, using impure fuel, or
damage to the Lanthanum Grid.

If the disruption is relatively uniform, what can happen is the
frequency of the field can shift in mid-course. The ship in jumpspace
"skips" from its intended wormhole to another wormhole matching its new
field frequency. Since millions of these "virtual wormholes" are created
every second, the ships new destination is impossible to predict.

I leave the effects of a partial field-frequency "shift" as an exercise
to the reader...

By the way, Grandfather, at TL-21+, was noted for his "trans-jump
drive", which allowed him to adjust his field frequency while in
jumpspace. Legends state that he had the technology to predict wormhole
destinations and by choosing when and at what point to "skip wormholes",
he could not only break the current jump-6 limit, he also wasn't limited
by the 1-week travel time.


... OW! I think I sprained my arm from all that handwaving... ;-)
- - -- 
====== Glenn Hoppe =====\ /---- MailTo:jumpspace@geocities.com ----
\ . . Enter Jumpspace --X->  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8275  \
 -----------------------/ \=========== Eschew Obfuscation ===========
Technology is an extension of our hands and our feet, not our spirit.
                                    -- Filmmaker Costa-Gavras, 9/6/95

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 22:42:25 -0700
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@home.com>
Subject: Re Disturbing Anti-Democratic Trends in Traveller and SFRPGs

>What I really wanted to do was to get people to realise *consciously* that the
>Imperium *is* the "Evil Empire".

Most of the campaigns I saw when I started playing Traveller were heavily
influenced by Star Wars, so I hardly think portraying the Imperium as the
"Evil Empire" is going to come as much of a surprise to many players.

On the contrary, in fact. The "Evil Galactic Empire" is such a staple in SF
that I find few players are able to accept the notion of a hereditary
ruling class as fair and benevolent. Look at the published adventures: most
time the players are portrayed as ethically-challenged merchants,
mercenaries, or outright criminals. I'm not saying that's bad, but people
like this tend to rationalize their anti-social actions as "resistance to a
corrupt state" whether they're machine-gunning imperial stormtroopers or
selling heroin cut with rat poison to children.

I don't think it's accurate to generalize the whole of imperial society
based on the published adventures; they are heavily slanted toward
providing exciting conflicts for social misfits. Again, not that there's
anything wrong with that.

However, I feel a setting with clearly-defined "good guys" and "bad guys"
is less interesting dramatically. This was one of my complaints with the
Star Wars RPG; the Empire was just so ludicrously evil that every single
adventure I saw for the game (not many, I admit) boiled down to "the only
way to save the helpless victims is to exterminate every Imperial on
sight". The books include the phrase "sneering officer" so often that I
began to think it must be some kind of command position akin to
"communications officer".

IMHO the Third Imperium is plenty large enough for brutal Imperial
overlords, benevolent and incorruptable nobles, and everything in between.
Claiming that the entire Imperium is a single monolithic entity is not
realistic or a good setting for adventure.
- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@home.com

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1043
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Sunday, October 25 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1044



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Extended System Generation
Re: Piracy, Cease and Desist! 
Re: Polyglot Traveller Lexicon
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Polyglot Traveller Lexicon
Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 
Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
Re: Tonight on TML... 
Re: Deja Vu all over again!
Re: The Reserve Fleet (Was: Piracy)
Re:New Deck plans revised files added
Re:Physreps
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
Re: UWP Cultural Extension
Re: Deja Vu all over again!
Hmmm
Anybody got a FFS vehicle spreadsheet?
Re: The Luriani 
TML repeats
Law and fanzines
Ken Pick articles
Why jump takes constant time...
re: Piracy: Cease!
Re: Transponder's true nature
Reservists (Re: Piracy)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 08:56:19
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Extended System Generation

I've been re-reading Scouts (LBB 6), and a couple of things are striking me
about it.

Firstly, there tend to be lots of worlds and moons in a system. This is
important if you are rolling for special resources per world.

Secondly, there tends to be multiple refuelling points per system, even
ignoring the Oort cloud. Most systems have at least one planet with some
water, or an asteroid belt (ice asteroids) or multiple gas giants. It is
still most cost-effective to fuel up at the starport (time is money), but
this isnt your only option.

Has anyone done an entire subsector using extended system generation ?

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 06:12:02 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, Cease and Desist! 

> >From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
> ...
> >seen in the time I've been on the list - specifically, trying to get the
> >discussion more towards numbers than ideology.
> 
>   That's easy enough for you to say, you reactionary capitalist running-
> proto-Vargr, you don't have the Vice-Chair waiting to recommend you for
> re-education...

That's easy enough of you to say, you bleeding heart crypto-socialist 
proto-Aslan.  You're not surrounded by kids chanting to worship a purple 
dinosaur and wanting you to get in touch with your inner child!  <grin>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 01:33:21 -0500 (EST)
From: neo@total.net
Subject: Re: Polyglot Traveller Lexicon

Who posted the Finnish translations for the Polyglot Lexicon? I've lost
your name and email address.

Also, thanks to Leslie for the Polish terms. Much appreciated!

Best,

Glenn

   ------------------------Glenn Grant------------------------  
                         <neo@total.net>
             Now in trade paperback from Tor Books:
   _Northern Stars: The Anthology of Canadian Science Fiction_
             Edited by David Hartwell & Glenn Grant
    "Sex times Technology equals The Future." -- J.G. Ballard

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:33:12 EDT
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

In a message dated 10/24/98 11:21:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
thomharr@mediaone.net writes:

<<  I know that some historians don't consider Rodney a
 battleship but I contend that any ship that is firing 16" guns SHOULD be
 considered a BB.  Some historians didn't list Bismarck as a battleship
 either....YMMV >>

They most certainly are.... At the best; I would conceed that the treaty
designed Rodney wasn't a superdreadnought (far too slow at 23 knots), and that
the Bismark was...

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 18:30:05 GMT
From: traveller-m2n@zwieracz.pse.pl
Subject: Re: Polyglot Traveller Lexicon

On 16 Oct 98 04:58:37 GMT, neo@total.net disseminated foul capitalist
propaganda by writing:

[...]
>It occurs to me that TML members speak a wide variety of languages, and
>many of us might find uses for a multilingual lexicon of a few Traveller
>terms. Perhaps we might ask TMLers who speak languages other than English
>to provide translations for the following terms...

OK. Here's some stuff in Polish. 

>Spaceport
Port kosmiczny
>Starport
Port gwiezdny
>Highport
Stacja orbitalna
>Downport
Stacja naziemna
>Base
Baza
>Company
Firma, przedsiebiorstwo
>Corporation
Korporacja
>   etc?
etc. 

;)))

>Also, words for governmental bodies, ie:
>
>Assembly
Zgromadzenie
>Parliament
Parlament
>Legislature
Legislatura
>Council
Rada
>Bureau
Biuro
>Administration
Administracja
>   etc.
[...]
>Certainly, inventing names in foreign languages can be iffy, and the
>results will often be technically wrong. Fortunately, the game takes place
>thousands of years in the future, so one can always blame linguistic drift.

Good one. ;)

Leslie
- -- 
Leszek Karlik, aka Mike leslie@zwieracz.terrorgarden.waw.pl
Hard SF junkie; UIN 6947998; FIAWOL; YMMV IMAO SNAFU TANJ
  IMTU ?tc t4+ to(CORPS)++ ru-- ge++ !3I jt au- he++ 
  merc+ !st ls !kk hi++ as+ !so !vi !sy say++
"Bystanters only count as visual cover." - Jasper Merendino

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:45:17 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: The Fourth Imperium: was Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #964 

> From: Keven R. Pittsinger <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> > > > > > Yeah, now somebody tell Bruce *who* plays Al Bester on B5. I
> > haven't
> > > > > > got the heart. ;->
> > > > > Walter Koenig.  Doesn't ring a bell?  Try 'Ensign Chekov(TM)'
from
> > 'That
> > > > > Nameless Paramount/Desilu Sci Fi Hack of Wagon Train(TM)' circa
1964.
> > > > > <grin>
> > > > You forgot the cheesy movies as well...  Circa 1980s & early
1990s...
> > > Good thing you didn't *name* 'em, you'd have to (TM) them.  <ducking>
> > 
> > Why name them?  While they were watchable, they are not standards of
movie
> > making...
> Cause Paramount trademarked them.  Wouldn't wanna get in trouble now,
would we?

Of course not..  I do not want to have Paramount's lawyers come after me...

> Keven

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:43:31 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: The colonial fleets (Was: Piracy)

> >Again, I'll grant you that. Now tell me, if the colonial spacemen serve
the
> >same number of years and get the same training as Imperial spacemen, how
> >can this be true?
> >***********
> >they don't see as much combat.
>   There's a reasonable basis for the belief that training is more
> important than combat experience in (historical, anyway) naval 
> combat.

Just a thought, but aren't colonial fleets like the reserve fleets of the
3I?

So if they are the reserve fleets of the 3I, maybe they are made up of
revervists who serve one weekend a month & 2 weeks a year, but by this time
it may be 1 week a month & 1 month a year...  I.e. all those characters who
are not in the military might be members of the colonial fleets, thats how
they got their military skills...

Also, many of the sector, sub-sector, & planetary fleets might also come
into this...  I.e. a colonial fleet might be made up of this sub-sector
fleet providing the CrusRon, this planet providing the DestRon, & the
reservists providing the TankRon...

Also another thought (I know this is kinda jumbled, but I am typing this as
I think of it), is that maybe the Navy starts off the characters in their
first active term in a colonial fleet to gain some safe experience, then
moves him over to a active fleet, then as he or she gets older, they are
transfered back to the colonial fleet to train new members of the fleet...

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 12:09:30 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz> wrote:

>IMO one problem Traveller ship combat has is that people want the feeling
>that you get having mighty ship pounding away at each other like a WWI
>slugfest, but they also want the quick thrill of the cat and mouse game of
>fire and maneuver and these are two fairly incompatible desires.

I agree. If you want cat and mouse (or 'hide and seek with bazookas' which
is how Frank Chadwick described it IIRC) you should play 2300's Starcruiser
(I wish they'd published a bugfixed version of the Naval Architect's Manual
though).

Traveller has always been giant slugfests at capital ship level - like the
big fleet action descriptions in Lensman, or Azimov, or Banks. The nearest
literary thing to both I can think of is Hamilton's _Reality Dysfunction /
Neutronium Alchemist_ books where KKMs and det lasers are standard.

Cat and Mouse only applies for really small ships....

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 23:51:40 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: Tonight on TML... 

> From: Keven R. Pittsinger <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> > (To all the phytonites in TMLand...)
> > 
> > "Tonight on TML we will discuss the phenomenon of Deja Vu.  That
bizzare
> > feeling we sometimes get that we've experienced something be..."
> > 
> > "Tonight on TML we will discuss the phenomenon of Deja Vu.  That
bizzare
> > feeling we sometimes get that we've experienced something be..."
> > 
> > "Tonight on TML we will discuss the phenomenon of Deja Vu.  That
bizzare
> > feeling we sometimes get that we've experienced something be..."
> But isn't that the function of the Bureau of Constant Needless
Redundancies 
> Department?

No, that would be the 3Is Redundant Bureau of Redundant Bureaus...

Btw, they have opened their offices for the second time..

(Bet you cannot name where I got that from...)

> Keven

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:22:55 EDT
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again!

In a message dated 10/24/98 10:56:05 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
jbogan@pipeline.com writes:

<< At 01:54 AM 10/24/1998 -0500, you wrote:
 >Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and
 over again?
 
 No. I'm getting repeats too.
 
 JB
 
  >>

and me....

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:28:48 EDT
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Reserve Fleet (Was: Piracy)

In a message dated 10/24/98 11:05:46 AM Pacific Daylight Time, rancke@diku.dk
writes:

<< You can have as long and
 illustrious a full-time career in the colonial fleets as you can in the
 regular. And the same goes for the planetary navies, for that matter. >>

but knowing human nature; I bet that the snobs and status conscious will
rangle duty with the "regulars" and look down their noses at the "colonials"
(just remember to say that word so the contempt drips off the tongue...:-)
)...

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:28:20 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re:New Deck plans revised files added

"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>Michael, they look good and printed out just fine.  It seemed like the
>size of the Twain.pdf file went way up, I might be wrong as I was
>downloading it through a dialup this time rather than a faster network
>connection.

This will happen. I PDFed a bunch of assignments so kids could download
them from home, and file size went from 12k to 138k! I started using fewer
fonts after that.

Then the ISP deleted the web site by mistake, and hasn't resurrected it
yet, while the official web site is not available (even though we're
paying for it) because the central office managers are busy playing power
games instead of making learning happen. (I work for the school board.)
Blrk. Two evenings of my time wasted.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 18:53:16 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re:Physreps

>>Anybody else do this kind of thing?  Suggestions, comments?
>>
>
>I like it.  The closest I got was index cards with a weapon's stats and a
>*picture* of the weapon (usually clipped from somewhere - like a photocopy
>of something from a nontrav GDW sourcebook) pasted to the front.

I did this when playing Dream Park with my kids. I made equipment cards
for every piece of equipment, with the name and  apicture on front and
name, description, and game stats on the back. Any equipment on hand (ie
ready for use) was set upright in front of the player (using little
stands). This meant I could easily see who had what ready, and the kids
could easily see what their gear could do.

I extended the idea to stuff from Space: 1889, but didn't actually make
the cards--lack of time and less need, that group being all adults with
better memories and longer attention spans.

Used equipment sheets with MegaTraveller. In fact, many of those published
by DGP were my designs: grashfalt, cargo container...

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:02:31 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

>>My friend Ian (a physicist) once calculated that his free trader starship
>>should be glowing red when running at full power. 
[snip]
>
>>
>>The solutions are:
>>
>>1) Lower Traveller power requirements to more reasonable levels, and keep
>>realistic sensor rules.
>>
>>2) Keep power requirements, and accept the easy detectability of
>starships.
>>
>>3) Keep power requirements, and lower sensor sensitivity as well to
>>maintain some level of ship stealth (same effects as 1, different
>>mechanism).
>
>4) Assume a higher power plant efficency or cold fussion power plants.
>Everything else stays the same and no need for monster radiaters.

You'd still need to lower the power plant output. Traveller power plants
are actually 100% efficient, in that we've always assumed that they
produce exactly as much power as the ship consumes. This is _not_
accurate, and everyone knows it, but that's "canon". Thus, a ship with a
150MW power plant is actually a ship who's systems _consume_ 150MW. If you
add in the true inefficiencies of power plants then it would need a larger
power plant.

Take a look at the power requirements of various ship systems in MT, TNe,
or T4.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:19:07 -0400
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: UWP Cultural Extension

"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>Well now, maybe you mean the fact that many Americans don't like the
>idea of aliens flooding across our borders?  If that's it, the
>disquiet isn't specifically anti-latino, it's more anti-immigration,
>especially illegal immigration, it just so happens that the mass of
>the illegal immigrates come from Central American countries.  I
>think this is more an economic issue than anything, but like most
>things you can make it a racial one if you try.  

I suspect it is more that the mass of obviously different immigrants
(legal and not) comes from Latin America.

I've noticed up here that, even though I'm an immigrant, everyone assumes
I was born here, while many of my friends get asked when they arrived
(when they were born here). Sadly, the assumption seems to be that if you
aren't white, you immigrated.

This is why I'd never vote Reform, BTW: they either want to kick me out
because I'm really an immigrant, or most of my friends because they aren't
white.  I'm offended either way.

ObTrav: There should definately be a characteristic for how offworlders
are regarded. This would range from "Kill on sight" through "Some of my
best friends but I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one" and "People
like us" to "Godlike beings with infinite knowledge and wisdom".

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:19:39 -0400
From: John H Bogan Jr <jbogan@pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again!

At 01:54 AM 10/24/1998 -0500, you wrote:
>Hey, am I the only one getting copies of today's TML messages over and
over again?

No. I'm getting repeats too.

JB

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 09:20:12 EDT
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Hmmm

TravelrTNE@aol.com opined:

> I know there's In Nomine, etc, and that G:T is obviously
> going to be more than one product, but I believe it's been confirmed there
> will be no overall plotline for the background of G:T's alternate
universe...
> Course, i'd be happy to learn i'm wrong.

I, for one, would be interested in knowing who confirmed that to you, where
and when.

Loren Wiseman
   GURPS Traveller Line Editor
    SJ Games

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:54:32 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Anybody got a FFS vehicle spreadsheet?

Has anybody writen a spreadsheet to develop vehicles (not starships) using the 
FFS2 rules? I already have Rob Priors excellant Infini-V, but I'd like to use the 
FFS sequences for vehicles in my work (no offense Rob, just I believe that FFS 
is going to be the basis of vehicle design for T5).

Similarly has anyone got a spreadsheet for weapons?

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:33:23 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: The Luriani 

> From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>

Great stuff, great stuff...

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:52:42 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: TML repeats

Is the TML resended messages repeatedly? My digests keep on getting repeats
in them and the number each day has jumped!

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:08:44 +0000
From: "Carlos Alos-Ferrer" <Carlos.Alos-Ferrer@univie.ac.at>
Subject: Law and fanzines

	Somebody knows what is the current international legal status of 
fanzines? Suppose you want to print one, send it worldwide, and 
charge production & shipping costs. In practice, you are selling it. 
Assume it is a fanzine about Traveller. Something sounds illegal in 
this, even if you acknowledge all TMs <ducking>.
	Carlos Alos-Ferrer

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:29:38 +0000
From: "Carlos Alos-Ferrer" <Carlos.Alos-Ferrer@univie.ac.at>
Subject: Ken Pick articles

Ken Pick published three good articles on "filling the gaps" in the 
evolution of weapons in MT in Challenge. I have two of them, which 
are short but good and useful. I never got a copy of the 
third: "Missing Links", on Challenge 64. Anybody knows what exactly 
was in there?
Thanks,
Carlos Alos-Ferrer
(seems I am in asking-for-help mode today ;-) )

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 15:06:17 +0000
From: "Carlos Alos-Ferrer" <Carlos.Alos-Ferrer@univie.ac.at>
Subject: Why jump takes constant time...

	I remember, OTMH, that some time ago, somebody posted some notes 
explaining why jump time is constant, making it analogous to the 
physical fact (which I do not remember clearly) that the falling time 
through an hypotetical tunnel  (?) between two points in the surface 
of a sphere (planet) is constant, regardless of where the points are.
	Somebody has it handy?
	Thanks
	Carlos Alos-Ferrer

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:14:53 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Piracy: Cease!

SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com> wrote:

>Yeah... if we must have a re-run, can't we re-open the fighter debate? That
>was more fun...

"And, as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared" (Mr Ben, BBC TV)

I get to read a restart in the fighter debate the two digests before my
post hit the TML!

Sureal!

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:30:51 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Transponder's true nature

shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson) wrote:

>  They complain that they don't want to discuss piracy? Well, we can
>make them regret _that_ :>  *
<snip>
>  * - sorry - my "Leroy" file ready racks are empty...


About the TL16 RoM - I thought you offered to prove from existing published
sources that this was an underestimate of the tech level, modified by
Imperial propaganda?

;-)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:51:48 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Reservists (Re: Piracy)

With all this talk about the Reservists in the 3I, I thought I would put my
thoughts,such as they are down.

1. Maybe the 3I has the Reservists serve 2 days a months, not just one
weekend a month, but two days.  And three weeks a year, instead of the two
weeks currently.

This would fix the problem many have with the jump in & jump out.

2.Or the 3I could have reservists serve one month out of every year & one
day a month.  This would have the same amount of days as the current plan.

3. Or someone else could come up with an another idea.

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1044
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Sunday, October 25 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1045



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.
Re: Law and fanzines
Re: The Imperial fleet
Re: (GURPS) Batteries, E cell {and others}
Re: Law and Fanzines
Re: Law and Fanzines
Re: Extended System Generation
Re: Capital ships
[none]
Re Reserves
Re: Capital ships
Re: Disturbing Anti-Democratic Trends in Traveller and SFRPGs
Re: Formal for mass-based jump limits
Re: Sten
Re: Why jump takes constant time...
re: Extended System Generation
Ballistic Shuttle/Subway (was re: Why jump takes constant time)
re: Naval Procurement
Re: (GURPS) Batteries, E cell {and others}
Tidal strength equation
Re: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 11:10:44 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Old Topics: Aslan Females.

"Shade" <jwatts@catt.com> wrote:

>It comes from a topic I started a long time ago that had to do with a
>Aslan-Vargr " sex study " that was published on the list a VERY long time
>ago.
>
>It was basicly done to death and is generally regarded as a sore subject.
>
>Just to let ya know....  it was established in that " study " that a great
>percentage of Aslan females were lesbian or bisexual.

Ouch! You mean that the discussion happened before last years one? Has
anyone ever plotted the postings on each of these touch topics on a time
axis. There could be an interesting cycle....

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 18:21:25 -0400
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: Law and fanzines

Eris Reddoch wrote:

> Hum, well speaking as a total layman...I know you couldn't put
> Traveller in the title, but does it require a license to produce a
> fanzine *about* a trademarked game?  If the fanzine acknowledged
> trademarks and didn't use copywrited material, wouldn't it be legal
> to publish fan originated material?

It depends a bit.  At the least, is smells of trademark dilution via
sponsorship confusion.  I.E., it might appear to be sponsored
and the consumer might think its official or authorized by the
trademark owning party.  Thats called trading on the goodwill
of the mark holder, exactly what trademark is about preventing.

Having said that, very, very clear disclaimers might help.
As does the non-profit nature.  But in the end, its going to depend
on the exact nature of the fanzine.  If it was all Traveller stuff, its
probably going to violate trademark without a license.

IMO, better in this situation to get Mr. Miller's blessing than
to try to get forgiveness later.

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:28:11 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: The Imperial fleet

 
> >Canon says the jump is 'straght line travel' that can not intersect the 100
> >dia limit of any object over 1 mile.
> 
> I think that is right in at least one version of the rules (maybe more).
> OTOH this effect is totally ignored in other versions. I don't think it
> has ever been mentioned as part of the background events.
>
> >Problem people.  What if the planet you want to go to is on the oposite side
> >on it's sun from you when you want to jump?  Do you wait half of that
> >planet's year?
 
This raises some interesting ideas. If you think about it for a
while, it makes the idea of popping in-system at only 100D from
Mainworld kind of unlikely (a good thing, IMHO).

I did a Q&D sketch at http://www.rt66.com/~merrick/jumpglop.html to
show what I mean (easier to draw than try to do it in ascii :-)

The bottom line is that there are many times when you might well
have to spend a few days in normal space to jump. Also, if pre-jump
velocity is conserved, then you'd want to break at least a little be
fore jumping (instead of accelerating straight for 2 days, then
jumping).

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 00:08:54 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: (GURPS) Batteries, E cell {and others}

Sun, 25 Oct 1998 00:23:39 -0500, "Leif O. Pihl" <pihlx001@tc.umn.edu>

>If you look at page 118 of GURPS Traveller, it mentions a "E cell" in
>reference to the Battledress.
>
>I have several GURPS books, Traveller, Basic, Space, Compendium 1, Vehicles
>and a few others as well.  Nowhere in any of these do I find a reference to
>Batteries in general, or an E cell in particular.

The are in Space (page 53).

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 03:12:38 EST
From: Kagehira@aol.com
Subject: Re: Law and Fanzines

	Yes, you'd definitely be breaking the law by publishing a Traveller (or
other) fanzine. However, you can ask permission to do so and depending on the
company and the time it is usually granted (Marc's been good about such things
in the past, GDW allowed it on occasion and disallowed it on others. Same for
FASA. SJG might not allow it).
	If you don't ask you might run into problems. In all cases it's a good idea
to send a copy of the fanzine to the publisher and the fanzine should include
disclaimers (even if permission was granted).
	The disclaimer's should include who the trademark belongs to and that you
have no intention of infringing on the trademark.

	Right now there are five to six Traveller fanzines around. Three or four
published by HIWG (AAB, Starburst, Meshan Saga and maybe Kfour????-covering
Gvurrdon), one by BITs and the occasional Dark Star. Of these AAB has the
honor of the oldest surviving Traveller fanzine.

Bryan

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 01:37:43 -0700
From: Sanders <timmon@primenet.com>
Subject: Re: Law and Fanzines

At 03:12 AM 10/25/98 -0500, you wrote:
>	Yes, you'd definitely be breaking the law by publishing a Traveller (or
>other) fanzine. However, you can ask permission to do so and depending on the
>company and the time it is usually granted (Marc's been good about such
things
>in the past, GDW allowed it on occasion and disallowed it on others. Same for
>FASA. SJG might not allow it).
>	If you don't ask you might run into problems. In all cases it's a good idea
>to send a copy of the fanzine to the publisher and the fanzine should include
>disclaimers (even if permission was granted).
>	The disclaimer's should include who the trademark belongs to and that you
>have no intention of infringing on the trademark.
>
>	Right now there are five to six Traveller fanzines around. Three or four
>published by HIWG (AAB, Starburst, Meshan Saga and maybe Kfour????-covering
>Gvurrdon), one by BITs and the occasional Dark Star. Of these AAB has the
>honor of the oldest surviving Traveller fanzine.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Bryan - 

Are you sure? Geo is still putting out Terra Traveller Times I believe - I
know he is in the process on taking it from paper to the web (he's working
on the web site right now).

L8r,
Paul

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 21:00:54 +1300
From: "Anson Betts" <Lord.High.Executioner@xtra.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

>I've been re-reading Scouts (LBB 6), and a couple of things are striking me
>about it.
>
>Firstly, there tend to be lots of worlds and moons in a system. This is
>important if you are rolling for special resources per world.
>
>Secondly, there tends to be multiple refuelling points per system, even
>ignoring the Oort cloud. Most systems have at least one planet with some
>water, or an asteroid belt (ice asteroids) or multiple gas giants. It is
>still most cost-effective to fuel up at the starport (time is money), but
>this isnt your only option.
>
>Has anyone done an entire subsector using extended system generation ?
>
>Ian Whitchurch
>
Yes. I did a sector a while back for a game in which the players WERE
Scouts. The whole exploration thing really worked well. That's probably why
TNE goes well with me, lots of places to re-discover :)

Cheers,
 Anson

I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather,
not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 22:53:20 +0100
From: Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Capital ships

Fred and Evelyn Wolke wrote:

>>Well, using TL 9 technology, I'll lay a fiber-O grid across the ocean
>>floor; and splice it up with sonar commo transducers. The ends go ashore
>>to a highly dispersed detection array (made up of mobile & fixed/hidden)
>>sensors.
>
>What would you do if you had just suppressed or destroyed the local
>defenses, but the Navy was going to arrive in a few weeks and you wanted
>your 'Subs' to be able to make the world useless to them for as long as
>possible?

I'm not following you. Am I supposed to be defending the planet from a
spaceborne attack; or pacifying it from space?

Aetherem Vincere
Matt
- -- 
Matt Clonfero: Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk    | To err is human, To forgive
My employer and I have a deal - I don't speak | is not Air Force Policy.
for them, and they don't speak for me.        |   -- Anon, ETPS.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 01:47:14 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: [none]

>
>So if the manuever drive uses 50 MW, then it has to radiate away 50 MW
>of *heat*. And any attempt to recover energy from that will merely
>degrade the performance of the drive.
>
>- --
No, 50 MW of ENERGY must be radiated out. The canonical Cerenkof radiation
will account for some of the 50 MW, as will the magnetic fields, and other
EMS radiations carry energy out of the loop WITHOUT HEAT.  So that 50 MW
MDrive must radiate out 50 MW of Energy, of which we can assume at least 1
will be that blue glow of Cerenkof's. (I'd assume more than that for MTU).
And then the losses to non-IR EMS from power running through circuts, as
well as the magnetic energy, should pull another 10% of that out, so the
Heat is 44 MW...

etcetera. Now, those radiations may generate some heat in the materials
around them, but again, not at 100% efficiency, so we bouce that up to 48MW
(assumes 50% conversion of non-heat losses into heat).

I'm just pulling efficiencies out of my arse here, but the theory is
important, not the numbers.

Likewise, gravitics are going to leak some of the energy converted as
gravitic emmissions, rather than heat.

Just for reference, one of the neat bits about electronics is that a good
portion of electronics entropy losses are non-heat: waste EMS(Radio
subspectrum) is a major portion, which, BTW, induces both electric flow and
heat in other nearby metals... hence a phone line running next to home AC
picks up the 60 hz humm of induced signal. A radio tower can burn you by
heating up your keys in your pocket (especially if you have insulated
footware...) as most of the energy gets trapped as heat when the atempt to
induce current fails due to nowhere for the current to flow to. Magnetic
fields are another common waste effect fo electronics. Semi-conductors are
far less so than non-solid-state,IIRC, but still generate EMS and magnetc
energy as part of their entropic loss accounting.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 02:09:21 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Reserves

>
>With all this talk about the Reservists in the 3I, I thought I would put my
>thoughts,such as they are down.
>
>1. Maybe the 3I has the Reservists serve 2 days a months, not just one
>weekend a month, but two days.  And three weeks a year, instead of the two
>weeks currently.
>
>This would fix the problem many have with the jump in & jump out.
>
>2.Or the 3I could have reservists serve one month out of every year & one
>day a month.  This would have the same amount of days as the current plan.
>
>3. Or someone else could come up with an another idea.

Like the 3rd Imperium doesn't use part-time soldiers in the IN, IMC, or
Scouts.
Like every canon reference to "Reserves" WRT the IMPERIUM makes no
references to part-timers, but merely uses the term "Reserve Fleet" to mean
2nd line, and Colonial Fleet to mean 3rd Line.

The Solomani, now, they use part timers, according to the Solomani AM of
CT. And it is pointed out that this is different from the imperium in the
MT S&A (DGP).

IMTU, the are no RESERVISTS in the Imperium, only regular IN cremen in
assignments to Reserve Fleets. Usually because they didn't score as high on
the last sector-wide Gen&Spec SQT. The bottom of the scores get sent to the
Colonial Units... which often have a lot of system and subsector naval
transferees as well....

Local (system) navies might use part-timers... on a world by world basis.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 05:11:23 -0500
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Capital ships

At 10:53 PM 10/23/98 +0100, you wrote:
>Fred and Evelyn Wolke wrote:
>
>>>Well, using TL 9 technology, I'll lay a fiber-O grid across the ocean
>>>floor; and splice it up with sonar commo transducers. The ends go ashore
>>>to a highly dispersed detection array (made up of mobile & fixed/hidden)
>>>sensors.
>>
>>What would you do if you had just suppressed or destroyed the local
>>defenses, but the Navy was going to arrive in a few weeks and you wanted
>>your 'Subs' to be able to make the world useless to them for as long as
>>possible?
>
>I'm not following you. Am I supposed to be defending the planet from a
>spaceborne attack; or pacifying it from space?

You're placing meson-gun equipped starships into the planet's oceans for
the purpose of denying the enemy access to the planet's facilities, without
actually destroying them.
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 01:09:58 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Disturbing Anti-Democratic Trends in Traveller and SFRPGs

Richard Hough <rdhough@home.com>  wrote

> >What I really wanted to do was to get people to realise *consciously* 
> >that the Imperium *is* the "Evil Empire".

> The "Evil Galactic Empire" is such a staple in SF
> that I find few players are able to accept the notion of a hereditary
> ruling class as fair and benevolent. Look at the published adventures: 
> most time the players are portrayed as ethically-challenged merchants,
> mercenaries, or outright criminals. I'm not saying that's bad, but 
> people like this tend to rationalize their anti-social actions as 
> "resistance to a corrupt state" whether they're machine-gunning 
> imperial stormtroopers 

I thought everyone knew you had to use TL 0 weapons such as sticks &
stones against Imperial Stormtroopers.  I am sure machine guns would not
work, not even if they were crewed by small cute furry creatures....

> or selling heroin cut with rat poison to children.

Don't think of it as selling heroing cut with rat poison to children
think of it as ensuring that your product is specially designed for each
market niche.  I am pretty sure that this must be what Vilani & Vargr
meant when they said that Vilani MegaCorporations make sure to target
their products to each niche market.

After all by cutting it with rat poison you ensure that the little
brats, er customers, do not OD (thereby hurting your future market),
reduce your actual costs for real heroin(thereby raising profits), give
the users that nice special strychnine tingle which is especially suited
to marketing to children, as adult users may be able to tell the
difference & may be in position to do more dammage if they do.

Marketing is such a great field to work in.  :)

[Peter - who is picturing the company rep Burke, from Aliens, as a
shining example of what young Vilani corporate types can aspire to be.]

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 21:31:43 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Formal for mass-based jump limits

In mail you write:

> On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:02:37 -0700 (PDT), Anthony Jackson wrote:
>
>>Any opinion on making the jump limit based on object mass, rather than
>>diameter?  If you base it on, say, the local tidal strength (rate of change 
> of
>>gravitational force) it remains a fixed multiple of radius for objects of
>>constant density, and allows resolving questions about jumping near a comet 
> or
>>other large gas cloud.
>>
>
> Jumplimit 
> [AU]=(SQRT(MassTerrstrial*5,9742E024/(0,000025*9,80665/0,0000000000667259)))/
> 14960
> 0000000
>
>
> For Terra You must use solar mass in and you will get around 5 AU!

You made a bad assumption above. Since the 100 diameter rule has to be
a *useful* approximation of the mass-based rule for "rocky" planets
(planets with approximately the same density as Earth) then the mass
based rule has to be based on the *cube* root of the mass. The mass of
a sphere of a given density is directly proportional to the *cube* of
the radius (or diameter).

It goes like this:

size	dia	mass	100 dia	mass^(1/3)
- ----	---	-----	-------	----------
1	1	   1	 100	 1
2	2	   8	 200	 2
3	3	  27	 300	 3
4	4	  64	 400	 4
5	5	 125	 500	 5
6	6	 216	 600	 6
7	7	 343	 700	 7
8	8	 512	 800	 8
9	9	 729	 900	 9
A	A	1000	1000	10

As you can see jump limit goes up in step with the cube root.

And by a strange coincidence, tidal forces (the rate at which the
strength of the gravity field changes) are *also* based on the cube
root. They fit quite nicely.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 22:01:58 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Sten

In mail you write:

>     The first 5 books were good. My step-dad gave me The Wolf Worlds to read
> one boring summer day WAAAAY back in the early eighties. Read it in two
> days, then, reread what I rushed through... Kids will be kids...
>     The only cool things about the series were:
>     1) How Sten started off on Vulcan, and , got that neat crystal and
> formed it into that wicked knife. Just wonder where I could find some of
> that crystal...

It's a classic example of what the folks over on rec.arts.sf.science
call "unobtanium". :-)

>     2) Alex Killgore's brogue and how it cut in-and-out at unusual times.
> The jokes were the worst, except the one about the 'wee snakes'

I don't recall that one. But I enjoy hitting folks with the "Sir, it's
an ambush! There're *two* of them..." 

>     5) And, of course, AM2 (Wonder if the 3I has any of this stuff...)

More "unobtanium".

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 22:07:28 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Why jump takes constant time...

In mail you write:

>         I remember, OTMH, that some time ago, somebody posted some notes 
> explaining why jump time is constant, making it analogous to the 
> physical fact (which I do not remember clearly) that the falling time 
> through an hypotetical tunnel  (?) between two points in the surface 
> of a sphere (planet) is constant, regardless of where the points are.

The tunnel bit has to do with the weird but true fact that *inside* a
spherical *solid* body, the gravity drops off linearly from the surface
to the center.

The effect of this is that an "orbit" inside the solid sphere takes the
same time regardless of its radius. The calcs are a bit weird, but I do
recall doing them back in high school. 

So a "ballistic shuttle" also takes the same time for any trip. These
are essentially a gravity powered "subway" that runs in tunnels that go
*straight* from point A to point B.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 07:16:05 -0500
From: "Alan M. Nuss" <amnuss@earthlink.net>
Subject: re: Extended System Generation

>I've been re-reading Scouts (LBB 6), and a couple of things are
striking me
>about it.

>Firstly, there tend to be lots of worlds and moons in a system. This is

>important if you are rolling for special resources per world.

>Secondly, there tends to be multiple refuelling points per system, even

>ignoring the Oort cloud. Most systems have at least one planet with
some
>water, or an asteroid belt (ice asteroids) or multiple gas giants. It
is
>still most cost-effective to fuel up at the starport (time is money),
but
>this isnt your only option.

>Has anyone done an entire subsector using extended system generation ?

Back in the mid to late 80's I did the entire Spinward Marches.  What
struck me was how
sparcely the systems were populated for a steller culture.  I a
character had the resources
there were thousands of places to hide.  Using the 100 diam. jump limit
on stars ,there were many main worlds within that limit, causing
freighters using 1G to take from 1 day
to almost a week in real space for the planet - jump point trip.

Alan

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 08:37:45 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Ballistic Shuttle/Subway (was re: Why jump takes constant time)

Leonard Erikson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So a "ballistic shuttle" also takes the same time for any trip. These
are essentially a gravity powered "subway" that runs in tunnels that go
*straight* from point A to point B.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I'm sure this "subway" is in very, very straight tunnel that's been
pumped to vacuum?

I wonder how you'd calculate the travel times - or the tech level at
which such a transit system would be in common use?

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 08:50:54 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Naval Procurement

Ian Whitchurch wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Lets assume we have 2 worlds, one TL15 and one TL12, and a Navy that needs some real warships and some tankers. Now, TL12 warships suck, 
when compared to TL15 warships, but jump-3 TL12 tankers arent too bad.

So the Navy commissions the tankers from the TL12 world, and has them built there (leading to nice 'Imperium Signs Massive Defense Contract with 
Us !' headlines and lots of dinner invites for the Vice-Admiral in charge of
procurement). The real warships get built at the hi-tech shipyard.

It is pushing the analogy a bit, but modern militaries do build new
contruction of obsolescent designs for reasons of economy (how long did the A4 and A6 gets built for, anyway ?).
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Consider that every warship being repaired, refitted or maintained takes
up shipyard capacity, keeping it from being available for new builds...

The Navy may be taking in all these TL10-TL14 MegaCredits that it
could spend (with Striker's conversion chart) in a TL15 system, but
that system's TL15 shipyard may not have the capacity to build
anything with the credits - it's already full up building what you
paid for last year.

Which would the Navy Admiral rather have - a fleet of new TL12
tankers and auxiliaries rolling off the line at Regina, or a production
bottlekneck at TL15 Rhylanor?

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 08:32:53 -0600
From: "James Pearson" <jdpearson@wr.net>
Subject: Re: (GURPS) Batteries, E cell {and others}

Your answer does lie in GURPS Ultra-Tech, pp 10-11

E Cell:
4" in diameter
6" Tall
Powers vehicles, support weapons, and power intensive systems
$2,000 
20 lbs.

I have not seen mention a power cell larger than this.  Usually weapons and 
devices will use more cells for more power (i.e. 2  C cells).

Also:  "Power cells incease in power exponentially.  An A cell is 10 times more 
powerfulas an AA cell ...."

Since all power cells in Traveller are assumed to be recharbeable, half the 
normal durations/energy or the number of shots it holds (see G:T page 107).
>  * Do any of you know the reference from which GURPS details how it uses
> batteries in general, and the specifications of the E cell in particular?
> 
>  * If yes, could you please send (or post) a partial summary of A through
>  Z
> cells, dimensions, kilowatt-hours, etc., etc... ?
> 
> 
> What I really need is the size, weight and capacity of the batterie cells
> that are equal or greater capacity to an "E cell".


 -- James Pearson
"The purpose of a referee is to present obstacles 
for players to overcome as they go about seeking 
their goals, not to constantly make trouble for them.
This is a very subtle distinction ..."

The Traveller Book, p. 12

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula/4089

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 13:14:18 +0100
From: Guillem Plasencia <guillemp@ciberia.es>
Subject: Tidal strength equation

After some calculations, which include derivation of gravity force
respect the distance from source and substituting each constant, i got
this equation

Tidal Strength is TS = -7,972e14*m*rho*(radius)^3/distance^3

where distance is measured in meters, and also
m is mass of the spaceship in kg, rho is density of the gravity source
in times
that of the Earth, and radius is the radius of the gravity source also
in times
that of the Earth.
Tidal Strength is the rate of change of gravity force
along a radius vector from source

That is an hiperbolic sharp line. Now the problem is setting a jump
distance limit, and looking the shape of these functions (f(x)=-1/x^3)
there is something like a "plateau" (it approaches zero for x->infinity)
at some distance. So now, we just set an arbitrary restriction to set
jump distance based on tidal strength.

I'll make some more calculations, and then i'll post them, to reach a
workable restriction, but as a hint i've calculated that at 100
diameters (distance=200r , radius in meters) the tidal strength is
1,5696e-9 times the gravity field at that point, calculated in Terra.

Tidal strength is K times the gravity force at a point, where 

K = 1/(100*r)   where radius is the radius of the gravity source in
meters, or if you prefer

K = 1,5696e-9*radius (this time, radius is in times the radius of the
Earth).


Guillem Plasencia 
guillemp@ciberia.es

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 07:33:12 -0800
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Re: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )

At 07:39 PM 10/24/98 -0400, you wrote:

>In fact, would there be a demand for MT equipment sheets? I have a lot of
>these, and could do them up in PDF format for posting somewhere (maybe
>Freelance Traveller)?

That would very useful.. especially is FT started doing new write-ups of
equipment on the MT equipment sheets.
- --

+--------------------------------------+
|Douglas E. Berry    dberry@hooked.net |
|   http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/     |
+--------------------------------------+
| "In the long run luck is given       |
|  only to the efficient."             |
|     -Helmuth von Moltke, German Army |
+--------------------------------------+

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1045
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Sunday, October 25 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1046



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Archival Materials
Spectacular Success/Failure
Re: Formal for mass-based jump limits
Re: Tidal strength equation
Gravity blocking jump routes (Was: The Imperial fleet)
Re: Tidal strength equation
Re: Naval procurement
Re: Reserves
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes (Was: The Imperial fleet)
Re: GT
Re: Spectacular Success/Failure
Re: Naval Procurement
Re: Physreps
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
[Heading OT] Re:New Deck plans revised files added
Re: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )
Re: Extended System Generation
Re: Anybody got a FFS vehicle spreadsheet?
Re: Naval Procurement
Burke from Aliens
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes (Was: The Imperial fleet)
New sensor return
Re: Capital Ships of WWII

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 16:26:37 GMT
From: johnl@vnet.net (John Lansford)
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

On Sun, 25 Oct 98 00:17:03 -0500, you wrote:

>On 10/24/98 at 04:29 PM,  DustyLV769@aol.com said:
>
>><< Having replied to the original message in concurrence with your
>><< post I will only add that the H.M.S. Rodney also fired torpedoes at the
>><< Bismarck.  There was thought to have been one hit out of 6, IIRC.  >>
>
>>	After seeing this post, I seem to remember having read this in the
>>book "Sink the Bismarck" 
>
>Guys, it doesn't much matter now if space aliens sank the Bismark
>does it?
>
>My question has always been Why?  Why, did Bismark sorte out from
>it's harbor? The German's *must* have known the whole British Navy
>would go after him.  They couldn't have thought they could take the
>whole shebang on with a single ship!

The "whole shebang" at the time was Hood & Prince of Wales (one an old
ship, the other a brand new one), King George V and Repulse (one a
VERY brand new ship, the other an even older one) with the Home Fleet.


All the other battleships were off on other missions.

The Germans correctly figured that if they could sail through the
British picket line without being detected or shook the pickets off
later, they would disappear into the North Atlantic.

They never intended to get into gun battles with the Royal Navy unless
it was absolutely necessary. 

John Lansford

The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 11:31:37 -0500
From: "Eric Freitas" <ericfreitas@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Archival Materials

Use particle beam etched metal plates (gold if you wish, however I think its
too soft
to take much abuse).  This idea is now being developed to replace
microfiche.  If you
ever lose the ability to make the readers, all you need is a high power
microscope
to read the plates.  This is a pretty high density system, however it has
lots of built
in redundancy.  The pages of data (as in from a book) are etched into the
plates
just as they appear on the page of a book.  It's estimated that the data
retention
of this type of storage is measured in thousands of years.

Eric
- -----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Thursday, October 15, 1998 1:24 PM
Subject: Re: Archival Materials


>Leo Hale wrote:
>> What would stop us from using the same type of system?  Build
>> little books with PROM type chips and a power system.  If they run out of
>> power recharge them.
>
>Cosmic rays and background radiation. Over a 50,000 year span, anything
>built of IC's will be dead as a doornail, scrambled beyond recognition.
>
>The problem is that as your data gets denser, it becomes more
>susceptible to events like a cosmic ray strike.
>
>Also, all sorts of weird things happen in crystals that sit for 50,000
>years when they depend on specific contaminants to work...you get stuf
>diffusing over the junctions, metals dissolving into the silicon, etc.
>This doesn't happen on our time scale, but on near geological ones like
>50kyr, it will.
>
>--
>Bruce Johnson
>University of Arizona
>College of Pharmacy
>Information Technology Group
>

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 08:34:54 -0800
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Spectacular Success/Failure

Quick question.. is the latest version of SS/SF three 1's/6's, or all 1's/6's?

Doug.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 16:57:00 +0100
From: Guillem Plasencia <guillemp@ciberia.es>
Subject: Re: Formal for mass-based jump limits

Would you please explain me how did you get those numbers, or where? I
mean i can't guess the calculations behind, although i've tried and i've
found some hints (both isolate distance, but i don't see where is the
mass of the other object (the spaceship) on them.

Thank you.

> Jens Maskus writes:
> >
> > Jumplimit
> >
> [AU]=(SQRT(MassTerrstrial*5,9742E024/(0,000025*9,80665/0,0000000000667259)))/14960
> > 0000000
>
> _tidal_ strength -- which is the derivative of gravitational force.  Distance =
> (MassTerrestrial)^1/3 * 4.2 light-seconds.  Works out to about .6 AU for the
> sun; this is actually more generous than the standard rules.
>


- --
Guillem Plasencia
guillemp@ciberia.es

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:03:44 +0100
From: Guillem Plasencia <guillemp@ciberia.es>
Subject: Re: Tidal strength equation

I've simulated some numbers for the tidal strength of an Earth mass object,
and it is a very small number for tipical distances of thousands (smaller at
millions) of km, here are a couple of numbers (tidal strength in
Newtons/meter)
and m is the mass of the spaceship (which should be taken in count ) :


> distance m      m=100 kg        m= 200000 kg    m=1000000 kg
> 300000         -2,952592593    -5905,185185    -29525,92593
> 400000         -1,245625       -2491,25        -12456,25
> 500000         -0,63776        -1275,52        -6377,6
> 600000         -0,369074074    -738,1481481    -3690,740741
> 700000         -0,232419825    -464,8396501    -2324,198251
> 800000         -0,155703125    -311,40625      -1557,03125
> 900000         -0,109355281    -218,7105624    -1093,552812
> 1000000        -0,07972        -159,44         -797,2
> 2000000        -0,009965       -19,93          -99,65
> 3000000        -0,002952593    -5,905185185    -29,52592593
> 4000000        -0,001245625    -2,49125        -12,45625
> 5000000        -0,00063776     -1,27552        -6,3776
> 6000000        -0,000369074    -0,738148148    -3,690740741
> 7000000        -0,00023242     -0,46483965     -2,324198251
> 8000000        -0,000155703    -0,31140625     -1,55703125
> 9000000        -0,000109355    -0,218710562    -1,093552812
> 10000000       -0,00007972     -0,15944        -0,7972
> 1274200000     -3,85349E-11    -7,70698E-08    -3,85349E-07
>
The last row is the 100 diameters distance' tidal strength of Earth, i
wonder how a medium sized (200 ton) ship could detect such a low gravity
force rate of change as 7,7e-8 Newtons/meter. A 200ton cylindrical ship is
about 34 meters long, so gravity change along the ship would be (again at
100 d distance of Earth)  2,62e-6 Newtons only !! A very sensitive device, i
think :)

Another question now is : which is the least tidal strength below that a
jump is safe?

<snip>

> Tidal Strength is TS = -7,972e14*m*rho*(radius)^3/distance^3
>
> where distance is measured in meters, and also
> m is mass of the spaceship in kg, rho is density of the gravity source
> in times
> that of the Earth, and radius is the radius of the gravity source also
> in times
> that of the Earth.
> Tidal Strength is the rate of change of gravity force
> along a radius vector from source
>

- --
Guillem Plasencia
guillemp@ciberia.es

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:28:49 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Gravity blocking jump routes (Was: The Imperial fleet)

Eris Reddoch writes:

>Most of a local year inner planets are going to be occluded by the
>primary's hyperlimit.  This will mean ships will spend a good bit of
>time travelling insystem irregardless. 

I believe this effect (gravity wells blocking jump routes) is mentioned in
one or more canonical essays (though I can't recall right away just where),
the rules have always ignored this and assumed that ships jump straight
from planetary jump limit to planetary jump limit.

You can certainly justify such blockage and it would certainly be a big
help to pirates, but before you get too enthusiastic, you should consider
that it will complicate the hell out of the jump rules nad it will change
the economic realities of the TU drastically. I imagine that mostly you
could forget about getting 25 jumps per year out of a ship for starters.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 13:41:34 -0500
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Tidal strength equation

>The last row is the 100 diameters distance' tidal strength of Earth, i
>wonder how a medium sized (200 ton) ship could detect such a low gravity
>force rate of change as 7,7e-8 Newtons/meter. A 200ton cylindrical ship is
>about 34 meters long, so gravity change along the ship would be (again at
>100 d distance of Earth)  2,62e-6 Newtons only !! A very sensitive device, i
>think :)

That very question may be the reason pilots and astrogators use the '100
diameters' rule of thumb.  OTOH, in the 1100+ era Imperium, these values
have probably been measured and calculated for every significant body, and
they probably don't change much.

*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:56:12 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Naval procurement

>Walter Smith writes:

>Ian Whitchurch wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>Lets assume we have 2 worlds, one TL15 and one TL12, and a Navy that needs
>some real warships and some tankers. Now, TL12 warships suck, when compared
>to TL15 warships, but jump-3 TL12 tankers arent too bad.
>
>So the Navy commissions the tankers from the TL12 world, and has them built
>there (leading to nice 'Imperium Signs Massive Defense Contract with Us !'
>headlines and lots of dinner invites for the Vice-Admiral in charge of
>procurement). The real warships get built at the hi-tech shipyard.

[snip]

> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>Consider that every warship being repaired, refitted or maintained takes
>up shipyard capacity, keeping it from being available for new builds...
> 
>The Navy may be taking in all these TL10-TL14 MegaCredits that it
>could spend (with Striker's conversion chart) in a TL15 system, but
>that system's TL15 shipyard may not have the capacity to build
>anything with the credits - it's already full up building what you
>paid for last year.
> 
>Which would the Navy Admiral rather have - a fleet of new TL12
>tankers and auxiliaries rolling off the line at Regina, or a production
>bottlekneck at TL15 Rhylanor?

I'm not sure what you are getting at. As far as I can see Ian is talking
about just that: the IN procuring less-than-TL 15 ships from less-than-TL 15
shipyards. To the original poster I'd like to point out that I actually
assume that a lot of that goes on. It would reduce the Imperial fleet as
much as possible if one did assume that it only bought TL 15 ships (because
a lot of the tax base is less than TL 15 and will therefore be worth less
when buying TL 15 ships).


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 20:00:21 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Reserves

William F. Hostman writes:

>Like every canon reference to "Reserves" WRT the IMPERIUM makes no
>references to part-timers, but merely uses the term "Reserve Fleet" to mean
>2nd line, and Colonial Fleet to mean 3rd Line.

Almost right. "Reserve fleet" and "Colonial fleet" are synonymous.
  

      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 12:05:58 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes (Was: The Imperial fleet)

 
> I believe this effect (gravity wells blocking jump routes) is mentioned in
> one or more canonical essays (though I can't recall right away just where),
> the rules have always ignored this and assumed that ships jump straight
> from planetary jump limit to planetary jump limit.
> 
> You can certainly justify such blockage and it would certainly be a big
> help to pirates, but before you get too enthusiastic, you should consider
> that it will complicate the hell out of the jump rules nad it will change
> the economic realities of the TU drastically. I imagine that mostly you
> could forget about getting 25 jumps per year out of a ship for starters.
 
While you are right about it limiting the number of jumps, it might
be useful to look at the main jump routes in a given sector--you
might well assume that the occasional backwater in the midst of a
good set of jump routes is a backwater for just that reason--it
exists in a system that makes it a bad stop for merchants.

As is typically the case with traveller, wierd inconsistancies
usually make for interesting stories. Why is doesn't anybody live on
this otherwise really nice world, and in the next system they
massively populate a world with a crappy atmosphere? Why is is world
so economically backwards while being in the midst of a buch of
other worlds? Sounds fun to me :-)

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 12:10:32 -0700
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@home.com>
Subject: Re: GT

> I know there's In Nomine, etc, and that G:T is obviously
> going to be more than one product, but I believe it's been confirmed there
> will be no overall plotline for the background of G:T's alternate universe...

Strange, my copy of GT says "From the beginning, Traveller was a game of
secrets... We have another one building in GURPS Traveller, but you'll have
to wait to find out what it's going to be" on page 81. I must have a
different printing.

The continuing storyline in CT was one of my favorite things about the
published adventures, and I hope SJG continues in this tradition.

The danger with continuing storylines is the tendency later writers have of
trying to outdo everything that had been published before. IMHO this was a
big problem with TNE, and turned Thieves' World into a joke. Let's hope
Loren et al are more interested in creating a dynamic and interesting story
background than playing 'king of the hill' with Marc.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 14:22:43 EST
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Spectacular Success/Failure

In a message dated 10/25/98 10:35:49 AM Central Standard Time,
dberry@hooked.net writes:

<< Quick question.. is the latest version of SS/SF three 1's/6's, or all
1's/6's?
  >>

Three 1's (or 6's). You must roll at least three dice on the task.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 14:25:31 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Naval Procurement

In a message dated 10/24/98 14:38:08 PM Pacific Standard Time,
ianw@orac.net.au writes:

<< Lets assume we have 2 worlds, one TL15 and one TL12, and a Navy that needs
 some real warships and some tankers. Now, TL12 warships suck, when compared
 to TL15 warships, but jump-3 TL12 tankers arent too bad.
 
 So the Navy commissions the tankers from the TL12 world, and has them built
 there (leading to nice 'Imperium Signs Massive Defense Contract with Us !'
 headlines and lots of dinner invites for the Vice-Admiral in charge of
 procurement). The real warships get built at the hi-tech shipyard.
  >>

	I can see a case for this...but just how many high-tech shipyards do you
have??  This is an often-overlooked point:  you only have so many tons of yard
capacity at each TL to build new ships and maintain old ones.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:49:38 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Physreps

 "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu> wrote:

>I like it.  The closest I got was index cards with a weapon's stats and a
>*picture* of the weapon (usually clipped from somewhere - like a photocopy
>of something from a nontrav GDW sourcebook) pasted to the front.

I've done that - works well, especially when you've got a group of
Traveller neos (like the times when you are running a demo game).

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 20:05:56 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

 "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net> wrote:

>My question has always been Why?  Why, did Bismark sorte out from
>it's harbor? The German's *must* have known the whole British Navy
>would go after him.  They couldn't have thought they could take the
>whole shebang on with a single ship!

Two ships - the Prinz Eugen was with her as well. They separated after the
Hood was sunk IIRC (I'll have to dig the naval history books I've got out
if you want to know when). Not that it changes your point.

Perhaps the point is exactly that - if the whole RN (Atlantic fleet) was
tied up chasing the Bizmarck, the U-Boat actions would be less well
defended against. The Bizmarck was (arguably) more successful in its sorte
than the Graf Spee was.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:42:39 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: [Heading OT] Re:New Deck plans revised files added

Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior) wrote:

>"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net> writes:
>>Michael, they look good and printed out just fine.  It seemed like the
>>size of the Twain.pdf file went way up, I might be wrong as I was
>>downloading it through a dialup this time rather than a faster network
>>connection.
>
>This will happen. I PDFed a bunch of assignments so kids could download
>them from home, and file size went from 12k to 138k! I started using fewer
>fonts after that.

Within Acrobat Exchange you can strip out the fonts you aren't using - it
depends on the machine what you can drop. However, you can assume that Macs
have Helevetica and Times, and PCs have Arial and Times New Roman. It just
means you end up tailoring the file to a specific audience.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 14:45:00 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: "Standard" Cargo Modules ( re: 400 ton Subsidised Merchant )

>>In fact, would there be a demand for MT equipment sheets? I have a lot of
>>these, and could do them up in PDF format for posting somewhere (maybe
>>Freelance Traveller)?
>
>That would very useful.. especially is FT started doing new write-ups of
>equipment on the MT equipment sheets.

FT = Freelance Traveller?

I will need new artwork, as I was not an artist for DGP and thus don't own
the copyright to the art.  At the moment the sheets just have a blank for
the artwork.  I'll see what I can do tonight after finishing some tests.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 14:47:11 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au> writes:
>Has anyone done an entire subsector using extended system generation ?

Yup. Did Aramis, Regina, Lanth and Rhylanor. Extended generation, WBH
generation for all bodies in system, world maps for inhabited worlds...

I was working as an engineer and had more free time then...

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 14:52:43 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Anybody got a FFS vehicle spreadsheet?

"Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz> writes:
>Has anybody writen a spreadsheet to develop vehicles (not starships)
>using the 
>FFS2 rules? I already have Rob Priors excellant Infini-V, but I'd like to
>use the 
>FFS sequences for vehicles in my work (no offense Rob, just I believe
>that FFS 
>is going to be the basis of vehicle design for T5).

Actually, I'm working on an FFS application now. It will be for Mac _and_
PC. Infini-V was just a 'test run' that kinda grew :-)

As soon as I get the time to finish off IGS and Metator (already paid for
by a couple of people, so I am honour bound to get them out the door
next), I will serious work on FFS3. (OK, I'm also kinda waiting for Marc
to confirm whether FFS will be official for T5.)

<PLUG>
Also available from BITS is QSDS, a simple Mac application that creates
ships using the QSDS rules from T4. Check out Dom Mooney's page for a demo
copy.
</PLUG>

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 15:14:54 -0500
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Naval Procurement

I got to thinking about the comment below and it started running through my
head that there is probably a limit on how many ships can be built per year
in the Imperium.  I started crunching numbers and trying to take into
consideration numbers of shipyards there were scattered throughout the
empirium, relative size of a shipyard (how many ships can be under
construction at once) and the amount of time required to build each and
every ship by type. It started dawning on me that there might not be enough
Type A starports to build all the ships that seem to be available to
commercial, military and privately owned.  Somewhere in there you have to
throw in losses through war, natural occurrences, theft, given away,
whatever....  The number crunching gave me a headache but it seemed to me
that there could be a discrepancy of up to 50% over postulated numbers that
have been posted on the TML.  This includes the 20,000+ that would be
required by Traveller canon for active IN.  Anybody out there got about two
weeks and all the research material to calculate this figure?  Good Luck,
and I hope you have plenty of aspirin.
Thom Harris

- -----Original Message-----
From: DustyLV769@aol.com <DustyLV769@aol.com>
Subject: Re: Naval Procurement

>
>I can see a case for this...but just how many high-tech shipyards do you
>have??  This is an often-overlooked point:  you only have so many tons of
yard
>capacity at each TL to build new ships and maintain old ones.
>
>DustyLV769@aol.com
>

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 15:25:39 EST
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Burke from Aliens

> [Peter - who is picturing the company rep Burke, from Aliens, as a
> shining example of what young Vilani corporate types can aspire to be.]

Seeing as how Burke seems to have survived somehow, returned to Earth,
journeyed back in time, and married Helen Hunt, I rather aspire to be
him...Helen is a sweetie...

Loren Wiseman

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 15:12:21 -0500
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes (Was: The Imperial fleet)

At 07:28 PM 10/25/98 +0100, Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
>Eris Reddoch writes:
>
>>Most of a local year inner planets are going to be occluded by the
>>primary's hyperlimit.  This will mean ships will spend a good bit of
>>time travelling insystem irregardless. 
>
>I believe this effect (gravity wells blocking jump routes) is mentioned in
>one or more canonical essays (though I can't recall right away just where),
>the rules have always ignored this and assumed that ships jump straight
>from planetary jump limit to planetary jump limit.
>
>You can certainly justify such blockage and it would certainly be a big
>help to pirates, but before you get too enthusiastic, you should consider
>that it will complicate the hell out of the jump rules nad it will change
>the economic realities of the TU drastically. I imagine that mostly you
>could forget about getting 25 jumps per year out of a ship for starters.

In this case, highly-developed worlds might put way stations where
interstellar traders could deliver or sell their goods, in orbits that are
180 degrees (or 120 and 240 degrees) from the mainworld, so that they could
get in and out quickly.

IMC, however, the 'path' needn't be straight, and it only hits another jump
limit if the astrogator fails a skill roll.
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 15:35:09 -0500
From: Andy Slack <AndySlack@compuserve.com>
Subject: New sensor return

BRIDGE LOG ITSS 'TRUMPTON' 2120Z 23OCT98
Meldol:    Precipitation successful, ref.
Ref:       Good. What have we got?
Meldol:    Nothing hostile within 2000"... Some
           debris, sensors indicate an ongoing
           flame war about piracy.
Ref:       No change there, then. OK, take us in.
           Load Manoeuvre and Return Fire in the
           CPU.
Meldol:    Might not be enough - some of 'em are
           using rulebooks with meson guns in 'em.
Ref:       No problem. The ship is legally part of
           its home port, yes? That stuff stops
           working as soon as it enters MTU,
           which it does when it touches the hull.
Meldol:    Meson guns _don't_ touch the hull,
           technically speaking.
Ref:       OK, OK, get that lesbian Aslan out of
           her fighter and ask her to change the
           transponder signal.
Meldol:    What to?
Ref:       'Sweet Home Alabama' by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

*************

I'm back!
Andy

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 98 15:04:02 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

On 10/25/98 at 08:05 PM,  SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com> said:

>>My question has always been Why?  Why, did Bismark sorte out from
>>it's harbor? The German's *must* have known the whole British Navy
>>would go after him.  They couldn't have thought they could take the
>>whole shebang on with a single ship!

>Two ships - the Prinz Eugen was with her as well. They separated
>after the Hood was sunk IIRC (I'll have to dig the naval history
>books I've got out if you want to know when). Not that it changes
>your point.

>Perhaps the point is exactly that - if the whole RN (Atlantic fleet)
>was tied up chasing the Bizmarck, the U-Boat actions would be less
>well defended against. The Bizmarck was (arguably) more successful in
>its sorte than the Graf Spee was.

Well, to me, it seems like a waste of a major resource.  OTOH, I
guess they figured that it was better to "roll the dice" and risk it
than make it a "port queen."  

I'm certain if they had been able to get Bismark out into the
shipping lanes it would have disrupted things much more than Graf
Spee had and would have tied up a big hunk of British naval assets
hunting it down.  It just looks like a bad bet it was a bad be, to
me.


Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1046
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Sunday, October 25 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1047



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Sten 
re: Naval Procurement
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Extended System Generation
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes (Was: The Imperial fleet)
Re: Naval Procurement
Re: .Traveller-digest V1998 #1046
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes (Was: The Imperial fleet)
Re: Wierd Bounces
Economic Data re-post (was Re: Naval Procurement)
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Gurps Traveller
Re: Tidal strength equation
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Re: Efficient 100-D Control
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Re: Economic Data re-post (was Re: Naval Procurement)
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 16:11:41 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Sten 

> >     2) Alex Killgore's brogue and how it cut in-and-out at unusual times.
> > The jokes were the worst, except the one about the 'wee snakes'
> 
> I don't recall that one. But I enjoy hitting folks with the "Sir, it's
> an ambush! There're *two* of them..." 

"Ah'm Red Rory of the TML!!!  Send oop yer best server!!"

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 21:30:24 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Naval Procurement

Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> wrote:

>Which would the Navy Admiral rather have - a fleet of new TL12
>tankers and auxiliaries rolling off the line at Regina, or a production
>bottlekneck at TL15 Rhylanor?

Bear in mind that it is canon that the IN can procure TL14/15 ships at
lower tech worlds. The Kinuir was built at Regina. I suspect that the lower
tech shipyards act as assembly facilities (much like Aerospatiale(*) does
for the Airbus Consortium), and brings together higher tech components
procured off world.

The production facilities at Rhylanor (for example) concentrate on the
leading edge and bigger ships, and at the same time the factories ship out
components to other systems (eg Regina). This bypasses the production
bottleneck, and gives the Imperial own bulk transports something to move in
peace time.

Dom

(*) I'm not trying to  imply that the French part of AI is less advanced by
this post.

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 15:10:55 -0600
From: "Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

>Well, to me, it seems like a waste of a major resource.  OTOH, I
>guess they figured that it was better to "roll the dice" and risk it
>than make it a "port queen."


Take a look at her sister ship the Tirpiz.  She was made a target and never
really got to sortie as I recall.  It makes a lot of sense to risk getting
your ship loose to be a commerce raider rather than let it sit and get
bombed.
If you get free, you will run amok and really screw up allied shipping.  At
the every least the RN will have to search the ENTIRE Atlantic for you and
hope they have the resources to get the job done.
Or you let your beautiful ship sit there and rust.
TV

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 16:39:54 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

At 02:47 PM 10/25/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au> writes:
>>Has anyone done an entire subsector using extended system generation ?
>
>Yup. Did Aramis, Regina, Lanth and Rhylanor. Extended generation, WBH
>generation for all bodies in system, world maps for inhabited worlds...
>
>I was working as an engineer and had more free time then...
>
Forgive me if this is an answered question (just got back into the mailing
list today after being out for a year), but is there something similar to
the Extended World generation system for T4 yet?

BTW, was writing a program to do extended world generation on computer, and
ended up calculating that I'd need about 40meg of space (uncompressed) for
all the data. Anyone come up with a similar figure?

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 10:35:09 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes (Was: The Imperial fleet)

At 19:28 25/10/98 +0100, Hans Rancke wrote:

>I believe this effect (gravity wells blocking jump routes) is mentioned in
>one or more canonical essays (though I can't recall right away just where),
>the rules have always ignored this and assumed that ships jump straight
>from planetary jump limit to planetary jump limit.
>
>You can certainly justify such blockage and it would certainly be a big
>help to pirates, but before you get too enthusiastic, you should consider
>that it will complicate the hell out of the jump rules nad it will change
>the economic realities of the TU drastically. I imagine that mostly you
>could forget about getting 25 jumps per year out of a ship for starters.

I did a quick chart of travel times to Sol's 100d limit:

Time to Sol's 100d limit (running jump)						
G's		1	2	3	4	5	6
Time (s)	166853	117983	96333	83427	74619	68118
Days		1.93	1.37	1.11	0.97	0.86	0.79

Time to Sol's 100d limit (standing jump)						
G's		1	2	3	4	5	6
Time (s)	235966	166853	136235	117983	105527	96333
Days		2.73	1.93	1.58	1.37	1.22	1.11

For the purposes of this chart I assumed that on average a ship going from
a world inside the 100d limit would need to travel a distance equal to the
100d limit. However even if the average distance is twice that the time
needed will only go up to 1.41 times those listed.

Obviously the number of jumps will probably drop for Free Traders and
others who don't have agents on world who can start arranging sales as the
ship comes in, or warehouses where they can just dump the cargo. In fact
this could well result in a standard service at all C class or better (or
even D+) starports - you send your manifest ahead to a broker who starts
selling the goods as you come in. Of course then we have pirates again, as
they'll know which ships to hit and will have much more time to do it in.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 10:41:16 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Naval Procurement

At 15:14 25/10/98 -0500, Thom Harris wrote:
>I got to thinking about the comment below and it started running through my
>head that there is probably a limit on how many ships can be built per year
>in the Imperium.  I started crunching numbers and trying to take into
>consideration numbers of shipyards there were scattered throughout the
>empirium, relative size of a shipyard (how many ships can be under
>construction at once) and the amount of time required to build each and
>every ship by type. It started dawning on me that there might not be enough
>Type A starports to build all the ships that seem to be available to
>commercial, military and privately owned.  Somewhere in there you have to
>throw in losses through war, natural occurrences, theft, given away,
>whatever....  The number crunching gave me a headache but it seemed to me
>that there could be a discrepancy of up to 50% over postulated numbers that
>have been posted on the TML.  This includes the 20,000+ that would be
>required by Traveller canon for active IN.  Anybody out there got about two
>weeks and all the research material to calculate this figure?  Good Luck,
>and I hope you have plenty of aspirin.

Bear in mind that only the jump drives must be installed at a type "A"
starport (and in TNE they were installed at a "B" port by workers from an
"A", but the "B" port was being upgraded, so this doesn't count, IMO). The
rest of the ship can be built at a "B" port and shipped to an "A" port for
final drive installation (assuming the ship is smll enough).

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 17:08:46 EST
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Re: .Traveller-digest V1998 #1046

In a message dated 98-10-25 16:09:10 EST, you write:

<< >My question has always been Why?  Why, did Bismark sorte out from
 >it's harbor? >>

If Bismarck could have snuck through the picket line and made it out into the
Atlantic, the combination of U-bouts for scouting and 15" guns would have
messed up your average convoy. 

Loren Wiseman

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 15:49:33 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

...
>I'm certain if they had been able to get Bismark out into the
>shipping lanes it would have disrupted things much more than Graf
>Spee had and would have tied up a big hunk of British naval assets
>hunting it down.  It just looks like a bad bet it was a bad be, to
>me.

  Compared to long-term survival rates for U-Boats it probably looked
like pretty damned good odds :)

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 17:53:02 -0500
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes (Was: The Imperial fleet)

>Obviously the number of jumps will probably drop for Free Traders and
>others who don't have agents on world who can start arranging sales as the
>ship comes in, or warehouses where they can just dump the cargo. In fact
>this could well result in a standard service at all C class or better (or
>even D+) starports - you send your manifest ahead to a broker who starts
>selling the goods as you come in. Of course then we have pirates again, as
>they'll know which ships to hit and will have much more time to do it in.

Not to mention the fact that if they can intercept that transmission,
they'll know which ship they want to hit....
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 17:57:18 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Wierd Bounces

In a message dated 10/24/98 6:12:42 PM Pacific Standard Time,
Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca writes:

<< Am I the only one getting these bounces?  The message that 'bounced'
 reached the list, I saw it this afternoon. 
 
 <<<
 Your message
 
   To:      traveller@MPGN.COM
   Subject: Re: Interstellar Anti-Imperial Terrorism
   Sent:    Sat, 24 Oct 1998 01:14:02 +1300
 
 did not reach the following recipient(s):
 
 traveller@MPGN.COM on Sun, 25 Oct 1998 12:07:28 +1300
     Unable to deliver the message due to a communications failure
     MSEXCH:IMS:Munden's Bar:MUNDENS:RADAGAST 0 (00120339) Too Many Hops
 [snip]
 >>>
 
  >>

I got one too...

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 16:08:28 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Economic Data re-post (was Re: Naval Procurement)

>Subject: Re: Naval Procurement
>
>I got to thinking about the comment below and it started running through my
>head that there is probably a limit on how many ships can be built per year
>in the Imperium./ ...            .../This includes the 20,000+ that would be
>required by Traveller canon for active IN.  Anybody out there got about two
>weeks and all the research material to calculate this figure?  Good Luck,
>and I hope you have plenty of aspirin.

  This has largely already been addressed thanks to "Derek Wildstar", a rather
devoted and accomplished Trav fan by any standard - a summary follows:

...
>Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 01:03:38 -0400
>From: Derek Wildstar <wildstar@qrc.com>
>Subject: Economic Data (long)
>
>Some Numbers About Piracy, Trade and Imperial Budgets
>
>Summary: The Imperium is BIG, and it's WEALTHY. It's requently hard to grasp
>just how big and how wealthy, because the numbers are usually astronomical
>(and I hope you'll pardon the pun).
>
>  To try and inject hard numbers into the current piracy debate, I went into my
>archives. The size of the Imperium and it's armed forces, the amount of
>interstellar trade, and the possibility (or not) of piracy has appeared the
>TML before. The whole time I've been a member (and as a resident old-timer
>on the list, that means a long time), the thread keeps coming back.
...
>  Also relevant to the piracy debate is the shipbuilding and maintenance
capacity
>of the world's shipyards. The shipyards of the Imperium's Class A starports
have
>an aggregate capacity (all tech levels) of 5,098,672,838 displacement tons for
>vessel construction. Its Class B ports have an additional capacity
4,367,049,593 displacement tons for the repair and annual maintainance of
starships. The table
>below shows the tech level breakdown for the Imperium's Class A and B
starports.
...

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 04:14:50 -0700
From: Christopher Thrash <thrash@io.com>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

>
>Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:28:49 +0100 (MET)
>From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
>Subject: Gravity blocking jump routes (Was: The Imperial fleet)
>
>Eris Reddoch writes:
>
>>Most of a local year inner planets are going to be occluded by the
>>primary's hyperlimit.  This will mean ships will spend a good bit of
>>time travelling insystem irregardless. 
>
>I believe this effect (gravity wells blocking jump routes) is mentioned in
>one or more canonical essays (though I can't recall right away just where),
>the rules have always ignored this and assumed that ships jump straight
>from planetary jump limit to planetary jump limit.
>
>You can certainly justify such blockage and it would certainly be a big
>help to pirates, but before you get too enthusiastic, you should consider
>that it will complicate the hell out of the jump rules nad it will change
>the economic realities of the TU drastically. I imagine that mostly you
>could forget about getting 25 jumps per year out of a ship for starters.

Or you might have found a justification for only 25 jumps per year, rather
than 35 or 40. If this is the reality, it places a premium on LASH and
jump-tender designs and pre-arranged deliveries for large commercial shippers.

That is, the jump geometry that would force an exit on the far side of the
stellar primary would be well known in advance. Using a pre-arranged
schedule, lighters or tugs would have to wait at a rendevous point at most
37 hours before meeting the freighter, swapping cargoes, and returning to
the main world. Of course (as you say), this is much more convenient for
pirates of several stripes, but only really applies on trade routes with
enough traffic to justify the overhead (and therefore the expense of
escorts, convoys, etc.).

Interesting.  Very interesting.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 00:48:34 +0100
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <greimann@geocities.com>
Subject: Gurps Traveller

Aaaaaahh ;-)
Finally, I got IT in my claws....: GT

Its looking good so far, I really like the design and the artwork.
Not much time to read so far, I have to finish a legal assessment work
until the post office closes tomorrow, but I am already looking forward to
reading it.
Also, its nice to se, the storyline will progress in GT, as it says 
on pages 4, 81 and the back cover.
Volker
- ---
Volker A. Greimann, greimann@geocities.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 14:52:20 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Tidal strength equation

In mail you write:

> After some calculations, which include derivation of gravity force
> respect the distance from source and substituting each constant, i got
> this equation
>
> Tidal Strength is TS = -7,972e14*m*rho*(radius)^3/distance^3
>
> where distance is measured in meters, and also
> m is mass of the spaceship in kg, rho is density of the gravity source
> in times
> that of the Earth, and radius is the radius of the gravity source also
> in times
> that of the Earth.
> Tidal Strength is the rate of change of gravity force
> along a radius vector from source

You can drop the mass off the ship from the equation. Tidal "forces" are
measured in units of acceleration, not of force. What you are looking
for is the rate at which the acceleration changes with distance from
the planet or star.

The equation for tidal accelerations is:

A = (G*M/R^3)*L

A = acceleration
G = gravitational constant
M = mass of planet
R = distance from planet
L = distance from center of mass of object experiencing tidal forces

That last item requires some explanation. If you are in orbit, then at
the center of mass of your ship, there *aren't* any tidal forces. As
you get farther away from the center of mass, the tidal forces
increase. 

At L from the center of mass (CoM) in a direction perpendicular to the
line joining the object and the planet, the acceleration is A *towards*
the CoM. 

At L from the CoM *along* the line joining the object and the planet,
the acceleration is 2A *away* from the CoM.

Thus, if you were at the CoM with your feet pointed towards the planet,
the forces would be squeezing inwards at your waist, at pulling
outwards at your head and feet.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:01:20 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

BTW, as far as I can tell, the multiple postings have stopped.
 
> >You can certainly justify such blockage and it would certainly be a big
> >help to pirates, but before you get too enthusiastic, you should consider
> >that it will complicate the hell out of the jump rules nad it will change
> >the economic realities of the TU drastically. I imagine that mostly you
> >could forget about getting 25 jumps per year out of a ship for starters.
> 
> Or you might have found a justification for only 25 jumps per year, rather
> than 35 or 40. If this is the reality, it places a premium on LASH and
> jump-tender designs and pre-arranged deliveries for large commercial shippers.
 
True.

> That is, the jump geometry that would force an exit on the far side of the
> stellar primary would be well known in advance. Using a pre-arranged
> schedule, lighters or tugs would have to wait at a rendevous point at most
> 37 hours before meeting the freighter, swapping cargoes, and returning to
> the main world. Of course (as you say), this is much more convenient for
> pirates of several stripes, but only really applies on trade routes with
> enough traffic to justify the overhead (and therefore the expense of
> escorts, convoys, etc.).

I agree. Anything that increases the use of in-system spacecraft is
a good thing IMO. The variability it adds to any traveller universe
seems pretty cool. It also provides a whole class of in-system boat
pilots, tugs, etc. Neat.

As for warfare, it makes that more interesting, too. Resupply
becomes trickier--and actually gives SDBs something to do. Now we
just need to make fuel skimming worth the trouble :-)

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 21:12:09 -0500
From: Joe Pettit <jpettit@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

Christopher Thrash wrote:

> >
> >Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:28:49 +0100 (MET)
> >From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
> >Subject: Gravity blocking jump routes (Was: The Imperial fleet)
> >
> >Eris Reddoch writes:
> >
> >>Most of a local year inner planets are going to be occluded by the
> >>primary's hyperlimit.  This will mean ships will spend a good bit of
> >>time travelling insystem irregardless.
> >
> >I believe this effect (gravity wells blocking jump routes) is mentioned in
> >one or more canonical essays (though I can't recall right away just where),
> >the rules have always ignored this and assumed that ships jump straight
> >from planetary jump limit to planetary jump limit.
> >
> >You can certainly justify such blockage and it would certainly be a big
> >help to pirates, but before you get too enthusiastic, you should consider
> >that it will complicate the hell out of the jump rules nad it will change
> >the economic realities of the TU drastically. I imagine that mostly you
> >could forget about getting 25 jumps per year out of a ship for starters.
>
> Or you might have found a justification for only 25 jumps per year, rather
> than 35 or 40. If this is the reality, it places a premium on LASH and
> jump-tender designs and pre-arranged deliveries for large commercial shippers.
>
> That is, the jump geometry that would force an exit on the far side of the
> stellar primary would be well known in advance. Using a pre-arranged
> schedule, lighters or tugs would have to wait at a rendevous point at most
> 37 hours before meeting the freighter, swapping cargoes, and returning to
> the main world. Of course (as you say), this is much more convenient for
> pirates of several stripes, but only really applies on trade routes with
> enough traffic to justify the overhead (and therefore the expense of
> escorts, convoys, etc.).

I think somebody mentioned that military vessels can coordinate their jumps so
that they all come out within an hour rather than the two day variable normal
jumps have.  If you assume commercial liners use this same tactic, the prearranged
tugs don't need to wait long, and they can quickly report any delays.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:36:32 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Efficient 100-D Control

...
>>For any historically-challenged subscribers to the list, HMS ROYAL OAK
>>was sunk in October 1939 by a U-boat (U-39?) that did just that:
>>penetrated the main British naval base (Scapa Flow).
>
>I'm sorry. Recent evidence shows that the Royal Oak was scuttled by her
>crew to prevent the German U-Boat crew boarding her, stealing her and
>obtaining valuable information... ;-)

  Supposedly they initially ignored the possibility of a sub having done
it, having assumed that it was an accident - there's nothing quite as
much trouble as deciding that you "know" something that's _wrong_.  :>

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 21:44:02 -0500
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

At 07:01 PM 10/25/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Now we
>just need to make fuel skimming worth the trouble :-)

PMI, but why isn't fuel skimming worth the trouble?  Does it cost you more
in time than it gains you in fuel expenditures?
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 21:44:49 -0500
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

>I think somebody mentioned that military vessels can coordinate their
jumps so
>that they all come out within an hour rather than the two day variable normal
>jumps have.  If you assume commercial liners use this same tactic, the
prearranged
>tugs don't need to wait long, and they can quickly report any delays.

Isn't that within an hour OF EACH OTHER, not some preset time?
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 20:52:42 -0600
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

Joe Pettit wrote:
> 
<<snip>>
> 
> I think somebody mentioned that military vessels can coordinate their jumps so
> that they all come out within an hour rather than the two day variable normal
> jumps have.  If you assume commercial liners use this same tactic, the prearranged
> tugs don't need to wait long, and they can quickly report any delays.

The coordination to which you refer applys to squadrons/fleets jumping
_together_.  They still have a variable time of exit, but the entire
fleet (at least, that portion of the fleet that jumped from a given spot
at the same time) exits jumpspace at the same time.  This doesn't do
anything to improve the predicatability of arrival time, it merely
ensures that a fleet that jumped together won't come straggling in over
several days.

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 22:24:04 -0500
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Economic Data re-post (was Re: Naval Procurement)

From: Steven Hudson <shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca>
Subject: Economic Data re-post (was Re: Naval Procurement)


Subject: Re: Naval Procurement

___________________Thom Harris' Original Msg________________________

I got to thinking about the comment below and it started running through my head
that there is probably a limit on how many ships can be built per year in the
Imperium./...   .../ Anybody out there got about two weeks and all the research
material to calculate this figure?  Good Luck, and I hope you have plenty of
aspirin.

_____________________Steven Hudson's Reply________________________
  This has largely already been addressed thanks to "Derek Wildstar", a rather
devoted and accomplished Trav fan by any standard - a summary follows:

_____________________Steve Quoting Derek Wildstar___________________

From: Derek Wildstar <wildstar@qrc.com>
Subject: Economic Data (long)

Some Numbers About Piracy, Trade and Imperial Budgets

Summary: The Imperium is BIG, and it's WEALTHY. It's requently hard to grasp
just how big and how wealthy, because the numbers are usually astronomical
(and I hope you'll pardon the pun).

     To try and inject hard numbers into the current piracy debate, I went
into my
archives. The size of the Imperium and it's armed forces, the amount of
inter-
stellar trade, and the possibility (or not) of piracy has appeared the TML
before.
The whole time I've been a member (and as a resident old-timer on the list,
that
means a long time), the thread keeps coming back.

      Also relevant to the piracy debate is the shipbuilding and maintenance
capacity
of the world's shipyards. The shipyards of the Imperium's Class A starports
have
an aggregate capacity (all tech levels) of 5,098,672,838 displacement tons
for
vessel construction. Its Class B ports have an additional capacity
4,367,049,593
displacement tons for the repair and annual maintainance of starships. The
table
below shows the tech level breakdown for the Imperium's Class A and B
starports.

___________________Thom's reply to Steve/Derek's  Msg___________________

My hat's off to Derek!!!!  I had started working on the numbers but quickly
became
saturated with data.  If I could beg a favor, I would dearly love to get my
hands on the
info/raw data and see what Derek used for his figures.  I didn't come up
with numbers
indicating the range to be in the billion's of tons.  I ASSUMED it was much
higher than
what I had, but I couldn't get enough hard data from the canon material that
I own.  In
other words, I petered out in my research after not being able to remember
where I had
read what. You can just send it as an attachment to a personal e-Mail to me
if you'd like.
I put this on the TML in case someone else sees this msg and would like the
data too.
Thanks LOADS in advance, its really appreciated.
My address is: thomharr@mediaone.net

Thom Harris

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 98 21:29:50 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

On 10/25/98 at 07:01 PM,  Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com> said:

>> That is, the jump geometry that would force an exit on the far side of the
>> stellar primary would be well known in advance. Using a pre-arranged
>> schedule, lighters or tugs would have to wait at a rendevous point at most
>> 37 hours before meeting the freighter, swapping cargoes, and returning to
>> the main world. Of course (as you say), this is much more convenient for
>> pirates of several stripes, but only really applies on trade routes with
>> enough traffic to justify the overhead (and therefore the expense of
>> escorts, convoys, etc.).

>I agree. Anything that increases the use of in-system spacecraft is a
>good thing IMO. The variability it adds to any traveller universe
>seems pretty cool. It also provides a whole class of in-system boat
>pilots, tugs, etc. Neat.

>As for warfare, it makes that more interesting, too. Resupply becomes
>trickier--and actually gives SDBs something to do. Now we just need
>to make fuel skimming worth the trouble :-)

I'll give you two possibilities, neither of which everyone is going
to like.

1.  Do like I do and require that ships emerge from jump space near
a gas giant or larger mass.  If a ship is going to emerge outside
the star's jumplimit, it has to do so at the jumplimit for a gas
giant.  No, jumps to truly empty hexes, little ice balls in the
oort belt, or to within spitting distance of a planet.  Doing things
this way means that there will be some systems where the preferred
jump point is going to be around a gas giant, and that might be
where the system's "Up Port" is located, even if the main population
is several AU away.  If you often jump to gas giants then skimming
them for fuel will be worth the trouble for some people.

2.  Say that skimming a gas giant is something only done in special
cases.  In some systems, there will only be gas giants where you
*can* refuel.  On the frontier there won't always *be* a local
refueling facilities on an inner planet.  If you are passing through
several systems on the way to a destination, and you can jump
directly to a gas giant of a system along the way then you can
refuel by skimming there and immediately jump for the next system.


Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1047
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Monday, October 26 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1048



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Re: Naval Procurement
Re: The Reserve Fleet (Was: Piracy)
Re: Disturbing Anti-Democratic Trends in Traveller and SFRPGs
Re: Burke from Aliens
Re: Economic Data re-post (was Re: Naval Procurement)
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Re: The Imperial Navy
Re: Hmmm
Re: Burke from Aliens
Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)
List Problems?
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
G:T Binding (Was-Re: Hmmm)
Re: TML repeats
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Efficient 100-D Control

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 98 21:38:07 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

On 10/25/98 at 09:44 PM,  Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net> said:

>>Now we just need to make fuel skimming worth the trouble :-)

>PMI, but why isn't fuel skimming worth the trouble?  Does it cost you
>more in time than it gains you in fuel expenditures?
>*****

In a word, yes.  In several words, in most people's TU, yes.

If you can jump directly to the main world, and you don't refuel
there you'll have to travel to a gas giant to refuel.  Even for
MTU's fast stutterwarp ships, that's 3 or 4 days.  If you jump
directly to the gas giant then you have to travel in to the main
world from there.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 22:53:19 -0500
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Naval Procurement

- -----Original Message-----
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Sunday, October 25, 1998 4:42 PM
Subject: re: Naval Procurement


>Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> wrote:
>
>>Which would the Navy Admiral rather have - a fleet of new TL12
>>tankers and auxiliaries rolling off the line at Regina, or a production
>>bottlekneck at TL15 Rhylanor?
>
>Bear in mind that it is canon that the IN can procure TL14/15 ships at
>lower tech worlds. The Kinuir was built at Regina. I suspect that the lower
>tech shipyards act as assembly facilities (much like Aerospatiale(*) does
>for the Airbus Consortium), and brings together higher tech components
>procured off world.
>
>The production facilities at Rhylanor (for example) concentrate on the
>leading edge and bigger ships, and at the same time the factories ship out
>components to other systems (eg Regina). This bypasses the production
>bottleneck, and gives the Imperial own bulk transports something to move in
>peace time.
>
>Dom
>
Actually, it could very well be that the ship building yards on Regina are
at TL15 while the BULK of the planet's production is TL12.  This is only
slightly inconsistent with Traveller canon.  It is mentioned in several
texts that areas around a starport could easily be a higher tech level than
the rest of the planet. This COULD equate out that the starport ship
building facilities themselves fall in that catagory.  Just a thought, there
isn't any proof of this as far as I know.
Thom Harris

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 22:09:41 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: The Reserve Fleet (Was: Piracy)

> From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
> << You can have as long and
>  illustrious a full-time career in the colonial fleets as you can in the
>  regular. And the same goes for the planetary navies, for that matter. >>
> 
> but knowing human nature; I bet that the snobs and status conscious will
> rangle duty with the "regulars" and look down their noses at the
"colonials"
> (just remember to say that word so the contempt drips off the
tongue...:-)
> )...

Yes, but then there must be a saying in Traveller....  "The Regulars make
movies, and the Colonials make history..."

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 22:21:26 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: Disturbing Anti-Democratic Trends in Traveller and SFRPGs

> From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
> [Peter - who is picturing the company rep Burke, from Aliens, as a
> shining example of what young Vilani corporate types can aspire to be.]

Burke was cool...  That plus the fact that he is a example of what a young
Solomani corporate type can aspire to be...  The Vilani do not have the
balls to do what he did...  It isn't in the rule book...

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 22:32:38 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: Burke from Aliens

> > [Peter - who is picturing the company rep Burke, from Aliens, as a
> > shining example of what young Vilani corporate types can aspire to be.]
> 
> Seeing as how Burke seems to have survived somehow, returned to Earth,
> journeyed back in time, and married Helen Hunt, I rather aspire to be
> him...Helen is a sweetie...

Yes, in the process, he got morals...  Can you see Paul do what Burke did?

> Loren Wiseman

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 22:57:51 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Economic Data re-post (was Re: Naval Procurement)

>Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 01:03:38 -0400
>From: Derek Wildstar <wildstar@qrc.com>
>Subject: Economic Data (long)
>
>Some Numbers About Piracy, Trade and Imperial Budgets
....

  The above original header should simplify digging through the archives.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 23:09:46 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

 
> PMI, but why isn't fuel skimming worth the trouble?  Does it cost you more
> in time than it gains you in fuel expenditures?
 
It's frequently true of commercial jumps, but I was alluding to the
military aspects. Securing the gas giant tends to not be worth the
effort.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 23:22:33 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

 
> 1.  Do like I do and require that ships emerge from jump space near
> a gas giant or larger mass.  If a ship is going to emerge outside

Interesting. Dunno if it changes much from the military side, though
(you may have to jump in at a GG, but why risk the fleet skimming
when you could just grab the main world?). It is neat though. You
could allow TL advances to get smaller ansd smaller mass limits as
well--actually, isn't that the jump cascade point idea from JTAS?

It was that you rate the system's masses in decending order, J1
would force jump exit at the largest mass limit, J2 at the second
largest, and so forth.

Another addition to a given universe might be the idea that
different _quality_ (not j-number) drives might exist. High
(military) quality drives would cost more, and could control exit
better. Lower quality drives might pop you out anyplace at the
precipitation mass limit. Merchants would be popping out all over
the place :-)

> 2.  Say that skimming a gas giant is something only done in special
> cases.  In some systems, there will only be gas giants where you

That's the wauy it is in traveller in general--a special case. I was
thinking more of the basic "high guard" notion (literally, not the
Book 5 rules :-) The implication that GGs are actually important in
a strategic sense.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 01:30:08 EST
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

> >>Where? Not previously in that particular essay.
> >
> >Yes, *in that particular essay.*  In the header, first paragraph...
> 
> You're right. I can't understand how I missed that. I looked it over
> specifically to find it and still missed it. My brain must have tuned it
> out. The human mind is a funny thing... and I don't mean funny ha ha.

Well it certainly *can* be "ha ha" now and then. ; ) 
 
> >"At their lowest level, Imperial ships are organized into squadrons (from
> >three to 10 similar ships)."
> 
> Apparently I'm not the only one whose brain tunes out things it dosen't want
> to notice. Later in the same line you quote it says "(usually three to 10
> squadrons per fleet)". Usually. Usually dosen't mean always. So the 50 ship

No, it just means most of the time.

> fleets could have unusual numbers of fleets. For that matter, although the
> text says that squadrons at most have 10 similar ships, we have one
canonical
> example of oversized squadrons, so that isn't as set in stone as you think,
> either.

LOL.  I don't think anything's set in stone.  That's just the "typical"
squadron/fleet sizes.  Your psi skills are faulty.     ; )  Far from it, I
hold to a deliberate undefining of specifics for both referee leeway and
strategic/tactical flexibility.  

> >>Answer: Yes. Despite what anyone may think, _Striker_ is no less canonical
> >>than any other official source. And _Striker_, Book 2, p. 38 says:
> >
> >Striker should be left to it's primary purpose and that's miniatures
gaming.
> 
> That's your opinion, and you're welcome to it. My arguments are based on the
> assumption that it is canonical.

Is there any evidence that it's canonical for the economics of any of the
polities of the OTU?  Nope.  On the contrary, in fact, by the basic storyline.

> >The econ stuff was obviously not thought through the background.
> 
> Oh, you noticed that, did you? Only it is the other way around. That part of
> the background that has the Imperium, an interstellar state surrounded by
> several hostile states of the same order of magnitude as itself spending
> about one third of what Canada does today on it's defense, is the part that

It is true that Striker was published before much of the background.  It only
shows the value the games designers have placed on it as a resource to do what
you have.  I maintain it was never the intention to make Striker (or any other
product) all-defining for the economics (and thus the militaries and defenses)
of the Third Imperium (or any other polity in the history of the OTU).  

Traveller's background has grown alot... from the handful of Kinunir
"battlecruisers" that could defend the Imperium from the "Barbarians" to
pretty definitive works by DGP and HIWG.  Especially considering the original
setting of Traveller (which is a far cry from the 3I of 1116 presented in
Megatraveller and TNE (and presumably of G:T)).  That growth stepped on alot
people supposedly...  I believe we can talk to the resident professional
Heretic about this one...   What you want to do is an order of magnitude worse
IMO.  It effectively invalidates over 10 years of Traveller support.  

> wasn't thought through. The figures in _Striker_ were thought through (well,
> maybe not thought through, just taken from the real world). That's the true
> problem with _Striker_ and _TCS_. Not that they say something inconsistent
> with other parts of the canon, but that the other parts of the canon are
> implausible. If I thought a defense budget of 0.5% made sense then I'd be
> the first to advocate lowering the _Striker_ figures to match the other
> parts of the canon. I addressed that very point in another part of the
> same post. Maybe your brain tuned it out?

Nope.  I simply don't consider Striker (or anything else) as a valid resource
for dissecting the economics of the OTU.  IMO it's too overdefining, it
stifles too much Ref creativity and forces everyone into far too narrow
parameters (as well as invalidating the official storyline of "historical"
events, which I consider inviolable).  YMMV as may YTU.  It's just a happy
coincidence the OTU hasn't been dissected to the level you (amongst others)
would have it.

As far as sensible defense budgets...  Any subsector can draw on far greater
resources than *any* nation-state on balkanized Earth can in AD 1998.  Their
percentages simply don't need to be as large to maintain proportionally
respectable forces.

> >>Also, the figure is low if compared to the figures that _Trillion Credit
> >>Squadron_ and _Pocket Empires_ provide. TCS use 5% on the Navy alone, no
> >>mention of the army; PE figures are fluid, but can reach 20-30% IIRC (I
may
> >>be a bit off here).
> >
> >IMO, none of those are credible for disecting the economics of the Third
> >Imperium (or any polity of the OTU).
> 
> Well, that settles it, I guess. You don't think they are credible. In that
> case those of us who thinks they are credible should obviously realize that
> your opinion is more valuable than ours and shut up. I see it all so clearly
> now.

I'm glad you see the light. ; )  Don't be so reactionary.  You're far too
defensive, Hans.

> I suppose it would be too much to expect your Illustrious Savantcy to
provide
> us stupid morons with credible figures to base our future calculations on?

lol.  It probably would. ; )  "Our" future calculations?  I think you should
be a game designer when you grow up.  Then produce some "credible figures" and
"future calculations" along w/ a little bit of imagination and *validate* the
storyline of the Official Traveller Universe, instead of discarding the things
you don't like.  
 
> In other words, Gary, if you don't think the _Striker_ figures are credible,
> then you obviously must have some figures that you think are. I mean, I
can't
> for a moment imagine that the only reason you don't think them credible is
> that that would force you to acknowledge that the subsection of the
Traveller
> background you like has a few glitches here and there.

I think you've got it.  I value the storyline of the OTU.  It's the only
reason I have any desire to hear a single word you say.  *Reconcile* the
"glitches," don't make the products and campaigns of 10 years of Traveller
support invalidated because of your dislike for the official background
(especially based on the figures in a minatures game which you hold sacred).
 
> >It's obvious GDW didn't use Striker or TCS (or anything even remotely
> >resembling Pocket Empires) in creating the background.
> 
> Obviously not. If they had, the problem wouldn't exist.

So you agree TCS and Striker don't have a foundation in the OTU.  What you do
in YTU is your business (as if I could do anything about it anyways).  I might
even enjoy hearing about it, but I value the storyline of the *OTU* above all
things, especially in this mixed rules-mechanics company that is the TML.  

> >All of them are made to be playable *games* (specificially games for
> >players to have pet "pocket empires" and polities and go to war w/ each
> >other) and to not simulate "reality" (such as it is) for the OTU.
> 
> All of them were made to be playable games based on the Traveller
background.
> You may as well claim that each of the adventures were made to be a playable
> adventure and not to reflect reality "such as it is" for the OTU. That
rather

Well that is what each of the adventures was made for, silly goose, especially
in the beginning.  Canon considerations didn't come into the picture till much
later.

> misses the point. The true value of the Traveller Universe to me is that I
> can mine it for background material for my personal TU. As such the
historical
> background and adventures are important to me. And it is especially
important
> to me that they are mutually consistent. And that is why, as important as
the
> background is, the underlying rules and mechanics IMO are even more
important,
> because if they are in order, they will force _future_ Traveller authors
> to produce stuff that is also compatible. Otherwise we get one author having

This is a mixed mechanics company, Hans.  You may not like it, but original
Traveller rules are not the underlying assumption anymore.  TNE isn't either,
to my chagrin.  High Guard, Striker I, and TCS are as dead as Battle Rider,
Striker II and the World Tamers Handbook, as far as the underlying assumptions
of the OTU are concerned.  The assumptions for T5 may well be entirely
different.  Most likely they'll not be to the level of detail you'd probably
like.  We'll see just how comprehensive and "ground-up" T5 is...  TNE was far
more so than original Traveller or MT.  Until I see something equally so, I
will continue to use TNE.  I have considered GURPS... 

> Maybe you think that keeping a mismatched puzzle piece, thus ensuring that
> the picture can never be complete, is preferable to losing one or two of
> your favorite pieces. That's a matter of opinion. We disagree. Fine. But

I don't think the puzzle should be pieced together to your level of
satisfaction, no.  It's a level of detail like that stifles flexibility,
creativity, and plain fun and will do nothing to gain new players to the game.
Canon is a liability rather than an asset.  TNE was attempting to amend
this... too bad GDW had to go the way of the dodo.

> when you berate me for advocating trimming some of the pieces to make them
> fit on the grounds that a) They fit, only I am too stupid to realize that,
> or b) they belong to a different picture, then I come close to losing my
> patience with you.

Don't be so sanctimonious.  They do fit, but the puzzle itself should always
retain quite a bit of "fuzziness," nor should the "pieces" be as rigidly
defined either.   In other words, you're putting light on things meant to stay
in shadow.  


Gary

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 01:30:10 EST
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Re: Hmmm

> > I know there's In Nomine, etc, and that G:T is obviously
> > going to be more than one product, but I believe it's been confirmed there
> > will be no overall plotline for the background of G:T's alternate
> universe...
> > Course, i'd be happy to learn i'm wrong.
> 
> I, for one, would be interested in knowing who confirmed that to you, where
> and when.

mmm...  it was second hand from someone who talked w/ you at DragonCon.
Basically saying you said the timeline wwould be set around 1120 (around
Strephon's Golden Jubilee) and that there would be *a* plot, developed through
TNS entries, etc, but there would be no "major plotline" as in TNE (which
expanded upon MT events/info).  It is possible you were misinterpreted.

Like I said, i'd be happy to learn i'm wrong (as well as eager to purchase
anything that might be convertable to TNE).

BTW, I was going to buy the G:T softback, but both copies at my FLGS had the
binding coming undone.  Is this common or did my FLGS somehow get mangled
copies? After the M:0 Campaign thing, I swore I was never going to buy another
rpg supplement like that w/o a discount.  I certainly haven't experienced
anything like this in my two other GURPS books...

Gary

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 02:13:16 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: Burke from Aliens

>Seeing as how Burke seems to have survived somehow, returned to Earth,
>journeyed back in time, and married Helen Hunt, I rather aspire to be
>him...Helen is a sweetie...
>
>Loren Wiseman


Did you ever happen to catch Saturday Night Live when Paul Reiser was on a
little while ago? They had a skit called "Mad About You Aliens"...

They had the intro from the show (all the still pictures around NY), but
Helen Hunt was replaced with an alien. Words don't do the humor justice. The
"apple cart" picture had me rolling (Paul and Alien at apple cart, Paul
Smiling widely, alien "smiling" with sucker/tongue sticking out).

Why is it that the two funniest SNL skits ever had something to do with
Aliens? The skit with E.T. and the space marines was hysterical as well.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 23:05:46 -0700
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Perpetual Motion ( was Re: detecting starships...)

At 12:42 pm 10/23/98 -0400, you wrote:
>How does the space shuttle handle heat build-up?

	Very large radiators running the entire length of the payload bay
doors. Those are actually one of the major limiting factors on
shuttle missions. ANY trouble getting the doors open, and they've
only got a very short time before they have to abort and deorbit,
because of the heat buildup.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 23:45:46 -0700
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: List Problems?

Is it just me, or is everybody getting double and triple messages?
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 23:49:32 -0700
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

At 06:15 pm 10/23/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Seriously though I did learn a lot about current astrological tech.
I did
     Uh oh ... I think you just pissed -----------^^^^^^^^^^^^
     Bruce off big-time. Look for frac-c rocks any day now

     (astrology is a bunch of fruit-cakes thinking immense inanimate
blobs of fusing hydrogen predict the future ...)
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 23:41:58 -0700
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: re: Piracy, Cease and Desist!

At 09:12 am 10/23/98 -0400, you wrote:
>I've been making an effort to take the debate in directions I've not
>seen in the time I've been on the list - specifically, trying to get
the
>discussion more towards numbers than ideology.

	In the interest of contributing facts, or fact-based speculation,
there's an article by Tom Ligon in the Dec 98 issue of _Analog_
titled "The World's Simplest Fusion Reaction ... and How To Make It
Work."  Kind of interesting reading, in that he goes away from either
magnetic confinement or inertial confinement. I'll admit I lack the
in-depth physics background to thoroughly vet it. He even gives
instructions for building your own ... literally, within the reach of
a (well-off) high-school science project.. Miles away from breakeven,
but according to the article you *can* detect fusion byproducts.

	If my *&@#$&(*$$_@ Agfa scanner would work right, I'd OCR it ...
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 00:24:08 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

...
>>Well, to me, it seems like a waste of a major resource.  OTOH, I
>>guess they figured that it was better to "roll the dice" and risk it
>>than make it a "port queen."
...
>If you get free, you will run amok and really screw up allied shipping.  At
>the every least the RN will have to search the ENTIRE Atlantic for you and
>hope they have the resources to get the job done.

  So the idea is that by having a capital ship (or for that matter, a
warship of any capability) available to attack convoys, then all convoys
would need (potentially) to have an effective counter-measure available
able to deal with the highest class of warship that they might meet? And
that thus, the Bismarck had to be eliminated to prevent Allied heavy surface
combatants in the Atlantic from largely being tied up indefinitely to protect
convoys from sorties from the French coast?

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 02:32:18 -0500
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: G:T Binding (Was-Re: Hmmm)

TravelrTNE@aol.com wrote:

>
> BTW, I was going to buy the G:T softback, but both copies at my FLGS had the
> binding coming undone.  Is this common or did my FLGS somehow get mangled
> copies? After the M:0 Campaign thing, I swore I was never going to buy another
> rpg supplement like that w/o a discount.  I certainly haven't experienced
> anything like this in my two other GURPS books...

I have the same problem with my copy of G:T and the similar discrepancy with
older GURPS products.  While G:T has only been in my possession for a couple
of weeks and delicately handled, pages are beginning to separate from the binding.

Slipshod "perfect binding".  I guess I'll have to get a harcover to archive and 3-hole
punch the soft one for putting in binders, once the pages finally give up the ghost
of the glue on the spine.  Yet, older GURPS books I have hold of very well to
prolonged usage.

Its just my instincts as a former bookseller, but I think the problem is actually
that G:T uses a higher quality and heavier weight paper.  Its beautiful stuff
and holds the artwork really well.  But since it is a little more rigid, I'm guessing
it doesn't take as well to the glue used in the perfect binding process.
Although, it may be the glue and not the paper.

And looking at the spine right now, I can see that the entire spine is about to
split.  :-(  If I was still selling books, this would get a 10-15% markdown.
And I have paid extra care to keep the book in mint condition. (big fatalistic
bibliophilic sigh).

Anyone have the hardcover yet?  I want to be assured it has no binding
problems.

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 16:23:40 +0800
From: Colin Hutchinson <chutchin@cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: Re: TML repeats

I got 840 messages , including many repats - weird stuff!

At 11:52 24/10/98 +0100, you wrote:
>Is the TML resended messages repeatedly? My digests keep on getting repeats
>in them and the number each day has jumped!
>

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 22:14:16 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

From:           	"Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Date sent:      	Sun, 25 Oct 1998 15:10:55 -0600

>>Well, to me, it seems like a waste of a major resource.  OTOH, I
>>guess they figured that it was better to "roll the dice" and risk it
>>than make it a "port queen."

>Take a look at her sister ship the Tirpiz.  She was made a target and never
>really got to sortie as I recall.  It makes a lot of sense to risk getting
>your ship loose to be a commerce raider rather than let it sit and get
>bombed.

The fleet in being has a lot to recommend it, look at the efforts and resources 
the British had to expend because the Tirpitz was sitting in that Norwegian 
fiord. Look at the fate of convoy PQ 17, destroyed when it was ordered to 
scatter in response to an unfounded rumour that Tripitz had sortied.

>If you get free, you will run amok and really screw up allied shipping.  At
>the every least the RN will have to search the ENTIRE Atlantic for you and
>hope they have the resources to get the job done.
>Or you let your beautiful ship sit there and rust.

This is interesting and IMHO very relevant to Traveller. The Bismark had (or was 
intened to have) all the features that would be required in a Traveller commerce 
raider (Scharnhorst and Gniesenu were better IMHO but thats neither here nor 
there). Firstly the commerce raider is only going to have a brief time to engage 
its target (just about how long it takes to the 100D limit), also even the 
slightlest damage to the commerce raider is going to be fatal or force it to 
abandon its mission. Therefore the commerce raider has to have the capacity 
to overwhelm (not just defeat, crush in short order) any escort. If you don't kill 
the escorts quickly you will likely take damage sufficent to force you to return 
to base (which is what happened to Bismark) or allow the mechants to scatter 
(jump out in Traveller). Killing escorts may look good, but its the merchants 
which are the war winner.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 22:14:16 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

Date sent:      	Mon, 26 Oct 1998 00:24:08 -0800
From:           	shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)

>>If you get free, you will run amok and really screw up allied shipping.  At
>>the every least the RN will have to search the ENTIRE Atlantic for you and
>>hope they have the resources to get the job done.

>  So the idea is that by having a capital ship (or for that matter, a
>warship of any capability) available to attack convoys, then all convoys
>would need (potentially) to have an effective counter-measure available
>able to deal with the highest class of warship that they might meet? And
>that thus, the Bismarck had to be eliminated to prevent Allied heavy surface
>combatants in the Atlantic from largely being tied up indefinitely to protect
>convoys from sorties from the French coast?

Not quiet, all the escorts need to do is slow down the raider long enough for
the convoy to scatter OR inflict sufficent damage to force the raider to break
off and run for home. Even slight damage to a raider will force her to return to 
base. Thus to combat a battleship you need a heavy cruiser and a few 
destoyers (enough that the battleship can't afford to ignore them).

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 22:18:41 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Efficient 100-D Control

Date sent:      	Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:36:32 -0800
From:           	shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)

>>>For any historically-challenged subscribers to the list, HMS ROYAL OAK
>>>was sunk in October 1939 by a U-boat (U-39?) that did just that:
>>>penetrated the main British naval base (Scapa Flow).

>>I'm sorry. Recent evidence shows that the Royal Oak was scuttled by her
>>crew to prevent the German U-Boat crew boarding her, stealing her and
>>obtaining valuable information... ;-)

>  Supposedly they initially ignored the possibility of a sub having done
>it, having assumed that it was an accident - there's nothing quite as
>much trouble as deciding that you "know" something that's _wrong_.  :>

Actually its worse than it appears at first. A German U-Boat penerated Scapa 
and sunk a major warship (name escapes me just at the moment) during the 
First World War too.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1048
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Monday, October 26 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1049



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: List Problems
Re: Radiators (actually power plants) - longish
Re: Why jump takes constant time
Re: Hmmm
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Re: Why jump takes constant time...
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Burke from Aliens
Re: New sensor return
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Known Star List for the Solomani Rim
multiple posts
Re: multiple posts
Re: Extended System Generation
re: Naval Procurement
Re: Why jump takes constant time...

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 00:49:28 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re: List Problems

>
>Is it just me, or is everybody getting double and triple messages?
>- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
>    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***
>

Yes. The responsible party was setting up a MSExchange server utilizing a
POP3 converter, which, since he was on the redirect mode, rather than the
digest mode, header-stripped and resent all the messages back to the TML.
He asked me to apologize on his behalf, and has dropped the TML until he
gets a handle on that bug.

I discovered the problem two days ago, when I got a "Too many hops" alert
from his mailserve, e-mailed him, and he's trying to figure out
specifically what went wrong.

Frank Pitt wrote to me thusly off-list:
>>Did reach.
>>Altho, why it went through your machine is a puzzle.
>>I can't check myself for the hop-trace, but I've seen several of my
>>messages get through multiples... you may want to check on your mailserve
>>routethrough.
>
>
>Thank's for the note.
>
>I'm trying to set up a Microsoft Exchange Server at home,
>the reason it hit my machine is because I'm on the
>mailing list. Somehow your message got stuck in a loop in
>the server, it actually caused a stack overflow and an IMS
>crash !
>
>I should probably use Linux and real SMTP/POP servers, but
>I need to learn MSExchange and NT for work.
>
>Frankie

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:02:23 +1100
From: "Robert O'Connor" <Robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Re: Radiators (actually power plants) - longish

Bruce Macintosh wrote :-

> To go with higher power plant efficiency (and the TL13-15
> power plants in FFS2 are already up at about 99%)
>
Not so.
Fusion plants consume 0.1 cubic metre LH2 per MW-year over these
TLs.
This is 0.1 X 0.07 tonnes, or 70kg.
Theoretical mass fraction converted to energy by
proton -> Be-6* -> He-4 chain is about 1X10e(-3).

energy = 1X10e(-3) X 70 X (3X10e8)^2, from Einstein
       = 6.3 X 10e15 J per year

one MW-year = 10e6 X seconds in one year
            = 3.16 X 10e13J, to 2 decimals

So roughly 200MW-years available from fuel mass, with perfect
efficiency.

The listed 0.5% efficiency is unlikely.

A more reasonable baseline value is 50% (fusion->electricity), assuming
synchotron radiation and X-rays are minimally recaptured. (implied
magnetic confinement and substantial shielding - plant
energy density MW/m3 OK as written to simulate this)

Then 100MWe-years are available from fuel mass assuming complete burnup
is possible. This is unlikely as the helium is 'ash' which would inhibit
further fusions.

IMTU, the fuel figure is for a twenty year supply of power ;
a burnup rate of 1% fuel per year at TL 13. This endurance figure is an
arbitrary one ; higher TLs should permit higher burnup rates.
Helium obtained is either vented or condensed and collected.
The annual refuelling requirement is therefore quite small
(0.7kg/MWe-year generated).

> Another way to get rid of excess heat would be to vent very very very
> hot plasma (accounting for CT-style fuel consumption for power plants),
> but that makes you incredibly easy to detect, since you can't
> baffle the plasma.
>
It may be more effective to use the plasma to heat more LH2. Robert
Bussard wrote a paper on fusion rockets (presented in Progress in
Astronautics 1994?) which outlined systems with Isp's up to one million.
Is a diluted fusion product drive equivalent
(synonymous) with HePlaR??

I agree that Traveller spacecraft burn too much power.
i. Change power plant (fusion/fission) fuel consumptions,
ii. Cap reaction drives to Isp's of about one million (unless antimatter
is readily available in your TU),
iii. decrease life support and commo power requirements by ~100X (except
gravitics),
iv. encourage the use of batteries and accumulator banks, and
v. enable reactor 'idling'.

(sorry, just my Cr 0.02)........

Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gearhead and Gaming Enthusiast

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:05:09 +1100
From: "Robert O'Connor" <Robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Re: Why jump takes constant time

> In a message dated 10/24/98 12:57:35 PM Central Daylight Time, Carlos.Alos-
> Ferrer@univie.ac.at writes:
>
> << explaining why jump time is constant, making it analogous to the
>  physical fact (which I do not remember clearly) that the falling time
>  through an hypotetical tunnel  (?) between two points in the surface
>  of a sphere (planet) is constant, regardless of where the points are.
>         Somebody has it handy? >>
>
> please copy me at FarFuture@AOL.com if anyone has the answer.
>
> Marc
>
The problem is one of simple harmonic motion.
The force between the centres of mass of the falling object and the
planet varies as the inverse square of the distance between them, i.e.

F=GmM/R^2, G the universal gravitational constant, m and M the object
masses, R the distance of separation.

We assume that 'falling' implies movement along a chord or diameter
of the sphere.

The acceleration of the falling object is given by GM/R^2 (#1). (F=ma)
The effective mass of M varies as we approach the centre of the sphere.

We can model the sphere as a large number of concentric shells of
density p, thickness dr.
The value of M for a given distance x from the centre of the sphere
is equal to p X (4/3) X pi X (x^3).
(mass = volume X density ; volume of sphere = (4/3) X pi X r^3).

So the acceleration at any instant = (4/3)Gp X pi X x, substituting
into (#1, above).

Solving this differential equation with respect to time t yields a set
of trigonometric functions of general class :-

x = Asin(wt+h)
where A is amplitude (maximum displacement from point of zero
acceleration) and w and h are phase constants.

The time taken to travel between surface points is equal to the time
taken to travel a distance equal to 2A, which is a function of w.

Since all paths start and end on the surface of the sphere, the time
taken to fall *must* be the same for all paths of this type for a given
m, M and R.

I'm sorry if I have mystified things.

Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gearhead and Gaming Enthusiast

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 05:33:22 -0500
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Hmmm

>BTW, I was going to buy the G:T softback, but both copies at my FLGS had the
>binding coming undone.  Is this common or did my FLGS somehow get mangled
>copies? After the M:0 Campaign thing, I swore I was never going to buy
another
>rpg supplement like that w/o a discount.  I certainly haven't experienced
>anything like this in my two other GURPS books...

I've bought about thirty softcover GURPS books over the years, and about
twenty percent of them have come apart within six months.  The rest don't
start coming apart until five years or more.  I've heard that things are
better these days, but I've only heard it from SJG and they just know what
their printer tells them.

If you have the money for hardbound, buy it... the softback will probably
hold together, but the hardback will certainly do so.
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 05:29:46 -0500
From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

At 11:09 PM 10/25/98 -0700, you wrote:
> 
>> PMI, but why isn't fuel skimming worth the trouble?  Does it cost you more
>> in time than it gains you in fuel expenditures?
> 
>It's frequently true of commercial jumps, but I was alluding to the
>military aspects. Securing the gas giant tends to not be worth the
>effort.

The gas giant is more difficult to secure than some other source of fuel,
like the mainworld?
*****

thewolkes@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~thewolkes

tc+ !tm !tn !t4 !tt !to tg++ ru ge+ 3i c+ jt au st++ ls- pi+ ta he+ kk hi+
as va dr++ ?ith ?vr ?ne so zh+ vi+ da sy

Traveller Geek Code:
http://www.metronet.com/~washi/Tas/Lists/IMTU.html
*****

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 14:05:50 -0900
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Why jump takes constant time...

shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)

> >         I remember, OTMH, that some time ago, somebody posted some 
> > notes explaining why jump time is constant, making it analogous to 
> > the  physical fact that the falling time through
> >  an hypothetical tunnel  (?) between two points in the surface 
> > of a sphere (planet) is constant,

> The tunnel bit has to do with the weird but true fact that *inside* a
> spherical *solid* body, the gravity drops off linearly from the 
> surface to the center.
> 
> The effect of this is that an "orbit" inside the solid sphere takes 
> the same time regardless of its radius.
> So a "ballistic shuttle" also takes the same time for any trip. These
> are essentially a gravity powered "subway" that runs in tunnels that 
> go *straight* from point A to point B.

What if Jump _really_is_ the process of falling through a tunnel between
two points on the surface of a sphere?

Picture it this way:  Jump Space is the dimension in which all the
places one might wish to go to are all on the outside of a really big
sphere.  When you enter jump space you fall through the tunnel at one
end and out at the other.

However the inside of the jump space sphere you are falling through is
not the same.  Like a planet, as you go deeper into it it changes. the 
A jump 1 goes only a very small way into the sphere, a jump 2 cuts a
slightly deeper chord into the sphere and so on up to jump 6.  When you
open up the tunnel (enter jump space) you tell the sphere where you want
to exit.  Jump 6 is the longest jump you can make without going deep
enough to encounter the next layer (To continue the planetary analogy
for our jump space sphere Jump 1 through Jump 6 take place in the
equivilant of the crust.) 

The inside of the sphere undergoes a phase transtion slighty deeper in
the sphere than you go in a jump 6, this phase transition does things to
your ship which cause it to no longer be able to control where it is
going.  Think of the jump field as having a field effect on jump space
(akin to magnetism or gravity).  When you get deep enough into the
sphere of jump space the charge on your ships hull is no longer strong
enough to guide you to your destination & you pop out in a random place
within 36 parsecs.

No jump can ever be more than 36 parsecs because a little deeper in the
jumpspace sphere (as deep as the chord of your jump would have to be if
you wanted to do a controlled jump 37) the nature of the inside of the
sphere changes again.  It becomes strong enough to destroy any jump
ships travelling through it.  This is why there can never be a jump 37
because to travel that far in jump space the chord of your route will
take you deep enough to destroy your ship.  This is what a "destroyed"
mishap in jump _is_ a jump that takes you deep enough to destroy your
ship.

So to simplify & restate this theory - Jump space is a giant sphere with
all normal space points on its putside.  When you enter jup space you
actually enter a sphere.  The farther you travel in jump space the
deeper into this space the chord of your jump takes you.  If you go
farther than 6 parsecs you enter an area where the charge inside the
sphere is stronger than the charge generateds by your ship which is
guiding it to its destination.  Without this charge your destination is
random and you misjump.  If your journey through jump space is a little
longer (over 36 parsecs) you go a little deeper into jump space and it
destroys your ship.

This theory explains why jump duration is relatively constant, why
controlled jump over jump 6 is impossible (except perhaps with Ancient
level technology), and why any jump over jump 36 is impossible.  This
feels right to me as it ties all 3 phenomenon together.

Comments are welcomed.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:13:28 GMT
From: johnl@vnet.net (John Lansford)
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

On Mon, 26 Oct 1998 22:14:16 +1300, you wrote:


>This is interesting and IMHO very relevant to Traveller. The Bismark had (or was 
>intened to have) all the features that would be required in a Traveller commerce 
>raider (Scharnhorst and Gniesenu were better IMHO but thats neither here nor 
>there).

I disagree. Scharnhorst and Gniesenau were not heavily enough armed to
challenge old battleships escorting important convoys. They had to
turn away several times when they found old "R" class BB's with a
convoy. It was hoped that, if Bismarck found one of these convoys, she
could deal with the escort while Prinz Eugen attacked the merchant
ships.

>. Therefore the commerce raider has to have the capacity 
>to overwhelm (not just defeat, crush in short order) any escort. If you don't kill 
>the escorts quickly you will likely take damage sufficent to force you to return 
>to base (which is what happened to Bismark) or allow the mechants to scatter 
>(jump out in Traveller). Killing escorts may look good, but its the merchants 
>which are the war winner.

Bismarck never found any convoy. She fought a naval group searching
for her (Hood and Prince of Wales), and later was sunk by yet another
naval group.

John Lansford

The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 14:31:43 -0900
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Burke from Aliens

GDWGAMES@aol.com [Loren Wiseman] wrote

> > [Peter - who is picturing the company rep Burke, from Aliens, as a
> > shining example of what young Vilani corporate types can aspire to be.]

> Seeing as how Burke seems to have survived somehow, returned to Earth,
> journeyed back in time, and married Helen Hunt, I rather aspire to be
> him...Helen is a sweetie...

So maybe Burke from Aliens is descended from the baby on Mad About You. 
He went back in time to ensure that he would be born by becoming his own
ancestor.

Helen does indeed seem nice but it is called acting for a reason, while
I have never heard that she is not nice we probably should not assume
that she is nice.  That is not Burke that is Paul Reiser.  Paul Reiser &
Helen Hunt are only acting.  [Of course if you believe some of the
rumors going around Helen Hunt and Hank Azaria who "date" in real life
are also only acting but that is, shall we say, a Vargr of another
color.]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 14:34:32 -0900
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: New sensor return

Andy Slack <AndySlack@compuserve.com> wrote

> BRIDGE LOG ITSS 'TRUMPTON' 2120Z 23OCT98
> Meldol:    Precipitation successful, ref.
> Ref:       Good. What have we got?
> Meldol:    Nothing hostile within 2000"... Some
>            debris, sensors indicate an ongoing
>            flame war about piracy.

> Ref:       OK, OK, get that lesbian Aslan out of
>            her fighter and ask her to change the
>            transponder signal.
> Meldol:    What to?
> Ref:       'Sweet Home Alabama' by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

IIRC Alabama might not be such a sweet home for our lesbian Aslan
fighter pilot as she would be guilty of a felony under their laws :(

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 00:58:17 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

From:           	johnl@vnet.net (John Lansford)
Date sent:      	Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:13:28 GMT

>On Mon, 26 Oct 1998 22:14:16 +1300, you wrote:

>>This is interesting and IMHO very relevant to Traveller. The Bismark had (or was 
>>intened to have) all the features that would be required in a Traveller commerce 
>>raider (Scharnhorst and Gniesenu were better IMHO but thats neither here nor 
>>there).

>I disagree. Scharnhorst and Gniesenau were not heavily enough armed to
>challenge old battleships escorting important convoys. They had to
>turn away several times when they found old "R" class BB's with a
>convoy. It was hoped that, if Bismarck found one of these convoys, she
>could deal with the escort while Prinz Eugen attacked the merchant
>ships.

I disagree (:*>), Scharnhorst and Gniesenau broke off from the three convoys 
escorted by R class due to hitlers orders that no capital ship be risked.

>>. Therefore the commerce raider has to have the capacity 
>>to overwhelm (not just defeat, crush in short order) any escort. If you don't kill 
>>the escorts quickly you will likely take damage sufficent to force you to return 
>>to base (which is what happened to Bismark) or allow the mechants to scatter 
>>(jump out in Traveller). Killing escorts may look good, but its the merchants 
>>which are the war winner.

>Bismarck never found any convoy. She fought a naval group searching
>for her (Hood and Prince of Wales), and later was sunk by yet another
>naval group.

Bismark and Prinz Eugen were forced to abandon their mission due to the 
damage inflicted in the engagement with Hood and PoW. After Hood had been 
sunk, PoW scored a below the waterline hit on Bismark and contaminated her 
fuel oil tanks. This reduced her range and made her incapable of effectively 
raiding (witness the extreme vulnerablity of a raider to a minor hit) in addition to 
providing the tell tale oil slick which enabled the RN to find her. Even an R 
class escorting a convoy could have easily inflicted sufficent damage to force 
Lutjens to abort the mission.

Even an old R class could have inflicted sufficent damage to Bismark to force 
her to break off, while the DD's could have threatened Prinz Eugen with 
sufficent damage (torpedo attacks) to allow the convoy time to scatter. 
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau both were more cost effective, better protected 
(they used an all or nothing scheme) and less prone to engaging targets which 
could have hurt them. The important thing to remember is any significant 
damage will be fatal to a raider (or at the very least force her to abandon her 
mission).

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 05:03:59 -0700
From: Christopher Thrash <thrash@io.com>
Subject: Re: Known Star List for the Solomani Rim

>
>Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 15:18:45 -0500
>From: "Harold D. Hale" <hdhale@smtpwpo.dayt.tasc.com>
>To: traveller@MPGN.COM
>Subject: Known Star List for the Solomani Rim
>Message-ID: <sf3cd503.057@smtpwpo.dayt.tasc.com>
>
>  Submitted to the light for all to behold or toss stones.....
>
>   This list is the result of a lot of research, and help from the
>somewhat more knowledgeable (in some cases much more
>knowledgeable).  Those who I have bugged over the past months
>regarding this project know who you are and I thank you.
>

I was just about to start a analysis like this one as the first step in an
appraisal of the jump masking thread, when I thought, "I wonder if anyone
else has done this before?" Thanks to Harold Hale and the HIWG CD-ROM, I
just saved beaucoup hours of preliminary work.

>   Send your additions, corrections, suggestions and general 
>constructive criticism  to hdhale@tasc.com.
>

Okay - Harold, did this list include information from Imperium, or was
there a good reason not to?  I found the following while comparing the map
from Imperium with the one from Supplement 10. I haven't done any further
analysis and therefore don't yet pretend that these comments make sense:

>The Known Star List for the Solomani Rim, Version 4.2 (2/1/95)
>
>Hex	System Name	   Associated Known Star System	
>1127	Gashidda	   Beta Hydri	                   G1IV

F5

>1129	Ishkur	   82 Eridani	                   G5V
>1222	Dingir	   Gamma Pavonis	                   F8V

K0; Delta Pavonis G8V?

>1224	Kinunir	   BD-15 6290 (Giclas 156-57)	       M3V
>1324	Shulgi	   Kruger 60	                   M2V
> "	   "	         DO Cephei	                   M6V

M2

>1326	Shigiili	   Groombridge 34	                   M0V M1V M6V
> "	   "	         Lacaille 9352	                   M2V

Imperium calls this one "Shulgiili" (M2), and gives the companion as
"Allamu" (M2).  Probably therefore Groombridge 34.

>1327	Enki Kalamma   Luyten 789-6	                   M6V
> "	   "	         Luyten 725-32	                   M5V

M2

>1332	Mirabilis	   Omnicron 2 Eridani (DM-7 781)	 K1V M4V A4D

G4, single star; Zeta Tucanae G2V?

>1424	Karkhar	   61 Cygni	                         K5V K7V

M1, single star; Ross 248 M6V?

>1427	Shuruppak	   Luyten 726-8 (UV Ceti)	       M0V M6V
> "	   "	         Ross 248	                         M6V

M3; DM-36 2458 M2V?

>1429	Iilike	   Tau Ceti	                         G8V
>1522	Altair	   Alpha Aquilae (Altair)	       A7V
>1523	Zaggisi	   CD-36 13940	                   K3V M3V

M2, single star; DM-45 13677 M0V?

>1526	Meshan	   Epsilon Indi	                   K5V
>1529	Markhashi	   Epsilon Eridani	             K2V

Imperium has Markhashi (M3) and Epsilon Eridani (K2) both on the map;
Supplement 10 (p. 28) says that Epsilon Eridani becomes Shulimik.

>1530	Shulimik	   Kapteyn's Star	                   M0V
> "	   "	         Ross 614	                         M5V M7V

See above.  That would probably make Markhashi Kapteyn's Star.

>1533	Sarpedon	   BD-3 1123 (Giclas 99-15)	       M1V
> "       "	         LP 658-2	                         K0D

G5

>1622	Apishal	   BD+4 4048 (Giclas 22-22)	       M3V
>1629	Sirius	   Alpha Canis Major (Sirius)	       A1V A0D
>1732	Ys	         BD+50 1725 (Giclas 196-9)	       K2V

M3

>1822	Nusku	         70 Ophiuchi	                   K0V M0V

Imperium names Nusku (K1)'s companion Dushaam (K5).

>1824	Agidda	   Struve 2398	                   M2V M4V
> "	   "	         Ross 154	                         M5V

M3

>1830	Fenris	   Alpha Canis Minor (Procyon)	 F5V F0D
>1833	Remulak	   Giclas 87-12 (AC+38 23616)	       M0V
> "	   "	         Ross 986 (AC+33 25644)	       M4V

M2

>1926	Barnard	   Barnard's Star	                   M5V
>1929	Junction	   Wolf 359	                         M3V

M2

>1931	Hephaistos	   Groombridge 1618	             K7V
> "	   "	         Luyten's Star	                   M0V M5V

M3, single star.

>2021	Ishimshulgi	   BD+45 2505 (Giclas 203-51)	       M3V M3V

K6, single star.

>2027	Prometheus	   Alpha Centauri	                   G2V K0V
> "	   "	         Proxima Centauri	             M5V

Separate systems in Imperium, but the only reasonable translation anyway.

>2028	Peraspera	   Lalande 21185	                   M2V

M3

>2029	Midway	   Ross 128	                         M5V

M3

>2030	Hades	         Giclas 51-15	                   M6V

M3

>2031	Calgary	   L674-15	                         M0V\

M2

>2121	Lagash	   Zeta Trianguli Australis	       G0V

This is a binary in Imperium, Lagash (K2) and Amarku (K1).

>2131	Inferno	   BD+44 2051 (Giclas 176-11)	       M2V
> "	   "	         WX Urae Majoris	             M6V

M2

>2132	Forlorn	   YZ Canis Minoris (Ross 882)	 M2V
> "	   "	         Ross 619	                         M5V

M5

>2222	Ninkhur Sagga  CD-40 9712	                   M3V

M5

>2227	Ember	         Wolf 424	                         M0V M5V

M3, single star.

>2228	Loki	         BD-12 4523 (Giclas 153-58)	       M5V

M1

>2323	Mukhaldim	   BD-20 4125	                   K5V
> "       "	         BD-20 4123	                   M2V

M3

>2325	Kaguk	         L205-128	                         M0V M3V M3V

"Kagukhashaggan" M3

>2330	Dismal	   Giclas 58-32 (AC+23 468-46)	 M3V

M2

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 08:34:48 -0500
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: multiple posts

I seem to be seeing about 3-4 of every post in the digests...anyone else
have this problem?

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 08:38:21 -0500
From: Rob Miracle <rwm@tansoft.com>
Subject: Re: multiple posts

At 08:34 AM 10/26/98 -0500, you wrote:
>I seem to be seeing about 3-4 of every post in the digests...anyone else
>have this problem?

A mail loop involving the list got out of control over the weekend.  I think it
should be cleared up now.

Rob

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 09:21:32 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

russcm@zoomnet.net writes:
>BTW, was writing a program to do extended world generation on computer,
>and
>ended up calculating that I'd need about 40meg of space (uncompressed) for
>all the data. Anyone come up with a similar figure?

I'm up to 1-2 megs now, with no compression and no maps. This is for an
extended Scouts-style system with WBH data and real-world stuff (like
pressure tables).

A slightly more intelligent system would really save me space, and might
not complicate coding that much.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 09:54:10 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Naval Procurement

Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I'm not sure what you are getting at. As far as I can see Ian is talking
about just that: the IN procuring less-than-TL 15 ships from less-than-TL 15
shipyards. 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My point was that it probably isn't a matter of choice for the IN whether
they buy TL12 ships or TL15 ships. The IN has to build ships in available
shipyard capacity, and if they still have procurement money left over
when the TL15 shipyards are booked they'll have to move down the TL
ranks. I imagine the TL15 (and 16!) shipyards get booked first, though.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 08:37:47 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Why jump takes constant time...

CardSharks@aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 10/24/98 12:57:35 PM Central Daylight Time, Carlos.Alos-
> Ferrer@univie.ac.at writes:
> 
> << explaining why jump time is constant, making it analogous to the
>  physical fact (which I do not remember clearly) that the falling time
>  through an hypotetical tunnel  (?) between two points in the surface
>  of a sphere (planet) is constant, regardless of where the points are.
>         Somebody has it handy? >>
> 

IIRC, it was based on the fact that in a gravity field of uniform
strength, a pendulum  has the same period, no matter the length of it's
path (The basis of Grandfather clocks...)

Ooooh a Gramps reference, I like it...

How about this...in a bizarre turn of cosmology, jump space can be
visualized in newtonian physics more than einsteinian. A ship travelling
through jump seems to be following a curved path through jump space.
While the path is shorter for jump 1 than jump 6, both curves have the
same radius, and like a pendulum, have the same period, no matter how
long their path. Jump 6 ships are traveling 'faster' through jump space,
and need the extra energy and fuel to raise their potential, or kinetic
energy in jump space.

Their preciptation out of jump space is triggered by coming to rest in
jump space, and their _location_ in this universe is triggered by the
presence of a specific gravity potential. This is where astrogation
comes in, a major part of determining the path and vector and setting
the handwavian dials on the jump drive is setting the path to intercept
that gravity potential in real space. This is why misjumps can take you
so far out of the way or destroy you...they can be visualized as lateral
perturbations in the 'jump pendulum', the more violent the perturbation
the more extreme the result.

Of course, in the TU jump scientists haven't yet reached this
conclusion, and have all sorts of weird ideas, like wormholes, Ancient
telegraph devices, or Pre-Ancient bad guys from the core...

This does _not_ rule out jumping into 'empty' hexes; this simply means
that there has to be something to generate a gravity field in that hex.

I don't know if we've tried this one before, but it came to me this
morning on the ride into work.

Speaking of which...I'd really better get to....

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1049
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Monday, October 26 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1050



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Extended System Generation
re: Fighters
Re: Fighters
Re: GT Lasers
Naval Support Limits
GT Anti-Missile Lasers (was re: Fighters)
Re: (GURPS) Batteries, E cell {and others}
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Fleet in Being
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Contact: Krraaang! A rant turning into a different subject (was Re: The Imperial Navy)
Re: Titan Games Preview for (10/25/98)
Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges
Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: multiple copies of messages
Re: The Imperial fleet

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 10:55:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Conley <estar@wrench.toolcity.net>
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, Rob Prior wrote:

> A slightly more intelligent system would really save me space, and might
> not complicate coding that much.
> 

One way of compressing space is by storing the random number seed used to
generate the system. Since computerized random numbers have the same
patterns if generated from the same seed.

The problem with this is that if you insert a dice roll in the middle of a
series of rolls then the rest will come out differently. 

To make searching more efficent you can store the generated search data
(like upp and hex numbers) along with the seed. When the user clicks on
the world for more details then the seed is used to generate the complete
info.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:29:52 -0500
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: re: Fighters

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:08:06 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Fighters
At 01:47 PM 10/23/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:45:22 +0000
>From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
>Subject: re: Fighters
>

I want a ROF 30 Gattling laser cannon for point defense.  No range to speek
of but +15 ROF fire bonus to swat misiles...lot's of missles.  Also good
for
crowd control on planet. (Evil Grin)
***********88
working on one...also railguns, and autocannon (for those lower tech space
forces)

>
>
>With this you can have a 10 or less to kill a missle at 30 hexes.
>*****************888
>the TL 12 lasers only have a range of 8 hexes.
>
not according to the table on page 173 1/2d = 10 or 13.  Max is much more.
Love that acc works out to max range.
******************
that table is an errata....to find the real ranges take the range in miles
and divide by 10,000.


Note: there is a miss print on the last page.  Hexes are 2000miles not
10,000.
88*********************
rather hexes are 10,000 miles, not 2,000.


This makes a ship with a high vector very dangerious.  His misiles move
fast
and hit hard!
Misiles are nasty again in GT.
****************
yep.



I think your SDB may need some more armor.
*************
trade offs....it was proof against TL10 lasers, but armoring against
missiles only seems practical for capital ships.


I don't have my vehicle book with me.  Do you loose DR from an attack?
Only
on 6s?  How does this work?
***************
not in the space combat rules...you could port over the rules from
autoduel, but I wouldn't bother.




>
>3 missles hit if missle gunner role his success number.
>***************
>it is actually a contest of skills for the pilot of the ship and the
>missile gunner this hapens before PD fire, and missile that miss can be
>ignored for that turn (they may have enough Dv to loop around and come
>back).
>
Ouch!  Hire that wonder kid pilot!  He's BETTER than armor!
"I don't know what he would have cost but he would have been worth it!"
Head
bad guy to 'personel manager' in Under Seige.
***********************8
yep, but don't forget them missile operator gets a bonus of <target size>.


>.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:33:54 -0500
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: Fighters

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:10:30 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Fighters
Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com writes:
> *************
> I get: 15+15acc +10comp +2 active sensor +10pd +4rof -39 Range (PD fire
may
> only be taken against ramming attempts.) = 17 or less for the first
missile
> each additional missile engaged is a further -2 to hit. he does however
> have 3 lasers so can roll 3 times on each attempt.  this gives him
> 17,15,13,11,9,7,5,3,1 that he needs to roll against for point
defense...so
> most likely 2-3 missile hits.
Note that if you increase the number of lasers and missile proportionally
the lasers pull ahead (since each laser can engage each missile, albeit
at the increasing minuses...) If you manage the sequences right, X
laser turrets will pretty much always stop 2*X missiles...
*****************88
depends on the gunner skills, but I think 4*X is closer.  remember tho, a
missile turret has 3 missiles, and a bay has 50! working out to 3*X and 5*X
respectivly



Anthony writes:
>That's incorrect.  A single gunner controls a single _turret_.  If he
wanted to
>fire the three weapons separately (rather than as a battery) he'd be at -4
to
>all of them.  He gets one shot, with a +1 for the # of weapons (this is a
>problem, it means triple turrets are useless because you get the same
bonus
>from a double turret, but...)
Is this really the way triple turrets work? This needs to be clarified.
I assumed that if a single gunner fires all three lasers in a triple
turret he/she made a to-hit roll independently, with no modifiers, for
each. Otherwise (as you note) triple turrets are near-useless.
*************
correct one roll for each.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:38:06 -0500
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: GT Lasers

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 02:20:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David L. Pulver" <dlpulver@kos.net>
Subject: Re: GT Lasers
> And against different targets? Does the -4 apply then.
If you fire against three different targets, yes. If you target one laser
against one target and two against the other, it would drop to -2, etc.
You could say this simulates running your Multi-Target program instead of
your Predict (CT computer rules reference).
[Sometime we'll have to include stats for Anti-Hijack in GT, I suppose...]
***********
and double fire.

I have another reason for the low rofs for the ship weapons....heat build
up.  increase the rate of fire, but decrease the malf at the same
time....have to see how the numbers work out.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:36:37 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Naval Support Limits

There are two ways to approach the size and preparedness of the Imperial
Fleet - analysis of published figures, and analysis of available support
facilities. The two are going to be linked, and it may be the the second
will come from the first, rather than being useful for proving or questioning
the figures from the first.

A few things that have to be worked out, though:

1> How far from a support base can a naval vessel operate? Will this
depend on cargo capacity, or cargo capacity of associated task force
(i.e., auxiliaries)? There may be two answers to this question: how far
can a naval vessel operate from a source of supply, and how far can
a naval vessel operate from a source of repair/refit/maintenance. 

Note that Supply and Refit/Repair resources will differ in peacetime and
wartime. In peacetime, force levels will be those supportable from active
Navy Bases. In war, forces will be those supportable from Navy Bases,
Scout Bases, requisitioned civilian facilities, and supply convoys - though
I'm not sure I see effective resupply coming in from out of theater assets.

2> How many ships (or how much aggregate displacement) can
a support base effectively service? A Navy Base vs a Navy Depot?

The second question looks to me like the larger handwave source.
How many planets exist with a Navy Base, a Class A starport, and
a population of only a couple hundred? The usual explanation for such
planets is that the couple hundred are permanent residents, and that 
a transient Navy Base population in the thousands will exist. If that
is the case, then planet population codes are no help whatsoever
in determining how big a Navy Base is.

I'm trying to imagine a situation where the population code is taken
as accurate - a class A starport with a population of forty, or four.
I can't imagine all the services of a Class-A starport being handled
by four people. 

"Yeah, we build starships here. Finished one last year, a replica
Suleiman-B, Faertho series. You know, the mail order kit? Took us
eighteen months to bolt all those pieces together. And the shipping!!"

Speaking of shipbuilding - does maintenance and refit compete with
shipbuilding for shipyard capacity? "We can't build you a new
_Tigress_ now, we're busy fixing a _Plankwell_." If you're using all of
and area's yard capacity for maintaining the fleet, you'll get no new
ships or replacement ships.

This is not to mention the civilian usage of shipyards - significant, as
it appears that most navy builds are performed at civilian yards under
contract. Does the Navy maintain Repair/Maintenance/Refit yards
at the Navy Bases (and thus not be dependent on civilian yard capacity
for these tasks), but only have shipbuilding capacity at the prototype
yards at the Depots? Does the Navy use up some of the civilian shipyard
capacity for repair/refit at smaller bases through civilian contractors?

How many tons of ships are moving in the Spinward Marches? Is this
more or less than the yard capacities can support?

Hmmmm...I wonder, how much civilian shipping can the civilian
infrastructure support?

Ach, too many questions. I need to go find/make up some numbers,
probably based on the stuff from TCS...

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:52:53 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: GT Anti-Missile Lasers (was re: Fighters)

Aerron Winsor wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>from a double turret, but...)
Is this really the way triple turrets work? This needs to be clarified.
I assumed that if a single gunner fires all three lasers in a triple
turret he/she made a to-hit roll independently, with no modifiers, for
each. Otherwise (as you note) triple turrets are near-useless.
*************
correct one roll for each.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If the laser fire rate is lower than the rate at which the fire control can
engage and the turret can slew, I can see a triple turret being useful
in a point-defense role - much like a multi-barrel autocannon's
increased effective fire rate.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 08:58:37 -0800 (PST)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: (GURPS) Batteries, E cell {and others}

Leif O. Pihl writes:
> If you look at page 118 of GURPS Traveller, it mentions a "E cell" in
> reference to the Battledress.
> 
> I have several GURPS books, Traveller, Basic, Space, Compendium 1, Vehicles
> and a few others as well.  Nowhere in any of these do I find a reference to
> Batteries in general, or an E cell in particular.
> (Please note:  I do NOT have Ultra-Tech or Ultra-Tech 2 as I can not find
> them in our local stores.)

An E cell is a 20 lb battery, holding 50 * (TL-6) KWH if unrechargeable, half
that if rechargeable.  It costs $2000; it should be mentioned in space and is
mentioned briefly in Vehicles -- it is simply a 20 lb energy bank by Vehicles
standards, and has identical stats.  Btw, a D cell is 5 lb and 1/10 the energy,
a C cell is .5 lb and 1/100 the energy, a B cell is .05 lb and 1/1000 the
energy; the weight gets inconsistent past there, but every reduction in type is
1/10 the energy.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 09:06:31 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

>My question has always been Why?  Why, did Bismark sorte out from
>it's harbor? The German's *must* have known the whole British Navy
>would go after him.  They couldn't have thought they could take the
>whole shebang on with a single ship!

The intent wasn't to fight stand-up battles, but to trash some convoys and then
head home (ideally to the French ports, where they could be more of a 
threat on sudden sorties, rather than the out-of-the-way Norwegian ports.)
It was also intended (if I recall correctly) that either the two fast 
battleships stuck in French ports (Schnar. and Gneis.) or the pocket battleship
Admiral Scheer (sp?) would sortie simultaneously. (I've gamed the former 
situation in Avalon Hill's old Bismark game - it's unpleasant.) If the Bismark
had survived and made it back to a French portm the British would have had
to keep more of a fleet-in-being in British waters, keeping important
ships out of the Mediterranean...

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 06:17:41 -0000
From: "MJ Dougherty" <martinjd@globalnet.co.uk>
Subject: Fleet in Being

About capital ships in port... they don't sit there and rust.

The mere threat that the ship MIGHT sortie keeps at least three comparable
ships on-station at all times. They're effectively out of the war. If you
build a good set of flak defenses you can also cost the enemy a regular
dribble of aircraft and pilots. Meantime, you have the option of a sortie. 

It was the terror of Tirpitz that sank PQ 17. Tirpitz raises steam and
everyone panics... convoy scatters and gets nailed by minor forces. If
Tirpitz had come out she might have been damaged (HMS Glowworm vs the
Hipper?), whereas if she stays in harbour she has the option to sortie any
time. Once she's out and crippled that option is lost, and it is by being
'in being' that she causes the most damage. 

After all the enemy HAS to take the threat of sortie seriously. Any time he
does not then he suddenly has one of the world's finest battleships running
amok in the shipping lanes, and this is not fun.

Tirpitz did more damage to the allied cause without leaving port than she
would most likely have done before being caught and sunk if she'd come out.
She WOULD have been caught and sunk eventually, and while she'd do
considerable damage (maybe cripple or sink a couple of capital ships,
several other war  vessels and a truly scary amount of merchant shipping),
her loss would free elements of the Home Fleet for other tasks and remove
the Battleship Threat. She'd benefit the allies more by making that heroic
sortie than by sitting in port.

Just ask any of the survivors of PQ17 how much damage the Tirpitz did.

MJD

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 09:13:14 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

>     (astrology is a bunch of fruit-cakes thinking immense inanimate
>blobs of fusing hydrogen predict the future ...)

Immense inanimate blobs of fusing hydrogen do predict the future. They 
predict that in five billion years or so we'll all get barbequed, then
our ashes will freeze.

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:48:31 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Contact: Krraaang! A rant turning into a different subject (was Re: The Imperial Navy)

[snip of lots of flame-bate]

>> when you berate me for advocating trimming some of the pieces to make them
>> fit on the grounds that a) They fit, only I am too stupid to realize that,
>> or b) they belong to a different picture, then I come close to losing my
>> patience with you.
>
>Don't be so sanctimonious.  They do fit, but the puzzle itself should always
>retain quite a bit of "fuzziness," nor should the "pieces" be as rigidly
>defined either.   In other words, you're putting light on things meant to stay
>in shadow.


This, IMNSHO, is ridiculous.

So the fleet disposition of the Imperial Navy is a
"thing-man-was-not-to-know," eh?

To me, anyhow, it is far more valuable to have an "overdefined" setting
than one that is "fuzzy." When presented with an overdefined setting, I can
take it and change it to my tastes (if I want to do the work), or I can
play the setting as-is. When I am presented with a fuzzy setting, then I am
*forced* to do the work.

As to the question of who's canon is more canonical -- I suppose it's going
to require a prerequisite header on every post:

"Disclaimer: The comments made in this post assume that the following
resources (books, maps, etc.) are canonical: ... All other resources are
heretical and should be burned."

Bring on the Inquisitors! :-/

A lot of the discussion in this Fall '98 issue of _Piracy FlameFest_ have
been disagreements based in different underlying assumptions of what
sources are valuable and what sources aren't. There's little point in
arguing if there is no common ground for debate.

ObTrav: And now for something completely different. Once again I was
hypothesizing about an a pacifist machine race contacting the 3I. When I
brought this up a week or two ago, several people brought up a planetbound
machine race that appeared in some "official" publication (the name of
which escapes me at the moment). Several other people postulated on the
possibility of using the machine race as warriors. From this, I draw the
conclusion that those responders believe the 3I would see the newly
contacted race as a threat, either to be defeated or to be targeted for
conquest/enslavement.

What, no peaceful coexistence? Have you guys been reading Greg Bear again?

Let's assume that this machine race (let's call them the Krraaang!) are
pacifists. Let's assume that the Krraaang! are aware of organic lifeforms,
and don't want to eradicate them, exterminate them, experiment on them, or
make war on them. They mainly interested in social contact -- exchanging
art, music, science, and other forms of knowledge. Let's pretend the
Krraaang! personality construct is such that they experience emotion, but
only "positive" emotion -- happiness, attachment, joy, etc. Things that
would bring about negative emotion in humans do not in the Krraaang!. Think
of them as AI buddhas, with Asimov's Three Laws (or some facsimile of them)
as deeply ingrained in them as the survival instinct is in humans.

Now, imagine that a Krraaang! scout misjumps (or intentionally jumps) into
Imperial space. Two questions:

1) Would this be possible? The Imperium seems buffered on pretty much all
sides by other interstellar political entities. If it is possible for the
Imperials to have first contact, where would it occur?

2) If it does occur, do you imagine that the reaction of the Imperium would
be hostile (as per the defeat/conquest/enslavement model above)? The 3I
seems pretty robophobic (is that a word?), and considers robots
non-sentients. Would this view be extended to an entire race that initiated
contact on its own?

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. Comments from all flavors of the Imperium are welcome, although I see
mine as a mostly benevolent (if impersonal) government that rules it's sea
of stars.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 10:47:38 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Titan Games Preview for (10/25/98)

 http://www.titan-games.com/      Titan Games, Inc. : koziol@titan-games.com

  _Lots_ of used Trav stuff!

>FASA:
>    (Traveller)
>        Uragyad'n of the Seven Pillars (A3) [$16.5, NM]
>        Legend of the Sky Raiders (A4) [$12.5, VF]
>        The FCI Consumer Guide (A5) [$13, VF]
>        Rescue on Galatea (A6) [$15.5, NM]
>        Trail of the Sky Raiders (A7) [$14, VF]
>        Fate of the Sky Raiders (A9) [$18, NM]
...
>Game Designer's Workshop:
>    (Traveller)
>        Understanding Traveller (?) [$6.5, NM]
>        Book 1 - Characters and Combat [$6.5, VF]
>        Book 2 - Starships [$7.5, NM]
>        Book 3 - Worlds and Adventures [$7.5, NM]
>        Book 4 - Mercenary (304) [$14.5, NM]
>        Book 5 - High Guard (Rev. Ed) (308) [$13, F]
>        Book 6 - Scouts (337) [$13, VF]
>        Suppl. 3 - The Spinward Marches (309) [$11, NM]
>        Suppl. 10 - The Solomani Rim (329) [$12.5, NM]
>        Adv. 2 - Research Station Gamma (311) [$11, VF]
>        Adv. 3 - Twilight's Peak (314) [$13, VF]
>        Adv. 9 - Nomads of the World-Ocean (333) [$14, VF]
>        Adv. 11 - Murder on Arcturus Station (339) [$11, VF]
>        Adv. 12 - Secret of the Ancients (340) [$21, VF]
>        Double Adv. 2 - Mission on Mithril/Across the Bright Face (313)
[$12, VF]
>        Double Adv. 3 - Death Station/The Argon Gambit (321) [$12.5, VF]
>        Double Adv. 5 - Horde/The Chamax Plague (327) [$12, VF]
...
>Paranoia Press:
>    (Traveller)
>        Sorag (1005) [$24, NM]
...
>    Far Traveller:
>        1[$20, VF], 2[$19, VF],
...
>    High Passage:
>        2[$15, VF], 3[$13, VF], 4[$12, VF], 5[$14, NM],
...
>    Journal of the Traveller' Aid Society: 
>        7[$16.5, NM], 8[$18, NM], 11[$16, NM], 12[$16, NM], 13[$14, NM],
>        14[$13, NM], 15[$12, NM],
>        Best of the Journal, Volume #1 (317) [$16, NM]
>        Best of the Journal, Volume #2 (328) [$13, VF]
>    The MegaTraveller Journal:
>        1[$25, NM], 2[$21, VF],
>    Travellers' Digest:
>        4[$28, NM], 8[$24, NM], 9[$20, VF], 12[$13, VF], 13[$14, NM],
>        14[$12.5, VF], 15[$12.5, VF], 16[$12.5, VF], 17[$12.5, VF],
>        18[$12.5, VF], 19[$14, NM], 20[$12.5, VF], 21[$12.5, VF],

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 10:55:02 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Piracy and Sensor Ranges

Bruce Alan Macintosh wrote:
> 
> >     (astrology is a bunch of fruit-cakes thinking immense inanimate
> >blobs of fusing hydrogen predict the future ...)
> 
> Immense inanimate blobs of fusing hydrogen do predict the future. They
> predict that in five billion years or so we'll all get barbequed, then
> our ashes will freeze.
> 
> Bruce

Only those dumb enough to have not discovered jump drive in the
meantime...;-)

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:08:04 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

One of the common threads through canon is the designation of Major
races on the Droyne coyns, and the particulars of jump drive discovery
by those major races.

It's curious, that the coyns supposedly portray races that discover it
on their own, when in fact we know that the Aslan got Jump drive from a
crashed solomani ship...

What this implies to me is either Gramps is diddling with time to make
the coyn sets come out right, _or_ he's seeded prototype jump drives
where he'd expect these races to find them, which means that _nobody's_
truly 'discovered' jump drive from first principles. This is good...it
explains why no one really knows why Jump works, why those six races are
portrayed on the coyns, even when we know they didn't all discover
it...NO race truly discovered it, they just found devices seeded around
their home systems by Gramps; the reason they've all gotten away with
being called Major is no one caught them copying it.

One thing that's lead me to this conclusion is that they all seem to
'discover' the principles while prospecting/doing research in their
asteroid belts.

This implies that there's still a Grandfather-made prototype laying
about in the Aslan home system somewhere...hmmm....

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 18:13:38 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: multiple copies of messages

At 09:47 AM 10/24/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>What's up with this? I'm getting 3-4 copies of old messages - like a 
>horrible nightmare, the piracy thread continuing from the grave...\
>
>Bruce
>

Good question.  I got 3 copies of everything.  657 posts!

Charles L.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 18:13:45 +0000
From: Charles Prevatte <prevattec@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: The Imperial fleet

At 11:24 PM 10/24/98 +0200, you wrote:
>Charles Prevatte writes:
>
>>FS says that the ordinary (mothball fleet) in the the Corrador subsecter.
>>Just from the AHL and Plackwell ships there are a lot of tons of capital
>>ships there.
>
>You're misinterpreting an ambiguous word. The reserves in Corridor are
>the regular ships stationed in Corridor. What you call the mothball fleet
>(ship in ordinary) is something else.
> 

Agreed, but AHL and HS both state that the SMs ordinary ship ar in corrador
subsecter and the number and tonage is large based on the few ships listed.

>>>Would you care to explain how they managed to time their approach to
>>>coincide with the victim leaving? And you still haven't told me how long
>>>they spend on the approach.
>> 
>>Cold gas manuver and the planets gravity well for breaking and slingshoting
>>just like the apolo missions.
>
>What I meant was that you have to start the run in before your intended
>victim leaves the starport.
>

True.  I work it out and it's not a likely senerio.  The window is very
small if it exists at all.  I think you can add me to the pirate only in
desolate areas group.

>>Time would be about equal to the time it takes to boost out from the planet
>>to 100 dia. You have more initial speed but you do not accelerate.
>
>How did you get the higher initial speed if not by accelerating? And before
>you cliam that you built up the speed before you jumped into the system,
>that means your timing problem becomes even bigger.
>

Agreed, little IF and window of opertunity.

>>This lets to match speeds with either a freshly arrived ship or one on the
>>way out.
>
>A freshly arrived ship and one that is outbound is have very different
>vectors.
>

The same if they both plan running jumps to different systems BUT that is a
mute point.  The window is to narrow.

>>>You can maintain a scedule for outbound ships at the expense of losing
>>>about a day per jump (which comes to several jumps per year, which is why
>>I don't think it would be used), but there's no way you can time an arrival
>>>closer than plus/minus a day or so.
>> 
>>Wait a minute here.  A planet moves a long distance in a day.  Almost
>>100dias for earth.  A similar planet with a shorter year would be imposible
>>to hit with that kind of time slop facter with and regularity.
>
>One explanation (not canonical, but compatible with canon) is that jumpspace
>navigation lets you aim for a spot relative to any sufficiently large
>gravity point source.
>  
>>Jump time = 168 hours +- 10%
>
>Well, the rules differ slightly from version to version. Another version is
>7 days +- 1 day.
>

True.
 
>>Canon says the jump is 'straght line travel' that can not intersect the 100
>>dia limit of any object over 1 mile.
>
>I think that is right in at least one version of the rules (maybe more).
>OTOH this effect is totally ignored in other versions. I don't think it
>has ever been mentioned as part of the background events.
>

True also.

>>Problem people.  What if the planet you want to go to is on the oposite side
>>on it's sun from you when you want to jump?  Do you wait half of that
>>planet's year?
>
>>I don't think that the colonial and subsector fleets are the same thing.
>
>Sometimes they are and sometimes they're not. Subsector fleets are sometimes
>used for both kinds of numbered fleet, both the regular and the colonial.
>But in other cases it is used for that fleet which is raised and maintained
>by the subsector, and that is the colonial or, as it is also sometimes
>called, the Imperial Reserve fleet.
>

I have not noticed this.  I keep an eye out for it.

>>I think we are both saying the same thing. That there is the IN and a local
>>forces both present in the Marches Secter.
>
>Right. Individual planets pay 30% of their military budget to the Imperium.
>The subsector government retains half of that and turns over the other half
>to the regular forces.
>
>>>>>No I don't. I have accounted for planetary armies, because I have assigned
>>>>>70% of the canonical 3% to planetary forces (No, I tell a small lie: I have
>>>> 
>>>>but does canon say thats the break down?
>>>
>>>Yes.
>> 
>>In something other than Striker?  I think our problem may be the the
>>economic system in Striker maybe oversimplified to speed play.  I don't have
>>Striker but I am looking for it so I can say for sure.  I'm just fishing for
>>an answer.
>
>Certainly _Striker_ simplifies the matter. It says "roughly 30%" which
>indicates that there may be variations in that figure or that it is not
>exactly 30%. Maybe the true figure is 29% or 31%. My point is that it is
>certainlynot going to be 5% or 10%.
>

Ok.

>>I'm looking for a source other than striker to confirm the numbers.
>
>Well, _TCS_ says Cr500 per citizen (which works out as 5% under my
>assumptions) for the navy alone. So _Striker_ gives a lower figure than
>TCS.
>

Sounds like a good average, but remember, 90% of taxes are payed by 5% or
less of the people.

>>>>Maintainence would go up with ship and base age.
>>>
>>>The highest mountain in Scotland is Ben Nevis.
>> 
>>I do not understand this comment.
>
>Sorry. That was a bit snide. What I should have said was: The 10% maintenance
>figure is a simplified one that applies to a whole navy consisting of ships
>of all ages. It's an average. So although old ships surely cost more than 10%
>to maintain, the newest ships of the navy will cost correspondingly less to
>maintain.
>
>Also, the actual physical maintenance seems to be the least of the 10%
>figure. Far more goes to ship replacement, personnel, pensions, support
>structures, bases, training camps, etc. So the difference is propably
>not all that great.
>

I can but most of your assumtion I just do not buy that percentage is ships
only and that support is subsumed in the 10%

Charles L.

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1050
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
0Traveller-digest      Monday, October 26 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1051



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

(was Re: Capital Ships of WWII)
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Re: Contact: Krraaang!
re: Contact: Kraang!
Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits
FIASCO II
re: Gravity Blocking Jump Routes
Re: Hmmm
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
re: Contact: Kraang!
Re: multiple posts
Re: multiple posts
Re: multiple posts
***Message Duplication Seems Fixed***
Re: Law & fanzines
Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits
Re: Naval Procurement
Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Naval Procurement

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:35:57 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: (was Re: Capital Ships of WWII)

>From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
>Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII
...
>Not quiet, all the escorts need to do is slow down the raider long enough for
>the convoy to scatter OR inflict sufficent damage to force the raider to break
>off and run for home. Even slight damage to a raider will force her to
return to 
>base. Thus to combat a battleship you need a heavy cruiser and a few 
>destoyers (enough that the battleship can't afford to ignore them).

  IIRC, the downside of scattering in WWII was the horrific losses that
unescorted freighters could take from U-boats; although this doesn't have
a direct parallel in OTU, there is the possibility that these ships would
then be subject to attrition (esp. if a hurried jump is less likely to
deliveer them accurately to a safe harbour) by lighter enemy units lurking
in the rear areas but unwilling to clash with other small warships.

  An example might be an AHL scattering a Zho convoy, and hoping that the
small auxiliary supply vessels therein would then suffer losses from eventual
encounters with SDB's, Gazelle types, etc.

  Still, even a few AHL's being operational could require a proper cruiser in
each important convoy across several sub-sectors - a non-trivial re-allocation
of vital resources.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:42:39 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

 
> >It's frequently true of commercial jumps, but I was alluding to the
> >military aspects. Securing the gas giant tends to not be worth the
> >effort.
> 
> The gas giant is more difficult to secure than some other source of fuel,
> like the mainworld?

The best answer to this in terms of canon is to talk to Trillion
Credit Squadron players. This is kind of a FAQ, but here is the
short answer:

Taking the GG could result in casualties.

Subsequent attacks on the main world are then at reduced strength.

It's better to just attack the mainworld at full strength--since if
you attack the GG, _then_ the main world all you've done is expose
your forces to danger, and given the enemy knowledge of your
intention to attack.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:46:14 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Contact: Krraaang!

"Joseph R. Dietrich" wrote:
 
> Let's assume that this machine race (let's call them the Krraaang!) are
> pacifists. Let's assume that the Krraaang! are aware of organic lifeforms,
> and don't want to eradicate them, exterminate them, experiment on them, or
> make war on them. They mainly interested in social contact -- exchanging
> art, music, science, and other forms of knowledge. Let's pretend the
> Krraaang! personality construct is such that they experience emotion, but
> only "positive" emotion -- happiness, attachment, joy, etc. Things that
> would bring about negative emotion in humans do not in the Krraaang!. Think
> of them as AI buddhas, with Asimov's Three Laws (or some facsimile of them)
> as deeply ingrained in them as the survival instinct is in humans.
> 
> Now, imagine that a Krraaang! scout misjumps (or intentionally jumps) into
> Imperial space. Two questions:
> 
> 1) Would this be possible? The Imperium seems buffered on pretty much all
> sides by other interstellar political entities. If it is possible for the
> Imperials to have first contact, where would it occur?

You're correct, they would have to come through non-imperial space to
get to the 3I, so likely other races would have contacted them first.
The Hivers would probably welcome them with open tentacles, and have no
problems with Sentient computers. Whether the Hivers told us about them
or thewm about us, is another thing entirely...they  might just throw us
together to see what happens; if they can create a 3I more receptive to
AI's as sentient beings, they might be able to sell more software and
automated systems to us. And _that_ brings up all sorts of interesting
things, if I sell an AI program is that slavery? Or Indentured
servitude...two very different things; one's allowed and one's not. 

> 2) If it does occur, do you imagine that the reaction of the Imperium would
> be hostile (as per the defeat/conquest/enslavement model above)? The 3I
> seems pretty robophobic (is that a word?), and considers robots
> non-sentients. Would this view be extended to an entire race that initiated
> contact on its own?

Hmmm...you think the TML Great Piracy Flamewar is bad...imagine this on
a 3I scale. They'd have to quadruple X-boat construction to carry all
the to-ing and fro-ing.

ObTML ;-) Wonder what would happen if some automated system barfed and
started reflecting X-boat traffic back out to the system...I would
_hope_ they've moved beyond sendmail to keep the data flowing, but it
certainly makes for interesting fodder for thought...those reflected
messages would carry duplicates of signed, authenticated messages...
 

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 14:19:27 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Contact: Kraang!

Joseph R. Dietrich wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Let's assume that this machine race (let's call them the Krraaang!) are
pacifists. Let's assume that the Krraaang! are aware of organic lifeforms,
and don't want to eradicate them, exterminate them, experiment on them, or
make war on them. They mainly interested in social contact -- exchanging
art, music, science, and other forms of knowledge. Let's pretend the
Krraaang! personality construct is such that they experience emotion, but
only "positive" emotion -- happiness, attachment, joy, etc. Things that
would bring about negative emotion in humans do not in the Krraaang!. Think
of them as AI buddhas, with Asimov's Three Laws (or some facsimile of them) as deeply ingrained in them as the survival instinct is in humans.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sounds like a buch of servant/companion robots run amok. 

(Scary thought of encountering the ones running remnants of the
"entertain children on planet-wide television" personality programs.)

Can a race thrive enough to go interstellar if they have no negative
emotions? Will they even develop a survival instinct if they never get
wired (literally, in this case) for things like fear?

If they are a built race - say, a race of mechanical companions that
somehow outlived their high-tech creators - then the above questions
are less relevant. 

If the Kraang were encountered, IMO the Imperium would treat them
as a race of escaped robot servants (whether they were or not), keep
looking for the live aliens behind the curtain and never treat them
as sentients.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 12:40:08 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
>Subject: Naval Support Limits
...
>1> How far from a support base can a naval vessel operate? Will this
>depend on cargo capacity, or cargo capacity of associated task force
>(i.e., auxiliaries)? There may be two answers to this question: how far
>can a naval vessel operate from a source of supply, and how far can
>a naval vessel operate from a source of repair/refit/maintenance. 

  This is awkward to quantify, not least because it's not clear just
what a Trav warship needs and in what quantities.

 1) Fuel - L-Hyd resupply is local; with more recent (& superior, IMHO)
interpretations of power generation requirements passive operations are
essentially indefinite.

 2) Crew & consumables - the crew should outlast the ship on a campaign,
with some replacements for heavy battle damage that fails to eliminate
the ship. Crew supplies (assuming recycling of water) of 2-5 kg man/day
should be negligible - an AHL could pack a years supplies for the full
complement at 5kg/day into ~80 Dt (14m^3 @ rd =1).

 3) Munitions - missiles, basically. Usage will depend on TU, but could
easily be quite high, requiring a fair chunk of tonnage for resupply. 
OTOH, it's hard to see why the associated wastage rate of fighting ships
wouldn't be of greater strategic importance.

 4) Maintenance - as straight "wear and tear" the application of supplies
by skilled personnel would likely require the stowage for parts around
0.05 to 1.0% of the value of the ship. Clearly this need not require a
full port except for small ships without the needed staff.

 5) Battle Damage - lacking FRD's (wrong universe!) warships appear to
need to go back to a port to repair damaged systems. Actulally, "tugs"
and FRD's are implied by the fact that ships with destroyed systems aren't
regularly abandoned. This is not a strict "endurance" issue, of course.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 19:50:22 -0000
From: "MJ Dougherty" <martinjd@globalnet.co.uk>
Subject: FIASCO II

If anyone is going to FIASCO II on the 1st of November, please email me and
we'll arrange to meet. BITS may or may not have a stand (probably not, and
that's my fault) so we need to arrange a common meeting place. I suggest a
games club someone is friendy with and who have a stand as a meet point,
but anyone with better ideas please tell me.....

MJD

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 14:48:21 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Gravity Blocking Jump Routes

Merrick Burkhardt wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The best answer to this in terms of canon is to talk to Trillion
Credit Squadron players. This is kind of a FAQ, but here is the
short answer:

Taking the GG could result in casualties.

Subsequent attacks on the main world are then at reduced strength.

It's better to just attack the mainworld at full strength--since if
you attack the GG, _then_ the main world all you've done is expose
your forces to danger, and given the enemy knowledge of your
intention to attack.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Some caveats, of course:

1: Seige. Some mainworlds aren't going down without taking half
your fleet with them, and won't go down at all without specialized
assault ships, troop landers, etc. You may need a fuel source
*now*, so your ships aren't blockading the main world with empty
tanks when the relief force shows up.

As TCS does nothing with planet-based defense systems, you won't
often see this in a TCS campaign.

2: Desert Worlds: Some mainworlds don't have any fuel supplies
on them, or only have what's in the starport reserve tanks. Unless
the mainworld has some strategic benefit - mineral resources,
heavy industry, etc - you can pretty much ignore it.

3: Raiders. If you don't secure the GG of your frontier worlds, an enemy
fleet of commerce raiders can bypass your frontier defenses easily.
The GG may not be worth taking, but it still must be defended.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 15:07:43 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Hmmm

In a message dated 10/25/98 22:31:27 PM Pacific Standard Time,
TravelrTNE@aol.com writes:

<< BTW, I was going to buy the G:T softback, but both copies at my FLGS had
the
 binding coming undone.  Is this common or did my FLGS somehow get mangled
 copies? After the M:0 Campaign thing, I swore I was never going to buy
another
 rpg supplement like that w/o a discount.  I certainly haven't experienced
 anything like this in my two other GURPS books...
  >>

	I am afraid this happened to me as well...the 3rd day I had my softcover.  I
have also had the same problem in my softcover GURPS Basic book (shortly after
purchase...10 years ago)  I had to buy a new Basic book since over the years I
had lost several pages (with more going every time I open it.)  My GT is still
hanging together; this is most likely due to the fact that it sits on the
shelf w/ my other GURPS stuff and is never played or used.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 15:11:53 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

In a message dated 10/25/98 23:28:33 PM Pacific Standard Time,
shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca writes:

<<   So the idea is that by having a capital ship (or for that matter, a
 warship of any capability) available to attack convoys, then all convoys
 would need (potentially) to have an effective counter-measure available
 able to deal with the highest class of warship that they might meet?  >>

	Many of the convoys in the Atlantic (at least from America) did indeed have
BB's as convoy escorts.  These were usually the older BB's that couldn't
produce the speed necessary to keep up w/ modern fleets (HMS Ramilles, HMS
Queen Elizabeth, HMS Royal Sovereign, HMS Malaya, and a few others).  These
BB's had a top end of around 20-23 kts...fine for convoy escort, but
insufficient for fleet actions.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 15:12:56 -0500
From: Ethan Henry <egh@klg.com>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu> wrote:
>
> This implies that there's still a Grandfather-made prototype laying
> about in the Aslan home system somewhere...hmmm....

Now THIS is genius! The "All Minor Races" theory is not new of course,
although it is by far the most plausible theory of how everyone managed 
to develop basically the same very complex method of interstellar 
travel, but this is a great twist. It would make for an awesome 
adventure if fully fleshed out too - a journey to the Aslan homeworld
and the discovery of an unknown ancient base. Cool.

But there's another possible twist... the Hivers had their "inferior" 
jump drive for quite a while before discovering the "real thing". I
wonder whose jump drive they stole or why their planted drive wasn't 
put into their home system... ?

Ethan "Want To believe" Henry
- --
Ethan Henry                                            egh@klg.com
Java Evangelist, KL Group                       http://www.klg.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 15:15:37 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

In a message dated 10/26/98 1:15:40 AM Pacific Standard Time,
a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:

<< Firstly the commerce raider is only going to have a brief time to engage 
 its target (just about how long it takes to the 100D limit), also even the 
 slightlest damage to the commerce raider is going to be fatal or force it to 
 abandon its mission. Therefore the commerce raider has to have the capacity 
 to overwhelm (not just defeat, crush in short order) any escort. If you don't kill 
 the escorts quickly you will likely take damage sufficent to force you to return 
 to base (which is what happened to Bismark) or allow the mechants to scatter 
 (jump out in Traveller). >>

	This is similar to  what happened to Graf Spee...it was not signifigantly
damaged, IIRC, but the 3 RN cruisers pinned it in the neutral port while major
fleet units were on the way.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 14:36:17 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: re: Contact: Kraang!

Walt Smith wrote:

>Can a race thrive enough to go interstellar if they have no negative
>emotions? Will they even develop a survival instinct if they never get
>wired (literally, in this case) for things like fear?


A quick note. I was unclear in my meaning with "negative" emotions in this
case. By "negative emotions" I mean motivations that would cause one to
take actions that are against Asimov's Three Laws (or facsimile thereof) --
things like prejudice, hatred, etc. (I am not as strong a writer as I would
like, and I am having a hard time stating this clearly, I think).
Irrational fears would fall under this category, but rational fear (e.g.,
"that 200-ton free trader is heading at a near-c trajectory towards our
homeworld") would not.


>If they are a built race - say, a race of mechanical companions that
>somehow outlived their high-tech creators - then the above questions
>are less relevant.


I have in mind a high-tech race with something of a "do as little harm as
possible" attitude towards the universe (and organic life in particular).
Not really protocol droids run amok, but more like "Grandmother's"
children.

What, you didn't think that Grandfather was the *only* omnipotent being in
the Milky Way, did you? :-p

There is a short story that I hold in my hazy memory of the end of the
human race. According to that particular vision, humanity became well-nigh
gods, saw all that there was to see, and checked out of the universe,
leaving their robotic servants behind. ...

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 14:07:27 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: multiple posts

> From: Rob Miracle <rwm@tansoft.com>
> >I seem to be seeing about 3-4 of every post in the digests...anyone else
> >have this problem?
> A mail loop involving the list got out of control over the weekend.  I
think it
> should be cleared up now.

And this is the reason we call you "Rob Miracle", well other that it is
your name... *weg*

Btw,. how many people on this list fell like old gaming farts?  Today, I
got a post from another gaming ML, in which the person asked me, "What is
Traveller?"...  I had made a referance to Traveller in an earlier post &
now I fell really, really, really, really, really old...

<Calls off-stage> Nurse is it time for my pills, yet?

<mumbles> In my day, you had to drive to the nearest major city to by
gaming stuff & I was driving to Bloomington-Normal, IL with a clove of
garlic in my pants, as that was the style of the day, when I meet two of
the greatest game designers, writers, artists, & men I have have ever had
the pleasure to meet, I remember one was called Mark or Marc & the other
was called Loren...  Anyway, I bought this game called Traveller because in
my day we didn't call our games with fancy-dancy names likes Rifts:  Phase
World, but we had simple & nice names like Traveller (SF), AD&D (Fantasy),
Stalking the Night Fantastic (Horror), Top Secret (Spy), Morrow Project
(Post-Nuclear War)...  Now a days all the games you see today are just
copies of these games...

<Calls off-stage> Nurse take me back to the Old Farts of Gaming home, I
want to play some Traveleer, Stalking the Night Fantastic, Top Secret, or
Morrow Project...

ObTrav:  Do you think there is such a thing as sitting down with your
friends on a friday or saturday night with a few books, some dice, a pizza
or two, & some sodas for a night of gaming, or by that time is it done all
with computers...

> Rob

Legate Legion, Old Gaming Fart
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 13:52:33 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: multiple posts

> From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
> I seem to be seeing about 3-4 of every post in the digests...anyone else
> have this problem?

Aye, Captain, we have tryed throwing technobable at the problem, but it
dinna work, you may have to get someone who knows what they are doing to
fix the problem, like the list admin...

Legate Legion, Old Gaming Fart
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 14:07:27 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: multiple posts

> From: Rob Miracle <rwm@tansoft.com>
> >I seem to be seeing about 3-4 of every post in the digests...anyone else
> >have this problem?
> A mail loop involving the list got out of control over the weekend.  I
think it
> should be cleared up now.

And this is the reason we call you "Rob Miracle", well other that it is
your name... *weg*

Btw,. how many people on this list fell like old gaming farts?  Today, I
got a post from another gaming ML, in which the person asked me, "What is
Traveller?"...  I had made a referance to Traveller in an earlier post &
now I fell really, really, really, really, really old...

<Calls off-stage> Nurse is it time for my pills, yet?

<mumbles> In my day, you had to drive to the nearest major city to by
gaming stuff & I was driving to Bloomington-Normal, IL with a clove of
garlic in my pants, as that was the style of the day, when I meet two of
the greatest game designers, writers, artists, & men I have have ever had
the pleasure to meet, I remember one was called Mark or Marc & the other
was called Loren...  Anyway, I bought this game called Traveller because in
my day we didn't call our games with fancy-dancy names likes Rifts:  Phase
World, but we had simple & nice names like Traveller (SF), AD&D (Fantasy),
Stalking the Night Fantastic (Horror), Top Secret (Spy), Morrow Project
(Post-Nuclear War)...  Now a days all the games you see today are just
copies of these games...

<Calls off-stage> Nurse take me back to the Old Farts of Gaming home, I
want to play some Traveleer, Stalking the Night Fantastic, Top Secret, or
Morrow Project...

ObTrav:  Do you think there is such a thing as sitting down with your
friends on a friday or saturday night with a few books, some dice, a pizza
or two, & some sodas for a night of gaming, or by that time is it done all
with computers...

> Rob

Legate Legion, Old Gaming Fart
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 16:35:33 -0500
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: ***Message Duplication Seems Fixed***

Just a note which may or may not be obvious.

This morning I deleted all the TML messaged in my mailbox (800 or so).

There have been a good two dozen or so since with no duplicates.  The storm
seems to have abated.

Pete


                      Peter H. Brenton : pbrenton@mit.edu
"A Good Traveller has no fixed plans and no intent on arriving."
  -Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 16:39:49 EST
From: Kagehira@aol.com
Subject: Re: Law & fanzines

> Terra Traveller Times

Oops, yes forgot that one, but than it's been awhile.
Chalk another one up for HIWG I guess.

Bryan

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 16:03:44 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits

Steven Hudson wrote:

> 5) Battle Damage - lacking FRD's (wrong universe!) warships appear to
>need to go back to a port to repair damaged systems. Actulally, "tugs"
>and FRD's are implied by the fact that ships with destroyed systems aren't
>regularly abandoned. This is not a strict "endurance" issue, of course.


Ahem. What's an FRD? :-)

If it is a mobile shipyard (or dock), then they do seem to exist in the 3rd
Imperium setting -- I think. When I was reading through the _Rebellion
Sourcebook_ during the Fall '98 Pirate FlameFest, I seem to remember
noticing a paragraph dealing with fleet auxiliaries which mentioned them.
I'll have to check and make sure when I get home, though.

BTW, since I don't have FFS2, what is the upper limit on ship sizes now? I
know that Death Star scale things are right out, but what about a
Jump-capable mobile repair facility, the equivalent of a jump-capable class
B or C highport, suitable for use as a force projection tool? Something
like a huge battle tender, capable of holding a couple of BBs or several
smaller ships for repair/reconstruction.

Hmm. I just (*finally*) got a copy of GT ...

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 16:31:08 -0600
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: Naval Procurement

Walter Smith wrote:
> 
> Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> I'm not sure what you are getting at. As far as I can see Ian is talking
> about just that: the IN procuring less-than-TL 15 ships from less-than-TL 15
> shipyards.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> My point was that it probably isn't a matter of choice for the IN whether
> they buy TL12 ships or TL15 ships. The IN has to build ships in available
> shipyard capacity, and if they still have procurement money left over
> when the TL15 shipyards are booked they'll have to move down the TL
> ranks. I imagine the TL15 (and 16!) shipyards get booked first, though.
> 
> Walt Smith

Another issue is maintainability.  For instance, in the Spinward
Marches, maintaining TL15 ships is more difficult than in sectors closer
to Capital, since there are fewer TL15 planets.  Therefore, to ensure
the local availability of spare parts, some IN ships may well be built
to lower TLs.  IMTU, the TL standard for ships constructed in the
Spinward Marches (circa 1100) is TL12, with higher TL ships being built
when capabilities (such as jump capability higher than J-3) warrant. 
TL15 ships tend to be BBs, heavy cruisers, and other
capital/near-capital units.

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 15:35:09 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits

"Joseph R. Dietrich" wrote:
> 
> BTW, since I don't have FFS2, what is the upper limit on ship sizes now? I
> know that Death Star scale things are right out.

actually, IIRC, there is no upper limit in FFS2 on ship sizes...


- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 23:43:55 GMT
From: johnl@vnet.net (John Lansford)
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

On Tue, 27 Oct 1998 00:58:17 +1300, you wrote:


>I disagree (:*>), Scharnhorst and Gniesenau broke off from the three convoys 
>escorted by R class due to hitlers orders that no capital ship be risked.

He was right, for once. The 11" guns on S&G could not have seriously
damaged the heavily armored "R" class BB's unless they closed to
seriously dangerous (for them) ranges. The 15" guns on the "R's" were
dangerous to S&G even at long ranges; look what happened when Renown
hit one of them during the Norway cruises.

>>Bismarck never found any convoy. She fought a naval group searching
>>for her (Hood and Prince of Wales), and later was sunk by yet another
>>naval group.

>. Even an R 
>class escorting a convoy could have easily inflicted sufficent damage to force 
>Lutjens to abort the mission.

Certainly, except that it was thought the risk to Bismarck was minimal
against one of the older BB's escorting convoys. Their rangefinding
and crew skills weren't up to the level of the first class ships in
the RN, after all.

>Even an old R class could have inflicted sufficent damage to Bismark to force 
>her to break off, while the DD's could have threatened Prinz Eugen with 
>sufficent damage (torpedo attacks) to allow the convoy time to scatter. 

Sure. And a torpedo could get a one in a million hit on Bismarck's
rudders, jamming them so the Home Fleet could catch up to her.

War is about risk. The Germans were willing to risk Bismarck convoy
raiding (what else were they going to do with her?).

>Scharnhorst and Gneisenau both were more cost effective, better protected 
>(they used an all or nothing scheme) and less prone to engaging targets which 
>could have hurt them. The important thing to remember is any significant 
>damage will be fatal to a raider (or at the very least force her to abandon her 
>mission).

I understand this. It's hardly cost effective to have to run away from
every escorted convoy, either. S&G could not have seriously hurt an R
battleship without getting heavily damaged in the process.

John Lansford



The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 00:11:13 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Naval Procurement

 "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net> wrote:

>Actually, it could very well be that the ship building yards on Regina are
>at TL15 while the BULK of the planet's production is TL12.  This is only
>slightly inconsistent with Traveller canon.  It is mentioned in several
>texts that areas around a starport could easily be a higher tech level than
>the rest of the planet. This COULD equate out that the starport ship
>building facilities themselves fall in that catagory.  Just a thought, there
>isn't any proof of this as far as I know.

I agree. Real world examples see to bear this out (although not necessarily
in starship building ;-) ). I can't remember exactly what the fields were
but the WBH used to allow variable TL under a general TL. Personally, I am
assuming the the yards at Regina can handle TL15 assembly and repair, with
limited construction of components as the local infrastructure isn't at the
same level.

Of course, the other answer could be that the original stats for Regina
reflect the 2nd Survey in 420? and the later (TL12?) stats reflect the
changes in the ensuing period as surveyed in line with _The Imperial
Fringe_ in CT's Deluxe Box.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1051
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, October 27 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1052



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: TML Subscription problems
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
The Sunbeard Declaration
Re : Radiators (power plants) - oops!
Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits
Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits
RPGs in the Future...  ;)
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)
FRD = Fleet Repair Dock
Re: RPG's in Traveller
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Why jump takes constant time...
Re: RPG's in Traveller
Re: RPG's in Traveller
Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 00:00:38 +0000
From: C G Essery <cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

Sorry to jump in mid discussion, but I have only just found the TML.  I
am also a Naval History Fan.  I would suggest that Rodney was most
definitely a Battleship in as much as the title indicated something
more  powerful than a Dreadnought.  She was however originally designed
as a much larger ship and classified then as a Battlecruiser, and was
cut down under the Washington Treaty.  I can't remember the original
Battlecruiser names, but I think they were going to be "I's", eg
Inflexible - the C Turret was to be placed aft of the bridge rather than
before it.  The latter being a move to reduce the amount of area needing
the maximum thickness of armour.  There was also a Battleship version of
the Battlecruiser carrying 9x18" on 32 or 34 knots called the St Andrew
class, again this did not survive the Washington Treaty.

If my memory serves, the Bismarck was classified as a Schlats-schiffe
(apolgies to anyone who can speak German this is my guess at the
spelling), literal translation being "Butcher-Ship".

Clive Essery
Traveller Ship Design fan in periods CT/MT/T4
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
Thom Harris wrote:
> 
> Having replied to the original message in concurrence with your post I will
> only add that the H.M.S. Rodney also fired torpedoes at the Bismarck.  There
> was thought to have been one hit out of 6, IIRC.  This would be the only
> time in history that a battleship was attacked by torpedoes by another
> battleship and further, the only time that one also was hit by a torpedo
> from BB to BB.  I know that some historians don't consider Rodney a
> battleship but I contend that any ship that is firing 16" guns SHOULD be
> considered a BB.  Some historians didn't list Bismarck as a battleship
> either....YMMV
> Thom Harris
> -----Original Message-----
> From: DustyLV769@aol.com <DustyLV769@aol.com>
> To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
> Date: Tuesday, October 20, 1998 2:07 PM
> Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII
> 
> >In a message dated 10/20/98 2:17:53 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> >a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz writes:
> >
> >The RN assertion that the HMS Dorsetshire torpedoed Bismark, causing her to
> >sink, is nothing more than wartime morale-building propoganda:  Dr Ballard
> >discovered no signs of any damage to the belt armor/waterline of the side
> of
> >the ship struck by the "torpedoes".
> >
> >DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 19:30:26 -0500
From: "Eric Freitas" <ericfreitas@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: TML Subscription problems

Yes,
    I have had this exact problem.  About two weeks ago
I resubscribed and haven't had a problem since.

Eric

- -----Original Message-----
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Wednesday, October 21, 1998 3:02 PM
Subject: TML Subscription problems


>Hi all,
>
>My TML behavior tends to be as follows, 
>(a) Lurk for a few months 
>(b) jump in on threads that interest me 
>(c) go back to lurking
>
>Recently I tried to jump back in and did not get any response. I have
>now resubscribed and this is a test to see if I can post.
>
>When I attempted to post in the past, my messages vanished into the
>ether -no bounces or error messages of any kind.
>
>Has anyone else ever experienced this behavior?
>
>Glenn

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 16:30:22 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

> >It's frequently true of commercial jumps, but I was alluding to the
> >military aspects. Securing the gas giant tends to not be worth the
> >effort.

Note that this is more true for "shallow" or "small" wars - everyone within
a jump or two of each other - than deep ones; if you're trying to get a
Zho battle fleet to Rhylanor, you're going to need to skim a few gas giants
along the way. As long as the mainworld *isn't* your objective, the gas giant
is a better place to refuel (skimming leaves you much less vulnerable than
floating in an ocean...)

>The best answer to this in terms of canon is to talk to Trillion
>Credit Squadron players. This is kind of a FAQ, but here is the
>short answer:

>Taking the GG could result in casualties.
>Subsequent attacks on the main world are then at reduced strength.
>It's better to just attack the mainworld at full strength--since if
>you attack the GG, _then_ the main world all you've done is expose
>your forces to danger, and given the enemy knowledge of your
>intention to attack.
This depends somewhat on viewpoint, of course - classical TCS campaigns
don't worry a lot about long-term issues like retaining your fleet, 
retaining trained crews, risks of overwhelming enemy forces suddenly 
showing up, etc., and hence under-rate the value of (essentially) securing
your lines of retreat...

bruce

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 19:27:02
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: The Sunbeard Declaration

I posted this when the TML was spamming itself. I'd be interested if anyone
disagrees with any of it.

****************************************************************************
******

I think we have the framework of a deal on the Great TML Piracy debate of
1997-8.

#1 : Mainworlds with either signifigant trade or signifigant economies can
and will defend their space out to about their 100 diameter limits.

#2 : These defenses will make piracy in and around mainworlds unprofitable.

#3 : These defenses do not extend to the entire system.

#4 : Most career pirates concentrate on the unsafe outsystems.

#5 : Shippers apply risk premiums to trade with either unsafe systems or
outsystems.

#6 : Merchant ships specialising in trading in unsafe areas tend to be
heavily armed

#7 : Merchant ships specialising in trading in safe areas tend to be
lightly armed or unarmed

#8 : The best markets for stolen starships and cargos are in other states,
however unsafe areas will buy commodities they know to be stolen at heavily
discounted rates

#9 : Pirate ships will tend to be converted merchants, as unsafe areas tend
not to be profitable enough to justify custom-built warships. Safe areas
tend to be too dangerous for even custom built warships to operate in for
long enough to defray their build costs. Pirate warships may exist from
mutinous or rebel crews.

A corrollory of #4 and #5 is that Outsystems will tend to remain
underdeveloped, as they cannot develop until they are secure, and they are
not worth securing until they are developed.

Now, are all the principals of the GPD happy with this so we can put this
in the FAQ ?

Ian Whitchurch

PS Is there any interest in either my TL12 24x3 m PAW or my TL9 80x10m PAW
? The 12m PAW is a good shipboard weapon for large merchants, while the TL9
PAW will provide covering fire out to about 100 diameters ...

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 03:11:18 +1100
From: "Robert O'Connor" <Robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Re : Radiators (power plants) - oops!

I wrote :-

> Fusion plants consume 0.1 cubic metre LH2 per MW-year over these
> TLs.
> This is 0.1 X 0.07 tonnes, or 70kg.
>
0.1 X 70kg = 7kg!!! (embarrassed grin +++++)

> Theoretical mass fraction converted to energy by
> proton -> Be-6* -> He-4 chain is about 1X10e(-3).
>
> energy = 1X10e(-3) X 70 X (3X10e8)^2, from Einstein
>        = 6.3 X 10e15 J per year
>
should be 6.3 X 10e14 J/year

> one MW-year = 10e6 X seconds in one year
>             = 3.16 X 10e13J, to 2 decimals
>
> So roughly 200MW-years available from fuel mass, with perfect
> efficiency.
>
> The listed 0.5% efficiency is unlikely.
>
20MW-years, basal efficiency of 5% still unlikely.

> A more reasonable baseline value is 50% (fusion->electricity), assuming
> synchotron radiation and X-rays are minimally recaptured. (implied
> magnetic confinement and substantial shielding - plant
> energy density MW/m3 OK as written to simulate this)
>
> Then 100MWe-years are available from fuel mass assuming complete burnup
> is possible.
>
10MWe-years available.

> IMTU, the fuel figure is for a twenty year supply of power ;
> a burnup rate of 1% fuel per year at TL 13. This endurance figure is an
> arbitrary one ; higher TLs should permit higher burnup rates.
> Helium obtained is either vented or condensed and collected.
> The annual refuelling requirement is therefore quite small
> (0.7kg/MWe-year generated).
>
Five years' fuel at burnup of 10% per year. Refuelling requirement
is unchanged.

Decreased radiator area with increasing tech level - more efficient
conversion of heat to electricity, or vastly improved radiator tech?

Next time, I'll reread my calcs before I post 'em.

Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gearhead, Gaming Enthusiast

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 20:37:00 -0600
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits

Joseph R. Dietrich wrote:

>BTW, since I don't have FFS2, what is the upper limit on ship sizes
now? I
>know that Death Star scale things are right out, but what about a
>Jump-capable mobile repair facility, the equivalent of a jump-capable
class
>B or C highport, suitable for use as a force projection tool? Something

>like a huge battle tender, capable of holding a couple of BBs or
several
>smaller ships for repair/reconstruction.

1,000,000 dT or 14,000,000 m^3

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 20:41:42 -0600
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits

Bruce Johnson wrote:

>"Joseph R. Dietrich" wrote:
>>
>> BTW, since I don't have FFS2, what is the upper limit on ship sizes
now? I
>> know that Death Star scale things are right out.
>
>actually, IIRC, there is no upper limit in FFS2 on ship sizes...

oops, your right, please disregard my last post, I seem to have missed
the SF formula

Charles

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 19:17:43 -0800
From: "Brannon \"Ben\" Boren" <brannonb@blarg.net>
Subject: RPGs in the Future...  ;)

Legate Legion wrote:
> ObTrav:  Do you think there is such a thing as sitting down with your
> friends on a friday or saturday night with a few books, some dice, a pizza
> or two, & some sodas for a night of gaming, or by that time is it done all
> with computers...

Yeah, it's all done on computers, but worse... it's Collectable Card
Games on the computer!  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGG!!!

(Sigh)
Ben "Doesn't Anyone Play REAL Games Anymore?" Boren

PS: Does anyone else want to spew everytime they see a computer game
referred to as an RPG?

- --
Brannon "Ben" Boren
brannonb@blarg.net
http://www.mog.net/brannonb/

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 98 21:38:07 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

On 10/25/98 at 09:44 PM,  Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net> said:

>>Now we just need to make fuel skimming worth the trouble :-)

>PMI, but why isn't fuel skimming worth the trouble?  Does it cost you
>more in time than it gains you in fuel expenditures?
>*****

In a word, yes.  In several words, in most people's TU, yes.

If you can jump directly to the main world, and you don't refuel
there you'll have to travel to a gas giant to refuel.  Even for
MTU's fast stutterwarp ships, that's 3 or 4 days.  If you jump
directly to the gas giant then you have to travel in to the main
world from there.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 16:24:28 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

At 15:15 26/10/98 EST, DustyLV769 wrote:

>	This is similar to  what happened to Graf Spee...it was not signifigantly
>damaged, IIRC, but the 3 RN cruisers pinned it in the neutral port while
major
>fleet units were on the way.

Bear in mind that while Graf Spee was well over his official 10,000 ton
displacement (more like 15,000 tons, IIRC) there were three cruisers, two
6-inch gun and one 8-inch gun cruiser, HMS Exeter which was in the 10,000
ton range herself. Not only that, but these was an aircraft carrier rapidly
closing on the engagement.

What the action showed is that ships like Graf Spee that are optimised for
anti-convoy work don't do very well in an action against more formidible
foes, especially when outnumbered. Graf Spee's armament of two triple 11
inch gun turrets was excellent for safe anti-convoy work, as they outranged
eveything except a real BB or BC's guns, however against the RN cruisers
having only two turrets meant that Graf Spee couldn't effectively split his
fire and engage more than one of his opponents at a time.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 16:30:23 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

At 23:43 26/10/98 GMT, John Lansford wrote:

>He was right, for once. The 11" guns on S&G could not have seriously
>damaged the heavily armored "R" class BB's unless they closed to
>seriously dangerous (for them) ranges. The 15" guns on the "R's" were
>dangerous to S&G even at long ranges; look what happened when Renown
>hit one of them during the Norway cruises.

Both these ships were to have given twin 15" turrets in place of their
triple 11", but the war intervened and the work was never done. If this had
happened it would've been somewhat different.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 16:26:10 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

At 15:12 26/10/98 -0500, Ethan Henry wrote:

>But there's another possible twist... the Hivers had their "inferior" 
>jump drive for quite a while before discovering the "real thing". I
>wonder whose jump drive they stole or why their planted drive wasn't 
>put into their home system... ?

Perhaps the Hivers just messed up thier research. Or perhaps one group of
them decided that fast FTL was a bad idea...

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 21:23:20 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits

...
>> 5) Battle Damage - lacking FRD's (wrong universe!) warships appear to
...
>Ahem. What's an FRD? :-)

  Fleet Repair Dock (IIRC): a specific unit type from SFB (Star-Fighter
Battles?)

...
>Jump-capable mobile repair facility, the equivalent of a jump-capable class
>B or C highport, suitable for use as a force projection tool? Something
>like a huge battle tender, capable of holding a couple of BBs or several
>smaller ships for repair/reconstruction.

  One advantage to riders (or any ship able to fill rider slots on a large
enough tender) is that they can be carried to their repair slots. Further,
not only should spare tenders occur in the normal course of events as riders
attrit, but trips to the rear to deliver neutralized units to ports could
also serve to bring forward _heavy_ SDB's (ideally designed to be nearly
identical with the line IN riders).

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 21:41:19 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

 
> > >It's frequently true of commercial jumps, but I was alluding to the
> > >military aspects. Securing the gas giant tends to not be worth the
> > >effort.
> 
> Note that this is more true for "shallow" or "small" wars - everyone within
> a jump or two of each other - than deep ones; if you're trying to get a
> Zho battle fleet to Rhylanor, you're going to need to skim a few gas giants
> along the way. As long as the mainworld *isn't* your objective, the gas giant
> is a better place to refuel (skimming leaves you much less vulnerable than
> floating in an ocean...)

True enough.  I guess I should see if that ever comes up--I played
FFW a few times, and we always seemed to grab systems as we went.
That could be an artifact of our lack of skill though. Some were
bypassed, though.

The surprise aspect can still work in a way--jump in, fight a little
at the GG, then refuel. Now jump--but are you going to this system's
mainworld, or another one? Of course SOP would be to send a courier
out from any system that sees significant enemy forces at a GG to
any system within enemy jump range. If you're lucky, your courier
might get in system a few hours before the enemy :-)

> This depends somewhat on viewpoint, of course - classical TCS campaigns
> don't worry a lot about long-term issues like retaining your fleet, 
> retaining trained crews, risks of overwhelming enemy forces suddenly 
> showing up, etc., and hence under-rate the value of (essentially) securing
> your lines of retreat...
 
This is a very good point. Of course *securing* your lines of
retreat means leaving fleet elements there. A reason why I'd expect
some SDBs to be SDStarships. They would monitor enemy forces left
in-system and report to the nearest naval units. Hey, this is an
actual reason for SDBs to go off and hide! (assuming any are large
enough to even be a bother for fleet escorts)

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 00:00:07 EST
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

In a message dated 10/26/98 12:12:06 PM Central Standard Time,
johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu writes:

<< It's curious, that the coyns supposedly portray races that discover it
 on their own, when in fact we know that the Aslan got Jump drive from a
 crashed solomani ship... >>

The word "supposedly" is well placed. Could the coyns mean something else?

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 22:01:44 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

<Snip a great theory...>

Here's, as grandfather is a telepath of ungodly power, maybe he is using
that power to influence races that he wants to become "Major" Races to
develop jump drive by  channelling their R&D into the areas he wants it to
go into...

> Bruce Johnson

Legate Legion, Old Gaming Fart
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 22:06:57 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)

> From: Brannon "Ben" Boren <brannonb@blarg.net>
> > ObTrav:  Do you think there is such a thing as sitting down with your
> > friends on a friday or saturday night with a few books, some dice, a
pizza
> > or two, & some sodas for a night of gaming, or by that time is it done
all
> > with computers...
> Yeah, it's all done on computers, but worse... it's Collectable Card
> Games on the computer!  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGG!!!

<Legate Legion pulls out a FGMP-20 BFG model & shoots Ben...>

Had to be done, the poor soul was about to go insane from the presure...

<Legate looks over, screams & shoots himself with the FGMP-20 BFG>

> (Sigh)
> Ben "Doesn't Anyone Play REAL Games Anymore?" Boren

Uuuummm, we do...

> PS: Does anyone else want to spew everytime they see a computer game
> referred to as an RPG?

Yes...

> Brannon "Ben" Boren
> brannonb@blarg.net
> http://www.mog.net/brannonb/

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 00:30:49 EST
From: GypsyComet@aol.com
Subject: FRD = Fleet Repair Dock

That big ship-eating framework seen in several of the movies (the beginning of
#1 for instance).

Cheers,

GypsyComet

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 20:29:46 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re: RPG's in Traveller

>ObTrav:  Do you think there is such a thing as sitting down with your
>friends on a friday or saturday night with a few books, some dice, a pizza
>or two, & some sodas for a night of gaming, or by that time is it done all
>with computers...
>
I dunno...

IMHO:
I suspect that RPG's will still be around in some aspect, as they arre
extensions of the childhood LARPS like Cowboys and Indians, Cops and
Robbers, etc. However, my players seem to avoid having characters who would
play such games (I think this is because so many gamers are so insecure). I
also suspect that aslan are likely to enjoy RPG's, provided that it remains
clear the difference between character and player... something about aslan
honor!

Hivers are also likely to Role-play.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 98 23:32:16 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

On 10/26/98 at 10:14 PM,  "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" 

>base. Thus to combat a battleship you need a heavy cruiser and a few 
>destoyers (enough that the battleship can't afford to ignore them).

I'm not sure a heavy cruiser could survive even a short exchange
with a battleship, but everything else you wrote I agree with.

Commerce raiders haven't been especially effective since the middle
of the 19th century.  The CSA's raiders (like the Alabama) weren't
all that effective and neither were the german raiders of either
war. At least, it doesn't seem that way to me.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 98 23:49:14 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Why jump takes constant time...

On 10/26/98 at 08:37 AM,  Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu> said:

>This does _not_ rule out jumping into 'empty' hexes; this simply
>means that there has to be something to generate a gravity field in
>that hex.

Wait! Wouldn't that mean it's not *really* empty? ;->

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 23:37:22 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: RPG's in Traveller

I wonder, it there an RPG called Traveller in Traveller? *weg*

Legate Legion, Old Gaming Fart
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 23:35:58 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: RPG's in Traveller

> From: William F. Hostman <aramis@gci.net>
> >ObTrav:  Do you think there is such a thing as sitting down with your
> >friends on a friday or saturday night with a few books, some dice, a
pizza
> >or two, & some sodas for a night of gaming, or by that time is it done
all
> >with computers...
> I dunno...
> IMHO:
> I suspect that RPG's will still be around in some aspect, as they arre
> extensions of the childhood LARPS like Cowboys and Indians, Cops and
> Robbers, etc. However, my players seem to avoid having characters who
would
> play such games (I think this is because so many gamers are so insecure).
I
> also suspect that aslan are likely to enjoy RPG's, provided that it
remains
> clear the difference between character and player... something about
aslan
> honor!

I think that Humans would like it, the Vargr would love it, the Aslan would
play a lot...

As for the K'Kree, I can see them playing a lot of LARPS...

> Hivers are also likely to Role-play.

Hivers would claim to have manipulated the creation of RPGs..

> William F. Hostman

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist & Old Gaming Fart
Cult 'O Gabe's Holy Avenger in charge of Military Afairs
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 98 00:39:49 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)

On 10/26/98 at 07:17 PM,  "Brannon \"Ben\" Boren" <brannonb@blarg.net> said:

>> ObTrav:  Do you think there is such a thing as sitting down with your
>> friends on a friday or saturday night with a few books, some dice, a pizza
>> or two, & some sodas for a night of gaming, or by that time is it done all
>> with computers...

>Yeah, it's all done on computers, but worse... 

To me, roleplaying is roleplaying whether done face to face or by
email.  I've never run into a computer game that was anywhere as
good as roleplaying with people, either on or off line.  ;->

>it's Collectable Card Games on the computer!  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGG!!!

Hey, I've just got to tell ya'll.  I was looking for something to
watch on TV this weekend and found that ESPN 2 was broadcasting the
"Magic:  The Gathering World Championship."  I'm *serious* two guys
flipping cards complete with hushed play by play by an announcer and
a color commentator.  They even had an "up close and personal"
segment on one of the finalists.  And from what they said, this was
just the culmination of a World Tour of tournments...sheeze!  Then
there was the money, $40,000 to the winner with $16,000 to, like the
5th place guy...double sheeze!!!

Can you belive it!

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1052
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, October 27 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1053



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Medicine in Traveller
Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)
Re: RPG's in Traveller
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Contact: Krraaang! A rant turning into a different subject (was Re: The Imperial
Polite suggestion for the next printing/edition of G:T
Guerre de course (was Re: Capital Ships of WWII)
Fahrenheit to Celius conversion table
Fahrenheit - Celius conversions
Re: The Sunbeard Declaration

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 98 00:42:32 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

On 10/27/98 at 04:26 PM,  Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz> said:

>>But there's another possible twist... the Hivers had their "inferior" 
>>jump drive for quite a while before discovering the "real thing". I
>>wonder whose jump drive they stole or why their planted drive wasn't 
>>put into their home system... ?

>Perhaps the Hivers just messed up thier research. Or perhaps one
>group of them decided that fast FTL was a bad idea...

Maybe their "sample" was heavily damaged before found and they had trouble
getting it working.  The best they could do was the limited version. 

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 98 00:44:43 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

On 10/27/98 at 12:00 AM,  CardSharks@aol.com said:

>In a message dated 10/26/98 12:12:06 PM Central Standard Time,
>johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu writes:

><< It's curious, that the coyns supposedly portray races that
>discover it

>The word "supposedly" is well placed. Could the coyns mean something
>else?

Of course, they could.  They *could* mean most anything...or nothing, in
particular. ;->

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 17:44:42 +1100
From: "Robert O'Connor" <robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Medicine in Traveller

If anyone is interested, I am going to begin a series on
the 'healing arts' in the game.

A proposed outline follows :-

1. Introduction and tech level overview
2. Trauma
   - definition
   - pathophysiology
   - assessment and management
3. Temperature, thermal and radiation injury
   - pathophysiology
   - assessment and management
   - hibernation and low berthing
4. Drugs and disease
   - a 'widget profile' for drugs, poisons and infectious agents
5. Psychiatry
   - a simplified classification
   - assessment and management
   - culture and mental illness
6. Gear and miscellany

Attempts will be made to maintain maximal compatibility with existing
rules.

Thanks
Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gearhead, Gaming Enthusiast

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 17:44:54 +1100
From: "Robert O'Connor" <robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)

From their very beginnings, intelligent beings have attempted
to limit or even cure the various afflictions that fall upon them during
their lifetimes.

The ability to recognise injurious agents and prevent or treat their
ill-effects improves with increased technological capability.

Definitions :-
*Diagnostics :- the art or science of determining which disease
processes are taking place in a patient.
*Investigations :- laboratory, imaging or surgical tests used to
confirm or challenge the provisional diagnosis.
*Therapeutics :- the art or science of treating disease. This is
arbitrarily divided into 'medical' (use of pharmaceuticals) and
'surgical' (use of instruments).

Developments by Tech Level :-

TL 0. Knowledge is accumulated by trial and error and transmitted
from family member to family member. Mysticism is inevitable.
Apart from a few plant and animal-based remedies, there are no effective
medical treatments. Surgery is restricted to splinting and bandaging.

TL 1. The development of agriculture permits towns and cities to arise,
and further division of labour.
* The training and conduct of medical practitioners are regulated by
authorities, either within the group (college/clerical hierarchy)
or by the prevailing ruling structures.
* Theories of disease arise. Potential for competing schools of thought
exists.
* Clinical diagnosis is quite sophisticated.
* Anatomical dissection begins.
* A large pharmacopoeia arises, but the utility of most agents is
doubtful at best.
* Limited surgery develops : removing bladder stones or squares of skull
to relieve raised intracranial pressure (trephining) are the
pinnacle of technique at this stage. Setting of simple fractures,
removal of superficial foreign bodies, draining boils and abscesses and
suturing are commonplace.

TL 2. Key physiological concepts, such as the circulation of blood,
are discovered.
* Anatomical knowledge improves, as does clinical diagnostic skills.
* The first tentative attempts are made at amputating limbs and
transfusing blood. Survival rates are predictably low.
* Prosthetics are crude (eg. Tycho Brahe's nose or a wooden pegleg), but
plastic surgery (skin flaps only) is possible.

TL 3. The discovery of the microscope reveals ubiquitous bacteria.
Microscopic anatomy - histology and embryology - begin as sciences.
* Sanitation (sewers, drains and clean water) is recognised as a vital
health promoting device.
* Vaccination against certain diseases is experimented with. Success
rates are highly variable.
* Surgical technique is hindered by inadequate pain relief, blood loss
and post-operative infection. Abdominal surgery is possible, but rarely
attempted because of these factors.

TL 4. Industrialisation accelerates rapidly, as does the development of
chemistry and physics.
* Germ theories of disease are proposed. Physiology and pathology
become important clinical sciences. Endocrinology develops. Thyroid
extracts and insulin are used clinically, for example.
* Psychology and psychiatry arise.
* Certain volatile liquids are demonstrated to have anaesthetic effects
eg ether, chloroform.
* Antisepsis is employed in surgery, dramatically decreasing the
incidence of post-op infection.
* Hypodermic needles are developed.
* Surgery's scope extends to abdominal and neurosurgical procedures.
* Laboratory investigations become well established (blood grouping,
microbiology).
* The discovery of X-rays revolutionises diagnosis.
Early radiotherapy is attempted.

TL 5. Attempts are made to treat the more disabling psychiatric
disorders eg. insulin coma, electroshock therapy, psychoanalysis.
* The pharmacopoeia is expanded with the development of antibiotics,
synthetic steroids and analgesics.
* The complexity of the immune system becomes apparent, as does the
structure of DNA.
* Intravenous anaesthetic agents are developed, as are muscle relaxants.
The 'anaesthetic triad' of anaesthesia, analgesia and muscle relaxation
therefore becomes possible.
* Surgery on the heart is attempted, to correct congenital abnormalities
and valvular disease.
* Disposable intravenous cannulae and catheters are developed, as are
crude prosthetics (eg jointed plastic arms with hooks or claws).
* The damaging effects of radiation are recognised ; X-rays are used
less frequently and more carefully!
* Mass immunisation for certain diseases is commonplace.

TL 6. Ultrasonography is developed and used clinically.
* Effective psychoactive drugs (antipsychotics, antidepressants and
sedatives) are developed, but these are not without side-effects.
The pharmacopoeia continues to improve.
* Invasive monitoring and telemetry techniques are developed.
* Acute care (coronary care and intensive care) units are formed.

TL 7. Transplant surgery (heart, kidney, skin, cornea), cardio-pulmonary
bypass (heart-lung machines) and renal dialysis are developed.
* Reconstructive surgery is well-developed.
* The merging of the computer and X-ray machine yields the CT (computed
tomography) scanner.
* Methods for manipulating the DNA of bacteria emerge ; biotechnology
becomes a booming field.

TL 8. The scope of transplantation expands to include lung, liver,
pancreas, bone marrow and segments of intestine.
* Laser and endoscopic surgery become commonplace.
* The first automated surgical assistants are developed towards the end
of the period.
* Early anti-viral drugs are introduced, as is gene therapy for a few
conditions.
* Nuclear magnetic resonance (MR) scanners are developed.
* 'Nuclear medicine' arises as a speciality with refinement in gamma
cameras and radiopharmaceuticals.
* Improved computer processing power permits 3D reconstruction of X-ray,
MR or ultrasound images.
* A spinoff from silicon chip technology enables blood analysers
(haematology, biochemistry) to become hand sized.
* Recominant viral vaccines (eg. against hepatitis A and B) are
developed.
* Cloning via nuclear transfer techniques is successfully demonstrated.
* Polymerase chain reaction or PCR techniques offer a way of detecting
very small amounts of (biological) material.

TL 9. Portable bacterial and viral analysers developed.
* Nerve refusion uses matrices of an inert substrate impregnated with
cell signalling factors.
* Tissue culture technology allows organs to be regrown, facilitating
transplant and reconstructive surgery.
In vivo regrowth (eg. regenerating digits) becomes possible, but is
expensive and prolonged (requires hospital inpatient care).
The artificial womb is a variant of these technologies.
* The first protein micromachines are developed as a result of advances
in biotechnology and molecular computing.
Stability and longevity problems restrict their use to the lab.
However, rapid protein and DNA sequencing techniques become available.
* Homologous recombination - directed gene insertion - becomes possible
with humans and other multicellular organisms. Prior to this, genes were
inserted at random by the viral vector.
* The serendipitous development of slow drug spawns a new medical
speciality : that of low metabolism and its disorders.
* Hibernation medicine's domain includes that of the newly discovered
low berth (low-temperature vitrification and reanimation are
demonstrated for the first time at this TL).
* Medical expert systems are incorporated in portable ICU level
stretcher capsules built for retrieval/battlefield situations ; the
first 'automeds'.
* Modern prosthetics and bionics become possible due to advancements in
materials science, electrical and computer engineering.

TL 10. Growth quickening of tissue becomes possible. Malignant cells are
destroyed by surveillance protein machines.
These are also used in medical oncology.
* Broad spectrum vaccines become possible with nanotechnology. However,
protection is conferred only for about a standard year, as the machines
aren't stable and can't reproduce.
* The development of relatively efficient antiproton traps leads to the
clinical use of antimatter for diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy.
Antiproton CT requires much less radiation to get a better picture than
X-ray based CT.

TL 11. The pocket medical scanner is developed. Utilising advanced
ultrasound and superconducting quantum interface device (SQUID)
technology, it can :-
   determine heart rate from ECG ;
   measure cardiac output (volume of blood pumped per unit time) via
Doppler ultrasound of the aortic root (probe must be placed on chest) ;
   and monitor other vital signs (blood pressure, blood oxygen
saturation) and measure appropriate biochemical and haematological
parameters with appropriate peripherals (a multichannel arterial cannula
would suffice).
* The medical computer is a medical scanner connected to an expert
system - effectively a diagnostician in a box. A microbiology lab
module is included with the computer but not the scanner.
* Improved understanding of the neurophysiology of vision leads to
the development of artificial eyes.
* Low berth medicine is made much safer with the development of
gravisonic refrigeration techniques.

TL 12. Synthetic vision, and advances in robotics lead to the
development of modern automeds. Depending on legislation, automeds can
perform functions from bandaging to resuscitation. Regardless, they are
an invaluable tool for medical personnel.
* Psionic shields develop from an improved understanding of
neurophysiology.
* Improvements in nanotechnology enable broad-spectrum 'vaccines' to be
developed which enable recognition and neutralisation by the host's
immune system of almost all infective agents, tumour cells and some
toxic substances (the latter in low blood and tissue concentrations).
Stability is still a problem : about five year's protection is
conferred.
* Advances in materials science lead to the development of
pseudo-biological prosthetics.

TL 13. Growth quickening technology peaks at a 100:1 quickening rate.
* Advanced regrowth techniques permit outpatient care. For limbs, limb
buds are covered with a template insert which is shed when regrowth is
complete.
Internal organs can only be regrown in this way if they are paired,
(i.e. a functional original present) unless a portable life support
system is used (heart/lung/liver/machine!), which are available, but
EXPENSIVE.
* Newly dead persons can be revived with a combination of nanomachine
based cell stabilisation and repair, agressive nutrition and growth
quickening.
The only requirement is an intact brain and brainstem.
* Radiation poisoning (not acute brain syndrome) is amenable to
treatment with repair machines, stem cell acceleration (in particular
blood and gut lining) and surveillance nanites to eliminate malignant
cells.
* Neural activity sensors are a refinement of psionic shield technology.
They are large and very short ranged.

TL 14. Computer-brain interfaces are possible. At lower TLs, switches
and other electrical devices are implantable, but nothing as complex as
a computer.
Implantable computers to exploit this breakthrough become available.
It becomes possible to read memories and alter them as a result.
However at this TL reading is non-selective and destructive, writing
proves near-impossible.
* Genetic engineering (uplift of embryo, germ cell transmission of new
characteristics).

TL 15. Brain transplants become possible, as does treatment of
radiation-induced acute brain syndrome.
* Anagathics are developed. These are a combination of repair and
surveillance nanites. Stability problems necessitate a course of
tablets, injections, etc. (choose delivery system).

Beyond the common TLs....
TL 16. Crude memory transfer (non-destructive read)

TL 17. Immune system augmentation with 'active screen' nanomachines.
Stability problem solved.
Infection, poisoning, aging and malignancy are not possible.
* Selective memory erasure or alteration.

TL 18. Partial memory transfer (non-destructive)

TL 19. Biostasis :- no freezing or drugs : nanomachine induced metabolic
arrest. Preservation time is a function of nanomachine failure or
mutation rate.
* Advanced bioengineering :- living organisms can be directly reshaped
with nano editing of their genome and growth acceleration.

TL 20. Minds can be transferred to computers or other sentients....

Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome.
Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gearhead and Gaming Enthusiast

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 98 00:51:45 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: RPG's in Traveller

On 10/26/98 at 11:37 PM,  "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com> said:

>I wonder, it there an RPG called Traveller in Traveller? *weg*

No, but there is one called something like "Across the Bright Sea"
that I invented for the game I'm running.

One of the characters in my PBEM, picked it up, accidentally,
thinking it was a entertainment disk at the local Data-Mart.  Once
she opens it and finds the little cubes with dots on them, and vids
the instructions, I wonder what she'll do.  Will she try to organize
a game to entertain the crew and passengers during one of the long
boring jumps.  ;->

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 01:52:58 EST
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

> One of the common threads through canon is the designation of Major
> races on the Droyne coyns, and the particulars of jump drive discovery
> by those major races.

Does the Major/Minor race thing *have to* apply to jump drive?  That's how the
Imperium defines it, but is that how Grandfather did?  Especially seeing how
the Ancients used stargates.  

Maybe there's something else particular to those Six Races?  Also note that
mention of the Six Races has appeared 'independently' in Aslan, Vargr, and
K'kree literature.  The hand of Yaskoydray?

W/o getting into the time travel thing, could it be these races have some...
drive... to dominate the stars where others lack it?  Maybe some sort of thing
vaguely comparable to Grandfather himself versus the rest of the Droyne... a
passive-aggressive sort of thing?


Gary

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 01:54:08 EST
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Contact: Krraaang! A rant turning into a different subject (was Re: The Imperial

> So the fleet disposition of the Imperial Navy is a
> "thing-man-was-not-to-know," eh?

I was talking about the *economics* of the OTU.  The fleet dispositions of the
Imperial Navy are pretty well described in the Rebellion SB.  

> To me, anyhow, it is far more valuable to have an "overdefined" setting
> than one that is "fuzzy." When presented with an overdefined setting, I can
> take it and change it to my tastes (if I want to do the work), or I can
> play the setting as-is. When I am presented with a fuzzy setting, then I am
> *forced* to do the work.

Or you can play it as is, simply inserting some assumptions on your part
(inserting some from Piper, Foundation, et al), leaving the subsector GDP and
the number of spacehands in the 112th fleet for grognards.  Your argument does
have some merit *if* it applies to overdefinition from the beginning.  In
Traveller's case, this overdefinition would hypothetically happen decades
after the fact and most likely invalidate at least some previously published
material.

> A lot of the discussion in this Fall '98 issue of _Piracy FlameFest_ have
> been disagreements based in different underlying assumptions of what
> sources are valuable and what sources aren't. There's little point in
> arguing if there is no common ground for debate.

Exactly!  : )  The underlying assumptions have always been vague and rather
undefined.  There are a few bits of definition, but not nearly enough for any
one side to be "right," as far as canon is concerned.  It basically comes down
to how pervasive the Imperium is in one's TU.  In the OTU, piracy happens...

<snip>
> Now, imagine that a Krraaang! scout misjumps (or intentionally jumps) into
> Imperial space. Two questions:
> 
> 1) Would this be possible? The Imperium seems buffered on pretty much all
> sides by other interstellar political entities. If it is possible for the
> Imperials to have first contact, where would it occur?

I think coming from the Rim would be the best option... seeing how Charted
Space is the less detailed in that direction.  Maybe skirt the edges between
the Solomani Confederation and Hive Federation.  Being unnoticed the whole way
is probably unlikely as they're bound to run into *someone.*  

> 2) If it does occur, do you imagine that the reaction of the Imperium would
> be hostile (as per the defeat/conquest/enslavement model above)? The 3I
> seems pretty robophobic (is that a word?), and considers robots
> non-sentients. Would this view be extended to an entire race that initiated
> contact on its own?

Not necessarily.  The Imperium was always rather pragmatic IMO.  Of course, if
the robots could be seized and reversed engineered quietly...  

> P.S. Comments from all flavors of the Imperium are welcome, although I see
> mine as a mostly benevolent (if impersonal) government that rules it's sea
> of stars.

How bout the dead one?  ; )  There are no (major) polities to worry about in
the New Era...  Maybe the Hive Federation, but any others are Pocket Empires
at best...  How would these robots deal w/ Virus, seeing how TL16-17 is AI
anyway?  I should think they should have an electronic combat value of their
own...


Gary

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:08:56 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Polite suggestion for the next printing/edition of G:T

Okay I finally have laid my hands on a copy of G:T and I like it (gubby finger 
prints on the cover and all). However might I make one very slight suggestion 
for the next printing. Hows about including a table giving common temperatures 
in both Fahrenheit and Celius (say freezing point of water, average temp of 
earth, limit of human comfort, limit of human endurance, average body temp, 
boiling point of water etc). I can live with converting all the other figures, but 
there is no rough/quick/easy way to convert between Fahrenheit and Celius and 
IMHO, a dozen or so common values would greatly increase the books 
usability for us poor benighted souls who persist in using SI units.
Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 00:23:49 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Guerre de course (was Re: Capital Ships of WWII)

...
>Commerce raiders haven't been especially effective since the middle
>of the 19th century.  The CSA's raiders (like the Alabama) weren't
>all that effective and neither were the german raiders of either
>war. At least, it doesn't seem that way to me.

  It's hard to say - both the CSA and Imperial German surface forces
were very weak compared to the forces they had to evade in executing
their missions. OTOH, commerce raiding by U-boats was at times very
effective because (even with their poor tactical capabilities) they
could operate with some freedom.

  Those German warships that did operate in distant waters early in 
WW I could have been quite significant if they had possessed safe
bases at which to resupply or wait out battle groups hunting them,
or if the need to concentrate in home waters had forced the British
to further strip their overseas posts. In the event British overall
naval superiority allowed them to handle all of these eventualities
at once, and the Germans lacked the needed bases. In WW II the UK was
again able to prevent sustained sortying.

  A better comparison might be to consider the potential outcome of a
British-French naval conflict, presumably prior to 1905.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:30:34 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Fahrenheit to Celius conversion table

Well after having just written that, I though why on 
earth don't I just make my own table. So here it is.

Celius Convert Fahrenheit
 -34     -30     -22
 -32     -25     -13
 -29     -20      -4
 -26     -15       5
 -23     -10      14
 -21      -5      23
 -18       0      32
 -15       5      41
 -12      10      50
  -9      15      59
  -7      20      68
  -4      25      77
  -1      30      86
   2      35      95
   3      37      98.6
   4      40     104
   7      45     113
  10      50     112
  13      55     131
  16      60     140
  18      65     149
  21      70     158
  24      75     167
  27      80     176
  29      85     185
  32      90     194
  35      95     203
  37.2    99     210
  38     100     212

Obviously I've rounded all the figures up to whole 
numbers (except for human body temperature). But I think 
that it might prove useful. Simply find the value you 
wish to convert in the centre column and read off its 
corresponding fahrenheit or celius value in the 
appropriate column.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 22:14:45 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Fahrenheit - Celius conversions

Here's an extended table which I think might be a little
more useful.

Celius Convert Fahrenheit  Celius Convert Fahrenheit
 -34     -30     -22         41     105     221
 -32     -25     -13         43     110     230
 -29     -20      -4         46     115     239
 -26     -15       5         49     120     248
 -23     -10      14         52     125     257
 -21      -5      23         54     130     266
 -18       0      32         57     135     275
 -15       5      41         60     140     284
 -12      10      50         63     145     293
  -9      15      59         66     150     302
  -7      20      68         68     155     311
  -4      25      77         71     160     320
  -1      30      86         74     165     329
   0      32      90         77     170     338
   2      35      95         79     175     347
   3      37      98.6       82     180     356
   4      40     104         85     185     365
   7      45     113         88     190     374
  10      50     112         91     195     383
  13      55     131         93     200     392
  16      60     140         96     205     401
  18      65     149         99     210     410
  21      70     158        100     212     414
  24      75     167        102     215     419
  27      80     176        104     220     428
  29      85     185        107     225     437
  32      90     194        110     230     446
  35      95     203        113     235     455
  37.2    99     210        116     240     464
  38     100     212        118     245     473

To convert a temperature, simply find the value in the
centre column and read off the conversion in the
approriate fahrenheit or celius column.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 05:17:17 -0500
From: John Macek <macek@erols.com>
Subject: Re: The Sunbeard Declaration

Ian or Katts wrote:
> 
> I think we have the framework of a deal on the Great TML Piracy debate of
> 1997-8.
> 
> #1 : Mainworlds with either signifigant trade or signifigant economies can
> and will defend their space out to about their 100 diameter limits.
> 

I don't want to reopen the piracy debate, but....
I disagree.  These worlds have the ability to defend themselves. 
Whether they do or not is a matter of human behavior.  IMHO, humans can
and will do odd things that sometimes make no sense from an economic
standpoint.

> #2 : These defenses will make piracy in and around mainworlds unprofitable.
> 

Yep.  I'd agree with that.  If the pirates are smart.  Stupid pirates,
unless they have Luck, tend to have short lifespans.

> #3 : These defenses do not extend to the entire system.
> 

I disagree if you are speaking of SDBs as "these defenses."  Supplement
#7 mentions SDBs being placed in the comet belt, around gas giants and
in the asteroid belt.  

> #4 : Most career pirates concentrate on the unsafe outsystems.
> 

I'd drink to that.  Rum!  Geeve me rum damn yee.  (oops, sorry, let that
one slip out)

> #5 : Shippers apply risk premiums to trade with either unsafe systems or
> outsystems.
> 

How does this affect the little guy, the free trader who goes from port
to port in the backwater systems?  Away from the main shipping routes I
would say no.

> #6 : Merchant ships specialising in trading in unsafe areas tend to be
> heavily armed
> 

If they can afford it, sure.  Those free traders just starting out take
their chances and hope for the best.  The unarmed will probably pay more
attention to the anti-shipping activity reports broadcast by the IISS. 
Unless they have good reason, they'll probably steer clear of systems
with reports of piracy.  Good reason includes, but is not limited to,
speculative cargo that might bring a high price.

> #7 : Merchant ships specialising in trading in safe areas tend to be
> lightly armed or unarmed
> 

Yes.  Though there will be exceptions.  Cultures with a high regard for
militarization comes to mind.

> #8 : The best markets for stolen starships and cargos are in other states,
> however unsafe areas will buy commodities they know to be stolen at heavily
> discounted rates
> 

True.  But IMTU the Imperial backwaters are potential pirate markets as
well.

> #9 : Pirate ships will tend to be converted merchants, as unsafe areas tend
> not to be profitable enough to justify custom-built warships. Safe areas
> tend to be too dangerous for even custom built warships to operate in for
> long enough to defray their build costs. Pirate warships may exist from
> mutinous or rebel crews.
> 

IMO, most pirate ships are going to be the result of mutinous crews. 
Merchant ships are, IMTU, more often the subject of mutinies than naval
vessels (mostly due to the fact that the Navy has steady pay) and
therfore you'll find more merchant vessels going on the account.

> A corrollory of #4 and #5 is that Outsystems will tend to remain
> underdeveloped, as they cannot develop until they are secure, and they are
> not worth securing until they are developed.
> 

I think it would vary from system to system and there are so many
systems in the 3I....  

One quick note before I go.  I base most of my notions on my
understanding of the piratical modus operandi from the late 17th and
early 18th century, since I am a student of that era.  

Gotta run!
John

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1053
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, October 27 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1054



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re:  Polyglot Traveller Lexicon
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery 
Greetings from Spofulam Orbital HQ
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Interesting thought on jump drive discovery
Re: Naval procurement
Re: Gravity blocking jump routes
Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)
Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)
Jump point masking
Re: The Imperial Navy
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: Extended System Generation
Re: FIASCO II

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 18:43:02 +0800
From: Michael Bailey <mickb@iinet.net.au>
Subject: Re:  Polyglot Traveller Lexicon

After a quick scan of my old Irish Gelic - English mini-dictionary:

likely highly inaccurate...and I don't know how the accents are going to
come out

starport:  reannnfort [reanawnfurt] reannanfort (without accents)

spaceport:  fnasfort [fawnasfurt] fanasfort (ditto)

starship:  spirlong [spaerlung] speirlong (ditto)

highport:  ardfort [aardfurt] 

downport:  thosfort [heesfurt] thiosfort (ditto)

company:   cuideachta [kijukhtu]
(business: comhlacht [koelukht]

parliament:  Dil [daal] Dail (ditto)

give me two pints of beer please:  tabhair dom dh phionta leanna le do thoil
[tawar dum gau finnta lanna, le du hul]



Slaint,


Mick Bailey
mickb@iinet.net.au
solomani.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 11:52:22 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

IMTU:
Grandfather gave J-drives to all major races long after he had made the
decision about which actual race should be given this tech. He did this to
make shure there would be plenty of J-drive using starfaring cultures for
the core baddies when they arrive. The reason for all this was that
Grandfather while fiddling with stargates etc realised that hyperspace was
in fact a construction of some super hight tech race (thats the reason no
major race really understands hyperspace physics - it is not a naturally
ocurring phenomena).

When he understood that he had disturbed these super techies he started the
final war, killed off all his children, destroyed all of his and their
work, moved to a new tiny pocket universe and basically tried to hide
himself as much as possible. The act of giving the major races J-drives was
just one more way of pointing the blame elsewhere.

Yes IMTU grandfather is a bona fide grade a cowardly asshole.


To be continued...


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 10:52:28 GMT
From: johnl@vnet.net (John Lansford)
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

On Tue, 27 Oct 1998 16:30:23 +1300, you wrote:

>At 23:43 26/10/98 GMT, John Lansford wrote:
>
>>He was right, for once. The 11" guns on S&G could not have seriously
>>damaged the heavily armored "R" class BB's unless they closed to
>>seriously dangerous (for them) ranges. The 15" guns on the "R's" were
>>dangerous to S&G even at long ranges; look what happened when Renown
>>hit one of them during the Norway cruises.
>
>Both these ships were to have given twin 15" turrets in place of their
>triple 11", but the war intervened and the work was never done. If this had
>happened it would've been somewhat different.

I thought we were talking about reality, not "what ifs".

John Lansford

The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 10:56:00 GMT
From: johnl@vnet.net (John Lansford)
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

On Mon, 26 Oct 98 23:32:16 -0600, you wrote:

>On 10/26/98 at 10:14 PM,  "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" 
>
>>base. Thus to combat a battleship you need a heavy cruiser and a few 
>>destoyers (enough that the battleship can't afford to ignore them).
>
>I'm not sure a heavy cruiser could survive even a short exchange
>with a battleship, but everything else you wrote I agree with.
>
>Commerce raiders haven't been especially effective since the middle
>of the 19th century.  The CSA's raiders (like the Alabama) weren't
>all that effective and neither were the german raiders of either
>war. At least, it doesn't seem that way to me.

The CSA raider that continued her attacks after the war ended
(Shenendoah?) was credited with virtually destroying the US Pacific
whaling fleet single handedly. CSA Alabama created havoc in New
England by driving the shipping insurance rates up to unbelievable
levels.

The German raiders were limited in effect individually, but
cumulatively they worked. While the larger ships were out at sea the
Royal Navy had to use resources well over the impact the raiders could
have created themselves. Convoys were stopped completely while
Bismarck was at sea, and while S&G were patrolling convoys only left
if they had heavy escorts.

John Lansford

The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 06:38:19 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery 

> IMTU:
> Grandfather gave J-drives to all major races long after he had made the
> decision about which actual race should be given this tech. He did this to
> make shure there would be plenty of J-drive using starfaring cultures for
> the core baddies when they arrive. The reason for all this was that
> Grandfather while fiddling with stargates etc realised that hyperspace was
> in fact a construction of some super hight tech race (thats the reason no
> major race really understands hyperspace physics - it is not a naturally
> ocurring phenomena).

My players have no clue how or why jumpspace works the way it works IMTU.  

> When he understood that he had disturbed these super techies he started the
> final war, killed off all his children, destroyed all of his and their
> work, moved to a new tiny pocket universe and basically tried to hide
> himself as much as possible. The act of giving the major races J-drives was
> just one more way of pointing the blame elsewhere.
> 
> Yes IMTU grandfather is a bona fide grade a cowardly asshole.

IMTU, some cultures talk about the Ancients.  Others talk about 'The Enemy'.  
A couple of the minor races talk about a big struggle between the 'Forerunners 
and The Enemy', but a lot of them have been shown to be the Vilani and the 
Saie or other minor race the Vilani went up against during the First Imperium 
period.  Nobody knows what happened to the Ancients IMTU, but there are 
archeological records of a few starfaring races dating back almost 15 million 
years.  The Ancients are considered the 'new kids on the block' at a mere 
300,000 years ago.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 07:03:38 -0600
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>
Subject: Greetings from Spofulam Orbital HQ

	Hi all... just decided to drop in for a bit and see how all were
doing.  Uncle Hengabar's decision to refocus Famille Spofulam's core
mandate into legal services explains the recent silence.  Is Kenji Schwarz,
High Priestoid of the Sayat, still around?


Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 01:11:16 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

Date sent:      	Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:08:04 -0700
From:           	Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>

[snip]

>What this implies to me is either Gramps is diddling with time to make
>the coyn sets come out right, _or_ he's seeded prototype jump drives
>where he'd expect these races to find them, which means that _nobody's_
>truly 'discovered' jump drive from first principles.

IMHO this should come under the "rigidly defined areas of uncertainty and 
doubt" rule :*> (with nods to Mr Adams)

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 01:28:54 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

From:           	johnl@vnet.net (John Lansford)
Date sent:      	Tue, 27 Oct 1998 10:56:00 GMT

>On Mon, 26 Oct 98 23:32:16 -0600, you wrote:

>>Commerce raiders haven't been especially effective since the middle
>>of the 19th century.  The CSA's raiders (like the Alabama) weren't
>>all that effective and neither were the german raiders of either
>>war. At least, it doesn't seem that way to me.

>The CSA raider that continued her attacks after the war ended
>(Shenendoah?)

Alabama I think (?)

>was credited with virtually destroying the US Pacific
>whaling fleet single handedly. CSA Alabama created havoc in New
>England by driving the shipping insurance rates up to unbelievable
>levels.

>The German raiders were limited in effect individually, but
>cumulatively they worked. While the larger ships were out at sea the
>Royal Navy had to use resources well over the impact the raiders could
>have created themselves. Convoys were stopped completely while
>Bismarck was at sea, and while S&G were patrolling convoys only left
>if they had heavy escorts.

Commerce raiders always are "effective" in that the cost (in resources, ships, 
time etc.) required to stop them is always far greater than their own cost. What 
distinguishes a truely effective raider is that it can survive and make another 
cruise. The German surface raiders (other than S&G) in both the world wars 
failed to be truely effective because even though it required a huge investment 
in naval power to stop them, they were stopped and thus those resources 
where available for other missions. The double bind of sea denial is that when 
you are able to deploy sufficent resources to conduct a potentially war winning 
anti-commerce campaign, you usually have also got sufficent resources to 
challange for sea control which is a far more valuable prize.

Guerre de course is always the resort of the weaker naval power. If one looks at 
what I think are the best commerce raiders ever built (The USN monster 
frigates of the 1812 war) and compares them with their opponents you can 
clearly see how it works. The RN had to go for sea contol and thus had to build 
large numbers of cost efficent warships for that role (the classic 32's and 36's). 
Where as the USN did not have to meet this requirement and had the luxury of 
building a small number of ships which were individually far superior to the RN's 
frigate force.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 14:12:54 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on jump drive discovery

Bruce Johnson writes:

>One of the common threads through canon is the designation of Major
>races on the Droyne coyns, and the particulars of jump drive discovery
>by those major races.
> 
>It's curious, that the coyns supposedly portray races that discover it
>on their own, when in fact we know that the Aslan got Jump drive from a
>crashed solomani ship...
> 
>What this implies to me is either Gramps is diddling with time to make
>the coyn sets come out right, _or_ he's seeded prototype jump drives
>where he'd expect these races to find them, which means that _nobody's_
>truly 'discovered' jump drive from first principles.

There is a much simpler explanation. _Secrets of the Ancients_ says that
Grandpop tours Charted Space every once in a while and that he has revised
the coyn set several times. The last time he visited our universe was
around -1000. That was after the Aslans made it into space. There's no
reason why Grandfather shouldn't have added a Aslan to the coyns at that
time (Hmmm... I wonder what he removed to make room...)

BTW. 'Around -1000' could extend to -924, couldn't it? Personally I don't
like the 'Grand Conspiracy' background for Traveller, but those of you that
do might speculate that The Big G had a hand in the _Maghiz_ because the
Darrians were getting too clever for his liking. You might further
speculate how long it will take before he notices those Imperial TL 16/17
planets and what will happen to them when he does...


      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: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 14:53:51 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Naval procurement

DustyLV769@aol.com writes:

>	I can see a case for this...but just how many high-tech shipyards do
>you have?? This is an often-overlooked point:  you only have so many tons of
>yard capacity at each TL to build new ships and maintain old ones.

_TCS_ claims that each world with a Class A or class B shipyard have shipyard
capacity equal to 1 T per 1000 inhabitants. This is modified by the government
modifier, which also modifies the amount of money spent on the navy.

This is the capacity available for new construction and repair and refitting.
What Derek didn't consider are the two very important activities that are not
included: Maintenance and construction of replacements. You can utilize your
full shipyard capacity for new construction and your ships will still be
maintained. This function is invisible to the TCS player. And replacements
for worn-out ships also happens without the TCS player noticing. (The last
isn't conclusive; it might be argued that in a normal TCS campaign, ships
don't have the time to wear out naturally before they are blown to bits ;-)
But that's the interpretation I prefer.

So the capacity is SPARE capacity, available for previously unplanned
activity: new construction, repairs and refits. I think that makes more
sense in view of the mechanics. Consider: You can have a shipyard with,
say, 100,000 T of unused capacity lying idle for months and years. Then
one day a shot-up squadron arrives and immidiately repairs begins. For a
few months the full capacity is utilized. Then the squadron is repaired
and immidiately the whole shipyard capacity lies idle again.

I think that the shipyard isn't idle at all. It is busy performing scheduled
maintenance and construction of replacement vessels. When an unexpected
repair job appears, the shipyard hires temporary extra workers and authorizes
some overtime. Once the repairs are done, the shipyard reverts to business as
usual.

This does mean that strictly speaking a new construction job should expand
spare capacity gradually as the new workers become more skilled. IMO this
is a complication that is real enough, but best ignored.

As for Imperial shipyard capacity, the 1 T per 1000 inhabitants is for a
naval budget of Cr500/citizen. Since the Imperium has a smaller naval
budget, their shipyards are presumably smaller too.


      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: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:02:30 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Gravity blocking jump routes

Christopher Thrash writes:

>>From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>

>>You can certainly justify such blockage and it would certainly be a big
>>help to pirates, but before you get too enthusiastic, you should consider
>>that it will complicate the hell out of the jump rules nad it will change
>>the economic realities of the TU drastically. I imagine that mostly you
>>could forget about getting 25 jumps per year out of a ship for starters.
> 
>Or you might have found a justification for only 25 jumps per year, rather
>than 35 or 40.

I've also made starship tickets more expensive. I don't want that. I want
star travel to be as cheap as possible, in order to make it more plausible
that the patron is willing to pay starship fares for the PCs to go fetch his
runaway daughter. The 35 jumps per year was one way to do so.


      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: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 09:06:45 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Conley <estar@wrench.toolcity.net>
Subject: Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)

On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, Brannon "Ben" Boren wrote:

> Legate Legion wrote:
> > ObTrav:  Do you think there is such a thing as sitting down with your
> > friends on a friday or saturday night with a few books, some dice, a pizza
> > or two, & some sodas for a night of gaming, or by that time is it done all
> > with computers...
> 

I think that Live-Action Role-playing is going to be big. Can anyone here
think of how a live-action Traveller game would be run (Scenarios,etc).
Generally live-action have a lot of players (20+) so the scnarios need to
reflect that.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:22:22 +0100 (MET)
From: Lars Adler <adler@hartree.pc.Uni-Koeln.DE>
Subject: Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)

On Tue, 27 Oct 1998, Robert Conley wrote:

> 
> 
> On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, Brannon "Ben" Boren wrote:
> 
> > Legate Legion wrote:
> > > ObTrav:  Do you think there is such a thing as sitting down with your
> > > friends on a friday or saturday night with a few books, some dice, a pizza
> > > or two, & some sodas for a night of gaming, or by that time is it done all
> > > with computers...
> > 
> 
> I think that Live-Action Role-playing is going to be big. Can anyone here
> think of how a live-action Traveller game would be run (Scenarios,etc).
> Generally live-action have a lot of players (20+) so the scnarios need to
> reflect that.

Perhaps these kind of RPGs can be mastered by a computer, programmed
correctly. Look at the 'holodeck adventures' of Star Trek: What else are
they if not an ultra-tech advanced Roleplaying Game?

If we get this one down some tech levels, we could imagine a 3D-animated
holographic adventure for perhaps one to eight players.

Live-action games can be considered a more 'traditional' way of this,
perhaps with only some of the fantasy requisites, the rest being
imagination.

It depends on what the players like most. the most conservative players
will even roll the dice instead of letting the hand computers roll ...

L.A.

'Since we use computers, as many mistakes happen as before.
 But now there is no one to blame.' 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 07:26:34 -0700
From: Christopher Thrash <thrash@io.com>
Subject: Jump point masking

I ran some figures last night to see what the effect of jump masking would
be.  The initial results are below; I'll go back and do the statistics on
how often masking occurs overall later this afternoon.

Spec.	Dia.	100D	100D	Habit.	Free	Free		Free
Class	(Sols) (au) 	(orb)	Zone	(Sz 0)	(LGG)		(3d)
O5	18.00	16.84	8	-	-	-	
B0	7.40	6.92	7	12	100.0%	100.0%		auto
B5	3.80	3.56	6	9	99.6%	99.6%		17-
A0	2.50	2.34	5	7	97.2%	97.4%		16-
A5	1.70	1.59	4	6	95.2%	95.6%		15-
F0	1.30	1.22	4	5	90.1%	91.1%		14-
F5	1.20	1.12	4	4	71.2%	74.8%		12-
G0	1.05	0.98	3	3	18.7%	38.7%		8-
G5	0.93	0.87	3	2	0.0%	0.0%		no
K0	0.85	0.80	3	2	0.0%	0.0%		no
K5	0.74	0.69	2	0	0.0%	0.0%		no
M0	0.63	0.59	2	0	0.0%	0.0%		no
M5	0.32	0.30	1	-	-	-		-	
M8	0.13	0.12	1	-	-	-		-	

"Free" is the chance that any point on the mainworld 100D limit will be
free of the jump masking by the primary. The formula is:

Free = Sqrt(1 - (R - r)^2 / a^2), where R is the 100D radius of the
primary, r is the 100D radius of the planet, and a is the orbital radius
(semi-major axis) of the planet.

The last column is designed for GT.  Roll twice:  once for origin and once
for destination. [Optionally, add +1 to the target number for a mainworld
satellite of a gas giant.]  

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:37:05 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

Gary (TravelrTNE@aol.com) writes:

>What you want to do is an order of magnitude worse IMO. It effectively
>invalidates over 10 years of Traveller support.  

The basic problem seems to be that you don't have the imagination and
creative flexibility to work inside a logical framework. It only
invalidates a few scattered bits here and there. Most of the Traveller
canon can still be accomodated. And in exchange, future products will
be consistent from the start.
 
>>I simply don't consider Striker (or anything else) as a valid resource
>for dissecting the economics of the OTU. IMO it's too overdefining, it
>stifles too much Ref creativity and forces everyone into far too narrow
>parameters 

It dosen't interfere with the Referees at all. You're still free to play
in your fuzzy version of the TU. All it does is help those of us who likes
internal consistency in our game universes.

>(as well as invalidating the official storyline of "historical" events,
>which I consider inviolable).  YMMV as may YTU.  It's just a happy
>coincidence the OTU hasn't been dissected to the level you (amongst others)
>would have it.

I don't see what your problem is. If the OTU becomes to overdefined for your
taste, you can just ignore it. But if the )TU remains fuzzy, those of us who
want it sharper has to do all the work ourselves.
 
>As far as sensible defense budgets...  Any subsector can draw on far greater
>resources than *any* nation-state on balkanized Earth can in AD 1998.  Their
>percentages simply don't need to be as large to maintain proportionally
>respectable forces.

Proportionate to what? I don't know if you are being deliberately obtuse or
just obtuse, but as I've already tried to make you understand several times
before, a sensible defense budget depends on what your opponents are
spending. If you feel comfortable assuming that the Zhodani and the
Solomani spends far, far less than they can afford on their military, then
go ahead, but I don't think that is reasonable.

>>>All of them are made to be playable *games* (specificially games for
>>>players to have pet "pocket empires" and polities and go to war w/ each
>>>other) and to not simulate "reality" (such as it is) for the OTU.
>> 
>>All of them were made to be playable games based on the Traveller
>>background. You may as well claim that each of the adventures were made
>>to be a playable adventure and not to reflect reality "such as it is"
>>for the OTU. That rather
> 
>Well that is what each of the adventures was made for, silly goose, especially
>in the beginning.  Canon considerations didn't come into the picture till much
>later.

Again I can't help but wonder just what your interest is. You appear quite
willing to ignore anything that dosen't fit in with your vision. So why do
you care about my suggestions? Why not just ignore them?

>>misses the point. The true value of the Traveller Universe to me is that
>>I can mine it for background material for my personal TU. As such the
>>historical background and adventures are important to me. And it is
>>especially important to me that they are mutually consistent. And that is
>>why, as important as the background is, the underlying rules and mechanics
>>IMO are even more important, because if they are in order, they will force
>>_future_ Traveller authors to produce stuff that is also compatible.

> 
>This is a mixed mechanics company, Hans.  You may not like it, but original
>Traveller rules are not the underlying assumption anymore. TNE isn't either,
>to my chagrin.  High Guard, Striker I, and TCS are as dead as Battle Rider,
>Striker II and the World Tamers Handbook, as far as the underlying assumptions
>of the OTU are concerned. The assumptions for T5 may well be entirely
>different.

"That rather misses the point. The true value of the Traveller Universe to me
is that I can mine it for background material for my personal TU. As such the
historical background and adventures are important to me. And it is especially
important to me that they are mutually consistent."

I don't want to preserve any particular rules set. I just want future writers
to use one that ensures that new background material is self-consistent and,
as far as possible, backward compatible.

"And that is why, as important as the background is, the underlying rules and
mechanics IMO are even more important, because if they are in order, they will
force_future_ Traveller authors to produce stuff that is also compatible."

>I don't think the puzzle should be pieced together to your level of
>satisfaction, no.  It's a level of detail like that stifles flexibility,
>creativity, and plain fun and will do nothing to gain new players to the
>game.

It may stifle whatever flexibility and creativity you happpen to have, Gary,
but the ability to draw logical inferences from self-consistent ground rules
stimulates my creativity and enhance my fun. So speak for yourself.

>Canon is a liability rather than an asset.

Tell you what, Gary. You ignore canon and let the rest of us worry about it.
How's that?

>They do fit, but the puzzle itself should always retain quite a bit of
>"fuzziness," nor should the "pieces" be as rigidly defined either.
>In other words, you're putting light on things meant to stay in shadow.  

I'm putting light on things that I want to see more clearly. Judging from
what I see on this list, a lot of other people also want the same thing.
If you don't want to see them, you can close your eyes. But don't ask us
to switch off the light.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
- - "You don't like the Goths?"
- -  "No! Not with the persecution we have to put up with!"
- -  "Persecution?"
- -  "Religious persecution. We wont stand for it forever."
- -  "I thought the Goths let everybody worship as they pleased."
- -  "That's  just  it!  We Orthodox are forced to stand around and
   watch Arians  and Monophysites  and Nestorians  and Jews going
   about  their  business  unmolested,   as  if  they  owned  the
   country. If that isn't persecution, I'd like to know what is!"

                -Martin Padway and stranger in bar in
                         "Lest Darkness Fall"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 05:38:24 -0900
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu> wrote

> One of the common threads through canon is the designation of Major
> races on the Droyne coyns, and the particulars of jump drive discovery
> by those major races. 
> It's curious, that the coyns supposedly portray races that discover it
> on their own, when in fact we know that the Aslan got Jump drive from 
> a crashed solomani ship... 
> What this implies to me is either Gramps is diddling with time to make
> the coyn sets come out right, _or_ he's seeded prototype jump drives
> where he'd expect these races to find them, which means that 
> _nobody's_ truly 'discovered' jump drive from first principles.

[Theory snipped]

Another possiblity is thaat he is Precognative and knows ahead of time
that these races will discover jump drive so he puts them on the coyns.

Cannon states that Yaskodray is a strong Psionic [IIRC he is described
somewhere as Psi 15].  Canon indicates that Precognition is a possible
psionic power.  Canon indicates that psionic individuals can develop new
psionic powers in adulthood [AM 4 Zhodani].  Canon indicates that some
Ancient had sufficient understanding of Precognition to create an
artifact with this power (The one driving the Zhodani Core
expiditions).  Canon indicates that Yaskodray is over 300,00 years old. 
Canon indicates that Precognition may be one of the factors at work in
Droyne casting ceremonies.  Is the notion that Yaskodray was
Precognative such a difficult one?

I like the notion that Yaskodray developed Precognition as an adult and
started the Final War at least partially because he had Seen that he
would be fighting it.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 10:24:36 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

Robert Conley <estar@wrench.toolcity.net> writes:
>One way of compressing space is by storing the random number seed used to
>generate the system. Since computerized random numbers have the same
>patterns if generated from the same seed.

This doesn't work if you let the user modify values - which in my
experience every referee does.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:42:48 +0000
From: Phil Kitching <Philk@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: FIASCO II

Hi Martin,

(and anyone else attending FIASCO II)

Feel free to meet at the Colchester Wargames Association Stand.

I should be there most of the day.

(And thankyou to all who came to Salvo98 last week
- - if anyone wants to run a BITS stand at Salvo99...)

Phil Kitching
- --
  Interested in a wargames show in Colchester, Essex UK?
  http://www.btinternet.com/~salvo

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1054
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, October 27 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1055



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Future Gaming
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: (was Re: Capital Ships of WWII)
Re: Polite suggestion for the next printing/edition of G:T
Re: Extended System Generation
Re: multiple posts, Xboats
Re: Digest Messed Up?
Re: Digest Messed Up?
Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)
Re : Radiators (power plants) - oops!
Re: The Sunbeard Declaration
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
re: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)
Re: Fahrenheit to Celius conversion table
FIASCO II
Re: The Imperial Navy
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery 
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: Contact: Krraaang!

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 10:50:00 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

>Does the Major/Minor race thing *have to* apply to jump drive?  That's how the
>Imperium defines it, but is that how Grandfather did?  Especially seeing how
>the Ancients used stargates.

IMTU, the Major/Minor distinction refers to power. (Think of the Great
POwers in 19th century politics.) The Jump Drive distinction is just
propaganda, rather like Christianity or race was during the 19th century.

And for what it's worth, I use the term "species" to refer to alien
species, reserving "race" to refer to different subgroups within a
species. Thus Solomani, Zhodani, and Vilani are all races of the species
Humaniti. Helps keep the biology straight, and also stops new players
wanting to play Aslan-Human hybrids. (Most players who want to do that
recoil at the idea of 'making it' with a chipanzee - which is precisely
the point I'm trying to make.)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 10:51:55 -0500
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil>
Subject: Future Gaming

Legate wrote:

> From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
>
> <Calls off-stage> Nurse take me back to the Old Farts of Gaming home, I
> want to play some Traveleer, Stalking the Night Fantastic, Top Secret, or
> Morrow Project...
> 
> ObTrav:  Do you think there is such a thing as sitting down with your
> friends on a friday or saturday night with a few books, some dice, a pizza
> or two, & some sodas for a night of gaming, or by that time is it done all
> with computers...
> 
> Legate Legion, Old Gaming Fart


Don't know about getting together to play, but my former scout,
currently running in the Reavers Deep, used to occupy his time playing a
5th Frontier War simulation....  Would tinker with it and add realism by
using recorded signals and transponder codes from actual warships....

Greg

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:38:37 +0000
From: Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

John Lansford wrote:

>>I disagree (:*>), Scharnhorst and Gniesenau broke off from the three convoys 
>>escorted by R class due to hitlers orders that no capital ship be risked.
>
>He was right, for once. The 11" guns on S&G could not have seriously
>damaged the heavily armored "R" class BB's unless they closed to
>seriously dangerous (for them) ranges. The 15" guns on the "R's" were
>dangerous to S&G even at long ranges; look what happened when Renown
>hit one of them during the Norway cruises.

Not strictly true - while HMS Renown had a `zone of immunity' against
the ugly sisters, they *could* have split, and fought the same kind of
fight that the RN cruisers fought against _Graf Spee_. The original post
is most accurate - Hitler was not keen to lose capital ships, having
very few; and they were ordered to avoid contact with Allied heavy
units.

>>. Even an R 
>>class escorting a convoy could have easily inflicted sufficent damage to force 
>>Lutjens to abort the mission.
>
>Certainly, except that it was thought the risk to Bismarck was minimal
>against one of the older BB's escorting convoys. Their rangefinding
>and crew skills weren't up to the level of the first class ships in
>the RN, after all.

Battleships were rarely part of the close escort for a convoy. The
destroyers that were, however, posed a threat to Bismark - they could
torpedo her. A mass attack by a small group of destroyers could inflict
crippling damage on a BB.

>>Even an old R class could have inflicted sufficent damage to Bismark to force 
>>her to break off, while the DD's could have threatened Prinz Eugen with 
>>sufficent damage (torpedo attacks) to allow the convoy time to scatter. 
>
>Sure. And a torpedo could get a one in a million hit on Bismarck's
>rudders, jamming them so the Home Fleet could catch up to her.

Let's look how much damage two of the newest and best RN units did to
Bismark - The fast battleship HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales didn't do
a whole lot.

>War is about risk. The Germans were willing to risk Bismarck convoy
>raiding (what else were they going to do with her?).

Fleet in being? Use her to threaten the Artic Convoys, along with
Tirpitz. indeed, the two of these together could probably overwhelm the
*distant* escort of an Artic Convoy, let along the close escort.

Aetherem Vincere
Matt
- -- 
Matt Clonfero: Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk    | To err is human, To forgive
My employer and I have a deal - I don't speak | is not Air Force Policy.
for them, and they don't speak for me.        |   -- Anon, ETPS.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:26:55 +0000
From: Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: (was Re: Capital Ships of WWII)

Steven Hudson wrote:

>  IIRC, the downside of scattering in WWII was the horrific losses that
>unescorted freighters could take from U-boats; although this doesn't have
>a direct parallel in OTU, there is the possibility that these ships would
>then be subject to attrition (esp. if a hurried jump is less likely to
>deliveer them accurately to a safe harbour) by lighter enemy units lurking
>in the rear areas but unwilling to clash with other small warships.
>
>  An example might be an AHL scattering a Zho convoy, and hoping that the
>small auxiliary supply vessels therein would then suffer losses from eventual
>encounters with SDB's, Gazelle types, etc.

The WWII canonical example is Convoy PQ17, which scattered because of
the threat of an attack by a German capital ships (TIRPITZ). The convoy
was decimated by submarines, small craft and air attacks. Not a good
day.

Of course, Artic convoys usually had a distant covering force of heavy
ships - and it was this arrangement that eventually led to the demise of
the battlecruiser Scharnhorst - sunk by the covering force comprised of
the battleship HMS Duke of York; some light cruisers & some destroyers.

This would seem a good parallel for Traveller - a system probably
doesn't have enough heavy ships to provide escort for every group of
freighters that are in system - maybe it can spare a a handfull of
smaller craft to meet each group of ships, with the promise that the
heavies will come running.

Aetherem Vincere
Matt
- -- 
Matt Clonfero: Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk    | To err is human, To forgive
My employer and I have a deal - I don't speak | is not Air Force Policy.
for them, and they don't speak for me.        |   -- Anon, ETPS.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:55:00 +0000
From: Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Polite suggestion for the next printing/edition of G:T

Andrew Moffatt-Vallance wrote:

>Okay I finally have laid my hands on a copy of G:T and I like it (gubby finger 
>prints on the cover and all). However might I make one very slight suggestion 
>for the next printing. Hows about including a table giving common temperatures 
>in both Fahrenheit and Celius (say freezing point of water, average temp of 
>earth, limit of human comfort, limit of human endurance, average body temp, 
>boiling point of water etc). I can live with converting all the other figures, 
>but 
>there is no rough/quick/easy way to convert between Fahrenheit and Celius and 
>IMHO, a dozen or so common values would greatly increase the books 
>usability for us poor benighted souls who persist in using SI units.

Quick and dirty translation between Farenheit & Celcius:

Take thirty from the Farenheit, then half the result.

It's close enough for Government work...

Aetherem Vincere
Matt
- -- 
Matt Clonfero: Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk    | To err is human, To forgive
My employer and I have a deal - I don't speak | is not Air Force Policy.
for them, and they don't speak for me.        |   -- Anon, ETPS.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 11:18:31 EST
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

In a message dated 10/27/98 9:26:01 AM Central Standard Time,
Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca writes:

<< 
 This doesn't work if you let the user modify values - which in my
 experience every referee does.
  >>

Sure it does, you just have to make allowances for it. An unmodified system
takes up very few bytes. A modified system takes up a lot more.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 11:25:37 -0500
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: multiple posts, Xboats

Of course, I promptly received two of your posts.  I said "Oh no..." until
a looked at your header;

[begin LL's Header]

From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
To: <traveller@TanSoft.COM>, <traveller@TanSoft.COM>

[end LL's Header]

Do you want to make sure we aren't missing anything by sending twice or is
it just a test to see if all our mailservers are up to the traffic burden?

Maybe you really are close to that old gaming farts home.

ObTrav : Xboat routes are a medium of multiple duplicate messages
travelling along different routes to reach their destination.  There must
be a complex routing system behind there to make sure the end-users do not
receive many duplicates of that data from Far Away, with "delete message"
flags chasing the message around well after the first copy has been
received.

I envision a huge, unique alphanumeric code (or set of identifying
elements) assigned to each message in the great sea of data known as the
"X-Net" with origin and destination info subsumed in it.  Once the message
has reached its destination a "receipt flag" is set at the destination's
routing handler which will eliminate any duplicates received by the same
station.

Of course, if you are worried, you can set the parameters of the message so
that the receipt flag is ignored, causing your recipient to receive from
two to two-thousand copies of the same message in their 'inbox'.  You see,
the farther away the origin and destination are, the more possible routes
are available which *might* be faster, given the right combination of
arrival and departure times, and the more duplicates of the message are
sent along that different branch just in case the first copy is wiped or
redirected, or the xboat is late arriving.

Of course, if the 'ignore receipt flag' is set *and* the message "bounces"
due to a wrong address or somesuch, imagine the amount of data space a
single transaction could take up with exponentially duplicated "Bad
Recipient" messages whose "ignore receipt flag" is also set.

No wonder those X-Boats have such big data storage computers.

Pete


                      Peter H. Brenton : pbrenton@mit.edu
"A Good Traveller has no fixed plans and no intent on arriving."
  -Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 08:30:04 -0800
From: Kristian Miller <travellerne@3rd-imperium.com>
Subject: Re: Digest Messed Up?

Ditto here; but, for the mailing list.

Kristian

David L. Pulver wrote:
> 
> The digest seems to be sending multiple copies of itself to me, over and
> over...

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 08:30:04 -0800
From: Kristian Miller <travellerne@3rd-imperium.com>
Subject: Re: Digest Messed Up?

Ditto here; but, for the mailing list.

Kristian

David L. Pulver wrote:
> 
> The digest seems to be sending multiple copies of itself to me, over and
> over...

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 08:52:44 -0800 (PST)
From: Brannon Boren <brannonb@animal.blarg.net>
Subject: Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)

On Tue, 27 Oct 1998, Eris Reddoch wrote:

> Hey, I've just got to tell ya'll.  I was looking for something to
> watch on TV this weekend and found that ESPN 2 was broadcasting the
> "Magic:  The Gathering World Championship."
[snip]
> Then
> there was the money, $40,000 to the winner with $16,000 to, like the
> 5th place guy...double sheeze!!!

But the players probably spent that much on buying the dang cards. And
they didn't even come with gum!

Ben

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 08:53:55 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re : Radiators (power plants) - oops!

>Decreased radiator area with increasing tech level - more efficient
>conversion of heat to electricity, or vastly improved radiator tech?

SOme of both. (Note that more efficient conversion is what I meant by
efficiency, not the overall (terrible as we all know) conversion of fuel
into power.) The T^4 dependence for radiated power with temperature T means
that a moderate temperature increase can dump a lot more power per square
meter...presumably with improving materials tech at TL13-15 comes an improvement
in melting point of the radiators.

bruce

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 12:00:56 -0500
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: The Sunbeard Declaration

>Ian or Katts wrote:
>>
>> I think we have the framework of a deal on the Great TML Piracy debate of
>> 1997-8.

You're a brave soul, Ian, and I give you the Sunbeard Salute for your
efforts (right hand to *left* eyebrow as though shading the eyes...).

>> #1 : Mainworlds with either signifigant trade or signifigant economies can
>> and will defend their space out to about their 100 diameter limits.
>
>I don't want to reopen the piracy debate, but....

I didn't participate, and any comments are preemptively non aggressive in
intent but...

>I disagree.  These worlds have the ability to defend themselves.
>Whether they do or not is a matter of human behavior.  IMHO, humans can
>and will do odd things that sometimes make no sense from an economic
>standpoint.

I think you need to look at the word 'significant' and judge for yourself
what that means.  As a compromise document, Ian's proposal is subject to
individual interpretation.  When I see a word like "significant" without
any numbers I see the 'out' for those who only agree somewhat.

Also, take the stated principles with the word "usually" inserted at
strategic intervals.  No statements apply to all of humaniti, never mind
other races, with perfect uniformity.

>> #3 : These defenses do not extend to the entire system.
>>
>I disagree if you are speaking of SDBs as "these defenses."  Supplement
>#7 mentions SDBs being placed in the comet belt, around gas giants and
>in the asteroid belt.

He said "the entire system" not "Gas Giants, Asteroid Belts and Comet belts".

That said, Supp. 7 does not mention how effective SDBs are in this role
against this opponent.  SDBs are primarily for system defense against alien
invaders.   Police patrol our highways, but I speed nonetheless and rarely
even encounter them.

As a generalization you can expect exceptions to the rule, but our own Oort
Cloud is dramatically immense on a traveller scale, as is the asteroid belt
between Mars and Jupiter (and any asteroid belt around the primary will be
similarly huge in terms of space occupied).  Gas Giants are more
debateable, but the point is that they *tend* to be lightly patrolled or
not at all.

>> #5 : Shippers apply risk premiums to trade with either unsafe systems or
>> outsystems.
>>
>How does this affect the little guy, the free trader who goes from port
>to port in the backwater systems?  Away from the main shipping routes I
>would say no.

Each transaction represents a marketing balance between fee and risk.  Each
trip may be to a point where the ship may be in danger, and if that were
the only factor affecting price, risk and price of transport would be
perfectly proportional.  As it is, as in Real Life(tm), there are many
other factors affecting price; Nature of the Cargo, assets of each party
involved, age or nature of the equipment of the vessel, etc. etc.  In
general, though, a ship hired to carry something will charge more to carry
it into an "unsafe" area than into a "safe" area.

>> #6 : Merchant ships specialising in trading in unsafe areas tend to be
>> heavily armed
>>
>If they can afford it, sure.[snip]

Sounds good.

>> #9 : Pirate ships will tend to be converted merchants...
>
>IMO, most pirate ships are going to be the result of mutinous crews.
>Merchant ships are, IMTU, more often the subject of mutinies than naval
>vessels...

I feel that way too, particularly because I see a high-tech Navy as being
much more professional than its 18th century counterpart, and the
likelyhood of a situation where mutiny is possible is much more remote.

The average sailor in the 18th-19th century could barely write his name.
The average Navy rating in the 1100s Imp could probably disassemble a
fusion reactor, and some could even put it back together safely.

>> A corrollory of #4 and #5 is that Outsystems will tend to remain
>> underdeveloped, as they cannot develop until they are secure, and they are
>> not worth securing until they are developed.
>
>I think it would vary from system to system and there are so many
>systems in the 3I....

Indeed, but as a trend or generalization, its valid most of the time.  It
also provides a little explanation for a few of the good worlds
(Mainworlds) on the canon lists that are not developed.

>One quick note before I go.  I base most of my notions on my
>understanding of the piratical modus operandi from the late 17th and
>early 18th century, since I am a student of that era.

An excellent place to start, especially in view of the fact that many of us
have compared the RN of that period to the IN of the Third Imperium.

Pete

                      Peter H. Brenton : pbrenton@mit.edu
"A Good Traveller has no fixed plans and no intent on arriving."
  -Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 12:06:41 -0500
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

...[HMS Rodney was] however originally designed
>as a much larger ship and classified then as a Battlecruiser, and was
>cut down under the Washington Treaty.

Weren't they sometimes referred to as the "Cherry Tree Class", as in "Cut
Down by Washington"?  Or was that the American class equivalent.

Incidentially, I think the Bismarck was also supposed to meet the
Washington limit of 35,000 tons, but the designers said they had committed
a transposition error as it came in at 53,000. (Again, I may be remembering
another vessel's story).

Like the Germans were going to make a math error (hmpf!).

Pete


                      Peter H. Brenton : pbrenton@mit.edu
"A Good Traveller has no fixed plans and no intent on arriving."
  -Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 09:06:56 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)

Robert O'Connro writes
>[generally excellent description of medical evolution with TL]
>* The development of relatively efficient antiproton traps leads to the
>clinical use of antimatter for diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy.
>Antiproton CT requires much less radiation to get a better picture than
>X-ray based CT.
I'm not sure why this would be true (although if you've read an article
suggesting that it is true, I'd be interested to hear the underlying details.)

A couple of other advances in radiation therapy might include the use of 
damper fields to do precise radiation work (using a positive (=decay-accelerating)
damper node focused on a tumor, and a beam of fast neutrons, so that the 
neutrons only decay in the tumor...) Meson-gun type technology (which is much
more precise than modern meson treatments) might come into use at TL11-12.
Efficienct TL11 neutrino sensors, combined with dampers and meson microprobes
could also be used to map out bodies.

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 09:28:09 PST
From: "Andrew Hewson" <loup_wolf@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Fahrenheit to Celius conversion table

Strangely enough when I first played around with Java I cobbled together 
a web page for the conversion ....

http://freespace.virgin.net/utopian.tiger/members/andyh/test.htm

along with something else that may be of interest to TML readers.

And speaking of GT, I too have just got my hands on the h/b version and 
having found the 'debate' about SI vs. Imperial interesting, I found it 
strange that there seems to be a mixture of units used in the book.  
I.E. miles and metres in the same paragraph.


Regards
Andy Hewson			loup_wolf@hotmail.com
========================******========================
 Trolls aren't stupid !  They're thermally challenged


>From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
>To: traveller@MPGN.COM
>Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:30:34 +1300
>Subject: Fahrenheit to Celius conversion table
>Reply-To: traveller@MPGN.COM
>
>Well after having just written that, I though why on 
>earth don't I just make my own table. So here it is.
>
>Celius Convert Fahrenheit
[snip]


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 17:13:33 -0000
From: "MJ Dougherty" <martinjd@globalnet.co.uk>
Subject: FIASCO II

Phil Kitching Scrobe thusly:
 
> Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:42:48 +0000
> From: Phil Kitching <Philk@btinternet.com>
> Subject: Re: FIASCO II
> 
> Hi Martin,
> 
> (and anyone else attending FIASCO II)
> 
> Feel free to meet at the Colchester Wargames Association Stand.
> 
> I should be there most of the day.
> 
> (And thankyou to all who came to Salvo98 last week
> - - if anyone wants to run a BITS stand at Salvo99...)
> 
> Phil Kitching

And lo, was he appointed as Official Suggester of BITS Meeting Place!
(unless in my capacity as Cockup-Maker-General I can arrange a stand at the
last moment).

Colchester WA, everyone?

Anyone?

MJD

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 09:57:05 -0800
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

At 03:37 PM 10/27/98 +0100, you wrote:
>Gary (TravelrTNE@aol.com) writes:

>The basic problem seems to be that you don't have the imagination and
>creative flexibility to work inside a logical framework.

Thread over.  When both of you resort to insults, and are arguing from
entirely different world-views, it becomes obvious that there is no way
that this going to be settled.

Hans, Gary, you *both* have completely valid images of the Imperial Navy
FOR YOUR GAMES.  "Game" is the important word here.  The Third Imperium is
a fictional setting with incomplete and sometimes contradictory data.  If
you want the Imperial Navy to be a huge and powerful force, capable of
stationing entire fleets in every system, you can back it up with
references.  If, on the other hand, you prefer a smaller, overtaxed force,
you can also make it work.
- --

Douglas E. Berry
Templar Agent at Large.
dberry@hooked.net  
http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/gateway.html 

TravGeekCode: 
tc+ tm+ !tn- t4@ ?tg+ tt@ to(CORPS)++ ru@ $ge++ 3i
ii+ au st+ ls+ pi kk+ so(++) va++ dr+ zh+ sw++ ?da
         

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 09:49:20 -0800
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

At 11:08 AM 10/26/98 -0700, you wrote:


>One thing that's lead me to this conclusion is that they all seem to
>'discover' the principles while prospecting/doing research in their
>asteroid belts.
>
>This implies that there's still a Grandfather-made prototype laying
>about in the Aslan home system somewhere...hmmm....

Actually, I see it not so much as leaving prototypes around, but leaving
some sort of telepathic "trap."  Once the target race got close enough, it
detonated, sending the seed of the jump drive idea throughout the system.
Most people would simply have an odd dream, but to the correct scientists
and engineers, it would be the germ of an idea...
- --

Douglas E. Berry
Templar Agent at Large.
dberry@hooked.net  
http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/gateway.html 

TravGeekCode: 
tc+ tm+ !tn- t4@ ?tg+ tt@ to(CORPS)++ ru@ $ge++ 3i
ii+ au st+ ls+ pi kk+ so(++) va++ dr+ zh+ sw++ ?da
         

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 13:16:22 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery 

> At 11:08 AM 10/26/98 -0700, you wrote:
> 
> 
> >One thing that's lead me to this conclusion is that they all seem to
> >'discover' the principles while prospecting/doing research in their
> >asteroid belts.
> >
> >This implies that there's still a Grandfather-made prototype laying
> >about in the Aslan home system somewhere...hmmm....
> 
> Actually, I see it not so much as leaving prototypes around, but leaving
> some sort of telepathic "trap."  Once the target race got close enough, it
> detonated, sending the seed of the jump drive idea throughout the system.
> Most people would simply have an odd dream, but to the correct scientists
> and engineers, it would be the germ of an idea...

*OR*...

The thought of jump drive could have been encoded into the species' genetics and when the species gets to a certain phase of its developement, *bang* comes jump drive.  There's a *LOT* of unknown DNA strands all through the human genotype.  Who's to say?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 13:15:02 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

In a message dated 10/26/98 9:34:50 PM Pacific Standard Time, eris@gulf.net
writes:

<<  The CSA's raiders (like the Alabama) weren't
 all that effective  >>

I disagree. The American whaling fleet was annihalated, and it took years for
the American Merchant Marine to recover after the war. I do agree with this
statement, if you go by the fact that the South still lost the war...

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 14:04:59 -0500
From: Kurt Feltenberger <kurt@blazenet.net>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

At 01:52 AM 10/27/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> One of the common threads through canon is the designation of Major
>> races on the Droyne coyns, and the particulars of jump drive discovery
>> by those major races.
>
>Does the Major/Minor race thing *have to* apply to jump drive?  That's how the
>Imperium defines it, but is that how Grandfather did?  Especially seeing how
>the Ancients used stargates.  

Not to pick a nit, but according to _Secret_of_the_Ancients_, they used
transfer portals to teleport between locations on the ship and back and
forth to the pocket universes.  The ship still used jump drive and
performed no better at jumping than any other jump capable ship.

Stargates did not appear until FFS1.

Kurt Feltenberger

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a
habit.
- --- Aristotle ---

mailto:kurt@blazenet.net

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 13:12:12 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: Contact: Krraaang!

>How bout the dead one?  ; )  There are no (major) polities to worry about in
>the New Era...  Maybe the Hive Federation, but any others are Pocket Empires
>at best...  How would these robots deal w/ Virus, seeing how TL16-17 is AI
>anyway?  I should think they should have an electronic combat value of their
>own...


Yeah, that could be interesting. While I'm not a huge fan of TNE or Virus,
it would lead to some interesting interactions.

The Krraaang! would be in a bad way to contact a post-Virus Shattered
Imperium. I have a hard time imagining any of the known races accepting
them without conflict, considering what they had been through in the last
80 years. Like you mentioned, perhaps the Hive Federation ... but even that
would be iffy. Even more than than the 3rd Imperium of the past, humaniti
would be robophobic to a fault, with hostility the norm.

I'm pretty sure Virus and the Krraaang! wouldn't play nice. On the
assumption that Virus is psionic (some weird form of computer
empathy/posession), it would likely be lethal to the Krraaang! If Virus
IYTU is simply a physical thing, then it probably couldn't infect Krraaang!
at all.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1055
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, October 27 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1056



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard
Re: The Sunbeard Declaration
Re: Extended System Generation
Re: Extended System Generation
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 
Suggestion for T5
Re RPG's
Re XNet
re: The Sunbeard Declaration
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #918
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: Contact: Krraaang!
Re: Fiasco II
Re: The Sunbeard Declaration
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: Sunbeard
Re: Why jump takes constant time...
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 12:15:52 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 
...
>>   If installation is counted in HG's MCr 0.1 per Dt hull charge then the
>> armour could be re-assessed as "material value at TL plus % for forming",
>> thus giving a more rational (?) basis for costing armoured ships.
>
>You're using some other stuff rather than straight HG.  Under HG, your hull 
>costs the same whether it's mild steel or ferrocement or superdense.  Cost of 
>materials is factored into it already.  If you're gonna evaluate a HG design, 
>set your FS&S on the coffee table and take stuff right from HG.  I see the 
>figures for armour bulk as reasonable for HG as it factors in 'inferior' 
>materials at lower tech levels.  The lower your tech, the more bulk you need 
>to get the same armour protection on your hull and the more bracing you need 
>because your 'state of the art' is still under developement.

  The armour multipliers in High Guard mesh moderately well with Striker
(the same TL groupings are used as for Striker materials) although the 
fit below the TL 12-13 group isn't perfect. While HG doesn't differentiate
by _hull_ material type (a simplification, and probably a desirable one)
it clearly does do so by _amrour_ material type; it just doesn't tie cost
directly to material, and has the truly odd sky-rocketing marginal cost
per armour factor (at a given TL, with increasing mass for added armour,
why would it follow that Armour Factor "n+1" would be composed of a
different _material_ from Armour Factor "n"?).

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 11:19:05 PST
From: "John Macek" <pyra_c@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: The Sunbeard Declaration

Peter H. Brenton wrote:

> I didn't participate, and any comments are preemptively non 
> aggressive in intent but...

Your non-aggressive stance is well noted.  I see you've spent some time 
in Vargr space.  ;)

> I think you need to look at the word 'significant' and judge for 
> yourself what that means.  As a compromise document, Ian's proposal 
> is subject to individual interpretation.  When I see a word like 
> "significant" without any numbers I see the 'out' for those who only 
> agree somewhat.

I think I got hung up on the "can and will defend."  Some government 
types will be more willing than others.  Have the ability to defend out 
to 100d sounded better to me.  Maybe I'm nitpicking?  But if you 
seriously want to write this up and throw it into the FAQ, then I feel 
the proposal should reflect both side's opinions.

> Also, take the stated principles with the word "usually" inserted at
> strategic intervals.  No statements apply to all of humaniti, never 
> mind other races, with perfect uniformity.

That sits well with me.

> He said "the entire system" not "Gas Giants, Asteroid Belts and 
> Comet belts".

Okay.  I'll go along with #3 in that case.

> Each transaction represents a marketing balance between fee and 
> risk.  Each trip may be to a point where the ship may be in danger, 
> and if that were the only factor affecting price, risk and price of 
> transport would be perfectly proportional.  As it is, as in Real 
> Life(tm), there are many other factors affecting price; Nature of 
> the Cargo, assets of each party involved, age or nature of the 
> equipment of the vessel, etc. etc.  In general, though, a ship hired 
> to carry something will charge more to carry it into an "unsafe" 
> area than into a "safe" area.

Roger that.  Explained in this way, I agree with #5.

Regarding #9.

> I feel that way too, particularly because I see a high-tech Navy as 
> being much more professional than its 18th century counterpart, and 
> the likelyhood of a situation where mutiny is possible is much more 
> remote.

Good point!  I think they would still happen onboard Navy vessels, but 
not as often, and then usually on smaller vessels that operate under 
harsh living conditions (CEs, SDBs).

> The average sailor in the 18th-19th century could barely write his 
> name. The average Navy rating in the 1100s Imp could probably 
> disassemble a fusion reactor, and some could even put it back 
> together safely.

For another contrast, the average sailor in the 18th century had to 
contend with the cat o' nine tails.  I won't mention the barely edible 
food.  Even with its social stratification, I don't imagine life in the 
Imp Navy is particularly degrading or demoralizing.  As for the food, 
refrigerators really are an amazing invention as I'm sure the crew of 
Dewey's flagship USS Olympia can attest (I seem to recall she was one of 
the first vessels thus equipped).

Regarding the corollary to 4 & 5.

> Indeed, but as a trend or generalization, its valid most of the 
> time.  It also provides a little explanation for a few of the good 
> worlds (Mainworlds) on the canon lists that are not developed.

It might exist as a trend, but I'd be willing to bet there are many 
exceptions.  As an example the big belt strike comes to mind right away.  

>>One quick note before I go.  I base most of my notions on my
>>understanding of the piratical modus operandi from the late 17th and
>>early 18th century, since I am a student of that era.
>
> An excellent place to start, especially in view of the fact that 
> many of us have compared the RN of that period to the IN of the 
> Third Imperium.

Thanks.  I got to wondering about the late Victorian era as I was 
writing and how that might be more appropriate as a model.  

John
ps - sorry about the creative use of snipping.  In trying to make it 
more readable I may have made it less.

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 14:33:38 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Conley <estar@wrench.toolcity.net>
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

On Tue, 27 Oct 1998, Rob Prior wrote:

> Robert Conley <estar@wrench.toolcity.net> writes:
> >One way of compressing space is by storing the random number seed used to
> >generate the system. Since computerized random numbers have the same
> >patterns if generated from the same seed.
> 
> This doesn't work if you let the user modify values - which in my
> experience every referee does.
>

You would store any modified entries along with the seed. The logic would
go like this

Read in data (seed and mods) into Temp Data Structure
Make Data Structure
Generate the system according to the seed
put into Data Structure
Overwrite the data in the Data Structure with the modified entries.

The worst case scenarios is you modify every entry you can then you are
storing the whole thing. But on the average you don't modify everything.

To store the data you will need something like

Seed
NumberOfEntries
EntryTag (To identify the Entry)
Data

You may want to store some of the generated entries to quickly search and
index the data

I use this approach in a extended system generator I wrote using Visual
Basic 5/6. 

For Each World in Sector
Generate Seed
Make Temp System Object
Generate System with Temp System
Find MainWorld
Throw away Temp System Object
Store Seed
Store Mainworld
Next World

Then when I read in the data file I delay the cost of the extended system
until the user says he wants to view the extended system.

I am still working on the full blown editor that can store every edit and
I will be glad to share that with you when I am done. It looking that I
will store the seeds by world rather than by system.

BTW suppose you generate a system is there a algorithmic way of picking
where the mainworld goes? The way I do it now is 

Already generated mainworld

Generate system and all world and moons and their physical characterisics.
Generate the Tempature of each orbit (based on LBB 6 Scouts)
Compare size of mainworld with the planet already existing in orbit. If
mainworld is small enought to be it's moon then make it the moon of that
world otherwise replace that world with the mainworld.

Generate pop gov law TL for the rest of the system.

No generated mainworld
Generate system and all world and moons and their physical characteristics
Generate the Tempature of each world (based on LBB 6 Scouts)
The world or asteriod belt with the Tempature closest to 15C gets to be
the mainworld
Generate Mainworld Pop, etc
Generate System Worlds Pop, etc



Rob Conley

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 14:39:51 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Conley <estar@wrench.toolcity.net>
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

On Tue, 27 Oct 1998 CardSharks@aol.com wrote:

> 
> Sure it does, you just have to make allowances for it. An unmodified system
> takes up very few bytes. A modified system takes up a lot more.
> 
> Marc
> 

The inspiration for deferring creation comes from the programming book
"Design Patterns Elements of Resuable Object-Oriented Software". In this
book they have a Proxy pattern which describes how to defer the creation
of objects so you can quickly load and unload massive objects. (In their
example it was a word processing document, I used to make a data file that
had all the imperial sectors stored in it.)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:10:21 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

In a message dated 10/27/98 8:02:57 AM Pacific Standard Time, Matt-
C@aetherem.demon.co.uk writes:

<< Let's look how much damage two of the newest and best RN units did to
 Bismark - The fast battleship HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales didn't do
 a whole lot. >>

	This does not exactly do justice to the RN...Vice Adm. Holland on the Hood
was not the most competent line officer in the RN.  He initially engaged the
Prinz Eugen and ordered  Prince of Wales to do the same (Prince of Wales soon
realized he had misidentified the Prinz Eugen and shifted fire on his own).
Also, the RN ships were approaching the Germans bow-on in a effort to close
the range ASAP (this was most likely due to Hood's vulnerability to plunging
fire...which was dramatically demonstrated in short order); however, this
reduced thier effective firepower by 50% as well.  I believe that the
engagement was not well though out on the British side; but I think the Hood,
at least was a fair match for the Bismarck (Prince of Wales had just been
commisioned...they still had civilian contracters working on board during the
battle!!)

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:22:45 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 

> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> >Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 
> ...
> >>   If installation is counted in HG's MCr 0.1 per Dt hull charge then the
> >> armour could be re-assessed as "material value at TL plus % for forming",
> >> thus giving a more rational (?) basis for costing armoured ships.
> >
> >You're using some other stuff rather than straight HG.  Under HG, your hull 
> >costs the same whether it's mild steel or ferrocement or superdense.  Cost of 
> >materials is factored into it already.  If you're gonna evaluate a HG design, 
> >set your FS&S on the coffee table and take stuff right from HG.  I see the 
> >figures for armour bulk as reasonable for HG as it factors in 'inferior' 
> >materials at lower tech levels.  The lower your tech, the more bulk you need 
> >to get the same armour protection on your hull and the more bracing you need 
> >because your 'state of the art' is still under developement.
> 
>   The armour multipliers in High Guard mesh moderately well with Striker
> (the same TL groupings are used as for Striker materials) although the 
> fit below the TL 12-13 group isn't perfect. While HG doesn't differentiate
> by _hull_ material type (a simplification, and probably a desirable one)
> it clearly does do so by _amrour_ material type; it just doesn't tie cost
> directly to material, and has the truly odd sky-rocketing marginal cost
> per armour factor (at a given TL, with increasing mass for added armour,
> why would it follow that Armour Factor "n+1" would be composed of a
> different _material_ from Armour Factor "n"?).

HG armour factor and Striker armour are *different*.  There's a conversion factor in one of the old JTAS's, but I don't remember offhand which one it is, & since I've been up for about 44 hours now, I think I'll pass on looking for it today.  <grin>  And no, HG does *NOT* differentiate between armour *material* type in ship calculation, it merely makes you use up more space for armour at lower tech levels.  The material differences are *implied* not *stated*.  My take on it is the '+1" would be the 'tabs' and such needed to put the armour on the ship.  Mounting flanges & such.  Ask me when I'm awake & I might have a better explanation...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:22:38 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Suggestion for T5

	I recently had an idea that I would like to see implemented into the new
version of Traveller.  On my Diaspora sector map that came w/ TNE Deluxe
edition, each system on the map had it's TL and Population number printed
directly on the map.  This is a great help for my players (and to me) as it
gives them a quick way of finding those hi-tech worlds they love to visit, and
it doesn't seem to be that difficult to do.

	Another idea:  I think the Subsector record forms that came w/ the TNE
Players Forms were probably the best ever produced.  I love having room right
on the map page to put the system info (instead of on a seperate piece of
paper). Unfortunately, the hexes themselves were too small to mark the systems
properly (especially names)  Maybe these could be re-printed, with a larger
hex format?  I have tried enlarging the copies, but the results have been
rather unsatisfactory.

Just a humble suggestion,
DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 10:48:37 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re RPG's

>> PS: Does anyone else want to spew everytime they see a computer game
>> referred to as an RPG?
>
>Yes...

Not spew... KILL!!! (Especially in game stores.)

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 11:32:19 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re XNet

>ObTrav : Xboat routes are a medium of multiple duplicate messages
>travelling along different routes to reach their destination.  There must
>be a complex routing system behind there to make sure the end-users do not
>receive many duplicates of that data from Far Away, with "delete message"
>flags chasing the message around well after the first copy has been
>received.

IMTU, all outgoing X-mails have either a single destination, or are listed
in terms of "Saturation distance" from origin, either in jumps or in
parsecs. A 10kb data/text X-mail goes for Cr10 per jump. Broad saturation
stats at Cr100 per parsec. Jumps saturation has costs of Cr50 per jump from
source.

Targeting of mails is by eithername of ship, name of person, or local
address or comocode. So, forex, I'd be
[aramis@gci.net]@terra/sol/solomaniRim, and upon arrival here, it would be
logged in, and my local -email address stripped out of the addres, and the
message forwarded to my local address. If a signature was required
(Electronic Funds Transfer, forex), they'd e-mail me telling me where to
pick it up.

Multiple copies of a mail don't go out IMTU, save to multiple destinations.
In those cases, the routine verification checksums arrive via the next
X-boat with a kill order.

All batches have a checksum file FOR EACH TARGET System. If the messages
don't match the checksums in the CS file, the next X-boat/TyS going back
carries back the resend message numbers ___.

Message numbers IMTU are generated as alphanums. ForEx: Hamford sends a
message from RegniDowns X-mail station (Stn #2, IMTU) to a friend on
Psaydi, on 123-1104. The messagenumber will be a local messagenumber for
that date, the date, the local station number, the system abbreviation, the
SS abbr, and the sector abbr, domain abbr. So the message header might be
something like:
   XMS-Origin=546.123.1104.2.Rg.Rg.sm.dd		Message Number
   XMS-DestStn=1.Ps.Ar.sm.dd			scout XMS dest. station
   XMS-DestLoc=[hold for Adm Mason Ferrarri]	local address
   XMS-Expires=001.1105				date that it gets erased
   XMS-ARecptNm=Mason Ferrarri			Auth Recipient Name
   XMS-Meth=POR					says to print on recovery

Having had players hack the XMS in all possible configurations, I figure
also that all stations use a twin-key encoding system, double encoding
(Encode with sender's private, then encode that with recipient's public).
major stations may have separate keypairs for all other stations within 2
hops. EFT's will be even more secure...

Also, a lot of X-mail goes by scout/courier to the worlds off the mains...

And, to prevent clutter, if a delivery notice is desired, it must be paid
for when the original is sent. X-Mail doesn't arrive "Postage Due". Also,
failed deliveries simply sit in the office til they expire, and are then
deleted.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:45:38 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: The Sunbeard Declaration

I think the basic tenets put forth in the "Sunbeard Declaration" would
be a good addition to the FAQ. Good distillation of ideas, Ian.

John Macek wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Indeed, but as a trend or generalization, its valid most of the 
> time.  It also provides a little explanation for a few of the good 
> worlds (Mainworlds) on the canon lists that are not developed.

It might exist as a trend, but I'd be willing to bet there are many 
exceptions.  As an example the big belt strike comes to mind right away.  
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
IMO, a sudden motherlode - such as a big beltstrike - might be a
pirate's dream. Here you have a situation where trade and wealth are
increasing dramatically, far faster (for a time) than local defenses
can be bought, built and/or hired. Perfect for pirates: things worth
defending, but the defenders may not have shown up yet.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 13:13:50 -0700
From: Christopher Thrash <thrash@io.com>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

>Date: Mon, 26 Oct 98 23:32:16 -0600
>From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
>Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII
>
>Commerce raiders haven't been especially effective since the middle
>of the 19th century.  The CSA's raiders (like the Alabama) weren't
>all that effective and neither were the german raiders of either
>war. At least, it doesn't seem that way to me.
>

Capital ships as commerce raiders: probably not. But submarines -- consider
the U-boats in the Atlantic in either world war, or the American (mostly)
submarine war against the Japanese in WWII. These were tremendously
effective on a tactical level, and arguably came very close to achieving
their strategic objectives as well. On the balance, the Atlantic war was
extremely costly for the Germans after September 1943 (?), when the Allies
got their act together.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 16:24:21 EST
From: SunTsi@aol.com
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #918

I would like to UNSUBSCRIBE 
the traveller digest
Thanx

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 13:39:11 -0800
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

At 02:04 PM 10/27/98 -0500, you wrote:

>Stargates did not appear until FFS1.

The comparitive TL chart in the MT Referee's Companion listed Stargates at
around TL18, and planet-sized portals at around TL21.
- --

Douglas E. Berry
Templar Agent at Large.
dberry@hooked.net  
http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/gateway.html 

TravGeekCode: 
tc+ tm+ !tn- t4@ ?tg+ tt@ to(CORPS)++ ru@ $ge++ 3i
ii+ au st+ ls+ pi kk+ so(++) va++ dr+ zh+ sw++ ?da
         

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:46:36 -0600
From: "Andy Akins" <igor@ames.net>
Subject: Re: Contact: Krraaang!

it was written:
>The Krraaang! would be in a bad way to contact a post-Virus Shattered
>Imperium. I have a hard time imagining any of the known races accepting
>them without conflict, considering what they had been through in the last
>80 years. Like you mentioned, perhaps the Hive Federation ... but even that
>would be iffy. Even more than than the 3rd Imperium of the past, humaniti
>would be robophobic to a fault, with hostility the norm.

IMTU, there is a race that around the time of Virus had achieved AI, TL17
(and early 18) robotic brains. I had them be resistant to Virus. During the
time of RCES, this race (a human species, actually) is quite feared because
of its robotic servants, and the rampant robophobia that exists in the
remnants of the Imperium.

Much similar to the way the Kraaang! would be treated, I suppose.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Andrew Akins                                                         |
| Home: igor@ames.net - http://www.ames.net/igor/ - AOL IM: Iowa Akins |
| Work: andya@cms-gt.com - http://www.cms-gt.com/ - AOL IM: CMS AndyA  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| IMTU: tc++(**) ru+ ge 3i+ jt- au+ ls+ kk+ hi+ as+ va+ dr+ so+ zh+    |
|       vi+ da+                                                        |
| Geek: GCS d- s+:+ a- C++ W++ w+++(-)$ PS+ PE t- 5++ X+ R+++ tv+      |
|       b+++ DI+ D-- G e+ h---- r+++ y++++                             |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 21:44:59 +0000
From: Richard Talbot <richardt@post.almac.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Fiasco II

Where is Fiasco II held and this BITS member might just turn up as Im
going south anyway???
- -- 
Regards 
Richard Talbot - Alloa, Scotland - http://www.almac.co.uk/richardt
Contact: richardt@post.almac.co.uk - ICQ:15535153
Join British Isles Traveller Support "Its the only way to be sure"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 16:55:23 -0500
From: John Macek <macek@erols.com>
Subject: Re: The Sunbeard Declaration

Walter Smith wrote:
> 
> I think the basic tenets put forth in the "Sunbeard Declaration" would
> be a good addition to the FAQ. Good distillation of ideas, Ian.
> 
> John Macek wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> > Indeed, but as a trend or generalization, its valid most of the
> > time.  It also provides a little explanation for a few of the good
> > worlds (Mainworlds) on the canon lists that are not developed.
> 
> It might exist as a trend, but I'd be willing to bet there are many
> exceptions.  As an example the big belt strike comes to mind right away.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> IMO, a sudden motherlode - such as a big beltstrike - might be a
> pirate's dream. Here you have a situation where trade and wealth are
> increasing dramatically, far faster (for a time) than local defenses
> can be bought, built and/or hired. Perfect for pirates: things worth
> defending, but the defenders may not have shown up yet.
> 
> Walt Smith

Indeed.  After a fashion, it reminds me of one of the incidents Captain
Charles Johnson cites in "General History of the Pyrates."  In 1715, the
Spanish Plate Fleet was lost off the coast of Florida.  The Spaniards
located the wrecks and began recovering much of the lost treasure.  It
was being stored in a blockhouse on shore, guarded by 60 men.  A bold
group of "adventurers" decided to relieve the Spaniards of the booty. 
They swept in, the guards ran, and they made off with the goods.

John

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 17:01:48 -0500
From: Kurt Feltenberger <kurt@blazenet.net>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

At 01:39 PM 10/27/98 -0800, you wrote:
>At 02:04 PM 10/27/98 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>Stargates did not appear until FFS1.
>
>The comparitive TL chart in the MT Referee's Companion listed Stargates at
>around TL18, and planet-sized portals at around TL21.
>--

True, but if you wanted a yardstick on how to build one or how they
operated, you had to wait until FFS1.

Kurt Feltenberger

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a
habit.
- --- Aristotle ---

mailto:kurt@blazenet.net

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 08:04:55
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Sunbeard

>From: John Macek <macek@erols.com>
>Subject: Re: The Sunbeard Declaration
>
>Ian or Katts wrote:
>> 
>> I think we have the framework of a deal on the Great TML Piracy debate of
>> 1997-8.
>> 
>> #1 : Mainworlds with either signifigant trade or signifigant economies can
>> and will defend their space out to about their 100 diameter limits.
>> 
>
>I don't want to reopen the piracy debate, but....
>I disagree.  These worlds have the ability to defend themselves. 
>Whether they do or not is a matter of human behavior.  IMHO, humans can
>and will do odd things that sometimes make no sense from an economic
>standpoint.
>

The cost of a force needed to secure a system out to 100 planetary
diameters against 1000 tons of raiders is pretty damn low. 0.5% of GDP for
an Australia-size economy will do it, assuming military infrastructure
costs 10% of fleet build cost per year.

A planet that is grossly underdefended may actually get raided - why mess
around with free traders when you can land on the capital, loot the
Treasury and steal the paintings in the Planetary Museum ?

>> #3 : These defenses do not extend to the entire system.
>> 
>
>I disagree if you are speaking of SDBs as "these defenses."  Supplement
>#7 mentions SDBs being placed in the comet belt, around gas giants and
>in the asteroid belt.  

Yep. I've crunched a lot of numbers - comet belts, around gas giants and
asteroid belts is a *lot* of volume. You need far too many SDBs to provide
control of the system outside 100 diameters. Denial of control (especially
if planetary defenses have been flattened by an invader) is easier.

>> #5 : Shippers apply risk premiums to trade with either unsafe systems or
>> outsystems.
>> 
>
>How does this affect the little guy, the free trader who goes from port
>to port in the backwater systems?  Away from the main shipping routes I
>would say no.

If it's backwater systems, then by definition you will be charging what the
market can bear.

>
>> #6 : Merchant ships specialising in trading in unsafe areas tend to be
>> heavily armed
>> 
>
>If they can afford it, sure.  Those free traders just starting out take
>their chances and hope for the best.  The unarmed will probably pay more
>attention to the anti-shipping activity reports broadcast by the IISS. 
>Unless they have good reason, they'll probably steer clear of systems
>with reports of piracy.  Good reason includes, but is not limited to,
>speculative cargo that might bring a high price.
>

Remember, firepower can be rented. I strongly suspect that most starports
have a couple of third-line fighters for rent, designed to fit into a
standard shipboard launch's bay.

Signifigant firepower is fairly cheap as well.

>One quick note before I go.  I base most of my notions on my
>understanding of the piratical modus operandi from the late 17th and
>early 18th century, since I am a student of that era.  

Ditto. The big difference is shore guns in Traveller go out to 100 diameters.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:32:17 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Why jump takes constant time...

Eris Reddoch wrote:
> 
> On 10/26/98 at 08:37 AM,  Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu> said:
> 
> >This does _not_ rule out jumping into 'empty' hexes; this simply
> >means that there has to be something to generate a gravity field in
> >that hex.
> 
> Wait! Wouldn't that mean it's not *really* empty? ;->

absolutely :-| 3I maps have a very humanocentric view of 'empty',
meaning 'nothing we can breathe, live on, eat, mine, drink or use for
fuel'. Stellar roach motels: "They can jump in, but they can't jump
out!" (presuming you're coming in with empty tanks) I'd suspect, even,
that many 'empty' hexes may have stars, phaps even rockballs, but no GGs
or habitable planets.

Of course, now that you've gotten your GM Mitts on the idea I can fully
expect it to come back on me in spades...;-)

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 22:23:08 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

CardSharks@aol.com wrote:

><< It's curious, that the coyns supposedly portray races that discover it
> on their own, when in fact we know that the Aslan got Jump drive from a
> crashed solomani ship... >>
>
>The word "supposedly" is well placed. Could the coyns mean something else?

I don't know. Perhaps we should ask someone who wrote some of the
background? ;-)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1056
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, October 27 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1057



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Book covers was  Re: Hmmm
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: Star-Gypsies
Milky Way (or a bit of ego deflation for the self-important)
Technology in YTU
Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)
Re: Jump point masking
Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma (long)
[OFF] unsubscribing
re: Contact: Kraang!
Re: Extended System Generation
Re: Contact: Kraang! 
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits
Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: RPG's in Traveller
Raiders (Re: Capital Ships of WWII)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 22:35:44 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>Let's look how much damage two of the newest and best RN units did to
>Bismark - The fast battleship HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales didn't do
>a whole lot.

Now come on, HMS Hood was hardly the newest or best (being a spritely 21
when she was sunk). And didn't the HMS Prince of Wales have a problem with
her 4x turret jamming? Admittedly, she was a lot newer...

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 22:14:44 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Book covers was  Re: Hmmm

 DustyLV769@aol.com wrote:

>	I am afraid this happened to me as well...the 3rd day I had my
>softcover.  I
>have also had the same problem in my softcover GURPS Basic book (shortly after
>purchase...10 years ago)  I had to buy a new Basic book since over the years I
>had lost several pages (with more going every time I open it.)  My GT is still
>hanging together; this is most likely due to the fact that it sits on the
>shelf w/ my other GURPS stuff and is never played or used.

I've had both GT and the new WH40k for a while (3 weeks, 2 weeks) and been
reading them and they are still in good condition, covers on. Unlike Karma
for SLA Industries which collapsed 30 min into reading.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 23:14:38 GMT
From: johnl@vnet.net (John Lansford)
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

On Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:38:37 +0000, you wrote:


>Not strictly true - while HMS Renown had a `zone of immunity' against
>the ugly sisters, they *could* have split, and fought the same kind of
>fight that the RN cruisers fought against _Graf Spee_. The original post
>is most accurate - Hitler was not keen to lose capital ships, having
>very few; and they were ordered to avoid contact with Allied heavy
>units.

Because he didn't want to lose them, because they were vulnerable to
15" shellfire. Renown, the lightest armored BC the RN had, still
inflicted significant damage on S&G and from some reports more damaged
by the storm than the shell hits she suffered.

>Battleships were rarely part of the close escort for a convoy.

For important ones they were. HMS Rodney had to divert from escorting
a convoy to chase down Bismarck. "R" class BB's kept S&G from
massacreing the merchant ships.

> The
>destroyers that were, however, posed a threat to Bismark - they could
>torpedo her. A mass attack by a small group of destroyers could inflict
>crippling damage on a BB.

There were never a lot of fleet destroyers escorting convoys; the
escorts were made up of ships ranging from old US lend lease DD's to
smaller frigates, auxiliary rescue ships, and ancient worn out DD's. I
hardly think they practiced much with torpedo firing, much less mass
attacks against battleships.

>Fleet in being? Use her to threaten the Artic Convoys, along with
>Tirpitz. indeed, the two of these together could probably overwhelm the
>*distant* escort of an Artic Convoy, let along the close escort.

This accomplishes nothing in knocking Britain out of the war, which in
1941 was the German Navy's prime objective. The Murmansk convoys
didn't start until 1942 anyway.

John Lansford


The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:23:07 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 01:52:58 EST
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com

>Does the Major/Minor race thing *have to* apply to jump drive?

I am of the camp that it is more than a coincidence that the definition
of major races included everyone with a powerful state.

If the fact that the Aslan didn't "invent" jump drive becomes widely
established, I expect the definition of major race will evolve to include
them.  (Or be replaced by the a new term)  Otherwise, if the term is
only of accademic interest (is a race that has taken half your
territory and is the greatest military power a "minor" race, no matter
how they got jump drive?).  My guess is that it will be assumed that
"discovering" jump drive include reverse engineering it from a ancient
artifact (much as the Imperium "discovered" black globes).

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 16:29:50 -0700
From: "Joseph Kimball" <HPJKimba@ihc.com>
Subject: Re: Star-Gypsies

Not quite the same as the Star-Gypsies you postulate, but the Perry
Rhodan series has a race called Springers that live on their ships and
rarely settle on planets (though they do maintain starports/trading
posts on many planets.
- - Joseph

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 18:30:30 -0500
From: "Harold D. Hale" <hdhale@mindspring.com>
Subject: Milky Way (or a bit of ego deflation for the self-important)

The following stats from Ken Croswell's THE ALCHEMY OF THE HEAVENS
(Doubleday/Anchor, 1995) should be of interested to Astronomy buffs.  Note
that they are current for Terra c.1998 AD (subsequent findings may make
some stats invalid).

THE MILKY WAY GALAXY

   NUMBER OF STARS:                Hundreds of billions
   NUMBER OF KNOWN CIVILIZATIONS:  1
   NUMBER OF SATELLITE GALAXIES:   10 (11 if you count Sagittarius dwarf)
   TYPE:                           Spiral
   STAR FORMATION RATE:            10 stars per year
   ABSOLUTE VISUAL MAGNITUDE:      -20.6
   TOTAL VISUAL LUMINOSITY:        About 15 billion Suns
   TOTAL MASS:                     Roughly a trillion Suns
   MASS-TO-LIGHT RATIO:            Roughly 70
   LOCATION OF GALACTIC CENTER:    Sagittarius
   DISTANCE OF GALACTIC CENTER:    27,000 light-years
   DIAMETER OF DISK:               About 130,000 light-years
   DIAMETER OF DARK HALO:          Larger, but unknown
   FARTHEST SATELLITE GALAXY:      890,000 light-years
   SUN'S ORBITAL PERIOD:           230 million years
   ROTATIONAL VELOCITY NEAR SUN:   220 kilometers per second
   SOLAR U VELOCITY:               -9 kilometers per second
   SOLAR V VELOCITY:               +12 kilometers per second
   SOLAR W VELOCITY:               +7 kilometers per second
   MEMBER IN GOOD STANDING OF:     Local Group
                                   Local Supercluster
   NOTEWORTHY ACCOMPLISHMENTS:     Second largest galaxy in Local Group
                                   Far larger than most other galaxies
                                     in the universe
                                   Rules ten other galaxies
                                   Supports only known civilization
                                     in the universe

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 18:48:55 -0500
From: John Macek <macek@erols.com>
Subject: Technology in YTU

Greetings,

A question, if I may.  IYTU, how do you handle the overall feel of the
campaign from a technological aspect?

My reason for asking, IMTU, TL 15 is uncommon, while TL 10-12 is more
common.  The way I handle TLs mirrors the spread in the Spinward Marches
circa 1104.  There are a few (4, I think) worlds at TL 15 or higher. 
Most are lower, some much lower.  The average for District 268 is 7;
Lanth and Aramis average 8.5.

John

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 14:30:00 +0100
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <greimann@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)

>PS: Does anyone else want to spew everytime they see a computer game
>referred to as an RPG?
Mostly, yes, but there are some exceptions!
I really liked the ultimas up to 6, i am playing exile 3 now, which i also
like and
Fallout is a pretty good adaptation, too. Oh, yes, and Entomorph.

Its true that these games dont allow the same degree of interaction a
true RPG does, but they make me feel like i am part of a big story. The
feeling is what makes a good RPG for me!
Volker
- ---
Volker A. Greimann, greimann@geocities.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:47:23 -0800 (PST)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: Jump point masking

Christopher Thrash writes:
> I ran some figures last night to see what the effect of jump masking would
> be.
<zap tables>
> "Free" is the chance that any point on the mainworld 100D limit will be
> free of the jump masking by the primary. The formula is:
> 
> Free = Sqrt(1 - (R - r)^2 / a^2), where R is the 100D radius of the
> primary, r is the 100D radius of the planet, and a is the orbital radius
> (semi-major axis) of the planet.

Hm...actually, that's incorrect.
The distance to a point not masked by the star can be determined from the angle
(relative to a line between the two stars) of offset for the mainworld, which
will be R - a*sin(angle) if on the far side of the star, and will be R-a if on
the near side.  If we assume that the destination star is on the ecliptic for
the planet, it will be masked for a portion of the year equal to asin(R/a)/pi
- -- so for the earth (with a jump limit of 0.93 AU) it will be 38% of the year. 
If the target star is off the ecliptic, the masking effect will be less -- at
an arc of 69 degrees off the ecliptic the sun will _never_ mask the jump. 
Resolving probabilities there is an exercise in spherical geometry which I'm
not terribly interested in solving -- I suspect it works out to something like
(asin(R/a)/pi)^2 * 2, or about 28% for earth, but someone else is free to do it
correctly.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 11:32:49 +1100
From: "Robert O'Connor" <robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma (long)

Definition :
Trauma is any injury arising from the application of
mechanical energy.
Other agents (heat, electricity, laser radiation, plasmas, etc.) have
additional effects, which I will discuss in a later post.

Pathophysiology
When objects collide with each other, their kinetic energy is dissipated
in several ways - sound waves, heat, and deformation
or disruption of the objects' internal structure.
It is this deformation which leads to tissue damage.
The more dense the tissue, the greater resistance it offers and thus the
damaged sustained is worse.
Example tissue densities in humans :-
Tissue      Density (g/cc)
Lung        0.4
Fat         0.8
Muscle*     1.0
Skin        1.05
Bone        1.11 to 1.4
* and solid organs

a. Ballistic and Penetrating Trauma
There are three primary mechanisms of injury caused by projectiles.
1. Crushing/laceration - the missile track through the target.
2. Cavitation - pressure waves generated by medium and high velocity
missiles (see definition below) disrupt tissues remote from the
projectile's path. The missile track can also be widened
by tumbling bullets.
3. Fragmentation - primary - pieces of missile ; secondary - anatomical
structures that are shattered and displaced.

Different ammunition types have different energy transfer
characteristics.
Armour-piercing rounds transfer a lesser percentage of their energy
to a target (blowthrough), while hollow points, fletchettes and shot are
designed to transfer nearly all their kinetic energy into a target.

**Proposed combat variant :-
Ammo type    Damage multiplier
AP, APDS           0.5
HP, fletchette     0.9
shot               1.0
HEAP               0.5 of velocity component of energy
HE                 1.0
Damage is sustained only if armour is breached, unless armour is
flexible ; see blunt trauma, below.

Velocity Definitions
The speed of sound is about 1115ft/s (340.3m/s) at sea level at one
atmosphere pressure and 15 degrees Celsius.
    Low-velocity  < 1000ft/s   (304.8m/s)
    Medium          1-2000ft/s (304.8 to 609.6m/s)
    High          > 2500ft/s   (762m/s)
    Hypervelocity > 5000ft/s   (1524m/s)
Cavitation and fragmentation effects predominate at higher energies
(medium to high velocity).
Hypervelocity missiles produce crater-like wounds. The differences
between blast injuries and high velocity missile injury decrease with
increased missile energy.

For reference :-
Objects moving faster than 150ft/sec (45.72m/s) will penetrate
skin.
Objects moving faster than 195ft/sec (59.44m/s) will fracture bone.
This is regardless of surface area or shape.

Forensic aspects :- (How far away was the gun from the victim??)
Rifled weapons :-
   Muzzle abrasion - point blank
   Gases present in victim's clothing, etc. : 1-3" (2 to 7.6cm)
   Burned powder grains, soot : 1-3"
   Unburned powder grains : 1-2' (30-60cm)
Tattooing and abrasions ensue from the above.
   Metal fragments (bullet, primer) : <=6' (1.8m)
Shotguns :-
   As above, plus :-
   Single entry wound < 2m
   Wound < 1" in diameter <=18"
   Wadding in wound 2-6m
Entry wounds will be clean holes beyond about 2 m, except with close
range shotgun and hypervelocity missile wounds, which are almost
indistinguishable from blast (massive tissue destruction).
Exit wounds are usually irregular without an abraded perimeter.

Blades :
A blade is sharp because the edge (tip) has a very small surface area.
The force applied in cutting may be small, but the pressure at the
points of contact is enormous (pressure = force/area), so the surface
being cut yields.

(Note that while ballistic cloth will stop bullets, it doesn't stop
blades without special reinforcement eg. mesh underlay or ceramic/metal
inserts).

Forensic aside : Stab wounds (depth > width) or incisions (cuts, width >
depth) look different from chopping wounds. All such injuries are well
demarcated with sharp edges.
Nerves and blood vessels may bridge a chop wound (higher tensile
strength than skin) ; they will not be present in a stab wound or cut.

b. Blunt trauma
An example :-
Motor vehicle accidents are a significant cause of death in the
Real World (ca. 50000 road fatalities in the U.S. last year).

Energy transfer to vehicle occupants is enormous :-
At 55mph (88.5km/h or 24.6m/s), a 180lb (81.6kg) person has
a kinetic energy of [ 0.5 X 81.6 X (24.6)^2 ] or 24690J - more than the
muzzle energy of a .50 machine gun round!
This is dissipated very rapidly in a collision.

Injury is sustained because of the development of pressure waves
radiating from the points of impact through the victim.

Some key structures eg. the aorta, portal vein, spinal cord, and
oesophagus will resonate and rupture, with enough energy. Bone shatters.

Velocity (m/sec) %blunt trauma/fracture    %lethality
2.6              >1                        -
6.6              ~50                       >1
17.0             99                        ~50
44.5             -                         99
This table assumes impact with a relatively rigid surface.
(Real World data, TL 7-8)

Considering Traveller combat :- flexible armour offers some protection,
but some energy will be transmitted to the target (eg. the extensive
bruising+ sustained when one is shot in a Kevlar-protected area).
** roughly as per T4 : one point of damage per dice penetrates flexible
armour to simulate this.

Forensic aspects : Lacerations occur when enough blunt force has been
applied to disrupt the skin. They are typically irregular in outline
with edge abrasions. Nerves and vessels may bridge wound.
Abrasions are usually secondary to being dragged. Skin tags usually
identify the direction of dragging.
A yellowing bruise is at least two days old. Bruising must be
differentiated from lividity (caused by dependent pooling of blood in
the recently deceased) and marbling (which is due to bacterial action on
blood pigments and doesn't appear for two to three days after death).

c. Blast
Explosion injuries can be considered to be a mixture of blunt (blast
overpressure) and penetrating (fragment) trauma.
Air-containing tissues are quite susceptible to injury.
Lung damage and eardrum rupture require relatively little overpressure
to produce.
The human body is surprisingly robust, however.

Peak Overpressure (kPa)  Effect
3 to 7                   window glass shatters
10 to 38                 concrete shatters
20 to 60                 brick shears apart
> 69                     lung damage will occur
90 to 130                50% chance of eardrum rupture
160 to 230               1% chance of death
230 to 400               50% chance of death
400+                     100% chance of death
One atmosphere = 101.3kPa, 7kPa ~1 psi.

Next time : Assessment and management of trauma victims.

Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gearhead and Gaming Enthusiast

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 01:24:38 +0000
From: Tim Crowfoot <tcrowfoot@dial.pipex.com>
Subject: [OFF] unsubscribing

Hello to the list.

Unfortunately I don't have time for the huge volume of mail coming into my inbox :( and I've nuked the message (it was
being kept next to my transponder files, but they had to go real quick and the unsub got caught in the collateral) that
gave me the address to unsubscribe to.

Can someone help please?

Thanks

Tim

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:30:05 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: re: Contact: Kraang!

>If the Kraang were encountered, IMO the Imperium would treat them
>as a race of escaped robot servants (whether they were or not), keep
>looking for the live aliens behind the curtain and never treat them
>as sentients.

I see a MASSIVE interstellar incident building there.

A megacorp finds a shipful of Kraang somehow and declairs them salvage,
ignoring the claims of self awareness and independence of the crew. One of
the crew manages to deploy a log bouy which is found by the Kranng's Hiver
allies and the message gets passed to the Kraang "homeland".

I recall something similar as one of the causes of the War of 1812.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:05:47 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

At 10:55 AM 10/26/98 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
>On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, Rob Prior wrote:
>
>> A slightly more intelligent system would really save me space, and might
>> not complicate coding that much.
>> 
>
>One way of compressing space is by storing the random number seed used to
>generate the system. Since computerized random numbers have the same
>patterns if generated from the same seed.
>
>The problem with this is that if you insert a dice roll in the middle of a
>series of rolls then the rest will come out differently. 

My 40 meg was the data file, the program was quite small, all ASM.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:46:26 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Contact: Kraang! 

> >If the Kraang were encountered, IMO the Imperium would treat them
> >as a race of escaped robot servants (whether they were or not), keep
> >looking for the live aliens behind the curtain and never treat them
> >as sentients.
> 
> I see a MASSIVE interstellar incident building there.
> 
> A megacorp finds a shipful of Kraang somehow and declairs them salvage,
> ignoring the claims of self awareness and independence of the crew. One of
> the crew manages to deploy a log bouy which is found by the Kranng's Hiver
> allies and the message gets passed to the Kraang "homeland".

And they retaliate by flooding the Xboat net with zillions of duplicate 
messages?  <ducking>

Sorry, couldn't resist...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:49:41 -0500
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

- -----Original Message-----
From: Peter H. Brenton <pbrenton@mit.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Tuesday, October 27, 1998 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII


>...[HMS Rodney was] however originally designed
>>as a much larger ship and classified then as a Battlecruiser, and was
>>cut down under the Washington Treaty.
>
>Weren't they sometimes referred to as the "Cherry Tree Class", as in "Cut
>Down by Washington"?  Or was that the American class equivalent.
>
>Incidentially, I think the Bismarck was also supposed to meet the
>Washington limit of 35,000 tons, but the designers said they had committed
>a transposition error as it came in at 53,000. (Again, I may be remembering
>another vessel's story).
>
>Like the Germans were going to make a math error (hmpf!).
>
>Pete
>
Her actual displacement weight was 50,700 mtons.  The Hood weighed in at
48,400 and the Rodney was 41,000.  These are the "fully loaded" weights.
Bismarck had 8x15" guns, Hood had 8x15" guns and the Rodney had 9x16" guns.
Two other "players" were the Prince of Wales and the King George V. and they
weighed in at 44,400 mtons each sporting 10x14" guns. All other ships were
in a support role as far as I'm concerned.
Thom

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:40:40 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

At 03:12 PM 10/26/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu> wrote:
>>
>> This implies that there's still a Grandfather-made prototype laying
>> about in the Aslan home system somewhere...hmmm....
>
>Now THIS is genius! The "All Minor Races" theory is not new of course,
>although it is by far the most plausible theory of how everyone managed 
>to develop basically the same very complex method of interstellar 
>travel, but this is a great twist. It would make for an awesome 
>adventure if fully fleshed out too - a journey to the Aslan homeworld
>and the discovery of an unknown ancient base. Cool.

They all may have the same type of interstellar travel, but this isn't
nescessarily a hint of influence by higher beings as much as it is a fact
that the laws of physics govern all races, and if jump is the only method
of FTL travel in the Traveler Canon, then everyone has to use Jump.

Hovever, if after careful comparison it can be shown that all the jump
drives have the same layouts, ie same cooling tecniques, power
distributions, etc., then that is evidence of influence.

>But there's another possible twist... the Hivers had their "inferior" 
>jump drive for quite a while before discovering the "real thing". I
>wonder whose jump drive they stole or why their planted drive wasn't 
>put into their home system... ?

Maybe Grandpa missed :). Even Grandpa can misjump.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:53:34 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits

>BTW, since I don't have FFS2, what is the upper limit on ship sizes now? I
>know that Death Star scale things are right out, but what about a
>Jump-capable mobile repair facility, the equivalent of a jump-capable class
>B or C highport, suitable for use as a force projection tool? Something
>like a huge battle tender, capable of holding a couple of BBs or several
>smaller ships for repair/reconstruction.

Repair ships don't nescessarily have to be huge, just large enough to hold
all the machine tools and part assembly areas to overhaul the vessle. You
don't need to be able to hold an entire battleship to overhaul the jump
drive, just maybe enough space to hold the drive, crane it over to the
tender if nescessary, or just have one built on the tender or shipped in
and swapped. Also, you could have 2 or 3 working on one ship or one tender
working on 2 or 3 ships. In all reality the upper service limit is more of
a function of how much work needs to be done per system to be repaired.
Someone with some time on their hands could come up with a repair points
system to govern this.

>Hmm. I just (*finally*) got a copy of GT ...

Been out of it for a while, what is this GURPS:Traveler thing? Priv.
message me if there is a long story about this one, no need to clutter
everyone's bandwidth just to answer this one :)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:58:15 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)

>PS: Does anyone else want to spew everytime they see a computer game
>referred to as an RPG?

MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 21:36:48 -0500
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII


______________________Matt's statement____________________
Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk> wrote:

Let's look how much damage two of the newest and best RN units did to
Bismark - The fast battleship HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales didn't do
a whole lot.

______________Dom's reply to Matt's Statement________________
Now come on, HMS Hood was hardly the newest or best (being a spritely 21
when she was sunk). And didn't the HMS Prince of Wales have a problem with
her 4x turret jamming? Admittedly, she was a lot newer...

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------

____________________Dusty's reply to Matt's statement_______________________

From: DustyLV769@aol.com <DustyLV769@aol.com>

 This does not exactly do justice to the RN...Vice Adm. Holland on the Hood
was not the most competent line officer in the RN.  He initially engaged the
Prinz Eugen and ordered  Prince of Wales to do the same (Prince of Wales
soon
realized he had misidentified the Prinz Eugen and shifted fire on his own).
Also, the RN ships were approaching the Germans bow-on in a effort to close
the range ASAP (this was most likely due to Hood's vulnerability to plunging
fire...which was dramatically demonstrated in short order); however, this
reduced thier effective firepower by 50% as well.  I believe that the
engagement was not well though out on the British side; but I think the
Hood,
at least was a fair match for the Bismarck (Prince of Wales had just been
commisioned...they still had civilian contracters working on board during
the
battle!!)

DustyLV769@aol.com

I tend to agree with both Dom and Dusty.  The battle was enjoyed for barely
3 minutes when Hood blew up and sank.  Some time during the initial attack
on the Prinz Eugen the PoW swung her guns around on the Bismark and opened
fire. Both the Prinz Eugen and the Bismarck concentrated their fire on the
Hood with the results as stated.  The PoW fired several more salvoes at
Bismarck even though stunned by the Hood's disastrous demise. ONE of the
rounds struck the Bismarck at or below the waterline opening up a fuel tank
and allowing the fuel to be contaminated. What's really wierd is on the 21st
of May the Bismarck had an opportunity to top off her tanks but didn't take
it. The Prinz Eugen did. If she had, she would have had enough fuel to make
a run to South America but instead had to circle back toward Europe and the
rest as they say is history.

One other point, the Hood was launched Oct. 22, 1918 and commissioned Mar.
5, 1920.  Technology had swept past her in the ensuing 20 years. She had
been scheduled for a full refit and would have had her decks strengthened
but that was put on hold BECAUSE the Bismarck sailed. The PoW did indeed
have civilian "yard workers" on board when the battle commenced and this was
also because she had been activated by the Bismarck's sailing. A number of
things went wrong with the PoW during the engagement only one of which was a
turret malfunction.  After being bracketed by salvoes from both the Bismarck
and the Prinz Eugen she turned tail, poared on the smoke and disappeared
from the battle. She later returned and picked three survivors from Hood.
Thom Harris

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 21:25:13 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Re: RPG's in Traveller

At 11:37 PM 10/26/98 -0700, you wrote:
>I wonder, it there an RPG called Traveller in Traveller? *weg*

I seem to recall an illistration in MT of a starship crew sitting around a
table in the messhall with paper and dice. No clue as to the game though :)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 21:20:14 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Raiders (Re: Capital Ships of WWII)

>Commerce raiders haven't been especially effective since the middle
>of the 19th century.  The CSA's raiders (like the Alabama) weren't
>all that effective and neither were the german raiders of either
>war. At least, it doesn't seem that way to me.

Ocean-bound comerce raiders (with the exception, perhaps, of deep diving
submarines) didn't have a ready means of unpursuable escape like jump
engines. Commerce raiders could come in deep with enough fuel to jump out,
drift in and pick targets, and when the heat got to hot, leave. This would
not only have the affect of hurting commerce, but weekening front line
forces by drawing off other heavy assets to cover against such hit and runs.

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1057
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest    Wednesday, October 28 1998    Volume 1998 : Number 1058



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Interesting thought on jump drive discovery
sub hiwg-twg
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Technology in YTU
Re: RPG's in Traveller
Re: Interesting thought on jump drive discovery
Apology
Re: Contact: Krraaang!
Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery
Re: The Imperial Navy
Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)
Re: RPG's in Traveller
Re: Future Gaming
Re: Jump point masking (long)
New Product?
re: Jump Point Masking
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: RPG's in Traveller
Re: [OFF] unsubscribing
Re: RPG's in Traveller
Re: Apology 
Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 21:47:25 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on jump drive discovery

>BTW. 'Around -1000' could extend to -924, couldn't it? Personally I don't
>like the 'Grand Conspiracy' background for Traveller, but those of you that
>do might speculate that The Big G had a hand in the _Maghiz_ because the
>Darrians were getting too clever for his liking. You might further
>speculate how long it will take before he notices those Imperial TL 16/17
>planets and what will happen to them when he does...

What role did Grandpa have in the Rebellion?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 22:21:20 EST
From: Kagehira@aol.com
Subject: sub hiwg-twg

To subscribe to the TWG (Traveller Writer's List) list:

Send a message to majordomo@qrc.com with the following:

Subscribe hiwg-twg(-digest) youraddress

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 22:36:00 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

>Now come on, HMS Hood was hardly the newest or best (being a spritely 21
>when she was sunk). And didn't the HMS Prince of Wales have a problem with
>her 4x turret jamming? Admittedly, she was a lot newer...

Understatement, there were still shipyard workers on her.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 19:44:59 -0800 (PST)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Technology in YTU

- ---John Macek <macek@erols.com> wrote:
>
> A question, if I may.  IYTU, how do you handle the overall feel of the
> campaign from a technological aspect?
> 
[snip

IMTU, TL=$.  I have always applied liberal price modifications to
technologically superior items.  I do it somewhat capriciously,
jacking up prices for high tech stuff the further the adventurers are
from high tech worlds.  For instance, when a particular group was in
need of some laser weapons for an extermination project, they found
that they were three jumps from the closest world capable of producing
the weapons in bulk.  Obviously, the players squawked about having to
pay five times the listed NEW price for USED laser pistols, but they
paid.

I never let the players take tech for granted.  I'm sorry, but there
aren't going to be any TL-12 wrist comm repair technicians on a TL-8
agricultural world.  Unless a ship owner/operator specifically
purchased an ultra-light TL-13 vacc suit someplace, he's going to have
to expect to be clunking around in a TL-8 or 9 surplus suit during
combat aboard.

On the other hand, smart merchants can make a bundle by making a few
runs with high tech mining equipment in exchange for ore at a belter
colony ten parsecs away, too.  But fair is fair!



==

- ------------------------------------------------
Sword Worlds: subsector of the Spinward Marches.
The worlds are named after famous weapons of
lore.  The people are fiercely competative
merchants.  The storyline was first introduced
by H. Beam Piper in "Space Viking", c. 1965.
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 19:47:51 -0800 (PST)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: RPG's in Traveller

- ---russcm@zoomnet.net wrote:
>
> At 11:37 PM 10/26/98 -0700, you wrote:
> >I wonder, it there an RPG called Traveller in Traveller? *weg*
> 
> I seem to recall an illistration in MT of a starship crew sitting
around a
> table in the messhall with paper and dice. No clue as to the game
though :)
> 
> 
I believe that it's Melee, looks like 25mm miniatures they have there,
and def. 6-sided dice, but no AD&D books.


==

- ------------------------------------------------
Sword Worlds: subsector of the Spinward Marches.
The worlds are named after famous weapons of
lore.  The people are fiercely competative
merchants.  The storyline was first introduced
by H. Beam Piper in "Space Viking", c. 1965.
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 22:54:07 -0500
From: John H Bogan Jr <jbogan@pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on jump drive discovery

At 09:47 PM 10/27/1998 -0500, you wrote:
>
>What role did Grandpa have in the Rebellion?

Why, nothing. <pat, pat> Nothing at all.


JB
The truth is ought squared

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 17:02:30 +1300
From: "Frank Pitt" <frankie@mundens.gen.nz>
Subject: Apology

Hi,

Some (or all) of you may have experienced "bounce" messages coming
from postmaster@mundens.gen.nz over the last few days. This was due
to my attempt to configure a Microsoft Exchange server at home. Once
a couple of you brought it to my attention I unsubscribed from the
list until I could fix it.

It's also likely this misconfiguration was responsible for the
duplicated messages over the weekend.

You should thank Wil Hostman and Rob Prior for mailing me about the
problem, as otherwise I would
have had no idea it was occurring, at my end I wasn''t recieving any
TML messages, as they were
all being echoed back instead of being delivered.

Anyway, I apologize for the trouble caused.

I would encourage people to use WinGate & MDaemon on NT instead of
Microsoft Exhange and Microsoft Proxy server. WinGate & MDaemon are
far easier to configure, have much better functionality, and don't
have such stupid defaults !

Frankie

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 23:22:45 EST
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Re: Contact: Krraaang!

> I'm pretty sure Virus and the Krraaang! wouldn't play nice. On the
> assumption that Virus is psionic (some weird form of computer
> empathy/posession), it would likely be lethal to the Krraaang! If Virus
> IYTU is simply a physical thing, then it probably couldn't infect Krraaang!
> at all.

I've never thought Virus was psionic in any way... (what was that gave you
that impression, i'm curious?)  There would need to be some vector for
infection though, other than the physical "commando chip" style...  Do the
Krraaang! have any data sockets or other way to directly interface w/
computers.  How do they communicate?  Do the Krraaang! use sentient ships?
How would an artificial race use computers, or just plug one of themselves
into the "ship?"  For that matter how were the Krraaang! created?  Kind of
like the Mrmrnmhrm from Star Control (which were created by the "Precursors")?


Gary

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 23:22:43 EST
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Re: Interesting thought on Jump drive discovery

> >Does the Major/Minor race thing *have to* apply to jump drive?  That's how
the
> >Imperium defines it, but is that how Grandfather did?  Especially seeing
how
> >the Ancients used stargates.  
> 
> Not to pick a nit, but according to _Secret_of_the_Ancients_, they used
> transfer portals to teleport between locations on the ship and back and
> forth to the pocket universes.  The ship still used jump drive and
> performed no better at jumping than any other jump capable ship.
> 
> Stargates did not appear until FFS1.

mmm...  MT Ref's Companion seems to mention them... "At tech level 21, the
Jump6 barrier is finally breached with the appearance of starship-sized matter
transport portals."  Maybe they weren't designable for ships until FFS...
that's just because there's no 'alternate tech' of any kind.


Gary

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 23:22:37 EST
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Imperial Navy

> Thread over.  When both of you resort to insults, and are arguing from
> entirely different world-views, it becomes obvious that there is no way
> that this going to be settled.

You're right, of course.  Thread over here.  My retort is deleted.


Gary

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:28:31 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)

> From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
> On 10/26/98 at 07:17 PM,  "Brannon \"Ben\" Boren" <brannonb@blarg.net>
said:
> >> ObTrav:  Do you think there is such a thing as sitting down with your
> >> friends on a friday or saturday night with a few books, some dice, a
pizza
> >> or two, & some sodas for a night of gaming, or by that time is it done
all
> >> with computers...
> >Yeah, it's all done on computers, but worse... 
> To me, roleplaying is roleplaying whether done face to face or by
> email.  I've never run into a computer game that was anywhere as
> good as roleplaying with people, either on or off line.  ;->

Eris, I think he means RPGs that are totaly with the computer, not PBeM,
ICQ, or IRC...

> >it's Collectable Card Games on the computer!  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGG!!!
> Hey, I've just got to tell ya'll.  I was looking for something to
> watch on TV this weekend and found that ESPN 2 was broadcasting the
> "Magic:  The Gathering World Championship."  I'm *serious* two guys
> flipping cards complete with hushed play by play by an announcer and
> a color commentator.  They even had an "up close and personal"
> segment on one of the finalists.  And from what they said, this was
> just the culmination of a World Tour of tournments...sheeze!  Then
> there was the money, $40,000 to the winner with $16,000 to, like the
> 5th place guy...double sheeze!!!

Well, it seems that "Hell on Earth" has taken new meaning for me...

> Can you belive it!

Yes, I can, but then again, ESPN & ESPN 2 would whore for anyone with
money...

> Eris

Legate Legion, Old Gaming Fart
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:37:49 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: RPG's in Traveller

> From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
> >I wonder, it there an RPG called Traveller in Traveller? *weg*
> 
> No, but there is one called something like "Across the Bright Sea"
> that I invented for the game I'm running.
> 
> One of the characters in my PBEM, picked it up, accidentally,
> thinking it was a entertainment disk at the local Data-Mart.  Once
> she opens it and finds the little cubes with dots on them, and vids
> the instructions, I wonder what she'll do.  Will she try to organize
> a game to entertain the crew and passengers during one of the long
> boring jumps.  ;->

So are they going to game in the game?

> Eris

Legate Legion, Old Gaming Fart
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 21:23:56 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: Future Gaming

> From: Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil>
> Don't know about getting together to play, but my former scout,
> currently running in the Reavers Deep, used to occupy his time playing a
> 5th Frontier War simulation....  Would tinker with it and add realism by
> using recorded signals and transponder codes from actual warships....
> 
> Greg

Well, at least "The Fifth Frontier War" survived is some form...

Legate Legion, Militant Old Gaming Fart
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 23:13:28 -0700
From: Christopher Thrash <thrash@io.com>
Subject: Re: Jump point masking (long)

>
>Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:47:23 -0800 (PST)
>From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
>Subject: Re: Jump point masking
>
>Christopher Thrash writes:
>> I ran some figures last night to see what the effect of jump masking would
>> be.
><zap tables>
>> "Free" is the chance that any point on the mainworld 100D limit will be
>> free of the jump masking by the primary. The formula is:
>> 
>> Free = Sqrt(1 - (R - r)^2 / a^2), where R is the 100D radius of the
>> primary, r is the 100D radius of the planet, and a is the orbital radius
>> (semi-major axis) of the planet.
>
>Hm...actually, that's incorrect....
>Resolving probabilities there is an exercise in spherical geometry which I'm
>not terribly interested in solving -- I suspect it works out to something
like
>(asin(R/a)/pi)^2 * 2, or about 28% for earth, but someone else is free to
do it
>correctly.

Actually I did, but I made an error along the way -- I lost a factor of 1/2:

The probability that a mainworld's jump limit (as seen from all angles) is
masked is proportional to the solid angle (in steradians) subtended by a
disk equal in radius to the primary's jump limit minus the mainworld's jump
limit, at the mainworld's orbital radius, as a fraction of 4*pi steradians.
This neglects parallax, but for the distances involved all lines of
sight/flight are essentially parallel anyway. (Cases where parallax is
important -- microjumps -- are left as an exercise for the interested
reader.) To find the solid angle, divide the area subtended by the disk by
the area of a sphere of orbital radius. Hence:

Area (disk) = 2*pi*a*h, where a is orbital radius (semi-major axis), and h
= a - sqrt(a^2 - (R - r)^2), and R and r are the jump limits of primary and
mainworld, respectively.

Area (sphere) = 4*pi*a^2.

Masked = 2*pi*a*h / 4*pi*a^2 = h/2a = (a - sqrt(a^2 - (R - r)^2))/2a
					  = (1 - sqrt(1 - (R - r)^2 / a^2))/2.
										^^^
Free = 1 - Masked.

Revised table follows:

Spec.	Dia.	100D	100D	Habit.	Free	Free	Free
Class	(Sols) (au) 	(orb)	Zone	(Sz 0)	(LGG)	(3d)
O5	18.00	16.84	8	-	-		-	
B0	7.40	6.92	7	12	100.0%	100.0%	auto
B5	3.80	3.56	6	9	99.8%	99.8%	auto
A0	2.50	2.34	5	7	98.6%	98.7%	17-
A5	1.70	1.59	4	6	97.6%	97.8%	16-
F0	1.30	1.22	4	5	95.0%	95.5%	15-
F5	1.20	1.12	4	4	85.6%	87.4%	14-
G0	1.05	0.98	3	3	59.4%	69.4%	11-
G5	0.93	0.87	3	2	0.0%	0.0%	no
K0	0.85	0.80	3	2	0.0%	0.0%	no
K5	0.74	0.69	2	0	0.0%	0.0%	no
M0	0.63	0.59	2	0	0.0%	0.0%	no
M5	0.32	0.30	1	-	-	-	-	
M8	0.13	0.12	1	-	-	-	-	

Once again, for GT: Roll twice, once for origin and once for destination.
[Optionally, add +1 for the mainworld satellite of a gas giant.]


Effects on Trade and Commerce:

Using CT Book 6 (Scouts), p. 28, for spectral class frequencies (whether
accurate or not), and looking only at main sequence (size V) stars, only
21.4% of all jumps on average will be to or from unmasked mainworlds, most
of those around class F primaries:

Spectral 	
Class		Free(%)	Stars(%)	Total Free
B0		100.0%		0.0%		0.0%	
B5		99.2%		0.0%		0.0%	
A0		98.6%		1.4%		1.4%	
A5		97.6%		1.4%		1.4%	
F0		95.1%		8.1%		7.7%	
F5		85.8%		8.1%		7.0%	
G0		60.6%		6.6%		4.0%	
G5		0.0%		6.6%		0.0%	
K0		0.0%		8.2%		0.0%	
K5		0.0%		8.2%		0.0%	
M0+		0.0%		51.3%		0.0%	
						21.4%	

Assuming that jumps may freely begin and end *beyond* the 100D limit, the
maximum distance required to clear the primary's jump masking is equal to
the primary's jump limit radius; such a jump skims the edge of the
primary's jump sphere on a tangent line. Distances and travel times (at 1G)
are given below:

Spect. Dia. 	100D 	Run 	Stand 
Class	(Sols)	(au)	(hrs)	(hrs)	
O5	18.00	16.84	199.1	281.5	
B0	7.40	6.92	127.6	180.5	
B5	3.80	3.56	91.5	129.4	
A0	2.50	2.34	74.2	104.9	
A5	1.70	1.59	61.2	86.5	
F0	1.30	1.22	53.5	75.7	
F5	1.20	1.12	51.4	72.7	
G0	1.05	0.98	48.1	68.0	
G5	0.93	0.87	45.2	64.0	
K0	0.85	0.80	43.3	61.2	
K5	0.74	0.69	40.4	57.1	
M0	0.63	0.59	37.2	52.7	
M5	0.32	0.30	26.5	37.5	
M8	0.13	0.12	16.9	23.9	


The weighted average maxima, including free jumps, are +25.8 hours (running
jump, at 1G) and +36.4 hours (standing jump, at 1G). These apply equally at
origin and destination. Average times are +21.7 hours and +30.6 hours,
respectively.

Conclusions:  Even worst case, jump masking adds (on average) at most a day
to a day and a half to each end of an interstellar jump.  This reduces
canonical port time from 6-1/2 days to 4-5 days: well within the capability
of most freight liners to discharge and load. Minimum possible turnaround
time (arrival to arrival), using conventional (non-LASH/tender) designs,
goes up from 8-1/2 days (41 trips per year) to 10 days (35 trips per year).
This is closer to the canonical value of 14 days (25 trips per year). Free
traders may have a harder time making 25 trips a year, but who said life
was fair?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 23:33:30 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: New Product?

>GURPS Traveller: Star Mercs (A Sourcebook for Military/Mercenary Operations
>in the Far Future)
>Everything you need for a military-oriented campaign in the universe of
Traveller! 
...
>	Stock #6604, ISBN 1-55634-364-7. $19.95.

  Well, it's good to see that they're staying true to Travellers' roots* -
and the price looks pretty reasonable for a 96 to 128 page 8.5x11" book.

  * i.e., nuke `em `til they glow...

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 01:49:24 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Jump Point Masking

Christopher Thrash,

Good numbers work. You took some reasonably complex mathematics
and turned them into a set of tables that can be used by any Traveller
group. They're a nice bit of chrome for spreading out the traffic a bit,
and you even took the trouble of adding GURPs rules to it. That's the
kind of idea work I love to see on TML.

If the assumptions behind the numbers are reasonable, and the math
is correct, I'd say your table belongs in a Traveller supplement - perhaps
in T5's answer to  _Scouts_ or _Merchant Prince_?

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 98 01:23:13 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

On 10/27/98 at 01:13 PM,  Christopher Thrash <thrash@io.com> said:

>>Commerce raiders haven't been especially effective since the middle
>>of the 19th century.  The CSA's raiders (like the Alabama) weren't
>>all that effective and neither were the german raiders of either
>>war. At least, it doesn't seem that way to me.

>Capital ships as commerce raiders: probably not. But submarines --

I don't disagree about submarines.  I was limiting my comments to
surface ships.  

Others disagree even about surface raiders, siting the damage done
by CSA ships and the collateral effect of tying down ships in convoy
and covering duties.  Perhaps, they are correct, but I'm not sure
surface raiding had much effect on the eventual outcome of the
various conflicts.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 02:27:03 EST
From: GypsyComet@aol.com
Subject: Re: RPG's in Traveller

russcm@zoomnet.net sez:

>At 11:37 PM 10/26/98 -0700, you wrote:
>>I wonder, it there an RPG called Traveller in Traveller? *weg*
>
>I seem to recall an illustration in MT of a starship crew sitting around a
>table in the messhall with paper and dice. No clue as to the game though :)

 That would be MegaTrav Referee's Manual, page 8.

Cheers,

GypsyComet

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 02:31:01 EST
From: GypsyComet@aol.com
Subject: Re: [OFF] unsubscribing

Tim Crowfoot <tcrowfoot@dial.pipex.com> asks:

>Hello to the list.
>
>Unfortunately I don't have time for the huge volume of mail coming into my
inbox :(
>and I've nuked the message (it was being kept next to my transponder files,
but
>they had to go real quick and the unsub got caught in the collateral) that
>gave me the address to unsubscribe to.
>
>Can someone help please?
>
>Thanks
>
>Tim

 From the end of each Digest:
>
>To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:
>
>unsubscribe traveller-digest
>
>in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
>to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
>such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
>"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":
>
>subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net
>
>A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
>subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
>in the commands above with "traveller".
>
>Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
>

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 98 01:42:17 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: RPG's in Traveller

On 10/27/98 at 08:37 PM,  "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com> said:

>> From: Eris Reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
>> >I wonder, it there an RPG called Traveller in Traveller? *weg*
>> 
>> No, but there is one called something like "Across the Bright Sea"
>> that I invented for the game I'm running.
>> 
>> One of the characters in my PBEM, picked it up, accidentally,
>> thinking it was a entertainment disk at the local Data-Mart.  Once
>> she opens it and finds the little cubes with dots on them, and vids
>> the instructions, I wonder what she'll do.  Will she try to organize
>> a game to entertain the crew and passengers during one of the long
>> boring jumps.  ;->

>So are they going to game in the game?

I've already been given a kick for not making this a spoiler, so...

<spoiler warning for my players>














Don't know yet. That will be up to them. ;->

Eris
AKU GM
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 03:03:25 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Apology 

> Anyway, I apologize for the trouble caused.

'Sokay.  We couldn't find the tar & feathers.  <ducking>

> I would encourage people to use WinGate & MDaemon on NT instead of
> Microsoft Exhange and Microsoft Proxy server. WinGate & MDaemon are
> far easier to configure, have much better functionality, and don't
> have such stupid defaults !

Now you know why I like Linux and not NT.  At least I *don't* have to have IE4 
installed to use it...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 00:06:38 -0800
From: Douglas Glatz <douglas@teleport.com>
Subject: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

Heyo,

I've been pretty quiet throughout the piracy debates this time around, but 
something that has been bothering me for a long time finally tickled me 
enough to enable me putting a finger on it exactly.

To recap, however...one of the primary sticking points over the possibility 
of piracy or no is the ability of a given system to defend out to 100d.  No 
further defense is necessary, because that is all the space that starships 
will ever travel.

This has always bothered me.  I've pointed out in the past that 
intra-system travel is likely to be as heavy as intersystem travel, but the 
common idea is that micro-jumps are perfectly satisfactory for intra- as 
for inter-system.  (I don't necessarily agree with that...)  Then there is 
the fact that even tho' the skill of astrogation/navigation exists, it 
doesn't affect the outcome of a jump.  Largely, if you point your ship at a 
system several light years away, you pop out at the 100d point of the 
mainworld everytime (excepting major mis-jumps).  I started wondering about 
that - that's awfully precise navigation, especially when you begin 
thinking that the stellar gravity well (100d) would be a much easier point 
to aim for.  I would have to say the task roll for a 100 planetary diameter 
propagation of the jump would not be 'routine', tho' perhaps a 100 stellar 
diameter propagation would be...

This evening it began to jell...gravity *does* affect the j-field.  That 
has been canon since the LBBs.  So, if you are configuring a jump between 
two systems (using the hex grid) it looks roughly like this:

   1     2               1     2
3    o --- 4 -------- 3 ---o    4
   5     6               5     6

origin system   destination system

I used 'o' to represent the sun's in each system (asterisks were 
off-center).  Roughly speaking, if the origin planet is in position 4 and 
the destination planet is in position 3, then there is no problem - no 
interfering gravity well.  BUT if the origin planet is in position 3, the 
stellar mass of the system blocks the jump to your intended destination 
system.  Essentially, the j-field will collapse before it fully forms when 
you reach 100 stellar diameters.  And if the destination planet is in 
position 4, your jump will propagate at 100 stellar diameters as well - on 
the wrong side of the system.  I could make an argument for masking if the 
origin position was 1 or 3 and the destination position was 4 or 6 as well, 
at least enough to require a starship to maneuver clear of the gravity 
well's interference.

This does not account for the planetary orbits you are crossing either - 
the case could easily be made for a starship having to travel far beyond 
the 100d point in order to unmask the destination system before being able 
to jump...or for the jump to end prematurely because of an intervening 
gravity well.  And while the Traveller economic system is geared to 25 
jumps per year, I'm no longer sure that is really feasible.

I'm aware that I have only incorporated 2D into my description - I'm still 
working on all of the ramifications.  But the stellar masking of star 
systems is just as valid for the 3D model as the 2D model.  This is a new 
idea I'm working through, and would like to hear some comments.  :)

douglas

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1058
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest    Wednesday, October 28 1998    Volume 1998 : Number 1059



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

RE: Apology 
Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma (continued, long)
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Re : Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma
Luriani Voyaging Caravans
Re: Apology 
FIASCO II LOcation
Need PC in Toronto
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Re: The Sunbeard Declaration

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 00:32:39 -0800
From: Douglas Glatz <douglas@teleport.com>
Subject: RE: Apology 

oh please.  No offense to Frank, but are you saying that if you were trying 
to configure an enterprise-level mail server and a proxy server in Linux 
that it is so idiot-proof so as to absolutely ensure that you can't 
inadvertently disrupt something?  While you were teaching yourself how it 
works?  Even my boss (an honest to goodness Unix graybeard who, if he has 
to work on a PC, works on a Mac and hired me so he wouldn't have to soil 
his eyes gazing on Bill's Folly) wouldn't go that far.

Let's keep gratuitous comments about OS's on alt.2600 where they seem to 
flourish.

douglas

- ----------
From: 	Keven R. Pittsinger[SMTP:jamstar@glasscity.net]
Sent: 	Wednesday, October 28, 1998 12:03 AM
To: 	traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: 	Re: Apology

Now you know why I like Linux and not NT.  At least I *don't* have to have 
IE4
installed to use it...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------  
- ------
                                                     Science-Fiction 
Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 19:35:30 +1100
From: "Robert O'Connor" <robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma (continued, long)

Assessment and Management of Trauma Victims
A. Triage (Fr., roughly, "to sort")
The effective use of limited resources in a battlefield or other
disaster situation requires medical personnel to rapidly assess
casualties and prioritise them.

General priorities :-
Support life
Control haemorrhage
Prevent brainstem compression or spinal cord damage
Diagnose and treat all other injuries

B. The Primary Survey
Identify and treat the immediately life-threatening problems.
(=resuscitation or Immediate Action)

OR : Keep the patient alive until someone can provide definitive
treatment.
How?
This is best summarised by the first aid mnemonic :-
A - Airway : ensure that it is patent.
    Manoeuvres range from chin lift or jaw thrust (or pulling the
    middle third of someone's face back into place?!)
    to passing an airway tube (naso- or oropharyngeal, laryngeal
    mask, endotracheal tube [ the gold standard ]) to creating a
    surgical airway (cricothyroid puncture, tracheostomy)

* Always, always, assume the cervical spine (neck) is unstable
until proven otherwise! Avoid undue extension ; immobilise
(collars/braces) or provide longitudinal stabilisation if you must move
it (to protect the airway, say).

B - Breathing : supply oxygen, treat pain
   *Give high-flow oxygen through a mask or down a tube if one is
    placed.
   *Give analgesics to reduce pain (especially) from rib or sternum
    fractures, so it doesn't hurt to breathe.
   *Drain collections of air or blood in the chest or stomach that
    may be preventing lung inflation.
   *Assisted ventilation is the ultimate measure (expired air or
    'bagging' with ventilator).
C - Circulation : maintain a blood pressure sufficient to perfuse
                  vital organs (brain, heart/lungs, kidneys)
   *Shock occurs when cardiac output cannot meet the metabolic
    demands of the rest of the body. It is usually due to a low
    (falling?!) blood volume (hypovolaemic shock) in the context
    of trauma, but can be due to injury to the heart (cardiogenic
    shock).
   *Control obvious external bleeding with direct pressure.
   *Establish reliable venous access, with at least one big
    cannula.
   *Aggressive fluid resuscitation will be required with
    significant blood loss (20% of circulating volume or more for
    an otherwise fit individual). An adult can lose a litre of
    blood into their thigh from a fractured femur without it being
    clinically apparent (apart from a sharp drop in blood pressure
    and fast, thready pulse).
   *In extreme situations, draining collections of blood or air
    from the chest or the sac covering the heart may be
    life-saving, as is external or direct cardiac massage...

**Rules :-
Resuscitation/Immediate Action
    1. Assess injury severity (overview)

    Average, Medical/First Aid, Edu, uncertain

    Difficult if internal injuries are present (unless med scanner
    available, which makes task Average).

    No characteristics at zero : Superficial
    One char. at zero          : Minor
    Two char. at zero          : Major
    Three char. at zero        : Destroyed
    Varying amounts of truth change the estimate up or down levels
(ref's choice).

    Maintaining consciousness is a Difficult, End task - also see below.

    Patients with Major level damage or greater will show signs of shock
i.e. altered level of consciousness (decreased or delirious), impaired
breathing (A, B, or C causes?), decreased blood pressure and usually an
increased pulse (hypotension and tachycardia).
    For simplicity, Major and Minor damage levels become one level
worse after an hour without treatment.
    Destroyed level damage requires resuscitation within five minutes to
permit brain salvage.

    2. Airway manoeuvres :-
    *Chin lift/jaw thrust :- Easy, Medical/First Aid, Dex

    *Reducing facial fracture :- Difficult, Medical, Dex.
    First Aid can be used at half skill level.

    *Introducing airway :- variable, Medical, Dex/Edu. TL 4+
       oropharyngeal : Easy, First Aid OK
       nasopharyngeal : Average, First Aid OK.
       laryngeal mask or endotracheal tube : Average. Requires
       unconscious patient or general anaesthetic. Awake + local
       (becomes Difficult). First Aid can be used at half skill
       level.
       Surgical airways : Difficult. (local + tools). Becomes
       Average with general anaesthetic and appropriate tools.
       +1 difficulty level for impromptu tools and/or inadequate
       anaesthesia.

* All airway manoeuvres have a risk of mishap : disrupting the cervical
spine, base of skull (making existing injuries worse) or putting an
endotracheal tube into the oesophagus (unrecognised, this is a lethal
error) instead of the trachea readily spring to mind.

    3. Breathing :-
    * Placing a chest drain : Average, Med, Dex/Edu. Requires
    local anaesthetic and tools.

    *Placing a gastric tube to decompress the stomach :
    Average, Med, Dex. TL 4+

    *Ventilation : Average, Med/First Aid, Dex/Edu. Easy if
    'bagging' (manual TL 4+, mechanical ventilator TL 5+)

* Inserting drainage tubes can make things worse. Hearts have been
perforated by personnel inserting chest drains. Stomachs have been
perforated inserting gastric tubes. Never, never introduce a gastric or
airway tube through the nose of someone who may have a base of skull
fracture ; it may end up poking into the brain...

    4. Circulation :-
    * Applying a pressure bandage : Easy or no task, Med/First Aid

    *Inserting an IV cannula : Average, Med/First Aid, Dex
    +1 difficulty level for Serious wounds (2 chars to zero).

    * Volume resuscitation : (wound difficulty), Med/First Aid, victim's
End (co-operative)

    Wound        Difficulty
    Superficial  Easy (usually not required)
    Minor        Average
    Major        Difficult
    Destroyed    Formidable

    Success restores consciousness if not anaesthetised/sedated or
    Destroyed level damage (clinically dead!). A safe blood
    pressure is maintained in the presence of a patent airway and
    adequate oxygenation.

    Volume resuscitation :- blood, blood products (eg. clotting
    factors), colloids (protein or starch solutions), crystalloids
    (salt solutions) - TL 4+
    Crystalloids or colloids can be used until blood is available.
    Blood and blood products should be used only when bleeding is
    controlled (except for very dire circumstances).

    *Aspirating the pericardial sac : Difficult, Medical, Dex

    *Opening the chest to perform direct cardiac massage :-
    Difficult, Med, Dex (assumes appropriate tools present, +1
    difficulty if not).

* These last two tasks imply Major or Destroyed damage. Mishaps
could be disastrous. By this stage though it might not matter too
much...

     5. Stabilised or not?
Further volume checks can be made every ten minutes or so or at
important points (transfer onto or off a vehicle, or for dramatic
effect...)

C. The Secondary Survey
Evaluate injury by region and treat accordingly.
i. Evaluation.
Clinical examination can be supplemented by :-
* Laboratory investigations (TL 4+) : blood haemoglobin the most
important value. Arterial blood oxygen and carbon dioxide tensions, and
measures of clotting times, may also be useful.
* X-rays (TL4+) : cervical spine (neck) and chest views are the most
important ones to take!
Other obvious fractures should be evaluated once the patient is stable,
so that the Orthopaedic surgeon can sort them out.
* Diagnostic peritoneal lavage (TL5+) : a small incision is made into
the abdomen and sterile saline instilled. If the aspirated fluid
contains blood, significant internal injury is likely and surgery is
necessary.
* Angiography (TL 5+) : Contrast media (X-ray/MR/nuclear scan) can be
injected to delineate bleeding sites. Bleeders can be made to stop by
injecting procoagulants or placing obstructing objects (TL 7+) -
embolisation. Sometimes this works.
* Ultrasound (TL6+) : identification of organ injuries from blunt trauma
are more readily spotted this way (air, blood or fluid has a different
echotexture to tissue). This supercedes peritoneal lavage.
* CT scanning (TL 7+) : the investigation of choice in the initial
evaluation of head injury at this TL, as it permits detailed brain
imaging.
* MR scanning (TL 8+) : like CT, but good for other tissues ; higher
resolution. Some logistic and clinical problems arise because of the
intense magnetic field (shifting bullets, shrapnel...)
* Antiproton CT (TL 10+) : better resolution than MR, no magnetic
problems....
* Gravisonic modulator (TL 11+) : gravisonic imaging enables high
resolution (not as good as antiproton CT) radiation free imaging.
* Meson scanner (TL 11+) : comparable to antiproton CT, not reliant upon
expensive antimatter (meson decay serves as gamma source).
(Thanks Bruce Mac!)

**Rules :

         *Diagnosis of injury : Average, Medical, Edu, uncertain

         This task can be co-operative (either with sophont
         physicians or expert systems). The practical upper limit
         is three medics.

         Higher technology level investigations reduce
         uncertainty:
         TL 4-5         +1 DM on uncertainty roll
            6-8         +3 DM "
            9-11        +4 DM "
            11+         +5 DM "

         *To perform a successful embolisation : Difficult,
         Medical, Dex, uncertain. Equipment is required to attempt
         this task.

At lower tech levels, more surgery is performed.
At higher tech levels, more sophisticated tests are performed.

Stability (volume) checks should be made during the evaluation process.

"So how bad is it, Doc?"
The abbreviated injury score (AIS) is a Real World system used to
evaluate the management of trauma victims.
It was initially devised to develop standards of care for road accident
casualties, but the scope of its use has increased.

The body is divided into regions :-
head, neck and face, thorax, abdomen, pelvis and extremities, external
(skin!). Random localisation on 1D, or previously determined (eg. aimed
shots, other situational modifiers).

Injuries are rated on the following scale :-
0 no injury
1 minor
2 moderate
3 serious, not life threatening
4 severe, survival probable
5 critical, survival uncertain
6 unsurvivable

This scale readily lends itself to Traveller application.
0 to 1 : superficial
2 to 3 : minor (one characteristic at zero)
4 to 5 : serious (two characteristics at zero)
6 : destroyed (all chars at zero)

ii. Treatment
a. Superficial injuries :-
eg. Shallow lacerations or cuts, abrasions (scrapes), simple fractures
or dislocations (closed, (non)reduced, not hand, femur, spine or
depressed skull), corneal abrasions or foreign bodies.

Suturing (TL 2+), bandaging and dressing (TL 1+), immobilisation in
plaster cast or splinting (TL 1+), pain relief (TL 1+).

Suturing a wound, or reducing a fracture/dislocation requires either
local anaesthesia (TL 5+) or reliable sedation up to and including
general anaesthetic (TL 4+).

b. Minor
eg. deep lacerations (skin traversed), multiple simple limb or facial or
individual compound fractures (bone through skin) of same, simple
pneumothoraces (collections of air in the chest outside the lungs),
superficial foreign bodies (bullets/shrapnel), penetrating eye injuries.

Exploration and suturing of wounds (local or general anaesthesia
required, so TL 4+) or placement of a chest drain (TL 4+).
Complicated fractures (eg. hand/wrist, femur, depressed skull) and eye
injuries require surgery (general anaesthetic, TL 4+). All require
analgesia.

c. Major
eg. Head injuries with symptomatic intracranial haemorrhage or compound
fracture, pelvic ring fractures, multiple rib or sternum fractures (if
three or more adjacent ribs are fractured, a so called flail segment is
produced. Ventilating the lung becomes difficult.), blunt or penetrating
cardiac or chest injury, blunt or penetrating abdominal trauma, multiple
compound fractures, limb crush injuries or (near-)amputations.

Surgical intervention after resuscitation is mandatory, if only to
control bleeding and remove dead tissue. Resuscitation and placement
into low berth is an alternative if technology permits.

d. Destroyed
eg. combinations of injuries in (c), above, with the additional
complication of cardiac arrest (actual or imminent).
Resuscitation is required within five minutes of cardiac standstill to
permit brain salvage (in the absence of mitigating protective factors
like severe hypothermia or some drugs).

Placement in a low berth and transport to a TL 13+ medical
facility offers the best chance for long-term survival, in the absence
of prompt heroic medical and surgical intervention.

**Rules
      The following task covers any area not previously specified.

      To treat injuries :- variable, Medical/First Aid, Edu/Dex
      Severity      Difficulty
      Superficial   Easy ; First Aid OK
      Minor         Average ; First Aid OK
      Major         Difficult
      Destroyed     Formidable

      This is a co-operative task ; the surgeon's first assistant
      provides half their skill.
      Optionally, up to two surgical teams (surgeon+first
      assistant) can operate at the same time on different parts
      of the patient.
      Surgery requiring general anaesthetic, or resuscitation for
      Destroyed injuries requires an  endotracheal tube to control
      the airway.
      +1 difficulty level for impromptu/inadequate tools
      (eg. suturing without local anaesthetic) and/or setting (in
            the field vs operating theatre).
    **The usual outcome for this task is to enable healing. On a
      Spectacular Success, 1D damage points are 'rolled back'.
      Spectacular Failure inflicts 1D damage.

Aftercare and Outcomes
Survival depends primarily on two factors :-
- - the rapidity and appropriateness of resuscitation
  The concept of 'the golden hour' is well established. People
  tend to survive if definitive treatment after resuscitation
  has started within the first hour after injury.
- - the severity of head injury sustained.
  There are three mortality peaks :
  immediate (massive injuries)
  hours later (decompensated shock, usually in the emergency room
  or operating theatre)
  days to weeks later (from head injury complications or
  multi-organ failure, usually in the wards or ICU).

**Rules : Costs of Treatment and Aftercare
1. Superficial Damage :
Healing is complete within four to six weeks for fractures or two weeks
for cuts and scrapes without further treatment. Bone stimulation (TL 9+)
and wound glue (TL 9+) reduce this period to two weeks for fractures or
one week for wounds.
Point losses are recovered over the course of a week (one point or more
in all affected characteristics per day), or three days with advanced
treatments.

Costs : 3D Cr for bandages, analgesics, etc.
        General anaesthetic (theatre) : 500Cr (day surgery implied)

Complications : Infection occurs on a Spectacular Failure on a Average,
End task (roll a natural 2). Healing stops until the infection is
treated.

2. Minor :-
Fractures are amenable to bone stimulation after orthopaedic correction
(usually operative).
Point losses are restored at the rate of one point per day in all
affected characteristics.
Costs :- supplies 10 X 2D Cr ; theatre 500 X 1D Cr ; hospital inpatient
200Cr per day if surgery required (usual admission lasts a week) ;
outpatient (home/ED) care 50Cr per day until recovery complete.

Complications : Infection occurs on a Spectacular Failure on a
Difficult, Med (attending doctor), End task. This check is made on the
third day after treatment. Healing stops until the infection is treated.

3. Major :-
Hospitalisation can be prolonged, despite the best care available.
Characteristics recover at one point per day in any one characteristic.
Medical slow drug can dramatically hasten this (10:1) ; ICU level care
is required.

To thaw from low berth : Difficult, Med, Edu

Costs :- Theatre 1000 X 1D ; hospital 500Cr per day (ICU) until stable,
then 200Cr per day thereafter. Low berth 1000/week.
Discharge from hospital once characteristics are 50% of their original
value or better ; home care cost as above.

Progress and Complications :-
Unconsciousness/coma : after surgery, consciousness checks are made
daily (Difficult, End). While comatose and/or at least one
characteristic at zero, must stay in ICU.
Recovery of points or waking up -> discharge to ward.

Infection and other catastrophes : Difficult, Med (attending doctor),
End tasks are checked every second day, or daily if on slow drug.
Spectacular Failure leads to the development of some problem. 1D damage
is applied promptly.

Effects :-
All characteristics to zero :- cardiac arrest, any cause
Two characteristics to zero :- eg. severe infection, bleeding, pulmonary
embolism (blood clot to lungs), heart attack (myocardial infarction).
One characteristic to zero :- minor infection or wound breakdown.

4. Destroyed :-
Successful resuscitation and surgery (if required) will permit healing
at the rate of one point in one characteristic per week.
Slow drug can be used.
Deferred definitive treatment requires low berthing, or in extreme
situations, fast drug.

Reanimation is a Formidable Medical, Edu task (co-operative OK).
+1 difficulty level if fast drug used instead of low berthing.

Progress and Complications :-
Consciousness checks are made twice a week (Difficult, End).
Catastrophe checks are made daily.
Once 50% of baseline points in one characteristic are recovered, regard
as major wound.
Discharge from ICU is not possible until this stage.

Costs :-
Reanimation 150KCr. Other costs as listed above.


Hmm.... May be a little too complicated.
Input from rules gurus welcomed++++

Next : Other injurious agents - electricity, cold, heat, radiation,
and the wonderful world of low berth medicine...

Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gearhead and Gaming Enthusiast

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 05:00:56 -0500
From: John Macek <macek@erols.com>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

Douglas Glatz wrote:

*snip*

> 
> I'm aware that I have only incorporated 2D into my description - I'm still
> working on all of the ramifications.  But the stellar masking of star
> systems is just as valid for the 3D model as the 2D model.  This is a new
> idea I'm working through, and would like to hear some comments.  :)
> 
> douglas

Good work, Douglas!  

I was thinking about the 100 diameter limit too.  Here's another way to
handle the situation.  Make the position at jump exit a function of how
well the astrogator makes his skill roll.  If the astrogator just make
his roll, place the ship well outside the 100diam limit.  On critical
success, place the ship at the limit.

John

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 21:35:15 +1100
From: "Robert O'Connor" <robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Re : Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma

I hope I haven't caused information overload.

Two points I should have included :-
Wound Severity   Must be Treated In  Else
Superficial      2D hours            catastrophe check hourly
Minor            1D X 10 minutes     catastrophe check half-hrly
Major            2D minutes          catastrophe check each 5 mins
Destroyed        1D minutes          death (cardiac standstill)

A catastrophe check is a Difficult, Med (attendant), End (patient)
task. Spectacular Failure leads to 1D of additional damage.
This replaces :-

>     For simplicity, Major and Minor damage levels become one level
> worse after an hour without treatment.
>     Destroyed level damage requires resuscitation within five minutes to
> permit brain salvage.
>


An anaesthetist is required if a general anaesthetic is to be given.
(Doctor, Dex 6+, Edu 7+).

Now back to your regular programming....

Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gearhead, Gaming Enthusiast

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 00:17:29 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Luriani Voyaging Caravans

The Luriani Voyaging Caravans

One of the central facets of the Luriani culture has always been their 
Voyaging ships. The first Voyagers were the huge vessels which traversed 
Daramms oceans during the Lurianis early prehistory. Each of these early 
vessels was virtually a floating town, with hundreds of inhabitants, trading with 
the various island settlements.. It was these early voyagers that were the 
catalyst that lead to the rise of civilisation of Daramm and subsequently 
provided the glue that bound it together.

When the Luriani first reached towards the stars it was natural that these 
voyagers would be amongst the first to do so. Rather than constructing huge 
ships in imitation of their oceangoing vessels, these Voyagers chose to 
produce fleets of small asteroid ships which travelled as caravans and 
wandered between the Luriani worlds carrying goods and passengers as 
demanded. Each voyaging ship carried a complete set backup machinery and 
controls so that when a new ship was required, it was a simple matter to hollow 
out a new asteroid and fit it out from the parent ship. Both ships then gradually 
replaced their backups and thus the number of voyaging ships slowly 
increased. With the end of the Luriani Consolidation War in 4547, the Vilani 
banned the caravans but some had managed to escape the final defeat and 
continued their wanderings far beyond the borders of the Ziru Sirka. These 
wanderers founded the scattered Luriani worlds that can now be found far from 
Daramm (two such caravans are recorded as having reached the Zhodani 
Consulate in -4085). However a few of these escapees chose to remain 
relatively close to the former Luriani worlds and occasionally returned, 
sometimes conducting clandestine trading, sometimes encouraging an 
uprising, but mostly just looking to see if they could come home. It was these 
handful of Voyagers that would reestablish the voyaging culture during the First 
Protectorate.

The Voyagers were never as important (or common) during the First 
Protectorate as previously, but they continued to provide limited contact even 
after the Protectorate had succumbed to the Long Night. With the rise of the 
Second Protectorate steps were taken to ensure that the Voyagers were 
preserved and they flourished under official patronage. When the Second 
Protectorate was incorporated into the Imperium the Treaty of Daramm 
established the Voyagers as a protected culture, subsidised and exempted 
from many commercial regulations (including the right to carry their own unique 
transponders, identifying them as Voyagers). And they continued to survive 
throughout the Imperium.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 06:57:51 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Apology 

> oh please.  No offense to Frank, but are you saying that if you were trying 
> to configure an enterprise-level mail server and a proxy server in Linux 
> that it is so idiot-proof so as to absolutely ensure that you can't 
> inadvertently disrupt something?  While you were teaching yourself how it 
> works?  Even my boss (an honest to goodness Unix graybeard who, if he has 
> to work on a PC, works on a Mac and hired me so he wouldn't have to soil 
> his eyes gazing on Bill's Folly) wouldn't go that far.

Sendmail's so complicated that it's not just a program, it's a *religion*.  
However, once you get it set up, there's no difference between using it as an 
enterprise level mail server and a personal mail server.  The bitch is, 
getting it set up.  On the plus side, it tends to bounce stuff right back to 
you instead of making things dissappear into hyperspace when it's screwed up.

AAMOF, when I reinstalled my Linux this last May, it took me about a month & a 
half to get the configuration right so I could email my sister on AOL.  I had 
one of the options a bit off.  Sendmail isn't for everybody.  And if you're 
not crazy now, you *WILL* be once you understand it.
 
> Let's keep gratuitous comments about OS's on alt.2600 where they seem to 
> flourish.

Naw, alt.2600's supposed to be where the phone phreaks hang out.  I quit
hacking fones over 20 years ago.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 10:21:15 -0000
From: "MJ Dougherty" <martinjd@globalnet.co.uk>
Subject: FIASCO II LOcation

It's at the Royal Armories, Leeds. Sunday 1st Nov, Starts 10AM.

MJD

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 09:19:01 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Need PC in Toronto

My hoped-for PC deal fell through, and the system at work is really
unstable (not to mention I get too many interruptions, even hours after I
am officially finished work). So I need a home PC as a development
platform.

According to the documentation on Delphi 2, I need at least a 486 running
Windows 95 with 8megs memory. How much should this cost (in $Cdn) and
where in Toronto can I find a good deal?  

ObTrav: This is for porting my Traveller apps from Mac to PC.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 09:26:23 -0500
From: Joe Pettit <jpettit@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

>
> I'm aware that I have only incorporated 2D into my description - I'm still
> working on all of the ramifications.  But the stellar masking of star
> systems is just as valid for the 3D model as the 2D model.  This is a new
> idea I'm working through, and would like to hear some comments.  :)

This is the basis I use for that strange irregularity in jump times.  A
"successful" jump can still vary by a whole day.  Time dilations errors can
reduce jump times (indicating no intervening gravity wells) and can extend it
to 10(?) days (indicating maneuvering around two or more gravity wells).

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 07:31:58 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

Douglas Glatz wrote:

Snipola
  BUT if the origin planet is in position 3, the
> stellar mass of the system blocks the jump to your intended destination
> system.  Essentially, the j-field will collapse before it fully forms when
> you reach 100 stellar diameters.  And if the destination planet is in
> position 4, your jump will propagate at 100 stellar diameters as well - on
> the wrong side of the system. 

Talk to Eris...in one of his PBEM's our astrogator's sweating just
exactly this kind of problem...we could end up around the _wrong_ planet
in the system, with several days travel, and a hold full of delicate
frozen ring trout rapidly freezerburning...

No pressure, there, Craig ;-)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 10:38:45 -0500
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: The Sunbeard Declaration

John Macek and I debated;

The original Principle;
#1 : Mainworlds with either signifigant trade or signifigant economies can
and will defend their space out to about their 100 diameter limits.

>Peter H. Brenton wrote:
>> I think you need to look at the word 'significant' and judge for
>> yourself what that means....[snip]
>
>I think I got hung up on the "can and will defend."  Some government
>types will be more willing than others.  Have the ability to defend out
>to 100d sounded better to me.  Maybe I'm nitpicking?  But if you
>seriously want to write this up and throw it into the FAQ, then I feel
>the proposal should reflect both side's opinions.

Your point is well taken, but it seems to me that if there is piracy (which
this document is trying to say), and if a world has a "significant"
economy, it is, in fact, defending its space to 100d at least, because
otherwise there is not enough trade or commerce to sustain that economy,
and there is a significant vulnerability which, sooner or later, will lead
to the downfall of that economy or the establishment of defenses like the
ones we are discussing.

In addition to trade consideration, a planet must defend it's region of
space to prevent one shabby TL12 free trader from holding the planet
hostage with its orbital bombardment capability (one lousy beam laser can
do significant damage to, say, the White House).  They will do this using
SDBs/fighters/orbital defenses built locally (if technologically capable)
or purchased from offworld with funds gained from interstellar trade.  This
will, at least incidentially, provide defense out to the 100d limit.

>> Also, take the stated principles with the word "usually" inserted at
>> strategic intervals.  No statements apply to all of humaniti, never
>> mind other races, with perfect uniformity.
>
>That sits well with me.

And still applies to what I just wrote above, in spite of the logic to the
contrary presented.

[big snip]

>>>One quick note before I go.  I base most of my notions on my
>>>understanding of the piratical modus operandi from the late 17th and
>>>early 18th century, since I am a student of that era.
>>
>> An excellent place to start, especially in view of the fact that
>> many of us have compared the RN of that period to the IN of the
>> Third Imperium.
>
>Thanks.  I got to wondering about the late Victorian era as I was
>writing and how that might be more appropriate as a model.

Borrowing the future from history is a fine tradition of Science Fiction in
general.  I snagged the image of Nobility from "Cheeves and Wooster"
recently with quite interesting effects (I've never felt so close to having
a player actually punch me while roleplaying).  I'm thinking next about
patterning a few events/people on characters from "The Man Who Would be
King" and Victorian India.  But that's in the future, so to speak.


                      Peter H. Brenton : pbrenton@mit.edu
"A Good Traveller has no fixed plans and no intent on arriving."
  -Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1059
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest    Wednesday, October 28 1998    Volume 1998 : Number 1060



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re : Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma
Re: Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
re: Medicine in Traveller
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
GT chat last night [errata]
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Stellar gravity well and Jump
Re: Stellar gravity well and Jump
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard
Vampire highway
Re: Jump point masking
Re: Vampire highway
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Re: Vampire highway
Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)
Re: Guerre de course (was Re: Capital Ships of WWII)
Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 98 16:00:47 +0000
From: igor@truserve.com
Subject: Re : Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma

Robert O'Connor wrote:

>An anaesthetist is required if a general anaesthetic is to be given.
>(Doctor, Dex 6+, Edu 7+).

This may be nit picking, but an anathesiologist OR a nurse anaesthetist are required, and
the later is not a doctor (while the former is).

I know this because my father is a nurse anaesthetist, has been for 30 years. And he does
just about as much as anathesiologists (in fact, he often teaches them).

Doctor in Traveller implies medical-3, right? Based on my fathers own training, medical-2
seems more appropriate - he did not have to attend med school.

I apologize if I'm just nit-picking (since the point is that _someone_ who knows
anaethesia is present). I also apologixe for my spelling.

Andrew Akins
igor@truserve.com <== new email

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 09:00:54 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma

Robert O'Connor wrote:
> 
> I hope I haven't caused information overload.

Wow...I think our general silence is due to 1D of Info-stun. What an
extraordinarly complete rules supplement. Very good job, Robert!


- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 09:12:47 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

>I was thinking about the 100 diameter limit too.  Here's another way to
>handle the situation.  Make the position at jump exit a function of how
>well the astrogator makes his skill roll.  If the astrogator just make
>his roll, place the ship well outside the 100diam limit.  On critical
>success, place the ship at the limit.
>
>John
>

One of the ideas I'm playing with is to make the Star System the focus of
the 'routine' jump.  And, I'm beginning to think that letting the 100d limit
strip you out of J-Space may not be a particularly healthy thing for the
J-Drive (extra wear?  Perhaps counting it in as a jump when figuring the
time between maintenance).  So a weak Astrogator (Skill 1 or 2) would aim
for the Primary Stellar System as the destination, and try to pop out short
of the limit.  A really skilled Astrogator (Skill 3+) would be able to set
up a jump for the Mainworld (Formidible Skill Roll?), but also try and come
short of the limit.  An exceptional success would indicate that the ship
precipitates from jump just short of the limit, a success roll would
indicate that it precipitates a short distance away (1d6 hours away,
assuming 1-G?) from the 100d limit.  Hmmm...maybye 1d6 per hex jumped (so a
jump-2 would be 2d6) to allow for the longer distance...  A failure of the
roll would indicate hitting the 100d point, and an exceptional failure would
me missing the system altogether (1d6 days away ?)


This would give some meaning to being a good Navigator...

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 12:06:26 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Medicine in Traveller

Andrew Akins wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This may be nit picking, but an anathesiologist OR a nurse anaesthetist
are required, and the later is not a doctor (while the former is).

I know this because my father is a nurse anaesthetist, has been for 30 years. And he does just about as much as anathesiologists (in fact, he 
often teaches them).

Doctor in Traveller implies medical-3, right? Based on my fathers own training, medical-2 seems more appropriate - he did not have to attend
med school.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There's training, and there's experience. A Traveller character can have
Medic-3 (and a doctor's license) right out of medical school, how does
that compare to the medical skill of a Nurse-Anesthesiologist with
a couple decades of experience? 

For MTU I put some rough labels on what to expect from levels of
medical skill - and what medical skill to expect certain people to have.

Medic-0 : Basic First Aid (Boy Scout, CPR class)
Medic-1 : Trained First Aid (Fireman, Battlefield Lifesaver Training,
               experienced Lifeguard or Police Officer), Nurse
Medic-2 : Paramedic or Surgical Assistant/Nurse Specialist
Medic-3+ : Doctor (with Dex 8+, Surgeon)

With the -2 skill LEVEL (not task) modifier for alien physiology, it takes
Medic-5 for Xeno-Medicine. ("Dammit Jim, I'm a Doctor, not
a Vetrinarian!!")

Andy's father's _position_ would require Medic-2. His experience
and training may not have taken him above Medic-2, as there are
medical techniques he probably doesn't know (or at least has never
had a chance to practice). However, his experience and training have 
probably increased his Education (and perhaps his Intelligence) stat.

Let's say that during an operation the patient's body temperature
suddenly skyrockets and he starts crashing.

A Doctor, with his Medic-3, might be able to try some emergency
procedures to save the patient.

A Nurse-Anesthesiologist with a good education score would probably
recognize Malignant Hyperthermia and know exactly what to do about
it, even with "only" Medic-2. The N-A probably has the knowledge
to prevent it from becoming a problem in the first place - though the
N-A wouldn't consider himself qualified to do the operation.

Hmmm, nice to stumble on good examples of Skill + Stat situations...

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 09:15:22 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

>This is the basis I use for that strange irregularity in jump times.  A
>"successful" jump can still vary by a whole day.  Time dilations errors can
>reduce jump times (indicating no intervening gravity wells) and can extend
it
>to 10(?) days (indicating maneuvering around two or more gravity wells).


I'm not sure I can agree with that.  My interpretation of J-space and the
jump rules is no sensors work in J-space, and jumps tend to be straight
line.

But I'll think about it....

At the moment, I'm kinda thinking that for any jump you make, roll 2 dice.
1 is for the current system, 1 is for the destination system.  If either
come up a '1', then that particular route is masked, and some realspace
navigation may be called for to clear the gravity well.

douglas

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 09:17:04 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

>Talk to Eris...in one of his PBEM's our astrogator's sweating just
>exactly this kind of problem...we could end up around the _wrong_ planet
>in the system, with several days travel, and a hold full of delicate
>frozen ring trout rapidly freezerburning...


Have the starport supply a course.  The computer at the base should be able
to calculate the best possible course, then you just have to follow their
pre-generated (and possibly widely distributed) flight plan!  ;^)

douglas

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 12:51:40 -0500
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: GT chat last night [errata]

In the point defense phase, vehicles attempting a ram (including missiles)
are automaticly detected.

the range on the lasercom integral to the missile launcher should be
1,000,000 miles (100 hexes)



also one that was not yet up last time I looked... the armor values for the
 wheeled APC:

<I>Armor:<I> Body PD 4 DR 50 Expensive Metal, Wheels PD 4 DR 25 Expensive
Metal.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 10:07:04 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

>One of the ideas I'm playing with is to make the Star System the focus of
>the 'routine' jump.  And, I'm beginning to think that letting the 100d
limit
>strip you out of J-Space may not be a particularly healthy thing for the
>J-Drive (extra wear?  Perhaps counting it in as a jump when figuring the
>time between maintenance).  So a weak Astrogator (Skill 1 or 2) would aim
>for the Primary Stellar System as the destination, and try to pop out short
>of the limit.  A really skilled Astrogator (Skill 3+) would be able to set
>up a jump for the Mainworld (Formidible Skill Roll?), but also try and come
>short of the limit.  An exceptional success would indicate that the ship
>precipitates from jump just short of the limit, a success roll would
>indicate that it precipitates a short distance away (1d6 hours away,
>assuming 1-G?) from the 100d limit.  Hmmm...maybye 1d6 per hex jumped (so a
>jump-2 would be 2d6) to allow for the longer distance...  A failure of the
>roll would indicate hitting the 100d point, and an exceptional failure
would
>me missing the system altogether (1d6 days away ?)
>
>
>This would give some meaning to being a good Navigator...
>

Oops.  I've gotten so caught up in the basic idea, I forgot to tie it back
into piracy.

Assuming the destination hex is surrounded by occupied hexes (a rarity I
know, but it helps clarify what I am talking about), that would mean the the
primary solar system of the hex would have 6 distinct radials extending from
the source worlds surrounding it.

Each radial would be the 'default' course supplied by the generate program,
unless a skilled Navigator were to alter it.  Each radial would have a
spherical are of approximately 116,640 km where one could normally expect
starships to propigate out of jumpspace - each widely separated from the
other.  And then there would be the real-space travel from the propigation
point to the mainworld.

There would also be radials coming in from the worlds J-2, J-3 ect...each
with a corresponding wider propigation point.

Additionally, for destinations that are masked by the current position of
the mainworld, there would be ships in realspace making for jump points
where they could enter J-space and not be affected by the gravity world of
the primary.

This, I think, makes the proposition of a single SDB in mainworld orbit
sufficient to prevent piracy a bit more difficult, no?

douglas

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 10:10:52 -0800 (PST)
From: Brannon Boren <brannonb@animal.blarg.net>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Douglas Glatz wrote:

> BUT if the origin planet is in position 3, the 
> stellar mass of the system blocks the jump to your intended destination 
> system.

"Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star
or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick,
wouldn't it?"

;)

Ben

- --
Brannon (Ben) Boren
brannonb@blarg.net
http://www.mog.net/brannonb/index.html 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 10:14:04 -0800 (PST)
From: Brannon Boren <brannonb@animal.blarg.net>
Subject: Stellar gravity well and Jump

On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Douglas Glatz wrote:

> BUT if the origin planet is in position 3, the 
> stellar mass of the system blocks the jump to your intended destination 
> system. 

"Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star
or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick,
wouldn't it?"

Ben


PS: Apologies for the duplicate post. I forgot to change the subject
header of the other one, and a lot of folks have their filters set to kill
anything that discusses Pir*cy...

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 10:34:30 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Stellar gravity well and Jump

>On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Douglas Glatz wrote:
>
>> BUT if the origin planet is in position 3, the
>> stellar mass of the system blocks the jump to your intended destination
>> system.
>
>"Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star
>or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick,
>wouldn't it?"
>
>Ben
>
>
>PS: Apologies for the duplicate post. I forgot to change the subject
>header of the other one, and a lot of folks have their filters set to kill
>anything that discusses Pir*cy...
>

Yep, I know.  :*(

I almost decided not to put the *P* word in the subject line for that very
reason.  But, I decided I'd rather have a couple of my posts deleted because
of the actual content, rather than all my posts ignored because my subject
headers don't match my intended content.  ;^)

douglas


E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 18:40:13 +0000
From: Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

SD Mooney  wrote:

>>Let's look how much damage two of the newest and best RN units did to
>>Bismark - The fast battleship HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales didn't do
>>a whole lot.
>
>Now come on, HMS Hood was hardly the newest or best (being a spritely 21
>when she was sunk). And didn't the HMS Prince of Wales have a problem with
>her 4x turret jamming? Admittedly, she was a lot newer...

HMS Hood was overdue a docking (they built one at Rosyth - it'll take
two modern RN ships end-to-end); but she was still a good fast
battleship - better than; say, a Queen Elizabeth or a reworked WWI
battlecruiser for the job. PoW was new. 

Aetherem Vincere
Matt
- -- 
Matt Clonfero: Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk    | To err is human, To forgive
My employer and I have a deal - I don't speak | is not Air Force Policy.
for them, and they don't speak for me.        |   -- Anon, ETPS.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 18:44:27 +0000
From: Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

John Lansford wrote:

>>Not strictly true - while HMS Renown had a `zone of immunity' against
>>the ugly sisters, they *could* have split, and fought the same kind of
>>fight that the RN cruisers fought against _Graf Spee_. The original post
>>is most accurate - Hitler was not keen to lose capital ships, having
>>very few; and they were ordered to avoid contact with Allied heavy
>>units.
>
>Because he didn't want to lose them, because they were vulnerable to
>15" shellfire. Renown, the lightest armored BC the RN had, still
>inflicted significant damage on S&G and from some reports more damaged
>by the storm than the shell hits she suffered.

Well, if S & G had been handled aggressively they might have picked off
Renown - maybe without loss. Sure, they might have been damaged - but
getting a RN BC in home waters would have been a morale boost to the
Germans and a trough for the RN.

>>Battleships were rarely part of the close escort for a convoy.
>
>For important ones they were. HMS Rodney had to divert from escorting
>a convoy to chase down Bismarck. "R" class BB's kept S&G from
>massacreing the merchant ships.

Can you provide a reference for this? Every time I've seen a reference
to BBs covering a convoy they have been as part of a Covering Force or
distant escort.

>>Fleet in being? Use her to threaten the Artic Convoys, along with
>>Tirpitz. indeed, the two of these together could probably overwhelm the
>>*distant* escort of an Artic Convoy, let along the close escort.
>
>This accomplishes nothing in knocking Britain out of the war, which in
>1941 was the German Navy's prime objective. The Murmansk convoys
>didn't start until 1942 anyway.

No - it helps knock Russia out of the war. Probably more important.


This is getting off topic - want to take it to email?

Aetherem Vincere
Matt
- -- 
Matt Clonfero: Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk    | To err is human, To forgive
My employer and I have a deal - I don't speak | is not Air Force Policy.
for them, and they don't speak for me.        |   -- Anon, ETPS.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 18:33:56 +0000
From: Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard

Steven Hudson wrote:

>  The armour multipliers in High Guard mesh moderately well with Striker
>(the same TL groupings are used as for Striker materials) although the 
>fit below the TL 12-13 group isn't perfect. While HG doesn't differentiate
>by _hull_ material type (a simplification, and probably a desirable one)
>it clearly does do so by _amrour_ material type; it just doesn't tie cost
>directly to material, and has the truly odd sky-rocketing marginal cost
>per armour factor (at a given TL, with increasing mass for added armour,
>why would it follow that Armour Factor "n+1" would be composed of a
>different _material_ from Armour Factor "n"?).

Today, I can make you a reasonable armour for an APC our of aluminium;
better APC armour out of aluminium with a ERA exterior; fair armour for
a tank out of steel; better armour for a tank our of steel with ERA; and
outstanding armour for a tank out of Chobham composite.

Aetherem Vincere
Matt
- -- 
Matt Clonfero: Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk    | To err is human, To forgive
My employer and I have a deal - I don't speak | is not Air Force Policy.
for them, and they don't speak for me.        |   -- Anon, ETPS.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 08:00:35 +1300
From: pbroeder@wave.co.nz
Subject: Vampire highway

I haven"t seen this anywhere but I'll post it anyway.- it does seem
obvious.

If Cymbeline (2527 Solomani rim) is one end of the Vampire highway
wouldn't Celetron (0922 Core), home of  Imperial Research Station
Omicron be the other?

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 11:14:15 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Jump point masking

>I ran some figures last night to see what the effect of jump masking would
>be.  The initial results are below; I'll go back and do the statistics on
>how often masking occurs overall later this afternoon.
>


[snip]

>"Free" is the chance that any point on the mainworld 100D limit will be
>free of the jump masking by the primary. The formula is:
>
>Free = Sqrt(1 - (R - r)^2 / a^2), where R is the 100D radius of the
>primary, r is the 100D radius of the planet, and a is the orbital radius
>(semi-major axis) of the planet.
>
>The last column is designed for GT.  Roll twice:  once for origin and once
>for destination. [Optionally, add +1 to the target number for a mainworld
>satellite of a gas giant.]
>


I think I get to be embarrassed (referring to my own introduction to the
subject in the 'jump and piracy' thread).

Can someone tell me which thread spawned this discussion so I can see just
how badly!  ;)

(sigh)  Just when I thought I was getting a handle on the message traffic...

douglas


E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 14:17:53 -0500
From: Kurt Feltenberger <kurt@blazenet.net>
Subject: Re: Vampire highway

I was also wondering what ever happened to Reference.  All those computers
had to have spawned quite an interesting personality.

Kurt

At 08:00 AM 10/29/98 +1300, you wrote:
>I haven"t seen this anywhere but I'll post it anyway.- it does seem
>obvious.
>
>If Cymbeline (2527 Solomani rim) is one end of the Vampire highway
>wouldn't Celetron (0922 Core), home of  Imperial Research Station
>Omicron be the other?


Kurt Feltenberger
kurt@blazenet.net


------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 11:19:27 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

(sigh)

I just found the 'gravity blocking jump routes thread'.  I'm sure I must
have skimmed through them enough to pick up an idea or two, even tho' I
don't actually remember doing so.

Apologies to the authors for any ideas I inadvertantly plagerized.

I'm going to read through the thread s-l-o-w-l-y now.

douglas

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 12:36:20 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Vampire highway

pbroeder@wave.co.nz wrote:
> 
> I haven"t seen this anywhere but I'll post it anyway.- it does seem
> obvious.
> 
> If Cymbeline (2527 Solomani rim) is one end of the Vampire highway
> wouldn't Celetron (0922 Core), home of  Imperial Research Station
> Omicron be the other?

Maybe, but the route lead into the 'Black Curtain' so it was never known
for sure where it went.

I think the more likely destination was Core/Core, though, since the
Doomslayer strain wanted to kill Lucan.

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 16:02:34 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits

At 21:23 26/10/98 -0800, Steven Hudson wrote:

>  One advantage to riders (or any ship able to fill rider slots on a large
>enough tender) is that they can be carried to their repair slots. Further,
>not only should spare tenders occur in the normal course of events as riders
>attrit, but trips to the rear to deliver neutralized units to ports could
>also serve to bring forward _heavy_ SDB's (ideally designed to be nearly
>identical with the line IN riders).

While I've never found anything in canon to suggest this as IN policy if I
were in charge I would encourage systems to purchase standard IN BRs for
this reason. Another reason for this is that then you can 'borrow' system
SDBs for your fleet without needing to worry about nedding special parts, etc.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 16:05:57 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

At 23:32 26/10/98 -0600, Eris Reddoch wrote:

>Commerce raiders haven't been especially effective since the middle
>of the 19th century.  The CSA's raiders (like the Alabama) weren't
>all that effective and neither were the german raiders of either
>war. At least, it doesn't seem that way to me.

I guess that depends on whether or not you count German and American
submarines as commerce raiders.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 15:59:36 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)

At 19:17 26/10/98 -0800, Brannon "Ben" Boren wrote:

>PS: Does anyone else want to spew everytime they see a computer game
>referred to as an RPG?

Oh yes. I find this especially irksome given the current trend (Diablo,
etc) seems to be towards more killing and less plot and interaction
(compare to Ultima 7 or Ultima Underworld, for example).

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 16:11:09 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Guerre de course (was Re: Capital Ships of WWII)

At 00:23 27/10/98 -0800, Steven Hudson wrote:

>  Those German warships that did operate in distant waters early in 
>WW I could have been quite significant if they had possessed safe
>bases at which to resupply or wait out battle groups hunting them,
>or if the need to concentrate in home waters had forced the British
>to further strip their overseas posts. In the event British overall
>naval superiority allowed them to handle all of these eventualities
>at once, and the Germans lacked the needed bases. In WW II the UK was
>again able to prevent sustained sortying.

Didn't Admiral Graf Spee do quite well in WWI until the British caught him
with a BC or two?

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 16:16:00 -0500
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: Re: RPGs in the Future...  ;)

> >PS: Does anyone else want to spew everytime they see a computer game
> >referred to as an RPG?


A friend of mine recently commented thusly upon seeing my lunchtime
reading material (Trillion Credit Squadrons). 

" What!? Do people still do this stuff, with books and dice and
character sheets?  I figured everyone just played Quake."

I didn't know whether to get angry or sad. I tried to explain the social
aspect of a gaming group and how it beats shooting your coworkers into
meaty chunks via LAN QuakeII. The daily deathmatch is starting in about
45 minutes.

Unfortunately, I think most people are too lazy to make the effort to
create a character. 

"But those 3-D textures are so cool..."

Grrrrr

Bye,

Glenn

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1060
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Thursday, October 29 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1061



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits
Re: Contact: Krraaang!
Re: Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma
WOW!!!
Re: Pirate Questions
Re: Apology
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits
Re: Commerce Raiding
Re: Commerce Raiding
Test
Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Gum
Re: Jump and Piracy
Re: Guerre de course (was Re: Capital Ships of WWII)
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Fusion and the CNO Cycle (long)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 15:39:50 -0600
From: Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

Douglas Glatz wrote:
 
> >Talk to Eris...in one of his PBEM's our astrogator's sweating just
> >exactly this kind of problem...we could end up around the _wrong_ planet
> >in the system, with several days travel, and a hold full of delicate
> >frozen ring trout rapidly freezerburning...
 
> Have the starport supply a course.  The computer at the base should be able
> to calculate the best possible course, then you just have to follow their
> pre-generated (and possibly widely distributed) flight plan!  ;^)

Oh, it's much more complicated that that. ;-> More below.  

As for a pre-generated flight plan, he's got the latest "Jump Bible",
but IMTU every jump has a hands-on component where the Astrogator has
got to use his skill to refine the lock onto the target right up to
the very last second. All a pre-generated flight plan will do for you
is put you *somewhere* at the star's jumplimit...unless it misses
completely. ;->

<spoiler warning for my players again...except for Craig who already
knows just how complicated this jump is>

















The ship is jumping into a binary system: Mark and Segui. They want to
jump as close to the mainworld around Mark as possible to limit travel
time (delicate cargo, timed contract), but the mainworld is masked by
Mark. And Segui is just beginning to occlude Mark itself making things
even more difficult.  It looks something like this...they are at K and
want to jump to P, M is Mark, S is Segui and G is an gas giant
orbiting Mark... (best viewed with a monospaced font, and *not* to
scale)


           K



              S
              
             
        G   M
             P

The astrogator has three options. 

He can try the Formidable task of "threading the needle" past Segui's
jumplimit and hit Mark's jumplimit as near to the planet as possible.
If he makes it, the travel time will be minimized. If he fails badly
enough the ship could end up at Segui's jumplimit and have to refuel
there before jumping to Mark (lost time and money)...and he didn't do
to well on the last *Routine* jump. ;->

He can attempt a Routine Jump to Mark's jumplimit, avoiding a near
approach to Segui, with very little chance of failure, but the ship
will have to travel all the way around Mark to reach the planet. This
will take about two extra days, but is safest.

He can make a Routine jump to the inner jumplimit of gas giant G and
cut the time down to only an extra day, but there is a complication.
This gas giant is restricted by the Mark Navy (they have a base there)
and if he jumps *too* close the ship could be subject to fines and
will, unquestionably, be stopped and searched by a patrol ship. Does
the ship's Captain want to risk his ship being searched?

Folks, I've always used the jump-masking idea and *never* like to
allow a ship to jump directly to with shooting range of an inner
system system planet. IMTU, that *can* happen, but only rarely.  The
situation is more often similar to this one. Well, I admit this one is
a little more complicated than most. ;->


Eris

ps. Craig, feel free to have Martan explain all this to the other
characters if you want. ;->

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 16:45:52 -0500
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits

>At 21:23 26/10/98 -0800, Steven Hudson wrote:
>
>>...but trips to the rear to deliver neutralized units to ports could
>>also serve to bring forward _heavy_ SDB's (ideally designed to be nearly
>>identical with the line IN riders).
>
Rupert Boleyn;
>While I've never found anything in canon to suggest this as IN policy if I
>were in charge I would encourage systems to purchase standard IN BRs for
>this reason. Another reason for this is that then you can 'borrow' system
>SDBs for your fleet without needing to worry about nedding special parts, etc.

...And if I were a Planetary Administrator with the authority to buy SDBs,
I would make certain that they were *in*compatible with Imperial Battle
Riders so that they would *not* be taken away from me in a time of crisis.

55 ton heavy fighters anyone?

Remember that the decision makers of the Imperial Naval structure and the
decision makers setting up local defense fleets do not necessarily have the
same motivations.

Pete


                      Peter H. Brenton : pbrenton@mit.edu
"A Good Traveller has no fixed plans and no intent on arriving."
  -Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 16:12:00 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: Contact: Krraaang!

>I've never thought Virus was psionic in any way... (what was that gave you
>that impression, i'm curious?)  There would need to be some vector for
>infection though, other than the physical "commando chip" style...  Do the
>Krraaang! have any data sockets or other way to directly interface w/
>computers.  How do they communicate?  Do the Krraaang! use sentient ships?
>How would an artificial race use computers, or just plug one of themselves
>into the "ship?"  For that matter how were the Krraaang! created?  Kind of
>like the Mrmrnmhrm from Star Control (which were created by the "Precursors")?


First of all, I have to say that I haven't developed the Krraaang! in
detail yet, which is why I was asking the list about possiblities. :-)

To answer your first question, I considered Virus psionic because I had a
hard time believing in a real-world piece of software that had the
properties ascribed to Virus, even given the unusual nature of Cyberlime
chips. It is my impression that this was a *huge* flamewar subject on this
list at one time, and I don't want to get into that. Lets just say that
IMTU, it seemed to me the best answer. Virus is a psionic phenomena,
allowing infected systems to "possess" other electronic systems.

The reason I don't think the Krraaang! would be infected by Virus, assuming
its a physical phenomena, is the same as why I think it unlikely that a
human would be infected by a alien microbe. Or that a programmer could
crash the alien invader starship's computer with his Powerbook, for that
matter! :-) Different biologies, different technologies.

As for creation, I think I mentioned reading a short story once about the
end of the human race. They had reached the pinnacle of achievement, been
everywhere and done everything, got bored, and left the universe to their
artificial companions. I look them as being the children of another Ancient
race. IMTU, space outside of that known by the Imperium teems with life,
much of it spacefaring, and much of it older than Grandfather and his
children. (David Brin's Startide Rising was one of my favorite novels).

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 98 22:19:54 +0000
From: igor@king.truserve.com
Subject: Re: Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma

Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU> wrote:
> There's training, and there's experience. A Traveller character can have
> Medic-3 (and a doctor's license) right out of medical school, how does
> that compare to the medical skill of a Nurse-Anesthesiologist with
> a couple decades of experience? 

Very true. It is a shortcoming (a minor one, IMHO) of the skill system - the skills are
too broad. Now, I don't advocate more skills - for game purposes the number is just about
right.

I've toyed with the idea of specialization in my campaigns. A given engineer might have
Jump Engineering-3 but Maneuver Engineering-1. Its done with weapons, of course. There
could certainly be other breakdowns. 

For example, I would definately place my father at Medical:Anethesia-3 or 4, he's been
doing it for quite some time, he lectures others on it, and is considered an expert by his
peers (actually, he's speaking at a conference on the subject this week). However, his
general medical/surgical knowledge is probibly rated a 2.

But this is probibly too much detail for the medical skill.

> For MTU I put some rough labels on what to expect from levels of
> medical skill - and what medical skill to expect certain people to have.
> 
> Medic-0 : Basic First Aid (Boy Scout, CPR class)
> Medic-1 : Trained First Aid (Fireman, Battlefield Lifesaver Training,
>                experienced Lifeguard or Police Officer), Nurse
> Medic-2 : Paramedic or Surgical Assistant/Nurse Specialist
> Medic-3+ : Doctor (with Dex 8+, Surgeon)

I think this is a good table. I might use it myself :)

> Andy's father's _position_ would require Medic-2. His experience
> and training may not have taken him above Medic-2, as there are
> medical techniques he probably doesn't know (or at least has never
> had a chance to practice). However, his experience and training have 
> probably increased his Education (and perhaps his Intelligence) stat.

Without specialization, this would be a very good way of describing it, I suppose. 

My point to this whole thing was simply to note that I think Medical-3 is a level too high
for the anethesia requirement of trauma recovery. Especially considering your excellent
table above, I would say a Medical-2 anethetist is a Nurse Anth., while a Medical-3 would
be a anethesiologist. Both would be acceptable for surgery, and would excel for most
normal procedures. The doctor simply has more skill, and thus will be able to react better
to a crisis.

Again, sorry if this is being nit-picky. And I apologize for my spelling, even though my
father is one, I can never remember how to spell all of the anethesia terms/titles...

Andy Akins
igor@truserve.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 16:10:21 -0600
From: "Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Subject: WOW!!!

Been waiting patiently as everyone debated GT, now my Hardback version
arrived with Behind the Claw today.

Yahoooooo.
For a first glance, it sure ain't a LBB, but nothing but compliments for
Loren and SJG.
I like what I see.

TV

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 15:34:47 -0700
From: "Joseph Kimball" <HPJKimba@ihc.com>
Subject: Re: Pirate Questions

>>>>
  As for piracy, it's the concept of an on-going career in any region
with
detectable trade flows that I'm having trouble explaining credibly -
if you
smuggle and cheat at cards but simply wait for the perfect chance
(which
may never come) OK, but if you try and take a cargo every month or
whatever
then eventually you're going to get nailed - and if you're not doing
it far
from the trade nexuses then I don't believe you'll last long either.

        Steven Hudson
>>>>
The notion of an "old and bold" pirate is unlikely (especially IMTU).
 I think pirates certainly exist, but (like the historical pirates)
tend to be either disbanded or destroyed fairly quickly (many on the
first or second prize they attempt).  If you take a look at US
criminals (ok, so they aren't exactly pirates) they tend to have a
lower IQ than the general population.  That's why there are so many
"dumb criminal" stories (at least enough for a 0.5 hr weekly show in
the US).  There are smart criminals, but they are few, and even they
tend to be caught eventually.  There are pirates currently (1998), but
the majority are in the Malay Archipelago.  Their mode of operation is
to zoom out of a coastal (island) hiding place in a speedboat and then
board ships passing through the narrow passages between islands.  This
only works because there are navigational bottlenecks (which require
slow speed maneuvering) they can prey on that have enough hiding
places and support from local population.  Anti-piracy operations in
that area are hindered by the many hiding places and people who don't
want to tell on thier family/friends/neighbors.  Many ships that pass
through that area have taken to carrying a certain amount of weaponry
in their ship's locker to repel such boarders (which gets put away
when going to major ports).
So anyway, IMTU there are people dumb enough to think they can get
away with piracy.  Some of them even manage to make a living at it for
a short while (there might be one pirate of the "Dread Pirate Roberts"
level in the whole 3I), but many are gone after the first or second
attempt at it.  Of course, there are a fair number of dumb people out
there...
I agree that the IN would use anti-piracy sweeps as a training
ground.  I also think that there would be basically zero purpose built
pirate vessels, with most being converted traders of one sort or
another, with a (very small) scattering of mutinied military ships.
- - Joseph

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 23:29:28 -0800
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Re: Apology

Frank Pitt wrote:

> Some (or all) of you may have experienced "bounce" messages coming
> from postmaster@mundens.gen.nz over the last few days. This was due

 For your error Jon says you have to clean out the restroom with your
tooth
brush. At least that is what Gordon said.

- --
Ave et vale.
Evyn,
Warleader of the Clan MacDude
Solus Stellamilitia Ludus, 1998 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 14:42:52 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

Wed, 28 Oct 1998 00:06:38 -0800, Douglas Glatz <douglas@teleport.com>
>Then there is
>the fact that even tho' the skill of astrogation/navigation exists, it
>doesn't affect the outcome of a jump.  Largely, if you point your ship at a
>system several light years away, you pop out at the 100d point of the
>mainworld everytime (excepting major mis-jumps).

There is some canonic uncertainty in the exit point.  I don't remember what
it is, but it isn't that big (a few tens of thousands of km) and, given
interstellar
distances, still represents pretty precise navigation.

I point I'm made, which isn't canonical in itself but is derived from it,
is that there is a variation of about a day in when you come out.  There will
be some motion of the star system and of the planet in the orbit during
this period.  If we take 50 km/s as a typical value for all combined (IIRC
that is reasonable), you could end up 4 million km away form where
you intended...

Reading the star blocking the route to the planet.

I don't like the idea that you can be affected by mass on your route to your
exit point.  This implies that somehow jump space maps to regular
space and you do travel faster than the speed of light while you are there.

For me the point of jump space was to get around relativity in that you never
travel faster than the speed of light, you just stop out of the universe at
one point and step back in at another (And that is why it always takes a
week, it takes that long to transition to jumps space and back, otherwise,
why if you are travelling in a jump space that maps to regular space, why
wouldn't it take longer to travel further?)

Otherwise, the only other point is that the odds will be low that the star
will be in the way, but it could cause you to need to come out of jumps
space some distance away from the planet.

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 14:25:13 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits

At 16:45 28/10/98 -0500, Peter H. Brenton wrote:

[I wrote]:
>>While I've never found anything in canon to suggest this as IN policy if I
>>were in charge I would encourage systems to purchase standard IN BRs for
>>this reason. Another reason for this is that then you can 'borrow' system
>>SDBs for your fleet without needing to worry about nedding special parts,
etc.
>
>...And if I were a Planetary Administrator with the authority to buy SDBs,
>I would make certain that they were *in*compatible with Imperial Battle
>Riders so that they would *not* be taken away from me in a time of crisis.

I would, too. However I'm sure that with the offer of some of the work
being done lacally and a nice juicy discount, joint training exercises with
the In, etc, etc the politicians who control the system defence
pursedtrings could be persuaded to see it the Imperium's way.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 12:06:48
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Commerce Raiding

>From: russcm@zoomnet.net
>Subject: Raiders (Re: Capital Ships of WWII)
>
>Ocean-bound comerce raiders (with the exception, perhaps, of deep diving
>submarines) didn't have a ready means of unpursuable escape like jump
>engines. Commerce raiders could come in deep with enough fuel to jump out,
>drift in and pick targets, and when the heat got to hot, leave. This would
>not only have the affect of hurting commerce, but weekening front line
>forces by drawing off other heavy assets to cover against such hit and runs.

I'm not sure drifting in is the tactical way to go.

Drifting in has the problem that if you are picked up, then you wont be
dodging when the incoming fire arrives.

Going in all full power, maneuvering and being lit up like a Christmas tree
might be a better idea. A battlecruiser with weapons that go out to 500
000km and no need to actually match velocities with targets to capture them
could do quite a bit of havoc while dancing away from planet-based
light-lagged fire at about 3 light seconds (gives 6 seconds evasion from
planet-based fire, which turns into a zone of uncertainty of about a
kilometer at 5 gees acceleration). 900 kkm out with 500 kkm range weapons
will cover a fair chunk of a 800 000 km sphere.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 22:01:21 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Re: Commerce Raiding

At 12:06 PM 10/29/98, you wrote:
>
>>From: russcm@zoomnet.net
>>Subject: Raiders (Re: Capital Ships of WWII)
>>
>>Ocean-bound comerce raiders (with the exception, perhaps, of deep diving
>>submarines) didn't have a ready means of unpursuable escape like jump
>>engines. Commerce raiders could come in deep with enough fuel to jump out,
>>drift in and pick targets, and when the heat got to hot, leave. This would
>>not only have the affect of hurting commerce, but weekening front line
>>forces by drawing off other heavy assets to cover against such hit and runs.
>
>I'm not sure drifting in is the tactical way to go.
>
>Drifting in has the problem that if you are picked up, then you wont be
>dodging when the incoming fire arrives.
>
>Going in all full power, maneuvering and being lit up like a Christmas tree
>might be a better idea. A battlecruiser with weapons that go out to 500
>000km and no need to actually match velocities with targets to capture them
>could do quite a bit of havoc while dancing away from planet-based
>light-lagged fire at about 3 light seconds (gives 6 seconds evasion from
>planet-based fire, which turns into a zone of uncertainty of about a
>kilometer at 5 gees acceleration). 900 kkm out with 500 kkm range weapons
>will cover a fair chunk of a 800 000 km sphere.

Approach tactics would be dictated by the expected opposition. If the
raider is deep enough behind enemy lines, then drifting into the convoy and
ambushing would likely be the tactic of choice. If opposition is expected,
and if the raiding force is large enough, then lighting up and charging in
would be most effective.

Prudent commanders using the low power tactics would have an idea of the
expected enemy strength in the area before they enter the area anyway. If
they didn't, then the whole endeavor is likely doomed anyway. Fortunate
commanders may even have some small craft to conduct scouting.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 14:20:43 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Test

Test - (apologies for wasting bandwidth...)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 19:59:35 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits

...
>>attrit, but trips to the rear to deliver neutralized units to ports could
>>also serve to bring forward _heavy_ SDB's (ideally designed to be nearly
>>identical with the line IN riders).
>
>While I've never found anything in canon to suggest this as IN policy if I
>were in charge I would encourage systems to purchase standard IN BRs for
>this reason. Another reason for this is that then you can 'borrow' system
>SDBs for your fleet without needing to worry about needing special parts, etc.

  It could be an oversight (it isn't that important, overall), it could be
leaving something to the individual refs discretion, or it could be policy
(c'mon, rams were popular after Lissa, and it took everyone a long time to
realize that the "own goals" were getting out of hand - policy doesn't have
to be good, it need merely be implemented...).

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 23:58:13 -0500
From: Joe Pettit <jpettit@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

>
> For me the point of jump space was to get around relativity in that you never
> travel faster than the speed of light, you just stop out of the universe at
> one point and step back in at another (And that is why it always takes a
> week, it takes that long to transition to jumps space and back, otherwise,
> why if you are travelling in a jump space that maps to regular space, why
> wouldn't it take longer to travel further?)

But it DOESN'T take a week.  A successful jump is 6 to 8 days.  If you drop out
of the universe and pop back in and the physical universe has no affect on you in
jump space, there should be NO variation in time ESPECIALLY if you repeat the
process.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 00:05:46 EST
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Gum

>On Tue, 27 Oct 1998, Eris Reddoch wrote:
>
>> Hey, I've just got to tell ya'll.  I was looking for something to
>> watch on TV this weekend and found that ESPN 2 was broadcasting the
>> "Magic:  The Gathering World Championship."
>[snip]
>> Then
>> there was the money, $40,000 to the winner with $16,000 to, like the
>> 5th place guy...double sheeze!!!
>
>But the players probably spent that much on buying the dang cards. And
>they didn't even come with gum!

Personally, I never understood the apeal of bubble gum cards...there was only
one _decent_ piece of bubble gum in the package -- all those ones with the
pictures on them tasted like cardboard!

Loren Wiseman

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 18:01:58
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy

>From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
>Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
>
>
>This, I think, makes the proposition of a single SDB in mainworld orbit
>sufficient to prevent piracy a bit more difficult, no?

This is actually a smaller problem for system defense plotters than ships
randomly falling out along the surface of a 100 diameter limit mainworld
sphere.

Six small 100 000km spheres are easier to cover than one big 800 000km sphere.

Piaracy of ships going to and from the mainworld is made more difficult by
needing to match velocities with them after they have had a long time to
accelerate - a maerchant ship may not be able to stop in order to stand and
deliver ...

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 01:33:06 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Guerre de course (was Re: Capital Ships of WWII)

...
>>or if the need to concentrate in home waters had forced the British
>>to further strip their overseas posts. In the event British overall
>>naval superiority allowed them to handle all of these eventualities
>>at once, and the Germans lacked the needed bases. In WW II the UK was
>>again able to prevent sustained sortying.
>
>Didn't Admiral Graf Spee do quite well in WWI until the British caught him
>with a BC or two?

  Invincible & Inflexible detached from the Grand Fleet in late `14 to
hunt them down after their successes in the Pacific; one shudders to
think of how much ink would have been spilled since if a North Sea fleet
engagement had occurred in their absence.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 01:33:18 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard

>From: Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk>
...
>Today, I can make you a reasonable armour for an APC our of aluminium;
>better APC armour out of aluminium with a ERA exterior; fair armour for
>a tank out of steel; better armour for a tank our of steel with ERA; and
>outstanding armour for a tank out of Chobham composite.

  By Striker, composites are a higher TL replacement; aluminum is a fairly
special purpose alternative to other armour plate compositions, IIRC. The
issue of differing steels should be attributed to limitations in the TL
scaling system forced by playability considerations. Also, nothing yet has
offered an explanation for the increasing marginal cost of armour protection
given the representation of increased armour factors as increased quantity
of a given armour material.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 08:07:31 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

At 11:58 PM 10/28/98 -0500, you wrote:
>>
>> For me the point of jump space was to get around relativity in that you
never
>> travel faster than the speed of light, you just stop out of the universe at
>> one point and step back in at another (And that is why it always takes a
>> week, it takes that long to transition to jumps space and back, otherwise,
>> why if you are travelling in a jump space that maps to regular space, why
>> wouldn't it take longer to travel further?)
>
>But it DOESN'T take a week.  A successful jump is 6 to 8 days.  If you
drop out
>of the universe and pop back in and the physical universe has no affect on
you in
>jump space, there should be NO variation in time ESPECIALLY if you repeat the
>process.

Theory...

The jump you are performing is a method of traveling through 4 dimentional
space. You are not only traveling through physical space but also through
the temporal part of it as well. However, the physics of jump travel at TL
9 through x prevent accurate control of the 4th dimentional element, so one
jump takes around 7 days, give or take a day.

Perhaps at a tech level past x, accurate control of the 4th dimention in
jump will be possible, permitting limited forward and backward movement,
first by reducing the time in jump, then making them require no time, then
actually allowing for time travel.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 09:00:13 -0500
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Fusion and the CNO Cycle (long)

Introductory Note;
Ian Ferguson emailed me about the CNO cycle in the mistaken belief that,
since I work at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center, I kknow more than
squat about Fusion.

To set the record straight, I'm an administrator with some healthy interest
in the science, but without the background or retention capability to
explain anything in more than vague terms.  So like any good 'netizen, I
referred the question to my friend Rob Nachtrieb, a Grad Student and
one-time Traveller player.

This is what he wrote, specifically giving permission to post it here.  I
thought it was a good idea.

- -------Begin Long Technical Fusion Process Discussion-------

Hi Ian,

Peter Brenton forwarded your question to me, and I'll try to give a
lucid response.  Please feel free to post this to your Traveller's
list if you think it would be interesting.  Most of this information
is available in Krane, _Introductory Nuclear Physics_, Wiley, 1988,
pp. 534-538.

Yes, the CNO cycle for fusion is real.  Here's how it works.

First, some notation.  The element hydrogen is represented with the
symbol H, helium with He, lithium with Li, boron with B, berylium with
Be, carbon with C, nitrogen with N, oxygen with O, and so forth.
Isotopes of an element are labelled by their mass number, written
before the element symbol.  Hydrogen has three isotopes: 1H, 2H, 3H;
1H is called "protium", and is sometimes referred to with the label p;
2H is called "deuterium" and is sometimes referred to with the label
D; 3H is called "tritium and is sometimes referred to with the label
T.  An eV ("electron-volt") is a unit of energy; chemical reactions
release energy of order a few eV.  An MeV is a unit of energy equal to
a million eV; nuclear reactions release energy of order a few MeV.

Consider the situation when ordinary hydrogen, 1H, is the dominant
species present.  If the temperature of the hydrogen is high enough,
say around 15 million Kelvin, then the probability of thermonuclear
fusion reactions starts to become relatively high.  Specifically, the
following chain of reactions becomes possible:

(1)	1H + 1H --> 2H + positron + neutrino + 1.44 MeV,
(2)	2H + 1H --> 3He + gamma + 5.49 MeV,
(3)	3He + 3He --> 4He + 2 1H + gamma + 12.86 MeV,

which can be combined to form the net reaction

(4)	4 1H --> 4He + 2 positron + 2 neutrino + 26.7 MeV

Reaction (4) is known as the proton-proton cycle (p-p).

Some reactions are possible, but not likely if 1H is the dominant
species.  For instance, if the only source of deuterium is from
reaction (1), then while a 2H + 2H (or DD) reaction is possible it is
improbable.  Other reactions are just plain impossible, for instance
3He + 1H --> 4Li, since 4Li does not exist as a bound system and would
immediately split to form 3He and 1H.

For completeness it is worth mentioning that there are other ways one
could arrive at the p-p cycle, specifically,

	3He + 4He --> 7Be + gamma,
	7Be + electron --> 7Li + neutrino,
	7Li + 1H --> 2 4He,
or
	7Be + 1H --> 8B + gamma,
	8B --> 8Be + positron + neutrino,
	8Be --> 2 4He.

Which path is taken depends on the composition and temperature of the
fuel and the temperature.  In any case, the net reaction and energy
release is still described by (4).

Why is the p-p cycle important?  Because 1H is the most abundant
isotope in the universe, around 90%.  If one is travelling the
universe presumably one needs fuel to get around, and its a good bet
that 1H will be there for you.

The p-p cycle is also important because it is how heavier elements are
made in stars.

So what's wrong with the p-p cycle as described above?  Well, it's
slow.  The rate at which the full p-p reaction proceeds depends on the
rates of the individual reactions in the chain, and it turns out that
the deuterium reaction is slower than all the other reactions in the
chain.  The deuterium reaction is the "bottleneck."

If we now relax the condition above that 1H is the dominant species
and allow the presence of a significant amount of carbon, then the
following reactions are possible:

(5)	12C + 1H --> 13N + gamma,
(6)	13N --> 13C + positron + neutrino,
(7)	13C + 1H --> 14N + gamma,
(8)	14N + 1H --> 15O + gamma,
(9)	15O --> 15N + positron + neutrino,
(10)	15N + 1H --> 12C + 4He.

Reactions (5) through (10) together are known as the CNO cycle.  If
you add up the reactions in the CNO cycle you get (4) again.  You can
see that there is no net creation or destruction of 12C; the 12C acts
as a catalyst.  The CNO cycle takes protium (1H) and makes helium
(4He) and energy (26.7 MeV), but the net reaction proceeds much faster
than the p-p cycle since it bypasses the bottleneck deuterium reaction
(1).

In general the CNO cycle requires higher temperatures than the p-p
cycle, but you get more power per unit mass of fuel.  One may compare
the output power per unit fuel mass of the CNO and p-p cycles as a
function of temperature.  At about 15 million Kelvin they are about
the same at 1 milliwatt/kg of fuel (reactor mass not included).  But
at a relatively modest increase in temperature to 50 million Kelvin,
CNO puts out around 1 megawatt/kg of fuel while p-p puts out just 10
milliwatts/kg of fuel; CNO beats p-p by a factor of 10^8.  One can see
the advantage of the CNO cycle if 1H is your fuel.  To put this in
context, Earth's star puts out around 0.2 milliwatts/kg and has a core
temperature of around 15 million Kelvin.

Note that other reactions are possible that occur at much faster rates
than either the p-p cycle or the CNO cycle.  Specifically, if you had
plenty of deuterium and tritium and you had a way of heating it to
about 100 million Kelvin, then the reaction

(11)	2H + 3H --> 4He + neutron + 3.5 MeV

proceeds about 10^26 times faster than the p-p cycle (for the same
fuel temperature and density).  In fact this is the fusion reaction,
called DT, that we're trying to get going first on Earth, because
seawater contains plenty of deuterium and we can "breed" tritium via

	6Li + neutron --> 3H + 3He + 4.78 MeV.

If you only have deuterium, you're still in business because the
DD and D-3He reactions,

	2H + 2H --> 3He + neutron + 3.3 MeV,
	2H + 2H --> 3H + 1H + 4.0 MeV,
	2H + 3He --> 4He + 1H + 18.3 MeV,

all proceed only 10 times slower than DT at 100 million Kelvin and the
same fuel densities.

I hope this answers your question!

Regards,
Rob Nachtrieb

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1061
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Thursday, October 29 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1062



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Extended System Generation
Re: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)
re: Commerce Raiding
Jump Space, HERO System & Software
Imperial Marine Miniatures
Skill Specialization (was: Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma)
Re:  Milky Way
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
A modest proposal
Re: Jump and Piracy
Re: Extended System Generation
Re: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)
Re: Jump Space, HERO System & Software
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
accrete stats
Re: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)
Re: Milky Way
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Re: Milky Way
Re: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Re: Vampire highway

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 17:54:58 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

> One way of compressing space is by storing the random number seed
> used to generate the system. Since computerized random numbers have
> the same patterns if generated from the same seed.

Only if you use the same algorithm. Change compilers, or even compiler
*versions* and the seed doesn't give the same results. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 16:16:27 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)

In mail you write:

> Developments by Tech Level :-
>
> TL 0. Knowledge is accumulated by trial and error and transmitted
> from family member to family member. Mysticism is inevitable.
> Apart from a few plant and animal-based remedies, there are no effective
> medical treatments. Surgery is restricted to splinting and bandaging.

Actually, surgery at TL 0 includes such things as trephining (would you
believe *brain* surgery!). You see, TL 0 cutting implements are
*inherently* sterile until they've been used. And since they are also
*sharpest* when freshly made (freshly chipped from flint), they wind up
using sterile instruments "naturally". 

Weird but true.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 09:13:55 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Commerce Raiding

I was reading about the most famous commerce raiders, the Azhanti
High Lightnings (from the supplement that came with the boardgame),
and noticed something I hadn't recalled before.
AHL's are described as different because they are one of the few ships
_below capital class_ to carry such a powerful meson screen.

A 60,000tn, spinal-mount equipped warship is _not_ considered a
capital ship, it's a fleet auxiliary (in this case, an intruder).

Could it be that AHL isn't a "capital" ship because of it's mission
(independent ops), rather than it's size or armament?

Or would this reading indicate that only Battlecruisers and above are
considered capital ships, and that cruisers are not?

Ian Whitchurch wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Going in all full power, maneuvering and being lit up like a Christmas tree
might be a better idea. A battlecruiser with weapons that go out to 500
000km and no need to actually match velocities with targets to capture them
could do quite a bit of havoc ...
<snip>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Not to mention scaring the wits out of every merchant vessel within
sensor range. You'll probably have to order them out of port at gunpoint,
even if they're out of the BC's interception envelope.

I can even see this as a cover. BC _Glamdring_ comes in burning full
G's, firing at everything in sight and generally making a noisy
nuisance of itself before jumping to safety. CL's _Sting_, _Bowie_
and _Skean Dhu_ jump in-system on a different vector while the
big show is going on and lurk a little bit, setting themselves up to
be choosy later on.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 08:44:15 -0600 (CST)
From: "Jason Kemp" <Jason.Kemp@tdh.state.tx.us>
Subject: Jump Space, HERO System & Software

I'm new to the list, and just getting back into Traveller after eight 
years.  (I got out with TNE, because I didn't like where the system 
was heading.  My bad.)  As my gamers are die-hard HERO System gamers, 
I am looking for any information that might be available on 
conversions from Traveller to HERO.  (I've found the info on personal 
weapons and starships, but I was wondering if anything else had been 
done and was available.  Please feel free to contact me privately, as 
I don't want to waste bandwidth on a singular request.

Also, can anyone recommend any software that generates extended 
system details in a database or text file format, for an IBM?  How 
about world detail generation under the same conditions, ala Grand 
Survey/Grand Census or World Builder's Handbook?  Thanks.

Random Comment on Jump Space:  The reason that jumps take 6 to 8 days 
may not be due to the fact that the physical universe imparts some 
effect on the Jump Space sub-structure, but that the Jump Space 
sub-structure that Traveller vessels move through are not congruent 
temporally with our physical universe, and thus a new calculation 
must be made every time to plot through the variations in the 
universal sub-structure (and other pseudo-science techno-babble) to 
fold the ship into jump space and back out.  Such variations cause 
the differences in Jump Space between two points on a constant basis, 
and thus no two ships entering Jump Space under nearly identical 
conditions take the exact same time to travel to the same place.  
(This is how I justify the game mechanic IMTU.  Hope it helps.)

Thanks again for your time.

Jason Kemp
============================
Jason Kemp, ADS Programmer I
(512)458-7111 ext. 3375

Internet Address: jason.kemp@tdh.state.tx.us

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 10:05:43 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Imperial Marine Miniatures

Been looking at different minis, and noticed that the UNSC models for
StarGrunt look a lot like Traveller Marines, right down to the extended
back to the helmets. Various other models in the same line would also work
well for Traveller, and the vectored jet aircraft can easily be modified
into grav vehicles.

The web site for Ground Zero Games (the manufacturer) is hosted by GeoHex
(www.geohex.com I think).

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 10:07:59 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Skill Specialization (was: Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma)

igor@king.truserve.com writes:
>I've toyed with the idea of specialization in my campaigns. A given
>engineer might have
>Jump Engineering-3 but Maneuver Engineering-1. Its done with weapons, of
>course. There
>could certainly be other breakdowns. 

My solution would be to have the geneal skill and let the player pick a
specilization. They then either get a bonus in the specialty area, or have
a penalty outside it. The Babylon Project does it the first way, Space
1889 the second. Either works as long as you are consistent.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 10:04:49 -0500
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil>
Subject: Re:  Milky Way

From: "Harold D. Hale" <hdhale@mindspring.com>

<some stuff snipped>

THE MILKY WAY GALAXY

   STAR FORMATION RATE:            10 stars per year
   TOTAL VISUAL LUMINOSITY:        About 15 billion Suns
   TOTAL MASS:                     Roughly a trillion Suns
   SUN'S ORBITAL PERIOD:           230 million years

Regards,
Harold


I had the pleasure of sitting in the hottub on the Outer Banks of North
Carolina 2 weeks ago, looking up at the said Milky Way.  Without many
vacationers there (it is out of season, though ocean water was nice),
the light pollution was negligible....  

I was struck again at how vast the stars are, and how small we are.

Question from the above....  Star Formation:  How do stars form?  How
long does it take, and is there one forming within the 3I?

Greg

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 16:20:20 +0000
From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

Eris wrote:

>The astrogator has three options.

>He can try the Formidable task of "threading the needle" past Segui's
<snip>

>He can attempt a Routine Jump to Mark's jumplimit, avoiding a near
<snip>


>He can make a Routine jump to the inner jumplimit of gas giant G and
<snip>



>Folks, I've always used the jump-masking idea and *never* like to
>allow a ship to jump directly to with shooting range of an inner
>system system planet. IMTU, that *can* happen, but only rarely.  The
>situation is more often similar to this one. Well, I admit this one is
>a little more complicated than most. ;->


You *will* tell us what they decide and how it turns out, won't you?



tc

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 16:33:24 +0000
From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk
Subject: A modest proposal

I'm really fascinated by the pirate debate but just don't have time to
follow every twist and turn of every thread regarding it.

How about some kind of formal 'debate' (via e-mail or onlist whatever folk
want) that could then maybe be put up on a web site (how about Jeff's
Freelance Traveller for example?).  Newbies could read the main arguments;
those who wish to talk about finer points would have a base to refer to
etc.  Who knows, perhaps Andy Lilly could even be persuaded to publish it!

I haven't spent much time thinking about the 'rules' but something along
the lines of the following (which could of course be changed if people
want):

You'd need a formal proposal to 'debate' along the lines of:
In the opinion of this mailing list piracy isn't economic in the Traveller
universe.

Someone (or a group of people with a nominated 'spokesman') would argue FOR
the motion in not more than 1000 words with, say, two tables allowed to be
included.  Paragraphs to be numbered for ease of reference.  Citations of
books to be included within the 1000 words.

Someone (or a group of people with a nominated 'spokesman') would argue
AGAINST the motion in not more than 1000 words with, say, two tables
allowed to be included.  Paragraphs to be numbered for ease of reference.
Citations of books to be included within the 1000 words.

A referee receives both documents and then mails them to everyone
interested (or the mailing list if the list's happy with that) for a second
round of rebuttals.  These would be again 1000 words maximum responding to
points made by the 'opponents'.

A third round would give a final chance to respond to the rebuttals and
'conclude' and again be limited to, say, 1000 words.

The referee could edit the document for grammar/puncutation/spelling etc.
Thus we'd end up with some 6000 words on the subject in, hopefully, a
fairly coherent form that would contain the main for and against arguments.


I'm willing to referee unless someone else wants to.  So are there any
takers to take one side or the other?  (Interestingly enough, if groups of
people submit their contributions to their spokesman, there's no actual
reason why people couldn't argue on *both* sides of the debate!)

Anyone think this would work/be useful?

tc

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 09:05:24 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy

>>From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
>>Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
>>
>>
>>This, I think, makes the proposition of a single SDB in mainworld orbit
>>sufficient to prevent piracy a bit more difficult, no?
>
>This is actually a smaller problem for system defense plotters than ships
>randomly falling out along the surface of a 100 diameter limit mainworld
>sphere.


You misunderstood my meaning - it takes an experienced and talented
astrogator to plot a course direct to the mainworld.  The default radials
lead to the *stellar* 100d limit, the 6 would be scattered around the
diameter of the system *primary*, not the mainworld.

Additionally, those systems with a companion may very well interrupt one or
more of the radials leading to the mainworld...  hmmm...

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 12:06:15 -0500 (EST)
From: Imaginactra <russcm@shell.zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Leonard Erickson wrote:

> > One way of compressing space is by storing the random number seed
> > used to generate the system. Since computerized random numbers have
> > the same patterns if generated from the same seed.
> Only if you use the same algorithm. Change compilers, or even compiler
> *versions* and the seed doesn't give the same results. 
There is a better way. PC compatable computers have a free running clock
that can be accessed using basic IO calls. I believe this clock can be
accessed at IO address 40h but if you need this address ask and I'll
confirm it.

By fetching a number from this clock at periodic intervals, you can in
essence grab more or less random numbers for use as a seed number. Either
grab a number at the beginning of the code segment that needs a random
sequence, or grab a seed each time you need a number.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 07:55:24 -0800
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Re: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)

At 04:16 PM 10/28/98 PST, you wrote:

>Actually, surgery at TL 0 includes such things as trephining (would you
>believe *brain* surgery!). You see, TL 0 cutting implements are
>*inherently* sterile until they've been used. And since they are also
>*sharpest* when freshly made (freshly chipped from flint), they wind up
>using sterile instruments "naturally". 

There is also extensive evidence that some patients survived for years
after have their skulls opened.  Some trepanned skulls show great amounts
of healing.  Makes you wonder what they were doing in there?
- --

Douglas E. Berry
Templar Agent at Large.
dberry@hooked.net  
http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/gateway.html 

TravGeekCode: 
tc+ tm+ !tn- t4@ ?tg+ tt@ to(CORPS)++ ru@ $ge++ 3i
ii+ au st+ ls+ pi kk+ so(++) va++ dr+ zh+ sw++ ?da
         

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 09:10:49 -0800 (PST)
From: Brannon Boren <brannonb@animal.blarg.net>
Subject: Re: Jump Space, HERO System & Software

On Thu, 29 Oct 1998, Jason Kemp wrote:

> I'm new to the list, and just getting back into Traveller after eight 
> years.  (I got out with TNE, because I didn't like where the system 
> was heading.  My bad.)  As my gamers are die-hard HERO System gamers, 
> I am looking for any information that might be available on 
> conversions from Traveller to HERO.  (I've found the info on personal 
> weapons and starships, but I was wondering if anything else had been 
> done and was available.  Please feel free to contact me privately, as 
> I don't want to waste bandwidth on a singular request.

Actually it isn't a singular request. I'm working on converting my T4 game
into HERO right now.

My rough idea is to let the PCs have points in a skill equal to their
level under t4.  So a T4 character with Stealth-2, would get 2 points to
spend on Stealth skill under HERO (11-). Obviously there will be a fudge
factor, but this is my basic plan. Also I will give them a number of
points to spend on 'character skills' - i.e. hobbies, knowledge skills,
area knowledges, and such skills that are devoted primarily to fleshing
out the character.

Let me know if you get any brilliant ideas!  :)

Ben

- --
Brannon (Ben) Boren
brannonb@blarg.net
http://www.solaria.net/brannonb/index.html  

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 09:14:13 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

>
>Reading the star blocking the route to the planet.
>
>I don't like the idea that you can be affected by mass on your route to
your
>exit point.  This implies that somehow jump space maps to regular
>space and you do travel faster than the speed of light while you are there.
>
>For me the point of jump space was to get around relativity in that you
never
>travel faster than the speed of light, you just stop out of the universe at
>one point and step back in at another (And that is why it always takes a
>week, it takes that long to transition to jumps space and back, otherwise,
>why if you are travelling in a jump space that maps to regular space, why
>wouldn't it take longer to travel further?)
>
>Otherwise, the only other point is that the odds will be low that the star
>will be in the way, but it could cause you to need to come out of jumps
>space some distance away from the planet.


Gravity effects on J-Space have been around since the LBBs.  I'm not sure
where (it's been a while since I've cracked the basic 3), but I believe it
was originally in the subsector generation text, there was a paragraph about
placing black holes in empty hexes, and the fact that it would drag a ship
from J-Space.

Then, there is the effect of the 100d limit forcing a ship to revert to
realspace.

IMTU, only the strongest of gravity wells (i.e. blackhole) can drag a ship
out of J-space once the J-field stabilizes.  Only at the very beginning
(while the field is still stabilizing) and end (when it has attenuated to a
fraction of it's original strength) can gravity affect it.  Which is why
jumping from within a gravity well causes misjumps (distortion of the
J-Field) and why ships propogate out of jump at the 100d mark at the end of
their jump, but can essentially jump "over" systems using a higher rated
J-drive.

Of course, all this *is* IMTU rules...  ;^)

douglas

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 09:20:46 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

>Theory...
>
>The jump you are performing is a method of traveling through 4 dimentional
>space. You are not only traveling through physical space but also through
>the temporal part of it as well. However, the physics of jump travel at TL
>9 through x prevent accurate control of the 4th dimentional element, so one
>jump takes around 7 days, give or take a day.
>
>Perhaps at a tech level past x, accurate control of the 4th dimention in
>jump will be possible, permitting limited forward and backward movement,
>first by reducing the time in jump, then making them require no time, then
>actually allowing for time travel.


That's scary.

IMTU, the time variation is based on the individual J-drive, harmonics in
the J-field (set up by irregularities and damage to the Lanthanum grid) and
the specific gravity fields present when the jump is set up.  Because these
are *measurable* and, with a skilled enough engineer, to some extent
controllable (or compensatable), ships with the appropriate Generation
software can perform coordinated Jumps.

douglas

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 13:38:09 EST
From: "Sean Nelson" <sean_c_nelson@hotmail.com>
Subject: accrete stats

I've downloaded Chris Webb's wonderful ACCRETE world-building programs 
(a kudos to TML's Mr. Berry for an excellent Traveller site).

As I am scientifically challenged, I have trouble comprehending some of 
the statistics the program produces for each ball of rock it creates.

For example, the program will tell me the density of the world it 
creates in g/cc.  Seeing I have no idea what earth's density is in g/cc 
I can't tell how extreme or common this stat is.

Any suggestions on a site or book that might tell me some earth's vital 
stats (of use to a Traveller player) that will help discern all of this 
info (without getting too bogged down in a technical text)? 

Has anybody collected the same ACCRETE stats for earth or any other of 
the solar system's planets?

- -Sean

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 13:45:34 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Re: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)

Douglas Berry wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There is also extensive evidence that some patients survived for years
after have their skulls opened.  Some trepanned skulls show great amounts
of healing.  Makes you wonder what they were doing in there?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Worst case: letting evil spirits out of the poor posessed person's head.

Best case: reducing pressure inside the skull from a head injury.

Weird case: Just to see if they could.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 12:11:01 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Milky Way

Greg Smith wrote:
 
> I had the pleasure of sitting in the hottub on the Outer Banks of North
> Carolina 2 weeks ago, looking up at the said Milky Way.  Without many
> vacationers there (it is out of season, though ocean water was nice),
> the light pollution was negligible....
> 
> I was struck again at how vast the stars are, and how small we are.

The best place I have ever seen for viewing the Milky Way is on the road
to Puerto Penasco in Mexico, in the middle of the ___ Pincante (sp)
Wilderness Area.  You're about 45 miles from _any_ civilization, the
humidity is very low (no haze) and once your eyes adapt to the dark
you're treated to a glorious multicolored light filled band across the
sky. Incredible!!!

We had trouble making out the common constellations because we could see
too _many_ stars...

Gives you a great appreciation for what our distant ancestors viewed in
the skies every night...

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 14:48:40 -0600
From: Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk wrote:
 
> >The astrogator has three options.
> 
> >He can try the Formidable task of "threading the needle" past Segui's
> <snip>
> 
> >He can attempt a Routine Jump to Mark's jumplimit, avoiding a near
> <snip>
> 
> >He can make a Routine jump to the inner jumplimit of gas giant G and
> <snip>

> You *will* tell us what they decide and how it turns out, won't you?

Sure, if you're interested. ;->  

Eris

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 15:52:54 -0500
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Milky Way

>Greg Smith wrote:
>
>> I had the pleasure of sitting in the hottub on the Outer Banks of North
>> Carolina 2 weeks ago, looking up at the said Milky Way.  Without many
>> vacationers there (it is out of season, though ocean water was nice),
>> the light pollution was negligible....
>>
>> I was struck again at how vast the stars are, and how small we are.
>
>The best place I have ever seen for viewing the Milky Way is on the road
>to Puerto Penasco in Mexico, in the middle of the ___ Pincante (sp)
>Wilderness Area.

My favorite spot; Chebeague (pronounced She-big) Island Maine, on Casco
Bay, where there are maybe a dozen streetlights on the whole (4mi. x 1mi.)
island, the nearest "city" (Portland) is 12 miles down the coast, and the
residents tend to go to bed at 8pm.  Pollution is nonexistent, traffic
likewise.

It's especially nice in mid-February, when the air temp drops below 20F (-8
or so C I think) and the stillness is overwhelming.  I can remember once
noticing the *reflection* of starlight on a frozen snowfield, and moonlight
can be blinding.  Chilly, but quite moving.

Ah, memories.



By the way, visiting that place was just like visiting a world 2-3 tech
levels behind; all TL 4+ items were imported at considerable cost, were
purchased for their ease of local maintanence, and were maintained well
beyond their typical useful life.  My Uncle who lives there has a 30s era
tractor that he keeps re-reparing with scavenged and improvised parts.  You
as likely to see a 1950 International Scout as a 1995 Jeep Cherokee.

Pete


                      Peter H. Brenton : pbrenton@mit.edu
"A Good Traveller has no fixed plans and no intent on arriving."
  -Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 16:28:54 -0500
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)

- -----Original Message-----
From: dberry@hooked.net <dberry@hooked.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Thursday, October 29, 1998 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)


>At 04:16 PM 10/28/98 PST, you wrote:
>
>>Actually, surgery at TL 0 includes such things as trephining (would you
>>believe *brain* surgery!). You see, TL 0 cutting implements are
>>*inherently* sterile until they've been used. And since they are also
>>*sharpest* when freshly made (freshly chipped from flint), they wind up
>>using sterile instruments "naturally".
>
>There is also extensive evidence that some patients survived for years
>after have their skulls opened.  Some trepanned skulls show great amounts
>of healing.  Makes you wonder what they were doing in there?
>--
>
>Douglas E. Berry
>
I saw a show on the Discovery channel where some ancient skulls showed
evidence of multiple (IIRC at least 3) surgeries where the patient survived
them all.  They were showing the cuts, mostly rectangular/square, and how
healing was apparent around the edges of the "holes", with some of the holes
"obviuously" (to them anyway) older than others.  Quite enlightening!!!!
Thom <God I love PBS and The History Channel> Harris

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 13:54:39 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

Wed, 28 Oct 1998 23:58:13 -0500, Joe Pettit <jpettit@ix.netcom.com>

>> For me the point of jump space was to get around relativity in that you
>>never
>> travel faster than the speed of light, you just stop out of the universe at
>> one point and step back in at another (And that is why it always takes a
>> week, it takes that long to transition to jumps space and back, otherwise,
>> why if you are travelling in a jump space that maps to regular space, why
>> wouldn't it take longer to travel further?)

>But it DOESN'T take a week.  A successful jump is 6 to 8 days.

Well, of course.  The point was that it doesn't correlate with distance.
If you do a microjump the average time is the same as if you do a jump
6.

>  If you drop out
>of the universe and pop back in and the physical universe has no affect on
>you in
>jump space, there should be NO variation in time ESPECIALLY if you repeat the
>process.

That isn't clear to me at all...

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 11:08:20 +1300
From: pbroeder@wave.co.nz
Subject: Re: Vampire highway

> If Cymbeline (2527 Solomani rim) is one end of the Vampire highway
> wouldn't Celetron (0922 Core), home of  Imperial Research Station
> Omicron be the other?

Maybe, but the route lead into the 'Black Curtain' so it was never known

for sure where it went.

I think the more likely destination was Core/Core, though, since the
Doomslayer strain wanted to kill Lucan.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I thought that that was just the "evangalcal Doomslayer " variant. Not
all Viruses were infected with this - the others just had a sort of
vague feeling that they'd like to kill him - not a compulsion.

Maybe the "Evangalcal Doomslayers" continue on from Celetron to Capital
and the others just can't be bothered? ( a sort of  Vampire Bypass?? )

Jonathan B.

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1062
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Friday, October 30 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1063



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: A modest proposal
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Go Baby Go!
Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)
Re:  Milky Way
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1062
Re: Jump Space, HERO System & Software
Re: accrete stats
Kraang!
Medicine, Deckplans
G:T - "Behind the Claw"
Re: Gum
Re: G:T - "Behind the Claw"
Re: G:T - "Behind the Claw"
Behind the Claw
Re: Milky Way
[OT]Leaving for a week...
Re: G:T - "Behind the Claw"
Re: Gum
OT: Washington, DC
Re: Gum 
Re: Milky Way
Re: Gum

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 17:07:23 -0500
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: A modest proposal

_______________________________________________
From Tim Collinson:
I'm really fascinated by the pirate debate but just don't have time to
follow every twist and turn of every thread regarding it.

How about some kind of formal 'debate' (via e-mail or onlist whatever folk
want) that could then maybe be put up on a web site (how about Jeff's
Freelance Traveller for example?).  Newbies could read the main arguments;
those who wish to talk about finer points would have a base to refer to
etc.  Who knows, perhaps Andy Lilly could even be persuaded to publish it!

I haven't spent much time thinking about the 'rules' but something along
the lines of the following (which could of course be changed if people
want):

You'd need a formal proposal to 'debate' along the lines of:
In the opinion of this mailing list piracy isn't economic in the Traveller
universe.

Someone (or a group of people with a nominated 'spokesman') would argue FOR
the motion in not more than 1000 words with, say, two tables allowed to be
included.  Paragraphs to be numbered for ease of reference.  Citations of
books to be included within the 1000 words.

Someone (or a group of people with a nominated 'spokesman') would argue
AGAINST the motion in not more than 1000 words with, say, two tables
allowed to be included.  Paragraphs to be numbered for ease of reference.
Citations of books to be included within the 1000 words.

A referee receives both documents and then mails them to everyone
interested (or the mailing list if the list's happy with that) for a second
round of rebuttals.  These would be again 1000 words maximum responding to
points made by the 'opponents'.

A third round would give a final chance to respond to the rebuttals and
'conclude' and again be limited to, say, 1000 words.

The referee could edit the document for grammar/puncutation/spelling etc.
Thus we'd end up with some 6000 words on the subject in, hopefully, a
fairly coherent form that would contain the main for and against arguments.


I'm willing to referee unless someone else wants to.  So are there any
takers to take one side or the other?  (Interestingly enough, if groups of
people submit their contributions to their spokesman, there's no actual
reason why people couldn't argue on *both* sides of the debate!)

________________________________________________
From Thom Harris:
Fine by me, if you would really like to do it (read this as, having the
shiny brass, round, dangly ones to handle it!)
________________________________________________
Back to Tim:
Anyone think this would work/be useful?


tc
________________________________________________

Sounds like a good suggestion to me. A really "sound" idea. (Slight pun
intended.) I'll volunteer to take on the role of writer/spokesperson in
advocacy FOR Piracy if there are no other brave souls ready to jump on it.

I just dug out ALL my Traveller books (GDW, Fasa, GDP, Judges Guild, IG,
Seeker, SoK, etc.) which is roughly 90%+/- of all PUBLISHED canon material.
I got my engine running and I'm ready to start researching now.

Thom Harris

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 17:38:10 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

At 09:20 AM 10/29/98 -0800, you wrote:
>>Theory...
>>
>>The jump you are performing is a method of traveling through 4 dimentional
>>space. You are not only traveling through physical space but also through
>>the temporal part of it as well. However, the physics of jump travel at TL
>>9 through x prevent accurate control of the 4th dimentional element, so one
>>jump takes around 7 days, give or take a day.
>>
>>Perhaps at a tech level past x, accurate control of the 4th dimention in
>>jump will be possible, permitting limited forward and backward movement,
>>first by reducing the time in jump, then making them require no time, then
>>actually allowing for time travel.
>
>
>That's scary.
>
>IMTU, the time variation is based on the individual J-drive, harmonics in
>the J-field (set up by irregularities and damage to the Lanthanum grid) and
>the specific gravity fields present when the jump is set up.  Because these
>are *measurable* and, with a skilled enough engineer, to some extent
>controllable (or compensatable), ships with the appropriate Generation
>software can perform coordinated Jumps.
>
>douglas

Actually, there is room for both theorem, just increases the number of
variables involved in making a jump. Even more scary.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 14:52:34 -0800
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Go Baby Go!

In the midst of all our debates on piracy, the Imperial Navy, and all the
other details of the Travellerverse that occupies our time, may I take a
small portion of bandwidth for a bit of real life?

STS-95, carrying John Glenn and six other crewmembers launched from KSC
this morning.  Thirty-six years after becoming the first American to orbit
the Earth, Colonel Glenn is bringing all of us one step closer to the stars.

God Speed, John Glenn.
- --

+-------------------------------------+
| Douglas E. Berry  dberry@hooked.net |
|    http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/   |
+-------------------------------------+
| "Some days, you just can't get rid  |
|  of a bomb!"                        |
|     -Adam West, the REAL Batman     |
+-------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 14:54:49 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Jump and Piracy (new idea I'm playing with, bear with me...)

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 09:14:13 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
>>For me the point of jump space was to get around relativity in that you
>never
>>travel faster than the speed of light, you just stop out of the universe at
>>one point and step back in at another (And that is why it always takes a
>>week, it takes that long to transition to jumps space and back, otherwise,
>>why if you are travelling in a jump space that maps to regular space, why
>>wouldn't it take longer to travel further?)
>>
>>Otherwise, the only other point is that the odds will be low that the star
>>will be in the way, but it could cause you to need to come out of jumps
>>space some distance away from the planet.

>Gravity effects on J-Space have been around since the LBBs.

The point isn't that Gravity affects Jump Space.  The point is
that a Jump isn't traveller through a space where you can draw
a corresponding line in normal space to show your course.  (In
fact, my interpretation is that you don't "travel" through jump
space at all).

This doesn't mean you can't misjump (or whatever) if you try and
jump (or come out of jump) too close to a body.

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 15:00:28 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re:  Milky Way

>Question from the above....  Star Formation:  How do stars form?  How
>long does it take, and is there one forming within the 3I?

Stars condense out of framgents inside dense molecular clouds of cold
gas. The process is poorly understood, but takes a long time (roughly,
the steps are 
(1) Cloud of gas breaking apart into gragments
(2) Fragments begin to collapse
(3) Collapsed framgents heat up and become protostars
(4) Collapsing material concentrates in an accretion disk; object becoms
a T Tauri star
(5) gas flows *out* from the poles of the star while continuing to flow *in*
from the disk
(6) Gas outflow blows away the rest of the fragment, halting inflow of gas
except for the little bit left in the disk
(7) Planets form in the disk.

The nearest big star forming region is the Taurus-Auriga dark cloud, about
100-150 pc from Earth. With a little distortion, you could assume that
Dark Nebula sector represents this... Does anyone have any other suggestions?
The nerest heavy-duty big-star region (Orion) is outside of Charted Space.
There will also be quite a few isolated youngish stars that stillr etain
their disks inside Imperial space, too. (Great places for pirates to hide -
the dense dust in the disk really cuts down sensor ranges. Possibly full of
interesting interstellar organics, exotic leftover post-supernova elements,
etc...)

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 23:02:28 +0000
From: Richard Talbot <richardt@post.almac.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1062

Re The Imperial Marine Miniatures

The Ground Zero games stuff is good and yes the UNSC marines are almost
Imperial Marines.  If you ever search second hand stalls/shops watch for
the TNE Regency Marines by RAFM Minitures.  I have 2 packs of these and
they also fit the Imperial Marine bill.  Anyone else have the RAFM
figures espcially the Aslan and Vargr ones?
- -- 
Regards 
Richard Talbot - Alloa, Scotland - http://www.almac.co.uk/richardt
Contact: richardt@post.almac.co.uk - ICQ:15535153
Join British Isles Traveller Support "Its the only way to be sure"

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 16:56:19 -0600
From: "Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Subject: Re: Jump Space, HERO System & Software

If anyone has the time and uses Mirc.  
There is a chat #herochat where things like this get discussed.
I need some folks who will talk sci fi conversions sometimes.

TV

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 15:15:49 -0800
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Re: accrete stats

At 01:38 PM 10/29/98 EST, you wrote:
>I've downloaded Chris Webb's wonderful ACCRETE world-building programs 
>(a kudos to TML's Mr. Berry for an excellent Traveller site).

*Blush*  I live for feedback.  I'll take this chance to announce that I've
made significant changes to Sylea Downport.. gone is the 64k graphic (which
was of Denver International Airport.. the Imperial Sunburst covered the
United Airlines logo.  The Bilandin underneath read "Super Shuttle", the
company I work for.)

The Silly Era has been changed, losing the black backrounds on most pages.
They should load much faster now.

>For example, the program will tell me the density of the world it 
>creates in g/cc.  Seeing I have no idea what earth's density is in g/cc 
>I can't tell how extreme or common this stat is.

Earth is 5.52g/cc  It is the densest planet in the solar system.

>Any suggestions on a site or book that might tell me some earth's vital 
>stats (of use to a Traveller player) that will help discern all of this 
>info (without getting too bogged down in a technical text)? 
>
>Has anybody collected the same ACCRETE stats for earth or any other of 
>the solar system's planets?

http://www.seds.org/billa/tnp/  is an excellent site detailing our solar
system.. you can use the data compiled for comparison to your Accrete systems.

There used to be a Sci-Space FAQ at OSU, but it seems to have vanished.
- --

+-------------------------------------+
| Douglas E. Berry  dberry@hooked.net |
|    http://www.hooked.net/~dberry    | 
+-------------------------------------+
| "I created the universe; give ME    |
|  the gift certificate!!"            |
|        - Lisa Simpson, Overachiever |
+-------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 18:34:14 -0500
From: Andy Slack <AndySlack@compuserve.com>
Subject: Kraang!

Message text written by Joseph R Dietrich
>ObTrav: And now for something completely different. Once again I was
hypothesizing about an a pacifist machine race contacting the 3I. When I
brought this up a week or two ago, several people brought up a planetbound
machine race that appeared in some "official" publication (the name of
which escapes me at the moment).<

That might be the Sabmiqys in Challenge 28.

Andy

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 10:41:56 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Medicine, Deckplans

Dear Folks -

Sorry for the length, I've only just worked out how to get mail onto the
list - your _source address_ has to be subscribed! (as opposed to forwarded
to another location - doh!).

Most of these are replies to old threads, that never made it to the TML.

1. Medicine in Traveller 2: Trauma

Andy Akins said:

>I've toyed with the idea of specialization in my campaigns. A given
engineer might have
>Jump Engineering-3 but Maneuver Engineering-1. Its done with weapons, of
course. There
>could certainly be other breakdowns.

Interestingly, there was a JTAS article on the Imperial Academy of Science
and Medicine that addressed this topic, creating a specialisation breakdown
of the Medical and other Science skills.

For example, I created a guy called Ivan Brunel, a starport designer with
skill-4 (sorry, I can't remember the exact skill name; Macro Engineering or
something), to be the designer of Beowulf Down.

"Hokay, comradski, just vere do you vant dat Scout base again?" ;-)

2. Deckplans (old thread)

Marc has stated (in various places, including JTAS#25) that he always
spreads accomodation areas around the rest of the ship, for things such as
circulation space, kitchens, etc. His staterooms are not necessarily
*exactly* 4 tons, and his bridges are not generally the HG size either.
However, the *total* area should be within 10-20% for the floorplan to be
considered OK.

BTW, the "Empress Marava"-class in "Traders & Gunboats" is NO-WHERE near
this 10-20% rule-of-thumb. The deckplans show the ship to be DOUBLE the
size it is supposed to be.

3. Metric vs Imperial

Just to add my Cr0.02 to the debate, I have to agree (partly) with Phil. I
still think in feet/inches and stones/pounds for *people*. My wife doesn't,
 being brought up under metric - but even she compares the weights of
babies in pounds. I think it comes down to what you have as a comparison -
I converted to km's for distance once I realised that 130 mi
Bathurst-Sydney was 200km. That gave me a comparative measure. For example,
 Bathurst-Canberra is 270km (although took the same 3 hrs to drive; that's
Sydney traffic for you!)

On a different measurement problem - *boy* was it a pain when my
organisation changed its cheque stationery! We had to use imperial units
for the cheques (since they are printed on printers made in the USA) while
still conforming to Australia Post's metric requirements for the position
of the address on envelopes, then make sure the window-face of the
manufactured window-face envelopes was positioned correctly. Finally, after
we decided to make the cheques two print-lines longer, we found out that
the drums that printed the older continuous blank cheque stationery were
exactly 3" around. Since the next size up actually made the cheques FOUR
lines longer, we had to modify our program again to allow for the extra
length...

Suffice it to say, I *really* appreciated Phil's article in "Dark Star #1"
about equipment incompatabilities.  ;-)

4. Disturbing Anti-Democratic Trends in Traveller...

Walter said:
>I saw Weber's take on the scariest thing that can happen to a
>democracy: what happens when the mob realizes they can get more
>bread and circuses just by voting for it.

Correct. This is why (forex) the Australian federal system has two Houses;
the House of Representatives (Lower House) and the Senate (Upper House or
House of Review). The Prime Minister, BTW, is the leader of the majority
party in the House of Reps. Bills have to pass two Readings in each House
(with amendments made as part of the process) before they can be sent to
the Governor-General (for ratification) and become law.

ObTravRef: Tavonni's Constitution was _roughly_ modelled along these lines
- - with the Count replacing the G-G!  ;-)

The whole idea of the two Houses is to SLOW DOWN the business of
government. While (as Phil pointed out) technology may make participative
democracy possible, is is not necessarily *desirable*. The average citizen
(including me) is not sufficiently informed enough to come to a decision on
ALL matters of law - for that matter, neither are many politicians, but at
least the law-making process is slowed down to allow many people time to
review, lobby, and amend the law.

Unless properly controlled, participative democracy *is* known as "mob
rule".

Aerron said:
>why compulsory voting?  you don't even have
>the freedom to *not* vote...how is that more 'democratic'?

Actually, if you don't want to pick someone, you can cast an "informal"
vote - put in a blank voting form, or draw a box marked "None of the above"
and tick it, etc, etc.

As for the "donkey vote" (1-2-3-4-5 down the page), if you look at how the
voting actually went (http://www.aec.gov.au/), you can see that people here
generally make more of a rational choice than that. BTW, there are options
to even out the donkey vote, such as Robson's Rotation used in the ACT
(Canberra) and Tasmanian elections: randomly print the candidates names on
the ballot papers. The only drawbacks are (1) that it makes it hard for
parties to draw up "How To Vote" cards - not that they are allowed with
100m of a Robson's Rotation polling place anyway - and (2) that it makes
the counting more difficult.

I'm afraid I'm a fan of compulsory voting in the Real World, because I
believe that non-comp voting makes it easier to stack a result - witness
the 1968 (?) UK election...

ObTravRef: ...which is why the Count insisted on non-compulsory elections
on Tavonni (come and read about it in full, but basically the military are
allowed leave to vote, and are presented with a targetted campaign and "How
To Vote" cards as they go... ;-).



Now all THAT'S off my chest, I'll go back to sleep again... zzzzz. Oh! now
I have to get back on the 'net and update my Jump Points page... and the
Library Data... and re-write Tavonni for G:T... a ref's work is never
done...

PS: "just detected" by an xboat in Sydney: "Behind The Claw"!!!!!
________________________________________________________________________
Hyphen (David Jaques-Watson)         Beowulf Down, Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                       davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 16:17:31 -0800
From: "Leo Hale" <lhale@panlabs.com>
Subject: G:T - "Behind the Claw"

     Has anyone else received their copy of this supplement?  So far I am
very happy with the product.  The information on what has happened in the
Spinward Marches during each of the years was great, as well as the
information regarding what had happened during the different wars.  The
information on the different corporations in the area was also a great
addition providing a large amount of possible plot starters.

Leo

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 18:47:45 -0600
From: "Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Subject: Re: Gum

>>> Hey, I've just got to tell ya'll.  I was looking for something to
>>> watch on TV this weekend and found that ESPN 2 was broadcasting the
>>> "Magic:  The Gathering World Championship."


Did you know that there is a player's union for professional M:TG players?
Read that sick piece of info in Sports  Illustrated last year.

TV

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 21:32:08 -0500
From: John Macek <macek@erols.com>
Subject: Re: G:T - "Behind the Claw"

Leo Hale wrote:
> 
>      Has anyone else received their copy of this supplement?  

<snip>

Yes.  I just picked up a copy (at Dream Wizards in Rockville, Md).  
At first I was skeptical.  But now that I've had some time to look it
over I've found an abundance of fascinating story lines.  My favorite
thus far, on page 126 under Droyne of Andor, "a new 'leader of leaders'
named Muodray (Little Father) has appeared."  There's more about him,
but I don't want to spoil your fun.  ;)

My compliments to the authors!  A bang-up job if ever there was one!

John

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 20:44:13 -0500
From: Dave Biggs <dbiggs@magicnet.net>
Subject: Re: G:T - "Behind the Claw"

At 04:17 PM 10/29/98 -0800, you wrote:
>     Has anyone else received their copy of this supplement?  So far I am
>very happy with the product.  The information on what has happened in the
>Spinward Marches during each of the years was great, as well as the
>information regarding what had happened during the different wars.  The
>information on the different corporations in the area was also a great
>addition providing a large amount of possible plot starters.
>
>Leo
> 

I never recieved a copy of it but I sure would like to.  Is it an
electronic product or a paper product?
Dave Biggs ------- dbiggs@magicnet.net
Sauron on FIBS, NODS & DeeBiggs on Yahoo
"stupid races don't build starships" -- Robert Hinlein
Ad Infinitem Et Ultra

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 21:59:44 EST
From: Kagehira@aol.com
Subject: Behind the Claw

	Just thought I'd let it be known that Behind the Claw is out (just received
it along with GT(hb) and a couple of other things.
	At a quick glance it looks good, has some mysteries. The only thing I don't
like is the overall map (too small and not quite linked together).
	And apparently Vargr don't use utensils when eating....
	I need serious updating on my race list.....


Bryan

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 22:54:19 -0600
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Milky Way

Bruce Johnson wrote:

>The best place I have ever seen for viewing the Milky Way is on the
road
>to Puerto Penasco in Mexico, in the middle of the ___ Pincante (sp)
>Wilderness Area.  You're about 45 miles from _any_ civilization, the
>humidity is very low (no haze) and once your eyes adapt to the dark
>you're treated to a glorious multicolored light filled band across the
>sky. Incredible!!!

 the best places I have viewed the stars are approx. 15 N by 180 W  and
McDonnald Observatory in West Texas.  although I would like to see a
better place to view the stars.

Charles

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 21:16:58 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: [OT]Leaving for a week...

I will be leaving for over a week on a trip to LA..  If any of you live in
the LA area, email privately before 6:00 PST & maybe we could get together
to meet...

Thanks...

Legate Legion, Militant Jewish Terrorist & Old Gaming Fart
Cult 'O Gabe's Holy Avenger in charge of Military Afairs
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 23:50:59 -0500
From: Bill Rutherford <worj@erols.com>
Subject: Re: G:T - "Behind the Claw"

The Game Parlor in Chantilly Virginia (703-803-3114) got a number of copies
in today (10/29)...  I get mine tomorrow night after work!!!


At 04:17 PM 10/29/98 -0800, you wrote:
>     Has anyone else received their copy of this supplement?  So far I am
>very happy with the product.  The information on what has happened in the
>Spinward Marches during each of the years was great, as well as the
>information regarding what had happened during the different wars.  The
>information on the different corporations in the area was also a great
>addition providing a large amount of possible plot starters.
>
>Leo
> 
Bill Rutherford

Please note that my email address has changed!  It is now as appears below...

worj@erols.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 21:48:43 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: Gum

> >>> Hey, I've just got to tell ya'll.  I was looking for something to
> >>> watch on TV this weekend and found that ESPN 2 was broadcasting the
> >>> "Magic:  The Gathering World Championship."
> Did you know that there is a player's union for professional M:TG
players?
> Read that sick piece of info in Sports  Illustrated last year.
> 
> TV

Do you know what I find even sicker?


That SI & ESPN is playing into this insanity...

Legate Legion, Old Gaming Fart
Cult 'O Gabe's Holy Avenger in charge of Military Afairs
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 00:22:47 -0500
From: "Walter G. Smith" <smithw@hartwick.edu>
Subject: OT: Washington, DC

I'll be spending a week in Washington DC starting November 8th. 
Computer training during the days, not much else planned. Anyone
in the area want to get together? Dinner, perhaps even a round
of _Imperium_ or something? Interested, please send private email.

Also, looking for tips on good gaming stores in the DC area.

Walt Smith
smithw@hartwick.edu

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 00:54:27 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Gum 

> > >>> Hey, I've just got to tell ya'll.  I was looking for something to
> > >>> watch on TV this weekend and found that ESPN 2 was broadcasting the
> > >>> "Magic:  The Gathering World Championship."
> > Did you know that there is a player's union for professional M:TG
> players?
> > Read that sick piece of info in Sports  Illustrated last year.
> > 
> > TV
> 
> Do you know what I find even sicker?
> 
> 
> That SI & ESPN is playing into this insanity...

Why should you be surprised by this?  MTG has a *ton* of young followers in the
demographics that ESPN is shooting for.  Add that to the mass marketting
campaign they were running earlier this year and you have an instant audience
to sell advertising time for.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 22:32:04 -0800
From: Kristian Miller <travellerne@3rd-imperium.com>
Subject: Re: Milky Way

Peter H. Brenton wrote:

> >The best place I have ever seen for viewing the Milky Way is on the ...
> It's especially nice in mid-February, when the air temp drops below 20F (-8

My best spot to see the Milky Way:  The middle of the Nebraska prairie
in late December.  The Milky Way comes up after midnight.

I was going to add some technical stuff for the original thread of
how many stars are forming in the Milky Way and the 3I, but I think
Bruce Macintosh's email covered it pretty well.

Kristian

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 02:26:08 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: Gum

>Do you know what I find even sicker?
>
>
>That SI & ESPN is playing into this insanity...


The thing I don't get here is why everyone seems so mad about it. Big deal,
there's Magic tournaments and Magic is covered in Sports Illustrated.

Obviously, at least to some extent people are interested in it, which is not
a bad thing at all.

In my direct area, there are two comic book stores that double as RPG
suppliers. One of them, although well intentioned, never has anything in but
AD&D stuff (and very little of that), Vampire stuff and sometimes a few
other odd items, recently some Deadlands products and mech type stuff,
previously Call of Cthulhu. This place makes almost all of its money on
comics though, and has never really had a really good stock of games.

The other place has always tried to keep a good amount of RPGs in stock, and
has always tried to be cool with people coming in and reading. Before CCGs
came around they had little, but they tried. Mostly, what turned over a
decent profit for them was Warhammer stuff. Anyway, to make a long story
short, CCGs allowed them to bankroll a wider stock of RPGs. They even were
able to carry T4, even after other RPG places gave up on it. Nowadays, they
have a much wider stock of GURPS stuff, new RPGs, hard to find RPGs, all
kinds of RPGs.

More business for the gaming shops is never a bad thing.

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1063
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Friday, October 30 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1064



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: [OT]Leaving for a week...
Re The Imperial Marine Miniatures
Re: A modest proposal
Re: Piracy debate
Re: Milky Way
Re: A modest proposal
Near Bootes Cluster
Re: Apology
Re: Fahrenheit to Celius conversion table
Re: accrete stats
not so Dumb Gurps Traveller question
Re: Gum
Re: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)
Re: Gum 
Re: Go Baby Go!
Open Invitation to Boston Area Travellers
Re: Fahrenheit to Celius conversion table
re: Piracy Debate
Re:  Milky Way
Re:  Milky Way
Navy Crew Ranks
Re: The Imperial Marine Miniatures
GURPS Traveller Errata
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 00:45:11 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: [OT]Leaving for a week...

> I will be leaving for over a week on a trip to LA..  If any of you live
in
> the LA area, email privately before 6:00 PST & maybe we could get
together
> to meet...

That would be 6 AM...  Not 6 PM as some have thought...

> Thanks...
> 
> Legate Legion,  Old Gaming Fart

Legate Legion,  Old Gaming Fart
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

We are Microsoft of Borg.  Your distinctive capabilities will be adapted to
service us.  Resistance is futile.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 00:54:52 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re The Imperial Marine Miniatures

...
>they also fit the Imperial Marine bill.  Anyone else have the RAFM
>figures espcially the Aslan and Vargr ones?

  RAFM released Vargr?

  Also, I recently ran across a reference at a US web-store (Discount
Games?) to a RAFM TNE product #5857 "Planetary Grenadiers (3)", but
this was probably never produced.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 11:08:10 +0000
From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk
Subject: Re: A modest proposal

From Thom Harris:
>Fine by me, if you would really like to do it (read this as, having the
>shiny brass, round, dangly ones to handle it!)



Hmmm, not sure about that.  Probably more a case of no clue as to what I'm
getting into!



>Sounds like a good suggestion to me. A really "sound" idea. (Slight pun
>intended.) I'll volunteer to take on the role of writer/spokesperson in
>advocacy FOR Piracy if there are no other brave souls ready to jump on it.


OK, that's one.  (I assume that others are welcome to chip in and help Thom
out if they wish).  Now for an opposer....


>I just dug out ALL my Traveller books (GDW, Fasa, GDP, Judges Guild, IG,
>Seeker, SoK, etc.) which is roughly 90%+/- of all PUBLISHED canon
material.
>I got my engine running and I'm ready to start researching now.


No holds barred, eh?

So much for Queensbury rules.

tc

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 21:12:44
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Piracy debate

>>From Tim Collinson:
>I'm really fascinated by the pirate debate but just don't have time to
>follow every twist and turn of every thread regarding it.
>
>Sounds like a good suggestion to me. A really "sound" idea. (Slight pun
>intended.) I'll volunteer to take on the role of writer/spokesperson in
>advocacy FOR Piracy if there are no other brave souls ready to jump on it.
>
>I just dug out ALL my Traveller books (GDW, Fasa, GDP, Judges Guild, IG,
>Seeker, SoK, etc.) which is roughly 90%+/- of all PUBLISHED canon material.
>I got my engine running and I'm ready to start researching now.

The problem with the whole Piracy debate is that to solve it, you need to
peel back the assumptions that the rules dont state, and in some cases dont
even imply. Which specific rules you use is also important in some cases
(eg Bruce Macintosh's Definitive Senosr Rules make life easier in many ways
for system defense planners  ... 'We're being attacked by a relic from a
previous rules system'), as is your views on how much IN is there, where do
they hang out and what do they do when they arent beating on the Zhodani,
Solomani et al.

Things like 'How much interstellar trade does a world create, and whats it
worth ?' arent in canon, and some of the stuff that is (eg starship
maintainence costs for civilian shipping) leads to ahhh interesting results.

We also dont have a lot of data on what fixed planetary defenses there are,
and how effective they are.

The point of the Sunbeard Declaration was to get things resolved in a way
that would keep everyone happy, and allow piracy. 

Does anyone actually disagree with anything in it ?

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 03:43:41 +0100
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <greimann@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: Milky Way

>The best place I have ever seen for viewing the Milky Way is on the road
>to Puerto Penasco in Mexico, in the middle of the ___ Pincante (sp)
>Wilderness Area.  You're about 45 miles from _any_ civilization, the
>humidity is very low (no haze) and once your eyes adapt to the dark
>you're treated to a glorious multicolored light filled band across the
>sky. Incredible!!!
>
>We had trouble making out the common constellations because we could see
>too _many_ stars...

My favorite: Happy Valley Goose Bay, in the north of Canada, in Labrador.
HVGB beeing the only town in 200 kms around, and its lights going out
after 1 in the morning...
never seen anything quite like it since!
Volker
- ---
Volker A. Greimann, greimann@geocities.com

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 05:04:16 PST
From: "John Macek" <pyra_c@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: A modest proposal

From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk

<snipped a large proposal regarding piracy debates>

>Anyone think this would work/be useful?
>
>tc
>

Sure.  I'd join in on a traveller piracy mail list.    

John
ps - check out the Kwai Ching write up in GT-BTC
:)

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 08:09:25 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Near Bootes Cluster

Someplace on the Web is a page talking about the Near Bootes Cluster in 
Capella/Solomani Rim.  Anybody happen to remember the URL for it?

TIA.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep




tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 02:37:42 +1300
From: "Anson Betts" <Lord.High.Executioner@xtra.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Apology

>I would encourage people to use WinGate & MDaemon on NT instead of
>Microsoft Exhange and Microsoft Proxy server. WinGate & MDaemon are
>far easier to configure, have much better functionality, and don't
>have such stupid defaults !
>
Yup, but I prefer Sygate to Wingate, allows you to do so much more from your
side of the server...

Cheers,
 Anson

I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather,
not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 02:42:05 +1300
From: "Anson Betts" <Lord.High.Executioner@xtra.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Fahrenheit to Celius conversion table

Save all the hassle and download Convert, it's free and saves all you
conversion hassles :)
Just be nice and send the author an e-mail as he requests,

http://www.joshmadison.com/software/

Cheers,
 Anson

I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather,
not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 06:49:19 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: accrete stats

dberry@hooked.net wrote:
 
> >Any suggestions on a site or book that might tell me some earth's vital
> >stats (of use to a Traveller player) that will help discern all of this
> >info (without getting too bogged down in a technical text)?
> >
> >Has anybody collected the same ACCRETE stats for earth or any other of
> >the solar system's planets?
> 
> http://www.seds.org/billa/tnp/  is an excellent site detailing our solar
> system.. you can use the data compiled for comparison to your Accrete systems.
> 

Another good book to get, for _all_ sorts of useful physical and
chemical trivia is any edition of the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics,
by the Chemical Rubber Corporation. Dunno what it sells for new anymore,
but you can often find it in used bookstores, particularly technical
ones or university bookstores.

Much of the information is geared toward chemists, but there are
sections, for instance, on planetary composition: For instance Terra is,
as Douglas wrote, 5.52 gm/cc. Venus is close, at 5.16, Mars is
considerably lighter at 3.95, while Saturn is the least dense in the
solar system at 0.69 g/cc. My treasured 42nd Edition, pub 1960-61 also
has a host of useful recipes in it, for things like high vaccum grease,
mirrors, photographic reagents, adhesives and the like.

Sadly, this section was dropped sometime between that edition and the
one I got in College, the 61st, but that one has vastly more planetary
information.

I do know that I got my 61st ed. as a special deal for students for
something like $19 (but this was in 1980).

Besides, it looks really impressive on your bookshelf, and makes for the
near-c book o' doom if you drop it on a bug. ;-)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 08:56:24 -0500
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: not so Dumb Gurps Traveller question

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 23:49:43 -0500 (EST)
From: HAL <hal@buffnet.net>
Subject: Dumb Gurps Traveller question

  So, my question is this:  With GURPS TRAVELLER turns representing 20
minute turns, is there any reason we can't couple a Scan 43 ASEA with a
Complexity 11 Expert program, that grants a +9 to the operator's skill
with Sensors?  Granted, it costs 1.28 MCr to have, not including the cost
of the computer itself, but a +9 to effect Scan rating is nothing to be
unhappy with...
  Comments?
*************
no problem with it, just remember that if the modifiers + scan (before the
computer) are -10 or less there is no chance to detect. this means that a
skill 12 operator with that program will have a 12 or less to detect if he
can detect at all.

I really have no problem with it, but I would say that yuou have to be in
the system for an hour for each +1 so it can build a database to filter out
background noise.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 06:53:18 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Gum

Thomas Vickers wrote:
> 
> >>> Hey, I've just got to tell ya'll.  I was looking for something to
> >>> watch on TV this weekend and found that ESPN 2 was broadcasting the
> >>> "Magic:  The Gathering World Championship."
> 
> Did you know that there is a player's union for professional M:TG players?
> Read that sick piece of info in Sports  Illustrated last year.
> 

Great!! Maybe they'l get insanely greedy, go on strike and the season
will be canceled...all the fans will drift away, and the sport will go
into the doldrums!

Another sick thought...So they have Pro players, gotta have sponsors,
right? I'm picturing some guy sitting at a table, deck in hand,
plastered with decals like a NASCAR car and driver...;-)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:01:18 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Medicine In Traveller 1 : Introduction (long)

>There is also extensive evidence that some patients survived for years
>after have their skulls opened.  Some trepanned skulls show great amounts
>of healing.  Makes you wonder what they were doing in there?
>- --
>
>Douglas E. Berry
>Templar Agent at Large.
^^^^^^^

Nice piece of misdirection, Doug, but you've given yourself away. Don't
you mean "Makes you wonder what WE were doing in there?"? :-)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:05:46 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Gum 

> Another sick thought...So they have Pro players, gotta have sponsors,
> right? I'm picturing some guy sitting at a table, deck in hand,
> plastered with decals like a NASCAR car and driver...;-)

ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 03:07:54 +1300
From: "Anson Betts" <Lord.High.Executioner@xtra.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Go Baby Go!

>In the midst of all our debates on piracy, the Imperial Navy, and all the
>other details of the Travellerverse that occupies our time, may I take a
>small portion of bandwidth for a bit of real life?
>
>STS-95, carrying John Glenn and six other crewmembers launched from KSC
>this morning.  Thirty-six years after becoming the first American to orbit
>the Earth, Colonel Glenn is bringing all of us one step closer to the
stars.
>
>God Speed, John Glenn.
>--

Six 'other' crew members?
Seven People were launched today, one of them being America's first
astronaut in orbit.
I do appreciate that Mr Glenn deserves this trip in the latest model
spaceship, without his kind of courage then the American space race wouldn't
have even been run. I salute all the aviators wishing to climb to those
heights.
I just think that the astronauts should all be acknowledged for their
effort.

Curtis L. Brown, Jr.
Steven W. Lindsey
Scott E. Parazynski
Stephen K. Robinson
Pedro Duque
Chiaki Mukai
John H. Glenn, Jr.

Go for it guys, you are making our dreams come true.

Check out http://shuttle.nasa.gov/sts-95/crew/

Cheers,
 Anson

I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather,
not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:18:09 -0500
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Open Invitation to Boston Area Travellers

This is an open invitation to any on the list (and their
friends/spouses/acquaintances) to dinner on Sunday, November 15th at 5pm at
Redbones in Somerville Mass.

An evening of good barbeque, microbrewed beer, and Discussions about our
favorite RPG (or any other topic) will ensue.

Please Reply to me directly if you intend to attend.  I will make
reservations.  I have no intention of taking all you people out to dinner,
so bring money.

This is the first (in Boston), but assuming sufficient interest, will not
be the last such event.

There will be a little business;  I think its time to float the concept of
a Traveller Mini-Convention in Boston sometime next year.  Ideas,
organizers, and detractors will be sought.

Pete


Peter H. Brenton
MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center
(617) 253-3185
pbrenton@mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 03:22:21 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Fahrenheit to Celius conversion table

From:           	"Anson Betts" <Lord.High.Executioner@xtra.co.nz>
Date sent:      	Sat, 31 Oct 1998 02:42:05 +1300

>Save all the hassle and download Convert, it's free and saves all you
>conversion hassles :)
>Just be nice and send the author an e-mail as he requests,

All very nice, but its a pain to have to run a conversion program in the middle of 
a game :*> I find it much easier just to have the sheet sitting beside me (I 
guess I'm just an old fashioned sorta guy)

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:14:34 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy Debate

Ian Whitchurch wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
<bit on individual TU assumptions snipped>
The point of the Sunbeard Declaration was to get things resolved in a way
that would keep everyone happy, and allow piracy. 

Does anyone actually disagree with anything in it ?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I think it was a general enough framework to go with, pretty much
establishing some broad parameters for the conditions under which
one could expect Piracy to occur.

I think one reason we keep seeing the piracy debate is because of the
assumptions Ian mentioned. IMO, few of the "continuous debates"
cause referees to think about the basic assumptions of their own
campaign environment like the Piracy Debate. 

Some examples of the kind of questions every ref may need to answer,
that the piracy debate works on (directly or indirectly):

1> How can my PC's sneak into a star system?

2> What ships are in a star system to chase my PC's out of it?

3> If my PC's do something illegal with their starship, how likely are
     they to be tracked down later?

4> How can my PC's steal a starship?

5> How can my PC's sell illegal/smuggled goods?

6> How dangerous to my PC's are different parts of a star system?

7> What different parts of a star system will my PC's jump to or from,
     and why?

8> What are the alternatives to regular stops at a starport for resupply
     and maintenance for my PC's?

I could go on a lot longer - sensors, valuables carried by star travellers,
how big fleets are, etc, etc...but I think the point is made.

'tis in the discussion such things are worked out. Formalized debate
would be interesting, but I don't think the subject can be once-and-for-all
settled this way.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:21:33 -0500
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil>
Subject: Re:  Milky Way

>From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
>Subject: Re: Milky Way
>
>>>
>>> I was struck again at how vast the stars are, and how small we are.
>>
>>The best place I have ever seen for viewing the Milky Way is on the road
>>to Puerto Penasco in Mexico, in the middle of the ___ Pincante (sp)
>>Wilderness Area.
>
>My favorite spot; Chebeague (pronounced She-big) Island Maine, on Casco
>Bay, where there are maybe a dozen streetlights on the whole (4mi. x 1mi.)
>island, the nearest "city" (Portland) is 12 miles down the coast, and the
>residents tend to go to bed at 8pm.  Pollution is nonexistent, traffic
>likewise.
>
>Ah, memories.
>

I remember stopping by the side of the road on the island of Cyprus, in
the Mediterranean Sea.  We were driving from Nicosia to Larnaca (pre '74
invasion) and just were overwhelmed.  There was nothing in that 50 mile
stretch of road, and the cities at either end were not much as far
cities go (much has changed since then).  We were looking for Khouhotek
(sp?) but never saw it.  Stars and "shooting stars" were imprinted in my
mind.

Repeat of questions:  How long does it take a star to form, and are any
forming in the 3I?  And what impact would that have if any?

>
>By the way, visiting that place was just like visiting a world 2-3 tech
>levels behind; all TL 4+ items were imported at considerable cost, were
>purchased for their ease of local maintanence, and were maintained well
>beyond their typical useful life.  My Uncle who lives there has a 30s era
>tractor that he keeps re-reparing with scavenged and improvised parts.  You
>as likely to see a 1950 International Scout as a 1995 Jeep Cherokee.
>
>Pete

Pete, this makes me think of a colony world almost, where development
continues, but people hold on to what they have.  New stuff is there but
prohibitively expensive.  Another interesting thing about Cyprus was the
old women, hunched over, wearing black, walking through the villages on
the dirt streets with 2-litre bottles of Coke in their hands. 
Definitely a step back in TL....  One or two phones per village, and a
very slow pace of life.

obtrav:  What is the pace of life like IYTU?  I'd imagine that on some
worlds there would be the "traditional" shutting down of the stores and
all the men (or all the women) gathering in the coffee shops to talk... 
Or there would be the super fast paced life of the metropolitan cities
of say, Washington, DC today.  And the two would often collide... 
Trader from backwater comes to high tech world for first visit, and
misses the entire auction because he's on his pace, and vice versa.... 
High speed trader goes to backwater and goes nuts trying to get anything
done cause he wants to sign now and get outa sphere whereas his local
counterparts are still thinking they are begining negotiations....  Does
this happen to your players' characters?

Greg

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:19:49 -0600
From: Steven Bonneville <bonnevil@ima.umn.edu>
Subject: Re:  Milky Way

bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh) wrote:

> The nearest big star forming region is the Taurus-Auriga dark cloud, about
> 100-150 pc from Earth. With a little distortion, you could assume that
> Dark Nebula sector represents this... Does anyone have any other suggestions?
> The nerest heavy-duty big-star region (Orion) is outside of Charted Space.

Bruce, what about the Rho Ophiuchi dark cloud?  The last distance estimate
I'd heard for that puts it at about 500 ly from Earth, along line-of-sight
toward Antares. 

(That part of the sky makes for colorful photographs.  See the URL
 http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/twn/ant.html.  The bright yellow
 region in the upper left contains Antares.  The blue region on the
 right is Rho Ophiuchi and its emission nebula; the white area near
 the center of the frame is apparently an associated star formation
 region.  The sodium-light colored "star" immediately below Antares
 to the left is actually the globular cluster M4, in the distant
 background.)

  -- Steve Bonneville

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 10:15:36 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Navy Crew Ranks

I was looking over a High Guard spreadsheet I'd been working with - I'm
trying to come up with a self-optimizing ship designer, darn thing tells you
you've picked an impossible design by reiterating unto a divide by
zero that "sticks" the spreadsheet, you've got to give it a temporary fixed 
tonnage number instead of one pulled off a circular formula to get it working 
again.

Anyway, I was analyzing results from a test case - a TL12 light cruiser,
bay weapons, jump-3, 20000tns. Then I looked at the crew, it fit the
HG book well for rank breakdowns - 242 crewmen, 16% officers,
21% petty officers, 63% ratings.

Then I tried a 5000tn Torpedo Frigate - TL12, a couple of 100tn missile
bays and laser batteries. Now the crew breakdown started to skew,
out of 86 crewmen you had 28% officers, 22% petty officers and
only 50% ratings. This is because while most crew recommendations
for rank are based on percentage of complement, there are certain
positions that are mandated: ship commander, section chiefs and small
craft pilots are all officers, and there should (must) be at least one
gunnery petty officer for each type of armament on board. Add these
to the usual 10% officers per department...

This leads to a creeping increase in the percentage of officers on board
as ship sizes drop, which doesn't feel right to me. Is this the case in
real world navies? Are there more officers per man on a frigate than there
are on a cruiser? A battleship?

If this shouldn't be the case, I'll need to come up with some ideas for
modifying mandated officer positions based on crew size. At some
point as ships get smaller the section chief for some ship departments
will be petty (warrant?) officers instead of commissioned officers.

Any real world navy types on the list want to give me a hand? Some
ballpark figures for how many men a petty officer or warrant officer is
usually in charge of would help, as I could use a number like that in
a ship department's complement to indicate whether the officer in
charge should have a smaller rank. 

Maybe I shouldn't round up the usual 10% figure for officers in a 
department. Rounding up means that even if I only have two engineers
in addition to my chief engineer, one of the two will be another officer.
Perhaps that will give some nicer figures - but it still doesn't address
the level at which a department head would be a petty or warrant
officer instead of a commissioned officer.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 10:26:19 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: The Imperial Marine Miniatures

Richard Talbot <richardt@post.almac.co.uk> writes:
>The Ground Zero games stuff is good and yes the UNSC marines are almost
>Imperial Marines.  If you ever search second hand stalls/shops watch for
>the TNE Regency Marines by RAFM Minitures.  I have 2 packs of these and
>they also fit the Imperial Marine bill.  Anyone else have the RAFM
>figures espcially the Aslan and Vargr ones?

Rafm didn't make Regency Marines. They _do_ make Reformation Coalition
troops, which I have, and some Aslan, but no Vargr that I know of.

You can still order from them.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 10:32:08 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: GURPS Traveller Errata

Was browsing GT in the shop last night, and noticed a mistake on the
Metric Conversions sidebar:

There are about FIVE (5) litres in an IMPERIAL gallon, not four.

An AMERICAN gallon has four litres, which is what I suspect the writer
meant, but unless the US has decided to forget about the revolution...

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 08:38:02 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 
...
>HG armour factor and Striker armour are *different*.  There's a conversion
factor in one of the old JTAS's, but I don't remember offhand which one it
is, & since I've been up for about 44 hours now, I think I'll pass on
looking for it today.  <grin>  And no, HG does *NOT* differentiate between
armour *material* type in ship calculation, it merely makes you use up more
space for armour at lower tech levels.  The material differences are
*implied* not *stated*.  My take on it is the '+1" would be the 'tabs' and
such needed to put the armour on the ship.  Mounting flanges & such.  Ask me
when I'm awake & I might have a better explanation...

  HG & Striker armours (although not the scaling system, even with the
conversion chart in S/B:2) are theoretically comparable. It seems very
likely that the "volume" requirements for HG armour go down as superior
materials are used at higher TL's (see the parallel to the Striker charts)
rather than them merely compacting the styrofoam more tightly.

  The fixed base % ("+1" at TL 14-15, varies by TL) must be structural
engineering (tabs & slots); a reasonable explanation for the increasing
marginal explicit cost of armour at all TLs is still lacking.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1064
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Friday, October 30 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1065



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re:  Milky Way--Ooops
Attn M J Dougherty
Re: The Imperial Marine Miniatures
Re: A modest propsal
Re: Fahrenheit to Celius conversion table
RAFM experience
re: Go Baby Go!
Re: Milky Way
Re: Go Baby Go!
Re:  Milky Way
Re: A modest proposal
New EMail and Web Addresses
Re: Behind the Claw
Re: Milky Way 
Re: Navy Crew Ranks 
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 
Re: G:T Binding (Was-Re: Hmmm)
Re: Navy Crew Ranks
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1063
Re: Gum
Re: Navy Crew Ranks
re: Contact: Kraang!
Re: Fahrenheit to Celius conversion table
Re Sunbeard Declaration
RW Data sources
Re Milky Way

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 10:38:42 -0500
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil>
Subject: Re:  Milky Way--Ooops

Thanks for the answers on star forming.  I replied with the questions
again without reading all the way through the digest.  Forgive me
please.  Thanks again.

Greg

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:23:25 -0600
From: Loren Wiseman <lkw@io.com>
Subject: Attn M J Dougherty

To everyone:

ISP screw-up. email to lkw@io.com bouncing. I seem to be able to send, but
cannot receive.



to M J Dougherty:

In addition to my normal address, please try sending back-up files files to
S J ohn Ross at

sjohn@io.com

after 12 Noon my time 30 Oct 1998. Include a note saying I asked you to do
this as a safety measure.



Loren Wiseman
     Traveller Line Editor
     Traveller Guru-in-Residence
     SJ Games
     LKW@IO.COM
     (512) 447-7866 VOX
     (512) 447-1144 FAX

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 11:00:57 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: The Imperial Marine Miniatures

>  Also, I recently ran across a reference at a US web-store (Discount
>Games?) to a RAFM TNE product #5857 "Planetary Grenadiers (3)", but
>this was probably never produced.


It wasn't (I tried to order it).

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 16:00:51 +0000
From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk
Subject: Re: A modest propsal

Ian Whitchurch:
>The problem with the whole Piracy debate is that to solve it, you need to
>peel back the assumptions that the rules dont state, and in some cases
dont
>even imply. Which specific rules you use is also important in some cases
>(eg Bruce Macintosh's Definitive Senosr Rules make life easier in many
ways
>for system defense planners  ... 'We're being attacked by a relic from a
>previous rules system'), as is your views on how much IN is there, where
do
>they hang out and what do they do when they arent beating on the Zhodani,
>Solomani et al.

>Things like 'How much interstellar trade does a world create, and whats it
>worth ?' arent in canon, and some of the stuff that is (eg starship
>maintainence costs for civilian shipping) leads to ahhh interesting
results.

>We also dont have a lot of data on what fixed planetary defenses there
are,
>and how effective they are.





Walt Smith:

>'tis in the discussion such things are worked out. Formalized debate
>would be interesting, but I don't think the subject can be
once-and-for-all
>settled this way.



Yes, you're both quite right.  I appreciate the whole issue isn't as
'simple' as perhaps I've outlined it (I'm happy if the participants wish to
define the 'rules' more stringently).  I certainly don't think that it will
settle the issue 'once and for all'.  (Nice idea but I suspect that as long
as people are playing Traveller it will be an issue.)  No, I merely thought
that a good 'general' debate around the main issues (raising topics like
those Ian mentioned) would give beginners a starting point on the debate
and give those who've been around longer a framework to discuss.  (Perhaps
like a slightly longer Sunbeard Declaration).  As for the latter, I thought
it was great.  I just think that there's enough energy on the list/in the
discussion to create a more substantial document.




"John Macek" <pyra_c@hotmail.com> went on to say:


>Sure.  I'd join in on a traveller piracy mail list.


I hadn't envisioned a whole new list - or if I had - a very time specific
one - i.e. for the duration of the 'debate'.  If people want a separate
mailing list for the subject, I'd have to bow out of organising that.  A
limited duration 'discussion' along the lines of what I've suggested I
could manage.


>ps - check out the Kwai Ching write up in GT-BTC


I'll do that!

tc

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:31:32 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Fahrenheit to Celius conversion table

Anson Betts wrote:
> 
> Save all the hassle and download Convert, it's free and saves all you
> conversion hassles :)

Yeah, and I can see why it's free...I dl'ed it, and all it does is sit
therre like a lump on my HD. The Finder keeps telling me it can't find
which program created it :-P

For further clarification...it's a Windows program. Platform information
is always nice on software refs...

I mean I could tell you to go to ftp.Amug.org in the Newton 1.0 section
and dl Convert! (no relation) which _is_ something you could use
regularly while gaming, but not a lot of people are going to be able to
use it. I suppose there's some sort of PalmPilot version somewhere, too.

Those _are_ useful gaming aids. I have all sorts of useful info and
notes on them...one time I even considered trying to make a Newton Book
of QSDS, but it ended up being huge, and the tables were a bear to read.
On a Netwon 2.0 system, where you can change the layout to landscape, it
probably would have worked better.
- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 11:46:52 -0500
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com>
Subject: RAFM experience

Rob Prior wrote:
> 
> Rafm didn't make Regency Marines. They _do_ make Reformation Coalition
> troops, which I have, and some Aslan, but no Vargr that I know of.
> 
> You can still order from them.

I won't, though... at least, not again. You can draw your own
conclusions.

US Buyer beware, I bought over the phone by credit card and was charged
1 to 1 exchange rate for US dollars to Canadian. I was quoted US$40 and
saw US$60 show up on my credit card. There was no "misunderstanding", I
was very clear when asking for prices.

Calling them up only had them put me on hold for 15+ minutes before I
was told they could not help me with this matter.

Add to this the fact that my starship miniatures were missing things
like TURRETS and you can color me a very dissatified customer. Again I
got no help from RAFM, except another 15+ minutes on hold. (30+ minutes
to Canada made me glad I found their 800 number)

The bad thing was I told them this was a trial order and that if I was
happy I wanted "one of everything". Still, they couldn't get it right. 

Another thing is that these minis are being sold without an Traveller
license. They show up in other RAFM product lines as well. 

BTW, my credit card company refused to back me up without a faxed
statement of the terms of purchase. So the moral of the story is get it
on paper!

It is a shame, really. I preferred them over Ral Partha's minis. The
geohex site offers some nice character minis, but the vehicles aren't
really to my taste, YMMV. The Full Thrust starship minis look very
promising.

Bye,

Glenn
______________________________________________________

Glenn E. Myers
ANSYS Inc.                Email: glenn.myers@ansys.com
275 Technology Drive      Phone: (724) 514-2913
Canonsburg, PA 15317      Fax:   (724) 514-3118
______________________________________________________

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:07:33 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Go Baby Go!

And in other (arguably more significant) news, last weekend the NASA
Deep Space One probe launched. Deep Space One will demonstrate two 
technologies - ion drives and autonomous navigation - which will be crucial
to un-manned (and maybe even manned) exploration of the solar system over 
the next fifty years. Kind of too bad it got swamped in the Glenn publicity...

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:09:56 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Milky Way

> the best places I have viewed the stars are approx. 15 N by 180 W  and
>McDonnald Observatory in West Texas.  although I would like to see a
>better place to view the stars.

McDonald is generally acknowledged to be the darkest major observatory in 
the entire northern hemisphere (darker even than Mauna Kea on many nights.)

It's also the only major observatory with a bullet hole in its primary mirror - 
which, in Texas, somehow doesn't surprise me.

bruce

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:18:31 -0800
From: "Dave Strebe" <strebe@intergate.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Go Baby Go!

For those interested have a look at www.exn.ca/science and follow the links
to
- -deep space one
- -14 proposals for new spaceships(spaceplanes?), let the gearheads check out
the
55 ton ramjet/rocket (Next generation of spacecraft is for the average Joe
and Mary)

Dave
- -----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Alan Macintosh <bmac@astro.ucla.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 30, 1998 9:08 AM
Subject: re: Go Baby Go!


>
>And in other (arguably more significant) news, last weekend the NASA
>Deep Space One probe launched. Deep Space One will demonstrate two
>technologies - ion drives and autonomous navigation - which will be crucial
>to un-manned (and maybe even manned) exploration of the solar system over
>the next fifty years. Kind of too bad it got swamped in the Glenn
publicity...
>
>Bruce
>

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:20:20 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re:  Milky Way

>> The nearest big star forming region is the Taurus-Auriga dark cloud, about
>> 100-150 pc from Earth.

>Bruce, what about the Rho Ophiuchi dark cloud?  The last distance estimate
>I'd heard for that puts it at about 500 ly from Earth

Taurus is a hair closer than Rho Oph, but mostly I didn't mention it 
because I'm an irrationally prejudiced northern-hemisphere astronomer.
(Read: much of my work is done at Lick Observatory (38 N), the only time
I've tried to observe Ophiucus (20 S) it was not, on the whole, a success.
(= we didn't *quite* break any cables on the adaptive optics system.) 
Wheras I'm planning observations of some TTauri stars even as we speak...
Ophiucus is pretty comparable to Taurus overall - mostly moderate-mass
stars.

http://spacsun.rice.edu/~twg/lism.html
has some beautiful "maps" of the local interstellar medium.

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 14:00:14 -0500
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: A modest proposal

Just want to say this whole idea is excellent!

If helpful, I have some web space I could store writeups by
the advocates.

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 98 19:48:02 +0000
From: igor@truserve.com
Subject: New EMail and Web Addresses

Notice:

My email has changed, as has my website (which has the FF&S2 spreadsheet).

New email:
  igor@ames.net

New Traveller website:
  www.truserve.com/~igor/traveller/index.htm

If you have links to my site ("Traveller's Guide to the Community") please update them.

I'll be updating my webring links ASAP.

Andy
Akins

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 15:59:27 EST
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Behind the Claw

In a message dated 10/29/98 9:01:16 PM Central Standard Time, Kagehira@aol.com
writes:

<< 	And apparently Vargr don't use utensils when eating....
  >>

I've seen some humans who don't use utensils either.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 16:37:41 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Milky Way 

> 
> > the best places I have viewed the stars are approx. 15 N by 180 W  and
> >McDonnald Observatory in West Texas.  although I would like to see a
> >better place to view the stars.
> 
> McDonald is generally acknowledged to be the darkest major observatory in 
> the entire northern hemisphere (darker even than Mauna Kea on many nights.)
> 
> It's also the only major observatory with a bullet hole in its primary mirror - 
> which, in Texas, somehow doesn't surprise me.

They prolly mistook it for an armadillo after a dozen too many Lone Stars.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 17:11:37 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Navy Crew Ranks 

> I was looking over a High Guard spreadsheet I'd been working with - I'm
> trying to come up with a self-optimizing ship designer, darn thing tells you
> you've picked an impossible design by reiterating unto a divide by
> zero that "sticks" the spreadsheet, you've got to give it a temporary fixed 
> tonnage number instead of one pulled off a circular formula to get it working 
> again.

What spreadsheet prog is it written for?

> Then I tried a 5000tn Torpedo Frigate - TL12, a couple of 100tn missile
> bays and laser batteries. Now the crew breakdown started to skew,
> out of 86 crewmen you had 28% officers, 22% petty officers and
> only 50% ratings. This is because while most crew recommendations
> for rank are based on percentage of complement, there are certain
> positions that are mandated: ship commander, section chiefs and small
> craft pilots are all officers, and there should (must) be at least one
> gunnery petty officer for each type of armament on board. Add these
> to the usual 10% officers per department...

I'd say, those officers are *part* of the 10% per department.  And small craft 
pilots *can* be warrant officers instead of line officers.  Besides, small 
craft pilots & gunners aren't counted against the ship's 'real' crew, they 
'deadhead' until they're needed.

> If this shouldn't be the case, I'll need to come up with some ideas for
> modifying mandated officer positions based on crew size. At some
> point as ships get smaller the section chief for some ship departments
> will be petty (warrant?) officers instead of commissioned officers.

A petty officer isn't a warrant officer.  PO's are the Navy version of 
sergeants.  Warrant officers are outside the chain of command; in effect, 
they're almost like consultants in uniform.
 
Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 17:16:48 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 

>   HG & Striker armours (although not the scaling system, even with the
> conversion chart in S/B:2) are theoretically comparable. It seems very
> likely that the "volume" requirements for HG armour go down as superior
> materials are used at higher TL's (see the parallel to the Striker charts)
> rather than them merely compacting the styrofoam more tightly.

I said that already, didn't I?

>   The fixed base % ("+1" at TL 14-15, varies by TL) must be structural
> engineering (tabs & slots); a reasonable explanation for the increasing
> marginal explicit cost of armour at all TLs is still lacking.

Because the metal needs more working to fit the spaceframe?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 15:44:04 -0700
From: "Joseph Kimball" <HPJKimba@ihc.com>
Subject: Re: G:T Binding (Was-Re: Hmmm)

>>>>
While G:T has only been in my possession for a couple
of weeks and delicately handled, pages are beginning to separate from
the binding.
>>>>
I made photocopies of the pages I would use the most before it got
bad, and have put the book on the shelf until I get a group together
to play GT.
- - Joseph

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 12:46:19 +1300
From: "Frank Pitt" <frankie@mundens.gen.nz>
Subject: Re: Navy Crew Ranks

>A petty officer isn't a warrant officer.  PO's are the Navy version
of
>sergeants.  Warrant officers are outside the chain of command; in
effect,
>they're almost like consultants in uniform.

In the military of Commonwealth nations such as New Zealand and
England for instance, a _Chief_ Petty Officer is the _equivalent_ of
a Warrant Officer (and they also hold warrants from the Queen)

Often they do fulfil roles that do not fit directly into the
"reporting"
hierarchy, usualy as unit disciplnarians but their position in the
real chain of command is  very solid.

For instance, a base Warrant Officer (a position, not a rank)
usually
reports directly  to the base commander, rather than through an
intervening officer but as far as chain of command is concerned,
he's effectively God. bar the officer he reports to (and even the
base conmmander might not be able to easily contradict him )

An 04 or higher _might_ get away with not following
a "suggestion" from a WO/CPO,   but it's a brave 01
that would even consider standing up to a WO/CPO

However the formalities of rank need to followed
This leads to the sort of situatuion ( that I've seen myself )
where you hear, out the back of the Officer's  Mess on a Friday
night, something like :

"You are a complete disgrace to the uniform, you horrible
 little bag of shite. Now drag that misbegotten carcass
back inside and clean your putrid excresences off the
Mess floor,  Sir ! "

Of course, I've removed the obligatory obscenities from
the above example.
:-)

Frankie

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 00:07:03 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1063

On Fri, 30 Oct 1998 02:29:52 -0500, you wrote:

>How about some kind of formal 'debate' (via e-mail or onlist whatever folk
>want) that could then maybe be put up on a web site (how about Jeff's
>Freelance Traveller for example?).  Newbies could read the main arguments;
>those who wish to talk about finer points would have a base to refer to
>etc.  Who knows, perhaps Andy Lilly could even be persuaded to publish it!

I seem to have missed seeing this message.  When I move the
Freelance Traveller mirror to Cyburban from Execnet, I will be
more than happy to include summaries of the Recurrent Debates
That Have Been on the site - but somebody better write them, and
in a way that won't cause them to provoke further flamage.

Send 'em to my personal address, not the Freelance Traveller
address; there have been some problems at my ISP that make
accessing HotMail problematical (it's SLOOOOOOOW!).
- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 18:42:22 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Re: Gum

At 06:53 AM 10/30/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Thomas Vickers wrote:
>> 
>> >>> Hey, I've just got to tell ya'll.  I was looking for something to
>> >>> watch on TV this weekend and found that ESPN 2 was broadcasting the
>> >>> "Magic:  The Gathering World Championship."
>> 
>> Did you know that there is a player's union for professional M:TG players?
>> Read that sick piece of info in Sports  Illustrated last year.
>> 
>
>Great!! Maybe they'l get insanely greedy, go on strike and the season
>will be canceled...all the fans will drift away, and the sport will go
>into the doldrums!
>
>Another sick thought...So they have Pro players, gotta have sponsors,
>right? I'm picturing some guy sitting at a table, deck in hand,
>plastered with decals like a NASCAR car and driver...;-)
>
Or worse, magor tournaments pre-empting your favorite television shows!!!!!

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 18:58:25 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Re: Navy Crew Ranks

At 10:15 AM 10/30/98 -0500, you wrote:
>This leads to a creeping increase in the percentage of officers on board
>as ship sizes drop, which doesn't feel right to me. Is this the case in
>real world navies? Are there more officers per man on a frigate than there
>are on a cruiser? A battleship?

Depends on your definition of officer. In the real US Navy, you have your
department heads and division officers. These are officer "positions",
however, the particular rank of the individual does not nescessarily need
to be a commisioned officer.

When I served onboard USS Blue Ridge, I worked for one of the flag
departments under Commander, Seventh Fleet. Our department was headed by a
Commander (later to be replaced by a Lt. Commander), but my particular
division was headed by a Master Chief Petty Officer (later relieved by a
Senior Chief). This was typical of the smaller divisions onboard, but most
of the larger divisions, particularly engineering and maintenance (this was
an LCC, based on an Iwo Jima class helo carrier hull) were headed by
Ensigns and Junior grade Lieutenants.

So, to answer your question, there will be fewer crewmen on board smaller
ships, but the number of officer positions will remain relatively constant
since the breakdown of departments are uniform throughout the fleet. There
will always be an engineering, deck/weapons, security, etc. department
regardless of the ship size.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 16:58:56 -0700
From: "Joseph Kimball" <HPJKimba@ihc.com>
Subject: re: Contact: Kraang!

>>>>
I have in mind a high-tech race with something of a "do as little
harm as
possible" attitude towards the universe (and organic life in
particular).
Not really protocol droids run amok, but more like "Grandmother's"
children.

What, you didn't think that Grandfather was the *only* omnipotent
being in
the Milky Way, did you? :-p
>>>>
One way these robot beings could get into the 3I without going
through other major political entities on the way is for them to have
access to Ancient level Jump drives so they could do greater than J6. 
This way they could probably go up one of the rifts without meeting
anyone.
- - Joseph

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 13:22:21 +1300
From: "Anson Betts" <Lord.High.Executioner@xtra.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Fahrenheit to Celius conversion table

>For further clarification...it's a Windows program. Platform information
>is always nice on software refs...


Oops, sorry. I'll store that away for future reference :P

Cheers,
 Anson

I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather,
not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 12:02:18 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Sunbeard Declaration

>The point of the Sunbeard Declaration was to get things resolved in a way
>that would keep everyone happy, and allow piracy.
>
>Does anyone actually disagree with anything in it ?
>
>Ian Whitchurch

yes, one or two points... but not the major thematic issues.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 12:11:38 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: RW Data sources

>dberry@hooked.net wrote:
>
>> >Any suggestions on a site or book that might tell me some earth's vital
>> >stats (of use to a Traveller player) that will help discern all of this
>> >info (without getting too bogged down in a technical text)?
>> >
>> >Has anybody collected the same ACCRETE stats for earth or any other of
>> >the solar system's planets?
>>
>> http://www.seds.org/billa/tnp/  is an excellent site detailing our solar
>> system.. you can use the data compiled for comparison to your Accrete
>>systems.
>>
>
>Another good book to get, for _all_ sorts of useful physical and
>chemical trivia is any edition of the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics,
>by the Chemical Rubber Corporation. Dunno what it sells for new anymore,
>but you can often find it in used bookstores, particularly technical
>ones or university bookstores.

Or Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook. Similar in many respects, also
includes some wonderful formulae, like strength of piping, and
viscosity/flow formulae. My dad gave me his 1961 ed when he (Finally)
upgraded to the 90 edition. It also makes a wonderful player control
device... 5inches thick 10x7 inch front, and wonderfully damage resistant
hardcover...threaten to toss it at a player, and they behave!

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 12:06:07 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Milky Way

>>The best place I have ever seen for viewing the Milky Way is on the road
>>to Puerto Penasco in Mexico, in the middle of the ___ Pincante (sp)
>>Wilderness Area.  You're about 45 miles from _any_ civilization, the
>>humidity is very low (no haze) and once your eyes adapt to the dark
>>you're treated to a glorious multicolored light filled band across the
>>sky. Incredible!!!
>>
>>We had trouble making out the common constellations because we could see
>>too _many_ stars...
>
>My favorite: Happy Valley Goose Bay, in the north of Canada, in Labrador.
>HVGB beeing the only town in 200 kms around, and its lights going out
>after 1 in the morning...
>never seen anything quite like it since!

Mine is being at the railroad camp near Talkeetna, Alaska. Only a handful
of 100 watt bulbs within a dozen miles, shielded from the nearest Urbs by
mountains and miles. The sky is Grey with stars.... and the constellationns
are unresolveable without sunglasses. Probably much like HVGB.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1065
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 31 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1066



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: The Imperial Marine Miniatures
Re: the Sunbeard Declaration
Re: Navy Crew Ranks
[none]
Re: Milky Way
Traveller Chat
re: Navy Crew Ranks
Re: Milky Way
Re: Traveller Chat
Re: Traveller Chat
Re: Milky Way
Some TNE Spacecraft Minis [was: Re: The Imperial Marine Miniatures]
Behind the Claw
Trauma Rules V2.0 (long)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 18:37:25 -0600
From: warlock@imagin.net
Subject: Re: The Imperial Marine Miniatures

Rob Prior posted:
>
>Richard Talbot <richardt@post.almac.co.uk> writes:
>>The Ground Zero games stuff is good and yes the UNSC marines are almost
>>Imperial Marines.  If you ever search second hand stalls/shops watch
>> for
>>the TNE Regency Marines by RAFM Minitures.  I have 2 packs of these and
>>they also fit the Imperial Marine bill.  Anyone else have the RAFM
>>figures espcially the Aslan and Vargr ones?
>
>Rafm didn't make Regency Marines. They _do_ make Reformation Coalition
>troops, which I have, and some Aslan, but no Vargr that I know of.

>You can still order from them.

What?!? How?

BTW, the Aslan look very good, IMO. As good as the old
Grenadier Traveller figures. Another place which may
still carry some TNE starship minis is Bosco's in
Anchorage, Alaska. I can't remember their URL; just
search for "Bosco's".

Anybody know where I can get the minis for the
Merc Cruiser and the SDBs?

(*Please* tell me how to order from RAFM!)

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 10:48:39
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: the Sunbeard Declaration

>From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
>Subject: Re Sunbeard Declaration
>
>>Does anyone actually disagree with anything in it ?
>>
>>Ian Whitchurch
>
>yes, one or two points... but not the major thematic issues.


Which points, and why ?

Ian

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 19:08:55 -0600
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Navy Crew Ranks

Walter Smith wrote:

>Anyway, I was analyzing results from a test case - a TL12 light
cruiser,
>bay weapons, jump-3, 20000tns. Then I looked at the crew, it fit the
>HG book well for rank breakdowns - 242 crewmen, 16% officers,
>21% petty officers, 63% ratings.
>
>Then I tried a 5000tn Torpedo Frigate - TL12, a couple of 100tn missile

>bays and laser batteries. Now the crew breakdown started to skew,
>out of 86 crewmen you had 28% officers, 22% petty officers and
>only 50% ratings. This is because while most crew recommendations
>for rank are based on percentage of complement, there are certain
>positions that are mandated: ship commander, section chiefs and small
>craft pilots are all officers, and there should (must) be at least one
>gunnery petty officer for each type of armament on board. Add these
>to the usual 10% officers per department...

The US Navy has 10-15% officers on most ships, but the %'s change if any
aircraft are onboard.  the %'s of enlisted should be close to even for
petty officers and ratings. As for small craft pilots, anything less
than say 50dT and is a non-combatant could be commanded by a petty
officer or chief petty officer as the US Navy has enlisted command
boats.  Some non-combatant helos are commanded by Warrant officers
(which don't show up in Traveller) But fighter pilots should still be
officers.
>
>This leads to a creeping increase in the percentage of officers on
board
>as ship sizes drop, which doesn't feel right to me. Is this the case in

>real world navies? Are there more officers per man on a frigate than
there
>are on a cruiser? A battleship?

On some of the smaller ships "officer" positions may be held by (chief)
petty officers.

>Maybe I shouldn't round up the usual 10% figure for officers in a
>department. Rounding up means that even if I only have two engineers
>in addition to my chief engineer, one of the two will be another
officer.
>Perhaps that will give some nicer figures - but it still doesn't
address
>the level at which a department head would be a petty or warrant
>officer instead of a commissioned officer.

I only use the command crew (1 for every 6 required crew) as officers,
which gives 14%.  and medical crew does not require officers (Doctors)
as the Destroyer that I was on had 2 corpsmen as the medical department
(1 chief [e-7], and 1 rate [e-3])

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 16:13:59 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: [none]

>I'd say, those officers are *part* of the 10% per department.  And small
>craft
>pilots *can* be warrant officers instead of line officers.  Besides, small
>craft pilots & gunners aren't counted against the ship's 'real' crew, they
>'deadhead' until they're needed.
>
>> If this shouldn't be the case, I'll need to come up with some ideas for
>> modifying mandated officer positions based on crew size. At some
>> point as ships get smaller the section chief for some ship departments
>> will be petty (warrant?) officers instead of commissioned officers.
>
>A petty officer isn't a warrant officer.  PO's are the Navy version of
>sergeants.  Warrant officers are outside the chain of command; in effect,
>they're almost like consultants in uniform.
>
>Keven

Looking at the writeups in AHL, it would seem that warrants in the late 3i
may be like warrants in many european military organizations: the senior
enlisted.

I've not seen other references to warrants in traveller.

US military warrants are often more than "Consultants in Uniform"... all
the warrants I've known have either been specialists who needed to outrank
all enlisted, chopper pilots, LPN nurses (only one I've known), or
Physician's assistants. I was sworn into the US army at MEPS by a Coast
Guard JAG/Legal warrant. All the warrants I've known WERE in authority over
enlisted men. Most of them were former enlisted.

BTW: there was an old DOD poster showing correspondancies between nator and
warsaw pact military ranks and insignia... almost all european warrants
corresponded to US E7-E9 grades/ranks. US Warrants were the special case.
(A few european powers had some equivalent).

But I agree, many coxswains should exist (Coxswain - enlisted man in
command of a naval vessel, usually a small craft. Source: Naval Science
(NROTC/NJROTC) Textbook [can't remeber hether NS II or III])

IMTU, I don't have warrants in the Imperium, and the Zhodani warrants
follow the warsaw pact model of "Senior NCO's who get salutes". Also, IMTU,
fighter pilots are officers due to the restriction (again wholly my own bit
here) that only officers are allowed to engage on discretion.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 19:53:24 -0600
From: Sam Thomas <sinbad@hex.net>
Subject: Re: Milky Way

- --=====================_3335349==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"


At 11:09 AM 10/30/98 , (Bruce Alan Macintosh) wrote:
>
>> the best places I have viewed the stars are approx. 15 N by 180 W  and
>>McDonnald Observatory in West Texas.  although I would like to see a
>>better place to view the stars.
>
>McDonald is generally acknowledged to be the darkest major observatory in 
>the entire northern hemisphere (darker even than Mauna Kea on many nights.)
>
>It's also the only major observatory with a bullet hole in its primary 
>mirror - 
>which, in Texas, somehow doesn't surprise me.

bruce,

It should not be the fact that mirror has a hole but only *one* hole just how
many shots did it take the shooter(s) to score that shot and at what range?<G>.

Why do you think the rural road signs here in Texas have the appearance of
target on busy gun range.<G> 

Us GOB's(Good Old Boys) have have a *fresh* shooting targets every once and
while.


Sinbad Sam
"Black Curtain" Rod Holder...
AI Virus inferior races(Aslan, Humaniti, Kkree, Droyne) Interfacer
Chief Weapons Designer For Reddkneck Arms and Munitions
sinbad@ignore.hex.net

- --=====================_3335349==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"

<html><div>At 11:09 AM 10/30/98 , (Bruce Alan Macintosh) wrote:</div>
<div>&gt;</div>
<div>&gt;&gt; the best places I have viewed the stars are approx. 15 N by
180 W&nbsp; and</div>
<div>&gt;&gt;McDonnald Observatory in West Texas.&nbsp; although I would
like to see a</div>
<div>&gt;&gt;better place to view the stars.</div>
<div>&gt;</div>
<div>&gt;McDonald is generally acknowledged to be the darkest major
observatory in </div>
<div>&gt;the entire northern hemisphere (darker even than Mauna Kea on
many nights.)</div>
<div>&gt;</div>
<div>&gt;It's also the only major observatory with a bullet hole in its
primary </div>
<div>&gt;mirror - </div>
<div>&gt;which, in Texas, somehow doesn't surprise me.</div>
<br>
<div>bruce,</div>
<br>
<div>It should not be the fact that mirror has a hole but only *one* hole
just how many shots did it take the shooter(s) to score that shot and at
what range?&lt;G&gt;.</div>
<br>
<div>Why do you think the rural road signs here in Texas have the
appearance of target on busy gun range.&lt;G&gt; </div>
<br>
<div>Us GOB's(Good Old Boys) have have a *fresh* shooting targets every
once and while.</div>
<br>
<br>

<font size=2>Sinbad Sam<br>
&quot;Black Curtain&quot; Rod Holder...<br>
AI Virus inferior races(Aslan, Humaniti, Kkree, Droyne) Interfacer<br>
Chief Weapons Designer For Reddkneck Arms and Munitions<br>
sinbad@ignore.hex.net<br>
</font></html>

- --=====================_3335349==_.ALT--

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 21:22:41 -0500
From: russcm@zoomnet.net
Subject: Traveller Chat

Is there, and where is, the current Official or Unofficial Traveler IRC
Chatroom?

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 22:06:16 -0500
From: "Walter G. Smith" <smithw@hartwick.edu>
Subject: re: Navy Crew Ranks

Kevin Pittsinger wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What spreadsheet prog is it written for?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I'm writing my spreadsheet for Excel, Office97 version. My idea is to
base it on HG's Universal Ship Profile - you choose a tech level, it
adjusts the available drop-down menu choices for each number
on the USP.

Keven again:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I'd say, those officers are *part* of the 10% per department.  And small craft 
pilots *can* be warrant officers instead of line officers.  Besides, small 
craft pilots & gunners aren't counted against the ship's 'real' crew, they 
'deadhead' until they're needed.
<snip>
A petty officer isn't a warrant officer.  PO's are the Navy version of 
sergeants.  Warrant officers are outside the chain of command; in effect, 
they're almost like consultants in uniform.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That was the only warrant officer job I knew of, aircraft pilot (it's the
lowest rank for a combat pilot in the excellent _Gunship_ simulator).
I'd kind of assumed that "warrant officer" was a tag you put on anyone
who wasn't an officer, but was doing a job normally assigned to an
officer - so I figured that a Chief Engineer who was lower than an
Ensign would be a WO instead of a PO.

Thanks for the info on them.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 15:38:33 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Milky Way

At 12:11 29/10/98 -0700, Bruce Johnson wrote:

>The best place I have ever seen for viewing the Milky Way is on the road
>to Puerto Penasco in Mexico, in the middle of the ___ Pincante (sp)
>Wilderness Area.  You're about 45 miles from _any_ civilization, the
>humidity is very low (no haze) and once your eyes adapt to the dark
>you're treated to a glorious multicolored light filled band across the
>sky. Incredible!!!
>
>We had trouble making out the common constellations because we could see
>too _many_ stars...
>
>Gives you a great appreciation for what our distant ancestors viewed in
>the skies every night...

Maybe you should come 'down' here sometime. Those I've talked to who have
been to the northern hemisphere have all commented on how few stars there
are up there.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 07:37:34 -0800
From: "Brian A. Howard" <bruadh@iname.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller Chat

At 09:22 PM 10/30/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Is there, and where is, the current Official or Unofficial Traveler IRC
>Chatroom?
> 
Thank you for asking. We chat on the undernet at #traveller. The server(s)
of choice is/are Pittsburg or St. Louis.

pittsburgh.pa.us.undernet.org

or

stlouis.mo.us.undernet.org

ports 6660 through 6669

Does this help?

Sincerely,

Brian A. Howard

Beware the sound of a Babel fish,
For a Vogon constructor fleet cannot be far behind.

http://home.earthlink.net/~bruadh/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 07:39:39 -0800
From: "Brian A. Howard" <bruadh@iname.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller Chat

Our chat administrator is Suz Dollar. If you have trouble connecting you
can email her at

mailto:SuzD@pop.goodnet.com

Sincerely,

Brian A. Howard

Beware the sound of a Babel fish,
For a Vogon constructor fleet cannot be far behind.

http://home.earthlink.net/~bruadh/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 22:08:35 -0600
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Milky Way

Bruce Alan Macintosh wrote:

>> the best places I have viewed the stars are approx. 15 N by 180 W
and
>>McDonnald Observatory in West Texas.  although I would like to see a
>>better place to view the stars.
>
>McDonald is generally acknowledged to be the darkest major observatory
in
>the entire northern hemisphere (darker even than Mauna Kea on many
nights.)
>
>It's also the only major observatory with a bullet hole in its primary
mirror -
>which, in Texas, somehow doesn't surprise me.

I was there on a field trip with my astronomy class, they did not let us
see the main telescope.  but did a little star gazing through 16" and
smaller telescopes there.  But it was darker in the middle of the
pacific.

Charles

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 21:59:45 -0600
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Some TNE Spacecraft Minis [was: Re: The Imperial Marine Miniatures]

warlock@imagin.net wrote:
> 
<<snip>>
> 
> BTW, the Aslan look very good, IMO. As good as the old
> Grenadier Traveller figures. Another place which may
> still carry some TNE starship minis is Bosco's in
> Anchorage, Alaska. I can't remember their URL; just
> search for "Bosco's".
> 
> Anybody know where I can get the minis for the
> Merc Cruiser and the SDBs?
> 
Some of the TNE spacecraft minis have been re-released as fighter craft
for the Iron Crown Enterprises minis game "Silent Death."  (I don't know
offhand which ones were re-released [although the only set of TNE minis
I had purchased before GDW went belly-up, the shuttle, was _not_
re-released], but check the Silent Death supplement "Universal Night
Watch" for ship silhouettes.)

> (*Please* tell me how to order from RAFM!)

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 05:52:56 EST
From: TravelrTNE@aol.com
Subject: Behind the Claw

I got my copy today and I must say I am impressed.  I was initially quite
skeptical...  (and I forgot to look at the binding till I was out of the
store... but it seems ok, though i'm not sure I like what my close scrutiny
fortells).  I've hardly been an advocate of G:T, but this one is definately
worth the dough.  Kudos to all responsible.

Good features.. the detailed world and setting info.  the Current Events.  The
Corps and Aliens of the area... all well presented and summarized.  Rules
being absent.  

Sadly, one of the first things I noticed when flipping through was a typo.
Strephon himself is going to "Ilesh"...  maybe an outsiders way of saying
Ilelish? ; )  
Nits I have... the disjointed Sector map at the back... I'd prefer a joined
sector map w/ a subsector key etc.  Also, I think each subsector description
should say what subsector it is... something along the lines of "Regina
Subsector (Subsector C)."  Other than that, it looks damned good...  Of
course, i'd prefer UWPs, etc ala the Regency Sourcebook, but that's
understandable seeing this is for G:T.  Lastly... IMO, "Behind the Claw" as a
title would be more appropriate for a Domain of Deneb Sourcebook...  When do
we get Deneb Sector?  lol

What I really like is that it seems to be entirely Rules Absent and all
setting.  We have enough Traveller rules out there... I should hope T5 comes
in its hardback/softback rules whatever (which i probably won't get), but that
most of the setting supplements especially should be just like Behind the Claw
(in which case I most likely *will* get)... Of course a real Traveller version
would have UWPs... 

Hmm... it seems time to start adding to my Regency campaign... I'll bet those
incoming sublight ships got destroyed by the RQS...  the question is, what is
Muodray doing in 1202? : )  

Spoiler Space...
_
_
_

There are good mysteries and background in there... Andor, Candory and "Little
Father" (especially when coupled w/ the weird Droyne activity from 1110 to
1118).  Looks like "The Islands, part II" is en route, except these guys have
nothing to do but shoot up the neighborhood (and maybe carve themselves a
polity)... hmm, sound like Human ihatei.  heh.   I'm wondering what Varian is
up to... is he messing w/ the Zhos?  One incident definately looks fishy
(smuggling? Zho agents?)... His activies aren't reminiscent (to me anyways) of
Cleon II... Then there's that timelost Solomani (shouldn't it be Terran
Confederation?) cruiser...
I am still doubtful of any large story arcs in G:T similar in scope to what
TNE would've saw (and one day still may :::fingers crossed::::) but think I
can be satisfied w/ this for now. : )



Gary

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 13:28:22 +1100
From: "Robert O'Connor" <Robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Trauma Rules V2.0 (long)

To one and all :
I should have thought this through a little better.
Sorry.

** Trauma Rules  V2.0:-
Resuscitation/Immediate Action
1. Assess injury severity (overview)

    Average, Medical/First Aid, Edu, uncertain

    Difficult if in the field.
    Medical scanner +5 to uncertainty roll.

                                          Body areas affected
No characteristics at zero : Superficial         1
One char. at zero          : Minor               1
Two char. at zero          : Major               2
Three char. at zero        : Destroyed           3
    Varying amounts of truth change the estimate up or down levels
(ref's choice).

Locations (2D) :-
2     Head : roll 1D : face 1-3, skull 4-5, neck 6
3-5   Chest
6-8   Abdomen
9-10  Arms : 1D right 1-3, left 4-6 ; hand or foot 1 on 1D
11-12 Legs

    Wound Level     Needs treatment in   If not treated
    Superficial     2D hours             hourly catastrophe check
    Minor           1D X 10 minutes      cat check q15min
    Major           2D minutes           cat check q5min
    Destroyed       1D minutes           Death

    Catastrophe check :- Difficult, Medical/First Aid,
    patient's End. Failure - 1D more damage.

    Maintaining consciousness is a Difficult, End task - also see below.

    Patients with Major level damage or greater will show signs of shock

i.e. altered level of consciousness (decreased or delirious), impaired
breathing (A, B, or C causes?), decreased blood pressure and usually an
increased pulse (hypotension and tachycardia).

2. Airway manoeuvres :- Difficulty, Med/First Aid, Dex
Manoeuvre     Indication      Base Difficulty    Bonus to B/C tasks
chin lift     unconscious          Easy                  0
(jaw thrust)
Reduce facial Major+facial       Difficult               +1
fracture      damage
O/P or N/P    unconscious         Average                +1
airway
Layngeal mask unconscious         Average(1)             +2
(LMA)         or Destroyed
              damage
Endotracheal  as per LMA          Average(1)             +3
tube (ETT)
Surgical      failure to pass     Average(2)             +2
              LMA/ETT, or
              reduce face ;
              Major+face/neck
              damage

Notes :-
O/P, N/P - oro and nasopharyngeal respectively.
'Surgical' - cricothyroid puncture, tracheostomy.
(1) Assumes unconscious or general anaesthetic. If local anaesthetic
only, Difficult. First Aid skill can be used at half level.
(2) Assumes operating theatre or ICU and at least local.
+1 difficulty level if in field and/or impromptu tools.
First Aid skill can be used at half level.

* All airway manoeuvres have a risk of mishap : disrupting the cervical
spine, base of skull (making existing injuries worse) or putting an
endotracheal tube into the oesophagus (unrecognised, this is a lethal
error) instead of the trachea readily spring to mind.

Spectacular Failure : 1D further damage
Tasks may be repeated. You must secure an airway, else all other effort
will be wasted!

3. Breathing :- Difficulty, Medical/First Aid, Dex
Maneouvre      Indication     Base Difficulty   Bonus to C tasks
[Start oxygen  mandatory      no task                 0]
Ventilate      Major+ chest   Easy                    +1
               damage
Insert chest   Major+ chest   Average(1)              +1
drain          damage
Insert gastric Major+ chest   Average(2)              +1
tube           or abdo damage
               unconscious

Notes
(1) - requires tools + local anaesthetic (or unconscious/general)
(2) - requires tools

* Inserting drainage tubes can make things worse. Hearts have been
perforated by personnel inserting chest drains. Stomachs have been
perforated inserting gastric tubes. Never, never introduce a gastric or
airway tube through the nose of someone who may have a base of skull
fracture ; it may end up poking into the brain...

Spectacular failure : 1D damage

4. Circulation :- Difficulty, Medical/First Aid, Dex
Manoeuvre         Indication                Difficulty
Direct Pressure   control external bleeding Easy

Insert IV cannula permit volume resusc.     Average(1)

(1) Difficult if Major damage

* Volume resuscitation : (wound difficulty), Med/First Aid, victim's
End (co-operative), bonuses from previous steps

    Wound        Difficulty
    Superficial  Easy (usually not required)
    Minor        Average
    Major        Difficult
    Destroyed    Formidable

    Success restores consciousness if not anaesthetised/sedated or
    Destroyed level damage (nearly dead!). A safe blood
    pressure is maintained in the presence of a patent airway and
    adequate oxygenation.

    Failure : catastrophe check. Spectacular failure : catastrophe
    check +1D damage. Spectacular success : 'rolls back' half dice
    of damage.

Pericard tap Major+chest  Difficult(1)
Cardiac      Destroyed    Average (external)
massage      damage       Difficult (open)(1)

(1) assumes appropriate tools, +1 for impromptu.

These tasks permit catastrophe checks and Spectacular failure
damage to be reversed or ignored.
Success leads to a restoration of normal heart rhythm with stable
blood pressure.
Failure causes 1D damage. Ventilation and cardiac
massage will need to be continued until definitive treatment can be
performed.

Notes :-
Volume resuscitation :- blood, blood products (eg. clotting
factors), colloids (protein or starch solutions), crystalloids
(salt solutions) - TL 4+
Crystalloids or colloids can be used until blood is available.
Blood and blood products should be used only when bleeding is
controlled (except for very dire circumstances).

5. Stabilised or not?
Further catastrophe checks can be made every ten minutes or so or at
important points (transfer onto or off a vehicle, or for dramatic
effect...)

C. The Secondary Survey
Evaluate injury by region and treat accordingly.
i. Evaluation.
Retain verbiage on investigations

*Diagnosis of injury : Average, Medical, Edu, uncertain

This task can be co-operative (either with sophont
physicians or expert systems). The practical upper limit
is three medics.

Higher technology level investigations reduce
uncertainty:
TL 4-5         +1 DM on uncertainty roll
   6-8         +3 DM "
   9-11        +4 DM "
   11+         +5 DM "

Total Truth : +2 to treatment tasks
Some Truth : baseline
Some Untruth : -1 to treatment tasks
Total Untruth : -2 to treatment tasks

*To perform a successful embolisation : Difficult,
Medical, Dex. Equipment is required to attempt
this task.

Indications :- Major+ abdominal damage.
Surgery is required if embolisation fails.

At lower tech levels, more surgery is performed.
At higher tech levels, more sophisticated tests are performed.

Catastrophe checks should be made during the evaluation process.

ii. Treatment.
The following task covers any area not previously specified.

To treat injuries :- variable, Medical/First Aid, Edu/Dex
+ evaluation mods, as above.

Severity      Difficulty
Superficial   Easy ; First Aid OK
Minor         Average ; First Aid OK
Major         Difficult
Destroyed     Formidable

This is a co-operative task ; the surgeon's first assistant
provides half their skill.
Optionally, up to two surgical teams (surgeon+first
assistant) can operate at the same time on different parts
of the patient. This permits wounds to be separated into different
tasks.

Regions (1 team per region) :-
Head
Arms/chest/abdo
Legs

Surgery requiring general anaesthetic, or resuscitation for
Destroyed injuries requires an endotracheal tube to control
the airway and an anaesthetist.

+1 difficulty level for impromptu/inadequate tools
(eg. suturing without local anaesthetic) and/or setting (in
the field vs operating theatre).

**The usual outcome for this task is to enable healing. On a
Spectacular Success, 1D damage points are 'rolled back'.
Spectacular Failure inflicts 1D damage.

The anaesthetist can make a task roll as above to try and reverse
Spectacular Failure. He or she cannot improve on Spectacular Success.

Aftercare and Outcomes : retain verbiage

Severity    Supplies? Home Care? Ward? ICU? Theatre/Reanim?
Superficial  Y/3D      N          N     N    maybe, 500
Minor        N         Y/UR      100    N    maybe, 500 X 1D
Major        N         Y/UR      100   500   yes, 1000 X 1D
Destroyed    N         Y/UR      100   500   1000 X 1D/250K

Y, yes : N, no. Numbers or dice cost in Cr per day of hospitalisation
or occasion of service.
UR - until recovered.
Healing rates :-
Superficial  1 point, all affected chars, per day
Minor        1 point, all affected chars, per day
Major        1 point, one characteristic, per day
             ICU -> ward when one char recovered or conscious
             ward -> home when all chars 50% of original value
Destroyed    1 point, one characteristic, per week, until
             50% of points recovered - then treat as Major

Slow drug speeds this up by a factor of ten. Its use is confined to
ICU and Major+level damage.
For Superficial and Minor injuries :-
Enhanced wound healing doubles the rate of recovery at TL 9+
Triples it at TL 12+
(gentle growth quickening and tissue culture tech)

Progress and Complications
Severity     Check
Superficial  Infection check, 3 days after injury
Minor        Infection check, 3 days after injury
Major        Consciousness check, daily
             Catastrophe check, every second day (daily if slow drug)
Destroyed    Consciousness check twice a week
             Catastrophe check daily

Infection check : Infection occurs on a Spectacular Failure on a
Average,
End task (roll a natural 2). Healing stops until the infection is
treated.

If in hospital, task is Average Medical (attendant), End (patient).

Consciousness check : Difficult, End. Wake up if successful.

Catastrophe check : Difficult, Medical (attendant), End (patient)
Spectacular Failure leads to the development of some problem. 1D damage
is applied promptly.

Effects :-
All characteristics to zero :- cardiac arrest, any cause
Two characteristics to zero :- eg. severe infection, bleeding, pulmonary

embolism (blood clot to lungs), heart attack (myocardial infarction).
One characteristic to zero :- minor infection or wound breakdown.

Miscellany :-

To thaw from low berth :-

Difficult, Med, Edu.
Spectacular Failure leads to automatic Destroyed damage
(cardiac arrest).

Reanimation is a Formidable Medical, Edu task (co-operative OK).
+1 difficulty level if fast drug used instead of low berthing.



Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gearhead and Gaming Enthusiast

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1066
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 31 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1067



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Behind the Claw - FI   (First Impressions)
Re: G:T - "Behind the Claw"
Italian Lexicon
Warrant Officers (Long)
GURPS Traveller upcomming items
Dead Vilani
Re: Behind the Claw
Behind the Claw (Chirpers)
Re: Behind the Claw (Chirpers)
[none]
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: GT transponders
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: GT transponders
Re: Efficient 100-D Control

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 12:42:00 +0000
From: dominicreynolds@dial.pipex.com
Subject: Behind the Claw - FI   (First Impressions)

I got my copy today too !!! 

I am fairly impressed by the content, as it will be useful
to many Traveller games even those using a different region
or setting. eg Reavers Deep.  

I was hoping for a good map, which details the Spinward Marches
area.  However the map on P142 appears faint, and is missing a
few lines on the borders of sub sectors.  Does anyone know of a
program or PDF file which would enable this kind of map to be
printed on an A4 sheet of paper.  (is A4 metric ??)

The snippets of cultural information for each planet are good,
and will enable GMs to set the scene rather than "You land on
another Water World it is wet" (GM burnout - having to translate
another set of UWP after an exploratory trade mission)



Dom
- ---

mailto:dominicreynolds@dial.pipex.com  or  mailto:dominicr@bigfoot.com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 08:16:28 -0500
From: "Alan M. Nuss" <amnuss@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: G:T - "Behind the Claw"

X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I bought a copy yesterday and I'm happy with it.  Lots of mystery hints
in the write ups
and sidebars.  Liked the artwork.  Even if you don't play GURPS, this is
a must buy for
any Traveller fan.

Alan

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 14:33:03
From: Paolo Marino <marino@inrete.it>
Subject: Italian Lexicon

If someone is still interested, here is an Italian version:


>Spaceport
Spazioporto

>Starport
Porto Stellare

>Highport
Altoporto (quite uncommon way of describing it)

>Downport
Bassoporto (ditto)

>Base
Base

>Company
Compagnia

>Corporation
Corporazione (Corporazione true meaning is more like "guild")

>Assembly
Assemblea

>Parliament
Parlamento

>Legislature
Legislatura

>Council
Concilio

>Bureau
Ufficio

>Administration
Amministrazione




__  Paolo Marino  __          |Inrete Games Page: www.inrete.it/games/gms.html
 mc4799@mclink.it (Preferred) | marino@inrete.it (Best for MIME/BinHex)

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 08:32:57 -0500
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Warrant Officers (Long)

- -----Original Message-----
From: William F. Hostman <aramis@gci.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Friday, October 30, 1998 8:37 PM

>
>US military warrants are often more than "Consultants in Uniform"... all
>the warrants I've known have either been specialists who needed to outrank
>all enlisted, chopper pilots, LPN nurses (only one I've known), or
>Physician's assistants. I was sworn into the US army at MEPS by a Coast
>Guard JAG/Legal warrant. All the warrants I've known WERE in authority over
>enlisted men. Most of them were former enlisted.
>
>IMTU, I don't have warrants in the Imperium, and the Zhodani warrants
>follow the warsaw pact model of "Senior NCO's who get salutes". Also, IMTU,
>fighter pilots are officers due to the restriction (again wholly my own bit
>here) that only officers are allowed to engage on discretion.
>
>William F. Hostman
>
Maybe I can help here at least as far as Warrant Officers are concerned and
then you can make your own choices.  First, I am a retired U.S. Army Chief
Warrant Officer. There are two types of warrant officers in the U.S.
Military.  They are the pilots (we called them rotor heads because they flew
helicopters) and technical warrants (leg warrant because they aren't
pilots.)  I was a technical warrant specializing in Electronic Intelligence
(ELINT) and Foreign Instrumentation Systems Intelligence (FISINT)

I came up through the enlisted ranks to Sergeant First Class (E-7) and made
a decision that I didn't want be an Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge
(NCOIC) of an S-3 (Operations/Training) or S-2 (Security) shop at Battalion
(Bn)/Brigade (Bde) or for that matter a First Sergeant (1SG or "First
Shirt") in the Company.  Because I was fairly senior in grade I had
opportunities to try out those jobs and didn't really care to be an
administrator or a baby sitter for the rest of my career.  Having been lucky
enough to be promoted early, to have been to numerous technical assignments
where I gathered an inordinate amount of expertise in my career field and
had been to 152 weeks of technical schools (40 hours a week, 8 hours a day)
plus had my share of salad dressing on my uniform I decided to apply for
warrant officer.  There were 36 slots in the entire U.S. Army for my career
field.  They could only fill 33 because we weren't at war and I competed
against 65 other people for the one open slot that year.  Needless to say it
gives you a certain amount of pride when you are the one selected.  You come
into the field as a recognized expert and you are supposed to be fully
qualified plus you already have numerous years in the military. In my chosen
world I was just above average when compared to my peers.  Having explained
how tough it was to get there might give you a better understanding of why
commissioned officers pretty much leave you to your own devices.  Now this
covers the technical warrants and from my experience the Navy and the Marine
Corps worked pretty much the same way.

Flight Warrants start out differently.  Usually they are enlisted men that
are attracted to the aviation career field but occassionally you get a
warrant officer into the program that just wasn't cutting it in his career
field or he just wanted to change to aviation for whatever reason.  This
means that anyone 18.5 years old (in the U.S. Army) can go to flight school
and if they graduate they are promoted to warrant officer.  This was very
prevalent in the 60's and 70' (Vietnam era) and lot of young men lost their
lives as history tells us.  In almost every case they start out in
helicopters with less than 10% going on to fixed wing.  Now days the fixed
wing world is pretty much reserved for warrant officers at W-3 and up.

Ranks for Warrant Officers are as follows:
   WO-1  -  Warrant Officer
CWO-2  -  Chief Warrant Officer
CWO-3  -      "            "          "
CWO-4  -  Senior Warrant Officer
CWO-5  -  Master Warrant Officer

These ranks are between E-9 (Sergeant Major, Master CPO, etc..) and O-1 (2nd
Leuitenant, Ensign).  As far as I know, company grade officers still defer
to Warrant Officers (as long as you don't hurt their pride.) These are the
ranks up to Captain (Army/Marine Corps) and Leuitenant (Navy).  The first
real challenge to the warrant officer's authority comes from the Field Grade
Officers (Major, LtCdr up to COL and CPT [Navy]).  Don't get me wrong, I
never jumped an officer in front of the "men", I waited till I had them
behind closed to doors to "give him/her some training".  You can't have the
"men" losing respect for the officers just because they are ignorant.  I
only knew of one commissioned officer that was really stupid and couldn't be
trained and we got rid of him PDQ.

Other countries warrant officers often fell into the realm of "Super NCO"
and they weren't afforded the privileges of the "Officer Corps" as were the
American Warrants.  As an example I went to the deep sea survival course
presented by the RAF in Plymouth, England and they had a real hard time with
what we were.  Eventually it was determined that since our Armed Forces
recognized us as real live officers then they would too.  We stayed in the
Bachelor Officer Quarters and had our meals at the officers mess.  I was
duly impressed being served my meals by orderlies, beds made, shoes shined,
etc.  What a life!!!

A few years before I retired they offered Warrant Officers the chance to get
commissioned.  The only change in status was you could perform swearing in
ceremonies, administer disciplinary actions (in accordance with the UCMJ)
and be a commander.  That way the Army got more bang for its buck.  That was
what the warrant corps was all about from the beginning, an officer that
worked cheap and knew what he was doing.

An old saying:
When you warrant a product;
it's a guarantee  of satisfaction.
When you commission a product,
you hope it will work.

If you have further questions I have some of the history of the U.S. Army's
Warrant Officer Corps and would be happy to answer what I can.  Please use
my personal eMail address for those to keep the bandwidth down.
thomharr@mediaone.net
Thom Harris
CWO, U.S. Army (Ret)

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 08:57:16 -0500
From: "Alan M. Nuss" <amnuss@earthlink.net>
Subject: GURPS Traveller upcomming items

The following is from Steve Jackson Game's Upcomming Products page.
http://www.sjgames.com/newproducts/

Nov '98
Alien Races I for GURPS Traveller
Five alien races described in detail: the psionic Zhodani, the canine
Vargr, and (seen for the first time) the tyrannosaurian Drakarans, the
arachnoid Clotho and the enigmatic Sheol. The book contains starship
deck plans and vehicle designs; typical weaponry; rules for creating
player characters, and lots of sample NPCs; up-to-date history and
cultural information for each race, and much more. A must for Traveller
fans!
Written by David Pulver.

Jan '99
GURPS Traveller: Star Mercs
Everything you need for a military-oriented campaign in the universe of
Traveller! This book covers combat (and a soldier's life) in the 57th
century; how to recruit, organize, and equip a mercenary unit; and the
Imperial rules of war. There are descriptions of how armies are
organized and equipped for Tech Levels from 5 to 12, discussions of
strategy and tactics, and a comprehensive rundown on weapons and the
other tools of the soldier's trade.

Star Mercs also includes templates for military and mercenary soldier
characters, sample missions, and a variety of units and NPC
personalities your mercenary group might encounter, including the famed
and feared Imperial Marines.

On the horizon (no dates yet)
GURPS Traveller Scouts
GURPS Traveller Trade and Commerce


Alan

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 09:05:29 -0800
From: Joe Webb <jwwebb@earthlink.net>
Subject: Dead Vilani

Hi all,

I've been lurking on and off, and now that the piracy question has finally
been settled I thought I'd ask a question.

What do you do with a dead Vilani?

I've been working on an archeology adventure and this just hit me.  Nothing
on Vland, or presumably the other planets they explored prior to meeting
Terrans, could get a Vilani sick.  The biochemistry is just too different.
That would have to work both way, nothing would find a Vilani edible.  Not
even the bacteria, fungi, insects and all the rest that decompose dead
tissue.

Dear departed uncle Eneri wouldn't decompose.  He would just lay on his
slab and dry out.  Just like a king sized Twinky.  Nothing in nature would
touch him.

Does this creepy scenario sound right?  While I know only a little biology,
if you take the one fact that the Vilani had no disease until meeting
Solomani, doesn't this make sense?

This would also explain some Vilani conservatism.  If you could point to
old, great great grandfather Eneri, dead this last century, that could go a
long way toward not changing the way thing were done in his day.  Ancestor
worship wouldn't be just a religious thing, it would be a civic duty!  You
just can't let your ancestors gather dust and get all raggedy now, or
expect someone else to tidy them up.  Besides, they are watching...

Of course, most of these bets are off when the Solomani arrive.  Another
explanation too.  The First Imperium fell to the Terrans so fast because of
1 - superior technology, 2 - rampant disease, and 3 - uncounted ranks of
carefully tended ancestors, the repository of tradition, the founders of
civilization, start rotting like so many old jack o lanterns.

There is something to picture.  The last Vilani emporer sitting on the
throne, hearing the latest reports of unstoppable weapons of the
barbarians.  Lingering death mowing down the populations ofentire worlds.
He decides to meditate in the grand Hall of Ancestors.  As he approches the
great doors, a stench lingers in the air.   Slowly he pushes the doors
open, the groan inprotest.  The smell is overpowering.  He turns on the
lights, they slowly  come on.  He looks to his great grandfather for
guiadance.  And screams in horror at what is staring back at him.

Happy Halloween.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 10:43:59 -0800
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Re: Behind the Claw

At 03:59 PM 10/30/98 EST, you wrote:
>In a message dated 10/29/98 9:01:16 PM Central Standard Time,
Kagehira@aol.com
>writes:
>
><< 	And apparently Vargr don't use utensils when eating....
>  >>
>
>I've seen some humans who don't use utensils either.

Hung out with Rangers while in the service?
- --

+------------------------------------------+
| Douglas E. Berry       dberry@hooked.net |
|      http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/      |
+------------------------------------------+
| "or it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' | 
| "Chuck him out, the brute!"              |
| But it's "Saviour of 'is country"        |
| when the guns begin to shoot;"           |
+------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 14:56:36 -0500
From: "Dan Eveland" <develand@mindspring.com>
Subject: Behind the Claw (Chirpers)

In GT Behind the Claw, the Chirpers seem different then what I remember from
classic Traveller.  I always thought Chirpers were casteless Droyne.  I
think that was from Research Station Gamma mentioning something about them
being genetically identical to Droyne.

Anyone else remember this?

Dan

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 13:41:48 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Behind the Claw (Chirpers)

Dan Eveland wrote:
> 
> In GT Behind the Claw, the Chirpers seem different then what I remember from
> classic Traveller.  I always thought Chirpers were casteless Droyne.  I
> think that was from Research Station Gamma mentioning something about them
> being genetically identical to Droyne.
>

Uncasted, not casteless, there's a subtle difference. Presumably
Chirpers of the right age, who undergo a Droyne casting ceremony would
mature into Droyne. G:T Encyclopedia section says they are genetically
identical, too, but not much else.

And grrr...my FLGS doesn't have BTC yet :-( They _do_ have a number of
other GURPS books, I saw both hard and softbound Basic rules and
Traveller, Compendium 1, Vehicles, Robots, UltraTech and a number of
others. No Space, though...

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 11:49:48 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: [none]

>>From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
>>Subject: Re Sunbeard Declaration
>>
>>>Does anyone actually disagree with anything in it ?
>>>
>>>Ian Whitchurch
>>
>>yes, one or two points... but not the major thematic issues.
>
>
>Which points, and why ?
>
>Ian

>#1 : Mainworlds with either signifigant trade or signifigant economies can
>and will defend their space out to about their 100 diameter limits.
>
>#2 : These defenses will make piracy in and around mainworlds unprofitable.
>
>#3 : These defenses do not extend to the entire system.
>
>#4 : Most career pirates concentrate on the unsafe outsystems.

I don't think exclusively so. I figure pirates will work the lesser inner
worlds as well. Especially since the innersystems routes will put in-system
merchants on 4-5 day sub-light courses (assuming T-plates).

>#5 : Shippers apply risk premiums to trade with either unsafe systems or
>outsystems.
>
>#6 : Merchant ships specialising in trading in unsafe areas tend to be
>heavily armed
>
>#7 : Merchant ships specialising in trading in safe areas tend to be
>lightly armed or unarmed
>
>#8 : The best markets for stolen starships and cargos are in other states,
>however unsafe areas will buy commodities they know to be stolen at heavily
>discounted rates

this assumes too much tracking of cargos for my taste, and too few
unscrupulous buyers.

>#9 : Pirate ships will tend to be converted merchants, as unsafe areas tend
>not to be profitable enough to justify custom-built warships. Safe areas
>tend to be too dangerous for even custom built warships to operate in for
>long enough to defray their build costs. Pirate warships may exist from
>mutinous or rebel crews.

Again, I disagree here, as at least a few will be operating as purpose
built commerce raiders in local wars. I believe that pirates will be
treated much the same as mercs.

>A corrollory of #4 and #5 is that Outsystems will tend to remain
>underdeveloped, as they cannot develop until they are secure, and they are
>not worth securing until they are developed.
>
>Now, are all the principals of the GPD happy with this so we can put this
>in the FAQ ?
>
>Ian Whitchurch

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 23:27:54 +0000
From: C G Essery <cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

Apart from my Traveller interests, I have been a member of the Naval
Wargames Society since 1971 and INRO (International Naval Records
Organisation) since 1975.

I did once start a fictional campaign on the assumption that Bismarck
had been held back until Tirpitz and Graf Zepplin were complete, then
the entire German fleet sortied to intercept the Operation Torch convoys
that they had received intelligence about.  I only played out one game
which was an action against a convoy coming up from South Africa, with
the 2 Pocket Battleships and a Light Cruiser and a Wolf Pack (plus a
disguised Armed Merchant Cruiser) against a mixed escort of British and
Australian CAs/CLs and Long Range Escorts (I think 2/2/6 respectively
but the game was played over 10 years ago).  I intended that later I
would play out the main force of Bismarck/Tirpitz/Scharnhorst/Gniesenau
and Graf Zepplin possibly with Prinz Eugen against convoys coming from
Canada/England and the USA as a campaign, but I never finished painting
the models although I believe that I have 50% of all the warships
available in the Atlantic at the time.  The idea being to split the
classes so that no more than 50% would ever be in the same group.

Clive Essery
- -------------------------------------------------------------
John Lansford wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 27 Oct 1998 00:58:17 +1300, you wrote:
> 
> >I disagree (:*>), Scharnhorst and Gniesenau broke off from the three convoys
> >escorted by R class due to hitlers orders that no capital ship be risked.
> 
> He was right, for once. The 11" guns on S&G could not have seriously
> damaged the heavily armored "R" class BB's unless they closed to
> seriously dangerous (for them) ranges. The 15" guns on the "R's" were
> dangerous to S&G even at long ranges; look what happened when Renown
> hit one of them during the Norway cruises.
> 
> >>Bismarck never found any convoy. She fought a naval group searching
> >>for her (Hood and Prince of Wales), and later was sunk by yet another
> >>naval group.
> 
> >. Even an R
> >class escorting a convoy could have easily inflicted sufficent damage to force
> >Lutjens to abort the mission.
> 
> Certainly, except that it was thought the risk to Bismarck was minimal
> against one of the older BB's escorting convoys. Their rangefinding
> and crew skills weren't up to the level of the first class ships in
> the RN, after all.
> 
> >Even an old R class could have inflicted sufficent damage to Bismark to force
> >her to break off, while the DD's could have threatened Prinz Eugen with
> >sufficent damage (torpedo attacks) to allow the convoy time to scatter.
> 
> Sure. And a torpedo could get a one in a million hit on Bismarck's
> rudders, jamming them so the Home Fleet could catch up to her.
> 
> War is about risk. The Germans were willing to risk Bismarck convoy
> raiding (what else were they going to do with her?).
> 
> >Scharnhorst and Gneisenau both were more cost effective, better protected
> >(they used an all or nothing scheme) and less prone to engaging targets which
> >could have hurt them. The important thing to remember is any significant
> >damage will be fatal to a raider (or at the very least force her to abandon her
> >mission).
> 
> I understand this. It's hardly cost effective to have to run away from
> every escorted convoy, either. S&G could not have seriously hurt an R
> battleship without getting heavily damaged in the process.
> 
> John Lansford
> 
> The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
> http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 22:08:46 +0000
From: C G Essery <cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Transponders are used in real life for Air Traffic Control, they are
usually called Secondary Survallance Radar (SSR for short).  It works
like this:

Radar tells you how far away an aircraft is and maybe its size.  It does
not tell you what the aircraft is or how high it is.  The SSR does that
by responding to the Radar pulse hitting the plane with information
about the plane, eg its Code (a number assigned to it) this is converted
to its Call Sign (eg KLM123 the number printed on your ticket) by
software before display on the Radar Tube.  It also provides the height
of the aircraft, and in some cases the air speed.  Note that the height
is the height that the aircraft instruments believe they are at.  This
depends on the air pressure and there is more than one setting. 
Aircraft departing from France use one setting and this needs to be
changed once the plane arrives in English airspace as we use a different
setting.  Otherwise the aircraft believes it is at a different level (I
believe that it thinks it is higher than it really is).  I have been
told that this was the cause of the plane crash that killed Graham Hill
the Formula 1 racing driver who was the father of the current F1 driver
Damon Hill.  The plane flew into a hill in  fog as the pressure settings
had not been changed.

If this concept is pushed forward into the Traveller environment, then I
guess that the equivalent would be that the distance and bearing within
the "galactic plane" could be measured by the sensors, but not the
height above or below the "galactic plane".  Somewhere in the Traveller
Docs that I have read recently (T4 or GURPS) there was a passage
describing the transponders stating that it was not possible to change
"who" you were, only where you were and your destination (route?).

Clive Essery
- -------------------------------------------------------------------
Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com wrote:
> 
> Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400
> From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: GT transponders
> 
> > ***************I'M OVER HERE!!!!!********************LOOK AT
> >ME!!!!!!!!!!!!*******************.
> >
> >if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
> Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
> anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
> anything there.
> **************
> that is about all they do say...they come sealed, with regeistry info, but
> the destination info is input by the ships navegator.
> 
> If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
> Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
> away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
> better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
> locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
> out.
> *****************
> even better to just turn it off, having your transponder picked up will
> result in a +4 to scan you with other systems, and if you don't match......

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 23:52:20 +0000
From: C G Essery <cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

The Exeter is one of the smallest CAs ever built, Standard Displacement
circa 8000 tons, the CLs were also much smaller than most of the US,
Japanese or later (Town/Colony) class British CLs.  One of the problems
appears to have been that the 11" Armour Piercing Shells went straight
through Exeter and out the other side without exploding.  One of the
German gunners apparently commented after the scuttling that if they had
not expended their 11" High Explosive rounds on merchant ships the
outcome may have been very different.  I believe Exeter took something
in the region of 75 hits with a similar number (mostly lighter shells)
on the CLs.

4x15" would probably have been even worse under these circumstances. 
More difficult to hit and even less likely to explode.  In Salvo firing
you usually need 4 shell splashes to determine when a ship has been
straddled or whether it is over or under.  With only 4 guns you are
firing half as fast and allowing the enemy to move further between each
shoot.  This is one of the reasons that the Royal Navy stuck to 4
turrets for so long (8 or 12 guns).  The KGVs were originally designed
with a twin X turret as well to give 12 guns but this was reduced as
they could not fit the design into 35000 tons and even the 10 gun
version didn't quite make it although it was a lot closer than any other
attempt to build within that limit.

Clive Essery
- ----------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 16:30:23 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

At 23:43 26/10/98 GMT, John Lansford wrote:

>He was right, for once. The 11" guns on S&G could not have seriously
>damaged the heavily armored "R" class BB's unless they closed to
>seriously dangerous (for them) ranges. The 15" guns on the "R's" were
>dangerous to S&G even at long ranges; look what happened when Renown
>hit one of them during the Norway cruises.

Both these ships were to have given twin 15" turrets in place of their
triple 11", but the war intervened and the work was never done. If this
had
happened it would've been somewhat different.

- - -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 22:08:46 +0000
From: C G Essery <cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

Transponders are used in real life for Air Traffic Control, they are
usually called Secondary Survallance Radar (SSR for short).  It works
like this:

Radar tells you how far away an aircraft is and maybe its size.  It does
not tell you what the aircraft is or how high it is.  The SSR does that
by responding to the Radar pulse hitting the plane with information
about the plane, eg its Code (a number assigned to it) this is converted
to its Call Sign (eg KLM123 the number printed on your ticket) by
software before display on the Radar Tube.  It also provides the height
of the aircraft, and in some cases the air speed.  Note that the height
is the height that the aircraft instruments believe they are at.  This
depends on the air pressure and there is more than one setting. 
Aircraft departing from France use one setting and this needs to be
changed once the plane arrives in English airspace as we use a different
setting.  Otherwise the aircraft believes it is at a different level (I
believe that it thinks it is higher than it really is).  I have been
told that this was the cause of the plane crash that killed Graham Hill
the Formula 1 racing driver who was the father of the current F1 driver
Damon Hill.  The plane flew into a hill in  fog as the pressure settings
had not been changed.

If this concept is pushed forward into the Traveller environment, then I
guess that the equivalent would be that the distance and bearing within
the "galactic plane" could be measured by the sensors, but not the
height above or below the "galactic plane".  Somewhere in the Traveller
Docs that I have read recently (T4 or GURPS) there was a passage
describing the transponders stating that it was not possible to change
"who" you were, only where you were and your destination (route?).

Clive Essery
- -------------------------------------------------------------------
Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com wrote:
> 
> Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:21:00 -0400
> From: Fred and Evelyn Wolke <thewolkes@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: GT transponders
> 
> > ***************I'M OVER HERE!!!!!********************LOOK AT
> >ME!!!!!!!!!!!!*******************.
> >
> >if you have a transopnder on everyone in the system knows you are there.
> Then why have transponders say anything other than that?  If you can record
> anything you want on the transponder, then it's meaningless to have
> anything there.
> **************
> that is about all they do say...they come sealed, with regeistry info, but
> the destination info is input by the ships navegator.
> 
> If I were in your campaign, I would set my transponder to say that I was an
> Imperial Navy destroyer, at least when I was anywhere I thought I could get
> away with it.  That would keep the pirates away, now wouldn't it?  Even
> better, if I were a pirate, I would put that on my transponder so that the
> locals wouldn't mind me watching over their system for a few days from 3AU
> out.
> *****************
> even better to just turn it off, having your transponder picked up will
> result in a +4 to scan you with other systems, and if you don't match......

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 09:16:57 +0000
From: C G Essery <cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Efficient 100-D Control

One of my sources claims that the position that the torpedos were
allegedly fired from was in the middle of Loch Ness according to the
UBoats log.  Also the log is supposed to have claimed that the ship also
fired unsuccessfully at a Cruiser.  The Cruiser sailed from Scarpa Flow
the previous night and wasn't available as a target.  Add to this the
fact that one eye-witness claims that 3 of the turrets exploded
simultaneously, suggests that the UBoat dropped frogmen, probably
outside the anchorage, who set demolition charges.

At least that was a reasonable explanation that I had believed for many
years, but last year I talked to a fellow worker who is a keen diver and
has been given permission to dive on the wreck.  He claims that all the
evidence supports the claim that she was torpedoed.

I must say I am not sure what I believe about this incident now.

Clive Essery
- ------------------------------------------------------------
SD Mooney wrote:
> 
> Black ICE <wombat@premier.net> wrote:
> 
> >For any historically-challenged subscribers to the list, HMS ROYAL OAK
> >was sunk in October 1939 by a U-boat (U-39?) that did just that:
> >penetrated the main British naval base (Scapa Flow).
> 
> I'm sorry. Recent evidence shows that the Royal Oak was scuttled by her
> crew to prevent the German U-Boat crew boarding her, stealing her and
> obtaining valuable information... ;-)
> 
> Dom
> 
> ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
> "Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
> that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
> You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
> 'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
> MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1067
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Saturday, October 31 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1068



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
Re: Fleet in Being
Re: Extended System Generation
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: Efficient 100-D Control
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Sunbeard Declaration
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Commerce raiding
Re: Logistics
G:T Hardback & Softback Prices
Off topic
Pirate Fleets (Was Re: )
Re: GT transponders
Re: Extended System Generation
Re: Milky Way
Re: accrete stats
Semi Off-Topic:  Rebroadcast of "War of the Worlds"
Re: Behind the Claw

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 09:51:10 +0000
From: C G Essery <cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

I assume by the Classic Period, you refer to the Age of Sail.  There are
many examples of ships catching fire during battle and sinking, L'Orion
comes to mind as one.  There was at least one ship burnt this way in
both the battle of the Nile and the Glorious First of June.  I also
believe that there were many ships sunk at both Trafalgar (before the
battle ended) and Camperdown.

Also WW1 has the obvious example of the 3 British Battlecruisers who all
blew up spectacularly (as did Hood in WW2), and one German Battlecruiser
that was so unstable that she was torpedoed by her escorts with 12 hours
of the battle.

Clive Essery
- -----------------------------------------------------------
Rupert Boleyn wrote:
> 
> At 18:31 22/10/98 -0700, David P. Summers wrote:
> >Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:39:19 -0400, "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
> >
> >>Which brings up the question to me, why don't our fighters, heavy or
> >>otherwise have enough firepower to knock out a capitol ship?  Seems to me
> >>that we should have equivalent weapons in the Trav era that are available to
> >>carriers/fighters today.
> >
> >Why?  Just because weapons are leading over armor today doesn't mean this
> >should
> >always hold.
> 
> I read (I forget where) a theory that naval military technology since the
> end of the classic period has been driven by the quest to find a decisive
> ship sinking weapon like the ram was in the heyday of the trireme. The
> argument is that until the invention of workable explosive shells ships
> didn't get sunk (to all intents and purposes) in combat, instead after
> hours of bettering they became incapable of resisting boarding parties.
> Note that aside from subs and aircraft WWI and WWII BBs were in a similar
> situation, though they did tend to sink in the end. Given that this state
> of affiars lasted for over 1500 years, I can see no reason why it shouldn't
> be able to exist in the far future.
> 
> IMO one problem Traveller ship combat has is that people want the feeling
> that you get having mighty ship pounding away at each other like a WWI
> slugfest, but they also want the quick thrill of the cat and mouse game of
> fire and maneuver and these are two fairly incompatible desires.
> 
> --
> IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--
> 
> "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
> 
> Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
> Palmerston North, New Zealand
> Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 18:52:11 +0000
From: C G Essery <cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Fleet in Being

You are absolutely right about this, but there is also the other side of
the coin.  My ancestors did the same to the Germans in the First and
Second World Wars as they did to the French in the many wars that we
have had.  We blocaded them into there ports so that they could not
escort the much needed raw materials into their country.  The result is
a slow economic death in that they cannot produce the equipment they
need to continue the war.  In WW1 the allies didn't even have to crush
Germany as they did in the WW2.

The Americans did the same to the Japanese in the latter parts of WW2. 
The difference being that their main force (the Aircraft Carriers) were
destroyed having sortied in the expectation of causing the Americans a
crushing blow.  The Japanese call the Battle of Midway "the 15 minutes
that lost the war" for very good reason.  As with Germany however, the
Japanese had to be crushed before they would sue for surrender, but they
realistically had very little chance of winning after Midway.

Clive Essery
- ------------------------------------------------------
MJ Dougherty wrote:
> 
> About capital ships in port... they don't sit there and rust.
> 
> The mere threat that the ship MIGHT sortie keeps at least three comparable
> ships on-station at all times. They're effectively out of the war. If you
> build a good set of flak defenses you can also cost the enemy a regular
> dribble of aircraft and pilots. Meantime, you have the option of a sortie.
> 
> It was the terror of Tirpitz that sank PQ 17. Tirpitz raises steam and
> everyone panics... convoy scatters and gets nailed by minor forces. If
> Tirpitz had come out she might have been damaged (HMS Glowworm vs the
> Hipper?), whereas if she stays in harbour she has the option to sortie any
> time. Once she's out and crippled that option is lost, and it is by being
> 'in being' that she causes the most damage.
> 
> After all the enemy HAS to take the threat of sortie seriously. Any time he
> does not then he suddenly has one of the world's finest battleships running
> amok in the shipping lanes, and this is not fun.
> 
> Tirpitz did more damage to the allied cause without leaving port than she
> would most likely have done before being caught and sunk if she'd come out.
> She WOULD have been caught and sunk eventually, and while she'd do
> considerable damage (maybe cripple or sink a couple of capital ships,
> several other war  vessels and a truly scary amount of merchant shipping),
> her loss would free elements of the Home Fleet for other tasks and remove
> the Battleship Threat. She'd benefit the allies more by making that heroic
> sortie than by sitting in port.
> 
> Just ask any of the survivors of PQ17 how much damage the Tirpitz did.
> 
> MJD

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 18:18:36 +0000
From: C G Essery <cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

This is very similar to a question that I have been meaning to ask since
I joined this list a couple of weeks ago.

I am looking for a world that I can place my ship design/buiding agency
on - it needs to be TL15 and possibly the home of a reasonably high
noble.  Somehow in my mustering out of the IN I managed to get Knighted,
but believe that I can put together a reasonable explanation if there is
a high level Noble about.

Has anyone or a group on the ever mapped out the whole of the known
space.  Ideally it should be available on the Net so that people can
place themselves on specific planets.  If not are there any sub-sectors
that have not been "surveyed" yet so that I could try and setup a planet
for my character?  Alternatively does anyone have a planet where they
would not mind a new starship design bureau being setup?

Clive Essery
- ----------------------------------------------------------
Ian or Katts wrote:
<<snip>> 
> Has anyone done an entire subsector using extended system generation ?
> 
> Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 17:42:14 +0000
From: C G Essery <cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

According to one of the books that I read on the subject, one of the
German ships (I believe Prinz Eugen) had Sound Ranging gear on board
that picked up the Hood/PoW long before they were in sight (circa 45
miles out).  The recognised Hood from sound recordings made much
earlier, but were puzzled by the other ship - she was similar to KGV but
definitely not that ship, so they surmised that PoW must have been
completed and had sailed.  The Germans did _not_ know that PoW was
seaworthy when Bismarck sailed.  In fact she sailed with a large number
of dockhands onboard (I believe circa 145), finishing off some of the
work before the action, and were able to help repair the damage caused
by the action before she got back to port.

Note also that the War Office (the forerunner to the MoD) did not
believe that one KGV class could take on the Bismarck.  PoW was ordered
to break off the action, and KGV was ordered to wait until Rodney could
be diverted from Convoy Escort to assist her.

One other unsubstantiated bit of information that I have is that Vian's
Destroyer attack during the night was beaten off by such accurate
secondary fire that the commander concluded that the guns were radar
controlled and that the radar had somehow survived intact to that
point.  I would be more inclined to believe that it was the sound
ranging equipment helping to give the DD's position, but I don't know
how that would work with her own guns firing.

One suggestion made for the lack of information on the sound ranging
equipment is that this equipment formed the basis of the RN's post war
Sonar system.

Clive Essery
- -------------------------------------------
John Lansford wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 25 Oct 98 00:17:03 -0500, you wrote:
> 
> >On 10/24/98 at 04:29 PM,  DustyLV769@aol.com said:
> >
> >><< Having replied to the original message in concurrence with your
> >><< post I will only add that the H.M.S. Rodney also fired torpedoes at the
> >><< Bismarck.  There was thought to have been one hit out of 6, IIRC.  >>
> >
> >>      After seeing this post, I seem to remember having read this in the
> >>book "Sink the Bismarck"
> >
> >Guys, it doesn't much matter now if space aliens sank the Bismark
> >does it?
> >
> >My question has always been Why?  Why, did Bismark sorte out from
> >it's harbor? The German's *must* have known the whole British Navy
> >would go after him.  They couldn't have thought they could take the
> >whole shebang on with a single ship!
> 
> The "whole shebang" at the time was Hood & Prince of Wales (one an old
> ship, the other a brand new one), King George V and Repulse (one a
> VERY brand new ship, the other an even older one) with the Home Fleet.
> 
> All the other battleships were off on other missions.
> 
> The Germans correctly figured that if they could sail through the
> British picket line without being detected or shook the pickets off
> later, they would disappear into the North Atlantic.
> 
> They never intended to get into gun battles with the Royal Navy unless
> it was absolutely necessary.
> 
> John Lansford
> 
> The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
> http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 09:29:15 +0000
From: C G Essery <cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Efficient 100-D Control

I believe the ship to which you refer is the HMS Vanguard, "destroyed by
magazine explosion at Scapa Flow on the night of 9 July 1917, with the
loss of 804 men (believed to have been caused by  unstable cordite)",
quote from Battleships of World War 1 by Anthony Preston.  

The only other British Dreadnought Battleship lost during WW1 was HMS
Audacious, which ran into a mine off Tory Island on 27 October 1914. 
She was towed towards Lough Swilly by the White Star Olympic (sister to
Titanic), but her watertight compartments weren't  and she blew up
(water in the boiler room possibly) and sank at 9pm after all the
complement were taken off.

Clive Essery
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Moffatt-Vallance wrote:
> 
> Date sent:              Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:36:32 -0800
> From:                   shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
> 
> >>>For any historically-challenged subscribers to the list, HMS ROYAL OAK
> >>>was sunk in October 1939 by a U-boat (U-39?) that did just that:
> >>>penetrated the main British naval base (Scapa Flow).
> 
> >>I'm sorry. Recent evidence shows that the Royal Oak was scuttled by her
> >>crew to prevent the German U-Boat crew boarding her, stealing her and
> >>obtaining valuable information... ;-)
> 
> >  Supposedly they initially ignored the possibility of a sub having done
> >it, having assumed that it was an accident - there's nothing quite as
> >much trouble as deciding that you "know" something that's _wrong_.  :>
> 
> Actually its worse than it appears at first. A German U-Boat penerated Scapa
> and sunk a major warship (name escapes me just at the moment) during the
> First World War too.
> 
> Andrew etc.
>   a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
>   http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
> IMTU Code
>   tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
>   kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge
> 
> *****************************************************************
> Names Explained 7: KARL
> More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
> advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
> *****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 16:50:09 -0600
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

Jason Webb wrote:

>
>Hi all,
>
>I've been lurking on and off, and now that the piracy question has finally
>been settled I thought I'd ask a question.
>
>What do you do with a dead Vilani?
>
>I've been working on an archeology adventure and this just hit me.  Nothing
>on Vland, or presumably the other planets they explored prior to meeting
>Terrans, could get a Vilani sick.  The biochemistry is just too different.
>That would have to work both way, nothing would find a Vilani edible.  Not
>even the bacteria, fungi, insects and all the rest that decompose dead
>tissue.
[snip]
>Happy Halloween.

	Cute scenario, but I find it implausible, and nowhere near as
horrible as the _REAL_ truth.

	Consider the following: the Vilani survived the Ancients blowing
each other to kingdom come.  They were left to their own devices on a
planet where the vast majority of life forms were just plain incompatible
to humaniti.  Their struggle to find culinary adaptations that would enable
them to survive was such that it marked their culture for millennia; I give
you the Shugilli as an example.  For a long, long time, protein must have
been a rare commodity on Vland.

	No, when a Vilani died, they wouldn't keep him around to admire.
They'd eat him on the spot.

	Happy Halloween...

	And Happy Halloween to all the TML veterans screaming in horror
over the  Great Vilanibalism Flame War come lurching back to life :).



Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 08:39:25
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Sunbeard Declaration

>From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
>Subject: [none]
>
>>#4 : Most career pirates concentrate on the unsafe outsystems.
>
>I don't think exclusively so. I figure pirates will work the lesser inner
>worlds as well. Especially since the innersystems routes will put in-system
>merchants on 4-5 day sub-light courses (assuming T-plates).
>

An amendment 'on the unsafe parts of systems' is acceptable to the mover :)

See, thats what I meant ... the 'outsystem' is everything that isnt around
the mainworld. As rambling way of background, I used to live on King
Island, which is on the western end of Bass Strait between Australia and
Tasmania.

It's a small place, population between about 1500 and 5000 depending on how
well the scheelite mine is going, and has recently diversified into luxury
exports (damn fine cheese, butter and cream).

It has my defintion of a Class D starport - they send a bloke in a ute with
a shotgun to scare the seagulls off the landing strip so the small planes
can land, and you refuel from 44 gallon drums of avgas.

Now, King Islanders call Tasmania 'the mainland', despite mainland
Australia being (a) closer and (b) a hell of a lot bigger.

So I can see the equivalent of Mercury being called 'the outsystem' ...

>>#8 : The best markets for stolen starships and cargos are in other states,
>>however unsafe areas will buy commodities they know to be stolen at heavily
>>discounted rates
>
>this assumes too much tracking of cargos for my taste, and too few
>unscrupulous buyers.
>

I think the operative phrase is 'they know to be stolen'. If they dont know
it's been nicked, then you dont have a problem selling it at wholesale.

>>#9 : Pirate ships will tend to be converted merchants, as unsafe areas tend
>>not to be profitable enough to justify custom-built warships. Safe areas
>>tend to be too dangerous for even custom built warships to operate in for
>>long enough to defray their build costs. Pirate warships may exist from
>>mutinous or rebel crews.
>
>Again, I disagree here, as at least a few will be operating as purpose
>built commerce raiders in local wars. I believe that pirates will be
>treated much the same as mercs.
>

There is the weasel word 'tend' in there, and I was trying to keep to
piracy rather than lawful commerce raiding as part of an
Imperially-sanctioned conflict. Does anyone have the cite on the American
Civil War fight between the USN and CSN ships in the English Channel ? I
remember reading about it - I think the RN and French were completely cool
with everything, just as long as only combatant flagged ships got hurt.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 16:49:16 -0600
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

Roderick Darroch Elliott wrote:
> 
> Jason Webb wrote:
> 
<<snip>>
> >
> >What do you do with a dead Vilani?
> >
> >I've been working on an archeology adventure and this just hit me.  Nothing
> >on Vland, or presumably the other planets they explored prior to meeting
> >Terrans, could get a Vilani sick.  The biochemistry is just too different.
> >That would have to work both way, nothing would find a Vilani edible.  Not
> >even the bacteria, fungi, insects and all the rest that decompose dead
> >tissue.
> [snip]
> >Happy Halloween.
> 
>         Cute scenario, but I find it implausible, and nowhere near as
> horrible as the _REAL_ truth.
> 
>         Consider the following: the Vilani survived the Ancients blowing
> each other to kingdom come.  They were left to their own devices on a
> planet where the vast majority of life forms were just plain incompatible
> to humaniti.  Their struggle to find culinary adaptations that would enable
> them to survive was such that it marked their culture for millennia; I give
> you the Shugilli as an example.  For a long, long time, protein must have
> been a rare commodity on Vland.
> 
>         No, when a Vilani died, they wouldn't keep him around to admire.
> They'd eat him on the spot.
> 
>         Happy Halloween...
> 
>         And Happy Halloween to all the TML veterans screaming in horror
> over the  Great Vilanibalism Flame War come lurching back to life :).
> 
> Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>

I don't see any reason why you _both_ can't be right.  Suppose that the
hypothetical Vilanibals decided that aged dead Vilani tasted better than
fresh.  This could evolve into allowing particularly deserving Vilani to
age longer, thus becoming delicacies.  Later, as the Vilani were able to
find other sources of protein, they simply continued to let the dead
"age" (i.e., they stopped dining on their ancestors).  

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 00:18:31 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Commerce raiding

Walter Smith writes:

>A 60,000tn, spinal-mount equipped warship is _not_ considered a
>capital ship, it's a fleet auxiliary (in this case, an intruder).
> 
>Could it be that AHL isn't a "capital" ship because of it's mission
>(independent ops), rather than it's size or armament?
> 
>Or would this reading indicate that only Battlecruisers and above are
>considered capital ships, and that cruisers are not?

Be careful when comparing different texts. In many cases the same term is
used differently by different writers and other terms are synonymous with
one author and means different things with another. I think Marc gave a
definition of a capital ship a few weeks ago: A ship that can shoot up
any other ship that is not itself a capital ship. So, yes, cruisers are
not capital ships. But if you are thinking of the bit about each sector
theoretically having 1000 ships, then the text said 'combat vessels', not
capital ships (a term that is itself open to misinterpretation, since
destroyers and other auxiliaries can perfectly well be regarded as combat
vessels too).


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 00:26:16 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Logistics

Peter H. Brenton writes:

>Rupert Boleyn;
>>While I've never found anything in canon to suggest this as IN policy if I
>>were in charge I would encourage systems to purchase standard IN BRs for
>>this reason. Another reason for this is that then you can 'borrow' system
>>SDBs for your fleet without needing to worry about nedding special parts,
>>etc.
>
>...And if I were a Planetary Administrator with the authority to buy SDBs,
>I would make certain that they were *in*compatible with Imperial Battle
>Riders so that they would *not* be taken away from me in a time of crisis.

Which is why, IMTU, the Imperium encourages its member worlds to invest in
rider-type SDBs by giving hefty tax rebates. Also, a system ruler who
dosen't "play ball" with the Imperium may get regarded as "unsound"...


      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: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 23:41:47 -0000
From: "Paul James" <paul@turing.tcp.co.uk>
Subject: G:T Hardback & Softback Prices

My local store here in the UK had both hardback & softback versions of G:T
in today but the price difference between the two was nine pounds whereas
the SJ website lists them at $23 & $30. Anyone else seen such extreme price
differences between the two (remembering nine pounds would be about $14 i.e.
twice the listed difference).

Paul
(Who likes his first look at G:T)

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 19:00:18 EST
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Off topic

Sam Thomas said:

>Why do you think the rural road signs here in Texas have the appearance of
>target on busy gun range.<G> 

Because some people have no self control?

It is not limited to Texas: Every rural road sign in McLean county Illinois is
riddled with bulletholes. When I was 16 I was in a car that was fired upon by
some f***ing moron with a .22 (and I'm _still_ trying to figure out who it
was, so I can find him and clog dance on his kidneys for a while).

In the late 70s, some dolt decided to empty 200 rounds from an M2 carbine into
the pipeline pumping station where my father worked. Fortunately, no one was
there, but several rounds almost hit a propane tank, which would have had some
interesting results had the stuff caught fire and set off the oil in the tank
farm. My dad estimated that if the tanks had caught fire, the heat would have
melted asphalt a mile away.

Some people give responsible gun owners a bad name...


******************************************************************************
**

My office ISP is still messed up, so e-mail to the lkw@io.com address seems to
be still bouncing.

Loren Wiseman

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 20:37:25 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Pirate Fleets (Was Re: )

>>#9 : Pirate ships will tend to be converted merchants, as unsafe areas tend
>>not to be profitable enough to justify custom-built warships. Safe areas
>>tend to be too dangerous for even custom built warships to operate in for
>>long enough to defray their build costs. Pirate warships may exist from
>>mutinous or rebel crews.
>
>Again, I disagree here, as at least a few will be operating as purpose
>built commerce raiders in local wars. I believe that pirates will be
>treated much the same as mercs.

Another point to conciter, some pirates may have formerly operated as
contract privateers, or may still be operating under contract. These
"pirates" may have managed to acquire or be outfited with small raider type
warships.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 20:48:09 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

>If this concept is pushed forward into the Traveller environment, then I
>guess that the equivalent would be that the distance and bearing within
>the "galactic plane" could be measured by the sensors, but not the
>height above or below the "galactic plane".  Somewhere in the Traveller
>Docs that I have read recently (T4 or GURPS) there was a passage
>describing the transponders stating that it was not possible to change
>"who" you were, only where you were and your destination (route?).

It may not give those kinds of errors, since most planetary sensors would
have an accurate bearing on a ship based at least on energy output, and if
the ship is emitting on a known radio frequency, then an accurate range
could be determined by dopplar shifting.

However, in border areas where other goverments interact with the Imperium,
transponder confusion could become quite a problem. Problems left to the
imagination of the referee.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 10:49:04 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

In mail you write:

> On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Leonard Erickson wrote:
>
>> > One way of compressing space is by storing the random number seed
>> > used to generate the system. Since computerized random numbers have
>> > the same patterns if generated from the same seed.
>> Only if you use the same algorithm. Change compilers, or even compiler
>> *versions* and the seed doesn't give the same results. 

> There is a better way. PC compatable computers have a free running clock
> that can be accessed using basic IO calls. I believe this clock can be
> accessed at IO address 40h but if you need this address ask and I'll
> confirm it.

> By fetching a number from this clock at periodic intervals, you can in
> essence grab more or less random numbers for use as a seed number. Either
> grab a number at the beginning of the code segment that needs a random
> sequence, or grab a seed each time you need a number.

One, this is just getting a seed. What they were talking about was the
ability to "save space" be just listing the starting "seed" for the
random number generator, because the subsequent values will *always* be
the same (it's inherent in the nature of the "random" number
algorithm). So your idea *won't* work for this.

Next, *never* EVER "periodically sample" any sort of "clock" to get
seeds. The results will be non-random. It's ok to sample such a "clock"
*once* when you start the program. But never do so with a program that
is automatically started at a given time. 

Getting a reasonable approach to "random" numbers is difficult even
when you do everything *right*. When you pull the periodic sampling
bit, you screw it up big time.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 11:05:03 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Milky Way

In mail you write:

> Bruce Johnson wrote:
>
>>The best place I have ever seen for viewing the Milky Way is on the
> road
>>to Puerto Penasco in Mexico, in the middle of the ___ Pincante (sp)
>>Wilderness Area.  You're about 45 miles from _any_ civilization, the
>>humidity is very low (no haze) and once your eyes adapt to the dark
>>you're treated to a glorious multicolored light filled band across the
>>sky. Incredible!!!
>
>  the best places I have viewed the stars are approx. 15 N by 180 W  and
> McDonnald Observatory in West Texas.  although I would like to see a
> better place to view the stars.

Lunar Farside has *great* viewing conditions. There's just this
transportation problem. :-(

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 13:23:31 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: accrete stats

In mail you write:

> Earth is 5.52g/cc  It is the densest planet in the solar system.

I thought Mercury was denser?

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 20:15:41 -0600
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Semi Off-Topic:  Rebroadcast of "War of the Worlds"

In case y'all are interested, this is the 60th anniversary of Orson
Welles' "War of the Worlds" broadcast.  I suspect that many radio
stations are doing what WJBO in Baton Rouge is doing:  Rebroadcasting
the show.

Thought you might be interested in checking your local radio
stations....

Happy Hallowe'en!

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 22:01:15 -0500
From: Bill Rutherford <worj@erols.com>
Subject: Re: Behind the Claw

At 10:43 AM 10/31/98 -0800, you wrote:
>At 03:59 PM 10/30/98 EST, you wrote:
>>In a message dated 10/29/98 9:01:16 PM Central Standard Time,
>Kagehira@aol.com
>>writes:
>>
>><< 	And apparently Vargr don't use utensils when eating....
>>  >>
>>
>>I've seen some humans who don't use utensils either.
>
>Hung out with Rangers while in the service?
>--

I game with a few who've tried to use utensils but failed their skill roll!


Bill Rutherford

Please note that my email address has changed!  It is now as appears below...

worj@erols.com

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1068
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Sunday, November 1 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1069



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Publishing CT stuff
Re: Milky Way
Re: accrete stats
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: GT transponders
Re: Publishing CT stuff
Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)
Re: Publishing CT stuff
Re: Dead Vilani 
Piracy Adventure seeds
TNE RAFM mini's
Re: RAFM experience
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Behind the Claw
Re: Skill Specialization (was: Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma)
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 20:55:51 -0800 (PST)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Publishing CT stuff

Over at the Classic Traveller Resurgence eGroup we have been
discussing whether there might be an outlet for publishing new
material for Milieu:1105.

Along that same line, does anyone know how the "Seeker" company can be
contacted?  Or did someone buy the rights to their material?

Thanks for any help.

BTW, for any die hard CT fans, the group is at
http://www.egroup.com/list/classic-traveller , plus there is a CT club
on Yahoo!






==

- ------------------------------------------------
Sword Worlds: subsector of the Spinward Marches.
The worlds are named after famous weapons of
lore.  The people are fiercely competative
merchants.  The storyline was first introduced
by H. Beam Piper in "Space Viking", c. 1965.
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 23:05:48 -0600
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Milky Way

Leonard Erickson wrote:

>>  the best places I have viewed the stars are approx. 15 N by 180 W
and
>> McDonnald Observatory in West Texas.  although I would like to see a
>> better place to view the stars.
>
>Lunar Farside has *great* viewing conditions. There's just this
>transportation problem. :-(

and I thought that there was a transportation problem to 15 N by 180 W

Charles

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 23:08:55 -0600
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: accrete stats

Leonard Erickson wrote:

>> Earth is 5.52g/cc  It is the densest planet in the solar system.
>
>I thought Mercury was denser?

5.43 gm/cm3      close but not quite

Charles

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 16:22:42 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

At 23:52 27/10/98 +0000, C G Essery wrote:

>4x15" would probably have been even worse under these circumstances. 
>More difficult to hit and even less likely to explode.  In Salvo firing
>you usually need 4 shell splashes to determine when a ship has been
>straddled or whether it is over or under.  With only 4 guns you are
>firing half as fast and allowing the enemy to move further between each
>shoot.  This is one of the reasons that the Royal Navy stuck to 4
>turrets for so long (8 or 12 guns).  The KGVs were originally designed
>with a twin X turret as well to give 12 guns but this was reduced as
>they could not fit the design into 35000 tons and even the 10 gun
>version didn't quite make it although it was a lot closer than any other
>attempt to build within that limit.

My comment was about the two German Battlecruisers, not the Pocket
Battleships (Graf Spee, etc).

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 20:45:00 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: GT transponders

>Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 22:08:46 +0000
>From: C G Essery <cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk>

>Transponders are used in real life for Air Traffic Control, they are
>usually called Secondary Survallance Radar (SSR for short).  It works
>like this:

>Radar tells you how far away an aircraft is and maybe its size.  It does
>not tell you what the aircraft is or how high it is.  The SSR does that
>by responding to the Radar pulse hitting the plane with information
>about the plane, eg its Code (a number assigned to it) this is converted
>to its Call Sign (eg KLM123 the number printed on your ticket) by
>software before display on the Radar Tube.  It also provides the height
>of the aircraft, and in some cases the air speed.
[deletions]
>If this concept is pushed forward into the Traveller environment, then I
>guess that the equivalent would be that the distance and bearing within
>the "galactic plane" could be measured by the sensors, but not the
>height above or below the "galactic plane".

The need for transponders will be as ships are coming into port.
(That is really the only time there will be a significant chance of collision).
There you will need the same info as with planes.

>  Somewhere in the Traveller
>Docs that I have read recently (T4 or GURPS) there was a passage
>describing the transponders stating that it was not possible to change
>"who" you were, only where you were and your destination (route?).

Well, this is the "are tranponders untamperable" thread...

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 23:17:01 -0700
From: Sanders <timmon@primenet.com>
Subject: Re: Publishing CT stuff

At 08:55 PM 10/31/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Over at the Classic Traveller Resurgence eGroup we have been
>discussing whether there might be an outlet for publishing new
>material for Milieu:1105.
>
>Along that same line, does anyone know how the "Seeker" company can be
>contacted?  Or did someone buy the rights to their material?

Roger Sanger was interested in buying out Seeker's material at one time,
but I don't know if anything ever came of it or not.

L8r,
Paul Sanders

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 01:26:10 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet and auxiliaries

In a message dated 10/20/98 9:09:52 PM Pacific Standard Time,
rboleyn@clear.net.nz writes:

<< OK, what if the BB is jumping in and the Tender and 'riders are the ones in
 the inner system - then they're in trouble because the BB(s) can wizz on
 in, hit the Tender (and whatever else) and roar on by. BTW just how big is
 a Tigeress and what TL? What TL is your Tender and 'riders? How about some
 of the other CT/HG BB? Your Tender + BRs runs in at 1,400,000 DT, so a it
 really should be coompared with, say three 500,000 DT BBs. Also how much
 does the whole setup cost?
  >>

1) I wouldn't use a rider batron on defense (well maybe her riders as LARGE
SDB's)
2) Tigress: 500,000 tons and about 453,000 MC's. TL15
3) tender ron: TL 15
4) Tender ron costs about 790,000 MCs (tender and 16 riders).

Thus an even (by MC) duel is 1 Tigress, her 300 50ton fighters, and 2 200,000
ton Kokirrik BB's verses the rider ron.

I dug out my old TCS, HG rules and skimmed through it using as much
statistical combat and averaged rolls as possible (it still was a knightmare).
I made several observations:

1) size matters. A bigger ship is much less vunerable to critical hits. You
basically can't get any extra criticals on the Tigress (you still have the
1/36 chance on the regular (radiation hit table) chart for a critical though).

2) Black Globes are AWSOME!. They act as an extra armor factor 8. Thus this
and the hull armor 15 on the riders basically make all weapons except Meson
guns skip right off the chart into "no effect land". This only lasts until the
capacitors are full (I had to use 500 tons of ship to install 500 capacitors.
No jump engine-no "free" capacitors). The 500 installed can keep the globe
running at 40% flicker for about 4-5 turns. After this; they get full, and the
globe shuts down (or the rider goes boom on the next hit). The tender by her
immense bulk (hmmn'; maybe I should call her the brontosaurus class), has huge
junp drives and thus huge capacitor capacity. She can flicker forever, or go
opaque for quite a while, and absorb lots of hits (about 30 Meson T hits I
think).

3) fighters can really do a number on the tender, since a dispersed structure
ship has no armor. I had to use a rider as an escort, to shoot them down. To
do this I had to have agility 6 (a LARGE power plant), and organise my laser
turrets into 1 turret batteries instead of 10 turret batteries (making them
useless to stop ship missiles, but allowing me to shoot at 10 times the number
of fighters.

Results: (I gave the Tigress a Black Globe to even up the sides a bit and to
even up the money. The BB's were still short 500MC's.) Note: the HG rules were
unclear if fighters launched from the Battle line could raid the tender in the
reserve. I thought it was logical that they could scatter around the riders
and go for the tender.

Turn 1: The rider ron mission kills one Kokirrik (irradiates the crew, and
critical hits the jump drives). One rider escorts the tender and mission kills
115 of the first 120 fighters via multiple weapon and fuel hits. (the Tigress
can launch 120 a turn). The Bat ron mission kills one rider (a zillion weapon
hits cripple the meson gun), and the fighters scour the weapons off the tender
and kill her manuever drive. The tender turns her globe from flicker (the
globe saved her from worse damage) to opaque.

Turn 2: The rider ron mission kills the other Kokirrik (as above). The escort
rider mission kills another 115 fighters of 120 (second wave). These fighters
having no target ( their peashooters couldn't add much energy to the tender's
capacitors), shoot at the escort rider, but don't do much (that d--n black
globe). The Batron mission kills another rider.

Turn 3: Situation: 1 Tigress and 90 some odd fighters Vs 14 riders. As both
sides have lots of armor, and screens, and Black globes, it boils down to a
Meson gun attrition duel. I figure in about 4-5 turns a riders' globe goes
down, and the Tigress can then use her 430 missile bays (ouch!) on it. The
Tigress has large jump drives, and thus large capacitors. Her globe isn't
going down any time soon. I figure that she'll mission kill a couple of riders
until she is overwhelmed by critical hits (each type T meson gun hit rolls 19
times on the radiation and interior explosion tables!). Sooner or later,
she'll lose a major system on the critical hit table (or even go boom!).

Conclusions: While this is hardly scientific (I took a lot of liberties to
save time: ex: I made the assumption that a 50 ton fighter with two weapons
out is mission killed); it does show that a lot of small riders with big meson
guns can overwhelm a large battleship. This is due to the construction rule
allowing only one spinal mount per ship. The defenses available can negate the
other weapons, and this is decisive, even though the large ship is a lot less
vunerable to extra critical hits. It is also vital to have Black Globes. If
the Kokirriks had them and/or the riders didn't (though this would have made
the riders 48000 MC's cheaper), things would have no doubt been different...

I never tried BR or BL so I don't know if this would still happen... I have
heard that they are broken, but then again a lot of people say HG is
simplistic AND broken...

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 22:26:22 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

>Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 16:50:09 -0600
>From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>

>>I've been working on an archeology adventure and this just hit me.  Nothing
>>on Vland, or presumably the other planets they explored prior to meeting
>>Terrans, could get a Vilani sick.  The biochemistry is just too different.
>>That would have to work both way, nothing would find a Vilani edible.  Not
>>even the bacteria, fungi, insects and all the rest that decompose dead
>>tissue.

If the Vilani can live in the biosphere, then bacteria can live on their
bodies.  Bacteria are superbe at biochemistry and if human can live on
local building blocks then bacterial can live on them.  (For example,
Vilani food _must_ contain amino acids for humans to live on it, but
amino acids are a very nice souce of food for bacteria).

Regarding other comments on Vilani eating each other for food.  The
fact is that canabalism can never make up for a societies lack of food.
(You can 't get anything from eating a person that you could get from
the food he was eating.)

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 01:34:23 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)

In a message dated 10/22/98 3:47:21 PM Pacific Standard Time,
dom@cybergoths.u-net.com writes:

<< It shows the advantage of TL15 Power plants sizewise. An Imperial version
 would be nasty.
 
 Any thoughts (it is meant to be a meson gun wrapped in an eggshell)?
 
 Dom
  >>

I designed a TL 15 battlerider. It is scary.

25,000 tons. 6-G, agility 6 (power plant15), armor 15, meson screen and damper
9, black globe 4, 500 globe capacitors (can absorb 9000 EP's), comp 9fib, Type
T meson gun, 160xtriple beam lasers (160 batteries-factor 4), 20xtriple
sandcasters (20 batteries-factor 3), cost: about 28,000 MC's. This vessel is
designed to fight capital ships. Thus; the weak secondary armament...

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 02:06:19 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Publishing CT stuff

In a message dated 10/31/98 8:57:35 PM Pacific Standard Time,
swordworlder@yahoo.com writes:

<< Over at the Classic Traveller Resurgence eGroup we have been
 discussing whether there might be an outlet for publishing new
 material for Milieu:1105.
 
 Along that same line, does anyone know how the "Seeker" company can be
 contacted?  Or did someone buy the rights to their material?
 
 Thanks for any help.
 
 BTW, for any die hard CT fans, the group is at
 http://www.egroup.com/list/classic-traveller , plus there is a CT club
 on Yahoo!
  >>
I got a "file/address not found on this server". What gives?

BTW; I'm a BIG CT fan...

Seth

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 03:13:09 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani 

> 	No, when a Vilani died, they wouldn't keep him around to admire.
> They'd eat him on the spot.

Shades of Michael Valentine Smith.

> 	Happy Halloween...
> 
> 	And Happy Halloween to all the TML veterans screaming in horror
> over the  Great Vilanibalism Flame War come lurching back to life :).

So what's for lunch today?  Or is it, *who*'s for lunch today?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 01:27:35 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Piracy Adventure seeds

I posted something like this late on the night that the list went
kabloey, and as far as I can tell it never saw the light of day
(everything else appeared a bizillion times, I never saw my own
post). If any of you already saw it, sorry for the waste of
bandwidth.

I was thinking about ways that piracy could work given a set of
initial conditions that includes:

Something like Bruce's DSR (ie: it's bloody hard to hide a starship)
Piracy will tend to happen in outlying worlds.

Here goes some of the ideas (I wish I remembered better :-)
The victim will be called the "target"--the pirates could be PCs or
it could be an encounter. 

- --------
A pirate ship bribes a sensor operator to cause a malfunction of an
outlying system's primary sensor array. By the time the distress
calls arrive (the operator obviously has to respond to this--a bribe
isn't worth _that_ much trouble) the pirates can board their target
and be off to a jump point. The malfucton might be well enough
planned that the operator might first vector defences the wrong
way.

- --------
A certain pirate has amazing computer skills. She manages to write a
virus that will reprogram the target's jump drive just as the
jumpspace entry sequence begins. There is a chance (very small) that
it will be noticed before, and a better chance it will be noticed at
the time of jump by the navigator, in the former case, it might be
avoided, in the latter at least the crew will know that they face a
problem on jump exit. The reprogrammed jump takes the target to a
distant point in-system--out where t-plates are ineffective. The
pirate ship has a reaction drive, and is waiting near the target
exit point. The target may have taken on a pirate or two as
passengers (probably the most likely way to infect the computer,
though they might have some access posing as ground crew of some
sort.

- --------
Some pirates basically don't *care* if they are detected. In fact, they
might broadcast a "heave to and prepare to be boarded" command to
the target--signed the Dred Pirate Roberts :-) The idea being that
they trash a few ships, and leave evidence of their ship to be found
so that word of their brutality is spread. They might get a merchant
to avoid the risk of death and abandon ship.

Some might carry (captured) small craft that they offer to the
target as lifeboats for cooperation. This would be to create a sense
in future victims that surrender is actually worth it.

- --------
On a related note, being detected has a few effects:
	1. The system defences are alerted (assuming they know you
	are a pirate simply by detecting you, or your vector)
	2. The system's flight controllers give a heads-up to
	potential targets.
	3. A would-be target might detect a ship on a closing
	vector. They are then alerted and can call for help/prepare
	for defensive action.

The pirate only cares if:
	1. He can't disable and board the target before help arrives.
	2. Known system defences are worth being afraid of.
	
So being detected might not prevent a pirate from trying in a
"normal" way. BTW, a pirate might assume a closing vector on the
world in question, and try to cripple a target leaving the world (or
the other way around).
- --------	

The (trite) false distress call. Pirate feigns distress. Usually
done with a pirate ship that is a merchant vessel. The good
samaritan gets shafted.
- --------

A cargo container is actually a kind of bomb. Knowing the specifics
of a common form of trading ship, a clever pirate has determined
that a directed attack from *within* the target can disable it.
Possibilities include: Massive fuel tank damage so that it can't
jump as planned, internal attack into engineering to cripple the
drives, or an attack on a critical control. It would have to be well
disguised, but an alert crew might well find it. The actual pirate ship
would be moving in such a way as to not attract attention, but would
happen to be close enough to the the first on the scene to render
"aid."
- --------

A pirate might be able to impersonate a system patrol ship in a
system that was enough of a backwater and get the target to actually
let them on board willingly!
- --------

The target's crew hears a rumor in a bar:
A "strange asteroid" that is in a highly inclined orbit. It's far 
enough away that it would usually be travelled as an in-system jump. 
Rumor has it that a local prospector determined that it is actually
a ship of some kind. Hints of ancient technology came out of the some
of his drunken drunken conversations. Unfortunately, the old prospector 
came back to resupply for the salvage, and was never seen again--a 
nearby merchant claimed that the jump flash was odd, so people assume 
a misjump. The problem is that there are a bunch of eccentric asteroids 
in this system and so far nobody has found it. 

The rumor was actually spread by a pirate. He had a belter ship work
the system for a while, then come back with images of this amazing
asteroid ship (Gateway, anyone :-). The old guy woouldn't tell anybody
*where* of course. The ship is sent out with a purposely damaged
drive so that it will misjump, with a characteristic jumpflash
(assuming you could tell this from a flash, but what the
heck--otherwise it just leaves the system, or meets the asteroid).
This all happens over several months, but this pirate is a good con
artist. He has gotten the locals to spread the rumor, and they all
claim firsthand knowlege of the guy!

The asteroid ship is real, but it's a pirate. Anybody who comes
looking will find it at some point. The powerplant is very well
masked, and the ship operates with minimal power--it is spinning
just fast enough for marginal "gravity" inside. Their victims are
expecting that it might even be powered from the rumors, and won't
be put off. They'll match courses, and leave themselves wide open.
- --------

That's all I can remember. It came from the piracy thread, and my
point was that DSR didn't kill piracy, it just forces pirates to be
more clever (they need to be regardless, IMHO).

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 01:45:34 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: TNE RAFM mini's

Re The Imperial Marine Miniatures

  FWIW, Sentry Box in Alberta ( www.sentrybox.com ) should still have
a good selection of TNE mini's in stock. I've dealt with their mail-
order aspect extensively in the last 18 months and had no difficulties.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 02:03:26 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: RAFM experience

...
>Add to this the fact that my starship miniatures were missing things
>like TURRETS and you can color me a very dissatified customer.

  Sounds like bad luck - I've gotten a pretty decent collection
with only a single labelling error - all contents were complete.

>Another thing is that these minis are being sold without an Traveller
>license. They show up in other RAFM product lines as well. 

  This has been commented on before; I believe Mr. Miller is aware of
their current product line, and assume that RAFM wouldn't do anything
contrary to their legal best interests wrt the Silent Death line.

...
>It is a shame, really. I preferred them over Ral Partha's minis. The
>geohex site offers some nice character minis, but the vehicles aren't
>really to my taste, YMMV. The Full Thrust starship minis look very
>promising.

  Ral Partha did Trav figs, or do you mean the old Grenadier ones?

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 10:46:33 +0100
From: Guillem Plasencia <guillemp@ciberia.es>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

>What do you do with a dead Vilani?

> I've been working on an archeology adventure and this just hit me.
> Nothing
> on Vland, or presumably the other planets they explored prior to
> meeting
> Terrans, could get a Vilani sick.  The biochemistry is just too
> different.
> That would have to work both way, nothing would find a Vilani edible.
> Not
> even the bacteria, fungi, insects and all the rest that decompose dead
>
> tissue.
>

Hmmmm....I don't know nothing about the Vilani, but i don't agree with
it. Vilani actually "should" be decomposed by some microorganisms, which
doesn't have anything to do with this feature of not getting sick.

As an almost biologist (biochemist last year student with hard biology
background) i think that Vilani, as any other self-aware species, has
evolved out of a huge number of species interacting between them,
changing to better fit their ecological "niches", and evolution
mechanisms (wich usually are blind and slow, except natural selection)
sure have found a way to get profit of a dead Vilani in the long history
of life in their homeworld (i suppose), sure there are microorganisms
that decompose other Vilani homeworld live beings that can decompose a
dead vilani.

I don't mean with this that, if a Vilani dies in another world than its
homeworld, could have been decomposed (sure it will, more or less fast,
but it will) as fast as a life-being native to that world, but sure a
vilani gets decomposed by, at least, second thermodinamics principle, as
an alive being is far away from equilibrium, only when they die they are
treated as any other thing : then the second principle "makes" its work,
that is, maximize the enthropy in that system. Microorganisms only
accelerate the process.

Comments well received.

- --
Guillem Plasencia
guillemp@ciberia.es

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 01:51:46 -0800
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Re: Behind the Claw

dberry@hooked.net wrote:

> >I've seen some humans who don't use utensils either.
>
> Hung out with Rangers while in the service?
> --

Yes, but they don't spatter you with food the way
Marines do...

- --
Ave et vale.
Evyn,
Warleader of the Clan MacDude
Solus Stellamilitia Ludus, 1998 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 14:22:17 +0000
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Skill Specialization (was: Medicine In Traveller 2 : Trauma)

Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior) writes,
>igor@king.truserve.com writes:
>>I've toyed with the idea of specialization in my campaigns. A given
>>engineer might have
>>Jump Engineering-3 but Maneuver Engineering-1. Its done with weapons, of
>>course. There
>>could certainly be other breakdowns. 
>
>My solution would be to have the geneal skill and let the player pick a
>specilization. They then either get a bonus in the specialty area, or have
>a penalty outside it. The Babylon Project does it the first way, Space
>1889 the second. Either works as long as you are consistent.

Just for completeness - GURPS does it *both* ways (a bonus to the 
speciality and a penalty to everything else) for skills with optional 
specialisation, but skills like Engineering have mandatory 
specialisation and you get no benefit or penalty - they are effectively 
different skills.

John

John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom
IMTU tc+ tm+ tn t4(+) ru--(+) ge 3i+ jt au- st ls+ hi++ so- zh+ pi+ jd++
Various Traveller IS Forms: http://www.elvw.demon.co.uk/

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 07:30:08 -0600
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

Wombat wrote:

[snip]
>>         No, when a Vilani died, they wouldn't keep him around to admire.
>> They'd eat him on the spot.
>>
>>         Happy Halloween...
>>
>>         And Happy Halloween to all the TML veterans screaming in horror
>> over the  Great Vilanibalism Flame War come lurching back to life :).
>>
>> Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>
>
>I don't see any reason why you _both_ can't be right.  Suppose that the
>hypothetical Vilanibals decided that aged dead Vilani tasted better than
>fresh.  This could evolve into allowing particularly deserving Vilani to
>age longer, thus becoming delicacies.  Later, as the Vilani were able to
>find other sources of protein, they simply continued to let the dead
>"age" (i.e., they stopped dining on their ancestors).


	Interesting spin on things...  so when that last emperor was
screaming at the rot that had set in on his predecessors, it was more the
scream of anguish of someone finding mold in the fridge or beetles in his
cigars than of grief and horror over something disgusting happening to  a
beloved ancestor?  Chilling!

	I wonder how aging would affect taste in a decomposition-free
environment... hmmmmmm.




Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 07:31:39 -0500
From: "Eric Freitas" <ericfreitas@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics

So my good friends, what you need is an equal amount of power running
through an array of our best Negative Resistors.  Not only does amplify
your input voltage, it gets cooler as more power is pumped through it.

Or if you prefer,

You might be interested in one of our quantum foam coolers.  Its the
very latest thing.  A one ton installation is capable of dissipating up
to 50MW (properly mounted).

These wonders can be found at your local _Big Icks Discount Asteroid_ (tm)


- -----Original Message-----
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Thursday, October 22, 1998 11:33 AM
Subject: Re: detecting starships (was re: mperial economics


>
>> >Not unless they repealed the laws of thermodynamics while my back was
>> >turned.
>>
>> thermaldynamic.  It proves it.  Efficency is not 100%.  Conducters of
power
>> are also heat radiaters but total heat is reduced while total power is
>> maintained in verious forms.  It's the same process as steem generation
of
>> electricity in a different form.  Body heat into electricity.  There is
>> waste throughout the system but it does reduce RADIATED heat which it the
>> goal.  Just as insulation does not decrease total energy it increases
time
>> of change and decreases radiation at any given instant.
>
>This makes no sense. The ship is using 20MW, rejecting 80MW. That
>means that all the wires and devices are (on average)20% efficient
>(some more, some less as you'd expect). You throw in a thermocouple
>to get more electricity--but the assumption is that the whol;e ship
>is already at room temperature. So *any* heat added to the system
>(resistance in the wires, right?) brings the ship's temp up. Soon
>room temp in the scout is 25C, then 30... The 80 MW has to be
>radiated, even if you use it all first all 100MW of power must leave
>the ship. All the time. You luck out if the majority of power use is
>drives/weapons since they both project power out of the ship.
>Anything that doesn't do this need to be radiated, regardless of
>what you do with it for the short term (and meanwhile, the drive is
>still pumping out 100MJ/s.
>
>Basically, the radiated power is equal to the generated power,
>period. Some radiates through the hull. Some from the actual
>radiators, and some from devices that actually get rid of power
>(drives, lasers, PAWs, etc.).
>
>> few of the physical laws start to appear to break down.  If you egnore
the
>> light emited, then a incadesent light bulb breaks thermaldynamics.  Power
>> takes many forms not all of them are readily apparent.
>
>POwer generated must be radiated. Period. The problem in traveller
>is that there is way too much power. There is a ton of handwaving
>just to radiate all that is now.
>
>-Merrick
>

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1069
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Sunday, November 1 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1070



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Publishing CT stuff
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
What canon means to me (Was: The Imperial Navy)
An example of a canon crack
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits
Re: G:T - "Behind the Claw"
Re: Greetings from Spofulam Orbital HQ
Re: RW Data sources
Re: Milky Way
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Milky Way

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 12:35:40 -0000
From: "Peter L.S. Trevor" <ptrevor.trisen@zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

David P. Summers wrote:
> > I've been working on an archeology adventure and this just hit
> > me.  Nothing on Vland, or presumably the other planets they
> > explored prior to meeting Terrans, could get a Vilani sick.
> > The biochemistry is just too different.  That would have to
> > work both way, nothing would find a Vilani edible.  Not even
> > the bacteria, fungi, insects and all the rest that decompose
> > dead tissue.
>
> If the Vilani can live in the biosphere, then bacteria can live
> on their bodies.  Bacteria are superbe at biochemistry and if
> human can live on local building blocks then bacterial can live
> on them.  (For example, Vilani food _must_ contain amino acids
> for humans to live on it, but amino acids are a very nice souce
> of food for bacteria).


Just to add ...

As I understand it humans need much of the bacteria in their  GI-
tract to be healthy.  For example, when you  have  the  flu  (not
just a bad cold) you are weak and debilitated after  the  disease
is gone ... because you have flushed out  most  of  the  GI-tract
bacteria.  Eating yogurt speeds up recovery 'cos they  like  that
stuff even more than your body does.  Therefore, Vilani must have
a full compliment of internal bacteria.

Apparently if your bodies defenses failed suddenly  the  bacteria
in your GI-tract would consume you within 48  hours  (eating  you
from the inside out).  So, as your dead Vilani uncle  lies  there
on the slab his body defenses would start to  fail  and  his  GI-
tract would decompose his corpse.



> Regarding other comments on Vilani eating each other for food.
> The fact is that canabalism can never make up for a societies
> lack of food. (You can 't get anything from eating a person that
> you could get from the food he was eating.)


There are things you can get  from  eating  people,  but  nothing
you'd  want:  prion  diseases  (CJD,  BSE  or  "mad cow disease",
"laughing canibal", possibly Alzheimers, etc).  Of course you can
get these from other sources too, but recycling protein  includes
recycling bad protein (prion) as well.  The dangers of canibalism
preclude (IMHO) long-term wide-scale canibalism in a society  (as
opposed to ritual canibalism).



Regards PLST
"Rome wasn't burned in a day"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 05:26:15 -0800 (PST)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Publishing CT stuff

- ---Sethkimmel@aol.com wrote:

> I got a "file/address not found on this server". What gives?
> 
> BTW; I'm a BIG CT fan...
> 
> Seth
> 

Sorry, late night.  Figures I'd mess up on the URL.  Here's the
corrected one (I hope).
http://www.egroups.com/list/classic-traveller

_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 15:06:12 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds

Merrick Burkhardt writes:

>A pirate ship bribes a sensor operator to cause a malfunction of an
>outlying system's primary sensor array.

If there isn't a patrol vessel within response range, a distress signal
makes no difference, and if there is one within response range, it
dosen't need to rely on an external sensor array.

>A certain pirate has amazing computer skills. She manages to write a
>virus that will reprogram the target's jump drive [to take them somewhere
else where a pirate lurks]

This isn't one of the pirates from the starship encounter tables.

>The (trite) false distress call. Pirate feigns distress. Usually
>done with a pirate ship that is a merchant vessel. The good
>samaritan gets shafted.

This is a risky ploy to use against armed free traders.

>A cargo container is actually a kind of bomb. Knowing the specifics
>of a common form of trading ship, a clever pirate has determined
>that a directed attack from *within* the target can disable it.

This isn't one of the pirates from the starship encounter tables.

>A pirate might be able to impersonate a system patrol ship in a
>system that was enough of a backwater and get the target to actually
>let them on board willingly!

This won't work if there is a genuine patrol ship in the system and is
unnessesary if there isn't.

>The asteroid ship is real, but it's a pirate.

>This isn't one of the pirates from the starship encounter tables.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
"Facts are stubborn things, but not half so stubborn as fallacies."
                - Stella Maynard in "Anne of the Island"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 15:29:53 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: What canon means to me (Was: The Imperial Navy)

Douglas E. Berry writes:

>Hans, Gary, you *both* have completely valid images of the Imperial Navy
>FOR YOUR GAMES.  "Game" is the important word here.  The Third Imperium is
>a fictional setting with incomplete and sometimes contradictory data.  If
>you want the Imperial Navy to be a huge and powerful force, capable of
>stationing entire fleets in every system, you can back it up with
>references.  If, on the other hand, you prefer a smaller, overtaxed force,
>you can also make it work.

First of all, I don't think you are right, but I guess that reiterating all
those arguments would just be a tedious waste of time. But even if you had
been right, you've still missed my point entirely. Two different world views
may be equally valid for two different universes, but they can't be valid at
the same time in the SAME universe. I don't need the approval of anybody to
use or not use anything in my game and I don't care much what other people do
in their universes, except that I'd like to be allowed to copy anything that
I can use and put it into mine. But I do have an interest in making the OTU
as close to my liking as possible.

To me having a canon is a means to an end and not an end in itself. The end
that I desire is to have a game world where I can run the kind of adventures
I want to run and which supports the "willing suspension of disbelief"
necessary for me and my players to get into the spirit of things. Of the two,
the first is the most important, but the second is damn important to me too.

I therefore desire as much useful background material for my game universe
as possible. I have a limited amount of time for making up background and
adventures myself, so if I can get additional material from other people then
that is obviously a Good Thing. Provided I can use it, of course.

Now, there are three reasons why I may not be able to use outside material:
1) I have already established facts unique to my own TU that dosen't jibe
with the new material; 2) the new material does not fit with previously
published material which is now part of MTU; or, 3) the new material is
internally inconsistent.

In the first case I am, of course, just plain out of luck. Obviously I can't
expect total strangers to know (or care) what I've established in my personal
TU. For instance, I needed information about the Trojan Reach and did a lot
of work based on the very scanty information I had at the time. Consequently
my Trojan Reach has a minor human race called the Troiani, a non-Aslan
Glorious Empire that is the remnant of a sector-spanning empire that
flourished two millenia ago, a Freedom League instead of a Florian League,
etc. etc. I have political maps of the Reach for every 30 years for almost a
millenium. I have maps of the Troiani and word generation tables for Troiani
languages. And a couple of months after I did all that work, the Travellers'
Digest #20 brought the official Trojan Reach. Consequently I have to adapt
anything official set in the Trojan Reach to MTU, much to my dissatisfaction.
Despite that I wouldn't dream of suggesting that Marc scrapped the
information from TD#20 and substituted mine even though I do think my version
is better (Well, maybe not better, but just as good and far more detailed).

In the second case, however, I feel that I have a legitimate beef. IMO the
publisher of a game world has a moral obligation to keep it as consistent as
possible. Not a legal obligation, of course. I presume that Marc could
publish a fantasy RPG with a big empire, Zhodani sorcerer-kings, wolf-men
bandits, an elven tribe called the Darrians, etc., call it _Traveller 5_ and
be legally in the clear. But I for one would feel royally ripped off if he
did and I bought it, regardless of how good a FRPG it was. The same apply, to
a much lesser extent, of course, when something is published that dosen't
agree with previously published material.
        Mind you, I don't expect miracles. With scores of people working on a
shared universe for over 20 years, you can't expect every author to know of
every obscure piece of information. I'm sure there are bits that even Marc
and Loren don't recall off-hand. But the fact that errors are unavoidable
dosen't mean that they shouldn't be corrected whenever they occur. On the
contrary, IMO it makes it all the more important that it is done. Remember
some of the adventures for T4 that was written by perfectly able RPG writers
whose grounding in the Traveller canon was less than might be desired? There
were several things that I couldn't use, not because they were bad in
themselves, but because they didn't correspond to reality in MTU. And if
those adventures are ever used as inspiration by some future writers, I won't
be able to use their adventures either. 

But if that's my attitude, why do I advocate changing SOME canonical facts?
That brings me to the third reason why I might not be able to use something:
If it dosen't make sense to me. I can't use a date for the discovery of a
planet in the Spinward Marches much later than 100, because I can't make
myself believe that the scouts could start exploring the Marches in 52 and
not do at least a flyby of each system as soon as possible. So it's no use
telling me that the Droyne of Andor weren't discovered until 802. I just
don't believe it. And I can't make myself believe that the Scouts could visit
the Sword Worlds in 53 and not visit the Darrians until 148 (The Sword
Worlders have known of the Darrians from the start; the Darrians are going to
be mentioned in hundreds of Sword World books and articles, not to mention
encyclopedias). Nor can I make myself believe in all those low pop systems
with Class A starports (That one is a bit tricky, because you might be able
to run a small shipyard with 60 people, provided you had an inordinate
degree of automation and imported all the subcomponents from another system.
But that just begs the question; why would anyone pay the extra expenses
that would entail? How does the shipyard compete at all? Such a shipyard
would require massive subsidies. So I might be able to justify any particular
such world, and maybe even two or three, by inventing some special political
circumstances. But I can't accept that there are so many of them).

It's not just a matter of wanting to get rid of the bits I don't like,
however. There are parts of the canon that I wish were different, but which
make sense to me. It's just not the way I would have done it. I wouldn't
dream of trying to get those changed.

So when I post something it is partly to let others benefit from my work (no
use duplicating effort; if someone can use something of mine, maybe he will
have time to work out something I can use), partly to get it checked for
logical and factual errors, and partly an attempt to influence future
Traveller writers to produce stuff I can use. Purely pragmatic. But it is not
for the purpose of forcing you or Gary or anybody else to play things my way.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "A  subsector  official  pompously states that the
        subsector  armed  forces  have  four Kinunir class
        ships in service,  each with enough troop strength
        to put down any military operations that threathen
        the peace of the Imperium."

                        ---Adventure 1, The Kinunir

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 15:37:00 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: An example of a canon crack

Here's an example of the kind of canon problems I talk about in a previous
post:

In _The Spinward Marches_ (1979) it is said that Winston, Entrope and
Anselhome are claimed by both the Darrians and the Sword Worlds. In _Library
Data (N-Z)_ (1982) it says that the Sword Worlders grabbed Terant 340,
Torment, Trifuge, and Cunnonic (which I'll call the Cunnonic worlds for short)
from the Darrians during the 1st Frontier War and lost them again in 788. No
mention of the Entropic worlds at all. In _Contact: The Sword Worlders_ from
JTAS#18 (1983) this is repeated and it is stated that this was the origin of
the tension between the Darrians and the Sword Worlders. Again, no mention of
the Entropic worlds at all.

But two years later, in _The Spinward Marches Campaign_ (1985) the historical
maps quite clearly show that the worlds fought over was the Entropic worlds
and that the Sword Worlds had lastly occupied them during the 4FW [*] and
that they had been recaptured by the Darrians during 5FW [**]. And two years
later, in _Darrians_ (1987), it was said that the Sword Worlds grabbed the
Entropic Worlds in 593  --  no mention of the Cunnonic worlds.

[*]  Text elsewhere in the same book says 3FW... Oops...
[**] UWPs in the same book show their allegiance code as Sw... Oops again...)

What happened? Did someone recall the old mention of rival claims to the
Entropic worlds and deliberately change the worlds in question from the
Cunnonic to the Entropic worlds? Or did someone just goof? I don't know. But
I do know that the Library Data from _LDNZ_ was copied verbatim to the MT
_Imperial Encyclopedia_ and again to _GURPS:Traveller_ while the version from
_SMC_ made it into the TNE _Regency Sourcebook_ and into _GURPS:Behind the
Claw_. So at the moment we have two alternate versions floating around. I
think that is a Bad Thing and I really think Marc and Loren should decide on
one version and stick to it forthwith.

[Because I like the historical maps and because of the early mention of rival
claims to the Entropic worlds my suggestion would be to say that the Entropic
Worlds (including Torment) were the four worlds lost by the Darrians in 593
and regained in 788. The Entropic Worlds (without Torment) were lost again
during the 4FW and regained during the 5FW. Any text that claims that it was
the Cunnonic worlds is in error. But I'd also accept it if it was established
that is was the Cunnonic worlds and all talk of the Entropic worlds were
dropped. I'd think it the poorer solution, but at least the crack would have
been patched over. The only thing I wouldn't accept would be to ignore it
(especially if accompanied by soothing words to the effect that I was free
to settle on one or the other in MY universe!)]


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 10:02:04 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

> >The (trite) false distress call. Pirate feigns distress. Usually
> >done with a pirate ship that is a merchant vessel. The good
> >samaritan gets shafted.
> 
> This is a risky ploy to use against armed free traders.

Just how well *is* the standard Free Trader armed IYTU, anyways?  Every LBB 
standard design I've seen over 200 tons has half the allowable hardpoints.  
I.e., a 400 ton subbie has 2, a 600 ton liner has 3, etc.  A 400 ton Type P 
has 3 triple turrets.  Thus, ton for ton, it should be on par for merchant 
ships up to about 600 tons.  Perusal of HG & the MT rules suggest the same 
conditions.

> >A pirate might be able to impersonate a system patrol ship in a
> >system that was enough of a backwater and get the target to actually
> >let them on board willingly!
> 
> This won't work if there is a genuine patrol ship in the system and is
> unnessesary if there isn't.

I can see this happening in both cases.  Case A, the pirate ship simply sidles 
up toward the unsuspecting victim until it's within gun range, showing a 
'local patrol' or, even better, Imperial Navy transponder signal, then the 
victim gets hit.  I'd lean toward the latter.  Now, it wouldn't be *necessary* 
for the pirate to slide deep insystem and thus within sensor range of the 
planet, which means, likely, it'll be able to pull this off.  Case B is 
similar, unless the ship *KNOWS* there's no regularly scheduled customs 
patrols in the area, in which case, there's liable to be intermittant patrols 
by the subsector navy, which the pirate can impersonate with a transponder.

Now, the 100 diameter limit on a Size 8 world is still a bit over 1.28 million 
klicks, if my math's correct (800,000 miles x 1.6 klicks/mile, right?).  
That's a radius.  This means any intercepting SDB is going to be at most, 2.5 
million klicks away if it cruises inside the 100 diameter limit.  2.5 million 
klicks is a good long way even at 6 G's.  Odds are, it'll be within the 1.28 
million klicks, but half the time, it'll be on the wrong vector to intercept.  
Assuming a standing start from orbit, it still takes a cruiser almost 3 hours 
to get to the 100 diameter limit.  Its top speed, assuming no turnaround for 
the midpoint, is on the order of 550 klicks/sec, unless I picked a decimal 
point wrong, meaning that its maximum engagement envelope would be half a 
million klicks radius at the outside, and engagement time of 90 minutes from 
target at best.  More likely times are 250,000 klicks and 60ish minutes for 
more accurate fire.  These times are times to close, not times from launch.  
This means, around a Size 8 planet, you should be able to get 2 hours to 
capture and loot a ship at the 100 diameter limit.  Odds are, the local ship 
will be under 1000 tons, thus, 10 turrets bearing.  2 hours should be enough 
time to board and possibly repair enough fire support on the target to help 
out in the upcoming fight.

> >The asteroid ship is real, but it's a pirate.
> 
> >This isn't one of the pirates from the starship encounter tables.

I've noticed the 'This isn't one of the ...' response a lot.  What ever happened to the bit about 'These encounter tables are a suggestion until you get the chance to make your own'?  Custom encounter tables do *not* contradict canon.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 16:06:10 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

Rupert Boleyn writes:

>The organisation diagrams show a typical BatRon as consisting of 4
>Battleships, 1 Tanker, 2 Transports, 3 Scouts and 2 Auxiliaries.

What is meant by an auxiliary in this context? I would call the tanker,
the transports, and the scouts auxiliaries too.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 08:41:29 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds

 
> This isn't one of the pirates from the starship encounter tables.

Any of these could be. You certainly don't show your players the
roll, right? Assuming they have any cargo or passengers, it could
always be retroactive (since by definition they don't know about a
hijacker/cargo bomb, whatever).

I realize some people might take the encounter tables literally, but
I was just throwing some ideas out there.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 08:57:21 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds

 
> >A pirate might be able to impersonate a system patrol ship in a
> >system that was enough of a backwater and get the target to actually
> >let them on board willingly!
> 
> This won't work if there is a genuine patrol ship in the system and is
> unnessesary if there isn't.
 
True enough in the first case. But in the latter case, it isn't
unnecessary, but it is _preferable_. A pirate wants his target
_intact_. More likely than not the ship is the most valuable asset
anyway. Engaging it in combat requires that you disable it. This
will make escaping with it difficult (possibly imposssible if you
trash the j-drive). It is aslo expensive since you'll have to fix
what you wreak.

Getting aboard your target without shooting is far and away a better
choice for any pirate.

As for the "not in the encounter table" comments, here is a
suggestion:

Come up with a range of plausable pirate scenarios for various
worlds (from high-pop centers of trade, to backwaters). Keep them in
your notebook. When you roll a pirate encounter on the ship
encounter table (which is obviously done in secret anyway) look at
the world where your players are, and say to yourself, "is a
straight pirate ship encounter actually likely/possible here?" If
not, grab one of your preplanned pirate scenarios that fits and use
that instead. Obviously some that I posted actually need a setup
before hand, but many do not. Make some more that don't if it's a
big worry. 

BTW, 4 of the 7 pirate encounters in B2 are pirates posing as patrol
ships. The best starport type to get a pirate encounter is C, and I
somehow doubt that the patrol ploy will work in many C-starport
systems (that is the only pirate encounter for a C starport). The
bottom line is that you need to customize the tables from time to
time.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 09:00:46 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds

Wow...some good ideas in there, Merrick!

(And the Dread Pirate Roberts idea is great...it neatly gets around that
pesky point that it's hard to do it for very long...:-)

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 07:58:56 -0700
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Logistics / Re: Naval Support Limits

At 03:35 pm 10/26/98 -0700, you wrote:
>"Joseph R. Dietrich" wrote:
>> 
>> BTW, since I don't have FFS2, what is the upper limit on ship
sizes now? I
>> know that Death Star scale things are right out.
>
>actually, IIRC, there is no upper limit in FFS2 on ship sizes...

	No FORMAL limit ... i.e. there's no rule that says "You can't build
ships any larger than X."  However, surface area imposes a practical
upper limit ... eventually you won't be able to fit everything that
must go on the surface, such as radiators, jump grid, weapons, etc ...
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 08:30:43 -0700
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: G:T - "Behind the Claw"

At 11:50 pm 10/29/98 -0500, you wrote:
>The Game Parlor in Chantilly Virginia (703-803-3114) got a number of
copies
>in today (10/29)...  I get mine tomorrow night after work!!!

	Caught my eye, seeing as how I'm anticipating a military
reassignment to that area in January--got a street address?

	PS: Anybody wanna buy a house in Colorado Springs?
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 08:05:24 -0700
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Greetings from Spofulam Orbital HQ

At 07:03 am 10/27/98 -0600, you wrote:
>
>
>	Hi all... just decided to drop in for a bit and see how all were
>doing.  Uncle Hengabar's decision to refocus Famille Spofulam's core
>mandate into legal services explains the recent silence.  Is Kenji
Schwarz,

	Lord have mercy, Ditzie as a lawyer ...
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 08:38:19 -0700
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: RW Data sources

At 12:11 pm 10/30/98 -0900, you wrote:
>>dberry@hooked.net wrote:
>>
>>> >Any suggestions on a site or book that might tell me some
earth's vital
>>> >stats (of use to a Traveller player) that will help discern all
of this
>>> >info (without getting too bogged down in a technical text)?
>>> >
>>> >Has anybody collected the same ACCRETE stats for earth or any
other of
>>> >the solar system's planets?
>>>
>>> http://www.seds.org/billa/tnp/  is an excellent site detailing
our solar
>>> system.. you can use the data compiled for comparison to your
Accrete
>>>systems.
>>>
>>
>>Another good book to get, for _all_ sorts of useful physical and
>>chemical trivia is any edition of the Handbook of Chemistry and
Physics,
>>by the Chemical Rubber Corporation. Dunno what it sells for new
anymore,
>>but you can often find it in used bookstores, particularly
technical
>>ones or university bookstores.
>
>Or Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook. Similar in many respects,
also

	For starship gearheads in particular, TRW puts out a very nice Space
Handbook which provides a good summary of space environment, mission
design, satellite subsystems ... and it's free if requested on
government or space contractor letterhead!
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 08:41:02 -0700
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Milky Way

At 07:53 pm 10/30/98 -0600, you wrote:
>At 11:09 AM 10/30/98 , (Bruce Alan Macintosh) wrote:
>>It's also the only major observatory with a bullet hole in its
primary 
>>mirror - 
>>which, in Texas, somehow doesn't surprise me.
>
>bruce,
>
>It should not be the fact that mirror has a hole but only *one* hole
just how many shots did it take the shooter(s) to score that shot and
at what range?<G>.
>
>Why do you think the rural road signs here in Texas have the
appearance of target on busy gun range.<G> 

	The Air Force has had a Peacekeeper ICBM arrive at Vandenberg AFB
for a test launch with a .30-06 round embedded in it ...
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 11:06:32 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds

>>The (trite) false distress call. Pirate feigns distress. Usually
>>done with a pirate ship that is a merchant vessel. The good
>>samaritan gets shafted.
>
>This is a risky ploy to use against armed free traders.

Even riskier if that SDB you missed on your last sensor sweep responds to
the distress call at full (6g) throttle and comes into sensor range just as
you open fire.

Almost enough to give ol Blackbeard grey hair, isn't it :)

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 10:05:31 -0600
From: "Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

"laughing canibal", otherwise known as Kuru illustrates what goes bad with a
society that eats its dead.
In New Guinea, one of the isolated tribes suffered from a nasty insanity
that started later in life (age 25+).  Scientists finally nailed it to the
fact that women get no protien to eat, except from the brains of the dead
that they are burying.  They fed these tidbits to all the kids and
themselves, and then things got nasty later in life.

As previously stated, this disease is related to several others mad cow
disease, CJD, and a sheep disease called scrapie.

There is absolutely NOTHING good that comes from eating people.  In fact in
Larry Niven's book "Lucifer's Hammer" one band of cannibals has a DR. that
keeps urging them to eat only the Healthy people.  Still, that won't work
for long.

TV

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 11:29:59 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

> >>The (trite) false distress call. Pirate feigns distress. Usually
> >>done with a pirate ship that is a merchant vessel. The good
> >>samaritan gets shafted.
> >
> >This is a risky ploy to use against armed free traders.
> 
> Even riskier if that SDB you missed on your last sensor sweep responds to
> the distress call at full (6g) throttle and comes into sensor range just as
> you open fire.

If a SDB shows up on my sensor sweep inbound at 6G, you bet your anatomy I'm 
heading out to safe jump distance before he can close and shoot, unless his 
transponder says I've got more guns at my command than he does.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 11:10:36 -0600
From: Sam Thomas <sinbad@hex.net>
Subject: Re: Milky Way

- --=====================_1234008==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"


At 09:41 AM 10/31/98 , Dave Golden wrote:
>At 07:53 pm 10/30/98 -0600, you wrote:
>>At 11:09 AM 10/30/98 , (Bruce Alan Macintosh) wrote:
>>>It's also the only major observatory with a bullet hole in its
>primary 
>>>mirror - 
>>>which, in Texas, somehow doesn't surprise me.
>>
>>bruce,
>>
>>It should not be the fact that mirror has a hole but only *one* hole
>just how many shots did it take the shooter(s) to score that shot and
>at what range?<G>.
>>
>>Why do you think the rural road signs here in Texas have the
>appearance of target on busy gun range.<G> 
>
>       The Air Force has had a Peacekeeper ICBM arrive at Vandenberg AFB
>for a test launch with a .30-06 round embedded in it ...

Dang I knowd that I hit that darn thingee.<G> 

Ooops could not be my round I use a 8mm-06 Wildcat.<G>

Hell hunting along roads and railroads is fair game so to speak down here In
Reddekneck land.<G> 
Sinbad Sam
"Black Curtain" Rod Holder...
AI Virus inferior races(Aslan, Humaniti, Kkree, Droyne) Interfacer
Chief Weapons Designer For Reddkneck Arms and Munitions
sinbad@ignore.hex.net

- --=====================_1234008==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"

<html><div>At 09:41 AM 10/31/98 , Dave Golden wrote:</div>
<div>&gt;At 07:53 pm 10/30/98 -0600, you wrote:</div>
<div>&gt;&gt;At 11:09 AM 10/30/98 , (Bruce Alan Macintosh) wrote:</div>
<div>&gt;&gt;&gt;It's also the only major observatory with a bullet hole
in its</div>
<div>&gt;primary </div>
<div>&gt;&gt;&gt;mirror - </div>
<div>&gt;&gt;&gt;which, in Texas, somehow doesn't surprise me.</div>
<div>&gt;&gt;</div>
<div>&gt;&gt;bruce,</div>
<div>&gt;&gt;</div>
<div>&gt;&gt;It should not be the fact that mirror has a hole but only
*one* hole</div>
<div>&gt;just how many shots did it take the shooter(s) to score that
shot and</div>
<div>&gt;at what range?&lt;G&gt;.</div>
<div>&gt;&gt;</div>
<div>&gt;&gt;Why do you think the rural road signs here in Texas have
the</div>
<div>&gt;appearance of target on busy gun range.&lt;G&gt; </div>
<div>&gt;</div>
<div>&gt;<x-tab>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</x-tab>The Air
Force has had a Peacekeeper ICBM arrive at Vandenberg AFB</div>
<div>&gt;for a test launch with a .30-06 round embedded in it ...</div>
<br>
<div>Dang I knowd that I hit that darn thingee.&lt;G&gt; </div>
<br>
<div>Ooops could not be my round I use a 8mm-06 Wildcat.&lt;G&gt;</div>
<br>
Hell hunting along roads and railroads is fair game so to speak down here
In Reddekneck land.&lt;G&gt;
<br>

<font size=2>Sinbad Sam<br>
&quot;Black Curtain&quot; Rod Holder...<br>
AI Virus inferior races(Aslan, Humaniti, Kkree, Droyne) Interfacer<br>
Chief Weapons Designer For Reddkneck Arms and Munitions<br>
sinbad@ignore.hex.net<br>
</font></html>

- --=====================_1234008==_.ALT--

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1070
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Sunday, November 1 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1071



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Capital Ships of WWII
Re: What canon means to me (Was: The Imperial Navy)
Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)
G:T Hardback & Softback Prices
Re: Publishing CT stuff
GURPS Traveller Errata
re: RAFM experience
Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)
Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard) 
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1069
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Near Star List and Earth's subsector
Re: Publishing CT stuff
Re: Greetings from Spofulam Orbital HQ

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 12:14:22 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

At 11:29 AM 11/1/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> >>The (trite) false distress call. Pirate feigns distress. Usually
>> >>done with a pirate ship that is a merchant vessel. The good
>> >>samaritan gets shafted.
>> >
>> >This is a risky ploy to use against armed free traders.
>> 
>> Even riskier if that SDB you missed on your last sensor sweep responds to
>> the distress call at full (6g) throttle and comes into sensor range just as
>> you open fire.
>
>If a SDB shows up on my sensor sweep inbound at 6G, you bet your anatomy I'm 
>heading out to safe jump distance before he can close and shoot, unless his 
>transponder says I've got more guns at my command than he does.
>
Best to be at the safe jump distance to begin with just in case above SDB
is coming from the direction of the closest safe jump point. Otherwise,
best hope your chief gearhead knows how to make a risky jump.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 13:00:58 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

> >> Even riskier if that SDB you missed on your last sensor sweep responds to
> >> the distress call at full (6g) throttle and comes into sensor range just as
> >> you open fire.
> >
> >If a SDB shows up on my sensor sweep inbound at 6G, you bet your anatomy I'm 
> >heading out to safe jump distance before he can close and shoot, unless his 
> >transponder says I've got more guns at my command than he does.
> >
> Best to be at the safe jump distance to begin with just in case above SDB
> is coming from the direction of the closest safe jump point. Otherwise,
> best hope your chief gearhead knows how to make a risky jump.

Odds are, he's coming at me from the planet, since it's the most central point 
where piracy will be at.  AAMOF, I'm crunching some numbers on most likely 
incidents under HG & LBB2, and the numbers are *VERY* interesting.  And 
methinks a pirate *can* escape at range from an inbound hostile, I'm just not 
sure at what range the pirate can detect him at.  I'll post my math later when 
I get them in line.  Methinks some people might rethink their positions on 
things once they read the numbers and weep.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 10:01:48 -0800
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

According to my oncologist (who is getting used to these strange
questions), the primary cause of decomposition in a corpse is the body's
own intestinal fauna.

These little buggers are used to getting food from us, and when we stop
eating, they get pissed and start eating their home.

Another fun-fact from Pestilence, Traveller Horse-man of the Apocalypse.
- --

Douglas E. Berry
Templar Agent at Large.
dberry@hooked.net  
http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/gateway.html 

TravGeekCode: 
tc+ tm+ !tn- t4@ ?tg+ tt@ to(CORPS)++ ru@ $ge++ 3i
ii+ au st+ ls+ pi kk+ so(++) va++ dr+ zh+ sw++ ?da
         

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 13:36:33 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

In a message dated 10/31/98 13:16:27 PM Pacific Standard Time,
cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk writes:

<< One other unsubstantiated bit of information that I have is that Vian's
 Destroyer attack during the night was beaten off by such accurate
 secondary fire that the commander concluded that the guns were radar
 controlled and that the radar had somehow survived intact to that
 point.  I would be more inclined to believe that it was the sound
 ranging equipment helping to give the DD's position, but I don't know
 how that would work with her own guns firing.
  >>

	This is baseless...the Prinz Eugen had already seperated from the Bismarck by
the time the DD's attacked.  The DD's mission, BTW was simply to maintain
contact w/ the Bismark thru the night till the BB's could arrive at dawn.
They made some serious efforts to attack, but mostly simply fired starshells
to keep contact w/ Bismarck.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 18:37:35 -0800
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Re: What canon means to me (Was: The Imperial Navy)

At 03:29 PM 11/1/98 +0100, Hans wrote:
>Douglas E. Berry writes:
>
>>Hans, Gary, you *both* have completely valid images of the Imperial Navy
>>FOR YOUR GAMES.  "Game" is the important word here.  The Third Imperium is
>>a fictional setting with incomplete and sometimes contradictory data.  If
>>you want the Imperial Navy to be a huge and powerful force, capable of
>>stationing entire fleets in every system, you can back it up with
>>references.  If, on the other hand, you prefer a smaller, overtaxed force,
>>you can also make it work.
>
>First of all, I don't think you are right, but I guess that reiterating all
>those arguments would just be a tedious waste of time. But even if you had
>been right, you've still missed my point entirely. Two different world views
>may be equally valid for two different universes, but they can't be valid at
>the same time in the SAME universe.


But they aren't the same universe.  We make great use of "IMTU" for In My
Traveller Universe, just because everyone is going to alter the canonical
setting their liking.  If we were arguing the current deployment of the
United states Navy, we could get hard facts.  But we are discussing a
fictional environment.  No matter how hard you try, there will always be
some room for disagreement.

> I don't need the approval of anybody to
>use or not use anything in my game and I don't care much what other people
>do in their universes, except that I'd like to be allowed to copy anything 
>that I can use and put it into mine. But I do have an interest in making
the >OTU as close to my liking as possible.

Why?  I'm pretty safe in assuming that my particular vision of the Third
Imperium is quite different from what you, or anyone else plays.  I'm
perfectly satisfied to use the common background and information and graft
it onto my vision of a weak Imperium, where the Navy struggles to meet it's
obligations.  As written, the background can support this milieu; it also
supports the image of a powerful, omnipresent Navy and Imperial flags on
every flagpole.

To be honest, your image of the Imperium is pretty boring in my opinion.
That's just a matter of taste.  But some of your ideas would, for me and my
players make adapting the official material that much harder if adopted.

>To me having a canon is a means to an end and not an end in itself. The end
>that I desire is to have a game world where I can run the kind of adventures
>I want to run and which supports the "willing suspension of disbelief"
>necessary for me and my players to get into the spirit of things.

Agreed.  Yet you seem to be unable to understand that others want to run
adventures using the same setting, but from a different angle.

<snip>

>Now, there are three reasons why I may not be able to use outside material:
>1) I have already established facts unique to my own TU that dosen't jibe
>with the new material; 2) the new material does not fit with previously
>published material which is now part of MTU; or, 3) the new material is
>internally inconsistent.
<snip>

>In the second case, however, I feel that I have a legitimate beef. IMO the
>publisher of a game world has a moral obligation to keep it as consistent as
>possible. Not a legal obligation, of course.

Agreed.  I'm one of the many Greyhawk fans who are happy to see that the
latest version is making a valiant attempt to clean up the setting to make
it coherent throughout.
<snip>

>But if that's my attitude, why do I advocate changing SOME canonical facts?
>That brings me to the third reason why I might not be able to use something:
>If it dosen't make sense to me. I can't use a date for the discovery of a
>planet in the Spinward Marches much later than 100, because I can't make
>myself believe that the scouts could start exploring the Marches in 52 and
>not do at least a flyby of each system as soon as possible. So it's no use
>telling me that the Droyne of Andor weren't discovered until 802. I just
>don't believe it.

Here's where we take different routes.  Rather than refusing to accept the
date, I try to make a plot hook out of it.  *Why* didn't anybody find those
Droyne?  Hmmm..  Adventure 4 had a rumor about a scout in the Outrim
finding himself jumping for home with no memory of the previous two weeks.
Maybe the Droyne planted false memories in the Scouts, and sent them on
their way.  Maybe the weren't ready to be found..  what were they trying to
cover up?  Why does Five Sisters have so many Navy bases?  Why are Candor
and Andory interdicted?  Rather than a discrepancy, I see a great campaign!

As for things being discovered.. San Francisco Bay, one of the world's best
natural harbors, was sailed past numerous times by European explorers.
They just didn't see any point exploring what appeared to be a small inlet.
 It was finally discovered by land.

> And I can't make myself believe that the Scouts could visit
>the Sword Worlds in 53 and not visit the Darrians until 148 (The Sword
>Worlders have known of the Darrians from the start; the Darrians are going
>to be mentioned in hundreds of Sword World books and articles, not to
>mention encyclopedias).

"What's beyond our borders?  Well, there's a terrible group of barbarians
to spin.  Horrible people.  They massacre prisoners, refuse all diplomatic
contact.  We can, of course provide relevant stellar cartography data for
you, but my advice is to avoid the area unless you have a lot more firepower."

Books and encyclopedias?  From what I had read and seen as a child and
teenager, I expected to see strutting soldiers the first time I went to
Germany.  Almost everything I had read focused on WWII, or on cultural
events that had little or no relation to everyday life.  Asking the Sword
Worlds about the Darriens would be like asking the Soviet Union about the
United States.

>Nor can I make myself believe in all those low pop systems
>with Class A starports (That one is a bit tricky, because you might be able
>to run a small shipyard with 60 people, provided you had an inordinate
>degree of automation and imported all the subcomponents from another system.
>But that just begs the question; why would anyone pay the extra expenses
>that would entail? How does the shipyard compete at all? Such a shipyard
>would require massive subsidies. So I might be able to justify any
>particular such world, and maybe even two or three, by inventing some 
>special political circumstances. But I can't accept that there are so many 
>of them).

I have a quick fix.  I just assume that those worlds are a source of
lanthanum.  Since the planet has a ready supply, they meet the "starship
construction" criteria.

<snip>

>So when I post something it is partly to let others benefit from my work (no
>use duplicating effort; if someone can use something of mine, maybe he will
>have time to work out something I can use), partly to get it checked for
>logical and factual errors, and partly an attempt to influence future
>Traveller writers to produce stuff I can use. Purely pragmatic. But it is
>not for the purpose of forcing you or Gary or anybody else to play things my 
>way.

Then perhaps you can also pledge to avoid the level of personal insults
recently achieved in the Piracy debate?
- --

Douglas E. Berry
Templar Agent at Large.
dberry@hooked.net  
http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/gateway.html 

TravGeekCode: 
tc+ tm+ !tn- t4@ ?tg+ tt@ to(CORPS)++ ru@ $ge++ 3i
ii+ au st+ ls+ pi kk+ so(++) va++ dr+ zh+ sw++ ?da
         

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 13:58:42 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)

In a message dated 10/31/98 22:36:11 PM Pacific Standard Time,
Sethkimmel@aol.com writes:

<< I designed a TL 15 battlerider. It is scary. >>

	Zho tech level is 14 max...have to try again w/ the power plant and computer,
as well as the Type T.  Also, black globes are not Imperial Tech, so they are
not at all common in use aboard even Imperial vessels.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 15:01:54 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: G:T Hardback & Softback Prices

 "Paul James" <paul@turing.tcp.co.uk> wrote:

>My local store here in the UK had both hardback & softback versions of G:T
>in today but the price difference between the two was nine pounds whereas
>the SJ website lists them at $23 & $30. Anyone else seen such extreme price
>differences between the two (remembering nine pounds would be about $14 i.e.
>twice the listed difference).

Leisure Games has them at SB 14.95 and HB 19.95 HB IIRC

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 17:56:49 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Publishing CT stuff

Sanders <timmon@primenet.com> wrote:

>At 08:55 PM 10/31/98 -0800, you wrote:
>>Over at the Classic Traveller Resurgence eGroup we have been
>>discussing whether there might be an outlet for publishing new
>>material for Milieu:1105.
>>Along that same line, does anyone know how the "Seeker" company can be
>>contacted?  Or did someone buy the rights to their material?
>
>Roger Sanger was interested in buying out Seeker's material at one time,
>but I don't know if anything ever came of it or not.


<BITCH MODE>
Was he looking to hide that away too, along with the DGP stuff?
</BITCH MODE>

Another thing to consider is that you'll need a licence from Marc to start
publishing it.

And as someone said -  "The easisest way to make a small fortune in the
roleplaying business is to start with a larger one". ;-/

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 14:13:33 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: GURPS Traveller Errata

Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior) wrote:

>Was browsing GT in the shop last night, and noticed a mistake on the
>Metric Conversions sidebar:
>
>There are about FIVE (5) litres in an IMPERIAL gallon, not four.
>
>An AMERICAN gallon has four litres, which is what I suspect the writer
>meant, but unless the US has decided to forget about the revolution...


1 Imperial Gallon = 4.546 litres
1 American Gallon = 3.785 litres

'An Engineering Databook' Munday and Farrar ISBN 0 333 258290

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 14:22:40 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: RAFM experience

Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@mailhub.ansys.com> wrote:

>It is a shame, really. I preferred them over Ral Partha's minis. The
>geohex site offers some nice character minis, but the vehicles aren't
>really to my taste, YMMV. The Full Thrust starship minis look very
>promising.

I took advantage of GZG selling starter packs (I don't know if Geohex do
this in the US). It cost 20 GBP and included FT rules, and two cruiser
based groups (9 figs each). They also do packs based on a carrier group
(with escorts) and a battlegroup (BB, BC, ECs etc). All about the same
number of figures and 15 GBP ea IIRC

I like their minis - the NAC (Anglo American)stuff is kind of 'Paramount
Famous Sci-Fi' series enspired, the NSL (German) is kind of like the B5
Omegas and Novas, the ESU (French/Italian) is very like the Star Destroyers
in star wars. They're not bad, but some needed a little extra finishing.
The new Oceanic Union stuff is interesting too.... There are a couple of
other forces, but I don't use them as yet.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 18:02:49 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)

Sethkimmel@aol.com wrote:

>I designed a TL 15 battlerider. It is scary.
>
>25,000 tons. 6-G, agility 6 (power plant15), armor 15, meson screen and damper
>9, black globe 4, 500 globe capacitors (can absorb 9000 EP's), comp 9fib, Type
>T meson gun, 160xtriple beam lasers (160 batteries-factor 4), 20xtriple
>sandcasters (20 batteries-factor 3), cost: about 28,000 MC's. This vessel is
>designed to fight capital ships. Thus; the weak secondary armament...

Nice - are you going to post the USP?

I went for a few big secondaries in mine, and no black globe as it's a Zho
rider. I thought a nasty use would be for commerce raiding.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 14:25:50 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

At 01:00 PM 11/1/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> >> Even riskier if that SDB you missed on your last sensor sweep
responds to
>> >> the distress call at full (6g) throttle and comes into sensor range
just as
>> >> you open fire.
>> >
>> >If a SDB shows up on my sensor sweep inbound at 6G, you bet your
anatomy I'm 
>> >heading out to safe jump distance before he can close and shoot, unless
his 
>> >transponder says I've got more guns at my command than he does.
>> >
>> Best to be at the safe jump distance to begin with just in case above SDB
>> is coming from the direction of the closest safe jump point. Otherwise,
>> best hope your chief gearhead knows how to make a risky jump.
>
>Odds are, he's coming at me from the planet, since it's the most central
point 
>where piracy will be at.  AAMOF, I'm crunching some numbers on most likely 
>incidents under HG & LBB2, and the numbers are *VERY* interesting.  And 
>methinks a pirate *can* escape at range from an inbound hostile, I'm just
not 
>sure at what range the pirate can detect him at.  I'll post my math later
when 
>I get them in line.  Methinks some people might rethink their positions on 
>things once they read the numbers and weep.
>
I'm sure the numbers will show that. However, being on both ends of such an
attempt (player and referee) you've got to watch out for all those wild
hairs your referee gets. Likely, the SDB that responds the time you try it
will be one that's at full velocity already in transit retuning from or
outbound to another mission. Always assume your referee is going to add as
much spice to your life as possible.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 14:46:14 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)

In a message dated 11/1/98 11:00:31 AM Pacific Standard Time,
DustyLV769@aol.com writes:

<< << I designed a TL 15 battlerider. It is scary. >>
 
 	Zho tech level is 14 max...have to try again w/ the power plant and
computer,
 as well as the Type T.  Also, black globes are not Imperial Tech, so they are
 not at all common in use aboard even Imperial vessels.
 
 DustyLV769@aol.com >>

It is an Imperial design. As for the globe's, they found 2000 of them on
Knorbes... I can always delete the globe if the referee and/or the scenario
mandates it. Otherwise I will delete it over my dead body...:-) . Seriously,
HG makes globes and capacitors so powerful that they are worth every
centicredit they cost (in this case 1000 MC's for the globe, and 2000MC's for
500 capacitors).

Seth

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 14:55:55 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard) 

> In a message dated 10/31/98 22:36:11 PM Pacific Standard Time,
> Sethkimmel@aol.com writes:
> 
> << I designed a TL 15 battlerider. It is scary. >>
> 
> 	Zho tech level is 14 max...have to try again w/ the power plant and computer,
> as well as the Type T.  Also, black globes are not Imperial Tech, so they are
> not at all common in use aboard even Imperial vessels.

Per HG 2nd Ed, pg 31:

"Black globe generators are not available commercially; they are recovered 
artifacts installed on a makeshift basis or esperimental versions installed on 
tech level 15 Imperial warships.  The force field table shows the USP code, 
tech level, tonnage, and price required.  Black globes have no energy point 
cost.  Devices shown at tech level 15 are used by the Imperium; those at 
higher tech levels are shown for reference.

The aquisition of any black globe generator is probably the result of a lucky 
find on the part of a government, individual, or corporation."

Per 'Adventure 12: Secrets of the Ancients', pg 14:

"Black Globes:  Rarely do excavations of Ancient sites produce working 
artifacts.  One site proved to be a treasure trove with more than 2,000 
operating black globe generators almost waiting to be installed on Imperial 
ships.  Black globes typify the incomprehensible artifacts of the Ancients: 
each of the devices found is a small metal device measuring about 300 cm on a 
side with a shiny metal finish.  Two minor discolorations on the surface are 
the on and off switches.

When the device is activated, it projects a black force field in a sphere 
around the device at a radius of about one meter.  In the first experiments 
with the device, a researcher was cut in half by the force field when he 
touched the switch; in the second, it was activated remotely by a rod.  Both 
of the black globes could not then be turned off because the off switch was 
inside the force field."

Now, the *only* way I can see a globe throwing a field of a bit less than a 
meter radius around a warship that is *WAY* over a meter long is if the device 
somehow can sense if something is mechanically and electrically connected to 
the generator.  Otherwise, there'd be a pile of Imperial boats with 2 meter 
wide holes in them that can't be removed.

Personally, I wonder what would happen if somebody actually *TOUCHED* an 
active black globe.  Woudl it suck all the energy out of them and kill them 
instantly?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 20:47:13 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1069

On Sun, 1 Nov 1998 07:30:17 -0500, Sanders <timmon@primenet.com>
wrote:

>At 08:55 PM 10/31/98 -0800, you wrote:
>>Over at the Classic Traveller Resurgence eGroup we have been
>>discussing whether there might be an outlet for publishing new
>>material for Milieu:1105.

>>Along that same line, does anyone know how the "Seeker" company can be
>>contacted?  Or did someone buy the rights to their material?

>Roger Sanger was interested in buying out Seeker's material at one time,
>but I don't know if anything ever came of it or not.

<P class='snarling-sarcasm'>
Why, so that he could ice _them_, too?
</P>

- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 15:54:54 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

> >> Best to be at the safe jump distance to begin with just in case above SDB
> >> is coming from the direction of the closest safe jump point. Otherwise,
> >> best hope your chief gearhead knows how to make a risky jump.
> >
> >Odds are, he's coming at me from the planet, since it's the most central
> point 
> >where piracy will be at.  AAMOF, I'm crunching some numbers on most likely 
> >incidents under HG & LBB2, and the numbers are *VERY* interesting.  And 
> >methinks a pirate *can* escape at range from an inbound hostile, I'm just
> not 
> >sure at what range the pirate can detect him at.  I'll post my math later
> when 
> >I get them in line.  Methinks some people might rethink their positions on 
> >things once they read the numbers and weep.
> >
> I'm sure the numbers will show that. However, being on both ends of such an
> attempt (player and referee) you've got to watch out for all those wild
> hairs your referee gets. Likely, the SDB that responds the time you try it
> will be one that's at full velocity already in transit retuning from or
> outbound to another mission. Always assume your referee is going to add as
> much spice to your life as possible.

No doubt.  But the numbers so far say, at 6G's accelleration from a Size 8 
planet, running flat out to the 100 diameter limit, maximum engagement 
envelope is 15 minutes from the edge of the envelope at 500K klicks, where 
you'll be shooting at some SEVERE disadvantages, and only 7.5 minutes at 
merely long range, 250K klicks.  Your terminal velocity is 550 KPS, then you 
get to turn around, try and get a snapshot off in 15 mins at extreme range, 
and decellerate, coming to rest 1.28 million klicks out.  *THEN* you get to 
accellerate back for the 640K klicks to turn around, and *decellerate* again 
the remaining 640K klicks to finally come to rest relative to the disabled 
ship, 6.15 hours later.  I make it, 1 good shot at range heading out, and a 
couple good shots coming back, *IF* the bad guys are still there.

Now, the 'bad guys' can get up to 2.3 hours to loot and scoot, *OR* do some field repairs to weapons systems and such to increase their offensive capabilities *OR* repair the drives enough to jump.  2.3 hours is 6.9 combat turns.  They'll be making the 7th repair attempt as the protector gets in range.  If the locals decide they want to be at rest relative to the target ship on the first pass so they can pound it to slag, you get on the order of 11 combat turns for repairs to the target.  A crew can attempt 1 repair per combat turn of 20 minutes.

Assuming the first case, a flyby at 550 kps, the bad guys get their 7 repair attempts max before being engaged, *then* get on the order of 18 *more* before they have to worry about the locals coming back to shoot them to dust.  All in all, I'd call it a liveable chance.  Hey, if you're gonna make the big money, you gotta take the big chance.

As for ref specials thrown at you, the numbers don't support it.  If the SDB is already in motion, most likely it's heading in the wrong direction.  It's going to take *time* for it to stop and manuver back at you.  If it *is* heading your direction, it just closes faster.  But this means, it takes *LONGER* for it to get back to you, and they *still* get only 1 shot at you in passing.  Either way, all you have to do is live through *1* combat turn and you're home free.

Now what I want to see is, the odds of a ship coming in at high speed aquiring you when you pull *real* close to the crippled boat, say, on the order of 10 meters or less, and set your power plant for hot standby with enough charge in your lasers for the one shot *you'll* get when they pass.  If the crippled ship is the one throwing out all the neutrinos, odds are, *it's* the ship that'll be targetted and shot at.  I'd give it a 50-50 chance, and I'll take either end of the bet.

Finally, the two most common ships that most likely would do the intercept would be either a Dragon-class SDB or a Gazelle-class Close Escort.  HG weapons factors vs a generic Type P corsair with either of these ships indicate no critical hits using the HG combat system.  Somehow, I *don't* see a Type P being chased by a Tigress-class battleship, if for no other reason than the Tigress would be abandoning its post to do the intercept.

All in all, the numbers suggest that hoisting the Jolly Roger could be highly profitable, if done correctly, but more on *THAT* in a future post.  <grin>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 14:51:32 -0600
From: "Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Subject: Near Star List and Earth's subsector

Seems like I remember someone wondering how the real stars would convert to
the subsector containing earth.

Here is a page that converts 2300's core sector (which is based on real
stars around earth) to a Traveller subsector.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/AndySlack/Ch75b.htm

This might be interesting for you.

tv

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 13:30:23 -0800 (PST)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Publishing CT stuff

- ---SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com> wrote:
>
> Sanders <timmon@primenet.com> wrote:
> >Roger Sanger was interested in buying out Seeker's material at one
time,
> >but I don't know if anything ever came of it or not.
> 
> 
> <BITCH MODE>
> Was he looking to hide that away too, along with the DGP stuff?
> </BITCH MODE>
> 
> Another thing to consider is that you'll need a licence from Marc to start
> publishing it.
> 
> And as someone said -  "The easisest way to make a small fortune in the
> roleplaying business is to start with a larger one". ;-/

Wow.  I didn't realize that I was going to open a flame session here! 
I guess the answer to my question has been, "Shut up, stupid <slap>" 
Let me back up a step, then: does anyone know who was behind Seeker
originally? <ducking>

BTW, I had the address of the CT eGroup site wrong in my first post
(duh, I only manage it).  It is:
http://www.egroups.com/list/classic-traveller

And the Yahoo! club is at http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/classictraveller
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 13:39:26 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Greetings from Spofulam Orbital HQ

>At 07:03 am 10/27/98 -0600, you wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi all... just decided to drop in for a bit and see how all were
>>doing.  Uncle Hengabar's decision to refocus Famille Spofulam's core
>>mandate into legal services explains the recent silence.  Is Kenji
>Schwarz,
>
> Lord have mercy, Ditzie as a lawyer ...


I have this horrible vision of the remains of a courtroom immediately
following the reading of the first verdict that goes against her...

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1071
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Sunday, November 1 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1072



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Big Ships
Re: An example of a canon crack
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Off topic
Re: Publishing CT stuff
Re: Publishing CT stuff
[none]
Re: The Imperial Marine Miniatures
Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
Piracy, By The Numbers (long)
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me) 
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me) 
Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short)
Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)
Behind The Claw
New Traveller Web Site
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 12:43:06 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Big Ships

>>"Joseph R. Dietrich" wrote:
>>>
>>> BTW, since I don't have FFS2, what is the upper limit on ship
>sizes now? I
>>> know that Death Star scale things are right out.
>>
>>actually, IIRC, there is no upper limit in FFS2 on ship sizes...
>
>	No FORMAL limit ... i.e. there's no rule that says "You can't build
>ships any larger than X."  However, surface area imposes a practical
>upper limit ... eventually you won't be able to fit everything that
>must go on the surface, such as radiators, jump grid, weapons, etc ...
>- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --

Hmmm... weapons surface area could be eliminated by using deep meson guns.
Some commo could be moved internal using meson comms. Reduce the PEMS and
AEMS arrays by using folding arrays. In theory, large enough bay doors
could have other surface features affixed.

So, techheads one and all, how much could we do with, oh, say 10MTd (assume
max jump matched to max G to avoid solving for two variables) ???

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 21:55:10 -0000
From: "Peter L.S. Trevor" <ptrevor.trisen@zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: An example of a canon crack

Hans Rancke wrote:
> Because I like the historical maps and because of the early
> mention of rival claims to the Entropic worlds my suggestion
> would be to say that the Entropic Worlds (including Torment)
> were the four worlds lost by the Darrians in 593 and regained
> in 788. The Entropic Worlds (without Torment) were lost again
> during the 4FW and regained during the 5FW. Any text that claims
> that it was the Cunnonic worlds is in error.

That's the way I've been playing it IMTU, so if  it  comes  to  a
vote this is the way I would want it.



Regards PLST
"Rome wasn't burned in a day"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 17:43:21 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

>> >I've been working on an archeology adventure and this just hit me. 
>Nothing
>> >on Vland, or presumably the other planets they explored prior to
>meeting
>> >Terrans, could get a Vilani sick.  The biochemistry is just too
>different.
>> >That would have to work both way, nothing would find a Vilani edible. 
>Not
>> >even the bacteria, fungi, insects and all the rest that decompose dead
>> >tissue.
>> [snip]
>> >Happy Halloween.
>> 
>>         Cute scenario, but I find it implausible, and nowhere near as
>> horrible as the _REAL_ truth.
>> 
[snip]
>
>>         No, when a Vilani died, they wouldn't keep him around to admire.
>> They'd eat him on the spot.

IIRC, the human body contains enough microfauna to make a pretty good
start at decomposing, and unless your Vilani colony was subsisting on
canned food they'd have some form of farming going (even if it was protein
and yeast vats). Eating, on the other hand, makes perfect sense. Maybe not
directly, but after a short trip through the ecosystem...

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 17:51:25 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Off topic

>>Why do you think the rural road signs here in Texas have the appearance
>of
>>target on busy gun range.<G> 
>
>Because some people have no self control?

[scary examples snipped]
>
>Some people give responsible gun owners a bad name...

Odd how the NRA never mentions incidents like these...


Was browsing the UN web site preparing background material for a class,
and noticed that the figures for "Intentional homicide" in the USA top
those of Canada, Jamaica, and Costa Rica (the four countries the kids are
working on). I knew that America was more violent than here, but I'm
always hearing about how violent Jamaica is from Jamaican friends. I
wonder if the American public is just accustomed to the level of violence,
in the same way that they are to the level of traffic deaths?

ObTrav: I think this can relate to starship armament. Possibly Imperials
regard arms on merchants the same way most Americans regard handguns: as a
right and necessary protection. Sure, the IN could stamp out piracy if all
ships were disarmed, but that would be as unthinkable as disarming all
Americans. Thoughts?

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 15:59:16 -0700
From: Sanders <timmon@primenet.com>
Subject: Re: Publishing CT stuff

At 01:30 PM 11/1/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Wow.  I didn't realize that I was going to open a flame session here! 
>I guess the answer to my question has been, "Shut up, stupid <slap>" 
>Let me back up a step, then: does anyone know who was behind Seeker
>originally? <ducking>

Um....Steve Green? Something like that - if nobody else knows for sure I
can look it if need be.

l8r,
Paul

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 17:55:49 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Publishing CT stuff

>Along that same line, does anyone know how the "Seeker" company can be
>contacted?  Or did someone buy the rights to their material?

Can't remember who owns it offhand, but the same chap owns (or owned) the
Martian Metals 15mm mini molds and the rights to the FASA Traveller
material. 

He was interested in selling them 9 years ago when we last talked. Don't
know about now...

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 10:03:56 +1100 (EST)
From: DAVID CALLUM Moodie <dcm06@uow.edu.au>
Subject: [none]

get traveller-digest v1998.n1069
get traveller-digest v1998.n1070
get traveller-digest v1998.n1071
end


DaveChan
  The Many Faces Of Washu (21/9/98)
  --------------------------------------------------
  http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/kingston/196
  --------------------------------------------------
  http://rabble.uow.edu.au/~davechan

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 14:09:38 -0900
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Marine Miniatures

warlock@imagin.net

> >>Anyone else have the RAFM

> BTW, the Aslan look very good, IMO. As good as the old
> Grenadier Traveller figures. Another place which may
> still carry some TNE starship minis is Bosco's in
> Anchorage, Alaska. I can't remember their URL; just
> search for "Bosco's".

Yes we do. We are located at 		www.boscos.com

but the game minis are not listed on the web site so it might be more
effective to send an email to us at	mailorders@boscos.com

Inquiring about what we have.

IIRC all we have left are about 1 each of about 7 RAFM minis.  We ship
worlwide & have some CT & MT & TNE & T4 & GT items too.

Peter Newman - Game Guy - Boscos (who is on vacation this week & would
apreciate if questions were sent to the above address & not to him)

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 98 17:28:20 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)

On 11/01/98 at 06:37 PM,  dberry@hooked.net said:

>>>Hans, Gary, you *both* have completely valid images of the Imperial Navy
>>>FOR YOUR GAMES.  "Game" is the important word here.  The Third Imperium is
>>>a fictional setting with incomplete and sometimes contradictory data. 

>>First of all, I don't think you are right, but I guess that reiterating all
>>those arguments would just be a tedious waste of time.

>But they aren't the same universe.  We make great use of "IMTU" for
>In My Traveller Universe, just because everyone is going to alter the
>canonical setting their liking.  If we were arguing the current
>deployment of the United states Navy, we could get hard facts.  But
>we are discussing a fictional environment.  No matter how hard you
>try, there will always be some room for disagreement.

...and the above is why I have in the past, and will in the future
say "phooey to canon."  It's a game...and we all play in our own
TU's whether we follow published material to the letter, just keep
to the spirit, or go off completely on our own.  Keep official,
orthodox, canonical *fever* out of this!

But, some people will *always* try to make their vision of
"Traveller Universes" <intoning from on high> THE OFFICIAL TRAVELLER
UNIVERSE, and I don't like that.  Hey, I don't like it when Marc,
Dave, or Loren do it, how much less do you think I like it when
anybody else does?  

IMO, if you require too much detail *officially* you end up
straight-jacketing GMs, and I don't like that.  Keep *required*
details to a minimum, let each GM fit material into their universe
the way they see fit.

Don't take published material to be "revealed truth", it isn't.
Encounter tables are suggestions, not set in stone.  Library and
"historical" data should *always* be "subject to GM manipulation."
Published adventures, rumors, star charts and UWP's for planetary
systems should be "adventure seeds" to stimulate the GM and players
and help them create their own game universes through play.

And lack of time is NOT a valid excuse to force others to play in some
pre-generated, structured ficton.  If you don't have the time to do
the work of a GM, then...<sputter, sputter...I WON'T say it!>...then
use someone else's work, but don't try to enshrine *their* work
because *you* didn't do it.

<arrgh!! ribble! rattle! skerrrt! pant...pant...pant!  Where are
those pills?>

But, hey!  Don't mind me, I'm just making my obligatory, once every
six months, anti-canon declaration, so that I can remain...

Eris,
    the Heretic
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 98 17:37:43 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

On 11/01/98 at 05:43 PM,  Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior) said:

>>>         No, when a Vilani died, they wouldn't keep him around to admire.
>>> They'd eat him on the spot.

>IIRC, the human body contains enough microfauna to make a pretty good
>start at decomposing, and unless your Vilani colony was subsisting on
>canned food they'd have some form of farming going (even if it was
>protein and yeast vats). Eating, on the other hand, makes perfect
>sense. Maybe not directly, but after a short trip through the
>ecosystem...

Frankly, I think ancestor worship based on ritual cannibalism makes
sense for cultures like the Vilani.  They might reason that they
could preserve the wisdom, strength and knowledge of their ancestors
by ingesting their flesh.  Whether this custom would persist in
reality, or become symbolic is another question.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 18:54:49 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)

>>But they aren't the same universe.  We make great use of "IMTU" for
>>In My Traveller Universe, just because everyone is going to alter the
>>canonical setting their liking.  If we were arguing the current
>>deployment of the United states Navy, we could get hard facts.  But
>>we are discussing a fictional environment.  No matter how hard you
>>try, there will always be some room for disagreement.
>
>...and the above is why I have in the past, and will in the future
>say "phooey to canon."  It's a game...and we all play in our own
>TU's whether we follow published material to the letter, just keep
>to the spirit, or go off completely on our own.  Keep official,
>orthodox, canonical *fever* out of this!

A long time ago, I went as far as creating my own maps of my own empire. I
do this in every RPG I run. Takes the fire out of the rules lawyers right
quick.

<light fuse, run, *BOOM*, text removed>

>IMO, if you require too much detail *officially* you end up
>straight-jacketing GMs, and I don't like that.  Keep *required*
>details to a minimum, let each GM fit material into their universe
>the way they see fit.
>
>Don't take published material to be "revealed truth", it isn't.
>Encounter tables are suggestions, not set in stone.  Library and
>"historical" data should *always* be "subject to GM manipulation."
>Published adventures, rumors, star charts and UWP's for planetary
>systems should be "adventure seeds" to stimulate the GM and players
>and help them create their own game universes through play.

Of course, who says all the "published" data <as far as your TU goes> is
actually accurate and what have the Imperial authorites, rumor mongers, and
outright liers changed.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 20:38:31 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)

OK, here's the numbers I promised earlier today.  First, assumptions.

1.  Target world is Size 8 (8000 mile diameter).  This puts the 100 diameter 
jump limit at 1,280,000 klicks.
2.  Target ship is intercepted and disabled right at the 100 diameter jump 
limit.
3.  Pirate ship is assumed to be a Type P as per Supplement 4: Citizens of the 
Imperium.  Refered to as 'intruder'.  For purposes of this post, this boat is 
considered to be stock as per Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium, with the 
exception that all triple turrets have been fully utilised with beam lasers.  
Hey, it's only another 6 MCr.  If you've got a 180 MCr boat, you'll spend the 
money.  Otherwise, you're wasting your time.
4.  Local patrol ship is either a 400 ton Dragon-class SDB or a 400 ton Close 
Escort of either Gazelle Class or the Fiery Class variant.  Refered to as 
'defender'.  For the purposes of this post, these boats are considered stock 
as per Supplement 6: Traders & Gunboats.
5.  System for determination is High Guard and LBB2 (Starships) from Classic 
Traveller.  Reasoning behind this is, I'm most familiar with this ruleset.  
Not having the errata, I'm still having major difficulty figuring out 
MegaTraveller's ship design and combat systems.  (How in the *HELL* can you 
figure out how much power you're going to need *until* you figure out what 
kind of weapons requirements and M-drive power consumption you'll be dealing 
with.  This one's got me baffled, kids...)
6.  Per LBB2, 'extreme range' is 500,000 klicks and 'long' range is 250,000 
klicks.
7.  Per both HG and LBB2, a combat turn is 20 minutes.  (Actually, it's closer 
to 16 minutes [1000 seconds])
8.  Defender starts in orbit around the planet.  Defender is also assumed to 
be rounding the planet and pointing at the intruder, thus rendering the orbit 
height and planet's radius irrelevant.
9.  All attacks are at the USP value of the battery firing, *not* the USP 
value of the boat at large.  While this isn't 'really' covered by HG rules, 
this *does* make sense.  A ship with Factor 8 beam lasers has 10 full triple 
turrets.  If these turrets are being used as 1 battery, then yeah, I can see 
using the USP value.  However, if each turret is its own battery, this allows 
a +5 DM on each of the 10 attacks, which, IMNSFBHO, borders on munchkinism.  
The USP value of 1 triple beam missile turret is 3, *NOT* 8.  10 seperate 
attacks will *equal* 1 combined attack, not multiply it.  This repairs a minor 
'break'.

Intruder's ship is 400 tons (Size code 4), with Factor 4 beam lasers 
configured as 3 batteries of Factor 3.  It's one laser shy of Factor 5.  
Computer is a Model 2.  It has Factor 0 armour.

Defender A is the Dragon SDB, 400 tons (Size Code 4), Factor 4 beam lasers 
configured as 2 batteries of Factor 3 and Factor 3 missiles configured as 2 
batteries of Factor 2.  Computer is a Model 5.  The boat has Factor 9 armour.

Defender B is the Gazelle, 400 tons (Size 4), with Factor 4 beam lasers 
configured as 2 batteries of Factor 3 and Factor 2 particle accellerator 
barbettes configured as 2 batteries of Factor 1.  Computer is a Model 6.  The 
boat is armoured to Factor 3.

Now the math.  First the Dragon, approaching as in Assumption 8.

To get to safe jump distance from a Size 8 world at 6G's without a midpoint 
turnover takes 153 minutes, or 7.65 combat turns.  End velocity is 550 km/sec. 
 The defender enters the 500K klick extreme range envelope at 138 minutes and 
traverses it in 15 minutes.  It enters the 600K detection limit at 135 
minutes, if the intruder is powered up beyond 'quiet' levels.  If the intruder 
is running at quiet levels, the defender is unable to lock on until it is 
within 300K klicks, leaving 9.1 minutes to lock solutions and fire at point 
blank range.  Once locked on, the defender can track up to 900K klicks, 
although past 250K klicks it will be shooting at extreme range and thus under 
extreme penalties.  This suggests that the SDB will take *one* shot at point 
blank range for each of 4 batteries.

With a midpoint turnover, the SDB arrives at rest with the intruder at 216 
minutes or 10.8 combat turns, a difference of 63 minutes, or 3 combat turns.  
It enters the 500K extreme range envelope with 96 minutes to rest, or 4.8 
combat turns.  It enters the 250K long range envelope at 68 minutes to rest, 
or 3.4 combat turns.  The second solution offers more immediate opportunities 
for fire and is likely to be the one used, as the flyby allows *1* shot only 
due to range constraints.  The 'slow solution' allows the defender within 
range .2 combat turns earlier and allows 4 shots per battery during the 
closure.

At extreme or long range, the beam lasers have a -1 to hit.  Further 
modifications are:

+ relative computer size (5-2=3)
- - target agility rating (assumed to be 0)
+ target size modifier (Size 4 is a -1)

Thus, at long range, the lasers only have +2 to hit.  Factor 3 lasers hit on 7 
or better, with the DMs, these lasers hit on 5 or better on 2D6.  At close 
range, this drops to 4.  Once the lasers are considered to hit, we then roll 
for penetration.  Since defender has no sandcasters, any roll of 4 or better 
on two dice penetrates, with relative computer size as a DM.

Missiles use the same DMs to hit, except they're +0 at long range and -1 at 
short.  Versus Factor 3 lasers in point defense mode, the Factor 2 missiles 
need 4 or better to hit and 3 to penetrate.

For the Gazelle, the approach times to intercept are left to the student as an 
exercise.  Remember to calculate them at 4G's, not 6.  Its lasers hit on 4 or 
better and penetrate on 3 or better.  For the PA's, a hit is scored on 6 or 
more, and penetrate on 7 or better.

As far as damage goes, according to HG, it is *impossible* for any weapon 
under Factor 9 to score a critical hit or interior explosion due to the +6 DM 
added to the damage roll.  Since the lowest roll necessary for an interior 
explosion is a natural 5, this leaves only fuel, manuver, or weapon hits for 
the surface explosion tables and computer and weapon hits on the radiation 
damage for the Gazzelle PA's.  Weapon hits are inconsequential, as they can 
either be repaired while in jump space or at the next port of call.  Likewise, 
Fuel-x hits, since they only take out x% of your total fuel.  If you take say 
5% fuel loss, you can still jump out and find some place to refuel before your 
M-drive runs out of power.  You have a 1 in 6 chance of losing a point of 
M-drive.  Your power plant will be unaffected, as will your crew.  If you're 
attacked by a Gazelle, then you'll have to worry about computer hits.  If 
you're being attacked by a Dragon, you won't need to worry.

Recapping everything, the intruder should have no less than 2 hours to loot & 
scoot *OR* field repair the victim enough to move it out beyond the 100 
diameter limit and jump, based on the above assumptions.  All in all, I'd say 
this means that piracy is viable after all, wouldn't you?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 20:56:08 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me) 

> >But they aren't the same universe.  We make great use of "IMTU" for
> >In My Traveller Universe, just because everyone is going to alter the
> >canonical setting their liking.  If we were arguing the current
> >deployment of the United states Navy, we could get hard facts.  But
> >we are discussing a fictional environment.  No matter how hard you
> >try, there will always be some room for disagreement.
> 
> ...and the above is why I have in the past, and will in the future
> say "phooey to canon."  It's a game...and we all play in our own
> TU's whether we follow published material to the letter, just keep
> to the spirit, or go off completely on our own.  Keep official,
> orthodox, canonical *fever* out of this!

<raspberries>

> But, some people will *always* try to make their vision of
> "Traveller Universes" <intoning from on high> THE OFFICIAL TRAVELLER
> UNIVERSE, and I don't like that.  Hey, I don't like it when Marc,
> Dave, or Loren do it, how much less do you think I like it when
> anybody else does?  

I go for the basic 'look & feel'.  That's a good canvas to paint on, and I've 
done *PLENTY* of painting IMTU.  Can't you tell?

> Don't take published material to be "revealed truth", it isn't.
> Encounter tables are suggestions, not set in stone.  Library and
> "historical" data should *always* be "subject to GM manipulation."
> Published adventures, rumors, star charts and UWP's for planetary
> systems should be "adventure seeds" to stimulate the GM and players
> and help them create their own game universes through play.

Tech level capabilites should remain rigid, though.  IMNSFBHO, that is...

> And lack of time is NOT a valid excuse to force others to play in some
> pre-generated, structured ficton.  If you don't have the time to do
> the work of a GM, then...<sputter, sputter...I WON'T say it!>...then
> use someone else's work, but don't try to enshrine *their* work
> because *you* didn't do it.

Half the 'chrome' I put in my PBEM is the result of about 5 minutes' worth of 
thought, on the fly.
 
> <arrgh!! ribble! rattle! skerrrt! pant...pant...pant!  Where are
> those pills?>

On the night stand where you left them.  Take two, they're small.
 
Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 21:01:21 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me) 

> A long time ago, I went as far as creating my own maps of my own empire. I
> do this in every RPG I run. Takes the fire out of the rules lawyers right
> quick.

I can see this as a Good Thing.  If you make a ruling one way one time, the 
rule should apply the same manner the *next* time, too.  Consistency is the 
key.
 
> >IMO, if you require too much detail *officially* you end up
> >straight-jacketing GMs, and I don't like that.  Keep *required*
> >details to a minimum, let each GM fit material into their universe
> >the way they see fit.
> >
> >Don't take published material to be "revealed truth", it isn't.
> >Encounter tables are suggestions, not set in stone.  Library and
> >"historical" data should *always* be "subject to GM manipulation."
> >Published adventures, rumors, star charts and UWP's for planetary
> >systems should be "adventure seeds" to stimulate the GM and players
> >and help them create their own game universes through play.
> 
> Of course, who says all the "published" data <as far as your TU goes> is
> actually accurate and what have the Imperial authorites, rumor mongers, and
> outright liers changed.

Now you know why I have severe problems with interstellar range jump portals 
or TL13 black globes used for planetary defense.  Or spinal mount weapons on 
non-Q merchies.  Or... <sounds of a struggle>  Hey!!  I'm not due back in jail 
til tomorrow!!!

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 21:20:23 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short)

Oh, almost forgot something in the analysis I posted a few minutes ago.

The laser figures for either the Gazelle or the Dragon are also relevant for 
the Type P as well.  This means, the crippled ship is going to be missing some 
fuel or need M-drive repairs.  Its weapons will also be disabled.  This means 
that the prize crew most likely will opt to restore the M-drive, take the boat 
over the 100 diameter limit, and jump to a predetermined location to meet up 
with the Type P again.  It makes the most sense.  And they *do* have those 2 
hrs+ to do it in.  That's 6 attempts to field repair the M-drive.  However, 
the roll to repair the system doesn't take into account any Engineering 
skills.  Methinks it should.  Quickie 'instant rule':  add all Engineering 
skills together, divide by the number of the prize crew.  Round to the nearest 
whole number.  That's the DM on the repair roll.  As is, a roll of 9+ repairs 
the system in question.

Comments?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 21:24:00 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)

In a message dated 11/1/98 11:48:10 AM Pacific Standard Time,
Sethkimmel@aol.com writes:

<< It is an Imperial design. As for the globe's, they found 2000 of them on
 Knorbes... I can always delete the globe if the referee and/or the scenario
 mandates it. Otherwise I will delete it over my dead body...:-)  >>

	Canonically (ah, that hateful word <G>) black globes were only available as
recovered artifacts...and even postulating the 2000 found (a reference I have
never seen) who decides which of the megazillions of IN vessels that exist (as
some state based on certain numbers...; oops, no rant intended) have them?

As for the statement about the Zho TL, my apologies.  I was going by the
subject line and assumed you had designed a Zho battlerider.

Dusty

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 21:38:50 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)

In a message dated 11/1/98 17:41:18 PM Pacific Standard Time,
jamstar@glasscity.net writes:

<< At extreme or long range, the beam lasers have a -1 to hit.  Further 
 modifications are:
 
 + relative computer size (5-2=3) >>

	Now here's a question I've been meaning to ask for a while.  The book says
"relative Computer size".  If I understand this right (and the pirate is the
firing ship) isn't the modifier [2-5= -3] ??

Recapping everything, the intruder should have no less than 2 hours to loot & 
scoot *OR* field repair the victim enough to move it out beyond the 100 
diameter limit and jump, based on the above assumptions.  All in all, I'd say 
this means that piracy is viable after all, wouldn't you?

Keven

	Ghu help us all when Hans sees this post!!! (no offense intended)  Fabulous
arguement for the piracy debate...of course this doesn't address some claims
that enough SDBs are available in any trading system that one can walk from
the 100D limit w/out a vacc suit.

DustyLV769@aol.com
"Quick!! Load and run out the Canon Cannon!"

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 14:26:27 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Behind The Claw

Dear Folks -

Just arrived at the Games Cupboard, Canberra (capital of Australia) by J-6
fleet courier - "Behind The Claw"!!

Dropped my AU$39.95 to grab this book and - wow! This looks like the most
useful supplement since "The Regency Sourcebook" - and both can be used
side-by-side, I might add. There's even official possibilities opening up
for Tavonni. Time to complete that 16-page supplement, I guess...

Pics! Wow, full of great pics! Rob Caswell is back, Glenn Grant is in
there, and I even recognised the thumbprint of Lance S. Winkel (LSW) on the
computer-rendered starships. Fantastic work on the layout and "feel" of the
book - this is wonderful!

Interesting to see that the subsectors are detailed in the same order as in
"Supp 3: The Spinward Marches" - was this the working model?  ;-)

As to the disjointed sector map at the back - an angled watermark across
the back of each subsector may have been better - but I DON'T CARE! The
Marches are BACK! This is one of those "must have" items for ANY Traveller
campaigns - 5 stars!
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson        Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                       davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 22:28:03 EST
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: New Traveller Web Site

http://members.aol.com/FarFuture/


The beginnings of the Traveller Web Site have been uploaded.
It's still rudimentary, but I invite you totake a look at it and let me know
your thoughts (and what direction you want to see it go).

Thanks,

Marc Miller

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 19:36:49 -0800 (PST)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)

- ---"Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net> wrote:
>
> OK, here's the numbers I promised earlier today.  First, assumptions.

<huge SNIP>

> All in all, I'd say 
> this means that piracy is viable after all, wouldn't you?
> 
> Keven
> 

And if it was a viable in CT then that makes it canon, not subject to
change, right? <ducking down under the table with keyboard over my head>


==
IMTU tc++ tm !tn t4+ ?tg tt- to ru++ ge 3i c+ j+
[0601] au st+ ls pi ta+ he+ !kk !hi as+ va+ !dr
       so zh vi da+ !sy !ne Beowulf Lives!
- ------------------------------------------------
Sword Worlds: named after famous weapons of
lore.  The people are fiercely competative
merchants.  The storyline was first introduced
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1072
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Monday, November 2 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1073



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: New Traveller Web Site
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)
Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 
Re: New Traveller Web Site 
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 
Re: New Traveller Web Site
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 
Re: Milky Way
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers 
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me) 
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Off topic
Re: An example of a canon crack
Re: Publishing CT stuff
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re The Imperial Marine Miniatures
Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short)
Black Globes
Re Piracy
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1070

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 21:37:18 -0600
From: "Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Subject: Re: New Traveller Web Site

- ->The beginnings of the Traveller Web Site have been uploaded.
>It's still rudimentary, but I invite you totake a look at it and let me
know
>your thoughts (and what direction you want to see it go).

The site looks good.  It is nice to see someone build a graphics lite site.
(Mine isn't but I applaud you for doing it)

TV

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 22:52:49 -0500
From: Kurt Feltenberger <kurt@blazenet.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)

At 08:38 PM 11/1/98 -0500, you wrote:

>9.  All attacks are at the USP value of the battery firing, *not* the USP 
>value of the boat at large.  While this isn't 'really' covered by HG rules, 
>this *does* make sense.  A ship with Factor 8 beam lasers has 10 full triple 
>turrets.  If these turrets are being used as 1 battery, then yeah, I can see 
>using the USP value.  However, if each turret is its own battery, this allows 
>a +5 DM on each of the 10 attacks, which, IMNSFBHO, borders on munchkinism.  
>The USP value of 1 triple beam missile turret is 3, *NOT* 8.  10 seperate 
>attacks will *equal* 1 combined attack, not multiply it.  This repairs a
minor 
>'break'.
>
>Intruder's ship is 400 tons (Size code 4), with Factor 4 beam lasers 
>configured as 3 batteries of Factor 3.  It's one laser shy of Factor 5.  
>Computer is a Model 2.  It has Factor 0 armour.
>
>Defender A is the Dragon SDB, 400 tons (Size Code 4), Factor 4 beam lasers 
>configured as 2 batteries of Factor 3 and Factor 3 missiles configured as 2 
>batteries of Factor 2.  Computer is a Model 5.  The boat has Factor 9 armour.
>
>Defender B is the Gazelle, 400 tons (Size 4), with Factor 4 beam lasers 
>configured as 2 batteries of Factor 3 and Factor 2 particle accellerator 
>barbettes configured as 2 batteries of Factor 1.  Computer is a Model 6.  The 
>boat is armoured to Factor 3.


This is good!  I have a couple questions on the above material though...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the factors as listed in the USP
were _only_ the factors of the weapons as they were organized into
batteries.  I've never heard counting the total number of weapons and
figuring the USP factor from that.

Kurt Feltenberger
kurt@blazenet.net


------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 22:58:45 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)

In a message dated 11/1/98 6:26:01 PM Pacific Standard Time,
DustyLV769@aol.com writes:

<< 	Canonically (ah, that hateful word <G>) black globes were only available
as
 recovered artifacts...and even postulating the 2000 found (a reference I have
 never seen) who decides which of the megazillions of IN vessels that exist
(as
 some state based on certain numbers...; oops, no rant intended) have them?
 
 As for the statement about the Zho TL, my apologies.  I was going by the
 subject line and assumed you had designed a Zho battlerider.
 
 Dusty >>

If I was running a canonical campaign, logically only vital ships would be
lucky enough to have a globe. As an example, I would put a globe on the
tenders, since they can cover the riders while they are embarked. There
wouldn't be enough to go around to install on the riders however. I would also
put them on main combatants. I figure that there would be enough globes to arm
one battleship equipped batron per sector. In this case I would put them on
Tigress's. A half million ton ship with a globe...grrr... I would also
consider putting them on a couple of jump 5 and 6 heavy cruiser raiders if
there were enough extra globes. As an example in the Marches, I would have a
jump 4 tender and a jump 6 tender globe equipped. I would have a Tigress
Batron globe equipped (preferably the full 8 ship squadron mentioned in
supplement ), and the four AHL's in the Marches. This is 14 globes for one
sector.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 23:17:06 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 

 << At extreme or long range, the beam lasers have a -1 to hit.  Further 
>  modifications are:
>  
>  + relative computer size (5-2=3) >>
> 
> Now here's a question I've been meaning to ask for a while.  The book says
> "relative Computer size".  If I understand this right (and the pirate is the
> firing ship) isn't the modifier [2-5= -3] ??

That is correct.  It will be harder for the pirate to hit due to his computer. 
 Now, if he upgrades it to a Model 5 or 6, things begin to look up for him.

> Recapping everything, the intruder should have no less than 2 hours to loot & 
> scoot *OR* field repair the victim enough to move it out beyond the 100 
> diameter limit and jump, based on the above assumptions.  All in all, I'd say 
> this means that piracy is viable after all, wouldn't you?
> 
> Ghu help us all when Hans sees this post!!! (no offense intended)  Fabulous
> arguement for the piracy debate...of course this doesn't address some claims
> that enough SDBs are available in any trading system that one can walk from
> the 100D limit w/out a vacc suit.

Of course, refs out to severely punish piratical players will quadruple up on SDB attacks, or else send multikiloton ships after them.  Hey, it's only numbers on a piece of paper, right?  It's not like this is the *real* world now, is it?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 23:19:03 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: New Traveller Web Site 

> 
> ->The beginnings of the Traveller Web Site have been uploaded.
> >It's still rudimentary, but I invite you totake a look at it and let me
> know
> >your thoughts (and what direction you want to see it go).
> 
> The site looks good.  It is nice to see someone build a graphics lite site.
> (Mine isn't but I applaud you for doing it)

Mine's pretty graphics-lite, too.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 23:26:44 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 

> >9.  All attacks are at the USP value of the battery firing, *not* the USP 
> >value of the boat at large.  While this isn't 'really' covered by HG rules, 
> >this *does* make sense.  A ship with Factor 8 beam lasers has 10 full triple 
> >turrets.  If these turrets are being used as 1 battery, then yeah, I can see 
> >using the USP value.  However, if each turret is its own battery, this allows 
> >a +5 DM on each of the 10 attacks, which, IMNSFBHO, borders on munchkinism.  
> >The USP value of 1 triple beam missile turret is 3, *NOT* 8.  10 seperate 
> >attacks will *equal* 1 combined attack, not multiply it.  This repairs a
> minor 
> >'break'.
> >
> >Intruder's ship is 400 tons (Size code 4), with Factor 4 beam lasers 
> >configured as 3 batteries of Factor 3.  It's one laser shy of Factor 5.  
> >Computer is a Model 2.  It has Factor 0 armour.
> >
> >Defender A is the Dragon SDB, 400 tons (Size Code 4), Factor 4 beam lasers 
> >configured as 2 batteries of Factor 3 and Factor 3 missiles configured as 2 
> >batteries of Factor 2.  Computer is a Model 5.  The boat has Factor 9 armour.
> >
> >Defender B is the Gazelle, 400 tons (Size 4), with Factor 4 beam lasers 
> >configured as 2 batteries of Factor 3 and Factor 2 particle accellerator 
> >barbettes configured as 2 batteries of Factor 1.  Computer is a Model 6.  The 
> >boat is armoured to Factor 3.
> 
> 
> This is good! 

Thanxx.

> I have a couple questions on the above material though...
> 
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the factors as listed in the USP
> were _only_ the factors of the weapons as they were organized into
> batteries.  I've never heard counting the total number of weapons and
> figuring the USP factor from that.

OK, look at the chart.  6 beam lasers are needed to get to Factor 4.  These 
are split up into 2 or more turrets.  If you've got triple turrets, there'd be 
3 lasers in each.  According to the chart, 3 lasers is Factor 3.  This is why 
I came up with the idea of each battery using the USP code of the number of 
weapons.  If both turrets were configured as 1 battery, it would attack as 
Factor 4.  Now, the rules as they stand say, if you break those 6 lasers down 
into 2 batteries, *each* battery can fire as Factor 4, even though there are 
only enough lasers in the battery to fire as Factor 3.  By the rules, if you 
have 6 lasers, overall you have Factor 4.  See?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 22:30:02 -0600
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: New Traveller Web Site

CardSharks@aol.com wrote:
> 
> http://members.aol.com/FarFuture/
> 
> The beginnings of the Traveller Web Site have been uploaded.
> It's still rudimentary, but I invite you totake a look at it and let me know
> your thoughts (and what direction you want to see it go).
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Marc Miller

Looks good so far.  I especially like the Feedback Submission Form (I'm
using this forum instead, to get TML feedback on my feedback).  A couple
of minor changes you may want to make:

1.  <nit> Include GURPS Traveller in your home page's listing of
Traveller editions. </nit>

2.  IMHO, listing the titles by game version would be more helpful (and
readable).  That way, I don't have to wade through listings of versions
that don't relate to my game.

3.  As you develop the Game Background portion of the site, it would be
useful to cross-link to the game product that relates to the topic under
discussion.  That would steer the visitor to the source material
he/she/it would use for further details.

As someone else already posted, I like the graphics-light approach. 
However, since you aren't going for eye candy, you might want to add
your name to the Meta list, and otherwise emphasize that this is _your_
Traveller site.  To quote John Adams from the musical "1776", "After
all, man, you're the one who wrote it."

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 23:34:27 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 

> ---"Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net> wrote:
> >
> > OK, here's the numbers I promised earlier today.  First, assumptions.
> 
> <huge SNIP>
> 
> > All in all, I'd say 
> > this means that piracy is viable after all, wouldn't you?
> 
> And if it was a viable in CT then that makes it canon, not subject to
> change, right? <ducking down under the table with keyboard over my head>

Even the stock ship encounter tables have pirates in them.  So they're there.  Has the world come to an end?  No.  Is it a bit trickier to run around with pirates out there?  Yup.  But like I said earlier today, if you wants the big money, you takes the big risks.  No free lunches.  <grin>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 20:57:47 -0800
From: "Wayne Ewart" <wewart@home.com>
Subject: Re: Milky Way

>> the best places I have viewed the stars are approx. 15 N by 180 W  and
>>McDonnald Observatory in West Texas.  although I would like to see a
>>better place to view the stars.


Best place I've viewed the stars is about 50 to 60 knotical(?) miles off the
west coast off BC/Wash. State. (being in the Navy, I'm out there 2 or 3 time
a month). The "Old Man" like to describe the view as diamonds on black
velvet.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 22:10:09 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers 

A point that needs to be stressed when talking about piracy is that
the best systems to engage in it can't be hit _too_ often, or the
Imperial Navy will get involved.

So the backwater system that rates a few SDBs and Gazelles might
find a destroyer or two hanging around if piracy becomes too
rampant.

Also, if the pirate can take the SDBs, it isn't always a good idea
to do so. Reducing system defences doesn't please the Navy.

I might expect pirates to have turfs because of this. If a new
pirate were to come in and take advantage of a system's weak
defences for too long, the regulars would suffer--I might expect
that pirates new to a territory might find themselves under harsher
attack from other pirates then the weak SDBs :-)

This also backs up the notion that more complicated scenarios need
to be played out since it looks better for the pirates if ships
disappear due to apparent malfunction rather than foul play.

The Vargr worlds are probably where a good deal of stolen ships are
sold (much like the fact that most 4x4s stolen here (in New
Mexico) end up south of the border).

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 21:16:06 -0800
From: "Wayne Ewart" <wewart@home.com>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me) 

>> <arrgh!! ribble! rattle! skerrrt! pant...pant...pant!  Where are
>> those pills?>
>
>On the night stand where you left them.  Take two, they're small.

Take the whole bottle, make a meal out of it.(LOL)

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 21:22:32 -0800
From: Joe Webb <jwwebb@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

Kuzu and the other diseases you can think of associated with cannibalism
would be a big reason that the Vilani don't eat old Unc.  At least all the
time.  On old Vland the easiest to prepare, and probably best tasting, food
would be other humans.  I really like Black ICE's idea of "delicacies."
Combine this with Shugilli secrecy and you get an interesting way of
presenting important banquets ("Why do they call this 'Kagiigu Soup',
wasn't that the name of the old president?  I did know he could cook".
"Oh, he cooked up just fine.").
This also fits with the "they could preserve the wisdom, strength and
knowledge of their ancestors by ingesting their flesh" idea from Eris.  If
you only ate the best and the brightest you would minimize the down side of
cannibalism, transfer your ancestors' powers to you, and get a tasty meal
(relative to what they are used to eating, I have no first hand knowledge
of long pork).

However, what I had really wanted to know was whether Vilani that had no
contact with Solomani would build tombs.  If their dead stuck around, well
preserved and such, then no.  No need to hide dear uncle Eneri.  But the
intestinal fauna eating through the abdomen is too much for me.  Tombs it
is, nobody is going to want to see uncle Eneri with that happening.

There is another way to get "easy" food for pre-Solomani Vilani.  Milk.
Female mammals who have given birth produce milk.  This production will
continue for as long as the milk is "taken."  This applies to humans.
What is the status of gender equity among traditional Vilani?  Would women
be looked down upon, or up to because they could produce the only food that
doesn't need a Shugilli to prepare?  Or is this a Shugilli secret too?
Would a whole class/cohort/section of women be used for milk production?
Of course, I think I'd hold off on ordering a cheese sandwich until I got
back into Solomani territory.

Joe Webb

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 00:24:04 -0500
From: "Harold D. Hale" <hdhale@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Off topic

Rob Prior writes:

>>Some people give responsible gun owners a bad name...
>
>Odd how the NRA never mentions incidents like these...
>
>
>Was browsing the UN web site preparing background material for a class,
>and noticed that the figures for "Intentional homicide" in the USA top
>those of Canada, Jamaica, and Costa Rica (the four countries the kids are
>working on). I knew that America was more violent than here, but I'm
>always hearing about how violent Jamaica is from Jamaican friends. I
>wonder if the American public is just accustomed to the level of violence,
>in the same way that they are to the level of traffic deaths?

   Argh!  Of course the US is going to have a higher incidence of gun
violence.  Then again let's look at the *real* reason why...

   Jamaica - Population: 2,615,582 (July 1997 est.)
   Canada - Population: 30,337,334 (July 1997 est.) 
   Costa Rica - Population: 3,534,174 (July 1997 est.) 
   United States - Population: 267,954,764 (July 1997 est.) 

   I would expect, knowing nothing else about the countries in question,
that the US would have over 86 percent more incidents of gun violence than
all of those countries *combined*.  Also, Canada and Costa Rica are famous
for their across the board below average crime rates--this is a cultural
phenomenon that has nothing whatsoever to do with the number of firearms
present in those countries.  As a rule however, lower crimes rates mean
less incidents of gun violence.  In the regions of the US where gun control
is the strictest, crime rates are higher, as are incidents of gun violence.
 In cities and states where laws against concealed carrying of firarms by
law abiding citizens have been relaxed, the crime rate (and the gun
violence rate) has gone down.  This is *not* just in one or two cities or
states, but in *every* city and state where it has been done.

>ObTrav: I think this can relate to starship armament. Possibly Imperials
>regard arms on merchants the same way most Americans regard handguns: as a
>right and necessary protection. Sure, the IN could stamp out piracy if all
>ships were disarmed, but that would be as unthinkable as disarming all
>Americans. Thoughts?

   Gun control is a topic best left in the TML closet with near C-rocks,
Virus, and pirates in the heart of Imperial space c.1107.

ObTrav: The level of starship weaponry would depend upon the era of the
Imperium you are talking about.  My guess is that all ships are
manufactured with hardpoints (minimum 1 per 100 ton), but at the height of
the Imperium few commercial vessels would feel the need to install weapons
in them if they were strictly going to be trading in Core sector.  Ships
nearer the frontiers would have at least some rudimentary armament
(standard lasers), and ships operating as interface vessels with worlds
outside the Imperium and vessels engaging in the highly speculative cargo
trade (legal and illegal) would be armed to the teeth.  This would be
particularly true of vessels which routinely operated near Vargr space.

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 19:23:22 +1300
From: "Frank Pitt" <frankie@mundens.gen.nz>
Subject: Re: An example of a canon crack

- -----Original Message-----
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Monday, 2 November 1998 04:12
Subject: An example of a canon crack


>Here's an example of the kind of canon problems I talk about in a
previous
>post:
<snip>
>[Because I like the historical maps and because of the early
mention of rival
>claims to the Entropic worlds my suggestion would be to say that
the Entropic
>Worlds (including Torment) were the four worlds lost by the
Darrians in 593
>and regained in 788. The Entropic Worlds (without Torment) were
lost again
>during the 4FW and regained during the 5FW. Any text that claims
that it was
>the Cunnonic worlds is in error. But I'd also accept it if it was
established
>that is was the Cunnonic worlds and all talk of the Entropic worlds
were
>dropped. I'd think it the poorer solution, but at least the crack
would have
>been patched over. The only thing I wouldn't accept would be to
ignore it
>(especially if accompanied by soothing words to the effect that I
was free
>to settle on one or the other in MY universe!)]


Why can't we say _both_ are correct ?

The three books that state the Cunnic worlds are those based on the
reportage
from Sworld Worlder's, and the other that from the Darrians.

In fact,  _both_ lots of swapping occurred, but because one lot
makes the Darrian's
look bad and vice versa, each side refuses to acknowledge one set of
exchanges

Frankly, I _like_ canon to be inconsistent, it makes it much more
realistic.

We can't get consistent "canonical" reportage on what happened in
the Gulf
two years and half a planet a way, how can you expect the Imperium
to get it right
over several planets, more years, and many parsecs away ?

Greg Stafford has purposely done this to the Glorantha "canon" for a
similar
reason.

Frankie

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 01:33:00 -0500
From: "Harold D. Hale" <hdhale@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Publishing CT stuff

Roberto Camino (and others) wrote:

>>>Roger Sanger was interested in buying out Seeker's material at one
>>>time, but I don't know if anything ever came of it or not.
>> 
>> 
>> <BITCH MODE>
>> Was he looking to hide that away too, along with the DGP stuff?
>> </BITCH MODE>

   Oh it's much worse than that.  It is my understanding Rodger went around
to several former Traveller publishers obtaining rights to publish their
old material.  So far as I know he is still sitting on those rights today.

>> Another thing to consider is that you'll need a licence from Marc to
>>start publishing it.

   It is my understand that Bryan Borich is working on a project to get the
old GDW CT material on CD, so you may want to check with him.

>> And as someone said -  "The easisest way to make a small fortune in
>>the roleplaying business is to start with a larger one". ;-/

   It can be made to work and be profitable *if* you own the rights to what
you are publishing.  Otherwise, license fees will generally make it a break
even proposition.

>Wow.  I didn't realize that I was going to open a flame session here! 
>I guess the answer to my question has been, "Shut up, stupid <slap>" 
>Let me back up a step, then: does anyone know who was behind Seeker
>originally? <ducking>

   You aren't the problem.  Rodger is for holding out, and the current
system is because it does not foster entrepeneurs who want to publish but
can't justify the time/expense/aggravation when all they are going to do is
break even.

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 19:49:10 +1300
From: "Frank Pitt" <frankie@mundens.gen.nz>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds

>This isn't one of the pirates from the starship encounter tables.


So ?

Frankie

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 00:11:39 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds

...
>will be under 1000 tons, thus, 10 turrets bearing.  2 hours should be enough 
>time to board and possibly repair enough fire support on the target to help 
>out in the upcoming fight.

  If the victim has enough firepower to be a significant factor in a 
stand-up fight with an SDB, either the pirate very much outclassed it
to begin with, or the SDB/patrol vessel _sucks_. Yes?

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 00:37:47 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

...
>> Even riskier if that SDB you missed on your last sensor sweep responds to
>> the distress call at full (6g) throttle and comes into sensor range just as
>> you open fire.
>
>If a SDB shows up on my sensor sweep inbound at 6G, you bet your anatomy I'm 
>heading out to safe jump distance before he can close and shoot, unless his 
>transponder says I've got more guns at my command than he does.

  This is where attention to detail pays off, at least if military transponders
are configurable - tag says 95 Dt "Ravening Hamster" gunship, while EMS sig
is that of a 600 Dt "Slavering Terrier" SDB - a good time to have an attentive
operator at the sensor boards :>

  Hmm, a "Vorpal Bunny" Fast Attack Boat?

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 00:53:32 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re The Imperial Marine Miniatures

  And now for something completely different...

  For those of you without a desire to paint metal miniatures
for your Traveller games, you can always substitute figures
from the upcoming line of Star Wars LEGO (!) products.

  Seriously.

  If you still disbelieve, try: http://www.halcyon.com/irvingd/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 00:53:43 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short)

...
>The laser figures for either the Gazelle or the Dragon are also relevant for 
>the Type P as well.  This means, the crippled ship is going to be missing some 
>fuel or need M-drive repairs.  Its weapons will also be disabled. /...

  Given that these are the only possible damage results, how was the
original victim disabled? Its' only vulnerability appears to be fuel,
which leaves the corsairs ability to fuel both for an escape Jump (after
damage?) somewhat questionable.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 22:47:23 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Black Globes

>Now, the *only* way I can see a globe throwing a field of a bit less than a
>meter radius around a warship that is *WAY* over a meter long is if the
>device
>somehow can sense if something is mechanically and electrically connected to
>the generator.  Otherwise, there'd be a pile of Imperial boats with 2 meter
>wide holes in them that can't be removed.

No, there would be 2.1m diameter tubes cut through them if some way to
adjust the radius. IMTU, it's simply running a current propotional to the
diameter (.001amp per meter, 5v)... for a 1/10th second pulse... normal
static discharges can exceed that.... except in clean rooms or vacc suits.
Same pulse in reverse polarity turns it off.

>Personally, I wonder what would happen if somebody actually *TOUCHED* an
>active black globe.  Woudl it suck all the energy out of them and kill them
>instantly?

Same thing that happens to missiles, MG slugs, and microasteroidal bodies:
convert subatomic bonding forces into electricity, which is fed back
through the contacts (hope you've got some excellent diode systems!) to the
ship... once the onboard is full.

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 22:58:05 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Piracy

>> All in all, I'd say
>> this means that piracy is viable after all, wouldn't you?
>>
>> Keven
>>
>
>And if it was a viable in CT then that makes it canon, not subject to
>change, right? <ducking down under the table with keyboard over my head>
>
<With a rebel yell>
HELL YES!!!
</With a rebel yell>

If it works undet CT/HG, it works as well under MT official starship combat
rules... they are CT/HG. SO, that makes two rulesets supporting, so...

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 22:57:57 +0100
From: Guillem Plasencia <guillemp@ciberia.es>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1070

> From: "Peter L.S. Trevor"
>
> Just to add ...
>
> As I understand it humans need much of the bacteria in their  GI-
> tract to be healthy.

IIRC i heard that in an experiment, if newborn lab rats where given birth by caesarian in sterile conditions, and from now on where maintained in sterile conditions, they died early from intestinal problems as they were absolutely
sterile, devoid of ANY other lifeform in their intestine, their skin... Usually lactance provides not only milk from the mother, but also is a contact with microorganisms that will settle into their gastric system.

So i think that, at least lab rats, have coevolved long enough with these microorganisms to be absolutely dependant of them for their survival.



- --
Guillem Plasencia
guillemp@ciberia.es

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1073
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Monday, November 2 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1074



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long)
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 
Re The Imperial Marine Miniatures
Re: Behind the Claw - FI   (First Impressions)
Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short) 
Re: Black Globes 
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 
Re: Traveller Web Page
Re: Off topic
Officers and such
Flight School
Off Topic (virus warning?)
Re: A modest propsal
FW: Off Topic (virus warning?)
Re: What canon means to me

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 18:19:26
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long)

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)
>
>OK, here's the numbers I promised earlier today.  First, assumptions.

Thank you. This is really, really cool stuff.

>
>1.  Target world is Size 8 (8000 mile diameter).  This puts the 100 diameter 
>jump limit at 1,280,000 klicks.

Yup. Incidentally, using Bruce's DSR, an EMM masked ship doing aggressive
baffling against the planet can probably lurk indefinitly at this distance
in a dusty system, assuming a vaguely reasonable planetary sensor array.

>2.  Target ship is intercepted and disabled right at the 100 diameter jump 
>limit.

Well, I was working on these numbers over the weekend as well.

>3.  Pirate ship is assumed to be a Type P as per Supplement 4: Citizens of
the 
>Imperium.  Refered to as 'intruder'.  For purposes of this post, this boat
is 
>considered to be stock as per Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium, with
the 
>exception that all triple turrets have been fully utilised with beam
lasers.  
>Hey, it's only another 6 MCr.  If you've got a 180 MCr boat, you'll spend
the 
>money.  Otherwise, you're wasting your time.

Cool.

>4.  Local patrol ship is either a 400 ton Dragon-class SDB or a 400 ton
Close 
>Escort of either Gazelle Class or the Fiery Class variant.  Refered to as 
>'defender'.  For the purposes of this post, these boats are considered stock 
>as per Supplement 6: Traders & Gunboats.

I have assumed that the Intruder was a generic 3G ship, the Defender was a
4G ship and the Target was a 1G ship.

>5.  System for determination is High Guard and LBB2 (Starships) from Classic 
>Traveller.  Reasoning behind this is, I'm most familiar with this ruleset.  
>Not having the errata, I'm still having major difficulty figuring out 
>MegaTraveller's ship design and combat systems.  (How in the *HELL* can you 
>figure out how much power you're going to need *until* you figure out what 
>kind of weapons requirements and M-drive power consumption you'll be dealing 
>with.  This one's got me baffled, kids...)

You design around capability - start with the concept 'I want a 4G
interceptor with 10cm of superdense mounting a 600 MJ laser', and then
figure out size, power requirements and so on. Use rules of thumb for
surplus power (20 MW is a good round number for a small ship). Works for me
with FFS2.

>6.  Per LBB2, 'extreme range' is 500,000 klicks and 'long' range is 250,000 
>klicks.

This is reasonable.

>7.  Per both HG and LBB2, a combat turn is 20 minutes.  (Actually, it's
closer 
>to 16 minutes [1000 seconds])
>8.  Defender starts in orbit around the planet.  Defender is also assumed to 
>be rounding the planet and pointing at the intruder, thus rendering the
orbit 
>height and planet's radius irrelevant.
>9.  All attacks are at the USP value of the battery firing, *not* the USP 
>value of the boat at large.  While this isn't 'really' covered by HG rules, 
>this *does* make sense.  A ship with Factor 8 beam lasers has 10 full triple 
>turrets.  If these turrets are being used as 1 battery, then yeah, I can see 
>using the USP value.  However, if each turret is its own battery, this
allows 
>a +5 DM on each of the 10 attacks, which, IMNSFBHO, borders on munchkinism.  
>The USP value of 1 triple beam missile turret is 3, *NOT* 8.  10 seperate 
>attacks will *equal* 1 combined attack, not multiply it.  This repairs a
minor 
>'break'.

I have just assumed that if the Defender gets into decent gun range of the
Intruder, it's a draw or worse for the Intruder. It's harder to make money
as a Pirate when you are facing combat repair bills.

<BIG SNIP of good stuff>

>Recapping everything, the intruder should have no less than 2 hours to
loot & 
>scoot *OR* field repair the victim enough to move it out beyond the 100 
>diameter limit and jump, based on the above assumptions.  All in all, I'd
say 
>this means that piracy is viable after all, wouldn't you?

Where this falls apart is first you have to be close enough to your Target
to jump it.

Now, Targets either come out at a preplanned jump point, or they come out
somewhere along the edge of the 100 diameter sphere.

If Targets come out at a known jump point, the pirate is screwed, because
that is where the SDB is.

If they come out somewhere at the 100 diameter limit, the question then
becomes 'Can the Intruder get to and match velocities with the Target,
before the Defender can get into gun range'.

Now, we will assume that the Target stops immediatly when ordered to by the
Intruder, so the Intruder's formula is di=0.5*ai*ti^2.

The Defender's formula is dd=0.5*ad*td^2.

DD is 1 280 000 km. AI is 0.03 (3 gees). AD is 0.04 (4 gees). For the
moment, I will ignore either the Defender or the Intruder having to slow
down their straight-line acceleration to dodge from fire from the other.

Let us assume the Pirate takes 30 minutes to close, board and loot or
refuel and jump out as appropriate. Therefore, if TP is 1800 less than TI,
then the Intrder wins.

Let us assume the Pirate starts 100 000km from the Target, so they get 50
000km to accelerate, then the slow down to match velocities at the at-rest
Target.

Therefore, 50 000 = 0.5 * 0.03 * ti^2, or TI = 1825s. Therefore, the Pirate
will take 30 minutes to accelerate, then 30 minutes to decelerate.

Now, lets see how far the Defender can go in 60 minutes.

DD=0.5*0.04*3600^2 ... DD=259 200 km. Not a problem for the Pirate.

Now, we have another 30 minutes to loot.

DD = 0.5*0.04*5400^2 ... DD = 583 200 km. Still not a problem.

Now, let us assume the Pirate starts 300 000km from the Target.

150 000 = 0.5 * 0.03 * TI^2 ... TI = 3162 s. Therefore the Pirate will take
52 minutes to accelerate, then 52 minutes to decelerate. Lets see how far
the Defender goes in 6200 seconds ...

DD therefore equals 0.5*0.04*6200^2, or 768 800km. This is approximatly
gunnery range, and the Pirates have not begun to board. At this point the
Defender is closing the range at about 250 km/s, so if the Pirate takes
it's 30 minutes to loot the target, then the Defender will be within about
75 000 km, assuming that it cuts the acceleration.

This is clearly bad news for the Pirate.

OK, lets assume the Pirate is 200 000km away from the Target. Turnover time
is therefore ...

100 000 = 0.5 * 0.03 * TI^2 ... TI = 2581s, so total time is 5160s, or 86
minutes.

Add 30 minutes looting time, and we have 116 minutes for the Defender.

DD = 0.5 * 0.04 * 6960^2, or DD = 968 832km, so at the end of looting time,
the Defender is within 250 000km, give or take a little.

Risky but doable. Cutting the looting time to 20 minutes should allow a
getaway.

Therefore, 200 000km is our range. If the Target gets brave and maneuvers
and shoots back, then things get riskier, because by accelerating away from
the Intruder it effectivly cuts the Intruder's effective gees, plus reduces
the chance of being captured in jumpable condition (at 200 000km, a running
target adds 20 minutes to the Pirate's pursuit time, which cuts the safe
looting time to effectivly zero). Of course, doing this will get you shot
up by the Intruder.

200 000km is also outside the range at which civilian sensors will tend to
spot EMM masked powered-down Intruders in dusty systems.

Now we get to the pointy bit of the debate ... what is the chance of a
Target precipitating out within 200 000km of our lurking Intruder ? Now, a
200 000 km radius circle is 1.25 * 10^11 km^2, so an Intruder can dominate
that sector of the Jump Sphere.

Now, given a 100 diameter limit, we have a ships precipitating out along
the surface of a 1.28 million km radius sphere.

The formula for the surface area of a sphere is 4 PI r^2, so there is 2.05
* 10^13 square kilometers of Jump Sphere (incidentally, patrol ships cant
sterilize squat of this in Dusty systems, assuming doing sweeps with
smallish military sensors. Another u-boat analogy ...).

The odds of our Intruder being within 200 000km of a Target when it
precipitates therefore appear to be about 200-1. 

Now, when you add to this that some targets will be too big and some will
be too small, then life isnt as healthy for pirates as one might have hoped.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 01:54:02 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 

...
>> Ghu help us all when Hans sees this post!!! (no offense intended)  Fabulous
>> arguement for the piracy debate...of course this doesn't address some claims
>> that enough SDBs are available in any trading system that one can walk from
>> the 100D limit w/out a vacc suit.
>
>Of course, refs out to severely punish piratical players will quadruple up
on SDB attacks, or else send multikiloton ships after them.  Hey, it's only
numbers on a piece of paper, right?  It's not like this is the *real* world
now, is it?

  Gee, and all this time I'd thought that a perverse inability to understand
the "real world" was considered a vital attribute to die-hard "pro-pirates"?

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 22:59:01 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re The Imperial Marine Miniatures

Date sent:      	Mon, 02 Nov 1998 00:53:32 -0800
From:           	shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)

>  And now for something completely different...

>  For those of you without a desire to paint metal miniatures
>for your Traveller games, you can always substitute figures
>from the upcoming line of Star Wars LEGO (!) products.

Uhmmm. One of them looked suspicously like an Eagle from Space 1999.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 15:50:38 +0000
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Behind the Claw - FI   (First Impressions)

I haven't got my copy yet - I'm looking forward to it based on comments 
so far!

Dom <dominicreynolds@dial.pipex.com> writes,
>I was hoping for a good map, which details the Spinward Marches
>area.  However the map on P142 appears faint, and is missing a
>few lines on the borders of sub sectors.  Does anyone know of a
>program or PDF file which would enable this kind of map to be
>printed on an A4 sheet of paper.  (is A4 metric ??)

A plug, of sorts:

If you've got Campaign Cartographer 2 (for Windows), I have a utility 
which will generate very nice "old-style" sector & subsector maps from 
Galactic data.  I haven't got around to putting it on my web page yet, 
so mail me if this of any use.

I'd rate the results it produces higher than IG's sector maps but not 
quite as good as GDW/DGP because of trade routes/subsector edges cutting 
across worlds & world names.  The best maps were presumably adjusted by 
hand to avoid that problem.

John
 
John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom
IMTU tc+ tm+ tn t4(+) ru--(+) ge 3i+ jt au- st ls+ hi++ so- zh+ pi+ jd++
Various Traveller IS Forms: http://www.elvw.demon.co.uk/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 06:10:33 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short) 

> ...
> >The laser figures for either the Gazelle or the Dragon are also relevant for 
> >the Type P as well.  This means, the crippled ship is going to be missing some 
> >fuel or need M-drive repairs.  Its weapons will also be disabled. /...
> 
>   Given that these are the only possible damage results, how was the
> original victim disabled? Its' only vulnerability appears to be fuel,
> which leaves the corsairs ability to fuel both for an escape Jump (after
> damage?) somewhat questionable.

Fuel, manuver, & weapons hits are possible.  If a 1G manuver drive takes a 
hitunder HG, it goes down.  The target starts coasting.  Fuel hits only 
decrease fuel by a percent or 2, depending on how good the hits are.  Weapon 
hits reduce the affected weapon USP code by 1 or 2, depending on how good a 
hit you score.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 06:13:04 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Black Globes 

> >Now, the *only* way I can see a globe throwing a field of a bit less than a
> >meter radius around a warship that is *WAY* over a meter long is if the
> >device
> >somehow can sense if something is mechanically and electrically connected to
> >the generator.  Otherwise, there'd be a pile of Imperial boats with 2 meter
> >wide holes in them that can't be removed.
> 
> No, there would be 2.1m diameter tubes cut through them if some way to
> adjust the radius. IMTU, it's simply running a current propotional to the
> diameter (.001amp per meter, 5v)... for a 1/10th second pulse... normal
> static discharges can exceed that.... except in clean rooms or vacc suits.
> Same pulse in reverse polarity turns it off.

But this doesn't explain how a system that uses no energy and has a base 
active radius of just a hair under a meter can protect a bigassed Tigress 
battle wagon.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 06:35:02 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 

> >Recapping everything, the intruder should have no less than 2 hours to
> loot & 
> >scoot *OR* field repair the victim enough to move it out beyond the 100 
> >diameter limit and jump, based on the above assumptions.  All in all, I'd
> say 
> >this means that piracy is viable after all, wouldn't you?
> 
> Where this falls apart is first you have to be close enough to your Target
> to jump it.

I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder 
boarded.  And that the Target had manuvered *from* the planet, not *TO* the 
planet.  It's outbound.

> Now, Targets either come out at a preplanned jump point, or they come out
> somewhere along the edge of the 100 diameter sphere.
> 
> If Targets come out at a known jump point, the pirate is screwed, because
> that is where the SDB is.
> 
> If they come out somewhere at the 100 diameter limit, the question then
> becomes 'Can the Intruder get to and match velocities with the Target,
> before the Defender can get into gun range'.

My assumptions were that Target was outbound, which is why it and the Intruder 
were just *sitt8ng* there.

[good bit of interesting relavant math for inbound intercepts snipped]

My prefered technique is to have a paid ground informat radio potential 
targets' manifests & flight plan to Intruder lurking at the 100 diameter 
limit.  If an intercept is possible, and it's worth going for (high value 
cargo, 800 ton or less ship, no armed escort), the mission would be *on*, 
otherwise, keep running silent and wait for something interesting to come 
their way from the ground informant.
 
> Now we get to the pointy bit of the debate ... what is the chance of a
> Target precipitating out within 200 000km of our lurking Intruder ? Now, a
> 200 000 km radius circle is 1.25 * 10^11 km^2, so an Intruder can dominate
> that sector of the Jump Sphere.
> 
> Now, given a 100 diameter limit, we have a ships precipitating out along
> the surface of a 1.28 million km radius sphere.

Which is why the *smart* pirate would only tackle ships in outbound flight 
paths.  Morally challanged is not semantically equivilent to stupid.

> The formula for the surface area of a sphere is 4 PI r^2, so there is 2.05
> * 10^13 square kilometers of Jump Sphere (incidentally, patrol ships cant
> sterilize squat of this in Dusty systems, assuming doing sweeps with
> smallish military sensors. Another u-boat analogy ...).
> 
> The odds of our Intruder being within 200 000km of a Target when it
> precipitates therefore appear to be about 200-1. 
> 
> Now, when you add to this that some targets will be too big and some will
> be too small, then life isnt as healthy for pirates as one might have hoped.

You're assuming targets would be taken either inbound or outbound.  Taking an 
inbound target IMNSFBHO is too much of a risk.  You have no clues on its 
manifests, so you don't know if it's carrying grain at 300Cr/ton or gemstones 
at 1MCr/ton.  Best to wait for better information.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 00:35:50 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Traveller Web Page

From:           	Cardsharks@aol.com
Date sent:      	Sun, 1 Nov 1998 22:25:12 EST

>http://members.aol.com/FarFuture/

>The beginnings of the Traveller Web Site have been uploaded.It's still
>rudimentary, but I invite you totake a look at it and let me know your
>thoughts.

I like the low bandwidth nature of the site. I think it would be a good idea to 
note just who's site it is (I mean the authors site should be noted somehow). 
Things I woul like to see would be a TNS service for M:0 like the old JTAS or 
the G:T site. Maybe some excerpts from T5 for download (hey I'd like to see a 
T5 lite, but thats just me). Given time it would make sense to me to have JTAS 
online here. Maybe some old JTAS articles would be nice too.

Andrew etc.
  a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
  http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
IMTU Code
  tc tm- tn-- t4+ ?tg- @ru @ge !@3i -jt+ au- st+ ls- pi-
  kk+ hi- as va+ dr++ so++ zh+ vi-- da ?si lu++ su+ ge

*****************************************************************
Names Explained 7: KARL
More Teutonic than the English Charles, Karls can often be found
advising US Presidents on the underutilisation of nuclear weapons
*****************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 08:04:52 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Off topic

>From: "Harold D. Hale" <hdhale@mindspring.com>
>
>Rob Prior writes:
>
>>>Some people give responsible gun owners a bad name...
>>
>>Odd how the NRA never mentions incidents like these...
>>
>>
>>Was browsing the UN web site preparing background material for a class,
>>and noticed that the figures for "Intentional homicide" in the USA top
>>those of Canada, Jamaica, and Costa Rica (the four countries the kids are
>>working on). I knew that America was more violent than here, but I'm
>>always hearing about how violent Jamaica is from Jamaican friends. I
>>wonder if the American public is just accustomed to the level of
>violence,
>>in the same way that they are to the level of traffic deaths?
>
>   Argh!  Of course the US is going to have a higher incidence of gun
>violence.  Then again let's look at the *real* reason why...

Actually, the number published by the UN are intentional homicides per
100,000 population, so the differing populations ARE taken into account.
From memory (because I can't access the web from here): Canada 1.8,
Jamaica 5.x, USA 9.9, can't remember others.

>
>>ObTrav: I think this can relate to starship armament. Possibly Imperials
>>regard arms on merchants the same way most Americans regard handguns: as
>a
>>right and necessary protection. Sure, the IN could stamp out piracy if
>all
>>ships were disarmed, but that would be as unthinkable as disarming all
>>Americans. Thoughts?
>
>   Gun control is a topic best left in the TML closet with near C-rocks,
>Virus, and pirates in the heart of Imperial space c.1107.

Gun control as gun control, agreed. I was trying to use it as an example
where there are arguments for and against controlling weaponry, but strong
cultural factors preclude control even if it is logical. I can see the
same debate over controlling starship weaponry happening in some imaginary
Traveller bar using exactly the same terms we use for the gun control
debate (except for the constitutional arguments).

>
>

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 09:32:51 -0500
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil>
Subject: Officers and such

Walt:

You've gotten some good responses on the warrant officers and such. 
From my time in the US Marine Corps:

A warrant officer is one who's billet requires an officer (usually one
who is junior in grade) but also requires a level of technical
excellence and military know how rarely if ever found in a brand new
second lieutenant.  Therefore you take sharp enlisted men, and turn them
into Warrant Officers.  In the Corps, they have the courtesy title
"Gunner", coming from an old rank in the infantry, but within the last 5
years or so that has been reinstated.  To be a WO, you usually must have
attained the rank of SSgt (E6 in the Corps) [to be a true Gunner, must
have been a Gunny (E7) in the infantry].

In the Corps, we had WO-1, CWO-2 through CWO-5 (used to only go to 4,
but now 5 to keep up with the Army), WO-1 being the most junior officers
in the Corps, and CWO-5 (Chief Warrant Officer) the most senior warrant
still "junior" to a 2nd Lt.  However, as others inferred, the CWOs are
considered "equal" to commissioned officer ranks for courtesy (CWO-4
could share a stateroom with a Major (O-4) or have one of his own,
seating arrangements, etc.).

The Corps used to have LDOs (Limited Duty Officers) which were what WOs
could grow into.  LDO's filled billets which required the technical
expertise of Warrants, but required higher rank for daily operations
(dealing with other commissioned officers).  So in highly technical
fields, LDO's could advance to LtCol (O-5), and as such carried more
weight than "just" a CWO-4 for instance.  They also remained on the list
of precedence and continued to be promoted in the CWO ranks, so if they
needed to "revert", they would do so at whatever their CWO rank would
be....  By the way, CWO ranks (2-5) have commissions, not just Warrants.

I know.  A lot of detail, but still, makes for all kinds of color for
local campaigns.

The USMC did not have any Warrants that were pilots, like the Army
does.  All USMC pilots were commissioned officers.

To your questions about numbers of officers on board ships:  I think you
got good scoop on that.  Certain smaller ships have lower ranked
commanding officers, meaning that all sections or divisions would have
lower ranking heads.  Would eventually lead to Warrant Officers and
Chief Petty Officers being assigned as section heads.

Greg Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 09:44:29 -0500
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil>
Subject: Flight School

The discussion about officers and such in the Imperial Navy brings up an
issue I've wondered about for some time.  It has to do with Flight
School.  We've used current Navies (and even the Age of Sail) as the
example for space navies.  The parallel breaks down when it comes to
"flight school".  

Real World TM ship drivers don't go to "Flight School" as that trains
the fighter pilots (and others) to fly aircraft.  Ship drivers go to the
ship driver's school.  The two have nothing to do with each other.  In
the Traveller Universe (mine, yours, the official one), it seems to me
that flight school would be where ALL the pilots (ship drivers as well
as fighter pilot's) would go to learn to "drive/fly".  How do you handle
this IYTU?  

Are there divisions in flight school for ship pilots and for fighter
pilots or is that addressed at all?  Does one "grow up" to be the other? 
Who has the "glory" slots in the IN?  Fighter pilots or the destroyer
pilots?

Thoughts?

Greg

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 10:17:21 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Off Topic (virus warning?)

Dear List:

Is this legit or a scam?

I received the following information this morning from
>>George Butterstein:
>>
>>If you receive an e-mail titled "Win A Holiday" DO NOT open it.
>>It will erase everything on your hard drive.  Forward this letter out
>>to as many people as you can.  This is a new, very malicious virus
>>and not many people know about it.  This information was
>>announced yesterday morning from Microsoft, please share it
>>again by passing this along to everyone in your address book so
>>that this may be stopped.
>>Margaret Dalton
>>Office of the Dean of Arts & Sciences
>>Union College
>>Schenectady, New York 12308
>>518-388-6233 - Telephone
>>518-388-6576 - Fax
>>

LA

Seth

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 09:24:40 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: A modest propsal

[snipped from re: Piracy Debate]

>Some examples of the kind of questions every ref may need to answer,
>that the piracy debate works on (directly or indirectly):
>
>1> How can my PC's sneak into a star system?

[snip of ethically-challenged PC questions]

>'tis in the discussion such things are worked out. Formalized debate
>would be interesting, but I don't think the subject can be once-and-for-all
>settled this way.


Don't forget the honest PCs out there. They have a stake in this too! :-)

I think Walt's right about it never being settled once-and-for-all, simply
because there is no such thing in a setting that is intended to be
customized by individual referees.

Still, I personally appreciate the logic and/or numbers put forth by
different posters on the whole thing. When I finally do run a "realistic"
Traveller campaign (as opposed to the space opera Rebellion I normally
run), this kind of thing will be invaluable to me. Quite frankly, I'm
simply a graphic artist with an interest in science and economics, and the
kind of analysis done by varios posters on shipping rates, legal issues,
and technological capabilities are normally beyond my own meger skills of
reasoning and research.

So, despite the tendency for these things to turn into sarcastic flamewars
(which, while moderately amusing, get quickly unproductive and boring), I
*like* piracy debates. I would find Tim's "modest proposal" useful, I
think. I'll contribute what I can.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 10:46:57 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: FW: Off Topic (virus warning?)

Seth, it is a virus. A "phony virus warning" virus. It acts by clogging
mailing lists and usenet groups with well-meaning warnings sent by
people who are at the tail end of a hoax. <G>

These are pretty common, I get them all the time from well-meaning
users on my system. "Good Times", "Join the Crew", "Make Money
Fast", the list goes on and on. The format of the one you forwarded
matches these to a 'T' - complete destruction, warning from authority
(in this case Microsoft, I've seen "FCC" and "government authorities"
in here as well), virus described as "new" and with other horrible
adjectives.

Take a look at Microsoft's web site if you need some confirmation.

ObTrav: Consider the 3I's message lag problems for communication.
Would this make rumors more likely to spread, or less? 

Walt Smith

- -----Original Message-----
From:	Sethkimmel@aol.com [SMTP:Sethkimmel@aol.com]
Sent:	Monday, November 02, 1998 10:17 AM
To:	traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject:	Off Topic (virus warning?)

Dear List:

Is this legit or a scam?

I received the following information this morning from
>>George Butterstein:
>>
>>If you receive an e-mail titled "Win A Holiday" DO NOT open it.
>>It will erase everything on your hard drive.  Forward this letter out
>>to as many people as you can.  This is a new, very malicious virus
>>and not many people know about it.  This information was
>>announced yesterday morning from Microsoft, please share it
>>again by passing this along to everyone in your address book so
>>that this may be stopped.
>>Margaret Dalton
>>Office of the Dean of Arts & Sciences
>>Union College
>>Schenectady, New York 12308
>>518-388-6233 - Telephone
>>518-388-6576 - Fax
>>

LA

Seth

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 17:06:08 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: What canon means to me

Douglas E. Berry writes:

>At 03:29 PM 11/1/98 +0100, Hans wrote:
>>Douglas E. Berry writes:
>>
>>...even if you had been right, you've still missed my point entirely. Two
>>different world views may be equally valid for two different universes,
>>but they can't be valid at the same time in the SAME universe.
> 
>But they aren't the same universe.

That's where you're wrong. The OTU is one universe. Or at least, it ought to
be. When it isn't, I consider it a grave fault.

>We make great use of "IMTU" for In My Traveller Universe, just because
>everyone is going to alter the canonical setting their liking.

You just said it yourself. We do use IMTU because everone alters the canonical
setting to their liking. Let me repeat the significant words: "the canonical
setting". Singular. There should only be one. If you want to change YTU to
something only resembling the OTU vaguely, you're entitled  --  though if
that is the case I don't see just why you care about the OTU in the first
place  --  and if I want to keep MTU as close as possible to the OTU, I 
should be allowed to do that. Most especially the OTU shouldn't change from
under me just because some author didn't manage to take previous published
material into account. Deliberate changes for some good purpose... maybe
yes, maybe no, depends on the purpose.

>If we were arguing the current deployment of the United states Navy, we
>could get hard facts.  But we are discussing a fictional environment. No
>matter how hard you try, there will always be some room for disagreement.

So much the more reason to make the official material as close to hard facts
as possible. That's why I dislike the "everthing is viewpoint writing"
school so much. If everything is viewpoint writing, then there are no
hard facts and Traveller authors are free to produce stuff that I can't
use.
 
>I do have an interest in making the OTU as close to my liking as possible.
> 
>Why?

I thought I made that clear: In order to be able to use it with a minimum
of trouble.

>To be honest, your image of the Imperium is pretty boring in my opinion.
>That's just a matter of taste.  But some of your ideas would, for me and my
>players make adapting the official material that much harder if adopted.

I don't think you have a very good idea about my image of the Imperium.

>Agreed.  Yet you seem to be unable to understand that others want to run
>adventures using the same setting, but from a different angle.

That's just the problem. You don't just want to use the same setting from
a different angle. As far as I can see it you want a completely different
setting.
 
>>But if that's my attitude, why do I advocate changing SOME canonical facts?
>>That brings me to the third reason why I might not be able to use something:
>>If it dosen't make sense to me. I can't use a date for the discovery of a
>>planet in the Spinward Marches much later than 100, because I can't make
>>myself believe that the scouts could start exploring the Marches in 52 and
>>not do at least a flyby of each system as soon as possible. So it's no use
>>telling me that the Droyne of Andor weren't discovered until 802. I just
>>don't believe it.
> 
>Here's where we take different routes.  Rather than refusing to accept the
>date, I try to make a plot hook out of it.

Doug, you're making the mistake of assuming that I start out refusing to
accept. I don't. I start out doing my damndest to get it to fit somehow.
Since I don't post much about the stuff I can get to fit, you have gotten
a completely false impression about my dealings with canon. Also you are
fastening on one specific example instead of the general principle. There
are several other worlds besides Andor and Candory that was supposedly not
discovered until long after First Survey.
 
>Maybe the Droyne planted false memories in the Scouts, and sent them on
>their way.

Do you really want the Droyne to have the ability to do that?

>Maybe the weren't ready to be found..  what were they trying to cover up?

That's what I'd like to know. Five Sisters were visited before 100 (IMO much
earlier); every system was examined in connection with First Survey; Iderati
was settled during the 5th Century; Five Sisters was made a district in 610.
Do you really want the Droyne capable of preventing discovery until 802 and
if you do, what changed to make them allow discovery?

>Why does Five Sisters have so many Navy bases?

IMTU answer: Because the subsector governor that implemented the Psionic
Suppressions im Five Sisters was so heavy-handed that he drove the whole
sector (except for Iderati and a few other worlds) to revolt. The navy had
to move in and still have trouble with some of the planets. That's also the
reson for a lot of the Amber Zone ratings).

>Why are Candor and Andory interdicted?

IMTU answer: That's easy. It was well known that at least some Droyne were
psionic. So the choice really lay between interdicting the worlds or
sterilizing them.

>Rather than a discrepancy, I see a great campaign!

Well, while you're at it, perhaps you can explain how the Imperium managed
to lose Ruie? You know, the lost colony world of Ruie that was supposedly
discovered by the Scouts in 1074. According to _Spinward Marches Campaign_
Ruie was surveyed and settled at about the same time as Regina. True, it
declined to join the Imperium when invited i 235 and remained an independent
world until some time after 1117; but how can you lose a colony placed right
next to a thriving subsector capital? A clerical error, no doubt.

>As for things being discovered.. San Francisco Bay, one of the world's best
>natural harbors, was sailed past numerous times by European explorers.
>They just didn't see any point exploring what appeared to be a small inlet.
>It was finally discovered by land.

There's quite a difference between not exploring one uninteresting-looking
bit of seaboard out of many similar-looking bits of seaboard and not checking
out the life zone around a star you've been sent to survey.

>>And I can't make myself believe that the Scouts could visit the Sword
>>Worlds in 53 and not visit the Darrians until 148 (The Sword Worlders have
>>known of the Darrians from the start; the Darrians are going to be
>>mentioned in hundreds of Sword World books and articles, not to
>>mention encyclopedias).
> 
>"What's beyond our borders?  Well, there's a terrible group of barbarians
>to spin.  Horrible people.  They massacre prisoners, refuse all diplomatic
>contact.  We can, of course provide relevant stellar cartography data for
>you, but my advice is to avoid the area unless you have a lot more
>firepower."

You could easily explain away a difference of a few years or even a few
decades. But 95 years? And, btw. according to _The Traveller Book_ the
whole of the Spinward Marches had been surveyed by Year 100. Also, the
Sword Worlds were first contacted in 53, 73, 147 and 148 depending on
what source you use.

>Books and encyclopedias?  From what I had read and seen as a child and
>teenager, I expected to see strutting soldiers the first time I went to
>Germany.

Were you a professional explorer charged with surveying Germany, perhaps?
Otherwise the analogy dosen't really impress me.

>Almost everything I had read focused on WWII, or on cultural events that
>had little or no relation to everyday life.

I think you would have been able to find out a few factual statements about
Germany if you had really wanted to.

>Asking the Sword Worlds about the Darriens would be like asking the Soviet
>Union about the United States.

Why? They hadn't been involved in any wars at that time. Contact may not
have been extensive, but it's difficult for me to believe that there
wouldn't have been some. And, not completely irrelevantly, if I were ever
to run a campaign in the Sword Worlds ca. 100 (a very interesting time),
I'd want some contact with the Darrians just for the dramatic possibilities.

>>Nor can I make myself believe in all those low pop systems with Class A
>>starports
> 
>I have a quick fix.  I just assume that those worlds are a source of
>lanthanum.  Since the planet has a ready supply, they meet the "starship
>construction" criteria.

You assume that a pile of lanthanum is all you need to be able to construct
starships? You've got to be kidding!
 
>Then perhaps you can also pledge to avoid the level of personal insults
>recently achieved in the Piracy debate?

No, I don't think so. As far as I am concerned, Gary's insults were mild
and didn't bother me. All taken in a friendly spirit. And I assume that he
is able to take it as well as he can dish it out.


      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

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1074
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Monday, November 2 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1075



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Phooey on canon
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long)
Re: Piracy by the numbers
Historical records (was: What canon means to me)
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1070
re: Piracy by the numbers
Re: Off Topic (virus warning?)
Re: Phooey on canon
Historical Records of the Spinward Marches
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
Re: Historical records (was: What canon means to me)
Rumours in the 3I (was Off Topic: Virus Warning)
Re: An example of a canon crack
Re: Off Topic (virus warning?)
Re: Piracy by the numbers
Re: Phooey on canon

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 17:28:03 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

Eris Reddoch writes;

>On 11/01/98 at 06:37 PM,  dberry@hooked.net said:
> 
>>But they aren't the same universe.  We make great use of "IMTU" for
>>In My Traveller Universe, just because everyone is going to alter the
>>canonical setting their liking.  If we were arguing the current
>>deployment of the United states Navy, we could get hard facts.  But
>>we are discussing a fictional environment.  No matter how hard you
>>try, there will always be some room for disagreement.
> 
>...and the above is why I have in the past, and will in the future
>say "phooey to canon."  It's a game...and we all play in our own
>TU's whether we follow published material to the letter, just keep
>to the spirit, or go off completely on our own.  Keep official,
>orthodox, canonical *fever* out of this!

You are way off base here, Eris. There's no question of canon fever, at
least on my part. My reasons are almost entirely pragmatic; I thought I
explained them quite adequately, so I won't bother to restate them.
 
>But, some people will *always* try to make their vision of
>"Traveller Universes" <intoning from on high> THE OFFICIAL TRAVELLER
>UNIVERSE, and I don't like that.  Hey, I don't like it when Marc,
>Dave, or Loren do it, how much less do you think I like it when
>anybody else does?  

That's your prerogative. Mine is to want a well thought out, self-consistent
framework that ensures that future Traveller writers don't just make up
things out of thin air without thinking about it. The last bit is important.
I don't mind odd exceptions to the general picture. But when they appear,
I want them to appear for a well thought out reason, not just because a
bunch of dice said so or because someone forgot to check his sources.
 
>IMO, if you require too much detail *officially* you end up  straight-
>jacketing GMs, and I don't like that.

IMO if you leave things to loose you allow writers to _unintentionally_
introduce all sorts of inconsistencies, and I don't like that at all.

>Keep *required* details to a minimum, let each GM fit material into their
>universe the way they see fit.

Here we go again. If you want things loose, you can just ignore anything
you don't like. If I want a moderately self-consistent universe, I don't
get it unless the authors make an effort to stay consistent.
 
>Don't take published material to be "revealed truth", it isn't.

It ought to be. If you want hard facts from the Real World, you can just
go get them. But the only possible source of hard facts for a RPG
universe is the publishers.

>And lack of time is NOT a valid excuse to force others to play in some
>pre-generated, structured ficton.

Who is forcing you? Not I.

>If you don't have the time to do the work of a GM, then...<sputter,
>sputter...I WON'T say it!>...then use someone else's work, but don't
>try to enshrine *their* work because *you* didn't do it.

That remark really deserves some choice insult, but to please Doug I won't
provide it... Oh, what the heck... That really is the stupidest remark I've
seen for a long time... propably ever. Not even a full-time referee would be
able to work out in a lifetime all the information that a character in an SF
setting should theoretically be able to get in an afternoon. I feel no shame
in not having the time to do it all myself. And if you are so contemptuous of
"somebody else's work" why are you bothering with the official rules and
adventures at all?

>But, hey!  Don't mind me, I'm just making my obligatory, once every
>six months, anti-canon declaration, so that I can remain...

If you don't want a canon, fine. Don't have a canon. But leave those of us
who wants one to wrangle over how it should be. 


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 10:41:01 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long)

>My assumptions were that Target was outbound, which is why it and the Intruder
>were just *sitt8ng* there.


Wouldn't a smart traffic-control just assign vectors to leaving ships that
are within the SDB's area of coverage?

It doesn't seem to matter where you are on the 100-diameter limit when you
are jumping away from a system (you don't have to be pointing at your
destination in realspace), so the outbound jump point could be assigned and
thus "known," in which case:

"If Targets come out at a known jump point, the pirate is screwed, because
that is where the SDB is."

still holds true.

If there is so much traffic that you think you need multiple outbound jump
points so that you can handle lots of simultaneous jumps, then most likely
that system has enough traffic to justify SDBs for all of those outbound
points.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 17:43:51 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers

Keven R. Pittsinger writes:

>I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder 
>boarded.

I for one don't accept that assumption. IMO the "scream" is when the pirate
goes active and dosen't depend on the Target.

>And that the Target had manuvered *from* the planet, not *TO* the planet.
>It's outbound.

If it is outbound, it has jump fuel. If it has jump fuel, it is capable of
jumping before reaching the 100 diameter limit. There would be some risk to
that, of course, but then again, there would be some risk to not jumping, no?
 
>My prefered technique is to have a paid ground informat radio potential 
>targets' manifests & flight plan to Intruder lurking at the 100 diameter 
>limit. If an intercept is possible, and it's worth going for (high value 
>cargo, 800 ton or less ship, no armed escort), the mission would be *on*, 
>otherwise, keep running silent and wait for something interesting to come 
>their way from the ground informant.

"If the intercept is possible". That's a very significant if. I presume
your pirate jumped into the system some way from the mainworld a "coasted"
in orbit at the 100 diameter limit (how long did that take him, btw.?).
The departing ship can choose any jump departure point he wants right?
Either that or system control can assing him any one they want. In any
case, the odds against choosing the spot where the pirate is lurking is
the same 200 to 1 that Ian calculated for incoming ships. And that's
assuming that the system dosen't have a specific jump _departure_ point
with an SDB stationed (because of the great pirate threat, no doubt).

>Which is why the *smart* pirate would only tackle ships in outbound flight 
>paths.  Morally challanged is not semantically equivilent to stupid.

Anybody who attacks a ship with jump fuel outside the 10 diameter limit
gives new meaning to the word stupid. 



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 17:53:24 +0000
From: "Carlos Alos-Ferrer" <Carlos.Alos-Ferrer@univie.ac.at>
Subject: Historical records (was: What canon means to me)

From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
>>>And I can't make myself believe that the Scouts could visit the
>>>Sword Worlds in 53 and not visit the Darrians until 148 (The Sword
>>>Worlders have known of the Darrians from the start; the 
>>>Darrians are going to be mentioned in hundreds of Sword World 
>>>books andarticles, not to mention encyclopedias).
 
>>"What's beyond our borders?  Well, there's a terrible group of
>>barbarians to spin.  Horrible people.  They massacre prisoners,
>>refuse all diplomatic contact.  We can, of course provide relevant
>>stellar cartography data for you, but my advice is to avoid the 
>>area unless you have a lot more firepower."

>You could easily explain away a difference of a few years or even a
>few decades. But 95 years? And, btw. according to _The Traveller 
>Book_the whole of the Spinward Marches had been surveyed by Year 
>100. Also, the Sword Worlds were first contacted in 53, 73, 147 and 
>148 depending on what source you use.

	What about the easiest explanation about all these discrepancies? 
Namely, that historical records do not match real history?

	1. The scouts visit the Sword Worlders in 53. They obtain records 
about the Darrians, including partial information and legends about 
their technological achievements.
	2. The Imperium (IISS, or Navy, or INI, or whatever) immediately 
classifies the information and sends secret scout missions to 
evaluate the power of a potentially technologically superior foe.
	3. The scouts start infiltrating the Darrian society to make sure 
that they become friendly allies of the Imperium and not enemies, and 
also to obtain any advanced technologies they have. This is, of 
course, a far-horizon plan. Let's say... 95 years?
	4. Meanwhile, it becomes more and more difficult for the imperial 
authorities responsible of the operation to maintain the Darrians an 
"imperial classified matter", since mroe and more merchants are 
venturing thorugh the marches. So, rumors spread, and different 
sources start talking of the Darrians. Some are suppressed, some are 
not. Different historical records reflect different rumors or 
nearly-suppressed informations.
	5. Finally, the operation is completed and the (slightly 
manipulated) Darrian society is contacted, and they become indeed 
friendly Imperial allies...

	I see an adventure coming.... Secret of the Darrians, where an 
archeologist wants to find the truth about the first contact with the 
Darrians... and starts being stalked by some Men In Black from an 
Imperial Office created to monitor the development of events after 
certain classified project a millennium ago...

	Speak of odd historical records, and conspiracy theories are sure to 
appear.

	Carlos Alos-Ferrer
- -----------------------------------------------
Carlos Alos-Ferrer
Department of Economics, University of Vienna.
Hohenstaufengasse, 9. 1010 Vienna (Austria)
Tlf: (+43-1) 4277 37438  Fax: (+43-1) 4277 9374
- -----------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 17:58:50 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds

Keven R. Pittsinger writes:

>>This is a risky ploy to use against armed free traders.
> 
>Just how well *is* the standard Free Trader armed IYTU, anyways?

About like the EMPRESS NICHOLLE and the MARCH HARRIER, I guess (PC ships
are much more heavily armed, of course).

>>>This isn't one of the pirates from the starship encounter tables.
> 
>I've noticed the 'This isn't one of the ...' response a lot.  What ever
>happened to the bit about 'These encounter tables are a suggestion until
>you get the chance to make your own'?  Custom encounter tables do *not*
>contradict canon.

An encounter table dosen't prove that all pirates are like the ones in the
table. But it does prove that some pirates are (supposedly) like that. Don't
think I don't appreciate the suggestions, but they don't explain where THOSE
pirates come from and how they operate.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 10:15:06 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1070

Guillem Plasencia wrote:
 
> IIRC i heard that in an experiment, if newborn lab rats where given birth by caesarian in sterile conditions, and from now on where maintained in sterile conditions, they died early from intestinal problems as they were absolutely
> sterile, devoid of ANY other lifeform in their intestine, their skin... Usually lactance provides not only milk from the mother, but also is a contact with microorganisms that will settle into their gastric system.

Well, sort of...

Actually you can purchase or create 'sterile' rats and mice, it's a lot
of work, both to raise them and keep them sterile.

Mothers milk _is_ sterile, I think you're mistaking that for colostrum,
which is a compnent of mily for the first days or weeks after birth,
which is high in antibodies and other immune system proteins.

These help protect the baby until their own immune system kicks in.

_This_ is why raising these sterile animals is hard, as the young have
to be hand raised, and are extremely susceptible to infection.

Once you have a sterile grown pair, OTOH, all you have to do is make
sure they get sterilized food, water and envirionement and they'll
usually breed. How well they doo, is problematic, as this is how we
discovered that our gut flora produce all _sorts_ of micronutrients for
us, as well as a considerable amount of digestion aid and
detoxification.

In fact, with one compound I was studying, the metabolic profile was
completely different between sterile and non-sterile animals, and the
proportion of the compund metabolized to potential and proximate
carcinogens was much higher.

As I said, you can buy sterile animals, but they require special diest
and a heck of a lot of work to keep that way.


- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 12:09:54 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy by the numbers

Joseph R. Deitrich wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It doesn't seem to matter where you are on the 100-diameter limit when you
are jumping away from a system (you don't have to be pointing at your
destination in realspace), so the outbound jump point could be assigned and
thus "known," in which case:

"If Targets come out at a known jump point, the pirate is screwed, because
that is where the SDB is."

still holds true.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As I was mentioning about the Great Piracy Debate being an effective
way to illuminate how things work IYTU: we have a sample above.

Does a ship have to go in any particular realspace direction to go in
a particular jumpspace direction? Can I leave a planet heading
galactic spinward from the planet in realspace, even though my intended
jump vector is straight rimward?

Where does a ship come out of jumpspace? Right at the 100D limit?
Where on the 100D limit? In a straight realspace line towards where
it entered? Wherever the Navigator tells it to? Inside some random area
close to one of the previous two points? 

What difference can a good navigator make to where entering or where
leaving? Is it even up to the navigator?

IMO this particular flamewar has cooked up some useful discussions.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 12:15:56 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: Off Topic (virus warning?)

>ObTrav: Consider the 3I's message lag problems for communication.
>Would this make rumors more likely to spread, or less?
>
>Walt Smith


Probably _much_ more likely to spread. In fact, there are probably little
backwater planets that believe a whole slew of incorrect information.

I mean, look at the people in the hinterlands of the United States who take
the Sun, National Enquirer and Weekly World News as truth. They're not
_even_ as far off communications routes. Urban Legends spread widely across
the world _despite_ the major news sources already, and show no sign of
slowing down.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 11:34:56 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

I simply don't understand this.

What is the point of publishing books detailing a setting, then, if they
are not self-consistant?

Why is it "forcing others to play in some pre-generated, structured
fiction" to have such a self-consistent setting available for people to
play in? Is it harder to ignore the "official" setting and make up your own
stuff than it is to simply make up your own stuff?

Why is it a Bad Thing (tm) to have a self-consistant, "official" setting
for those who have more money than time to establish a background?

If I am looking to purchase a series of products describing a setting with
the intent of using them as-is, then having that setting well-detailed and
self-consistent is a good thing. I don't have to do any work, and
everything still makes sense in the framework as presented.

If I am looking to purchase a series of products describing a setting that
I intend to modify to my own insideous ends, then having that setting
well-detailed and self-consistent doesn't hurt, because I'm just going to
ignore stuff I don't like. Nor does having a setting that is *not*
well-detailed or self-consistent help, because I'm going to be doing the
work anyway. Such may even add *more* work, because now I have to figure
out details IMTU that I could have just hacked straight from the "official"
setting had it been more detailed.

If I am going to make up *all* of my own stuff, then I wouldn't buy *any*
of the products -- but then I wouldn't buy products that were *less*
well-detailed or self-consistent either.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 12:25:39 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Historical Records of the Spinward Marches

On Ruie being a "Lost Colony":
Understood that it must be hard to lose a world next door to a Sector
Capital. Does "lost" refer to "lost contact"? Maybe the locals threw out
the IISS reps, and some political decision (preservation of native
cultures?) kept them out. The scouts then wouldn't have "rediscovered"
the colony, they may have "reopened" it. What incident reopened Ruie?

On the wide variety of reported first contact dates between the
Imperium and the Sword Worlds:
Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
>>>>>>>>
Also, the Sword Worlds were first contacted in 53, 73, 147 and 148 depending on what source you use.
>>>>>>>>
How do these dates correspond with known Sword Worlds history?
Were the Sword Worlds politically unified, at war with each other,
a band of vaguely-associated polities at these times? 

It's possible that some of those dates apply to reported contacts
(exploratory merchant cruisers?), some apply to contact with roving
Sword Worlder scout vessels, some apply to first scout visits and
others apply to opening of formal contact (a step just shy of diplomatic
relations?) with all or any of the Sword Worlds. All the dates are correct,
in the terms they are used for. We _knew_ of them by 53, we 
_encountered_ them in person in late 73, we were unable to open
formal contact with their capitol until late 147, it was reported back to
the local Imperial Representative in 148.

This data is a millenia old. Are the sources we're reading to be
interpreted as the grade-school encyclopedia version, with the
ambiguities rising from it's simplified version of quite complex events?

Adventure hooks aren't in the sunny places, they're in the dark cracks
where ambiguities hide...

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 12:33:33 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)

Eris said the stuff preceded by the alligator mouths [ > ]:

>...and the above is why I have in the past, and will in the future
>say "phooey to canon."  It's a game...and we all play in our own
>TU's whether we follow published material to the letter, just keep
>to the spirit, or go off completely on our own.  Keep official,
>orthodox, canonical *fever* out of this!


I agree, for many of the same reasons. Traveller seems to be the one game
with the strictest and most rabid canon types. No other game's fans have
quite the opposition to change that most Traveller fans seem to have.

>But, some people will *always* try to make their vision of
>"Traveller Universes" <intoning from on high> THE OFFICIAL TRAVELLER
>UNIVERSE, and I don't like that.  Hey, I don't like it when Marc,
>Dave, or Loren do it, how much less do you think I like it when
>anybody else does?


Exactly. I remember once when I mentioned the possibility that nanotech just
might be around by the peak of the 3I, even in limited form, I was
immediately told that I would not be playing Traveller.

Who has the right to tell me (or anybody else) whether or not I'm playing
Traveller?

>IMO, if you require too much detail *officially* you end up
>straight-jacketing GMs, and I don't like that.  Keep *required*
>details to a minimum, let each GM fit material into their universe
>the way they see fit.


Couldn't agree more here.

>Don't take published material to be "revealed truth", it isn't.
>Encounter tables are suggestions, not set in stone.  Library and
>"historical" data should *always* be "subject to GM manipulation."
>Published adventures, rumors, star charts and UWP's for planetary
>systems should be "adventure seeds" to stimulate the GM and players
>and help them create their own game universes through play.


How soon we forget that this is the way that the game started out. One thing
I pointed out quite a while ago: Canon was written by folks like you and I
<proverbial "you and I" not Eris and I)  years ago. At the time, these
things were new additions to the system. Drastic changes. Just about
everything we know and love in canon had to break new ground at one point or
another. Thankfully, the Traveller fans back then were more open to new
ideas.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 11:44:26 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: Historical records (was: What canon means to me)

>        What about the easiest explanation about all these discrepancies?
>Namely, that historical records do not match real history?

[snip of example "real" history]

As a referee, I would much rather my view of the setting not be cluttered
continuity problems labeled "historical innaccuracy." As a referee, I
should have the "real" history information. I want to be able to know more
about these mysteries than the players.

I would *much* rather have a "real" history (like you gave above) written
specifically in the material than just a simple inconsistency which smacks
of bad continuity control. I can then do the work and change it if I want
to for MTU, or I can leave it as is. A simple inconsistency makes me do the
work wheter I want to or not (assuming said inconsistency deals with
something that my players will contend with).

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 12:49:06 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Rumours in the 3I (was Off Topic: Virus Warning)

Chris Seamans wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Probably _much_ more likely to spread. In fact, there are probably little
backwater planets that believe a whole slew of incorrect information.

I mean, look at the people in the hinterlands of the United States who take
the Sun, National Enquirer and Weekly World News as truth. They're not
_even_ as far off communications routes. Urban Legends spread widely across
the world _despite_ the major news sources already, and show no sign of
slowing down.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
One contributing effect I see on this: the people in charge (governors,
business leaders, etc) were trained in an environment where incomplete
and out of date information was the norm. Would this act to
increase the spread and effects of rumors, or decrease it?

One of the Azhanti High Lightnings lost during the 4th Frontier War -
when war was declared, the captain went to the ship's safe and
opened his sealed orders - orders probably weeks or months old,
if not older. The rest of his raiding squadron met him at the redezvous
based on the same orders, and that may well have been the last time
the Captain recieved any information at all about the progress of the
war before his ship was lost. His independent command is probably
and extreme case, but not an uncommon one. I could imagine 
a particulary successful commerce raider penetrating deep enough
to outrun information on things like armistices, and continuing a war
for some time after the cease fire.

Imagine the security on Imperial Fleet Recall Codes, the ones
you give your enemy so he can convince your commerce raiders
that it's time to come home now.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 17:59:36 -0000
From: "Peter L.S. Trevor" <ptrevor.trisen@zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: An example of a canon crack

Frank Pitt wrote:
> Why can't we say _both_ are correct ?
>
> The three books that state the Cunnic worlds are those based on
> the reportage from Sworld Worlder's, and the other that from the
> Darrians.
>
> In fact, _both_ lots of swapping occurred, but because one lot
> makes the Darrian's look bad and vice versa, each side refuses
> to acknowledge one set of exchanges
>
> Frankly, I _like_ canon to be inconsistent, it makes it much more
> realistic.
>
> We can't get consistent "canonical" reportage on what happened
> in the Gulf two years and half a planet a way, how can you expect
> the Imperium to get it right over several planets, more years,
> and many parsecs away ?
>
> Greg Stafford has purposely done this to the Glorantha "canon"
> for a similar reason.


I  have  no  problem  with  contradictions  and  inaccuracies  in
_player_ information ... but as the resident ghod  of  MTU  _I'd_
like to know what's going on.

If I were to choose the Entropic worlds option (and it  became  a
significant fact of MTU), then someone prints an adventure  based
on the Cunnoic worlds option I would  either  have  to  bend  it,
alter reality IMTU, or not use it.  I don't always have the  time
for major bending.



Regards PLST
"Rome wasn't burned in a day."

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 11:45:33 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Off Topic (virus warning?)

Chris Seamans wrote:

> I mean, look at the people in the hinterlands of the United States who take
> the Sun, National Enquirer and Weekly World News as truth. They're not
> _even_ as far off communications routes. Urban Legends spread widely across
> the world _despite_ the major news sources already, and show no sign of
> slowing down.

Consider the number of urban legends _spread_ by major news sources, and
the problem looks even worse.

Take foex, two events: Pierre Salinger's dramatic announcement that a
missile had downed that TWA flight, and the persistent rumor that the US
had infiltrated virus-ridden ( no not THAT Virus!!!) printers to Saddam
Husseins HQ before the war. The first was because of the common computer
fallacy "I saw it on the computer so it _must_ be true", which is
nothing more than the old GIGO rule in action. The latter was an
_acknowledged_ April Fools prank by (IIRC) InfoWorld, yet it's _still_
being cited by respected authorities as an example of succesful waging
of 'info-war'.

People are gullible, and willing to believe anything that sounds good,
particularly if it sounds too good to be true. (I saw a news segment the
other day concerning online securities fraud. One person contacted said
(on national teevee no less!) that "Well, I saw it on the internet, so I
thought it _had_ to be true!" My wife and I howled at that one. Still,
people are conned with low tech versions of that same scam every day;
cons that have been practiced for years, decades, centuries...probably
millenia. I'm sure there was _some_ babylonian version of "The Spanish
Prisoner" :-/

How does this relate to Trav? Well, we have, in TTU, the worst of both
worlds: most worlds have high-speed pervasive information networks, yet
information travels only at the speed of transportation between worlds.
So when a "Make Money Fast" or "Beware the Good Times"  'virus' hits a
world, or a inaccurate TNS report comes through, it may spread like
lightning, mutate a dozen ways from Sunday, and bounce back and forth
for days or months before retractions, or correct informatin gets into
circulation.

Given the nature of most retractions: 

Blaring 128 pt headline day 1: "Smith a goat-loving, child eating
monster"

retraction, day 4, page 34, 6 pt: "What we actually meant was Mr. Smith
has hand raised three pet angora goats, and due to a recent digestive
ailment, is required to eat baby food. We apologize for any
misunderstanding") 

Much disinformation will get not only engrained, but codified...all it
takes is one history professor to get his sources wrong, and poor ol'
Smith goes down in history as : "In 862, a hitherto popular
administrator was forced to resign from office and flee the planet when
allegations of sexual perversions and cannibalism surfaced (Kracknow
p65, J'Aliew, p 789, ibid. p987)"

At this point history is 'set'. Wrong, but it's set. Those "ibid's" are
the kiss of death...it takes considerable proof to change the ponderous
course of academia, and when academic publishing moves at the speed of
transport, things slow down even more...

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 14:00:38 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers

In a message dated 11/2/98 8:45:21 AM Pacific Standard Time, rancke@diku.dk
writes:

<< >I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder 
 >boarded.
 
 I for one don't accept that assumption. IMO the "scream" is when the pirate
 goes active and dosen't depend on the Target. >>
	
	What if the pirate gains a passive detection and uses LIDAR for the FC lock?
No screaming there.  This also brings up an important point...most merchant
vessels (at least the designed ships I have seen) do not routinely carry laser
or maser comms, so they cannot surreptiously warn the defender.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 10:31:40 -0800
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

At 05:28 PM 11/2/98 +0100, Hans wrote:

>If you don't want a canon, fine. Don't have a canon. But leave those of us
>who wants one to wrangle over how it should be. 

Wrangle, yes.  But you seem to be unable to accept that others have
differing views, and have become increasingly quick to resort to insults.
People should realize that discussing any aspect of the Third Imperium is
going to become a case of blind men describing an elephant.

Last time I checked, neither marc nor Loren were pulling our ideas
wholesale of the TML for inclusion in either T5 or G:T. (Although I do see
little bits and pieces that I recall from TML messages)  What we discuss
here is by definition unoffcial.

Congrats, Hans.  You've managed what Leroy never did.  Welcome to my killfile.

*plonk*



- --

Douglas E. Berry
Templar Agent at Large.
dberry@hooked.net  
http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/gateway.html 

TravGeekCode: 
tc+ tm+ !tn- t4@ ?tg+ tt@ to(CORPS)++ ru@ $ge++ 3i
ii+ au st+ ls+ pi kk+ so(++) va++ dr+ zh+ sw++ ?da
         

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1075
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Monday, November 2 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1076



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: What canon means to me
Re: Black Globes 
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long)
Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short)
TML FAQ Notice
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
Re: Off Topic (virus warning?) 
Re: Piracy by the numbers 
Traveller web Rings
Re: Piracy by the numbers
Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short) 
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 
Re: What canon means to me
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 19:01:17 -0800
From: dberry@hooked.net
Subject: Re: What canon means to me

At 05:06 PM 11/2/98 +0100, you wrote:
>Douglas E. Berry writes:

>>But they aren't the same universe.
>
>That's where you're wrong. The OTU is one universe. Or at least, it ought to
>be. When it isn't, I consider it a grave fault.

If all the traveller players in the world were brought together to live in
one great colony immediately after the release of Supplement 3, we might
have one unified view of the TU.  But we didn't, so we don't.  Instead, we
have a framework for building our own visions of the Traveller milieu.
This means that sometimes we disagree on things.

<snip>

>So much the more reason to make the official material as close to hard facts
>as possible. That's why I dislike the "everthing is viewpoint writing"
>school so much. If everything is viewpoint writing, then there are no
>hard facts and Traveller authors are free to produce stuff that I can't
>use.

Amazing.  That has to be one of the most arrogant statements I've heard in
a while.  How *dare* anybody write something you can't use!  Marc, Loren..
be sure to get Hans' approval on ALL further products.  Perhaps BITS should
do the same.  after all, we wouldn't want anyone to publish something you
can't use!

Of course, you could do what the rest of us do and not buy things that you
aren't going to use.

>>I do have an interest in making the OTU as close to my liking as possible.
>> 
>>Why?
>
>I thought I made that clear: In order to be able to use it with a minimum
>of trouble.

No matter if that view straight-jackets other peoples' games?

>>Agreed.  Yet you seem to be unable to understand that others want to run
>>adventures using the same setting, but from a different angle.
>
>That's just the problem. You don't just want to use the same setting from
>a different angle. As far as I can see it you want a completely different
>setting.

No, just a different set of assumptions on things like fleet size, likely
hood of piracy, and a conspiracy oriented campaign.

<snip>

>>Maybe the Droyne planted false memories in the Scouts, and sent them on
>>their way.
>
>Do you really want the Droyne to have the ability to do that?

Yep.  Fits my campaign to a "t".

>>Maybe the weren't ready to be found..  what were they trying to cover up?
>
>That's what I'd like to know. Five Sisters were visited before 100 (IMO much
>earlier); every system was examined in connection with First Survey; Iderati
>was settled during the 5th Century; Five Sisters was made a district in 610.
>Do you really want the Droyne capable of preventing discovery until 802 and
>if you do, what changed to make them allow discovery?

They hid the evidence of the Andor being the Droyne homeworld.  Also, they
finished studying humans, and decided to allow limited contact.  The Droyne
of Andor remember who they are, even if they don't know how to operate the
remnants of the Ancients left on their world.

Remember, I'm the guy with the interstellar telepathic network, Templar
agents hiding in the shadows, and the strange beacon calling sophonts
towards the Five Sisters.  I'm a conspiracy freak/Lovecraft fan, and it
shows in my game, and in my take on the Third Imperium.

>>Why does Five Sisters have so many Navy bases?
>
>IMTU answer: Because the subsector governor that implemented the Psionic
>Suppressions im Five Sisters was so heavy-handed that he drove the whole
>sector (except for Iderati and a few other worlds) to revolt. The navy had
>to move in and still have trouble with some of the planets. That's also the
>reson for a lot of the Amber Zone ratings).

IMTU answer: The Imperium has learned a little about the Droyne, and the
Templars weren't prepared for the Droyne to still be in the area.  They
truly fear what might come out of those two worlds.

>>Why are Candor and Andory interdicted?
>
>IMTU answer: That's easy. It was well known that at least some Droyne were
>psionic. So the choice really lay between interdicting the worlds or
>sterilizing them.

Yet so many other Droyne worlds are uninterdicted.. Andor/Candory are
interdicted out of fear.. there is something very wrong there.

>>Rather than a discrepancy, I see a great campaign!
>
>Well, while you're at it, perhaps you can explain how the Imperium managed
>to lose Ruie? You know, the lost colony world of Ruie that was supposedly
>discovered by the Scouts in 1074. According to _Spinward Marches Campaign_
>Ruie was surveyed and settled at about the same time as Regina. True, it
>declined to join the Imperium when invited i 235 and remained an independent
>world until some time after 1117; but how can you lose a colony placed right
>next to a thriving subsector capital? A clerical error, no doubt.

That one I'll have to give some thought to.. my first impression is that
I'll ignore it entirely and just say that after Ruie declined Imperial
membership, it was mostly ignored.

<snip>

>>>And I can't make myself believe that the Scouts could visit the Sword
>>>Worlds in 53 and not visit the Darrians until 148 (The Sword Worlders have
>>>known of the Darrians from the start; the Darrians are going to be
>>>mentioned in hundreds of Sword World books and articles, not to
>>>mention encyclopedias).
>> 
>>"What's beyond our borders?  Well, there's a terrible group of barbarians
>>to spin.  Horrible people.  They massacre prisoners, refuse all diplomatic
>>contact.  We can, of course provide relevant stellar cartography data for
>>you, but my advice is to avoid the area unless you have a lot more
>>firepower."
>
>You could easily explain away a difference of a few years or even a few
>decades. But 95 years? And, btw. according to _The Traveller Book_ the
>whole of the Spinward Marches had been surveyed by Year 100. Also, the
>Sword Worlds were first contacted in 53, 73, 147 and 148 depending on
>what source you use.

My take?  As the Imperium learned the size and scope of the Zhodani
Consulate, assets were reassigned to survey further to Core/Spin.

>>Asking the Sword Worlds about the Darriens would be like asking the Soviet
>>Union about the United States.
>
>Why? They hadn't been involved in any wars at that time. Contact may not
>have been extensive, but it's difficult for me to believe that there
>wouldn't have been some. And, not completely irrelevantly, if I were ever
>to run a campaign in the Sword Worlds ca. 100 (a very interesting time),
>I'd want some contact with the Darrians just for the dramatic possibilities.

Hans, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of
America never went to war.  It didn't stop both sides form slandering the
other.  As a soldier I got to read (translated) Soviet schoolbooks about
America.  Evidently we are a slave-holding people where decadent
aristocrats lord over starving workers, who are all yearning for world
revolution to liberate them.

In Basic Training, we had a kid who had never seen a Jew.  When he learned
that his bunkmate was Jewish, it was like he had been assigned to sleep
next to a Martian.  Evidently, he assumed that all Jews would have huge
noses, never be out of the prayer shawl, and practically ooze slime.  This
is from an American teenager in 1984.  Across interstellar distances?

>>>Nor can I make myself believe in all those low pop systems with Class A
>>>starports
>> 
>>I have a quick fix.  I just assume that those worlds are a source of
>>lanthanum.  Since the planet has a ready supply, they meet the "starship
>>construction" criteria.
>
>You assume that a pile of lanthanum is all you need to be able to construct
>starships? You've got to be kidding!

No, but building a shipyard close to the supply of lanthanum makes a
certain amount of sense.  Most of them don't even build ships, but instead
focus on yearly maintence.


- --

Douglas E. Berry
Templar Agent at Large.
dberry@hooked.net  
http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/gateway.html 

TravGeekCode: 
tc+ tm+ !tn- t4@ ?tg+ tt@ to(CORPS)++ ru@ $ge++ 3i
ii+ au st+ ls+ pi kk+ so(++) va++ dr+ zh+ sw++ ?da
         

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 12:18:56 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Black Globes 

...
>But this doesn't explain how a system that uses no energy and has a base 
>active radius of just a hair under a meter can protect a bigassed Tigress 
>battle wagon.

  IIRC, they figured out how to adjust the size of the sphere.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 12:18:58 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long)

...
>> Where this falls apart is first you have to be close enough to your Target
>> to jump it.
>
>I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder 
>boarded./...

  Isn't that leaving it a bit late?

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 12:19:03 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short)

...
>>   Given that these are the only possible damage results, how was the
>> original victim disabled? Its' only vulnerability appears to be fuel,
>> which leaves the corsairs ability to fuel both for an escape Jump (after
>> damage?) somewhat questionable.
>
>Fuel, manuver, & weapons hits are possible.  If a 1G manuver drive takes a 
>hitunder HG, it goes down.  The target starts coasting.  Fuel hits only 
>decrease fuel by a percent or 2, depending on how good the hits are.  Weapon 
>hits reduce the affected weapon USP code by 1 or 2, depending on how good a 
>hit you score.

  Fuel hits under HG were a loss from current stocks of "n" % of total
capacity, with a substitution of n = 10 dt where n% would be less; was
this changed under MT? For a 200 Dt Far Trader a Fuel-1 hit then becomes
a 20-100% loss per hit (assuming ~50 Dt L-Hyd capacity, and 10-50 carried
at the time).

  Each hit on a triple beam turret costs Cr 250,000 to repair; repair times
will involve up to a month at an A or B starport for minor damage.

  For more accurate combat systems (MCS?) how does zero DV available affect
the laser targeting solution at long range?

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 19:25:00 -0000
From: "Stuart C. Squibb" <scs@vectis.demon.co.uk>
Subject: TML FAQ Notice

Hi All,

Here's the contents list of the current TML FAQ. I plan to post this to the
list every month or so. As always, comments and suggestions welcome.

- -= Traveller Mailing List Frequently Asked Questions  =-

Contents

Revision History (revisions.html)
  1. What is Traveller?
  2. All About The Traveller Mailing Lists
      1. How Do I Subscribe?
      2. How Do I Unsubscribe?
      3. How Do I use the List Processor?
      4. How Do I Post a message to the list?

  3. What are the etiquette rules for the lists?
  4. What subjects have been 'Done To Death' already on the TML
      1. Effects of rocks on Planets
      2. Was this Virus thing such a good idea?
      3. SDBs and the Defence of Gas Giants
      4. What is a Feudal Technocracy?
      5. Jump Torpedoes - Canon or Otherwise?
      6. Crew Structure on TNE Starships (Command-Crew.html)

  5. What is the answer to...?
      1. What's that acronym or nickname mean?
      2. How should starship minatures be painted?
      3. Is there a list of all star systems in the Imperium?
      4. What are the effects of spacing?
      5. How do Jumps less than 1 parsec work?
      6. How do I search for Traveller sites?
      7. How do I obtain BITS Traveller material?
      8. What's that strange code I see at the bottom of TML postings?

  6. What erratas are available?
  7. What internet resources are there for Traveller? (Resources.html)
  8. What Traveller related software is there? (Software.html)
  9. What did other people think of product X? (reviews.html)
  10. What products were produced for TNE? (Products.html)
  11. What products were produced for CT? (Products-CT.html)

The TML FAQ can be obtained from:

http://www.vectis.demon.co.uk/traveller/faq/tml-faq.html

or by email from:

mailto:robot@vectis.demon.co.uk?subject=send%20tmlfaq-html

for the HTML version

or

mailto:robot@vectis.demon.co.uk?subject=send%20tmlfaq-text

for the text version.

Stuart.
- ----
Stuart Squibb
Newport, Isle of Wight, England
scs@vectis.demon.co.uk
TML-FAQ: http://www.vectis.demon.co.uk/traveller/faq/tml-faq.html

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 14:54:10 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)

"Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net> writes:
>How soon we forget that this is the way that the game started out. One
>thing
>I pointed out quite a while ago: Canon was written by folks like you and I
><proverbial "you and I" not Eris and I)  years ago. At the time, these
>things were new additions to the system. Drastic changes. Just about
>everything we know and love in canon had to break new ground at one point
>or
>another. Thankfully, the Traveller fans back then were more open to new
>ideas.

Correct, with the note that "breaking new ground" isn't the same thing as
"changing established background".

For example, when I wrote the equipment sheet for the cargo container I
made certain that it matched the cargo sizes used in the rulebook rather
than creating my own "standard" sizes. 

This is "keeping canon" in the positive sense. I have expanded the
Traveller universe, while _not_ invalidating previously published
material. 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 15:09:55 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Off Topic (virus warning?) 

> >ObTrav: Consider the 3I's message lag problems for communication.
> >Would this make rumors more likely to spread, or less?
> >
> >Walt Smith
> 
> 
> Probably _much_ more likely to spread. In fact, there are probably little
> backwater planets that believe a whole slew of incorrect information.
> 
> I mean, look at the people in the hinterlands of the United States who take
> the Sun, National Enquirer and Weekly World News as truth. They're not
> _even_ as far off communications routes. Urban Legends spread widely across
> the world _despite_ the major news sources already, and show no sign of
> slowing down.

You're forgetting, of course, the obligatory UFO sightings.  You know, the 
flying saucers that Elvis gives haircuts on cause Bigfoot told him to?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 15:21:06 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 

> In a message dated 11/2/98 8:45:21 AM Pacific Standard Time, rancke@diku.dk
> writes:
> 
> << >I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder 
>  >boarded.
>  
>  I for one don't accept that assumption. IMO the "scream" is when the pirate
>  goes active and dosen't depend on the Target. >>

I used that assumption on the basis that it would give me consistent intercept 
numbers to work with.  A best case scenario, if you will.

Of course, *THE* best case is, when you can knock over a fully laded ship in a 
system that doesn't *have* any SDB's or gunships out there at all, and isn't 
gonna see them for a few more months.  And the cargo is rilly rilly RILLY high 
buck untraceable stuff...
	
> What if the pirate gains a passive detection and uses LIDAR for the FC lock?
> No screaming there.  This also brings up an important point...most merchant
> vessels (at least the designed ships I have seen) do not routinely carry laser
> or maser comms, so they cannot surreptiously warn the defender.

I'd assumed that the Intruder would hear the scream and know they're under time pressure.  For the purposes of my figures, whether they detected the scream or not is immaterial.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 15:28:40 -0800
From: Mark Urbin <eclipse@ultranet.com>
Subject: Traveller web Rings

 I checked the webring.org site.  There are four Traveller webrings.  


       The Traveller Webring (traveller) -- 98 sites -- Index Home Random 
       Keywords: Traveller SciFi roleplaying
       Description: This webring is devoted to the SciFi Roleplaying game
Traveller. If you have a Traveller related 	webpage, please join us! 
	http://enterprise.hb.se/~goeran/traveller/webring.html

       Traveller: Rivals of the Third Imperium (travellerrivals) -- 3 sites
- -- Index Home Random 
       Keywords: Traveller CT MT TNE T4 GURPS POCKET EMPIRES
       Description: The Traveller: Rivals of the Third Imperium webring is
dedicated to Traveller sites which contain 	information related to Pocket
Empires. The aim of the webring is to provide Traveller Gamesmasters
access to information to allow them to nurture and develop their own
Traveller Empires.

http://freespace.virgin.net/stuart.ferris/Traveller/Rivals%20of%20the%20Thir
d%20Imperium.htm

       Traveller Gear Head Ring (travgearhead) -- 25 sites -- Index Home
Random 
       Keywords: Traveller CT MT TNE T4 T G GDW Imperium Gearhead GURPS
GRUPS Traveller Starship 	Design Description: The Ring for custom designs
for the Traveller Role Playing Game. Find Gearhead 	designs, design rules,
& spreadsheets. Starships, cars, planes, weapons, and orbital pogosticks
can be 	found. All Traveller rules sets are supported (CT to G:T) 
	http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/3584/gearheadring.html
    
       Traveller DeckPlans Webring (deckring) -- 11 sites -- Index Home Random 
       Keywords: Traveller Starship Deckplan Scifi RPG GDW
       Description: Traveller is the classic sci-fi RPG. The starships of
Traveller really come to life when they have 	deckplans, every hatch and
compartment detailed and described. The members of this ring have
deckplans on their site, either of "Canon" starships or their own designs.
Traveller is a trademark owned 	by Far Future Enterprises. 
	http://hartwick.edu/~smithw/deckring.htm


- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
eclipse@ultranet.com -- These opinions are mine, no one else wants `em.
Vikings? There ain't no vikings here. Just us honest farmers. The town was 
burning, the villagers were dead. They didn't need those sheep anyway. 
That's our story and we're sticking to it.  
                 http://www.ultranet.com/~eclipse/
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 14:32:13 -0600
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers

DustyLV769@aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 11/2/98 8:45:21 AM Pacific Standard Time, rancke@diku.dk
> writes:
> 
> << >I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder
>  >boarded.
> 
>  I for one don't accept that assumption. IMO the "scream" is when the pirate
>  goes active and dosen't depend on the Target. >>
> 
>         What if the pirate gains a passive detection and uses LIDAR for the FC lock?
> No screaming there.  

Why not?  After all, I can go to any number of stores today and purchase
a radar/laser detector for my vehicle.  I would expect that a starship
would have the same.  Once you're painted, you let loose with your cry
for help.

This also brings up an important point...most merchant
> vessels (at least the designed ships I have seen) do not routinely carry laser
> or maser comms, so they cannot surreptiously warn the defender.
> 
According to the description of commo packages in T4's QSDS (T4, pg 94),
the basic, improved, and enhanced packages all carry some sort of
1000AU-range tight-beam commo.  Earlier (and/or later) versions may
vary.

> DustyLV769@aol.com

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 15:36:44 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short) 

> >Fuel, manuver, & weapons hits are possible.  If a 1G manuver drive takes a 
> >hitunder HG, it goes down.  The target starts coasting.  Fuel hits only 
> >decrease fuel by a percent or 2, depending on how good the hits are.  Weapon 
> >hits reduce the affected weapon USP code by 1 or 2, depending on how good a 
> >hit you score.
> 
>   Fuel hits under HG were a loss from current stocks of "n" % of total
> capacity, with a substitution of n = 10 dt where n% would be less; was
> this changed under MT? For a 200 Dt Far Trader a Fuel-1 hit then becomes
> a 20-100% loss per hit (assuming ~50 Dt L-Hyd capacity, and 10-50 carried
> at the time).

I'm still studying MT's ship combat system.  Interesting.  And it started 
making sense a bit when I realised the tables are *reversed* from CT/HG due to 
the MT task system.  Very interesting.  And MT takes in gunner's skill, while 
CT Book 2 *does* but HG *doesn't*.  The more I look at it, the more it seems 
to be a 'better of two worlds'.  It also defines ranges in kilometers, which 
CT did and HG *didn't*.  HG was a LOT more abstract, being based on the 
assumption that you'd be using it to referee massive fleet actions or 
something.

>   Each hit on a triple beam turret costs Cr 250,000 to repair; repair times
> will involve up to a month at an A or B starport for minor damage.

Emergency repairs are based on undefined 'spare parts' found on the ship in CT 
& HG.  Same thing for MT.  These emergency repairs take 1 combat turn and you 
get to roll to see if you can get them done.  This doesn't get the repaired 
system back to 100% showroom shape, it's more like the 'We got the bubble gum 
in place, we're replacing the access cover, just skip the 27 point realignment 
procedure and let's get the hell *OUTTA* here!' variety.  HG & LBB2 both state 
that *permenant* repairs have to take place at a shipyard.

>   For more accurate combat systems (MCS?) how does zero DV available affect
> the laser targeting solution at long range?

Excuse me??  Not sure what you mean by *that*...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 15:37:53 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 

> ...
> >> Where this falls apart is first you have to be close enough to your Target
> >> to jump it.
> >
> >I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder 
> >boarded./...
> 
>   Isn't that leaving it a bit late?

I did it to make the intercept times consistant as a best-case response time 
from the viewpoint of the Intruder.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 15:46:06 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 

> >My assumptions were that Target was outbound, which is why it and the Intruder
> >were just *sitt8ng* there.
> 
> Wouldn't a smart traffic-control just assign vectors to leaving ships that
> are within the SDB's area of coverage?

Depends on how extensive the system's space presence is.  Somehow, I don't see 
a system with a C or worse starport is going to have 5 batrons & 10 crurons 
for system defense.

> It doesn't seem to matter where you are on the 100-diameter limit when you
> are jumping away from a system (you don't have to be pointing at your
> destination in realspace), so the outbound jump point could be assigned and
> thus "known," in which case:
> 
> "If Targets come out at a known jump point, the pirate is screwed, because
> that is where the SDB is."
> 
> still holds true.

How could a course for an *outbound* ship affect an *inbound* intercept?  
Remember, the assumption for my post was, the Target was outbound, not 
inbound.  For the purposes of the post, who *CARES* what's inbound?  That's 
not where the most probable threat is going to come from.  It's going to come 
from the planet.

> If there is so much traffic that you think you need multiple outbound jump
> points so that you can handle lots of simultaneous jumps, then most likely
> that system has enough traffic to justify SDBs for all of those outbound
> points.

At MCr700+ per SDB, that can get expensive.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 15:55:08 -0500
From: John Macek <macek@erols.com>
Subject: Re: What canon means to me

dberry@hooked.net wrote:
> 
> At 05:06 PM 11/2/98 +0100, you wrote:
> >Douglas E. Berry writes:
> 
> >>But they aren't the same universe.
> >
> >That's where you're wrong. The OTU is one universe. Or at least, it ought to
> >be. When it isn't, I consider it a grave fault.
> 
> If all the traveller players in the world were brought together to live in
> one great colony immediately after the release of Supplement 3, we might
> have one unified view of the TU.  But we didn't, so we don't.  Instead, we
> have a framework for building our own visions of the Traveller milieu.
> This means that sometimes we disagree on things.
> 
> <snip>
> 

<bigger snip>
 
> Douglas E. Berry
> Templar Agent at Large.

Your post, good sir, was a thing of beauty, and I salute you.  

John

"I could wish that Masters of Vessels would not use their Men with so
much Severity, as many of them do, which exposes us to great
temptation."  
				- John Archer, pirate, at the gallows, 1724

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 09:22:36 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)

At 20:38 1/11/98 -0500, Keven wrote:

>To get to safe jump distance from a Size 8 world at 6G's without a midpoint 
>turnover takes 153 minutes, or 7.65 combat turns.  End velocity is 550
km/sec. 
> The defender enters the 500K klick extreme range envelope at 138 minutes
and 
>traverses it in 15 minutes.  It enters the 600K detection limit at 135 
>minutes, if the intruder is powered up beyond 'quiet' levels.  If the
intruder 
>is running at quiet levels, the defender is unable to lock on until it is 
>within 300K klicks, leaving 9.1 minutes to lock solutions and fire at point 
>blank range.  Once locked on, the defender can track up to 900K klicks, 
>although past 250K klicks it will be shooting at extreme range and thus
under 
>extreme penalties.  This suggests that the SDB will take *one* shot at point 
>blank range for each of 4 batteries.
>
>With a midpoint turnover, the SDB arrives at rest with the intruder at 216 
>minutes or 10.8 combat turns, a difference of 63 minutes, or 3 combat
turns.  
>It enters the 500K extreme range envelope with 96 minutes to rest, or 4.8 
>combat turns.  It enters the 250K long range envelope at 68 minutes to rest, 
>or 3.4 combat turns.  The second solution offers more immediate
opportunities 
>for fire and is likely to be the one used, as the flyby allows *1* shot only 
>due to range constraints.  The 'slow solution' allows the defender within 
>range .2 combat turns earlier and allows 4 shots per battery during the 
>closure.

I'd use the second, but with a minor difference - I'd only begin the
turnaround after I'd detected the intruder or got it into weapon range.
While I'd overshoot a bit the 'at rest point' will still be within short
range of the intruder and I'd get into firing range a little sooner.

>At extreme or long range, the beam lasers have a -1 to hit.  Further 
>modifications are:
>
>+ relative computer size (5-2=3)
>- target agility rating (assumed to be 0)
>+ target size modifier (Size 4 is a -1)
>
>Thus, at long range, the lasers only have +2 to hit.  Factor 3 lasers hit
on 7 
>or better, with the DMs, these lasers hit on 5 or better on 2D6.  At close 
>range, this drops to 4.  Once the lasers are considered to hit, we then roll 
>for penetration.  Since defender has no sandcasters, any roll of 4 or better 
>on two dice penetrates, with relative computer size as a DM.

This is a 55/72 (76%) chance of a penetrating hit per turret. With two
turrets there is a 58% chance of two good hits, a 36% chance of one
penetrating hit, and a 6% chance of doing nothing.

>Missiles use the same DMs to hit, except they're +0 at long range and -1 at 
>short.  Versus Factor 3 lasers in point defense mode, the Factor 2 missiles 
>need 4 or better to hit and 3 to penetrate.

This gives an 89% chance of a penetrating hit per turret.

>As far as damage goes, according to HG, it is *impossible* for any weapon 
>under Factor 9 to score a critical hit or interior explosion due to the +6
DM 
>added to the damage roll.  Since the lowest roll necessary for an interior 
>explosion is a natural 5, this leaves only fuel, manuver, or weapon hits for 
>the surface explosion tables and computer and weapon hits on the radiation 
>damage for the Gazzelle PA's.  Weapon hits are inconsequential, as they can 
>either be repaired while in jump space or at the next port of call.
Likewise, 
>Fuel-x hits, since they only take out x% of your total fuel.  If you take
say 
>5% fuel loss, you can still jump out and find some place to refuel before
your 
>M-drive runs out of power.  You have a 1 in 6 chance of losing a point of 
>M-drive.  Your power plant will be unaffected, as will your crew.  If you're 
>attacked by a Gazelle, then you'll have to worry about computer hits.  If 
>you're being attacked by a Dragon, you won't need to worry.

But each weapon hit has probably cost you a MCr or so. A maneuver drive hit
would probably cost a couple of MCr to fix, and if you don't catching that
next victim will be that much harder. 

BTW what happens if the SDB uses a nuke? In MT it makes it reasonably
likely that the damage is in the 10+ MCr range. Also I see that a ship with
4 triple laser turret will (in MT) be able to get criticals on a 400 ton ship.

In CT there is a 1 in 36 chance of a critical from any hit, so a defender
that is getting 12 attacks per round is going to be quite a worry to a
pirate, especially as, in CT, repairs are very expensive.

In BL/BR/TNE the lasers (and the Gazelle's PAWs which become big lasers)
won't do criticals, but will cost the intruder a lot of money to fix, and
may well put something important off-line for a while. The missiles will do
criticals if they hit, and like MT (and HG, IIRC) a critical will pretty
much wreck a ship.

>Recapping everything, the intruder should have no less than 2 hours to
loot & 
>scoot *OR* field repair the victim enough to move it out beyond the 100 
>diameter limit and jump, based on the above assumptions.  All in all, I'd
say 
>this means that piracy is viable after all, wouldn't you?

However the victim was probably not stationary when the pirate caught her
(unless she was totally surprised), but would have been moving towards the
planet at a velocity that would take an hour or so (for the prize, less for
the pirate) to lose, and a while longer to get back to the 100 diameter
limit. If the victim accelerated at 1G for 1000s and the pirate spent 90
minutes with her looting, etc it would take the pirate (at 3Gs) 2344s (39
minutes) to get out to the 100 diameter limit. It would take the prize
4578s (76 minutes) to do so (at 1G). This gives the defender trying to come
to rest at the pirate's location 10 minutes to shoot up the pirate and
pretty much ensures, IMO, that the prize won't get away. Unless the victim
was carrying a very worthwhile cargo the battle damage from even only a
couple of hits is going to make the pirate broke pretty quickly.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1076
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Monday, November 2 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1077



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 
Re: Re Piracy
Re: The Imperial Fleet
Re: Phooey on canon
Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short)
BTC - First Impressions
Re: Piracy by the numbers 
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long)
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 
Re: Piracy by the numbers
Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short) 
Re: BTC - First Impressions 
Re: Dead Vilani
Notes on a Strategic game of the Imperial Civil War
Re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 09:36:57 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 

At 06:35 2/11/98 -0500, Keven R. Pittsinger wrote:

>I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder 
>boarded.  And that the Target had manuvered *from* the planet, not *TO* the 
>planet.  It's outbound.

I that case it will quite possibly just make a dangerous jump from inside
the 100 dia limit and leave you with nothing but the SDB (or a risky jump
yourself) for your troubles.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 09:31:02 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Re Piracy

At 22:58 1/11/98 -0900, William F. Hostman wrote:

>If it works undet CT/HG, it works as well under MT official starship combat
>rules... they are CT/HG. SO, that makes two rulesets supporting, so...

But  it working under HG doesn't always mean it works under the LBBs. In
this case while under HG the pirate won't get his ship wrecked under the
LBBs it is quite possible.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 07:54:00 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: The Imperial Fleet

At 16:06 1/11/98 +0100, Hans Rancke wrote:
>Rupert Boleyn writes:
>
>>The organisation diagrams show a typical BatRon as consisting of 4
>>Battleships, 1 Tanker, 2 Transports, 3 Scouts and 2 Auxiliaries.
>
>What is meant by an auxiliary in this context? I would call the tanker,
>the transports, and the scouts auxiliaries too.

The text in _FSSI_ says that a BatRon is "usually reinforced with large
numbers of auxillary ships, including refueling shuttles, escorts and
support cruisers. In addition, they are accompanied by a number of fleet
couriers with carry communications between squadrons." It does not make
clear whether or not these vessels are in addition to those shown on the
TO, or whether they are those on the chart.
 
- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 13:17:43 -0800 (PST)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

> Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 17:28:03 +0100 (MET)
> From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
> 
> That's your prerogative. Mine is to want a well thought out, self-consistent
> framework that ensures that future Traveller writers don't just make up
> things out of thin air without thinking about it. The last bit is important.
> I don't mind odd exceptions to the general picture. But when they appear,
> I want them to appear for a well thought out reason, not just because a
> bunch of dice said so or because someone forgot to check his sources.

Amen.  I don't at all mind a minimalist official setting; recall that I
started playing before there was *any* official setting for Traveller
beyond the vague implications of the LBBs.  However, I do insist that any
setting provided satisfy, to a large extent, two conditions: 

1) Plausibility.  All described events, economies, sociologies, and so
   forth should make sense as the (subjectively) rational actions of
   intelligent beings, taking into account the motivations of those
   beings.  The plausibility criterion is violated e.g. in the 'loss'
   of Ruie and the absurdly long timeframe for discoveries in the Marches
   following the First Survey.

2) Internal consistency.  All sources should agree in broad terms on
   history, astrography, and other cogent information.  The internal
   consistency criterion is violated e.g. by describing the Kinunir
   as a battlecruiser (in the light of later data on ship displacements).

Underspecification is a good thing, conversely.  If no official source
ever says how big a battlecruiser is, then each GM can pick a value that
works in that campaign.  Having two answers differing by more than two
orders of magnitude, however, means that the GM will face great
difficulties making the campaign world consistent -- and consistency,
either from official sources or out of the GM's head, is the key to a good
game experience, IMHO.

Plausibility is the greatest weakness of the Traveller official
background, in my view.  Things like the ESA long-range expedition, the
delay before Earth-Vilani contact, the glacial pace of exploration, the
presence of unexplored worlds next to thriving ports for centuries...all
of these strain my ability to handwave explanations.  Unfortunately, it's
probably too late for wholesale canon repair.  But we can insist that
outright contradictions be mended, that major problems be patched as well
as possible, and that future Traveller products attempt to maintain
plausibility and internal consistency to the extent possible.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      "Ripple in still water, when there is no pebble tossed,
       nor wind to blow..."

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 13:18:56 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short)

>  For more accurate combat systems (MCS?) how does zero DV available affect
>the laser targeting solution at long range?

Non-maneuvering targets can be hit pretty easily at extreme range.
(Some people use a rule in BL - ignoring the -1 DR/3 hexes for non-maneuvering
targets - that has a similar effect.)

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 16:25:35 -0500 (EST)
From: William Prankard <cmdrx@magicnet.net>
Subject: BTC - First Impressions

G:T - BTC  First Impressions

Got my copy Friday, and my first impressions were, VERY NICE!
Kudos to Loren and crew.

First, I did notice that the binding looked much stronger than in GT
(looks like there's more glue).
Cover art pretty cool.  A Beowulf vapeing an enemy starship (I will NOT
say the P word, lest the forces of darkness take me! <G>)

Opening the book, the first thing that caught my eye is the detailed
history of the marches in the sidebars, from 1098 to 1120.  Very nice!
This info is invaluable for figuring out the characters backgrounds.  What
war they were involved in, what type of nasty politics were (and still
are) going on in the characters homeworld, etc...

Flipping more pages, I saw that every polity and race was described in
detail!  Now I have played since the mid 80's, but my materials and
information from the classic era are rather "Swiss-cheezed".  This book
filled in all the holes!  Minor races in the marches I didn't even knew
existed, excellent!

Each world is detailed, with a background and a recent history.  Although
I will miss the UPP's, the GURPS stats give enough info that I can
practically visualize the UPP's.  

Now for some (rather minor) downers, gripes, etc...

I did notice that my most favorite world in the Marches, Efate, has gave
in to the MAN!
The law level has been "0" for over 20 years, allowing for some rather
interesting gaming on that world.
(High tech, No law world ruled by oligarchs--Bladerunner anyone?) In BTC
Efate is now listed as having a "control factor" of  4.  Going to the
charts that's about LL6 or 7.  A world where you could once freely buy and
carry a PGMP-13 in public, now will prosecute you for carrying anything
heavier than a shotgun.  Ah well, makes sense in a way, the siege is over
and the resistance to Zhodani occupation as well.

Being a major ship-head, I was a bit distressed at the mention of some new
ships, but not finding any stats!
In the sidebars, it mentions the Ulani class cruiser.  Not any hint of
what this ship can do is anywhere in the book.  Likewise for the Darrian
Barekdoldin class Patrol Cruiser.  Now the Barekdoldins are in Regency
handbook, which is ok, but the design is very FF&S and will smash a few GT
construction rules.  (That sucker has more than 5 turrets, 3 25ton missile
"mini-bays", and a manipulator beam to boot!)

Been considering building the Barekdoldins for GT, anyone wanna help?

I am sure that these ships may be subjects for a possible GT ships book.
I supposed that they will have to be considered FNORD for now ;-> 

Still, this is a great book.  As this is more background than rules heavy,
its a good read for CT fans as well.  MT and TNE may get additional info
as well, although it is set in the 'alternate' timeline.

That's my review, now its back to work.....


\\  // Commander X
 \\//  CEO X-TEK Industries of Deneb, LIC
T E K  Military & Civilan Starship Contractor
 //\\  High Energy Weapons Research
//  \\ http://www.magicnet.net/~cmdrx/xtek/xtek.htm

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 16:25:58 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 

> Keven R. Pittsinger writes:
> 
> >I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder 
> >boarded.
> 
> I for one don't accept that assumption. IMO the "scream" is when the pirate
> goes active and dosen't depend on the Target.

The assumption is valid because I was showing best-case intercept times from 
planetary orbit to the Intruder right at the 100 diameter jump limit.  It was 
also *SPECIFIED* that the scream occurred as the Intruder's prize crew 
boarded. Didn't you read the assumptions I started the post with?

> >And that the Target had manuvered *from* the planet, not *TO* the planet.
> >It's outbound.
> 
> If it is outbound, it has jump fuel. If it has jump fuel, it is capable of
> jumping before reaching the 100 diameter limit. There would be some risk to
> that, of course, but then again, there would be some risk to not jumping, no?

I have no clue how you handle prejump navigation IYTU, but in mine, it takes 
*time* to run the Generate & Jump programs.  Exit points are plotted as 
precisely as possible so that the ship will jump where it's supposed to.  Once 
the Jump solution is locked in, you're committed.  Aborting the Jump is 
possible, but you lose the Jump fuel you've burned.  Attempting to trigger the 
Jump prematurely *guarantees* a misjump.  So does triggering it late.  
Triggering it while under attack just increases the odds of a misjump.  IMTU, 
of course.

Of course, the scenario I described in my original post is only good for 
something like 50% of the star systems IMTU in that a starship must also be 
clear of the 100 diameter limit of the star and/or gas giant the main world 
orbits.  IMTU, at least 2/3rds of the systems' main worlds are inside the 
stellar jump limit.  Some of the travel times to a jump point can go as far as 
a couple hundred million klicks.  Things can get *interesting* in those dark 
quiet places...

> >My prefered technique is to have a paid ground informat radio potential 
> >targets' manifests & flight plan to Intruder lurking at the 100 diameter 
> >limit. If an intercept is possible, and it's worth going for (high value 
> >cargo, 800 ton or less ship, no armed escort), the mission would be *on*, 
> >otherwise, keep running silent and wait for something interesting to come 
> >their way from the ground informant.
> 
> "If the intercept is possible". That's a very significant if. I presume
> your pirate jumped into the system some way from the mainworld a "coasted"
> in orbit at the 100 diameter limit (how long did that take him, btw.?).

Immaterial for the purpose of the post.  Also immaterial for the purpose of 
the post is the flight time of the Target to intercept, the flight time of the 
Intruder to intercept, the contents of the Target's hold, and the astrological 
significance of the position of the various crewbeing's hemeroids at the time 
of interception corrected for distance from Terra.  The post was quite plain, 
at least to me, that a hypothetical Incident *HAD OCCURRED*, and at the 
instant this Incident occurred, a Response was mounted from the most likely 
position of response.  My prefered technique of piracy *also* is immaterial 
for the purposes of the original post because it was assumed that the Incident 
had happened, and the how, why, and who was immaterial as well.

> The departing ship can choose any jump departure point he wants right?
> Either that or system control can assing him any one they want. In any
> case, the odds against choosing the spot where the pirate is lurking is
> the same 200 to 1 that Ian calculated for incoming ships. And that's
> assuming that the system dosen't have a specific jump _departure_ point
> with an SDB stationed (because of the great pirate threat, no doubt).

You're assuming the Intruder can't manuver to the Target.  Let's do some math.

The safe jump radius for a Size 8 world is 1,280,000 klicks.  Assuming the 
Target is attempting to jump within the same hemisphere as the Intruder, the 
Intruder thus has 1,280,000 klicks *OR LESS* to move to the intercept point.  
The Intruder will do this manuvering at 3G.  Target will manuver the full 
1,280,000 klicks at 1G.  If the Target ignores turnover, it hits the Jump 
point at 223.2 klicks per second, 372 minutes from departure from thw world.  
How difficult is hitting a jump point that's a couple meters bigger than the 
largest dimension of your ship and at a precise point in space when your ship 
is moving its own length (assuming a 25 meter lenght for this one) every 
0.000112 seconds?  The absolute safest entrance would be to have as close to 
*ZERO* velocity at the jump point, thus, the Target will accellorate for 
640,000 klicks, do a turnover, then decellerate for 640,000 klicks, taking 264 
minutes per leg, or 528 minutes total.  That's 8.8 hours.

Assume the Intruder has to go the entire 1.280 million klicks and wants to 
come to rest at the jump point, or within a couple thousand klicks thereof.  
The 640K klick legs take 153 minutes each, or 306 minutes total, or 5.1 hours. 
 This leaves the Intruder 3.7 hours, or 11 combat turns, to capture the 
Target.  How does the Intruder know *exactly* whre to go?  Two words:  *FLIGHT 
PLAN*, filed at the starport, radioed to the Intruder by a confederate on the 
ground.  What part of this mathematics don't you understand?
 
> >Which is why the *smart* pirate would only tackle ships in outbound flight 
> >paths.  Morally challanged is not semantically equivilent to stupid.
> 
> Anybody who attacks a ship with jump fuel outside the 10 diameter limit
> gives new meaning to the word stupid. 

IYTU.  Not in mine.  I'm beginning to believe in Doug's theory as well.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 16:29:55 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

> Keven R. Pittsinger writes:
> 
> >>This is a risky ploy to use against armed free traders.
> > 
> >Just how well *is* the standard Free Trader armed IYTU, anyways?
> 
> About like the EMPRESS NICHOLLE and the MARCH HARRIER, I guess (PC ships
> are much more heavily armed, of course).

IIRC, these ships had *two*, count 'em, *two* hard points, with nothing on 
them, at time of purchase, and refitted with turrets and weapons as an 
afterthought.  Assuming triple beam lasers, a fully armed Type P still out 
guns them 1.5 to 1.  The Type P should be nervous?  We're talking about 
crewbeings that make their *LIVING* dishing out massive violence and death, 
remember?

> >>>This isn't one of the pirates from the starship encounter tables.
> > 
> >I've noticed the 'This isn't one of the ...' response a lot.  What ever
> >happened to the bit about 'These encounter tables are a suggestion until
> >you get the chance to make your own'?  Custom encounter tables do *not*
> >contradict canon.
> 
> An encounter table dosen't prove that all pirates are like the ones in the
> table. But it does prove that some pirates are (supposedly) like that. Don't
> think I don't appreciate the suggestions, but they don't explain where THOSE
> pirates come from and how they operate.

OK, I'll bite.  Where *DO* they come from?  Or are pirates non-existant IYTU?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 16:32:09 -0500
From: John Macek <macek@erols.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long)

Ian or Katts wrote:

<snip>

> 
> Now, when you add to this that some targets will be too big and some will
> be too small, then life isnt as healthy for pirates as one might have hoped.
> 
> Ian Whitchurch

I believe there is an old Earth saying that covers this:
A short life, and a merry one.

Just out of curiousity, does anyone out there play up the difference in
Social Standing?  

IMTU, if Joe Spacer, working for below minimum wage and with a Soc of 1
is at the helm when the pirates give their order to "heave to," he's
gonna do it.  The cargo belongs to some rich guy back in the subsector
capitol, not to Joe, and Mr. Spacer knows that the cargo is insured.  If
he tries to fight, the pirates won't treat him nicely if they ever get
aboard.  One the other hand, if he makes it easy for the pirates, the
pirates will let him escape with his skin.  Or, they might even ask him
to join.

Piracy, it's not just economics, but socio-economics.

John
(who's thinking of turning his free erols webspace into "The Pirates
Guide to the Spinward Marches.")

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 16:37:14 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 

> At 06:35 2/11/98 -0500, Keven R. Pittsinger wrote:
> 
> >I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder 
> >boarded.  And that the Target had manuvered *from* the planet, not *TO* the 
> >planet.  It's outbound.
> 
> I that case it will quite possibly just make a dangerous jump from inside
> the 100 dia limit and leave you with nothing but the SDB (or a risky jump
> yourself) for your troubles.

Which is why you take out the M-drive if you can.  As I pointed out earlier, dunno bout YTU, but IMTU, once you've plotted the Jump point, you gotta live with it.  Sure, you can change it, but that's gonna take time, and once your M-drive is down and your weapons silenced, you can be boarded at will.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 10:25:22 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers

At 14:00 2/11/98 EST, DustyLV769 wrote:
>In a message dated 11/2/98 8:45:21 AM Pacific Standard Time, rancke@diku.dk
>writes:
>
><< >I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder 
> >boarded.
> 
> I for one don't accept that assumption. IMO the "scream" is when the pirate
> goes active and dosen't depend on the Target. >>
>	
>	What if the pirate gains a passive detection and uses LIDAR for the FC lock?
>No screaming there.  This also brings up an important point...most merchant
>vessels (at least the designed ships I have seen) do not routinely carry
laser
>or maser comms, so they cannot surreptiously warn the defender.

Even if the victim doesn't scream IMO the authorities will know something
is up pretty early on. The merchant will be in communication with traffic
control, and they'll want to know why she has stopped following their
instruction as to flight pattern (I very much doubt that it will have
included suddenly stopping your 1G acceleration well short of your expected
turn around). This would surely be an indication of possible piracy. BTW
unless the pirate gets close to the merchie before delivering its demands
it will be making a fair bit of noise with its broadcast radio, as the
victim can't hear tightbeam if they don't have a set of their own. If the
pirate just starts shooting to disable the merchie then said merchie may as
well start screaming, because the pirate has already shown that they aren't
too concerned about killing a few merchants along the way.

BTW in TNE/BL both the Free- and Far-Traders have 30,000km radios and
1000AU masers. The radios use 1MW and the Masers use 0.6MW, so it's pretty
easy to see why. This makes telling the merchies to stand and deliver
quieter, but it also lets them scream quietly.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 16:43:35 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short) 

> 
> >  For more accurate combat systems (MCS?) how does zero DV available affect
> >the laser targeting solution at long range?
> 
> Non-maneuvering targets can be hit pretty easily at extreme range.
> (Some people use a rule in BL - ignoring the -1 DR/3 hexes for non-maneuvering
> targets - that has a similar effect.)

I don't have BL, so I'll take your word on it.  My examples were using LBB2/HG.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 16:53:17 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: BTC - First Impressions 

> First, I did notice that the binding looked much stronger than in GT
> (looks like there's more glue).
> Cover art pretty cool.  A Beowulf vapeing an enemy starship (I will NOT
> say the P word, lest the forces of darkness take me! <G>)

Wonder where they copped the nuke...

> I did notice that my most favorite world in the Marches, Efate, has gave
> in to the MAN!
> The law level has been "0" for over 20 years, allowing for some rather
> interesting gaming on that world.
> (High tech, No law world ruled by oligarchs--Bladerunner anyone?) In BTC
> Efate is now listed as having a "control factor" of  4.  Going to the
> charts that's about LL6 or 7.  A world where you could once freely buy and
> carry a PGMP-13 in public, now will prosecute you for carrying anything
> heavier than a shotgun.  Ah well, makes sense in a way, the siege is over
> and the resistance to Zhodani occupation as well.

Wait til you land on Drellesarr IMTU.  <grin>  It's a bit of a bitch to get to 
easily; IMTU, it's abit over 30 million klicks 'deep' inside the star's 100 
diameter Jump limit, so you'll have a long cruise to get there.  And it's been 
a *known* freeport in *EVERY* sense of the word since pre-3I times.  In case 
you're looking for it, it's Reavers' Deep 2029.

> Being a major ship-head, I was a bit distressed at the mention of some new
> ships, but not finding any stats!
> In the sidebars, it mentions the Ulani class cruiser.  Not any hint of
> what this ship can do is anywhere in the book.  Likewise for the Darrian
> Barekdoldin class Patrol Cruiser.  Now the Barekdoldins are in Regency
> handbook, which is ok, but the design is very FF&S and will smash a few GT
> construction rules.  (That sucker has more than 5 turrets, 3 25ton missile
> "mini-bays", and a manipulator beam to boot!)

They shoulda thought about putting in the stats for the boats.
 
> Been considering building the Barekdoldins for GT, anyone wanna help?
> 
> I am sure that these ships may be subjects for a possible GT ships book.
> I supposed that they will have to be considered FNORD for now ;-> 
> 
> Still, this is a great book.  As this is more background than rules heavy,
> its a good read for CT fans as well.  MT and TNE may get additional info
> as well, although it is set in the 'alternate' timeline.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...  Might have to keep it in mind...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 22:40:07 +0100
From: Guillem Plasencia <guillemp@ciberia.es>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

> From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
> Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1070
>
> Guillem Plasencia wrote:
>
> Usually lactance provides not only milk from the mother, but also is a contact with microorganisms that will settle into their gastric system.
>
> Well, sort of...
> Mothers milk _is_ sterile, I think you're mistaking that for colostrum,
> which is a compnent of mily for the first days or weeks after birth,
> which is high in antibodies and other immune system proteins.
>

I'm sorry, i wanted to mean that newborns have to be separated from their mothers to keep sterile because if they could suck directly their mother's mammas they would be infected by microorganisms in their mother's skin.

> _This_ is why raising these sterile animals is hard, as the young have
> to be hand raised, and are extremely susceptible to infection.
>

Do you imagine someone having to milk a rat for its just born? :D   I do know this is not the way is done.

> In fact, with one compound I was studying, the metabolic profile was
> completely different between sterile and non-sterile animals, and the
> proportion of the compund metabolized to potential and proximate
> carcinogens was much higher.
>

It looks like that gut microflora's beta-glucuronidases and Phase III metabolism were helping that Vilani...

- --
Guillem Plasencia
guillemp@ciberia.es

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 15:58:34 CST
From: Don McKinney <dmckinne@itds.com>
Subject: Notes on a Strategic game of the Imperial Civil War

IMPERIAL ASPIRATIONS
A Game of the Imperial Civil War, 580-630


BOARD: Each subsector is rated according to Technology (10-13?), 
Resources, Systems, and Culture...

Basically, the TL of a subsector is the TL of any fleets it produces
or any defenses in that subsector; in the scope of this game, a 
subsector's TL is fixed. Rated from 0 to +3.

Resources are the basic economic unit of the game; military or
economic actions can raise or lower the amount of resources produced
by a subsector.  Resources are used to build fleets or defenses,
maintain fleets, and create leaders; rated from -3 to +4.

Systems are a measure of how many victories are required to fully
conquer a subsector, and represents the number of high tech, high
population worlds in the subsector; can be as high as 4.

Culture represents the type of culture in the subsector - Sylean,
Solomani, Vilani, Vargr.  This effects the likelihood of unrest
and rebellion given the culture of the leader of the faction controlling
the subsector.


LEADERS: No action outside of defense or fleet maintenance can be done
unless a leader is present.  Leaders have four ratings: Tactics,
Strategy, Diplomacy and Loyalty.  Tactics affects how well the leader 
does in combat, Strategy effects taxation and unrest, Diplomacy affects
attempts by the leader to persuade subsectors and fleets to his cause,
and Loyalty represents a leader's dedication to his cause - leaders with
a low Loyalty might revolt.

All leader values are rated from 1 (low) to 9 (high).

COMBAT is basically a comparison of fleets and defenses on either side,
the average TL of those forces and the Tactics of any leaders present.

Think Empires of the Middle Ages...



DonM.


- --
==========================================================================
= Donald E. McKinney, Senior CM Specialist             dmckinne@itds.com =
= International Telecommunications Data Systems           (217) 239-8365 =
= 2109 Fox Drive, Champaign, IL                           (217) 351-8250 =
= Winter War XXVI Convention Chairman, Champaign, IL, February 5-7, 1999 =
= dmckinne@prairienet.org or winterwar@prairienet.org     (217) 469-9917 = 
==========================================================================

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 08:03:30
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 
>
>I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder 
>boarded.  And that the Target had manuvered *from* the planet, not *TO* the 
>planet.  It's outbound.
>

You scream for help when they board ???

Surely, if you are going to scream for help (not guaranteed, if the
Intruder offers the Target's crew a substantial cut if you keep quiet),
then you do it when you detect them, not when they are coming thru the
airlock.

>My assumptions were that Target was outbound, which is why it and the
Intruder 
>were just *sitt8ng* there.

What stops an outbound target risking a jump from within 100 diameters ? It
is a risk, but if the choice is being boarded and looted, many Free Traders
would jump, and many Company Men may fear damage to their careers for not
trying to safeguard Company property, and those fearful of a pirate's mercy
may just take their chances in jumpspace.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 17:13:44 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 

> >With a midpoint turnover, the SDB arrives at rest with the intruder at 216 
> >minutes or 10.8 combat turns, a difference of 63 minutes, or 3 combat
> turns.  
> >It enters the 500K extreme range envelope with 96 minutes to rest, or 4.8 
> >combat turns.  It enters the 250K long range envelope at 68 minutes to rest, 
> >or 3.4 combat turns.  The second solution offers more immediate
> opportunities 
> >for fire and is likely to be the one used, as the flyby allows *1* shot only 
> >due to range constraints.  The 'slow solution' allows the defender within 
> >range .2 combat turns earlier and allows 4 shots per battery during the 
> >closure.
> 
> I'd use the second, but with a minor difference - I'd only begin the
> turnaround after I'd detected the intruder or got it into weapon range.
> While I'd overshoot a bit the 'at rest point' will still be within short
> range of the intruder and I'd get into firing range a little sooner.

You'd overshoot by at least 80K klicks, which you'll have to backtrack in to 
board and make the arrests.  And it won't get you into firing range soon 
enough to really be worth it.

> This is a 55/72 (76%) chance of a penetrating hit per turret. With two
> turrets there is a 58% chance of two good hits, a 36% chance of one
> penetrating hit, and a 6% chance of doing nothing.

Uh huh.

> >Missiles use the same DMs to hit, except they're +0 at long range and -1 at 
> >short.  Versus Factor 3 lasers in point defense mode, the Factor 2 missiles 
> >need 4 or better to hit and 3 to penetrate.
> 
> This gives an 89% chance of a penetrating hit per turret.

Uh huh.
 
> >As far as damage goes, according to HG, it is *impossible* for any weapon 
> >under Factor 9 to score a critical hit or interior explosion due to the +6
> DM 
> >added to the damage roll.  Since the lowest roll necessary for an interior 
> >explosion is a natural 5, this leaves only fuel, manuver, or weapon hits for 
> >the surface explosion tables and computer and weapon hits on the radiation 
> >damage for the Gazzelle PA's.  Weapon hits are inconsequential, as they can 
> >either be repaired while in jump space or at the next port of call.
> Likewise, 
> >Fuel-x hits, since they only take out x% of your total fuel.  If you take
> say 
> >5% fuel loss, you can still jump out and find some place to refuel before
> your 
> >M-drive runs out of power.  You have a 1 in 6 chance of losing a point of 
> >M-drive.  Your power plant will be unaffected, as will your crew.  If you're 
> >attacked by a Gazelle, then you'll have to worry about computer hits.  If 
> >you're being attacked by a Dragon, you won't need to worry.
> 
> But each weapon hit has probably cost you a MCr or so. A maneuver drive hit
> would probably cost a couple of MCr to fix, and if you don't catching that
> next victim will be that much harder. 

How much is a starship worth?  If you can get the whole boat to take with, you 
*do* it.  You can *always* find somebody to bribe to paperwhip it back to 
legality so you can sell the sucker.  Can you say, 'calculated risk'?  I've 
always assumed you'll take the boat too, unless you're pulling an insurance 
scam, in which case you've already *made* your money, and any damage to the 
merchie is mere cosmetics.  You only have to take 1 or 2 a year to make out.  
And the cargos are your coffee & beer money for the year.
 
> BTW what happens if the SDB uses a nuke? In MT it makes it reasonably
> likely that the damage is in the 10+ MCr range. Also I see that a ship with
> 4 triple laser turret will (in MT) be able to get criticals on a 400 ton ship.

Nukes are the exclusive province of the Imperium.  And the Impies are 
notorious for getting really soggy & hard to light when non-Imps use them.  
Thus, I assumed non-nuke missiles.  And the standard loadout of both the 
Dragon and the Gazelle isn't 4 triple laser turrets, they're 2 & 2.  Thus, no 
critical hits due to USP overwhelms.  Anything bigger, of course, *WILL* dish 
out 1 critical hit per USP factor over 4.
 
> In CT there is a 1 in 36 chance of a critical from any hit, so a defender
> that is getting 12 attacks per round is going to be quite a worry to a
> pirate, especially as, in CT, repairs are very expensive.

Somehow I have problems seeing a single missile or a single beam laser making 
a critical hit, which is why I showed combat resolution under HG.
 
> In BL/BR/TNE the lasers (and the Gazelle's PAWs which become big lasers)
> won't do criticals, but will cost the intruder a lot of money to fix, and
> may well put something important off-line for a while. The missiles will do
> criticals if they hit, and like MT (and HG, IIRC) a critical will pretty
> much wreck a ship.

I've never had BL/BR/TNE space combat books in my hands, so I specified what I 
*did* have and happen to be most familiar with - CT/HG.
 
> >Recapping everything, the intruder should have no less than 2 hours to
> loot & 
> >scoot *OR* field repair the victim enough to move it out beyond the 100 
> >diameter limit and jump, based on the above assumptions.  All in all, I'd
> say 
> >this means that piracy is viable after all, wouldn't you?
> 
> However the victim was probably not stationary when the pirate caught her
> (unless she was totally surprised), but would have been moving towards the
> planet at a velocity that would take an hour or so (for the prize, less for
> the pirate) to lose, and a while longer to get back to the 100 diameter
> limit.

I don't see it.  Remember, you want to hit a VERY precise point in space to 
open the Jump point.  It's easier to do this slowly than quickly.  This tells 
me that the Victim *won't* be moving at ridiculous speeds, thus, that 
assumption.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1077
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Monday, November 2 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1078



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long)
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Commo issues
Re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: Piracy by the Numbers 
Re: Piracy by the numbers 
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 
Re: Piracy by the Numbers 
Playing with the HG rules
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: What canon means to me
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 
Re: what canon means to me
Re: Off Topic (virus warning?)
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 16:37:32 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long)

>> >My assumptions were that Target was outbound, which is why it and the
>How could a course for an *outbound* ship affect an *inbound* intercept?
>Remember, the assumption for my post was, the Target was outbound, not
>inbound.  For the purposes of the post, who *CARES* what's inbound?  That's
>not where the most probable threat is going to come from.  It's going to come
>from the planet.


I did not make my point clear. Since it doesn't matter where on the
100-diameter sphere a ship jumps out (at least as far as I can tell), then
it is simple to assign an outbound ship a course to a jump point that is
under the watchful eye of an SDB.

But this is irrelevant, because:

[snip from different letter]

>As I pointed out earlier, dunno bout YTU, but IMTU,

[snip la la la]

Okay, now *I* ask this -- why is this a discussion any more?

Since this thread obviously has relevance to Kevin's Traveller Universe
only, there is absolutely nothing to be said that can mean anything except
for what he stipulates as meaningful. We are simply arguing apples and
oranges at this point.

Sheesh.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 17:43:44 -0500
From: Kurt Feltenberger <kurt@blazenet.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

At 04:29 PM 11/2/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> Keven R. Pittsinger writes:
>> 
>> >>This is a risky ploy to use against armed free traders.
>> > 
>> >Just how well *is* the standard Free Trader armed IYTU, anyways?
>> 
>> About like the EMPRESS NICHOLLE and the MARCH HARRIER, I guess (PC ships
>> are much more heavily armed, of course).
>
>IIRC, these ships had *two*, count 'em, *two* hard points, with nothing on 
>them, at time of purchase, and refitted with turrets and weapons as an 
>afterthought.  Assuming triple beam lasers, a fully armed Type P still out 
>guns them 1.5 to 1.  The Type P should be nervous?  We're talking about 
>crewbeings that make their *LIVING* dishing out massive violence and death, 
>remember?

Just as a counterpoint...The Type P seems to armed with only one weapon per
hardpoint.  The example Free, Far, and Fat Traders seemed to have a mix of
a Beam Laser, Sand Caster, and Missile Rack in each turret.  Using this
model under High Guard gives them each six batteries, tow each of laser,
missile, and sand.  Since HG is uses an "all hit or all miss" for resolving
battery fire, the merchants actually have a greater chance to hit and score
damage than the pirate.  The merchants also have something the pirate does
not, a defence against incoming laser fire from the sand casters.

Finally, when it comes to taking damage the merchant can soak up twice as
many weapons hits before it has lost its weapons.

Finally, IIRC you will recieve one hit per point that your HG weapons
factor exceeds the hull code of the target.  Three fully maxed laser
turrets are IIRC 4.  Against a Free or Far trader each time you hit with a
full turret you have two chances of vaporizing your prey.

Perhaps the pirate would be better served by mixing his turrets too?

Kurt Feltenberger

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a
habit.
- --- Aristotle ---

mailto:kurt@blazenet.net

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 08:26:58
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Commo issues

>From: DustyLV769@aol.com
>Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers
>
>	What if the pirate gains a passive detection and uses LIDAR for the FC lock?
>No screaming there.  This also brings up an important point...most merchant
>vessels (at least the designed ships I have seen) do not routinely carry
laser
>or maser comms, so they cannot surreptiously warn the defender.
>

*confused look* Under FFS2 at least, Laser Comms at TL10 and up are the
only way to go for long distance communications (except using your AEMS to
send Morse code across most of the subsector, of course).

Under the DSR the thing that stuffs the Pirate's sensor profile is firing
up the engines to power movement, weapons etc - if it's using Heplar 'dash
packs' (a high-gee limited fuel Heplar engine designed to deliver 4 gees
for 4 hours), then it's going to stand out like nobody's business.


Ian Whhitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 08:36:23
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
>Subject: re: Piracy by the numbers
>
>As I was mentioning about the Great Piracy Debate being an effective
>way to illuminate how things work IYTU: we have a sample above.
>
>Does a ship have to go in any particular realspace direction to go in
>a particular jumpspace direction? Can I leave a planet heading
>galactic spinward from the planet in realspace, even though my intended
>jump vector is straight rimward?
>
>Where does a ship come out of jumpspace? Right at the 100D limit?
>Where on the 100D limit? In a straight realspace line towards where
>it entered? Wherever the Navigator tells it to? Inside some random area
>close to one of the previous two points? 
>
>What difference can a good navigator make to where entering or where
>leaving? Is it even up to the navigator?
>
>IMO this particular flamewar has cooked up some useful discussions.
>
>Walt Smith

As far as I can see, there are two basic sets of answers for the above -
those that make piracy difficult, and those that make piracy well nigh
impossible.

If ships retain realspace vectors, then ships coming out of jumpspace in a
different systems are going to be going fast - in some cases, very fast.
This means that 'hide and lurk' doesnt work as well any more, because a
lurking pirate has to stay at rest relative to the planet (otherwise she
has to fire up the power plant to correct vectors, and that results in a
higher than desirable sensor profile).

If ships come out where they want, then planets assign known, patrolled
exit points.

If ships come out at a random point, then we are facing the 200-1 odds that
my earlier post indicated.

I think navigators should have some influence on where and when you come
out (I am kicking the idea that both Navigation and Gunnery are
'impossible' skills - a good Navigator can make a ship behave in ways not
predicted by jumpspace theory, and a good gunner can fire through the veil
of speed-of-light lag to hit a target far more often than they should).
Heck, I could even cope with a great Navigator being able to predict where
and when in realspace a ship will exit (there is a *reason* the Sayat are
so superstitious).

Ian Whitchurch
 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 17:51:05 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers 

> >I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder 
> >boarded.  And that the Target had manuvered *from* the planet, not *TO* the 
> >planet.  It's outbound.
> 
> You scream for help when they board ???

For the purposes of the post, yes.

> Surely, if you are going to scream for help (not guaranteed, if the
> Intruder offers the Target's crew a substantial cut if you keep quiet),
> then you do it when you detect them, not when they are coming thru the
> airlock.

'Real world', yeah.  But that wasn't the intention of the post.
 
> >My assumptions were that Target was outbound, which is why it and the
> Intruder 
> >were just *sitt8ng* there.
> 
> What stops an outbound target risking a jump from within 100 diameters ? It
> is a risk, but if the choice is being boarded and looted, many Free Traders
> would jump, and many Company Men may fear damage to their careers for not
> trying to safeguard Company property, and those fearful of a pirate's mercy
> may just take their chances in jumpspace.

*shrug*  I say again, that wasn't the intention of the post.  If my character 
was to try to take a prize, he'd do it with the best information availiable, 
and hopefully, with inside help to prevent the jump from happening.  It's 
amazing what can happen if somebody pulls the fuses at a really significant 
moment, particularly if your goal is to make a living at piracy, not just get 
shot at all the time.  BTW, historically, IMTU, about 50% of all piracy 
incidents were discovered to be insurance scams and most of the rest had 
inside help.  The people that got caught simply didn't know how to do it right.

Let's face it, interstellar piracy is a *business*, just like everything else. 
 This implies there are going to be certain strategies that *will* pay off and 
others that *won't*.  My take is, a *lot* of pirates are amatuers who think 
they can pull off a couple quick scores and retire.  These are the ones that 
get caught.  Then there are the *pros*.  They don't get caught as often.  And 
they make money.

Keven


tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 18:04:48 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 

> As I was mentioning about the Great Piracy Debate being an effective
> way to illuminate how things work IYTU: we have a sample above.

*shrug*
 
> Does a ship have to go in any particular realspace direction to go in
> a particular jumpspace direction? Can I leave a planet heading
> galactic spinward from the planet in realspace, even though my intended
> jump vector is straight rimward?

IMTU, kinda-sorta.  If you head directly away from the planet with the target 
system on the other side of the planet you just left, you'll misjump.  Jump 
drive IMTU works on the principle that there can be no significant 
gravitational fields between you and your target system.
 
> Where does a ship come out of jumpspace? Right at the 100D limit?

IMTU, yeah.

> Where on the 100D limit? In a straight realspace line towards where
> it entered? Wherever the Navigator tells it to? Inside some random area
> close to one of the previous two points? 

On the 100 diameter jump limit sphere, in direct line-of-sight with the 
originating system, unless the Navigator programs the jump to 'come up short' 
of the 100 diameter jump limit.

> What difference can a good navigator make to where entering or where
> leaving? Is it even up to the navigator?

My take is, the skill of the Navigator has an effect on the possibility of 
misjumps, but even the most skilled one can't alter the laws of physics 
<ducking>.
 
> IMO this particular flamewar has cooked up some useful discussions.

It's not a flame war.  It's just that some people refuse to read what's in the 
posts sometimes.  The math is inarguable.  <shrug>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 18:19:24 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 

> >> >My assumptions were that Target was outbound, which is why it and the
> >How could a course for an *outbound* ship affect an *inbound* intercept?
> >Remember, the assumption for my post was, the Target was outbound, not
> >inbound.  For the purposes of the post, who *CARES* what's inbound?  That's
> >not where the most probable threat is going to come from.  It's going to come
> >from the planet.
>  
> I did not make my point clear. Since it doesn't matter where on the
> 100-diameter sphere a ship jumps out (at least as far as I can tell), then
> it is simple to assign an outbound ship a course to a jump point that is
> under the watchful eye of an SDB.

This assumes escort by the aforesaid SDB.  The original post (damn, I oguhta 
trademark that saying!) specified no such escort because that wasn't the 
intent of the post.  Without escort, the Target is out of range of the SDB 
after it leaves the 500K klick 'bubble of protection' of said SDB.  In the 
aforementioned Original Post(tm), the Target can be up to 780K klicks from 
Jump point when it leaves the bubble.

> But this is irrelevant, because:
> 
> [snip from different letter]
> 
> >As I pointed out earlier, dunno bout YTU, but IMTU,
> 
> [snip la la la]
> 
> Okay, now *I* ask this -- why is this a discussion any more?

Because I threw out some math and said 'What do you think?" and got back 'This 
can't happen in *MY* TU because I *SAY* it can't.  Then I rebutted.  Then they 
rebutted.  Ad nauseum.
 
> Since this thread obviously has relevance to Kevin's Traveller Universe
> only, there is absolutely nothing to be said that can mean anything except
> for what he stipulates as meaningful. We are simply arguing apples and
> oranges at this point.

Actually, every rebuttal so far has attempted to change the basic assumptions.  And I *purposely* made them as broad and relevant as possible, except where noted.  This makes the whole thread relevant.  Frankly, I didn't believe the numbers I got for the 'slow pass' until I ran them 3 times and came up with the same answers.  I was under the distinct impression that the 'fast pass' would allow the soonest response.  I was wrong.  I just didn't mention my built-in beliefs, I just posted the math.  I only started getting into specifics IMTU when asked about them.

And by the way, it's Kev*E*n.  My parents were *quite* specific about that.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 18:36:30 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers 

> As far as I can see, there are two basic sets of answers for the above -
> those that make piracy difficult, and those that make piracy well nigh
> impossible.
> 
> If ships retain realspace vectors, then ships coming out of jumpspace in a
> different systems are going to be going fast - in some cases, very fast.
> This means that 'hide and lurk' doesnt work as well any more, because a
> lurking pirate has to stay at rest relative to the planet (otherwise she
> has to fire up the power plant to correct vectors, and that results in a
> higher than desirable sensor profile).

IMNSFBHO, inbound intercepts are classed in what I tend to call 'almost good 
ideas', since it *sounds* good at first, but when you look at the math, you 
find out differently fast.  An inbound intercept will take you *deeper* into 
the grav well, where you *don't* want to go.  Almost a good idea, since this 
also puts you closer to where the Defenders lurk.  This tells me, outbound 
intercepts are the way to go.

Now, I don't claim to have the first bloody *clue* how far a ship can be 
detected at, but the books that I have here in my possession say that that 
it's on the order of 600K klicks for a military craft.  Two light-seconds.  
Safe jump difference from a Size 8 planet is 1,280K klicks, over twice the 
detection limit by a military sensor suite.  That 1,280K klicks is written in 
stone.  This tells me a starship can throw the loudest block party they want 
at the 100 diameter 'curb' of a Size 8 world and nobody'll know they're there.

> If ships come out where they want, then planets assign known, patrolled
> exit points.
> 
> If ships come out at a random point, then we are facing the 200-1 odds that
> my earlier post indicated.

If you assume even *minimal* brains of a professional pirate, you'll realise 
they'll take outbound prizes, not inbound ones.  Inbound ones are a good way 
to spend your formative years on a prison planet.

> I think navigators should have some influence on where and when you come
> out (I am kicking the idea that both Navigation and Gunnery are
> 'impossible' skills - a good Navigator can make a ship behave in ways not
> predicted by jumpspace theory, and a good gunner can fire through the veil
> of speed-of-light lag to hit a target far more often than they should).
> Heck, I could even cope with a great Navigator being able to predict where
> and when in realspace a ship will exit (there is a *reason* the Sayat are
> so superstitious).

Under the HG ship combat system, gunnery is ignored as it's assumed to be 
factored for already.  <shrug>  Same thing with navigation; it's an abstract 
system.  IMNSFBHO, these skills should have *some* bearing, though not so much 
on the navigation part unless the navigator is recalculating an emergency jump 
while under attack, in which case, you want the best navigator you can get.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 23:57:53 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Playing with the HG rules

Just been thinking of the HG rules and Keven's comments on USP etc for lasers.

If you have two triple turrets grouped as one USP4 battery, the first hit
drops it to USP3 (and is a kill of 3x lasers at least 1.5Mcr, the next hit
reduces the remaining turret to USP2, then USP1 etc. So the ship can take 4
hits before the laser is down.

If they are grouped as two USP3 hits the progression is USP3 - hit 1 first
battery killed remaining USP 3 - hit 2 USP2 - hit 3 USP1 - hit 4 last
battery killed.

(of course, TL13+ Beam lasers are 1 USP factor higher).

Is there an advantage to keeping two batteries at a lower USP? I don't
think that there is after ther first hit.... However, until the first hit
you get two attack rolls.

But a USP 4 battery will automatically cause a critical on a 399 dT or less
ship. Against a Beowulf it will cause 2 criticals on the first hit, wereas
a USP3 will cause just the one.... this will kill the JDrive on a roll of
7.

So, does the chance of a critical (which on TL13 ships sould actually be
the chance of three criticals off one battery, or 4 criticals off two
batteries) outway the downgraded weapon USP?


One thing  that I was never sure of is if you reroll if the equipment is
not present on the ship when you roll damage (eg does a weapon hit become a
re-roll if the battery is gone?).

Dom (pondering)

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 19:04:31 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

> >IIRC, these ships had *two*, count 'em, *two* hard points, with nothing on 
> >them, at time of purchase, and refitted with turrets and weapons as an 
> >afterthought.  Assuming triple beam lasers, a fully armed Type P still out 
> >guns them 1.5 to 1.  The Type P should be nervous?  We're talking about 
> >crewbeings that make their *LIVING* dishing out massive violence and death, 
> >remember?
> 
> Just as a counterpoint...The Type P seems to armed with only one weapon per
> hardpoint.  The example Free, Far, and Fat Traders seemed to have a mix of
> a Beam Laser, Sand Caster, and Missile Rack in each turret.  Using this
> model under High Guard gives them each six batteries, tow each of laser,
> missile, and sand.  Since HG is uses an "all hit or all miss" for resolving
> battery fire, the merchants actually have a greater chance to hit and score
> damage than the pirate.  The merchants also have something the pirate does
> not, a defence against incoming laser fire from the sand casters.

IIRC, (and I *DO*, since I have the Original Post(tm) handy) I specified that 
the Intruder's Type P had been upgraded to full triple laser turrets.  The 3 
single laser turrets are the 'original equipment'.  And anybody who *DIDN'T* 
upgrade those turrets FAST is gonna have a short career followed by a fast 
funeral.  If it was me, I'd *seriously* look into upgrading the computer, too, 
as under HG and CT, the difference of the computers is a serious die mod.

> Finally, when it comes to taking damage the merchant can soak up twice as
> many weapons hits before it has lost its weapons.

Hmmm?  If the merchie has 4 weapons vs 3 batteries on the Type P, the merchie 
can only take 4 weapons hits and it's out of business.  The Type P can take 3 
hits per turret to take it out, or 9 weapon hits total.  Me thinks you got the 
two mixed up there...
 
> Finally, IIRC you will recieve one hit per point that your HG weapons
> factor exceeds the hull code of the target.  Three fully maxed laser
> turrets are IIRC 4.  Against a Free or Far trader each time you hit with a
> full turret you have two chances of vaporizing your prey.

OK, there's where I threw in the USP by battery 'fix'.  Each battery on the P, 
having only 3 lasers, would have a USP of 3, not 4.  Under the standard 
assumption, you can take, for example, a 3KT boat and put 30 single laser 
turrets on it, each turret configured as its own battery.  The ship's USP 
value for the lasers is 8, unless they're TL13 or better lasers, in which 
case, they're Factor 9.  Now, each laser is its own battery.  Does each 
battery now attack as Factor 8, or does it attack as Factor 1?  Think very 
carefully about this now.

30 Factor 8 shots means your 3KT boat can outshoot a heavy cruiser.  Odd are, 
at least 15 of those shots will hit and penetrate.  On a 400 ton hull, they'll 
also inflict 4 critical hits for each hit, since if your weapons factor is 
greater than the USP hull size, you get the difference in criticals.  We're 
looking at 60 critical hits per combat round.  There's a 1 in 11 chance that 
the ship will be vaporised.  60 critical hits makes this a statistical 
certainty.  See what I mean?

Now, if those 30 lasers attack as Factor 1 lasers (the USP value of the 
battery), there are no critical hits, and 1 stray laser won't vaporise your 
ship.  You'll still get statistical hits every combat round.  You'll still do 
damage, but it'll be more of the 'scrape the turrets off the bad guy' kind.  
Which do *YOU* want to see?  Which do you want used on *YOU*?

> Perhaps the pirate would be better served by mixing his turrets too?

It's a tossup, actually...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 11:08:17 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Re: What canon means to me

Dear Folks -

I think the "canon war" has resurfaced. Bit like the Fourth Frontier War,
no official announcement, we just fell into it. ;-)

OK, so here's my take:

1. Traveller is a *game*.

2. Traveller was written by a number of different people over the years,
and not all of them knew all of the background. This means there are going
to be areas that do not dovetail together very well.

3. Suggestion: if you find one of these glitches, share it with the TML and
ask for constructive solutions in a way that allows structured questions,
discussion, constructive criticisms, and (ESPECIALLY) game hooks. For
example:

CANON PROBLEM 1: How can we reconcile the statements that the Marches was
surveyed in '52, and First Survey was completed in ????, but Andor and
Candory were not discovered until 802?
DISCUSSION POINT 1.1: for the *real* answer, see my point 2 above.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION 1.1: the planets were indeed discovered by the Scouts,
but the information was hidden from the general public until 802. Maybe the
Imperium was forced to reveal them in 802 because that was the time that
the first Droyne starship left the world?
     PROBLEMS WITH 1.1: But why? Psionics wasn't a problem in the early 3I.
     FIX FOR SOLUTION 1.1: There's something else there that the 3I wants
to keep hidden. <GAME HOOK - slip in and investigate the worlds on behalf
of a megacorp, etc>
POSSIBLE SOLUTION 1.2: the Droyne made the Scouts forget.
     PROBLEMS WITH 1.2: do you really want the Droyne to be able to do
that? I don't, since I have a Psi-15 Droyne PC I want to keep under control
- - but see the SJG G:T adventures in the Marches if you want to get
worried...
POSSIBLE SOLUTION 1.3: the Scouts *didn't* check out every world.
Remembering the reference that the 3I expanded through the Marches in a
root-and-branch fashion, maybe the Scouts were flat out surveying the
mains. The other stuff came later. Maybe (for example) the SW's blocked the
IISS passage to Darrian or deliberately misled them? <GAME HOOK - the U of
R hires the PC's to investigate this matter by travelling to the SW's and
Darrian and doing some local research. Naturally, not everyone is going to
co-operate with this project...>

CANON PROBLEM 2: How did they lose Ruie?
DISCUSSION POINT 2.1: the *real* answer is that "Rescue on Ruie" was
written when only the Regina subsector had been detailed, not the entire
Marches along with its pseudo-history. When you only look at Regina, Ruie
is at the edge of the map and therefore could be seen to be "lost" outside
the border.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION 2.1: change the meaning of "lost" to mean simply "lost to
the Imperium" - go with the other canonical reference that says Ruie
declined to join the 3I. From the POV of the 3I (and Regina) the world is
"lost" to them - but would always be welcome back into the fold, much like
the Vulcan's view of Romulus... <GAME HOOK - have PC nobles/diplomats try
to get Ruie to return to the 3I!!>

4. Traveller is a *game*. Relax. Enjoy it. If you find a loophole (and you
always will), ignore it or plug it - feel free to ask others for help
(which, OK _is_ what Hans is trying to do ;-).
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson        Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                       davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 19:15:04 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 

> > Now, when you add to this that some targets will be too big and some will
> > be too small, then life isnt as healthy for pirates as one might have hoped.
> 
> I believe there is an old Earth saying that covers this:
> A short life, and a merry one.

As a character, I'd tend to pass on the really really REALLY big prizes no 
matter how juicy they look.  If I was in a properly decked out Type P, my 
targets would be Sub-R's & Sub-M's, with the occaisional Far, Free, or Fat 
trader thrown in.  Scout ships I might take, if only to strip out their sensor 
suites and scrap out the rest.  After I got my sensors maxxed out, I wouldn't 
bother with them.

> Just out of curiousity, does anyone out there play up the difference in
> Social Standing?  

I never considered that.  Interesting...

> Piracy, it's not just economics, but socio-economics.

I can see this...

> John
> (who's thinking of turning his free erols webspace into "The Pirates
> Guide to the Spinward Marches.")

*I LIKE*!!!  *I LIKE*!!!

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 11:14:48 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Re: what canon means to me

Dear Folks -

Hot damn! I posted the "investive the SW's/Darrian" suggestion before
reading Carlos' excellent ideas on the subject! That was the ultimate point
I was trying to make - take what would otherwise be dry pseudo-historical
background (that only the TML would bother to discuss ;-) and make an
adventure out if it.

Thanks, Carlos!
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson        Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                       davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 19:11:14 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: Off Topic (virus warning?)

At 10:17 AM 11/2/98 EST, you wrote:
>Dear List:
>
>Is this legit or a scam?
>
>I received the following information this morning from
>>>George Butterstein:
>>>
>>>If you receive an e-mail titled "Win A Holiday" DO NOT open it.
>>>It will erase everything on your hard drive.  Forward this letter out
>>>to as many people as you can.  This is a new, very malicious virus
>>>and not many people know about it.  This information was
>>>announced yesterday morning from Microsoft, please share it
>>>again by passing this along to everyone in your address book so
>>>that this may be stopped.
>>>Margaret Dalton
>>>Office of the Dean of Arts & Sciences
>>>Union College
>>>Schenectady, New York 12308
>>>518-388-6233 - Telephone
>>>518-388-6576 - Fax
>>>
>
>LA
>
>Seth
>

As an employee of an official Microsoft OEM builder and a technical support
engineer, I will assure you that this is 99.99% likely to be a scam.

1) Text files (which is what you transmit via your email) will NOT erase
squat from your hard drive. Attatchments, on the other hand, be them .EXE
files or Macro's for certain programs can do harm to your machine, but
these must be decoded and run by the user and will not execute upon reading
the email.

2) Microsoft is not in the business of investigating malicious programs.
Semantec or Network Associates (the makers of Norton Anti-Virus and McCaffe
Anti-Virus respectively) would likely be the one's to announce such
malicious programs.

I have seen scads of scams like this over email and ICQ, and never have I
ever lost anything from my computer due to something someone sent me over
either media.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 18:57:48 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 

At 06:35 AM 11/2/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> >Recapping everything, the intruder should have no less than 2 hours to
>> loot & 
>> >scoot *OR* field repair the victim enough to move it out beyond the 100 
>> >diameter limit and jump, based on the above assumptions.  All in all, I'd
>> say 
>> >this means that piracy is viable after all, wouldn't you?
>> 
>> Where this falls apart is first you have to be close enough to your Target
>> to jump it.
>
>I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the Intruder 
>boarded.  And that the Target had manuvered *from* the planet, not *TO* the 
>planet.  It's outbound.
>
Actually, the thread started when someone postulated that the INTRUDER made
a fake scream fof help to draw a nearby merchant in close, and I noted that
any SDB's in the area would respond to such a call even before the intruder
opened fire. It somehow got out of hand after that, so I backed out. To
many numbers started flying and I didn't want to start a debate on rule
sets.

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1078
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Monday, November 2 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1079



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Commo issues 
Re: what canon means to me
Re: on Traveller
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Playing with the HG rules 
Maps -N- Stuff
Re: what canon means to me
Re: Phooey on canon
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)
Re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
Skills in HG combat
Re: Playing with the HG rules

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 19:22:13 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Commo issues 

> >What if the pirate gains a passive detection and uses LIDAR for the FC lock?
> >No screaming there.  This also brings up an important point...most merchant
> >vessels (at least the designed ships I have seen) do not routinely carry
> laser
> >or maser comms, so they cannot surreptiously warn the defender.
> >
> 
> *confused look* Under FFS2 at least, Laser Comms at TL10 and up are the
> only way to go for long distance communications (except using your AEMS to
> send Morse code across most of the subsector, of course).

<shrug>  FFS is beyond my experience.  But I assumed that the Target could get 
a message out to the planet and thereby call up the Defender.  This was 
specified in the Original Post(tm), just not the mechanics of the Scream.

> Under the DSR the thing that stuffs the Pirate's sensor profile is firing
> up the engines to power movement, weapons etc - if it's using Heplar 'dash
> packs' (a high-gee limited fuel Heplar engine designed to deliver 4 gees
> for 4 hours), then it's going to stand out like nobody's business.

Again, I don't have or use the DSR, since I don't run an MT or 'newer' campaign.  I still haven't had the time to sit down and do Serious Thinking(tm) on MT ship construction.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 16:28:11 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: what canon means to me

I always consider JTAS articles - and Amber Zoines - to be about
the lowest level of canon (especially Amber Zones), so I don't sit up
nights worrying about "Rescue on Ruie", or early SW/Darrian articles...

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 08:48:18
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: on Traveller

>From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
>Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
>
>Exactly. I remember once when I mentioned the possibility that nanotech just
>might be around by the peak of the 3I, even in limited form, I was
>immediately told that I would not be playing Traveller.

I think I was the person who used this particular phrase.

The reason I used it is that nanotech - self-replicating, tailored
micromachines - are such a radical development that it could not exist in
limited form - it would revolutionise the structures of Known Space.

As it is, we have a hard enough time assuming scarcity, given the
availiability of power and resources available to higher technology societies.

If you assume nanomachinery and nanofabrication, you get a very different
sort of universe - something a lot more akin to Moorcock's The Dancers at
the End of Time than to the universe of hard-scrabbling traders, down on
their luck veterans and disinherited nobles that Traveller reflects.

If you add cybertech that allows direct interface to information sources,
then you get happening to knowledge what nanofabrication did to the
material things.

It could be a great environment to roleplay in (John Hughes' Rites of
Passage was set in such a world, and it's one of the best convention games
I've played), but it wouldnt be Traveller.

It's like saying 'It's a society like Medieval Britain, but they have
maize' - if you have maize, then your economic structure is so different
that you just wouldnt have medieval Britain any more.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 19:42:58 -0500
From: Kurt Feltenberger <kurt@blazenet.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

At 07:04 PM 11/2/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> >IIRC, these ships had *two*, count 'em, *two* hard points, with nothing on 
>> >them, at time of purchase, and refitted with turrets and weapons as an 
>> >afterthought.  Assuming triple beam lasers, a fully armed Type P still out 
>> >guns them 1.5 to 1.  The Type P should be nervous?  We're talking about 
>> >crewbeings that make their *LIVING* dishing out massive violence and
death, 
>> >remember?
>> 
>> Just as a counterpoint...The Type P seems to armed with only one weapon per
>> hardpoint.  The example Free, Far, and Fat Traders seemed to have a mix of
>> a Beam Laser, Sand Caster, and Missile Rack in each turret.  Using this
>> model under High Guard gives them each six batteries, tow each of laser,
>> missile, and sand.  Since HG is uses an "all hit or all miss" for resolving
>> battery fire, the merchants actually have a greater chance to hit and score
>> damage than the pirate.  The merchants also have something the pirate does
>> not, a defence against incoming laser fire from the sand casters.
>
>IIRC, (and I *DO*, since I have the Original Post(tm) handy) I specified that 
>the Intruder's Type P had been upgraded to full triple laser turrets.  The 3 
>single laser turrets are the 'original equipment'.  And anybody who *DIDN'T* 
>upgrade those turrets FAST is gonna have a short career followed by a fast 
>funeral.  If it was me, I'd *seriously* look into upgrading the computer,
too, 
>as under HG and CT, the difference of the computers is a serious die mod.

Duh.  I was making a point of using canon examples of the ships in
question.  Everything I have seen on the Type P states single weapons.
Upgrading to triples is fine.

>> Finally, when it comes to taking damage the merchant can soak up twice as
>> many weapons hits before it has lost its weapons.
>
>Hmmm?  If the merchie has 4 weapons vs 3 batteries on the Type P, the merchie 
>can only take 4 weapons hits and it's out of business.  The Type P can take 3 
>hits per turret to take it out, or 9 weapon hits total.  Me thinks you got
the 
>two mixed up there...
> 
>> Finally, IIRC you will recieve one hit per point that your HG weapons
>> factor exceeds the hull code of the target.  Three fully maxed laser
>> turrets are IIRC 4.  Against a Free or Far trader each time you hit with a
>> full turret you have two chances of vaporizing your prey.
>
>OK, there's where I threw in the USP by battery 'fix'.  Each battery on
the P, 
>having only 3 lasers, would have a USP of 3, not 4.  Under the standard 
>assumption, you can take, for example, a 3KT boat and put 30 single laser 
>turrets on it, each turret configured as its own battery.  The ship's USP 
>value for the lasers is 8, unless they're TL13 or better lasers, in which 
>case, they're Factor 9.  Now, each laser is its own battery.  Does each 
>battery now attack as Factor 8, or does it attack as Factor 1?  Think very 
>carefully about this now.

No.  Thirty single lasers organized as thirty batteries would have a
battery factor based on only ONE beam or pulse weapon plus TL mods.  If
they were _ALL_ grouped together, that is, thirty turrets each w/ one
weapon, and fired as ONE battery, then and only then would you get the
higher factor.  Remember, the USP factor is for a _SINGLE_BATTERY_ of the
weapon type, not a factor based on the total number of weapons mounted on
the craft.

>30 Factor 8 shots means your 3KT boat can outshoot a heavy cruiser.  Odd are, 
>at least 15 of those shots will hit and penetrate.  On a 400 ton hull,
they'll 
>also inflict 4 critical hits for each hit, since if your weapons factor is 
>greater than the USP hull size, you get the difference in criticals.  We're 
>looking at 60 critical hits per combat round.  There's a 1 in 11 chance that 
>the ship will be vaporised.  60 critical hits makes this a statistical 
>certainty.  See what I mean?

Based on the statement I made above, this is invalid.  Besides, to have
enough weapons mounts to have 30 factor 8 batteries will take a hull
somewhere around 30,000 tons.

>Now, if those 30 lasers attack as Factor 1 lasers (the USP value of the 
>battery), there are no critical hits, and 1 stray laser won't vaporise your 
>ship.  You'll still get statistical hits every combat round.  You'll still do 
>damage, but it'll be more of the 'scrape the turrets off the bad guy' kind.  
>Which do *YOU* want to see?  Which do you want used on *YOU*?

If I was a pirate, and wanted my prize intact, I'd have the weapons fire as
individual batteries.  I seem to recall (I'm at work so I don't have the
book handy) that it stated if a turret was filled, and all the weapons were
the same, that they would then comprise a single battery firing at the
factor as shown on the chart.  They would not be firing individualy.

>
>> Perhaps the pirate would be better served by mixing his turrets too?
>
>It's a tossup, actually...
>
>Keven
>
>tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
>                                                     In Reavers' Deep
>
>


Kurt Feltenberger

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a
habit.
- --- Aristotle ---

mailto:kurt@blazenet.net

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 19:40:33 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Playing with the HG rules 

> Just been thinking of the HG rules and Keven's comments on USP etc for lasers.
> 
> If you have two triple turrets grouped as one USP4 battery, the first hit
> drops it to USP3 (and is a kill of 3x lasers at least 1.5Mcr, the next hit
> reduces the remaining turret to USP2, then USP1 etc. So the ship can take 4
> hits before the laser is down.

I follow you so far...

> If they are grouped as two USP3 hits the progression is USP3 - hit 1 first
> battery killed remaining USP 3 - hit 2 USP2 - hit 3 USP1 - hit 4 last
> battery killed.

But you still have another battery of USP3, which is now down to USP2.  You'd 
need 6 weapons hits to take out 2 USP3 batteries.
 
> (of course, TL13+ Beam lasers are 1 USP factor higher).

Yeah.  Which means, first hit knocks the mirrors out of alignment?  Further 
hits do 'real' damage?
 
> Is there an advantage to keeping two batteries at a lower USP? I don't
> think that there is after ther first hit.... However, until the first hit
> you get two attack rolls.

Two batteries means two attack rolls.  I'm asking if each battery fires on its 
own, why use the full ship's USP weapon factor for hit and damage 
determination?  30 lasers on a ship means USP8.  30 batteries of 1 laser each 
means 30 attack rolls.  Are these rolls resolved at USP8, or are they resolved 
at USP1?  It's only *1* laser hitting per hit, not all of them.
 
> But a USP 4 battery will automatically cause a critical on a 399 dT or less
> ship. Against a Beowulf it will cause 2 criticals on the first hit, wereas
> a USP3 will cause just the one.... this will kill the JDrive on a roll of
> 7.

Disabled, not destroyed.  <grin>  But the whole Target is toast if you roll a 
2 and vaporise the damned thing.  Not Good.
 
> So, does the chance of a critical (which on TL13 ships sould actually be
> the chance of three criticals off one battery, or 4 criticals off two
> batteries) outway the downgraded weapon USP?

That's the question, isn't it?  I'm surprised this hasn't come up before.

> One thing  that I was never sure of is if you reroll if the equipment is
> not present on the ship when you roll damage (eg does a weapon hit become a
> re-roll if the battery is gone?).

Me either, and I've seen it done both ways.  A thought:  If you wanna be RILLY nasty, take it on the weapon again.  Factor-0 means you replace the whole damned weapons system at cost.  Another hit & you're at USP -1, which means, the weapon is welded to the turret now.  You don't even get scrap value out of it.  Another hit and it's now USP -2 means the turret is now welded to the ship and replacing it is gonna be a REAL bitch in time and money.  <grin>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 19:55:14 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Maps -N- Stuff

> A plug, of sorts:
> 
> If you've got Campaign Cartographer 2 (for Windows), I have a utility 
> which will generate very nice "old-style" sector & subsector maps from 
> Galactic data.  I haven't got around to putting it on my web page yet, 
> so mail me if this of any use.

I haven't had the chance to seriously play with CC@.  It's one of those 'I'm 
gonna play with this puppy one of these days' things.  But Galactic does an 
iffy job of drawing a map, particularly if you play with the colorset a bit 
first.  At least, it's then readable by these faded jaded greys...

> I'd rate the results it produces higher than IG's sector maps but not 
> quite as good as GDW/DGP because of trade routes/subsector edges cutting 
> across worlds & world names.  The best maps were presumably adjusted by 
> hand to avoid that problem.

Every play with Mick Bailey's Trav Tools?  I like it a lot.  It makes some nice
maps.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 16:57:54 -0800 (PST)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: what canon means to me

- ---Bruce Alan Macintosh <bmac@astro.ucla.edu> wrote:
> 
> I always consider JTAS articles - and Amber Zoines - to be about
> the lowest level of canon (especially Amber Zones), so I don't sit up
> nights worrying about "Rescue on Ruie", or early SW/Darrian
articles...
== 

Excuse me while I pout, now :-{
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 18:00:17 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

Hans makes some good points.

While everyone is free (and usually does) to alter the Official
Traveller Universe, published material should be consistant--or at
least say that it is, or is not canon to the internal workings of
the OTU.

Canon should be stuck to at least internally for writers of
traveller stuff, IMO. Variants are fine, too, but history can't be
too variant or it makes no sense.

Just my Cr2.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 20:11:38 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

> >> Just as a counterpoint...The Type P seems to armed with only one weapon per
> >> hardpoint.  The example Free, Far, and Fat Traders seemed to have a mix of
> >> a Beam Laser, Sand Caster, and Missile Rack in each turret.  Using this
> >> model under High Guard gives them each six batteries, tow each of laser,
> >> missile, and sand.  Since HG is uses an "all hit or all miss" for resolving
> >> battery fire, the merchants actually have a greater chance to hit and score
> >> damage than the pirate.  The merchants also have something the pirate does
> >> not, a defence against incoming laser fire from the sand casters.
> >
> >IIRC, (and I *DO*, since I have the Original Post(tm) handy) I specified that 
> >the Intruder's Type P had been upgraded to full triple laser turrets.  The 3 
> >single laser turrets are the 'original equipment'.  And anybody who *DIDN'T* 
> >upgrade those turrets FAST is gonna have a short career followed by a fast 
> >funeral.  If it was me, I'd *seriously* look into upgrading the computer,
> too, 
> >as under HG and CT, the difference of the computers is a serious die mod.
> 
> Duh.  I was making a point of using canon examples of the ships in
> question.  Everything I have seen on the Type P states single weapons.
> Upgrading to triples is fine.

The reason I didn't upgun the Defenders is because they were already maxxed 
out.

> No.  Thirty single lasers organized as thirty batteries would have a
> battery factor based on only ONE beam or pulse weapon plus TL mods.  If
> they were _ALL_ grouped together, that is, thirty turrets each w/ one
> weapon, and fired as ONE battery, then and only then would you get the
> higher factor.  Remember, the USP factor is for a _SINGLE_BATTERY_ of the
> weapon type, not a factor based on the total number of weapons mounted on
> the craft.

<thwaping head>  It's been awhile since I looked that far forward in the book. 
 You're right.  I was figuring the ship's UWP as the total of *ALL* weapons of 
that type and 'fixing' it as a battery. D'oh.  Same result, in the end, I just 
look like I need more sleep on that point.

> >30 Factor 8 shots means your 3KT boat can outshoot a heavy cruiser.  Odd are, 
> >at least 15 of those shots will hit and penetrate.  On a 400 ton hull,
> they'll 
> >also inflict 4 critical hits for each hit, since if your weapons factor is 
> >greater than the USP hull size, you get the difference in criticals.  We're 
> >looking at 60 critical hits per combat round.  There's a 1 in 11 chance that 
> >the ship will be vaporised.  60 critical hits makes this a statistical 
> >certainty.  See what I mean?
> 
> Based on the statement I made above, this is invalid.  Besides, to have
> enough weapons mounts to have 30 factor 8 batteries will take a hull
> somewhere around 30,000 tons.

Right, right.  I was basing the argument on an inaccurate assumption.

> If I was a pirate, and wanted my prize intact, I'd have the weapons fire as
> individual batteries.  I seem to recall (I'm at work so I don't have the
> book handy) that it stated if a turret was filled, and all the weapons were
> the same, that they would then comprise a single battery firing at the
> factor as shown on the chart.  They would not be firing individualy.

Mixed turrets are allowed on ships under 1KT.  A battery can be from 1 to 10 
turrets.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 20:12:38 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)

In a message dated 11/1/98 11:45:40 AM Pacific Standard Time,
dom@cybergoths.u-net.com writes:

<< Nice - are you going to post the USP?
 
 I went for a few big secondaries in mine, and no black globe as it's a Zho
 rider. I thought a nasty use would be for commerce raiding.
 
 Dom
  >>
Here is the write-up and USP for the rider, and both tender designs:

Battle rider Tender	Cost: 551,950.19Mc (tender) 1514Mc (fuel tender) 33Mc
(shuttle)
37.5 Mc (each demountable 25000 fuel tank installed)
class:Empress
Lead vessel:Empress Iolanthe
TL:15
Crew:5246 Cargo:3218 tons Fuel:Manuever Fuel:60,000 tons Jump Fuel:100,000
tons per Jump number
Agility:1 Troops:0  Frozen Watch:2700 Jump: 1 to 6

USP-BT-Y7616J4-009949-9000-0 Marines:0	Z=90	W=50
batteries:		         Z  W			Y=45	X=25
batteries bearing:	         Y   X

Tonnage:1 million tons Crew:527 officers 4719 ratings 
Performance: Jump 6 (maximum), 1-G, Power Plant-6, 60,000, EPs, Agility-1
Electronics: Model 9/fib computer (2 computers: main and back-up)
Hard points: 90x100 ton Bays; 500xHardpoints
Armament: 500xtriple laser turrets organized into 50 batteries
Defenses: 90x100 ton Repulsor Bays; Nuclear Damper (factor-9); Meson screen
(factor-9);Black Globe (factor-4). Capacitor storage: 30,000 EPs
Small Craft: 29x25,000 ton Battle rider bays;1x10,000 ton Fuel Tender bay;
1x95 ton shuttle bay
Fuel Treatment: On board fuel purification plant
Construction time: ?
Comments: This battle rider tender is designed for maximum flexibility using a
modular approach; the tender carriers her jump fuel in exterior demountable
fuel tanks. Each 4 tanks carried provides the fuel for a Jump 1. She can trade
Battle rider payload for Jump range. For an example, she can carry 24 fuel
tanks to take advantage of her Jump-6 capability; but this means she can only
carry 5 Battle riders. At Jump-4, she can carry a more respectable 13 Battle
riders. This design is in competition with a modular tender that mounts only
Jump-4 drives. The shorter ranged tender can carry more riders, as her engines
are smaller, but the Admiralty feels that the advantage of Jump-5 and 6
Batrons are useful too. The Admiralty will probably procure both designs, with
the Jump-4 tenders based in the fringes of the Imperium, and the Empress class
tenders based in the interior, as an emergency response force of the Strategic
Reserve. Both tender designs are intended to be used with the new Emperor
class Battle riders. The Admiralty was rumored to have been unhappy with the
long refueling times of the tender due to the small fuel tanks of the Emperor
class Battle riders, and ordered Buships to to add a 10,000 ton fuel tender
and a bay for it to be incorporated into the design. This space was supposed
to carry troops and/or fighters and their launch facilities, but buOps will
mission-task fighter and/or assault carriers (variants of the Emperors) into
the Batron organizations as needed. This tender can also be used as a fast
fleet Fuel tanker if needed.
Battle rider Tender	Cost: 411,950.19Mc (tender) 33Mc (shuttle) 37.5 Mc (each
demountable 25000 fuel tank installed)
class:Duchess
Lead vessel:
TL:15
Crew:4846 Cargo:2318 tons Fuel:Manuever Fuel:40,000 tons Jump Fuel:100,000
tons per Jump number
Agility:1 Troops:0  Frozen Watch:2700 Jump: 1 to 4

USP-BT-Y7414J4-009949-9000-0 Marines:0	            Z=90	W=50
batteries:		         Z  W				Y=45	X=25
batteries bearing:	         Y   X

Tonnage:1 million tons Crew:487 officers 4359 ratings 
Performance: Jump 4 (maximum), 1-G, Power Plant-6, 40,000, EPs, Agility-1
Electronics: Model 9/fib computer (2 computers: main and back-up)
Hard points: 90x100 ton Bays; 500xHardpoints
Armament: 500xtriple laser turrets organized into 50 batteries
Defenses: 90x100 ton Repulsor Bays; Nuclear Damper (factor-9); Meson screen
(factor-9);Black Globe (factor-4) Capacitor storage: 20,000 EPs
Small Craft: 32x25,000 ton Battle rider bays;1x95 ton shuttle bay
Fuel Treatment: On board fuel purification plant
Construction time: ?
Comments: This Battlerider tender is designed as a competitor to the Jump 6
capable Empress class. By reducing her drives to a fleet standard Jump 4, she
has gained another 3 Battlerider bays. This has saved 140,100 MC from her
cost, and she needs 400 fewer engineroom crew. She has also eliminated the
need for a refueling shuttle, as she would always have at least 16
Battleriders embarked as only 16 of the 32 bays have to be filled with jump
fuel tanks. She can be completely refueled in 8 trips by her riders. Her
critics point out however that her lack of jump 5 and 6 capability  is a flaw,
and the ability to move heavy fleet elements at these jumps are strategically
priceless.  Never the less, because of her lower cost, it is expected that the
Admiralty will order at least 3 to 4 Duchesss for each Empress class tender.
The Admiralty will probably deploy a Duchess equipped Batron in every fourth
subsector (4 per sector), and an Empress Batron at the Sector Depot. In
addition, for every Empress Batron deployed at sector depots, one will be
deployed at the Core Depot  as part of the Imperial Strategic reserve.





Battle rider	Cost:28,738.802Mc Flagship varient: 27841.302Mc
Class: Emperor
Lead Vessel:Emperor Strephon
TL:15
Crew:439 Cargo:5 tons Fuel:3750 tons Agility:6 Troops:0

USP-BR-L106FJ3-F49940-400T0-0
Batteries:		           X  W  1	       X=162 Z=154
Batteries bearing:	     Z  Y   1	       W=18  Y=17
Tonnage:25,000
Crew:50 officers;389 ratings
Performance:Jump-0,6-G,Power Plant-15,3750 EPs, Agility-6
Electronics:Model 9/fib Computer (2 Computers- main and backup)
Hardpoints:Spinal Mount; 180xHardpoints
Armament: Type T Meson Gun; 162xtriple beam laser turrets organised into 162
batteries.
Defenses:18xtriple sand caster turrets organized into 18 batteries;Nuclear
damper(factor-9);Meson screen (factor-9);Black Globe (factor-4); 500
Capacitors (can hold 9000 EPs'); Armored hull (factor-15 - factor 13 on
flagship varient)
Small craft:1x20 ton boat bay
Fuel treatment: Fuel scoops-fully streamlined (uses tender for fuel
purification)
Construction time:?
comments: This Battle rider was designed to operate with Empress class tenders
(whose bay size was designed for this battle rider). This ship was designed to
be the smallest design that could carry: 1) the largest available Meson gun 2)
maximum defenses (screens and armor). She also has a big enough power plant to
maintain maximum agility with her weapons active, and the fastest, most
advanced computers available. A flagship variant is available that has a
second Bridge for an Admiral and his/her staff at the cost of 500 tons of
armor (2 factors).  The 25 person ships security troop detachment is landed
to provide staterooms for the flagstaff. A  fighter Carrier, and a troop
carrier variant are under consideration to give a Batron more flexibility, as
well as a fuel tender variant to allow the Battle rider tender to be refueled
quicker, or to operate as a Fleet tanker. A contraversial decision was made to
organise the caster and laser batteries into 1 turret batteries instead of 10
turret ones. This requires many more gunners and means that the turrets are
incapable of stopping a missile barrage from a ships weapon bay or from
ships turrets, but provides a much larger anti-fighter and anti-fighter
missile umbrella as 10 times the targets can be engaged.






Fuel Tender 	Cost:1514 Mc
TL:15
Crew: 44   Cargo:9472 tons of fuel   Fuel: uses fuel from cargo    Agility:0
Troops:0

USP-QT-K601142-000000-00000-0
Batteries:0

Tonnage:10,000
Crew: 11 officers; 33 ratings
Performance: jump-0; 1-G; Power Plant-1; 100 EPs; Agility-0
Electronics-model 4 computer
Hardpoints:0
Armament:0
Defences:0
Small Craft:0
Fuel Treatment: Fuel scoops and fully streamlined; No fuel Purification Plant
Construction time:?
Comments: An experimental fuel tender for the Empress class Battle rider
tender. This vessel ensures that even if the tender has no battle riders
embarked; she can be refueled. This vessel has staterooms for her crew, which
is unusual for a fuel tender for two reasons. The first reason is that the
tender was designed after the Empress class tender was (because of the Buships
decision to add a fuel tender). The second reason is that if this design
should prove successful, she can be adapted for other uses, and crew quarters
gives her the endurance that a small craft lacks.

Seth

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 18:15:35 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers

I think that the initial assumption of "screaming" when boarded is a
little out of whack. I'd expect a distress call as soon as they
realize they are under attack.

I'd expect a pirate to:

1. Lock the target with passive sensors.
2. Fire as close as they can get without being suspicious. If they
fire at long ranges, or if the target isn't evading, then they
should be able to get some kind of bonus on attack--at least the
first shot (picking hull areas to be hit, perhaps, if they are close
enough).

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 20:23:19 -0500
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

Eris Reddoch wrote:

> On 11/01/98 at 05:43 PM,  Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior) said:
>
> >>>         No, when a Vilani died, they wouldn't keep him around to admire.
> >>> They'd eat him on the spot.
>
> >IIRC, the human body contains enough microfauna to make a pretty good
> >start at decomposing, and unless your Vilani colony was subsisting on
> >canned food they'd have some form of farming going (even if it was
> >protein and yeast vats). Eating, on the other hand, makes perfect
> >sense. Maybe not directly, but after a short trip through the
> >ecosystem...
>
> Frankly, I think ancestor worship based on ritual cannibalism makes
> sense for cultures like the Vilani.  They might reason that they
> could preserve the wisdom, strength and knowledge of their ancestors
> by ingesting their flesh.  Whether this custom would persist in
> reality, or become symbolic is another question.

I always thought this was the dark secret of Shugilis.
In olden times, the vast majority would be kept ignorant of the source
of their protein, and the complex cooking processes would disguise
the source of the food.

As the Vilani developed agriculture and settled other worlds, the need
need and practice of using the dear departed as dinner would be gone,
but the ritual and traditions of the Shugili would still be firmly in place.

So, I like the cannibalism as a dark secret of Vilani history.

I think this can exist along Joe Webb's ideas.  Not every dead Vilani would
be cannibalized.  And those who knew of the practice might put corpses on
display, in the manner suggested by Joe, to prevent the Shugili from processing
the deceased. I think this would be especially true for community and family
leaders.  Then, over time, the practice of ancestors on display might become
more popular, at the same time the need for quick and handy protein sources
diminishes.

So, the secret reason for ancestors on display is to prevent them from being
consumed.

Works for me.

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 18:21:32 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds

Regarding Batteries in HG:

You can group weapons as you see fit in HG. You can have 10 turrets
as 10 batteries, or 1 battery of 10 turrets with a higher factor.

How you do it depends on what the job is. We used to let ships use
various battery ratings, we'd just list a couple variants on the
ship sheet.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 18:22:44 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Skills in HG combat

...
>>   Fuel hits under HG were a loss from current stocks of "n" % of total
>> capacity, with a substitution of n = 10 dt where n% would be less; was
>> this changed under MT? For a 200 Dt Far Trader a Fuel-1 hit then becomes
>> a 20-100% loss per hit (assuming ~50 Dt L-Hyd capacity, and 10-50 carried
>> at the time).
>
>I'm still studying MT's ship combat system.  Interesting.  And it started 
>making sense a bit when I realised the tables are *reversed* from CT/HG due to 
>the MT task system.  Very interesting.  And MT takes in gunner's skill, while 
>CT Book 2 *does* but HG *doesn't*./...

  HG assumes level 2; p. 44, "Individuals".

>>   Each hit on a triple beam turret costs Cr 250,000 to repair; repair times
>> will involve up to a month at an A or B starport for minor damage.
>
>Emergency repairs are based on undefined 'spare parts' found on the ship in CT 
>& HG.  Same thing for MT.  These emergency repairs take 1 combat turn and you 
>get to roll to see if you can get them done.  This doesn't get the repaired 
>system back to 100% showroom shape, it's more like the 'We got the bubble gum 
>in place, we're replacing the access cover, just skip the 27 point realignment 
>procedure and let's get the hell *OUTTA* here!' variety.  HG & LBB2 both state 
>that *permenant* repairs have to take place at a shipyard.

  Correct; the figures I supplied are the expanded (TCS) repair rules.

>>   For more accurate combat systems (MCS?) how does zero DV available affect
>> the laser targeting solution at long range?
>
>Excuse me??  Not sure what you mean by *that*...

  Specifically, a non-evading target means a long range that is limited only
by ones ability to achieve damaging energy densities at range. As an anti-
piracy measure one can amuse oneself by designing truly ludicrous weapons
(FS Weapons Div., anyone?) like the variant (deviant?) Com-Sat that some
commie sicko posted a ways back, and deploy them solely to slowly roast
targets that are matching ballistic trajectories out near the 100-D limit.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 18:31:12 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Playing with the HG rules

 
>Two batteries means two attack rolls.  I'm asking if each battery fires on its 
> own, why use the full ship's USP weapon factor for hit and damage 
> determination?  30 lasers on a ship means USP8.  30 batteries of 1 laser each 
>means 30 attack rolls.  Are these rolls resolved at USP8, or are they resolved 
> at USP1?  It's only *1* laser hitting per hit, not all of them.
  
The USP is figured for the number of weapons IN THAT BATTERY. Not
the total number on the ship. If one laser is factor 1, then 30
batteries of 1 laser means 30 factor 1 attacks.

It was typical to have uniform Battery strengths, so a ship might
have a laser USP of 8, but iunderneath it would say "Batteries" and
Batteries Bearing."

(I don't remember where lasers are in the USP! :-)

		-XXXX8-
Batteries	     A
Batteries Bearing    9


This would mean the ship has 10 batteries of factor 8, and any 9
could fire at the same target.

Hope this helps.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1079
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Monday, November 2 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1080



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: Playing with the HG rules
Re: Piracy by the Numbers 
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 
Re: Skills in HG combat 
Re: Dead Vilani
re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: on Traveller
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Piracy
Starship Encounters query
Impossible Gunnery (was re: Piracy by the Numbers)
Re: Piracy by the Numbers 
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 
re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: What canon means to me

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 20:39:25 -0500
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

Joe Webb wrote:

> However, what I had really wanted to know was whether Vilani that had no
> contact with Solomani would build tombs.  If their dead stuck around, well
> preserved and such, then no.  No need to hide dear uncle Eneri.  But the
> intestinal fauna eating through the abdomen is too much for me.  Tombs it
> is, nobody is going to want to see uncle Eneri with that happening.

Cremation is an alternative.  Many human cultures practiced this in antiquity
and continue to do so today.  Many American Indian tribes, especially
plains tribes, but by no means all of them.  Some, if not most Vikings,
used to put dead warriors on boats then set them afire.

Putting a dead body in the ground can be a real dumb idea depending on
the water table.

So, combine some of the ideas already mentioned.

Dead Vilani will be consumed by internal microfauna.
This process is not pretty, so the dead were cremated
after being ritualistically prepared, perhaps by a precursor
to the Shugili class; possibly cremated outside of view.
When necessary for survival, dead vilani would be harvested
by the Shugili.

Non-Shugili community leaders who view the practice as a
necessary evil choose not to participate and prefer to be
entombed.  Funereal processes remove the microfauna or
meutralize it.  (Perhaps these intestinal microfauna could
assist Shugili in preparing Vland-native foods for Vilani
consumption?).  Dead leader doesn't decompose and
remains available to be viewed and inspire the community
spirit.

As time goes by, and society advances: the Vilani diet becomes
unnecessary, entombment becomes more popular as a status
symbol with large tombs for families becoming the norm.
While cremation fades from common practice, except possibly
for emergences, deaths in space, in war, etc.  Although, cremation
would make a resurgence when Solomani illnesses and diseases
start to spread. It could even serve as a sort of cultural unity
focus.  A return to the ancient and traditional practice of cremation
in response to disease-ridden incursions of Solomani.

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 18:47:51 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers 
...
>Let's face it, interstellar piracy is a *business*, just like everything else. 
> This implies there are going to be certain strategies that *will* pay off and 
>others that *won't*.  My take is, a *lot* of pirates are amatuers who think 
>they can pull off a couple quick scores and retire.  These are the ones that 
>get caught.  Then there are the *pros*.  They don't get caught as often.  And 
>they make money.

  As an aside to the intercept timing, wouldn't most pros retire after
taking (and selling, presumably?) one or two (call it "a few") ships?
This is pertinent to indicating that their behaviour pattern is rational
and helpful in indicating the equilibrium level of activity by properly
prepared pirates.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 18:47:59 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Playing with the HG rules

>From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
>Subject: Playing with the HG rules
...
>One thing  that I was never sure of is if you reroll if the equipment is
>not present on the ship when you roll damage (eg does a weapon hit become a
>re-roll if the battery is gone?).

  HG specifies ignoring such results.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 20:49:12 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers 

> I think that the initial assumption of "screaming" when boarded is a
> little out of whack. I'd expect a distress call as soon as they
> realize they are under attack.

That wasn't the purpose of the Original Post(tm)  Its purpose was to show 
reasonable response times.

> I'd expect a pirate to:
> 
> 1. Lock the target with passive sensors.
> 2. Fire as close as they can get without being suspicious. If they
> fire at long ranges, or if the target isn't evading, then they
> should be able to get some kind of bonus on attack--at least the
> first shot (picking hull areas to be hit, perhaps, if they are close
> enough).

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.  I dunno bout that.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 18:48:22 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 

...
>Actually, every rebuttal so far has attempted to change the basic
assumptions.  And I *purposely* made them as broad and relevant as possible,
except where noted.  This makes the whole thread relevant.  Frankly, I
didn't believe the numbers I got for the 'slow pass' until I ran them 3
times and came up with the same answers.  I was under the distinct
impression that the 'fast pass' would allow the soonest response.  I was
wrong.  I just didn't mention my built-in beliefs, I just posted the math.
I only started getting into specifics IMTU when asked about them.

  I guess I should feel hurt that my comments obviously don't count as
rebuttals,
as they haven't included attempts to change the basic assumptions (as far as I
can tell). I suppose if I don't provide more "anti-piracy" material quickly I
may be having a talk with the Vice-Chair of Ideology again...   :>

>And by the way, it's Kev*E*n.  My parents were *quite* specific about that.

  I know how you feel - only about 15% or so of people understand that "Steven"
has six letters in it...

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 20:54:44 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Skills in HG combat 

> >I'm still studying MT's ship combat system.  Interesting.  And it started 
> >making sense a bit when I realised the tables are *reversed* from CT/HG due to 
> >the MT task system.  Very interesting.  And MT takes in gunner's skill, while 
> >CT Book 2 *does* but HG *doesn't*./...
> 
>   HG assumes level 2; p. 44, "Individuals".

That's because it's factored in already.  Abstract large scale battles, 
remember?

> >>   Each hit on a triple beam turret costs Cr 250,000 to repair; repair times
> >> will involve up to a month at an A or B starport for minor damage.
> >
> >Emergency repairs are based on undefined 'spare parts' found on the ship in CT 
> >& HG.  Same thing for MT.  These emergency repairs take 1 combat turn and you 
> >get to roll to see if you can get them done.  This doesn't get the repaired 
> >system back to 100% showroom shape, it's more like the 'We got the bubble gum 
> >in place, we're replacing the access cover, just skip the 27 point realignment 
> >procedure and let's get the hell *OUTTA* here!' variety.  HG & LBB2 both state 
> >that *permenant* repairs have to take place at a shipyard.
> 
>   Correct; the figures I supplied are the expanded (TCS) repair rules.

Uh huh.

> >>   For more accurate combat systems (MCS?) how does zero DV available affect
> >> the laser targeting solution at long range?
> >
> >Excuse me??  Not sure what you mean by *that*...
> 
>   Specifically, a non-evading target means a long range that is limited only
> by ones ability to achieve damaging energy densities at range. As an anti-
> piracy measure one can amuse oneself by designing truly ludicrous weapons
> (FS Weapons Div., anyone?) like the variant (deviant?) Com-Sat that some
> commie sicko posted a ways back, and deploy them solely to slowly roast
> targets that are matching ballistic trajectories out near the 100-D limit.

These sats at the 100 diameter 'curb', they can be shot at, right?  And I thought energy weapons could only be used at close range.  Something about the ball of energy dissipating over distance...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 17:57:20 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

>Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 20:23:19 -0500
>From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>

>I always thought this was the dark secret of Shugilis.
>In olden times, the vast majority would be kept ignorant of the source
>of their protein, and the complex cooking processes would disguise
>the source of the food.
>
>As the Vilani developed agriculture and settled other worlds, the need
>need and practice of using the dear departed as dinner would be gone,
>but the ritual and traditions of the Shugili would still be firmly in place.

Just to make clear.  What some of us are pointing out is that there
is no "need".  Canabalism can never make up for a lack of nutrition
in the environment.  Others have pointed out the problems with
systematic canabalism.  The Vilani would have no more reason
to engage in cannibalism than Terrans.

Nor do I think that the Shugili are going to be able to keep
using bodies for food in any systematic way a secret (I won't
take that long for someone to start wanting to know where
the bodies are ending up).  Nor do I see much motivation
for them to do so.

Ritual cannibalism does exist and one can invoke it for the Vilani
(though I see not reason why they would be more prone to it
than others).

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu
(This is the net.  My e-mail address may be in Boston, but I'm in California.)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 20:57:34 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy by the Numbers

John Macek wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Just out of curiousity, does anyone out there play up the difference in
Social Standing?  

IMTU, if Joe Spacer, working for below minimum wage and with a Soc of 1
is at the helm when the pirates give their order to "heave to," he's
gonna do it.  The cargo belongs to some rich guy back in the subsector
capitol, not to Joe, and Mr. Spacer knows that the cargo is insured.  If
he tries to fight, the pirates won't treat him nicely if they ever get
aboard.  One the other hand, if he makes it easy for the pirates, the
pirates will let him escape with his skin.  Or, they might even ask him
to join.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sounds like, if Joe Spacer's behaviour is common IYTU, he'll get to
haul the Cr300/tn grain in his ship while Joe Shipmaster (same skills,
social standing A or so) gets to haul the computer gear, gems and
other MCr1/tn stuff. Another thing that will help keep Joe Spacer
at SS 1 and Joe Shipmaster at SS A.

Oooh, I see another scary thread here - "Social Standing as an
ethics/bravery meter in Traveller"...<g>

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 19:08:46 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: on Traveller

...
>It's like saying 'It's a society like Medieval Britain, but they have
>maize' - if you have maize, then your economic structure is so different
>that you just wouldnt have medieval Britain any more.

  That would be due to increased crop yields by acreage? (with increased
water requirements, IIRC? - not that that should be a big problem)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 19:08:50 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

  I wonder how Vilani feel about decorative wax fruit?

...
>I think this can exist along Joe Webb's ideas.  Not every dead Vilani would
>be cannibalized.  And those who knew of the practice might put corpses on
>display, in the manner suggested by Joe, to prevent the Shugili from processing
>the deceased. I think this would be especially true for community and family
>leaders.  Then, over time, the practice of ancestors on display might become
>more popular, at the same time the need for quick and handy protein sources
>diminishes.
>
>So, the secret reason for ancestors on display is to prevent them from being
>consumed.

  Think of what happens if you simply replace Mr. Shake & Bake with a wax
model, though...

>Works for me.

  ? Cannibal?!  :)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 20:01:27 -0600
From: "Thomas Vickers" <redroach@sprynet.com>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

>>I always thought this was the dark secret of Shugilis.
>>In olden times, the vast majority would be kept ignorant of the source
>>of their protein, and the complex cooking processes would disguise
>>the source of the food.
>>

Can you say "Soylent Green is people?"
tv

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 12:18:11
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Piracy

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 
>
>Because I threw out some math and said 'What do you think?" and got back
'This 
>can't happen in *MY* TU because I *SAY* it can't.  Then I rebutted.  Then
they 
>rebutted.  Ad nauseum.
> 

Well, from me, I took your numbers, and showed under what conditions the
Intruder would be able to close and board and have enough time to loot and
get away.

Then we found another assumption, namely that jump courses are very
specific in the time and space you require.

Is this just civilian jump programs, or are military ships under the same
restrictions ? If they are, it is going to make escaping from battle quite
difficult.

We also found a second assumption, namely that the Target was exactly where
the Intruder wanted it to be.

>> Since this thread obviously has relevance to Kevin's Traveller Universe
>> only, there is absolutely nothing to be said that can mean anything except
>> for what he stipulates as meaningful. We are simply arguing apples and
>> oranges at this point.
>
>Actually, every rebuttal so far has attempted to change the basic
assumptions.  And I *purposely* made them as broad and relevant as
possible, except where noted.  This makes the whole thread relevant.
Frankly, I didn't believe the numbers I got for the 'slow pass' until I ran
them 3 times and came up with the same answers.  I was under the distinct
impression that the 'fast pass' would allow the soonest response.  I was
wrong.  I just didn't mention my built-in beliefs, I just posted the math.
I only started getting into specifics IMTU when asked about them.
>

Math can be made to show anything, if you fix the assumptions well enough.
In the end, it's the assumptions that count ...

>If you assume even *minimal* brains of a professional pirate, you'll realise 
>they'll take outbound prizes, not inbound ones.  Inbound ones are a good way 
>to spend your formative years on a prison planet.

Personally, I assume that minimally intelligent professional pirates will
take their ships somewhere far away, and either sell it, or rent themselves
out as mercenaries or commerce raiders. It's much safer, and closer to
profitable.

Taking outbound prizes is completely, totally reliant on your assumption
that jump courses cannot be calculated on the fly.

If you drop that assumption, then pirates can take neither inbound nor
outbound prizes.

Having outbound courses on Captain's Discretion beyond 10 diameter for
unescorted ships also badly hurts our lurking pirate.

As does having some escorts for rent at the starport (class C starports can
maintain non-jump craft, and an uparmed Type S Detatched Duty scout is well
suited for this role).

Or having the starport announce that 'The outgoing Convoy is at 1400 hours,
and will be escorted by HMS Ditzammer'.

The point of my side of the whole Piracy debate is unless you make some
major changes to how Traveller technology works, or assume major stupidity
by the pirate chasers, or both, then you do not get piracy around
mainworlds in systems with signifigant trade or economies.

This does not mean you have no piracy. Not at all. It just happens, in
effect, to people who consent to take those risks - like the PCs who took
that profitable shipping contract to the worldlet 30 diameters out from a
gas giant, 15 AU from the mainworld's defenses ...

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 19:18:24 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Starship Encounters query

>From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
>Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
...
>BTW, 4 of the 7 pirate encounters in B2 are pirates posing as patrol
>ships. The best starport type to get a pirate encounter is C, and I
>somehow doubt that the patrol ploy will work in many C-starport
>systems (that is the only pirate encounter for a C starport). The
>bottom line is that you need to customize the tables from time to
>time.

  There appears to be a glitch in B:2 (1981; 2nd ed?) on the Starship
Encounters chart, p.35: The +2 DM for "naval base in system" needed to
get a total over 13 can't happen using sysgen in B:3, p. 10 for port
types C & D, both of which go to 14+ on the B:2 chart.

  Is this an erratum?

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 21:17:53 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Impossible Gunnery (was re: Piracy by the Numbers)

Ian Whitchurch wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
(I am kicking the idea that both Navigation and Gunnery are
'impossible' skills - a good Navigator can make a ship behave in ways not
predicted by jumpspace theory, and a good gunner can fire through the veil
of speed-of-light lag to hit a target far more often than they should).
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Gunnery impossible? A bit of good ol' fashioned windage? <G>

Seriously though, higher levels of gunnery may express themselves as
better use of the equipment, better knowledge of what the equipment
can do, perhaps even hazing towards fields more often covered by
Sensor Ops and Ship Tactics - a better understanding of what the
data on the fire control scanner means, a better feel for what your
ship's captain is going to do next, a better guess at what the other
captain is going to do next. 

Maybe a really good gunner on lasers is tweaking the system to get
a higher effective ROF out of it? Gunnery does include the maintenance
of starship weapons. Perhaps a guy with Gunnery Zero is missing
firing opportunities, or simply has such a poorly maintained fire
control system that he's not going to hit anything but a luck shot anyway.

As for missile gunnery, the missile duels in the Honor Harrington books
were an entertaining example - missile fire control in a high-speed
strategy competition with point defense.

Navigation effects will depend so heavily on YTU that I won't touch 'em
here. 

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 21:27:42 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers 

> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> >Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers 
> ...
> >Let's face it, interstellar piracy is a *business*, just like everything else. 
> > This implies there are going to be certain strategies that *will* pay off and 
> >others that *won't*.  My take is, a *lot* of pirates are amatuers who think 
> >they can pull off a couple quick scores and retire.  These are the ones that 
> >get caught.  Then there are the *pros*.  They don't get caught as often.  And 
> >they make money.
> 
>   As an aside to the intercept timing, wouldn't most pros retire after
> taking (and selling, presumably?) one or two (call it "a few") ships?
> This is pertinent to indicating that their behaviour pattern is rational
> and helpful in indicating the equilibrium level of activity by properly
> prepared pirates.

Depends on *why* they got into that line of work in the first place.  A lot of 
the Reavers in Reavers' Deep were out to found their own colonies and 
interstellar nations.  That took money.  They also needed to defend these 
infant states.  That took ships.

FWIW, I'd say my best WAG is that 90% of pirates are the amatuers.  The other 
10% are pros.  <shrug>  Of course, the amatuers would tend to get thinned out 
pretty quickly, thus increasing the overall intelligence of the gene pool...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 19:35:59 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
...
>Now what I want to see is, the odds of a ship coming in at high speed
aquiring you when you pull *real* close to the crippled boat, say, on the
order of 10 meters or less, and set your power plant for hot standby with
enough charge in your lasers for the one shot *you'll* get when they pass.
If the crippled ship is the one throwing out all the neutrinos, odds are,
*it's* the ship that'll be targetted and shot at.  I'd give it a 50-50
chance, and I'll take either end of the bet.

  Hopefully the attacker doesn't have a telescope, or a sensor op as good
as one of Mr. Smiths pirate ships :)  Seriously though, being a truly
ballistic target is a bad idea against lasers - see the Striker rules for
PD fire versus artillery for inspiration.

>Finally, the two most common ships that most likely would do the intercept
would be either a Dragon-class SDB or a Gazelle-class Close Escort.  HG
weapons factors vs a generic Type P corsair with either of these ships
indicate no critical hits using the HG combat system.  Somehow, I *don't*
see a Type P being chased by a Tigress-class battleship, if for no other
reason than the Tigress would be abandoning its post to do the intercept.

  Why would the Gazelle be the most common ship for planetary patrols for which
it is extremely inefficient? Unless you're referring to Imperial patrols to any
worlds which might not be able to support their own assets efficiently? Also, a
Dragon is far from being a high end SDB - even restricting discussion to the
"light" units of 1000 Dt and under.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 21:32:16 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy by the Numbers

Kevin Pittsinger wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
It's not a flame war.  It's just that some people refuse to read what's in the 
posts sometimes.  The math is inarguable.  <shrug>
>>>>>>>>>
They haven't been arguing the math as much as they've been arguing
the assumptions. I've been getting a feel that many think your assumptions
create a special case that won't be found in "reality" often enough (or
even close to often enough) to be very relevant.

IMTU, a running jump is possible. Veteran crews (including experienced
Free Trader captains) will do one in preference to being shot up and
boarded. Less skilled crews (such as one will often find on a
subsidized merchant) may not be capable of making a running jump
safely and would probably heave to.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 21:42:51 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 

>   I guess I should feel hurt that my comments obviously don't count as
> rebuttals,
> as they haven't included attempts to change the basic assumptions (as far as I
> can tell). I suppose if I don't provide more "anti-piracy" material quickly I
> may be having a talk with the Vice-Chair of Ideology again...   :>

No problem.  Just sit in this Comfy Chair while I strap you in.  Mind the 
fluffy pillows will you?

> >And by the way, it's Kev*E*n.  My parents were *quite* specific about that.
> 
>   I know how you feel - only about 15% or so of people understand that "Steven"
> has six letters in it...

*nod*

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 21:48:34 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy by the Numbers

Keven Pittsinger wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
OK, there's where I threw in the USP by battery 'fix'.  Each battery on the P, 
having only 3 lasers, would have a USP of 3, not 4.  Under the standard 
assumption, you can take, for example, a 3KT boat and put 30 single laser 
turrets on it, each turret configured as its own battery.  The ship's USP 
value for the lasers is 8, unless they're TL13 or better lasers, in which 
case, they're Factor 9.  Now, each laser is its own battery.  Does each 
battery now attack as Factor 8, or does it attack as Factor 1?  Think very 
carefully about this now.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A 3ktn boat can put 30 triple laser turrets on itself. If it wants them to
be factor-8 (9 at TL13), it has to group them into 10-turret batteries
and will get three whopping big shots - though still not big enough
shots to do criticals on anything 1000tns or bigger.

If the 3ktn boat wants each turret to be a battery, each battery will only
be (IIRC) factor-3 - but you will indeed get thirty shots.

Battery factor ratings in High Guard are based on how many weapons
are in that battery (and the tech level modifier). I really don't understand
where the idea of a 3ktn boat with 30 factor-8 laser batteries on it comes
from, perhaps I'm misreading something - it looks like Keven rated the
lasers based on how many lasers there were, then put all the lasers
into each and every turret.

You can only have each laser be it's own (factor-1) battery if you
have ten or fewer turrets. On a ship this small, the HG rules fudge
a bit to let you treat each weapon on _mixed weapon_ turrets as
it's own battery, to allow those Free Traders with mixed turrets a
place in the game.

One thing to note, though. A larger factor will cause critical hits on
ships under 1000tns, but once your target hits 1000tns or more
the only effect a higher factor has is to increase the chance of hitting
and overcoming sandcasters.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 21:59:11 -0500
From: "Thom Harris" <thomharr@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: What canon means to me

- -----Original Message-----
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Monday, November 02, 1998 11:20 AM
Subject: Re: What canon means to me


>>
>>But they aren't the same universe.
>
>That's where you're wrong. The OTU is one universe. Or at least, it ought
to
>be. When it isn't, I consider it a grave fault.

>
I always considered a "grave fault" as something that was potentually
dangerous to human kind.  Damn, and all this time I thought I was playing a
game.
>
>>We make great use of "IMTU" for In My Traveller Universe, just because
>>everyone is going to alter the canonical setting their liking.
>
>You just said it yourself. We do use IMTU because everone alters the
canonical
>setting to their liking. Let me repeat the significant words: "the
canonical
>setting". Singular. There should only be one. If you want to change YTU to
>something only resembling the OTU vaguely, you're entitled  --  though if
>that is the case I don't see just why you care about the OTU in the first
>place  --  and if I want to keep MTU as close as possible to the OTU, I
>should be allowed to do that. Most especially the OTU shouldn't change from
>under me just because some author didn't manage to take previous published
>material into account. Deliberate changes for some good purpose... maybe
>yes, maybe no, depends on the purpose.

>
You are allowed to do just that!  The key to this is simplicity itself.  The
authors are busy trying to produce more material to make a living.  They
don't have the luxury of going back and correcting something that is 15 - 20
years old.  Especially if they no longer have the rights to certain pieces
of the material.  No matter how much bitching you do, you are the only one
that is so anally rententive that you believe that changes are still
necessary after 15+ years.

"For your own sake man get a life." <William Shatner talking to a die hard
Trekkie Fan>
>
>>If we were arguing the current deployment of the United states Navy, we
>>could get hard facts.  But we are discussing a fictional environment. No
>>matter how hard you try, there will always be some room for disagreement.
>
>So much the more reason to make the official material as close to hard
facts
>as possible. That's why I dislike the "everthing is viewpoint writing"
>school so much. If everything is viewpoint writing, then there are no
>hard facts and Traveller authors are free to produce stuff that I can't
>use.
>

But Hans, are you still using nothing but the original LBB's and CT stuff?
If you refuse to buy them then you set yourself up to be in this situation.
If people can't make a living writing this stuff then there won't be anymore
written.  I'm sorry, I'll take the mistakes and pay for the product.  If I
spot the mistake then I will submit an erratta entry back to the
publishers/author.  Hopefully they won't be in bankruptcy court.
>
>No, I don't think so. As far as I am concerned, Gary's insults were mild
>and didn't bother me. All taken in a friendly spirit. And I assume that he
>is able to take it as well as he can dish it out.
>
>      Hans Rancke
>
Hans I just can't figure you out here.  You make a good case for things
(Pirates Wars Included) but in the process you "talk" down to people like
they are just too dense to understand what you're saying.  Everyone
basically understands, we all seem to have an intelligence at least equal to
an egg plant. That should be enough to get us into the ball park of your
logic.  What almost everyone has been saying to you is....IT DON'T
MATTER!!!....Sure we would all love to see all the little glitches fixed,
but is it going to take away from the FUN of the game. Its highly probable
that it is taking away from some of your FUN but you still play the game.
Yes it does detract from the game a bit but not the FUN!

Let's get back to the point I was making earlier in this message.  Loren,
Marc and others are trying to make a living off these stories. If for some
reason you have a problem with something (that they have no control over or
better yet, have no time to dedicate to these nits) then send them an eMail.
You know and I know that they wouldn't have the time to argue one way or the
other on the TML.  If they made a canonical solution on high (without
consulting the TML)  then that would P.O. a whole new group of people that
are now going to be using up bandwidth to voice their opinions. It's much
easier on them to just sit back and let the one maniacal rantor carry on.

That gets me back to this; talking down to your contemporaries isn't going
to get you their support.  You are turning people off with your attitude
which is a shame because you gave me pause with some of the things you
pointed out.  Your observation ability is excellent, you attention to detail
is extraordinary, your use of the English language is wonderful, however,
your ability to communicate your ideas in a positive way sucks!

Thom Harris

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1080
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Monday, November 2 1998      Volume 1998 : Number 1081



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Nanotech (was re: on Traveller)
re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: Piracy 
Re:What canon means to me
Is io.com back up yet?
Re: Impossible Gunnery (was re: Piracy by the Numbers) 
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Piracy
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
re: Piracy
Re: Piracy by the Numbers 
Re: Off topic
re: Impossible Gunnery
Re: Nanotech (was re: on Traveller) 
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080
Re: Piracy 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 22:01:51 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Nanotech (was re: on Traveller)

Ian Whitchurch wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
It's like saying 'It's a society like Medieval Britain, but they have
maize' - if you have maize, then your economic structure is so different
that you just wouldnt have medieval Britain any more.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
If I've just stepped off a long-ranging Viking ship, just back from an
unrecorded or misrecorded voyage that touched on the coasts of
North America, and I have a pocketful of viable maize seeds that I
intend to found a kingdom on, then we are still in Medieval Britain - 
for a decade or so, anyway. And it might be a very interesting decade
at that...

ObTrav, of course: the piles of Ancient Artifacts, experimental technologies
and other universe-shattering things that GM's keep filtering into the
hands of PC's, then conveniently disposing of when the tech balance
becomes endangered...

It would be kind of neat to be the only guy with the secret of nanotech.
It could even, were your goals limited enough, not affect the universe
very much at all - who's going to notice that you never catch cold,
always have some money on hand and get the most out of your
anagathics treatments?
I don't see one guy figuring it out, and I don't see a group with the
resources to figure it out just sitting on it. Why create a tech that
can literally change the world if you don't intend to do just that?

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 22:14:56 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy by the Numbers

Steven Hudson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
  As an aside to the intercept timing, wouldn't most pros retire after
taking (and selling, presumably?) one or two (call it "a few") ships?
This is pertinent to indicating that their behaviour pattern is rational
and helpful in indicating the equilibrium level of activity by properly
prepared pirates.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Dread Pirate Roberts"?

Successful pirate retires with his millions, sells (leases?) his ship to
his first mate who becomes captain and continues the proud traditions?
If one ship taken makes you wealthy enough to quit, there will be some
pretty high turnover in the pirate profession - and not just from lurking
patrol boats.

The Corsair profession, if you survive it, gets you pretty much the best
change of having the best player-owned ship available...and it doesn't
even have any payments owed on it. These retired successful pirates
must be selling them off at a discount...<g>

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 22:45:53 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy 

> >Because I threw out some math and said 'What do you think?" and got back
> 'This 
> >can't happen in *MY* TU because I *SAY* it can't.  Then I rebutted.  Then
> they 
> >rebutted.  Ad nauseum.
> 
> Well, from me, I took your numbers, and showed under what conditions the
> Intruder would be able to close and board and have enough time to loot and
> get away.
> 
> Then we found another assumption, namely that jump courses are very
> specific in the time and space you require.

For the purposes of the Original Post(tm), I don't see how jump courses were 
relevant.  We got into *that* argument on the fly.  The Original Premise was, 
the Intruder and Target were at the 100 diameter limit.  Intruder's prize crew 
boards as Target's crew calls for help.  Defender responds.  I was looking to 
define the parameters for an engagement of Defender and Intruder under those 
conditions, not Intruder and Target; that combat was already finished.

> Is this just civilian jump programs, or are military ships under the same
> restrictions ? If they are, it is going to make escaping from battle quite
> difficult.

Under CT LBB2, the 5th step of every turn half is the Computer Programming 
step.  The new computer program cannot be used until the next turn.  That's 1 
combat turn.

A Computer-3 has 5 spaces for active programs.  Assuming the pilot has 
Manuver/Evade-1 loaded, he's now down to 4 spaces (M/E-1 takes 1 space).  
Target takes 1 space and is needed to fire turrets.  3 spaces left.  Assume 
they'll want to run Gunner Interact to allow the gunners' skill to be brought 
online.  That's another space.  2 left.If you've got missiles, you're going to 
want to use them.  That means Launch has to be loaded.  1 space left. Generate 
creates the jump path.  You need Navigation *AND* the appropriate jump program 
loaded as well.  Generate takes up a space.  Thus, in a combat situation on a 
standard Type R liner, you can generate your Jump data in 1 turn, but you'll 
have to reprogram so you can actually *DO* your jump the next turn.
 
> We also found a second assumption, namely that the Target was exactly where
> the Intruder wanted it to be.

No, according to the Original Post(tm), the Target and Intruder were 
willy-nilly placed at the 100 diameter limit for the purpose of determining 
intercept from orbit strategies.
 
> >> Since this thread obviously has relevance to Kevin's Traveller Universe
> >> only, there is absolutely nothing to be said that can mean anything except
> >> for what he stipulates as meaningful. We are simply arguing apples and
> >> oranges at this point.
> >
> >Actually, every rebuttal so far has attempted to change the basic
> assumptions.  And I *purposely* made them as broad and relevant as
> possible, except where noted.  This makes the whole thread relevant.
> Frankly, I didn't believe the numbers I got for the 'slow pass' until I ran
> them 3 times and came up with the same answers.  I was under the distinct
> impression that the 'fast pass' would allow the soonest response.  I was
> wrong.  I just didn't mention my built-in beliefs, I just posted the math.
> I only started getting into specifics IMTU when asked about them.
> >
> 
> Math can be made to show anything, if you fix the assumptions well enough.
> In the end, it's the assumptions that count ...

*shrug*  Doesn't mean you get to throw the math out if it doesn't fit your pet 
theories.  It means you get to look at your theories a bit harder.  As I 
already mentioned in a Previous Post, I fully expected the fastest response to 
the Intruder to be with the 'Fast Pass' model.  The math didn't support this, 
and I commented on it.  Now, if I wanted to 'prove' my pet theory that the 
'Fast Pass' was the optimum intercept strategy, I would have massaged the math 
to show this.  I didn't do that.

> >If you assume even *minimal* brains of a professional pirate, you'll realise 
> >they'll take outbound prizes, not inbound ones.  Inbound ones are a good way 
> >to spend your formative years on a prison planet.
> 
> Personally, I assume that minimally intelligent professional pirates will
> take their ships somewhere far away, and either sell it, or rent themselves
> out as mercenaries or commerce raiders. It's much safer, and closer to
> profitable.

*shrug*  Again, it depends on their motivations.  I've seen a lot of 'this 
can't happen because I think it's stupid', or 'this can't happen because the 
encounter table is *OBVIOUSLY* wrong'.  *shrug*  YTU.  Mine, I go with the 
math.
 
> Taking outbound prizes is completely, totally reliant on your assumption
> that jump courses cannot be calculated on the fly.

Taking outbound prizes is dependent on the fact that under the specified 
ruleset, the average merchie is going to be too busy trying to save his own 
life to reprogram his computer to calculate and execute a jump on the fly.  
His stock computer just won't handle doing 7 things at once.  *shrug*  YMMV.

> If you drop that assumption, then pirates can take neither inbound nor
> outbound prizes.

If you drop the assumption that computers can be instantly programmed at will 
and whim regardless of effects to the ship, your ship just *might* survive to 
get to the 100 diameter jump point.  Under the original CT rules, you didn't 
need to run a Generate program if you used pregenerated course tapes.  These 
tapes specify one jump solution at a prescribed transition speed.  Anything 
happening to the ship to keep that solution from happening is going to either 
cancel the jump or make the ship misjump.  Generate costs 1MCr and does not 
necessarily come stock with your ship.  You're allowed (computer number) MCr 
worth of software with the computer when you buy it.  Anything else you gotta 
buy later or write yourself.  Your software library is going to be expensive, 
since if you're capable of making a Jump-3, you need the Jump-3 program for it 
as well as Jump-2 program for a Jump-2 and the Jump-1 program to do a Jump-1 
or microjump.  the Jump-3 program will not do a Jump-1.  The combo costs 
800KCr.  Other programs cost other costs.  Generate costs 1MCr.  Which do you 
get?
 
> Having outbound courses on Captain's Discretion beyond 10 diameter for
> unescorted ships also badly hurts our lurking pirate.

If you're running a pregenerated tape, there is no Captain's Disgretion.  If 
you're not, you still have to load and run the Generate, Navigate, and Jump-x 
programs to jump.  Your opponent will get another shot at you the next turn 
which may disable you to the point where you can't jump.

> As does having some escorts for rent at the starport (class C starports can
> maintain non-jump craft, and an uparmed Type S Detatched Duty scout is well
> suited for this role).

A Type S can be upgunned to 1 triple turret.  The merchie has whatever it has. 
 The Type P is running 3 triple turrets as per assumption in the Original 
Post(tm).  Any hit from any of his triple turrets will cause at least 1 if not 
2 critical hits on the Type S.  Three guesses who two of the batteries will be 
targetting while the other keeps the merchie honest.

> Or having the starport announce that 'The outgoing Convoy is at 1400 hours,
> and will be escorted by HMS Ditzammer'.

Around the Size 8 planet specified in the Original Post(tm), sooner or later 
the merchie will leave the detection range of planetary sensors.  It's a long 
way to the jump point.  And if the Intruder does detect said Defender 
escorting the Target, the Intruder can always wave off and let them go.  
Nothing says the pirates have to be stupid.  I don't buy indirect fire from 
something not even in sensor range.
 
> The point of my side of the whole Piracy debate is unless you make some
> major changes to how Traveller technology works, or assume major stupidity
> by the pirate chasers, or both, then you do not get piracy around
> mainworlds in systems with signifigant trade or economies.

My studies shows this not to be the case.  Assume you have 10 merchies flying 
out per day.  You'll need 10 SDBs just for escort duty if they don't want to 
convoy.  What's guarding your planet from that Tigress inbound while your SDBs 
are chasing down that nickel dime pirate?  You might get the pirate.  Your 
planet will get creamed.  And your SDB's will cost you about 770MCr per.   10 
of them will cost you 7.7BCr.

> This does not mean you have no piracy. Not at all. It just happens, in
> effect, to people who consent to take those risks - like the PCs who took
> that profitable shipping contract to the worldlet 30 diameters out from a
> gas giant, 15 AU from the mainworld's defenses ...

My take is, it can happen anywhere, but a pirate would be a damned fool to take inbounds or try to intercept anywhere else but near the 100 diameter limit.  And once the Target has taken hits, it's going to want to be past the 100 diameter limit as well, to reduce strain on jerryrigged systems and keep from having them cause him a misjump.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 22:57:48 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re:What canon means to me

>I always considered a "grave fault" as something that was potentually
>dangerous to human kind.  Damn, and all this time I thought I was playing
>a
>game.

No no no.

A "grave fault" is what you get when you don't bury your dead Vilani
properly, silly.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 23:00:00 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Is io.com back up yet?

Loren or someone:

I'm still getting bounces from io.com. Is it my (admittedly fornicated)
system, or is io.com still bouncing incoming email?

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 23:06:19 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Impossible Gunnery (was re: Piracy by the Numbers) 

> Seriously though, higher levels of gunnery may express themselves as
> better use of the equipment, better knowledge of what the equipment
> can do, perhaps even hazing towards fields more often covered by
> Sensor Ops and Ship Tactics - a better understanding of what the
> data on the fire control scanner means, a better feel for what your
> ship's captain is going to do next, a better guess at what the other
> captain is going to do next. 

Sensor ops ain't in CT.  <ducking>  I use Navigation for that.

> Maybe a really good gunner on lasers is tweaking the system to get
> a higher effective ROF out of it? Gunnery does include the maintenance
> of starship weapons. Perhaps a guy with Gunnery Zero is missing
> firing opportunities, or simply has such a poorly maintained fire
> control system that he's not going to hit anything but a luck shot anyway.

Under the ruleset specified in the Original Post(tm), ROF of every battery is 
1 shot per.  If you're running the proper Gunner Interact program, you can add 
the gunner's skill to the shot.

> As for missile gunnery, the missile duels in the Honor Harrington books
> were an entertaining example - missile fire control in a high-speed
> strategy competition with point defense.

Fascinating stuff, eh?
 
> Navigation effects will depend so heavily on YTU that I won't touch 'em
> here. 

*nod*  But I'd give high Nav skill some DM's to help them successfully plot that jump point while the ship is taking fire.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 23:12:29 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

Disclaimer:  The post that Steve replied to was written before I did the math 
for Piracy By the Numbers and assumes the 'Fast Pass' intercept scenario.

> >Now what I want to see is, the odds of a ship coming in at high speed
> aquiring you when you pull *real* close to the crippled boat, say, on the
> order of 10 meters or less, and set your power plant for hot standby with
> enough charge in your lasers for the one shot *you'll* get when they pass.
> If the crippled ship is the one throwing out all the neutrinos, odds are,
> *it's* the ship that'll be targetted and shot at.  I'd give it a 50-50
> chance, and I'll take either end of the bet.
> 
>   Hopefully the attacker doesn't have a telescope, or a sensor op as good
> as one of Mr. Smiths pirate ships :)  Seriously though, being a truly
> ballistic target is a bad idea against lasers - see the Striker rules for
> PD fire versus artillery for inspiration.

OK, so you're gonna resolve a 30 meter target butted up against another 30 
meter object at 500K klicks while you're moving at high speed?  You're over 
1.5 light-seconds out, too.  Can you say 'ridiculously impossible task roll'?

> >Finally, the two most common ships that most likely would do the intercept
> would be either a Dragon-class SDB or a Gazelle-class Close Escort.  HG
> weapons factors vs a generic Type P corsair with either of these ships
> indicate no critical hits using the HG combat system.  Somehow, I *don't*
> see a Type P being chased by a Tigress-class battleship, if for no other
> reason than the Tigress would be abandoning its post to do the intercept.
> 
>   Why would the Gazelle be the most common ship for planetary patrols for which
> it is extremely inefficient? Unless you're referring to Imperial patrols to any
> worlds which might not be able to support their own assets efficiently? Also, a
> Dragon is far from being a high end SDB - even restricting discussion to the
> "light" units of 1000 Dt and under.

Because they're relatively cheap as warships go.  And they're both standard designs which makes them cheaper in quantity.  They're also pretty heavily armed for their size class as well as heavily armoured in comparison to civilian targets.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 21:21:13 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy

 
> Around the Size 8 planet specified in the Original Post(tm), sooner or later 
> the merchie will leave the detection range of planetary sensors.  It's a long 
> way to the jump point.  And if the Intruder does detect said Defender 
> escorting the Target, the Intruder can always wave off and let them go.  
> Nothing says the pirates have to be stupid.  I don't buy indirect fire from 
> something not even in sensor range.
  
A potential point of misunderstanding is the sensor stuff. I know
what B2 says, but many people on the list use other systems (some
are even "canon" :-) DSR is a more realistic way to model traveller
sensors, and the bottom line is that you can see a ship radiating
hundreds of MWs of power from a *long* way away. 

A scout ship is a naked eye object from the planetary surface :-)

> > The point of my side of the whole Piracy debate is unless you make some
> > major changes to how Traveller technology works, or assume major stupidity
> > by the pirate chasers, or both, then you do not get piracy around
> > mainworlds in systems with signifigant trade or economies.
> 
> My studies shows this not to be the case.  Assume you have 10 merchies flying 
> out per day.  You'll need 10 SDBs just for escort duty if they don't want to 
>convoy.  What's guarding your planet from that Tigress inbound while your SDBs 
> are chasing down that nickel dime pirate?  You might get the pirate.  Your 
> planet will get creamed.  And your SDB's will cost you about 770MCr per.   10 
> of them will cost you 7.7BCr.
 
Two things, one, I doubt that you'll see any pirates around
mainworlds in busy systems. Two, the SDB would be toast from a
Tigress long before it even got close enough to shoot. Anything
below a few thousand tons in traveller only ever engages with
smaller ships (like PC ships or pirates) since they are useless for
anything else.

> > This does not mean you have no piracy. Not at all. It just happens, in
> > effect, to people who consent to take those risks - like the PCs who took
> > that profitable shipping contract to the worldlet 30 diameters out from a
> > gas giant, 15 AU from the mainworld's defenses ...
 
This is closer to reality, IMHO.

The occational act of piray might well happen elsewhere, but
precisely because it is such a dumb thing to do--no one expects it,
and defences get lax.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 21:26:51 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds

 
> OK, so you're gonna resolve a 30 meter target butted up against another 30 
> meter object at 500K klicks while you're moving at high speed?  You're over 
> 1.5 light-seconds out, too.  Can you say 'ridiculously impossible task roll'?
 
If you're on an intercept course, they *aren't* moving :-)

All that matters is if they move rapidly in angle on the sky.

I'll agree that there is a decent chance of hitting the merchie, but
depending on the typical modes of piracy, they might not care. If
pirates usually kill off the target's crew, then the SDBs might say
screw it and blast 'em. If not, as they get closer, they can resolve
the target from the prey. This is a point that would be useful to
figure out in DSR. For most combat resolution isn't all that
important, but it would be in this kind of a case.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 23:20:55 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy

Keven Pittsinger wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A Computer-3 has 5 spaces for active programs.  Assuming the pilot has 
Manuver/Evade-1 loaded, he's now down to 4 spaces (M/E-1 takes 1 space).
<snip>
Generate creates the jump path.  You need Navigation *AND* the 
appropriate jump program loaded as well.  Generate takes up a space.  
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The ideas below were from _Mayday_, but they made enough
sense that I'll be including them IMTU:

Maneuver/Evade adds random movements to the ship's vector to
make it harder to hit. This has some penalties though - it costs the
ship 1G of acceleration, and the ship is making too many complex
movements for Generate to be able to create a jump path.

If you want to run away as fast as you can, you aren't dodging. 
A 1G Free Trader that's dodging won't be gaining velocity. And
you have to stop the fancy jinking if you want to prepare for jump.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 23:32:03 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers 

> A 3ktn boat can put 30 triple laser turrets on itself. If it wants them to
> be factor-8 (9 at TL13), it has to group them into 10-turret batteries
> and will get three whopping big shots - though still not big enough
> shots to do criticals on anything 1000tns or bigger.

Yeah, I've been corrected on this point.  I'm blaming it on bad eyesight, bad 
memory, and terminal burnout.  Mea culpa.

> Battery factor ratings in High Guard are based on how many weapons
> are in that battery (and the tech level modifier). I really don't understand
> where the idea of a 3ktn boat with 30 factor-8 laser batteries on it comes
> from, perhaps I'm misreading something - it looks like Keven rated the
> lasers based on how many lasers there were, then put all the lasers
> into each and every turret.

I also mentioned I was fixing something that wasn't broke.

> You can only have each laser be it's own (factor-1) battery if you
> have ten or fewer turrets. On a ship this small, the HG rules fudge
> a bit to let you treat each weapon on _mixed weapon_ turrets as
> it's own battery, to allow those Free Traders with mixed turrets a
> place in the game.

Exactly.  I was counting up all the lasers the boat was carrying & using 
*that* number for the USP factor instead of all the lasers per battery.  
However, I was using the USP factor of each battery to 'fix' something that 
was broken.  This didn't invalidate the math or the discussion.

> One thing to note, though. A larger factor will cause critical hits on
> ships under 1000tns, but once your target hits 1000tns or more
> the only effect a higher factor has is to increase the chance of hitting
> and overcoming sandcasters.

*nod*  Personally, I'm more of the 'do unto others' school when it comes to shipboard weaponry.  I'd rather have something that can dish it out rather than something that can take it.  It helps make the bad guys fall down a bit faster and makes things a bit easier on you.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 23:32:25 -0500
From: "Harold D. Hale" <hdhale@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Off topic

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 08:04:52 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: 

>From: "Harold D. Hale" <hdhale@mindspring.com>
>
>Rob Prior writes:

>>   Argh!  Of course the US is going to have a higher incidence of gun
>>violence.  Then again let's look at the *real* reason why...
>
>Actually, the number published by the UN are intentional homicides per
>100,000 population, so the differing populations ARE taken into account.
>From memory (because I can't access the web from here): Canada 1.8,
>Jamaica 5.x, USA 9.9, can't remember others.

   This is what I'm talking about.  I could go on now to point out that
Canada's incidents of gun violence have actually increased since the
institution of stricter gun control, and that the numbers for the US are
concentrated in urban areas with strict gun control.  Undoubtedly you can
throw some more numbers at me, and so and so on.  This accomplishes nothing.

> I was trying to use it as an example where there are arguments for 
> and against controlling weaponry, but strong cultural factors 
> preclude control even if it is logical. I can see the
> same debate over controlling starship weaponry happening in some 
> imaginary Traveller bar using exactly the same terms we use for 
> the gun control debate (except for the constitutional arguments).

   As long as starship weaponry is around, you will have armed commercial
starships.  Space is too big for the navy or system defense forces to be
everywhere all the time, and there are simply too many worlds producing
starship weapons (and selling them to whoever can pay) to try to enforce
any kind of overall ban.

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 23:28:25 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Impossible Gunnery

Keven Pittsinger wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Under the ruleset specified in the Original Post(tm), ROF of every battery is 
1 shot per.  If you're running the proper Gunner Interact program, you can add the gunner's skill to the shot.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I'd always read the rules to mean one _effective_ shot per turn.
That turn is 1000seconds long, remember? You may have fired the
laser a half-dozen times, higher Gunnery skill (with Gunner
Interact running) would have let you correct off each shot enough to
increase your chance of getting one effective shot to hit. You still only
roll damage once, but the feedback from the other shots really makes
a difference in hitting.

<Recalling a "Murphy's Rules" cartoon of a CT Gunnery crew
interrupting their really long coffee break to go fire the lasers
for a few minutes...>


Walt Smith
System Manager
Hartwick College
Oneonta, NY
smithw@hartwick.edu

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 23:36:13 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Nanotech (was re: on Traveller) 

> ObTrav, of course: the piles of Ancient Artifacts, experimental technologies
> and other universe-shattering things that GM's keep filtering into the
> hands of PC's, then conveniently disposing of when the tech balance
> becomes endangered...

Heheh.

> It would be kind of neat to be the only guy with the secret of nanotech.
> It could even, were your goals limited enough, not affect the universe
> very much at all - who's going to notice that you never catch cold,
> always have some money on hand and get the most out of your
> anagathics treatments?

Interesting idea.  A bit trite & somewhat beaten to death in sci fi these 
days, but still interesting...

> I don't see one guy figuring it out, and I don't see a group with the
> resources to figure it out just sitting on it. Why create a tech that
> can literally change the world if you don't intend to do just that?

I can see them *getting* some nanites.  I can't see them learning how to program the little buggers very easily.  Fact is, I can see my players go "WTF is this?  Sand???  We fought our way here for SAND????" and throwing the canister away.  <GRIN>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:41:40
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080

>From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
>Subject: Re: on Traveller
>
>...
>>It's like saying 'It's a society like Medieval Britain, but they have
>>maize' - if you have maize, then your economic structure is so different
>>that you just wouldnt have medieval Britain any more.
>
>  That would be due to increased crop yields by acreage? (with increased
>water requirements, IIRC? - not that that should be a big problem)
>

Not only more crop per acre, but vastly more yield per corn sown. Wheat did
between 3.5 and 6 to every corn sown in medieval Europe (ref Braudel,
Structures of Everyday Life), while Maize will do 50-1, and with none of
that multiple ploughing and harrowing work, either. There is a *good*
reason Hon-Eel (the daughter of the Red Goddess who brought Maize from the
Otherworld) is such an important goddess in Glorantha ...

Basically, with maize you go from needing 90%+ of your population on the
land and having regular famines, to needing 50% of your population on the
land, and having consistent food surpluses.

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
>Subject: Impossible Gunnery (was re: Piracy by the Numbers)
>
>Seriously though, higher levels of gunnery may express themselves as
>better use of the equipment, better knowledge of what the equipment
>can do, perhaps even hazing towards fields more often covered by
>Sensor Ops and Ship Tactics - a better understanding of what the
>data on the fire control scanner means, a better feel for what your
>ship's captain is going to do next, a better guess at what the other
>captain is going to do next. 
>

The above stuff is for me the difference between greenhorn (skill-1) and
competant (skill-2). I want something that goes beyond that ...

>Maybe a really good gunner on lasers is tweaking the system to get
>a higher effective ROF out of it? Gunnery does include the maintenance
>of starship weapons. Perhaps a guy with Gunnery Zero is missing
>firing opportunities, or simply has such a poorly maintained fire
>control system that he's not going to hit anything but a luck shot anyway.
>

I'm not completely happy with it, becuase shouldnt this sort of thing be
covered with the ability of the maintainence crew ? I thought that on
merchant ships, the gunners were usually stewards pulling double duty,
which leave the Engineering crew doing the maintainence work.

>As for missile gunnery, the missile duels in the Honor Harrington books
>were an entertaining example - missile fire control in a high-speed
>strategy competition with point defense.
>
>Navigation effects will depend so heavily on YTU that I won't touch 'em
>here. 

Yeah. You have to be real careful that you dont allow, for example, a
Navigator-5 to allow a merchant ship 40 jumps a year rather than 35, which
translates into the value of a small world per year with a megatrader.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 23:49:55 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy 

>  
> > Around the Size 8 planet specified in the Original Post(tm), sooner or later 
> > the merchie will leave the detection range of planetary sensors.  It's a long 
> > way to the jump point.  And if the Intruder does detect said Defender 
> > escorting the Target, the Intruder can always wave off and let them go.  
> > Nothing says the pirates have to be stupid.  I don't buy indirect fire from 
> > something not even in sensor range.
>   
> A potential point of misunderstanding is the sensor stuff. I know
> what B2 says, but many people on the list use other systems (some
> are even "canon" :-) DSR is a more realistic way to model traveller
> sensors, and the bottom line is that you can see a ship radiating
> hundreds of MWs of power from a *long* way away. 

I don't have, nor am I familiar with, the DSR.  I'm using numbers straight out 
of CT & HG.

> A scout ship is a naked eye object from the planetary surface :-)

At 1,280,000 klicks???????????????????????????????????????????

Who's your eye doctor??????????????????

> > My studies shows this not to be the case.  Assume you have 10 merchies flying 
> > out per day.  You'll need 10 SDBs just for escort duty if they don't want to 
> >convoy.  What's guarding your planet from that Tigress inbound while your SDBs 
> > are chasing down that nickel dime pirate?  You might get the pirate.  Your 
> > planet will get creamed.  And your SDB's will cost you about 770MCr per.   10 
> > of them will cost you 7.7BCr.
>  
> Two things, one, I doubt that you'll see any pirates around
> mainworlds in busy systems. Two, the SDB would be toast from a
> Tigress long before it even got close enough to shoot. Anything
> below a few thousand tons in traveller only ever engages with
> smaller ships (like PC ships or pirates) since they are useless for
> anything else.

A.  Probably not.  AAMOF, according to the stock CT encounter tables, you 
won't find them in any system with Type A or B starports.

B.  Not necessarily the case.  A good case can be made for fighters shooting 
nuke missiles at capital ships.  Nuke missiles would help scrape the USP down, 
so eventually, the capital ship's counterbattery fire is eventually gonna gun 
for them.  Lots of fighters = lots of targets to keep the Tigress busy.

> > > This does not mean you have no piracy. Not at all. It just happens, in
> > > effect, to people who consent to take those risks - like the PCs who took
> > > that profitable shipping contract to the worldlet 30 diameters out from a
> > > gas giant, 15 AU from the mainworld's defenses ...
>  
> This is closer to reality, IMHO.

I'm not saying piracy won't take place in transplanetary space, I'm saying 
that it's more likely around the 100 diameter limit.

> The occational act of piray might well happen elsewhere, but
> precisely because it is such a dumb thing to do--no one expects it,
> and defences get lax.

When you're at least 108 minutes from detection range at best speed, what's so dumb about it?  You've got 108 minutes at least to fade into the woodwork, probably closer to 120 minutes; I'd do the math, but I've been up for 20 hours & answering all these damned emails for 9, so I'll pass on it & leave it as an exercise for teh Students.  <grin>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1081
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, November 3 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1082



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Impossible Gunnery 
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Starship Encounters query
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
Re: Piracy 
Starship Weapons (was re: Off topic)
Gunnery Crew (was re: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080)
Re: Phooey on canon
Re: Piracy
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
Re: Maize and Piracy
Re: Long range fire
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)
Re: Phooey on Canon
Re Piracy

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 23:54:07 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Impossible Gunnery 

> Keven Pittsinger wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Under the ruleset specified in the Original Post(tm), ROF of every battery is 
> 1 shot per.  If you're running the proper Gunner Interact program, you can add the gunner's skill to the shot.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> I'd always read the rules to mean one _effective_ shot per turn.
> That turn is 1000seconds long, remember? You may have fired the
> laser a half-dozen times, higher Gunnery skill (with Gunner
> Interact running) would have let you correct off each shot enough to
> increase your chance of getting one effective shot to hit. You still only
> roll damage once, but the feedback from the other shots really makes
> a difference in hitting.

I always took it as it took time to recharge the weapon, thus the comment 
about 'sitting silent with the lasers charged for *your* one shot' remark 
yesterday.

> <Recalling a "Murphy's Rules" cartoon of a CT Gunnery crew
> interrupting their really long coffee break to go fire the lasers
> for a few minutes...>

I missed that one.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 23:59:14 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

>  
> > OK, so you're gonna resolve a 30 meter target butted up against another 30 
> > meter object at 500K klicks while you're moving at high speed?  You're over 
> > 1.5 light-seconds out, too.  Can you say 'ridiculously impossible task roll'?
>  
> If you're on an intercept course, they *aren't* moving :-)

*YOU'RE* moving.  And you're past extreme range.

> All that matters is if they move rapidly in angle on the sky.
> 
> I'll agree that there is a decent chance of hitting the merchie, but
> depending on the typical modes of piracy, they might not care. If
> pirates usually kill off the target's crew, then the SDBs might say
> screw it and blast 'em. If not, as they get closer, they can resolve
> the target from the prey. This is a point that would be useful to
> figure out in DSR. For most combat resolution isn't all that
> important, but it would be in this kind of a case.

The Defender crews won't get many hero buttons that way.  I was under the 
assumption that Defender's mission was to attack the Intruder and disable it 
for capture rather than toast anything in sight.  YMMV, but I'd put any SDB 
crew that pulled a stunt like that up on charges in a Mishun minute if I were 
their squadron CO.  Whacking out honest merchie traffic is not a Good Thing.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 22:02:26 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Starship Encounters query

 
> >BTW, 4 of the 7 pirate encounters in B2 are pirates posing as patrol
> >ships. The best starport type to get a pirate encounter is C, and I
> >somehow doubt that the patrol ploy will work in many C-starport
> >systems (that is the only pirate encounter for a C starport). The
> >bottom line is that you need to customize the tables from time to
> >time.
> 
>   There appears to be a glitch in B:2 (1981; 2nd ed?) on the Starship
> Encounters chart, p.35: The +2 DM for "naval base in system" needed to
> get a total over 13 can't happen using sysgen in B:3, p. 10 for port
> types C & D, both of which go to 14+ on the B:2 chart.
> 
>   Is this an erratum?
 
Wow, you're right, I never noticed it. My 2d printing version has it
as well. That chart just plain sucks when you look at it. Piracy
should get more likely with crappier facilities, and there shouldn't
be any on 14+ rolls IMO (a pirate dumb enough to strike a Naval Base
system, yikes!?). 

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 00:02:14 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)

>Correct, with the note that "breaking new ground" isn't the same thing as
>"changing established background".


Moot point. There was little or no established background to change.

>For example, when I wrote the equipment sheet for the cargo container I
>made certain that it matched the cargo sizes used in the rulebook rather
>than creating my own "standard" sizes.


A far cry from most "canon busters".

>This is "keeping canon" in the positive sense. I have expanded the
>Traveller universe, while _not_ invalidating previously published
>material.


In order for this to work properly: All canon Traveller materials should be
available to all players. This has not happened and will not happen so this
can not work properly in all cases.

Who wants to detail a subsector with intricate political connections, trade
routes, and interesting cultures to find out it can't ever be considered as
canon because the same subsector was detailed in an old supplement that has
been out of print for 20 years. Maybe 5-10% of the entire Traveller
population may have that particular issue, but it stands, even if it's
inferior to the newer one that someone did...

Or even worse than that, if a supplement that came out 15 years ago says
sentient alien race "X" lives on a moon of a gas giant in Subsector "Z", and
now your subsector can't be canon because it
has no gas giant at that location, nor any mention of that sentient race.

My points are the following:

    Canon is only a good thing when it is an aid to creativity. The second
canon stifles creativity, canon goes out the window.

    Canon was decided by the people who wrote for magazines like the JTAS
and submitted supplements to GDW. Alot has happened in the 20 years since
the heyday of Traveller. Trends in science-fiction have changed, and science
itself has advanced. Traveller canon, at least as far as equipment and
weapons go, does not entirely jibe with the way history has really gone. If
it's a choice between insulting the sensibilities of my players by sticking
to canon, or tossing canon out the window in favor of making the game fun
for my players... Guess where canon's going.

    The fact that people are willing to tell others that what they're doing
isn't canon, and as a result "isn't Traveller" more or less drove me from
posting regularly on the list in the first place. It gets old and tired to
hear that "the Vilani were resistant to change, so this technology never got
developed". This is a common response when somebody proposes that certain
technologies should be more prominent in Traveller.

Genetic engineering? "The Vilani are resistant to change."
Computers? "The Vilani are resistant to change."
AI or any sort? "The Vilani are resistant to change."
Nanotech? "The Vilani are resistant to change."

Why play a sci-fi game at all if you're going to remove the chance to
extrapolate current trends in science into the far future? Anytime anyone
tries to tailor the Traveller universe in any significant way he's met with
a wall of hostility. What's worse is even if the new way makes more sense
and is thought out _at_ least as well people still scream and moan about it.

Do we want a consistent well thought out science-fiction universe, or do we
really want the 17th/18th century in space?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 00:09:11 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy 

> Keven Pittsinger wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>
> A Computer-3 has 5 spaces for active programs.  Assuming the pilot has 
> Manuver/Evade-1 loaded, he's now down to 4 spaces (M/E-1 takes 1 space).
> <snip>
> Generate creates the jump path.  You need Navigation *AND* the 
> appropriate jump program loaded as well.  Generate takes up a space.  
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> The ideas below were from _Mayday_, but they made enough
> sense that I'll be including them IMTU:
> 
> Maneuver/Evade adds random movements to the ship's vector to
> make it harder to hit. This has some penalties though - it costs the
> ship 1G of acceleration, and the ship is making too many complex
> movements for Generate to be able to create a jump path.

I ignored computer programs for the purpose of the Original Post(tm) because I 
wasn't showing actual combat, merely intercept strategies.  I don't have 
Mayday, either.  Under CT, M/E doesn't cost you that 1G, but also only defends 
against laser fire, not missile fire.  Presumably, this implies CT missiles 
are homers.  But it does make sense that M/E would screw up a jump attempt.

HG's more geared toward fleet encounters of a military nature, and thus HG 
doesn't go into computer reprogramming on the fly.  However, it does give a 
couple of paragraphs on breaking off and pursuit.  One would assume the jump 
is being prepared as the ship breaks off.

> If you want to run away as fast as you can, you aren't dodging. 
> A 1G Free Trader that's dodging won't be gaining velocity. And
> you have to stop the fancy jinking if you want to prepare for jump.

I see.  *VERY* interesting...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 00:08:36 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Starship Weapons (was re: Off topic)

Harold D. Hale wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
   As long as starship weaponry is around, you will have armed commercial
starships.  Space is too big for the navy or system defense forces to be
everywhere all the time, and there are simply too many worlds producing
starship weapons (and selling them to whoever can pay) to try to enforce
any kind of overall ban.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
True, though not in all areas. Nothing civilian is armed in the Zhodani
Consulate, there are no criminals and they have faith in their
government's ability to keep the riff raff out. ("What citizen, you do not
have faith in your government? Come with me please, this will only take
a couple of days...")

In the Vargr Extents, everything from Passenger Liner to Lifeboat is
armed to the teeth. Well, maybe not lifeboats - is deliberate
helplessness a lifesaving tactic, like baring your throat in close combat?

The Imperium will be in the middle...you should find unarmed or
sandcaster-only civilian ships in pre-MT Core, for example, and there
are plenty of frontiers.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 00:19:17 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Gunnery Crew (was re: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080)

Ian Whitchurch wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>Maybe a really good gunner on lasers is tweaking the system to get
>a higher effective ROF out of it? Gunnery does include the maintenance
>of starship weapons. Perhaps a guy with Gunnery Zero is missing
>firing opportunities, or simply has such a poorly maintained fire
>control system that he's not going to hit anything but a luck shot anyway.
>

I'm not completely happy with it, becuase shouldnt this sort of thing be
covered with the ability of the maintainence crew ? I thought that on
merchant ships, the gunners were usually stewards pulling double duty,
which leave the Engineering crew doing the maintainence work.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A big spinal mount can have eighty crewmen or more. They're not
all pulling the trigger. <G>

Just a theory below...

If your merchie gunner is a Steward pulling double duty, he'll be docked
a level of each while doing so. Gunny-Steward isn't carrying food trays
or checking cargo manifests during most ship combats, but he might
still be docked that level of Gunnery Skill when a combat comes up - 
because he didn't have the time to keep the lasers, fire control and
other doodads up to snuff. The Engineers have their own work to do
down on the drive deck (note that CT Engineering staff requirements
are entirely independent of how many turrets you have), their jobs
(and skill descriptions) don't include taking care of the laser cannons.

There is a reason those lucrative mail contracts require your ship to
have a crewman who is a gunner and nothing else, this might be it.

IYTU, what does a designated ship's gunner do during the 99% + of the
time the ship isn't under attack?

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 02 Nov 98 23:48:22 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

Hans, 

If you feel I insulted you, I apologize.  That *really* wasn't my
intention.  Consider it frustration that occasionally gets the better
of me.  This time it was the frustration of weeks of reading
arguments about how many pirates can dance on the head of a 100
diameter pin. ;->

I'm not going to participate in a flame-fest, and I sincerely hope
no one else lets this turn into one.  However, my opinions on this
subject haven't changed.

Yes, I'm in a distinct minority in my dislike for *strict* and
massive canon.  I might even be a minority of one, but that neither
bothers me nor should it bother you.  When I express my opinion, I'm
expressing *my* opinion.  It's not like "the powers that be" are
hanging on my words.  ;->

You know, I really don't object to there *being* published material,
I'm all for it.  ;-> That it be plausible and internally consistent
only makes sense.  As I said, it's when the weight of the material
becomes so heavy, and the details are so finely drawn that I have a
problem.

Tightly woven stories make for fine reading and interesting
discussion, but IMO, they don't make for fine roleplaying.  What
happens is that a GM becomes straight-jacketed into accepting the
*whole* story in order to make use a part, and *his* vision, his
creativity becomes subordinated to those of someone else.  You may
not agree, that's your prerogative, but hey, that's *my* opinion,
don't let it upset you.

Now then, you also talk about how much effort it is to fit less
detailed material into your campaign.  That's too bad, but you don't
seem to realize that the same difficulty arises when *I* try to work
an interesting piece out of a finely woven picture so I can use it
in my campaign.  It can cut both ways, Hans, and your concerns are
no more valid than are mine.  All *I* ask for is that the published
material keep things open and loose enough so as to be useful beyond
a single vision of the Traveller universe.  Isn't *that* fair?

As for my rant...well, if you want the bottom line reason it's
because your opinion is so dominate among the TML community that I
feel like I have to remind you that we're still here.  There *are*
people out here that don't agree with you, not just in the details,
but philosophically, and by you I mean each and every one of us...me
included.

What it boils down to is we *all* see things differently.  Some of
us play in a Traveller universe that hasn't followed "canon" since
1978, while others followed along with CT, some more...some less,
but never paid a bit of attention to the Rebellion.  Some are stuck
in some version of the Rebellion, while other play in TNE universes
that others of us consider rank heresy.  Some are royally POed that
GURPS Traveller "invalidated" both MT's and TNE's official
background.  Some of us stick to the rules in one set or another,
but most of us don't.  In one way or another, I'd hazard a guess,
that every one of us is considered to be a heretic by *somebody*
on this list.  ;->

So, if you don't agree with me about the detrimental effects of
having massive amounts of "canon", then you disagree.  If you *do*
agree, but draw the line at some point different from me, that's
fine too.  IAC, you are perfectly free to ignore me.


Eris,
    still a heretic ;->

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 23:07:06 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy

 
> > A scout ship is a naked eye object from the planetary surface :-)
> 
> At 1,280,000 klicks???????????????????????????????????????????
> 
> Who's your eye doctor??????????????????
 
Ooops. In orbit it is. It is bright as hell to any sensor postulated
in traveller at the wimpy 4ls you mention :-)

> > Two things, one, I doubt that you'll see any pirates around
> > mainworlds in busy systems. Two, the SDB would be toast from a
> > Tigress long before it even got close enough to shoot. Anything
> > below a few thousand tons in traveller only ever engages with
> > smaller ships (like PC ships or pirates) since they are useless for
> > anything else.
> 
> A.  Probably not.  AAMOF, according to the stock CT encounter tables, you 
> won't find them in any system with Type A or B starports.
 
Man, I was looking again at the B2 table, and it is a mess. Remember
that when it was written there weren't any bigger ships. None. HG
didn't exist yet. 

> B.  Not necessarily the case.  A good case can be made for fighters shooting 
>nuke missiles at capital ships.  Nuke missiles would help scrape the USP down, 
> so eventually, the capital ship's counterbattery fire is eventually gonna gun 
> for them.  Lots of fighters = lots of targets to keep the Tigress busy.
 
Then the Tigress' 300 fighters will fix them :-) You need a whole
hell of a lot of SDBs to even have a hope of seriously damaging a
Tigress (and by this I mean many hundreds, if not thousands).

> > This is closer to reality, IMHO.
> 
> I'm not saying piracy won't take place in transplanetary space, I'm saying 
> that it's more likely around the 100 diameter limit.
 
I dunno about that. I also don't have many ships jumping in at 100D
from their target worlds. Many habitable worlds are within the 100D
limit of their star, so using planetary 100d might be too close (and
too easy to defend). I'd expect pirates to look for systems that are
even harder to defend. I think that many people neglect the (large,
IMO) amount of in-system traffic that occurs in traveller. 

Capturing small craft isn't a bad business if you think about it.
You can throw them in your (large) hold, then Strip them while in
jump space--counterfit a new VIN, then sell them.

> When you're at least 108 minutes from detection range at best speed, what's so dumb about it?  You've got 108 minutes at least to fade into the woodwork, probably closer to 120 minutes; I'd do the math, but I've been up for 20 hours & answering all these damned emails for 9, so I'll pass on it & leave it as an exercise for teh Students.  <grin>
 
A few things. 108 minutes was from the time of boarding, right? More
realistic would be 108 minutes from the time the target knows you
are a pirate (say your first shot at him). You have to disable
(totally kill the Mdrive) him, then board (killing all his weapons
would also be a good idea, and how do you know til you get very
close?). Then you have to either fix the Mdrive/Jdrive/whatever
needs fixing, or just loot the cargo. If you want to "do the math"
I'd suggest starting at first shot, even if you are using HG. 

The first attack (say 3 factor 4 pulse laser turrets) would probably
result in 2 hits. That's 4 critical hits (I'm assuming a range of
between 50-500kkm (I'm using MT since I can't find my !$^&%$&$ copy
of HG). You will likely kill his maneuver and weapons, if you don't
blow him up. To be more safe (the target is valuable to you) you
might fire reduced factor attacks so you don't get criticals, but it
would take a few turns to disable him (at 20 minutes a turn). So
best case, 1 turn to disable him, 1 to match courses. That leaves
about an hour til the SDBs arrive. Using this attack you are likely
just taking some cargo and leaving since the PP and/or Jdrive is out
from all those critical hits. Using the lowered factor attacks it'd
get you 6 attacks at factor 2--about 3 hits, probably 3-4 turns to
disarm and disable, 1 to board. That's 80-100 minutes. The SDB will
be shooting missiles by now I imagine.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 23:10:35 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds

 
> > If you're on an intercept course, they *aren't* moving :-)
> 
> *YOU'RE* moving.  And you're past extreme range.
 
You're moving straight at them. The are NOT moving on the sky (not
very much, anyway). In 3 space, yeah, but your distance is all that
is really changing much, and lasers are bore-sighted, so it doesn't
matter.

> The Defender crews won't get many hero buttons that way.  I was under the 
> assumption that Defender's mission was to attack the Intruder and disable it 
> for capture rather than toast anything in sight.  YMMV, but I'd put any SDB 
> crew that pulled a stunt like that up on charges in a Mishun minute if I were 
> their squadron CO.  Whacking out honest merchie traffic is not a Good Thing.
 
Unless pirates usually kill their targets' crew. Then they are dead
anyway as soon as the two ships are attached, that was my point.
Otherwise they close until they can resolve the target.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 16:26:35
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Maize and Piracy

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
>Subject: Nanotech (was re: on Traveller)
>
>If I've just stepped off a long-ranging Viking ship, just back from an
>unrecorded or misrecorded voyage that touched on the coasts of
>North America, and I have a pocketful of viable maize seeds that I
>intend to found a kingdom on, then we are still in Medieval Britain - 
>for a decade or so, anyway. And it might be a very interesting decade
>at that...
>

Quick note ... Maize has the same name throughout much of Europe. It's
known as 'The Grain that belongs to those weird people over *there*'.

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy 

<big snip>

I take it you are not a signatory to the Sunbeard Declaration ?

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 16:51:27
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Long range fire

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Skills in HG combat 
>
>These sats at the 100 diameter 'curb', they can be shot at, right?  And I
thought energy weapons could only be used at close range.  Something about
the ball of energy dissipating over distance...

It's a rules system thing.

In FFS and FFS2, lasers go out to virtually forever.

You could shoot back at the Telstar, but it's armour was pretty thick, on
the grounds it didnt run too well. Unless you were in a cruiser to start
with, you'd probably come second.

The big limitation with lasers is they have an energy output limit -
basically, you cant punch the hull of a well-built ship with a laser. For
that, you need a nuke, a Particle Accelerator or a Meson Gun.

Incidentally, it isnt that hard, under FFS2, to build a PAW that will fire
out past 100 diameters. But I consider that an unsporting argument to use,
becuase it is too rules-system dependant.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 02:16:08 -0500 (EST)
From: neo@total.net
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

David P. Summers <summers@alum.mit.edu> said,

>Just to make clear.  What some of us are pointing out is that there
>is no "need".  Canabalism can never make up for a lack of nutrition
>in the environment.  Others have pointed out the problems with
>systematic canabalism.  The Vilani would have no more reason
>to engage in cannibalism than Terrans.

[snip snip gobble munch burp]

It occurs to me that humans would be the only source of meat on Vland that
could be consumed *without* processing by a Shugili. Any other kind of food
has to be taken to the Shugili before you can eat it, and he of course
takes a cut. But if you're really hungry and there's no processed food
left, or you're in big trouble with the Shugili and you have to avoid him,
or you can't afford meat and you're having a Big Mac Attack, *and* you have
no morals at all, there's always the temptation to knock off your old Uncle
Eneri and making Eneriburgers...

Therefore, dead people would be consumed not by Shugili, but by
"untouchables," outcasts, or other desperate scum who can't make use of a
Shugili's services (someone being punished for breaking with some important
tradition, say). Or perhaps cannibalism would be a final recourse in dire
circumstances, such as the death of the local Shugilii in a natural
disaster. (Incidentally, it also occurs to me that early military conflicts
on Vland would focus on attempts to capture or kill the enemy's Shugilii --
without them, the enemy is helpless.)

So I think there *is* a real reason for Vilani to engage in cannibalism
more often than Terrans. But, rather than being a secret rite of the
Shugili caste, I think it more likely to be a last recourse in very lean
times, and also a highly illegal, subversive act, a direct attack on the
Shugili's power structure. To eat humans is to sidestep the authority of
the Shugili.

Alternatively (because Derroch's enthusiam for Vilannibalism is so
contagious), perhaps among certain Vilani cultures, ritual cannibalism
might evolve to counteract the subversive threat of unregulated
cannibalism. By socializing it as a solemn rite honoring the recently
deceased, the authorities might keep it under their control - just like
every other kind of food on the planet.

Best,

 + GMG +

   ------------------------Glenn Grant------------------------  
                         <neo@total.net>
             Now in trade paperback from Tor Books:
   _Northern Stars: The Anthology of Canadian Science Fiction_
             Edited by David Hartwell & Glenn Grant
    "Sex times Technology equals The Future." -- J.G. Ballard

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 00:24:06 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)
>
>OK, here's the numbers I promised earlier today.  First, assumptions.
...

  I have some questions about the following assumptions:

>6.  Per LBB2, 'extreme range' is 500,000 klicks and 'long' range is 250,000 
>klicks.

  Isn't maximum range for a detected target 900,000 km, per B:2 p. 32? Fire
to 250 Kkm is +0, to 500 Kkm -2, and beyond that (to ?) is -5 per p. 30. OC,
the alternate hit DM's from HG can replace those mods, although B:5 doesn't
have any determinate range values listed.

>8.  Defender starts in orbit around the planet.  Defender is also assumed to 
>be rounding the planet and pointing at the intruder, thus rendering the orbit 
>height and planet's radius irrelevant.

  Since a warship can detect a silent running ship at 1 LS (p. 32) why
not have warships park at that orbital distance? Or a further such increment
out to allow overlap with the ranges of orbital facilities/craft?

>9.  All attacks are at the USP value of the battery firing, *not* the USP 
...
  Irrelevant now, OC.

>Now the math.  First the Dragon, approaching as in Assumption 8.
...
>Recapping everything, the intruder should have no less than 2 hours to loot & 
>scoot *OR* field repair the victim enough to move it out beyond the 100 
>diameter limit and jump, based on the above assumptions.  All in all, I'd say 
>this means that piracy is viable after all, wouldn't you?

  The model appears to be heavily based on the rather odd assumption that
any security vessels will be down in as low an orbit as they can start
(in addition to the clarification of B:2 ranges). How would this model
function with the ships placed more appropriately at 300,000 and ~500,000 km
distances from the planet, and with the ranges from B:2 p.32 in effect?

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 22:43:19 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on Canon

[am not bothering to quote]

Eris' statements of why he's anti-canon are just the tip of the iceberg...
from his posts over the last couple fo years, I figure few of us would
recognize much of Eris' game as traveller... a lot of house rules, etc.
He's tweaked the rules, the settings (wait, no thrown that out), and the
approaches of the game. He's rejected even some of the fundamental
assumptions of the game: he uses stutterwarp!

Hooray for Eris? yes and no. He's got (or made) the time to do a nearly
totally custom universe and severely tweak a set of rules.

<biting sarcasm>
	Much further, and he may as well not call it traveller anymore,
	find a cooperative publisher, and produce something more his
	liking....
</biting sarcasm>

HOWEVER, don't miss the point: While people like Eris can (and will) throw
out canon, many of us cannot due to lack of (choose from Imagination, Time,
Willpower, Understanding of Macroecon, understanding of sociodynamics,
understanding of physics).

To be useful to PLAYERS, canon must be consistant, and understandable, but
not fully revealed. This way a player can move from one group to another
without fear of having to restart the learning curve.

To be useful to GM's, canon must provide enough material to work from, but
not so much as to prevent adventuring oportunities nor prevent some
customization.

The complaints about Traveller canon is that is is NOT self consistant...
several bits contradict several other bits. In traveller, this seems to be
unintentional. (In Glorantha, it is intentional as it might be in WoD,
which is why I won't buy first-hand those products.)

More profound about traveller canon is that there are 5 different editions,
each with different starting asumptions. But, unlike GW-UK, Neither FFE nor
GDW ever said "New and Completely Revised" with regaurd to the
background... they just kept adding. (JFR, GW-UK basically approches
universe canon with the mindset of Canon starts over every edition....) So,
unless contradicted, canon must stand from CT on... Also, the tendancy (on
list, at least) is to take oldest canon is best canon (I do this too...),
and try to retrofit new canon to agree with old. I fear this may not be
possible, as new canon might be better thought out than old in many CT vs
everything esle cases (Adv 1-4).

Only mark can declare something non-canon, and he's probably not got the
time. So, people must allow for differences WITHOUT THE PERSONALITY
ASSASSINATION which has been creeping up lately. (No names to be issued.)

In short, I am asking for self-censorship on the grounds of "If you feel
personally insulted, don't respond at that level."

- -Wil
(a heretic, but still a canonist)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 22:54:18 -0900
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Piracy

>If ships come out where they want, then planets assign known, patrolled
>exit points.

They can't assign entry points, however... they can't communicate with
incoming traffic til it arrives.

>If ships come out at a random point, then we are facing the 200-1 odds that
>my earlier post indicated.

unles said random point is in a non-flat distribution, in which case it
becomes a matter of figuiring out best intercept points.


>I think navigators should have some influence on where and when you come
>out (I am kicking the idea that both Navigation and Gunnery are
>'impossible' skills - a good Navigator can make a ship behave in ways not
>predicted by jumpspace theory, and a good gunner can fire through the veil
>of speed-of-light lag to hit a target far more often than they should).
>Heck, I could even cope with a great Navigator being able to predict where
>and when in realspace a ship will exit (there is a *reason* the Sayat are
>so superstitious).
>
>Ian Whitchurch
>

William F. Hostman
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com><Mailto:aramis@gci.net>
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn t4- tt+ to- ?tg ru+ ge 3i+ jt-() au+ st+ ls ls- kk+
as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+
ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1082
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, November 3 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1083



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Phooey on canon
Not piracy!
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
High Guard and MT design sequences
Re: Starship Weapons (was re: Off topic)
Re: Starship Encounters query
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
EW/ECM?
Re: Approved Precipitation Points
Re: Mostly Piracy
Re: Skills in HG combat
Re: Phooey on canon
Re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
Canon: a way to agree about disagreeing?
Re: Playing with the HG rules 
Re: Dead Vilani

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 20:47:41 +1300
From: "Frank Pitt" <frankie@mundens.gen.nz>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

- -----Original Message-----
From: Joseph R. Dietrich <yikes@evansville.net>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Date: Tuesday, 3 November 1998 07:26
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon


>I simply don't understand this.
>
>What is the point of publishing books detailing a setting, then, if
they
>are not self-consistant?


Try looking at it the other way, what's the _problem_ with
publishing books detailing a setting that are not self-consistent ?

The only problem I can see is that a few anal retentives will get
annoyed.

The entire comic book industry is based on settings and even
characters
that are not  internally consistent, and they survive fine, and
still give people
enjoyment.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 01:01:21 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Not piracy!

>From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
....
>>  That would be due to increased crop yields by acreage? (with increased
>>water requirements, IIRC? - not that that should be a big problem)
>
>Not only more crop per acre, but vastly more yield per corn sown. Wheat did
>between 3.5 and 6 to every corn sown in medieval Europe (ref Braudel,
...
>Basically, with maize you go from needing 90%+ of your population on the
>land and having regular famines, to needing 50% of your population on the
>land, and having consistent food surpluses.t ...

  Thanks - I only have one or two of Braudel's books (but I do have that
ACW ref coming up).

  More importantly, can the TL 2 natives defend themselves against the
pirate raiders, and even launch a counter boarding attempt between the
laser shots every quarter hour? :) OK - so I lied about the no piracy...

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 01:01:55 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
>
>Disclaimer:  The post that Steve replied to was written before I did the math 
                            ^^^^
                          Thanks :)
...
>>   Why would the Gazelle be the most common ship for planetary patrols for
which
>> it is extremely inefficient? Unless you're referring to Imperial patrols to 
...
>Because they're relatively cheap as warships go.  And they're both standard
designs which makes them cheaper in quantity.  They're also pretty heavily
armed for their size class as well as heavily armoured in comparison to
civilian targets.

  Gazelles have J-5 (?) and they're going to be assigned to positional defense?
Wouldn't they do the patrols and let equivalent performance SDBs do orbits?

        Steven "_six_ letters!" Hudson :)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 08:13:05 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: High Guard and MT design sequences

Hi all,

I've been tinkering with the High Guard Mechanics recently, and was
wondering if anyone knows the following which would be useful:

a) How many MW does an EP correlate to?

b) What is the average mass (tons) of a starship per displacement ton? I
need a crude figure so I can tinker with the MT Hard Times Figures. Would
non-Starships differ?

c) Is the TL9 Fusion rocket in Hard Times (p84) equivalent to HePLAR?

d) If that is the case (or if not) would it be a fair assumption that the
fuel consumption would drop in line with the drop in fusion power plant
fuel demands with TL rise described in MT?

I'm using MT references (not FFS2 at the moment) as I believe the two
design sequences are closer. Is this a fair assumption?

e) Would a fair assumption be that you could calculate the typical surface
area of a ship in different configurations and then have slightly differing
hard point restrictions?

Dom (who must go to work now!)

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 01:25:40 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Starship Weapons (was re: Off topic)

>Subject: Starship Weapons (was re: Off topic)
...
>True, though not in all areas. Nothing civilian is armed in the Zhodani
>Consulate, there are no criminals and they have faith in their
>government's ability to keep the riff raff out. ("What citizen, you do not
>have faith in your government? Come with me please, this will only take
>a couple of days...")

  IIRC, they're potential auxiliaries (?), so they'd at least have the
hardpoints allocated for wartime upgrading ("nearly useless" versus
"almost completely...").

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 01:26:04 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Starship Encounters query

>From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
>Subject: Re: Starship Encounters query
...
>as well. That chart just plain sucks when you look at it. Piracy
>should get more likely with crappier facilities, and there shouldn't
>be any on 14+ rolls IMO (a pirate dumb enough to strike a Naval Base
>system, yikes!?). 

  Well, it does get rarer, until you add the bases :)

  A more detailed chart would be a nice thing for a supplement - say a
chart for various traffic levels, and some general notes on what system
types would qualify (all Hi-Pop or Naval use high effective security
traffic charts; X ports use "very low" chart); a customized set of three
or four smallish charts (identified as examples/ideas) in a book like
RSB or BTC might be a useful feature?

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 01:26:14 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)

>From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
>Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
...
>Do we want a consistent well thought out science-fiction universe, or do we
>really want the 17th/18th century in space?

  I suppose that a consistent, well thought-out science-fiction universe
where many macro scale effects are _similar to_ those of Earths' 17th & 
18th centuries isn't an acceptable option?

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 01:26:19 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: EW/ECM?

...
>against laser fire, not missile fire.  Presumably, this implies CT missiles 
>are homers.  But it does make sense that M/E would screw up a jump attempt.

  Presumably then you'd want to drop flares, or say, donuts?  :>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:00:18
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Approved Precipitation Points

>From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
>Subject: Re Piracy
>
>>If ships come out where they want, then planets assign known, patrolled
>>exit points.
>
>They can't assign entry points, however... they can't communicate with
>incoming traffic til it arrives.

You assign the Approved Precipitation Points well ahead of time, and have
them published in the Commercial Shipping News, which is available at your
trading partners.

Something like 'Traffic leaving from Ruie should use point Alpha from day
114-119, then use point Beta from day 120-128. Points will be patrolled for
48 hours before and after the Jump Window'.

Points would presumably be related to the optimum vectors given planetary
and system movement etc etc.

Use of these points may or may not be mandatory, but if I didnt want to get
mugged by a pirate, then I'd certainly use them.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:29:52
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Mostly Piracy

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
>Subject: Gunnery Crew (was re: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080)
>
>Ian Whitchurch wrote:

>If your merchie gunner is a Steward pulling double duty, he'll be docked
>a level of each while doing so. Gunny-Steward isn't carrying food trays
>or checking cargo manifests during most ship combats, but he might
>still be docked that level of Gunnery Skill when a combat comes up - 
>because he didn't have the time to keep the lasers, fire control and
>other doodads up to snuff. The Engineers have their own work to do
>down on the drive deck (note that CT Engineering staff requirements
>are entirely independent of how many turrets you have), their jobs
>(and skill descriptions) don't include taking care of the laser cannons.
>

One reason I think Stewards pull double duty as gunners is that Gunnery
skill is a professional skill for the Purser's department in LBB 7. The
point about pulling double duty is well made, although I personally wouldnt
dock the skill level from the main job ... you could put the dedicated
Gunner in a Tux (maybe his old Navy uniform) to serve drinks during a big
social event, and it's only 3-5 hours. The Steward sitting in his
crewstation during precipitation is the equivalent - it may be the only
time he actually sits there each trip.

>There is a reason those lucrative mail contracts require your ship to
>have a crewman who is a gunner and nothing else, this might be it.
>

Makes sense to me. The other thing is the 'real' gunner could handle the
point-defense lasers, while the Stewards, the medic and the Assistant Drive
Hand handle the sandcasters.

>IYTU, what does a designated ship's gunner do during the 99% + of the
>time the ship isn't under attack?

Trains the Stewards in gunnery techniques, and possibly does trick shooting
to impress the passengers ...

One line I was going to introduce was the idea of a sneaky pirate with a
mil-spec colour changing hull that did asteroid impressions in
badly-charted systems - radiating IR, coloured himself brown with a darker
spot that moved around the hull to imitate spin, etc etc.

An archetypical annoying eleven year old, nags and nags and nags his
parents, the crew, the cleaning staff and so on to try out the ship's guns.

Eventually, they agree, and let him take a pot shot at that rock over there
.. 

>Walt Smith
>
>From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
>Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
>
>Unless pirates usually kill their targets' crew. Then they are dead
>anyway as soon as the two ships are attached, that was my point.
>Otherwise they close until they can resolve the target.
>

This is a point of debate, as to whether or not pirates will treat their
prisoners well or badly. Personally, I dont have a view either way.

>From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
>Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)
>
>  The model appears to be heavily based on the rather odd assumption that
>any security vessels will be down in as low an orbit as they can start
>(in addition to the clarification of B:2 ranges). How would this model
>function with the ships placed more appropriately at 300,000 and ~500,000 km
>distances from the planet, and with the ranges from B:2 p.32 in effect?
>

Steve, my copy of HG is long gone. Can you build me some cheap SDBs capable
of playing with a type P ? I can do em under FFS2 (the infanous Four Fours
Famile Spofulam SDB), but this debate appears to be in the paleolithic
^k^k^k^k^k^k focussed on CT.

If I had one ship, I'd have it in close orbit when it wasnt escorting the
outbound convoy. If I had more of them, then I'd be running deep orbits.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 11:31:30 +0000
From: Phil Kitching <Philk@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: Skills in HG combat

>> >>   For more accurate combat systems (MCS?) how does zero DV available
affect
>> >> the laser targeting solution at long range?
>> >
>> >Excuse me??  Not sure what you mean by *that*...
>> 
>>   Specifically, a non-evading target means a long range that is limited
only
>> by ones ability to achieve damaging energy densities at range. As an anti-
>> piracy measure one can amuse oneself by designing truly ludicrous weapons
>> (FS Weapons Div., anyone?) like the variant (deviant?) Com-Sat that some
>> commie sicko posted a ways back, and deploy them solely to slowly roast
>> targets that are matching ballistic trajectories out near the 100-D limit.
>
>These sats at the 100 diameter 'curb', they can be shot at, right?  And I
> thought energy weapons could only be used at close range.  Something about
> the ball of energy dissipating over distance...
>
>Keven
>
As spokesman for the Laser Communications Division of the
Postmark Design Bureau ("When your message must get through"),
I feel that I must interject here: The Telstar XII was in no way
a wepaons system - it is a peaceful device capable of focusing out
to 1 million km and sending messages even through severe interferrence
(eg 10cm of superdense and a couple of interior bulkheads).

Grav focused lasers can easily achieve spot sizes of 1cm at these
distances with a 10m mirror. Following a tip from someone of the list
about using batteries, the Telstar XIIb was even affordable.
The main problem is 600MJ lasers at ROF800 and 20% efficiency -
you just cannot dissipate the heat.

At TL13 you can use optically focused X-ray lasers that indicate
the the Telstar XIII would be similar in cost to a 1998 real
world telecommunication satellite. Especially if you considered it a
remote controlled turret with power and sensors and put the crew in
a space station or on the ground.

The Emerging Products Division of the Postmark Design Bureau
("Microwaving half baked ideas from acorss the galaxy") has done a
design study that indicates that grav focused x-ray lasers could ranges
of over 1 billion km - so they could be in Stellar orbit and protect
the Gas Giants (apart from minor problems of targetting and light lag).

The laser device assumes that you are not facing proper warships
(on these it could carve its name but little else). You could
use a particle accelerator but then the cost goes up and unless
your satellite has 3G, it would be a sitting duck when the enemy
shoots back.

Phil Kitching
- --
  http://www.btinternet.com/~salvo (sorry no Traveller)
  Postmark Design Bureau, Emerging Technologies Division.
 "Microwaving half-baked ideas from across the Galaxy"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:09:35 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

Chris Seamans writes:

>Who wants to detail a subsector with intricate political connections, trade
>routes, and interesting cultures to find out it can't ever be considered as
>canon because the same subsector was detailed in an old supplement that has
>been out of print for 20 years?

I don't see the problem here unless you want Marc or Loren to publish it as
part of the OTU. It will fit perfectly into your own TU, because you wrote it,
so you have no trouble using it yourself. You can still get it published if
it is good, it will just have to be marked as a variant (Examples of this
are the Dynchia and IRIS). It's true that you won't be able to use the
official version should you ever get hold of the 20 year old book or should
it be republished, but you wouldn't be able to use a newly published book
about that subsector that didn't agree with the 20 year old book either, so
what's the difference? 

>Maybe 5-10% of the entire Traveller population may have that particular
>issue, but it stands, even if it's inferior to the newer one that someone
>did...

It's one thing if the new product is written by someone who knows the old
stuff and deliberately change some things in order to make the OTU more
consistent, it's quite another if it is inconsistent because the writer
didn't know about it (unfortunate, but excusable if it was a small, obscure
product, inexcusable if it was one of the major products) or didn't care
(totally inexcusable).

>Or even worse than that, if a supplement that came out 15 years ago says
>sentient alien race "X" lives on a moon of a gas giant in Subsector "Z",
>and now your subsector can't be canon because it has no gas giant at that
>location, nor any mention of that sentient race.

As I said before, I don't expect miracles. If the author didn't know because
he had very little chance of finding out, it is unfortunate, but excusable.
If he didn't know because he didn't bother to find out, that's another thing
entirely.

>    Canon is only a good thing when it is an aid to creativity. The second
>canon stifles creativity, canon goes out the window.

Wnen two canonical statements contradict each other or when a canonical bit
is self-contradictory or very, very unlikely[*], then my creativity is
stifled.

[*] I don't mind unlikely and I can usually handle very unlikely, but I draw
    the line at very, very unlikely ;-)
 
>    Canon was decided by the people who wrote for magazines like the JTAS
>and submitted supplements to GDW. Alot has happened in the 20 years since
>the heyday of Traveller. Trends in science-fiction have changed, and science
>itself has advanced.

OTOH, the possibilities of getting help has increased enourmously. Post a
plea on the TML for information about any star system and odds are very good
that there are people who can provide you with the most obscure references.

>Traveller canon, at least as far as equipment and weapons go, does not
>entirely jibe with the way history has really gone.

Here you're pressing quite a different button of mine. IMO the Traveller
Universe is not the Real Universe and dose not have to correspond 100%
to the Real Universe. I think it is a mistake to try to shoehorn the events
of the last 20 years developement in the Real World into the TU. Fix a date
(say, 1979) as the time the TU and the Real World started to part company
in earnest and don't try to update the TU to fit new RW inventions unless
the fit without much effort.

>Do we want a consistent well thought out science-fiction universe, or do we
>really want the 17th/18th century in space?

I want a consistent, well thought out 18th Century in Space. ;-)


      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: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 08:10:41 -0500
From: John Macek <macek@erols.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers

Walter Smith wrote:

> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Sounds like, if Joe Spacer's behaviour is common IYTU, he'll get to
> haul the Cr300/tn grain in his ship while Joe Shipmaster (same skills,
> social standing A or so) gets to haul the computer gear, gems and
> other MCr1/tn stuff. Another thing that will help keep Joe Spacer
> at SS 1 and Joe Shipmaster at SS A.
> 

Naaaaaaah.... the Soc A guys are too busy toadying to the Soc B+'s
;-)

I see soc as being one of the factors in the behind the scenes causes of
piracy IMTU.

The following is from an aquintance who is pretty much an expert on 18th
century piracy.  

Elisabeth wrote:
> I believe Rediker hit the nail on the head with the lack of work turning
> men to piracy. Apart from the ending of Queen Ann's War, there was
> another factor involved. When the price of wool went up in Europe, the
> great land owners in England evicted most of the cottagers from their
> property to open up the acreage for raising sheep which only required a
> herder or two. Many of these small farmers had worked the land for
> generations and now found themselves wandering aimlessly throughout the
> countryside. Of course this presented another problem.  The land owners
> found these wandering people hanging about to be a great nuisance and
> not a few laws were created that made loitering illegal. What to do with
> these evicted people? Where did England need workers? The
> colonies...especially down in the West Indies on the plantations.
> Hundreds were shipped off only to lead lives of greater misery. They
> shifted as well as they could for themselves, escaping whenever
> possible, and many of these men ended up as crew members on the pirate
> vessels.
> 

If letters of marque were issued during the 4th or 5th FF, then there
may be an associated rise in piracy following each of these wars, due to
out of work privateers turning pirate.

Cheerio,
John

"I can't charge myself, -- I shan't own myself Guilty of any Murder, --
Our Captain and his mate used us Barbarously.  We poor Men can't have
Justice done us.  There is nothing said to our Commanders, let them
never so much abuse us, and use us like Dogs."
				- William Fly, pirate, at the gallows, 1726

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 08:21:43 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)

"Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net> writes:
>>Correct, with the note that "breaking new ground" isn't the same thing as
>>"changing established background".
>
>Moot point. There was little or no established background to change.

With no established background, there is no direct canon. Indirectly, the
writer is obligated to look at the implications of an addition (which is
actually much harder), but this always applies.

>
>>This is "keeping canon" in the positive sense. I have expanded the
>>Traveller universe, while _not_ invalidating previously published
>>material.
>
>In order for this to work properly: All canon Traveller materials should
>be
>available to all players. This has not happened and will not happen so
>this
>can not work properly in all cases.

Hm, Roger is sitting on the DGP stuff, but Marc has been remarkably
generous in giving permission for people to xerox out-of-print material
for other fans. Given that the list membership collectively has multiple
copies of everything ever published, I'd say everything _is_ available.

>
>Who wants to detail a subsector with intricate political connections,
>trade
>routes, and interesting cultures to find out it can't ever be considered
>as
>canon because the same subsector was detailed in an old supplement that
>has
>been out of print for 20 years. Maybe 5-10% of the entire Traveller
>population may have that particular issue, but it stands, even if it's
>inferior to the newer one that someone did...

On the other hand, who wants to have a campaign of 20 years overturned
because a writer decided to change everything? Especially as there's so
much virgin territory out there...

>
>My points are the following:
>
>    Canon is only a good thing when it is an aid to creativity. The second
>canon stifles creativity, canon goes out the window.
>
>    Canon was decided by the people who wrote for magazines like the JTAS
>and submitted supplements to GDW. Alot has happened in the 20 years since
>the heyday of Traveller. Trends in science-fiction have changed, and
>science
>itself has advanced. Traveller canon, at least as far as equipment and
>weapons go, does not entirely jibe with the way history has really gone.
>If
>it's a choice between insulting the sensibilities of my players by
>sticking
>to canon, or tossing canon out the window in favor of making the game fun
>for my players... Guess where canon's going.

In your Traveller universe, sure. My personal universe doesn't follow
Traveller canon either. But when I write for publication I stick to canon,
so that other referees can use my material without change.

Look at Eris' universe. A neat place, and possibly more creative than most
opf the published material, but it would take a lot of alteration for most
of us to use a supplement he produced if it was set there. We could mine
the ideas, but we would have to do a lot of fiddly work wrt the details.

Canon is, IMHO, a way of attempting to ensure consistency, SO THAT PEOPLE
CAN USE PUBLISHED MATERIAL WITH MINIMAL CHANGES. I can use stutterwarp in
my universe, but I know I will have to change all references to jump
drive. If I start publishing adventures with stutterwarp, you will have to
change all those references back to jump drive. If I chance anything I
like _without_ telling you, you have to carefully read everything I wrote
for consistency, making changes as necessary, while if my work followed
canon you would know in advance what needed changing to fit your universe.

Now, an easy way around this is for the writer to explicitly identify any
varient rules/background used. 
>
>
>Why play a sci-fi game at all if you're going to remove the chance to
>extrapolate current trends in science into the far future? Anytime anyone
>tries to tailor the Traveller universe in any significant way he's met
>with
>a wall of hostility. What's worse is even if the new way makes more sense
>and is thought out _at_ least as well people still scream and moan about
>it.
>
Leaving aside the fact that some people scream and moan about anything?

Remember that you are free to do anything you like in your own game, as
are we all. However, every change to a common background means more work
for everyone using that background, so you should see why some people are
complaining. 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 08:36:21 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Canon: a way to agree about disagreeing?

Possibly we could use a labelling convention to solve this one:

First off, can we agree on these points?

1) The mass of material published by GDW, and by DGP _when_ they had the
"Marc Millar Seal of Approval" constitutes canon?

2) The purpose of canon is to maintain a consistent game universe.

3) No one is required to use canon.

4) Existing canon has contradictions. 

5) This is not a reason for introducing more contradictions.

6) There is nothing wrong with publishing and discussing variations, as
long as they are clearly labelled as such.


That said, if everyone just states which parts of canon their material
changes, the rest of us will know _in advance_ what we might want to
change if we use it. 

For example, Doug comes up with a really neat adventure involving the
quest for a stutterwarp drive. Official canon doesn't include stutterwarp,
so anyone who didn't like the idea would know that they had to change the
drive.

For example, I wrote an adventure set on Macene, except my Macene was
orbiting a red giant. This is not canon, because that star is different in
the published Spinward Marches material. If my adventure ever gets
published, I would hope that the publisher puts a large VARIANT note at
eth beginning, explaining the difference. Soemone who had already set an
adventure on the 'official' Macene would know that they had to either move
my system or change their game history.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 13:36:31 +0000
From: Phil Kitching <Philk@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: Playing with the HG rules 

someone said:

>> If they are grouped as two USP3 hits the progression is USP3 - hit 1 first
>> battery killed remaining USP 3 - hit 2 USP2 - hit 3 USP1 - hit 4 last
>> battery killed.

"Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>

>But you still have another battery of USP3, which is now down to USP2.
You'd 
>need 6 weapons hits to take out 2 USP3 batteries.

If you have two USP3 batteries, the first hit destroys an entire battery.
You only lose USP factor if their is only a single battery remaining of
a given weapon type.

<snip> 

>> But a USP 4 battery will automatically cause a critical on a 399 dT or less
>> ship. Against a Beowulf it will cause 2 criticals on the first hit, wereas
>> a USP3 will cause just the one.... this will kill the JDrive on a roll of
>> 7.
>
>Disabled, not destroyed.  <grin>  But the whole Target is toast if you
roll a 
>2 and vaporise the damned thing.  Not Good.
> 
Hmmm, I'd go for the criticals - most of the time a few criticals will
disable your target quickly and they are at your mercy. Occasionally a
lucky shot destroys them.

Then you turn to your gunner, get out your Klingon phrase book, say
"I said target their engines!" and shoot them when they reply "lucky shot?"
:-)

- --
  http://www.btinternet.com/~salvo (sorry no Traveller)
  Postmark Design Bureau, Emerging Technologies Division.
 "Microwaving half-baked ideas from across the Galaxy"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 08:40:31 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

>It occurs to me that humans would be the only source of meat on Vland that
>could be consumed *without* processing by a Shugili. 
[snip]
>
>Therefore, dead people would be consumed not by Shugili, but by
>"untouchables," outcasts, or other desperate scum who can't make use of a
>Shugili's services (someone being punished for breaking with some
>important
>tradition, say). Or perhaps cannibalism would be a final recourse in dire
>circumstances, such as the death of the local Shugilii in a natural
>disaster. (Incidentally, it also occurs to me that early military
>conflicts
>on Vland would focus on attempts to capture or kill the enemy's Shugilii
>--
>without them, the enemy is helpless.)
[snip]
>I think it more likely to be a last recourse in very lean
>times, and also a highly illegal, subversive act, a direct attack on the
>Shugili's power structure. To eat humans is to sidestep the authority of
>the Shugili.
>
>Alternatively
...
>perhaps among certain Vilani cultures, ritual cannibalism
>might evolve to counteract the subversive threat of unregulated
>cannibalism. By socializing it as a solemn rite honoring the recently
>deceased, the authorities might keep it under their control - just like
>every other kind of food on the planet.

I like all these ideas. Make excellent sense, and is now (pending
convincing counter-arguments) part of my Traveller universe.

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1083
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, November 3 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1084



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Phooey on canon
Re: What canon means to me
Replies to various postings
Re: Phooey on canon
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Piracy by the numbers
Re: Piracy by the numbers
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long)
re: Piracy by the numbers
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me) 
Re: Dead Vilani 
Re: Phooey on canon!
Re: Phooey on canon

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:41:27 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

Eris Reddoch writes:

>Hans, 
> 
>If you feel I insulted you, I apologize.

I don't and I'm sorry if I gave that impression.

>This time it was the frustration of weeks of reading arguments about how
>many pirates can dance on the head of a 100 diameter pin. ;->

Now, that, OTOH, while not insulting, is something I don't care much for.
If you think Gary, Steven, Walt, Keven, I et alii have been arguing about
something inexpressibly silly, then that's your prerogative. But please
have the courtesy to realize that none of us agree with you (if we did,
would we be spending our precious time arguing about it?). If you want to
spend your time convincing us that we are being silly, go ahead. But don't
berate us because you are tired of reading something we're not yet tried
arguing about. I routinely skip about 75% of each digest. Some of it
because I'm not interested at all, more because although I'm interested,
I'm not interested enough. I suggest you do the same instead of reading
something you consider silly.

>You know, I really don't object to there *being* published material,
>I'm all for it.  ;-> That it be plausible and internally consistent
>only makes sense.  As I said, it's when the weight of the material
>becomes so heavy, and the details are so finely drawn that I have a
>problem.

It seems to me that you're concerned about something that we not really
addressing at the moment. You appear to think that I want a canonical
universe defined right down to the finest details. That's not so. On the
contrary, what I want is a self-consistent framework with lots of room
in between to individualize. All I want is for that framework to be the
same all across the canon. I do admit that I want any detail that does
get fixed to stay fixed, but IMO it simply isn't possible to generate
details enough to "fill out" an entire universe  --  or even such a small
slice of a universe as Charted Space.

>Now then, you also talk about how much effort it is to fit less detailed
>material into your campaign. 

You misunderstood me, then. My problem isn't with "less detailed material"
it is with "material that contradicts facts that I have already established
IMTU".

>That's too bad, but you don't seem to realize that the same difficulty
>arises when *I* try to work an interesting piece out of a finely woven
>picture so I can use it in my campaign.

As I said, I think you are blaming me for an attitude I don't have. But
perhaps I am mistaken. Could you elaborate at bit. Just what is it about
my attitude that would cause you trouble if they were implemented?

>It can cut both ways, Hans, and your concerns are no more valid than are
>mine.

No, but no less valid either, and I don't think you can blame me for
promoting my concerns instead of yours. I kind of expect you to do that.

>All *I* ask for is that the published material keep things open and loose
>enough so as to be useful beyond a single vision of the Traveller universe.
>Isn't *that* fair?

Yes of course, so long as being useful to you isn't mutually exclusive with
being useful to me. Trouble is, it seems to me that it is. But perhaps I am
mistaken. Could you give a few examples of things I promote that makes things
bad for you and explain why?
 
>There *are* people out here that don't agree with you, not just in the
>details, but philosophically, and by you I mean each and every one of us...
>me included.

Eris, to my knowledge I've never become exasperated with someone because
they disagreed with me philosophically, but only with fuzzy logic (The
third time I see an argument I (believe that I) have answered twice already,
I do tend to get testy, I admit). But I may of course be deluding myself,
and if anyone can show me otherwise, I'll be ready to apologize and try to
mend my ways.

>So, if you don't agree with me about the detrimental effects of
>having massive amounts of "canon", then you disagree.  If you *do*
>agree, but draw the line at some point different from me, that's
>fine too.  IAC, you are perfectly free to ignore me.

Joseph and William have already raised my last point very eloquently. I
don't understand why you have a problem with a more self-consistent OTU.
Could you try to explain?



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
"Facts are stubborn things, but not half so stubborn as fallacies."
                - Stella Maynard in "Anne of the Island"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:28:20 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: What canon means to me

Thom Harris writes:

>From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>

>>>But they aren't the same universe.
>>
>>That's where you're wrong. The OTU is one universe. Or at least, it ought
>>to be. When it isn't, I consider it a grave fault.
>
>I always considered a "grave fault" as something that was potentually
>dangerous to human kind.  Damn, and all this time I thought I was playing a
>game.

So am I using a wrong word here? If so, were you unable to understand my
meaning? If not, would you be kind enough to tell me what was wrong with
the word I used? I genuinely want to know.

>You are allowed to do just that!  The key to this is simplicity itself.  The
>authors are busy trying to produce more material to make a living.  They
>don't have the luxury of going back and correcting something that is 15 - 20
>years old.

That is your opinion. I do not agree with you. With the amount of help it
is possible to get on the Internet nowadays, that excuse don't work anymore.
With the exception of really obscure sources, but I've already stated that
several times.

And you are still not getting my point. A discrepancy may be condonable, but
it is still a discrepancy. Someone does have that 15 year old book and
unless the discrepancy is corrected, he will happily base HIS next book
on that information while another author will base his on the newer stuff.
That is IMO a Bad Thing. The Entropic/Cunnonic worlds discrepancy is an
example of this. So far it has led to the Cunnonic worlds getting into
GURPS:Traveller while the world writeups in GURPS:Behind the Claw are
based on the Entropic worlds version.

>Especially if they no longer have the rights to certain pieces of the
>material.

That seems to me to be an even more than usually good reason to get those
pieces excised from the canon.

>No matter how much bitching you do, you are the only one that is so anally
>rententive that you believe that changes are still necessary after 15+ years.

Apart from containing several value loaded words and gratuious insults, that
sentense makes no sense whatsoever. Could you restate it in a slightly more
intelligble form?

>"For your own sake man get a life." <William Shatner talking to a die hard
>Trekkie Fan>

How much of a life does a man who argues with people he believe don't have
a life have?

>>So much the more reason to make the official material as close to hard
>>facts as possible. That's why I dislike the "everthing is viewpoint
>>writing" school so much. If everything is viewpoint writing, then there
>>are no hard facts and Traveller authors are free to produce stuff that I
>>can't use.
> 
>But Hans, are you still using nothing but the original LBB's and CT stuff?
>If you refuse to buy them then you set yourself up to be in this situation.

Thom, your chain of logic eludes me. What does your reply have to do with
the bit you quote? And why would you think that limiting myself to the
original LBBs and CT stuff would cause me to complain about discrepancies
introduced by MT, TNE, T$, and G:T stuff?

>>No, I don't think so. As far as I am concerned, Gary's insults were mild
>>and didn't bother me. All taken in a friendly spirit. And I assume that he
>>is able to take it as well as he can dish it out.
>
>Hans I just can't figure you out here.  You make a good case for things
>(Pirates Wars Included) but in the process you "talk" down to people like
>they are just too dense to understand what you're saying.

Well, Thom, that is a fault, I confess. But as long as it is confined to
instances where I have already answered the same argument twice or more, I
think I can be excused. If you can provide me with instances where I've
started out with that kind of talk, please do and I'll apologize. 

>Everyone basically understands, we all seem to have an intelligence at
>least equal to an egg plant. That should be enough to get us into the ball
>park of your logic. What almost everyone has been saying to you is....IT
>DON'T MATTER!!!.... Sure we would all love to see all the little glitches
>fixed, but is it going to take away from the FUN of the game.

Yes, Thom, that's what you and some other people have been telling me (not
everyone as you claim). But what you should have told me was that YOU don't
think it matters. That's your prerogative. But you have absolutely no right
to tell me that I am wrong to think it matters. And, for that matter, you
have no right to speak for "everyone" either.

>Its highly probable that it is taking away from some of your FUN but you
>still play the game. Yes it does detract from the game a bit but not the
>FUN!

As you even say yourself, it does detract from my fun. Are you saying that
my fun is less important, on some objective scale, than your fun? (Of course
subjectively it is less important to you, just as yours subjectively is less
important to me).
 
>Let's get back to the point I was making earlier in this message.  Loren,
>Marc and others are trying to make a living off these stories. If for some
>reason you have a problem with something (that they have no control over or
>better yet, have no time to dedicate to these nits) then send them an eMail.

I'd be happy if Marc and Loren were to address these points. I don't blame
them for not doing so, having a perfect understanding of how Real Life tend
to interfere with ideal solutions, but that dosen't mean that I wouldn't
like them to. If they want to, I'd be happy to help them. If they don't
agree with me or agree but don't think it is important enough to do
something about, that's their business. That dosen't change how _I_ feel
about it. Maybe they never will agree with me. I can live with that and I'd
still buy them a beer if they ever visited Copenhagen. But I do know that
if I don't post about these things, they won't even get a chance to agree
or disagree.

>You know and I know that they wouldn't have the time to argue one way or the
>other on the TML.  If they made a canonical solution on high (without
>consulting the TML)  then that would P.O. a whole new group of people that
>are now going to be using up bandwidth to voice their opinions. It's much
>easier on them to just sit back and let the one maniacal rantor carry on.

And Doug thinks _I_ am insulting...

>That gets me back to this; talking down to your contemporaries isn't going
>to get you their support.

OK, I'll try to avoid calling them maniacal rantors. BTW. could you explain
the rules to me again? I can't quite understand why other people are free
to insult me, but I can't respond in kind.

>your ability to communicate your ideas in a positive way sucks!

I'm sorry to hear that that is your opinion, but I'll console myself with
the thought that not everyone agrees with you.
 


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
  "Free speech gives a man the right to talk about the
'psycology' of an amoeba, but I don't have to listen".
                  Elihu Nivens in 'The Puppet Masters'

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:37:20 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Replies to various postings

Sorry, guys, I've already spent 3.5 hours reading and answering posts and
I'm not even halfway through the ones that appeared during the last 24
hours, much less those I didn't get around to yesterday and the day before...

I got to run. I'll try to reply to everybody, but if I get too far behind
I'm just going to have to dump something. Please understand that I'm not
blowing any of you off gratuiously. But I gotta run... Real Life rears
its ugly head...


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
- - "You don't like the Goths?"
- -  "No! Not with the persecution we have to put up with!"
- -  "Persecution?"
- -  "Religious persecution. We wont stand for it forever."
- -  "I thought the Goths let everybody worship as they pleased."
- -  "That's  just  it!  We Orthodox are forced to stand around and
   watch Arians  and Monophysites  and Nestorians  and Jews going
   about  their  business  unmolested,   as  if  they  owned  the
   country. If that isn't persecution, I'd like to know what is!"

                -Martin Padway and stranger in bar in
                         "Lest Darkness Fall"






 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 10:14:44 -0500
From: Michael Kent <mkent@atlantic.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

Rob Prior wote:

>Correct, with the note that "breaking new ground" isn't the same thing >as" changing established background".

>For example, when I wrote the equipment sheet for the cargo container I
>made certain that it matched the cargo sizes used in the rulebook >rather than creating my own "standard" sizes. 

>This is "keeping canon" in the positive sense. I have expanded the
>Traveller universe, while _not_ invalidating previously published
>material. 

But of course!  You, of all people, are the last one I would expect
to invalidate 'Prior' material.  :o)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 08:47:09 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

Thomas Vickers wrote:

> Can you say "Soylent Green is people?"
> tv

Yeah, but then this really weird Ouroboros screen saver pops up on my
computer...

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 11:13:56 -0500
From: Aerron_Winsor@insurquote-ias.com
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers

Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 14:00:38 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers
In a message dated 11/2/98 8:45:21 AM Pacific Standard Time, rancke@diku.dk
writes:
<< >I was using the assumption that Target screamed for help as the
Intruder
 >boarded.
 I for one don't accept that assumption. IMO the "scream" is when the
pirate
 goes active and dosen't depend on the Target. >>
     What if the pirate gains a passive detection and uses LIDAR for the FC
lock?
No screaming there.  This also brings up an important point...most merchant
vessels (at least the designed ships I have seen) do not routinely carry
laser
or maser comms, so they cannot surreptiously warn the defender.
**********
in GT they have one....

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 10:29:41 -0600
From: Steven Bonneville <bonnevil@ima.umn.edu>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers

"Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net> wrote:

> Now, I don't claim to have the first bloody *clue* how far a ship can be 
> detected at, but the books that I have here in my possession say that that 
> it's on the order of 600K klicks for a military craft.  Two light-seconds.  
> Safe jump difference from a Size 8 planet is 1,280K klicks, over twice the 
> detection limit by a military sensor suite.  That 1,280K klicks is written in 
> stone.  This tells me a starship can throw the loudest block party they want 
> at the 100 diameter 'curb' of a Size 8 world and nobody'll know they're there.

Late-period CT sensor rules.  In addition, once detected a ship may be
tracked out to three light-seconds; the size-8 100-diameter limit is at
four and a quarter light-seconds.   

The loophole here is that CT military sensors are considered free with
military designs.  You could extend sensor coverage by buying a couple
of squadrons of cheap 10-ton _Iramda_ fighters and flying a rotating
patrol out at the three light-second line.  You can buy quite a few of
these sensor platforms for the same cost as one 400-ton SDB.  They can
then vector in heavier ships of the planetary navy on pirates, or onto
an invading enemy fleet.

> If you assume even *minimal* brains of a professional pirate, you'll realise 
> they'll take outbound prizes, not inbound ones.  Inbound ones are a good way 
> to spend your formative years on a prison planet.

In addition, the pirate would have a chance to pick and choose targets 
based on what they're loading in port, and could get a good idea of the
ship's departure time, armament, and course.  The pirate could also try
to suborn crew, or slip hijackers or saboteurs aboard as passengers.

  -- Steve Bonneville

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 10:44:15 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long)

>> I did not make my point clear. Since it doesn't matter where on the
>> 100-diameter sphere a ship jumps out (at least as far as I can tell), then
>> it is simple to assign an outbound ship a course to a jump point that is
>> under the watchful eye of an SDB.
>
>This assumes escort by the aforesaid SDB. [...] Without escort, the Target
>is >out of range of the SDB after it leaves the 500K klick 'bubble of
>protection' of said SDB.


I don't see why it requires an escort. Just post an anti-piracy SDB so that
it's 500 kkm sphere encompasses the designated jump point (between the
world and the jump point, say). Move it with the jump point. That way, the
pirate has to hit the target before it gets to within about 1,000 kkm of
the jump point on it's way through SDB's sphere of protection (assuming the
sphere is 500 kkm radius -- half that if it is a diameter, of course).

Like so:

           -------
         /         \
        /           \
       /             \
O ----(-->    x     p )
       \             /
        \           /
         \         /
           -------

where O is the mainworld, > is an outbound ship, x is an SDB and p is the
jump point.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 11:59:49 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy by the numbers

Steven Bonneville wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In addition, the pirate would have a chance to pick and choose targets 
based on what they're loading in port, and could get a good idea of the
ship's departure time, armament, and course.  The pirate could also try
to suborn crew, or slip hijackers or saboteurs aboard as passengers.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Whew, I thought the boarding party leaders deserved high pay on the
pirate crew...the point man, the pirate's agent sitting in a passenger
stateroom on that Fat Trader, he's got a dangerous job ahead of him.
Easier if all the passengers are pirate agents, of course, but not a
heck of a lot easier. The only advantage the agents might have is
surprise, and then only against a naive crew or one that's gotten lax.
The crew has lots of advantages that they'll wipe out  the pirate agents 
with if the agents don't act swiftly.

IMTU Hijacking is difficult, requiring a pretty rare mix of skills (to take the
ship reasonably intact) and contacts (to safely sell the ship). If the only 
object of the agents aboard is to disable the ship's drives, sensors and/or 
commo at the right moment, that's a bit different. 

Explosives can be substituted for computer/electronics skill, for
example. Sufficient contacts to safely dispose of a hot starship
may not be needed. 

I'll leave coordination between pirate agents on the planet and 
the Corsair lurking somewhere in-system to intrepid criminal
masterminds among us. <G>

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 12:49:28 -0500
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

neo@total.net wrote:

> David P. Summers <summers@alum.mit.edu> said,
>
> >Just to make clear.  What some of us are pointing out is that there
> >is no "need".  Canabalism can never make up for a lack of nutrition
> >in the environment.  Others have pointed out the problems with
> >systematic canabalism.  The Vilani would have no more reason
> >to engage in cannibalism than Terrans.

I understand all that.  As GMG suggests below, I'm not thinking of
wholesale systemic cannibalism, but more of an emergency measure.
So, not all the dead would be consumed, just when there was an
especially pressing need.

> It occurs to me that humans would be the only source of meat on Vland that
> could be consumed *without* processing by a Shugili. Any other kind of food
> has to be taken to the Shugili before you can eat it, and he of course
> takes a cut. But if you're really hungry and there's no processed food
> left, or you're in big trouble with the Shugili and you have to avoid him,
> or you can't afford meat and you're having a Big Mac Attack, *and* you have
> no morals at all, there's always the temptation to knock off your old Uncle
> Eneri and making Eneriburgers...

Good ideas.

> Therefore, dead people would be consumed not by Shugili, but by
> "untouchables," outcasts, or other desperate scum who can't make use of a
> Shugili's services (someone being punished for breaking with some important
> tradition, say). Or perhaps cannibalism would be a final recourse in dire
> circumstances, such as the death of the local Shugilii in a natural
> disaster. (Incidentally, it also occurs to me that early military conflicts
> on Vland would focus on attempts to capture or kill the enemy's Shugilii --
> without them, the enemy is helpless.)

Now thats a really good idea.

> So I think there *is* a real reason for Vilani to engage in cannibalism
> more often than Terrans. But, rather than being a secret rite of the
> Shugili caste, I think it more likely to be a last recourse in very lean
> times, and also a highly illegal, subversive act, a direct attack on the
> Shugili's power structure. To eat humans is to sidestep the authority of
> the Shugili.

Hmm.  I think that makes sense most of the time, but I would have
the Shugili's practicing cannibalism in extreme emergencies, when
local produce is unavailable, etc.  So then, IMTU, the dark secret
of the Shugili would be that even they had to resort to the practice
of cannibalism.

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 12:56:17 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me) 

> Hm, Roger is sitting on the DGP stuff, but Marc has been remarkably
> generous in giving permission for people to xerox out-of-print material
> for other fans. Given that the list membership collectively has multiple
> copies of everything ever published, I'd say everything _is_ available.

Thing is, I've been on the net for *years*.  I only found out about the TML 
list about a year & a half ago.  I didn't even think to do a web search on 
Traveller because I haddn't seen any Traveller stuff around at all at my FLGS 
for a couple of years before GDW went out.  Thus, I figgered Traveller was a 
Lost Religion.  Why chase old dreams.

Point I'm making is, the netizens of a Traveller-oriented mailing list are 
going to be a small percentage of the people who bought Traveller to begin 
with.  Sure, we've got permission to clone limited numbers of copies of the 
GDW stuff, but what percentage of the old Traveller market is going to *need* 
these?  I don't see it as a problem for Marc cause he's not really losing a 
*LOT* of money.  If *everybody* that ever did Traveller was on the net and in 
these groups, I'd expect the 'go ahead and clone them' policy to stop.

Hell, I was one of the Lucky Hundred that has a copy of Letters of Marque, and 
I *ONLY* heard about it *here*!

> In your Traveller universe, sure. My personal universe doesn't follow
> Traveller canon either. But when I write for publication I stick to canon,
> so that other referees can use my material without change.

I tend to stick to canon as much as possible as far as 'look & feel' issues 
go.  However, if something makes sense to change, I change it IMTU.  I jsut 
don't go around demanding that everybody *else* change too.

> Look at Eris' universe. A neat place, and possibly more creative than most
> opf the published material, but it would take a lot of alteration for most
> of us to use a supplement he produced if it was set there. We could mine
> the ideas, but we would have to do a lot of fiddly work wrt the details.

Somebody said Eris uses stutterwarp.  I'm *in* his PBEM & haven't seen it yet. 
 I *do* know the basic ruleset he uses is TNE  with some house rules.  How 
things 'work' there is beyond my comprehension.  It's a custom setting as far 
as location and milieu go, set a LOOOOONG time downstream from the legendary 
days of 'Once there was this place called the Third Imperium'.  Personally, I 
*like* it.  My PBEM is set in Reavers' Deep, outside of the 3I, in the year 
1125.  Yeah, the Rebellion is going on.  My base ruleset is CT.  And I kinda 
like that milieu, too, or else I'd base & place my PBEM someplace else.

> Canon is, IMHO, a way of attempting to ensure consistency, SO THAT PEOPLE
> CAN USE PUBLISHED MATERIAL WITH MINIMAL CHANGES. I can use stutterwarp in
> my universe, but I know I will have to change all references to jump
> drive. If I start publishing adventures with stutterwarp, you will have to
> change all those references back to jump drive. If I chance anything I
> like _without_ telling you, you have to carefully read everything I wrote
> for consistency, making changes as necessary, while if my work followed
> canon you would know in advance what needed changing to fit your universe.

There's some things I use IMTU that I don't talk about here since they're not 
canonical.  For instance, my star charts & UWPs for the Deep as a whole aren't 
canonical simply due to the fact that I didn't have canonical info to base 
them on outside of Drexilthar Subsector.  I used what I could find, and worked 
from there.  Also, I factor in the 'solar jump limit' (100 solar diameters) in 
my game.  This means the main world of a system *MAY* be inside the solar jump 
limit, in which case, incoming ships will have a cruise to get to the main 
world.  The way Jump drives work IMTU, they exit at the 100 diameter 'curb'.  
*Entering* jumpspace is another story; if you want to chance entering before 
reaching the curb, go for it, but don't say I didn't warn you that it's risky. 
 If asked to supply portions of my PBEM for publication, I would naturally 
remove any non-canon material not necessary to the story arc.  This means, I 
wouldn't talk about a solar jump limit.

> Now, an easy way around this is for the writer to explicitly identify any
> varient rules/background used. 

Or, delete the non standard material.  <shrug>

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 13:06:44 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani 

> Thomas Vickers wrote:
> 
> > Can you say "Soylent Green is people?"
> > tv
> 
> Yeah, but then this really weird Ouroboros screen saver pops up on my
> computer...

Lucky you.  I keep getting this character from a Slim Jim commercial popping up yelling "*EAT* me!!"

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 10:15:05 -0800 (PST)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon!

> Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 00:02:14 -0500
> From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
>
> Why play a sci-fi game at all if you're going to remove the chance to
> extrapolate current trends in science into the far future?

Because, in order to make a playable, manageable game, you *have* to
(artificially) restrict the differences between the 57th century and
today.  As many others have commented, almost all the plot drivers in
Traveller arise from an economy of scarcity; people fight or bargain or
steal to obtain resources which are valuable because they are in limited
supply.  Interstellar trade happens because many products are expensive to
synthesize locally.  Introduce nanotech, or large-scale transmutation of
elements, or similar technologies, and the entire explanation for
Traveller history and adventures as written goes out the window.

Similarly, allow real AI and you get a world more like Ian Banks' than
like Traveller-as-we-know-it -- the big AIs really call the shots, with
living sophonts mostly as pawns.

Such universes do offer rich opportunities for role-playing, but these
opportunities have little resemblance to Traveller-as-we-know-it.  And, if
you introduce 'limited' nanotech or AI (or other canon-breaking tech), you
are left in just as bad a position explaining why they are limited as
ordinary canon faces explaining their absence. 

> Anytime anyone tries to tailor the Traveller universe in any significant
> way he's met with a wall of hostility. 

Not hostility so much as conservatism in its original sense.  We are
reluctant to make large changes in Traveller canon for fear of breaking
its (already fragile) internal consistency.  For each new tech you add,
you have to review the *entirety of Traveller pseudo-history* to make sure
that the new tech wouldn't result in a massively different outcome.  Tech,
in large measure, *defines* history by determining what can and cannot be
done at any given moment.

> What's worse is even if the new way makes more sense and is thought out
> _at_ least as well people still scream and moan about it. 

I have yet to see a canon-breaking tech proposal which is well enough
thought out to be incorporated into 'canon' Traveller without fatal damage
to Traveller's stated history, sociology, and economics.

> Do we want a consistent well thought out science-fiction universe, or do we
> really want the 17th/18th century in space?

We want a blend of the two.  The 'future' we create must be recognizeable
enough that players have some sense of what is possible, what their powers
are, and what is expected of them.  This alone constrains our created
'future' to be far closer to 20th century reality (or reality in a recent,
well-known century, for that matter) than is likely to be the case in the
real world, milennia from now.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      "Ripple in still water, when there is no pebble tossed,
       nor wind to blow..."

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 12:17:28 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

>>I simply don't understand this.
>>
>>What is the point of publishing books detailing a setting,
>>then, if they are not self-consistant?
>
>Try looking at it the other way, what's the _problem_ with
>publishing books detailing a setting that are not self-consistent ?


If I want to use the setting without having to do a lot of work to make it
self-consistent, then this is a problem.

If my players want to play in a setting that is self-consistent, this is a
problem.

I am operating under the assumption that it is easier to ignore pieces of a
setting than it is to create, from scratch, pieces of a setting on your
own. It is easier for me, at any rate -- YMMV. I don't see any reason why
published material should be inconsistent, or lack continuity.

I simply don't understand the "straightjacketing creativity" argument. If I
buy into a setting, I would like it to be complete and consistent. If I see
something I don't like, I can ignore it or change it, if I am willing to do
the work. But if I buy into a setting that is inherently incomplete and/or
inconsistent, then I am forced to make up stuff that is not covered or to
account for the inconsistency, whether I want to or not.

YMMV, of course, but I purchase products for substance, not ideas. IMO,
ideas are cheap -- it's much more difficult to do something with them.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1084
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, November 3 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1085



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Starship Weapons (was re: Off topic) 
Re: Gunnery Crew (was re: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080) 
Re: Piracy 
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Maize and Piracy 
Re: High Guard and MT design sequences
Re: Long range fire 
Re: Piracy by the Numbers
New Thread:  Special Weapons
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 
Re: Phooey on Canon 
Re: Piracy by the numbers
Re: Re Piracy 
Re: Piracy by the numbers
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Not piracy! 
100 Diameter limit
Re: EW/ECM? 
Re: Skills in HG combat 
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)
Re: New Thread:  Special Weapons
Re: Phooey on canon

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 13:40:00 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Starship Weapons (was re: Off topic) 

> True, though not in all areas. Nothing civilian is armed in the Zhodani
> Consulate, there are no criminals and they have faith in their
> government's ability to keep the riff raff out. ("What citizen, you do not
> have faith in your government? Come with me please, this will only take
> a couple of days...")

I'd expect them to beef up patrols along the border, to at least a depth of 10 
parsecs or so, just to handle some of those nasty criminal Impies coming in to 
hoodwink good honest Zhodani merchants from their hardearned money.

> In the Vargr Extents, everything from Passenger Liner to Lifeboat is
> armed to the teeth. Well, maybe not lifeboats - is deliberate
> helplessness a lifesaving tactic, like baring your throat in close combat?

But it's *NOT* paranoia, it's just good business sense.

> The Imperium will be in the middle...you should find unarmed or
> sandcaster-only civilian ships in pre-MT Core, for example, and there
> are plenty of frontiers.

I see the frontier areas of the Imperium to get pretty wild & wooly.  But you're right, during pre-Rebellion times, the Core Worlds would be pretty boring unless you were a bean counter out to vist strange new worlds, meet exotic natives, and take them for everything they've got.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 13:45:45 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Gunnery Crew (was re: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080) 

> There is a reason those lucrative mail contracts require your ship to
> have a crewman who is a gunner and nothing else, this might be it.

Methinks this is to make sure that somebody onboard the ship actually *DOES* 
know how to shoot the bloody thing.  Otherwise, the owner could just grab some 
kid off the street and say, "Yeah, here's my gunner, yeah, that's the ticket!"

> IYTU, what does a designated ship's gunner do during the 99% + of the
> time the ship isn't under attack?

Depends on what he's interested in.  During Jump, probably run lots and lots of simulations & drills to keep himself sharp.  Catch up on his technical journals.  Make sure the turret is working right and the guns themselves are ready to rock and roll.  Play a lotta cards in the passenger lounge.  Drink heavily.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:02:23 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy 

>  
> > > A scout ship is a naked eye object from the planetary surface :-)
> > 
> > At 1,280,000 klicks???????????????????????????????????????????
> > 
> > Who's your eye doctor??????????????????
>  
> Ooops. In orbit it is. It is bright as hell to any sensor postulated
> in traveller at the wimpy 4ls you mention :-)

Not true.  CT says military-grade sensors can pick up a drive at full function 
at 2 light secs, civilian sensors at half a lightsec.

> I dunno about that. I also don't have many ships jumping in at 100D
> from their target worlds. Many habitable worlds are within the 100D
> limit of their star, so using planetary 100d might be too close (and
> too easy to defend). I'd expect pirates to look for systems that are
> even harder to defend. I think that many people neglect the (large,
> IMO) amount of in-system traffic that occurs in traveller. 

Canonically speaking, the ships wouldn't come in at the solar jump point, but 
IMTU, I use the concept of a solar jump point, too.  <grin>  Makes things 
interesting.  Under CT, in-system traffic was pretty much ignored because most 
people were interested in the main world.  I just don't see in-system traffic 
as being as lucrative as main world traffic.  But then, I never did the math 
on it, either.

> Capturing small craft isn't a bad business if you think about it.
> You can throw them in your (large) hold, then Strip them while in
> jump space--counterfit a new VIN, then sell them.

It's chicken stealing.  After awhile, those little boats start arming up and 
start becoming a pain in the ass.
 
> > When you're at least 108 minutes from detection range at best speed, what's so dumb about it?  You've got 108 minutes at least to fade into the woodwork, probably closer to 120 minutes; I'd do the math, but I've been up for 20 hours & answering all these damned emails for 9, so I'll pass on it & leave it as an exercise for teh Students.  <grin>
>  
> A few things. 108 minutes was from the time of boarding, right? More
> realistic would be 108 minutes from the time the target knows you
> are a pirate (say your first shot at him). You have to disable
> (totally kill the Mdrive) him, then board (killing all his weapons
> would also be a good idea, and how do you know til you get very
> close?). Then you have to either fix the Mdrive/Jdrive/whatever
> needs fixing, or just loot the cargo. If you want to "do the math"
> I'd suggest starting at first shot, even if you are using HG. 

108 minutes is how long it takes a ship to go 640K klicks at 6G.  We're 
assuming the ship is decellerating to get and stay in range.  A warship in 
orbit around a Size 8 world is 1.28 million klicks away from the 100 diameter 
curb.  Assume a low orbit, and I'm spotting you 40K klicks range at turnover.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:05:49 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

>  
> > > If you're on an intercept course, they *aren't* moving :-)
> > 
> > *YOU'RE* moving.  And you're past extreme range.
>  
> You're moving straight at them. The are NOT moving on the sky (not
> very much, anyway). In 3 space, yeah, but your distance is all that
> is really changing much, and lasers are bore-sighted, so it doesn't
> matter.

Still, I'd like to see your sensors resolve and discriminate between two 30 
meter objects less than 10 meters apart at 600K klicks.  No *WAY* this could 
be a Simple task!!
 
> > The Defender crews won't get many hero buttons that way.  I was under the 
> > assumption that Defender's mission was to attack the Intruder and disable it 
> > for capture rather than toast anything in sight.  YMMV, but I'd put any SDB 
> > crew that pulled a stunt like that up on charges in a Mishun minute if I were 
> > their squadron CO.  Whacking out honest merchie traffic is not a Good Thing.
>  
> Unless pirates usually kill their targets' crew. Then they are dead
> anyway as soon as the two ships are attached, that was my point.
> Otherwise they close until they can resolve the target.

Uhm, methinks the SDB crew's orders would be *save the victims*.  if the pirates kill them, that's one thing.  If the SDB crew kills them, that's a *WHOLE* 'nuther matter.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:07:45 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Maize and Piracy 

> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> >Subject: Re: Piracy 
> 
> <big snip>
> 
> I take it you are not a signatory to the Sunbeard Declaration ?

That the one that says space piracy is impossible and ridiculous on top of it? 
 In that case, no, I'm not.  This does *NOT* mean I think there will be 
pirates *everywhere*.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 13:12:08 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: High Guard and MT design sequences

Answers to a couple o' questions:

>I've been tinkering with the High Guard Mechanics recently, and was
>wondering if anyone knows the following which would be useful:
>
>a) How many MW does an EP correlate to?


250, extrapolating from the rules on Black Globes in the MT starship combat
chapter.


>I'm using MT references (not FFS2 at the moment) as I believe the two
>design sequences are closer. Is this a fair assumption?


Yes.


>e) Would a fair assumption be that you could calculate the typical surface
>area of a ship in different configurations and then have slightly differing
>hard point restrictions?

I didn't think surface area mattered in MT.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:13:42 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Long range fire 

> >These sats at the 100 diameter 'curb', they can be shot at, right?  And I
> thought energy weapons could only be used at close range.  Something about
> the ball of energy dissipating over distance...
> 
> It's a rules system thing.
> 
> In FFS and FFS2, lasers go out to virtually forever.

Under HG, 'energy weapons' means fusion or plasma guns.  Definitely something 
for close in work.

> You could shoot back at the Telstar, but it's armour was pretty thick, on
> the grounds it didnt run too well. Unless you were in a cruiser to start
> with, you'd probably come second.

If it's a small sat, how can it mount humongous lasers and the computer power 
to steer them?

> The big limitation with lasers is they have an energy output limit -
> basically, you cant punch the hull of a well-built ship with a laser. For
> that, you need a nuke, a Particle Accelerator or a Meson Gun.
> 
> Incidentally, it isnt that hard, under FFS2, to build a PAW that will fire
> out past 100 diameters. But I consider that an unsporting argument to use,
> becuase it is too rules-system dependant.

I don't see a planet-bound PAW as being particularly effective at the 100 diameter curb.  The target is 4.25 light-seconds away.  You're going to be correcting for where the target was 8.5 seconds ago.  What difficulty rating would you give this task?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 11:20:50 -0800
From: James Brewer <jwbrewer@ucsd.edu>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers

In my Traveller Universe, set in the Old Earth Union in milieu 0, merchants
can only have the civilian lasers and can't have Nuclear missiles with out
being enrolled in the Home Guard or a system squadron.   The Home Guard
only requires registration and a exercise and evaluation for which you are
paid each year.  This provides the Union with a large supply of armed
transports during a war and discourages pirates while keeping the real
crazies from easy access to weapons of mass destruction.  Also its fun to
watch your players freak when  the reserve officer doing the evaluation
gives them a bad checkoff.
Jim

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:23:35 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: New Thread:  Special Weapons

	Greetings all;

	I have noticed how the piracy flame-fest has started to re-ignite, so I will
offer an alternative topic in the hopes of heading off the fire (although it
is VERY entertaining <G>).
	My question for consideration is this:  just what are the procedures and
protocols for nuclear weapons release w/in the Imperium?  Are nuke warheads
really left in the hands of some brand-new Lt(jg) commanding his first DE??
Who makes the decision to use nuclear warheads? What are the conditions
required to get a nuclear release option?
	A similar question might also be the use of kenetic-energy strikes on
planets.  Granted these are not nuclear weapons...but the short-term effects
are almost identical (even fallout can be reduced or eliminated by a high
enough airburst) and they seem to share many long-term effects as well (dust
in the atmosphere, etc.).
	And another thing to consider:  the effects of a nuclear detonation in space;
how will this effect sensors, starship controls etc (EMP).  Is there an effect
such as white-out, and what might that do to the detection solution as
discussed in the piracy debate?
	I am looking for any opinions or methods you have or use in your universes.
Complete compliance with the Official Traveller Canon Universe is not required
<g>.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:28:39 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 

> >6.  Per LBB2, 'extreme range' is 500,000 klicks and 'long' range is 250,000 
> >klicks.
> 
>   Isn't maximum range for a detected target 900,000 km, per B:2 p. 32? Fire
> to 250 Kkm is +0, to 500 Kkm -2, and beyond that (to ?) is -5 per p. 30. OC,
> the alternate hit DM's from HG can replace those mods, although B:5 doesn't
> have any determinate range values listed.

Maximum tracking range, once you find him in the first place, is 900K klicks.  
Outside that, you lose him.  Maximum detection range is 600K klicks for 
military sensors, 150K for civilian.

> >8.  Defender starts in orbit around the planet.  Defender is also assumed to 
> >be rounding the planet and pointing at the intruder, thus rendering the orbit 
> >height and planet's radius irrelevant.
> 
>   Since a warship can detect a silent running ship at 1 LS (p. 32) why
> not have warships park at that orbital distance? Or a further such increment
> out to allow overlap with the ranges of orbital facilities/craft?

The Intruder and Target are at 4.25 light seconds, the 100 diameter jump curb.
 
> >9.  All attacks are at the USP value of the battery firing, *not* the USP 
> ...
>   Irrelevant now, OC.

Yup.
 
> >Now the math.  First the Dragon, approaching as in Assumption 8.
> ...
> >Recapping everything, the intruder should have no less than 2 hours to loot & 
> >scoot *OR* field repair the victim enough to move it out beyond the 100 
> >diameter limit and jump, based on the above assumptions.  All in all, I'd say 
> >this means that piracy is viable after all, wouldn't you?
> 
>   The model appears to be heavily based on the rather odd assumption that
> any security vessels will be down in as low an orbit as they can start
> (in addition to the clarification of B:2 ranges). How would this model
> function with the ships placed more appropriately at 300,000 and ~500,000 km
> distances from the planet, and with the ranges from B:2 p.32 in effect?

There's a base 50% chance Defender is on the same side of the planet as the Intruder.  Average distance modification in this case would be 1/2 the distance to orbit, you pick the orbit.  50% of the time, the distance modification would be, *add* 1/2 the orbital distance to the start point of Defender.  Thus, I took the median case and postulated Defender starts in orbit, along the baseline drawn through the planet's core, perpendicular to the line drawn from Intruder to the planet's core.  Statistically speaking, that's where Defender would most likely be.  I didn't bother documenting every case.

But still, even at Closest Approach of +500K klicks to the curb, you're still 780K clicks out, 120K klicks short of sensor range for a military ship.  At Furthest Aproach, Defender starts at 1.780K klicks, and besides, there's this pesky 8000 mile diameter planet in the way.

Now you know why I used the 1280K klick midpoint figure.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:30:19 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on Canon 

> [am not bothering to quote]
> 
> Eris' statements of why he's anti-canon are just the tip of the iceberg...
> from his posts over the last couple fo years, I figure few of us would
> recognize much of Eris' game as traveller... a lot of house rules, etc.
> He's tweaked the rules, the settings (wait, no thrown that out), and the
> approaches of the game. He's rejected even some of the fundamental
> assumptions of the game: he uses stutterwarp!

That's strange.  I'm in his game & I haven't seen it used yet.

> Hooray for Eris? yes and no. He's got (or made) the time to do a nearly
> totally custom universe and severely tweak a set of rules.

The best refs *do*.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:31:39 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers

In a message dated 11/2/98 12:23:45 PM Pacific Standard Time,
jamstar@glasscity.net writes:

<< > What if the pirate gains a passive detection and uses LIDAR for the FC
lock?
 > No screaming there.  This also brings up an important point...most merchant
 > vessels (at least the designed ships I have seen) do not routinely carry
laser
 > or maser comms, so they cannot surreptiously warn the defender.
 
 I'd assumed that the Intruder would hear the scream and know they're under
time pressure.  For the purposes of my figures, whether they detected the
scream or not is immaterial.
  >>

	 I would think that if you tight-beamed the target vessel and said "don't
even try to call for help or I'll blow you away", then most merchants would
just give over the cargo and not risk it...esp since the pirate would have
enough time to destroy the merchant if they violated the order.  And remember,
every turn that the SDB doesn't know whats going on (or spends trying to
figure it out) is another turn for the pirate to work.  It seems to me
everybody assumes that SDB crews are on a constant state of General Quarters,
and are thus instantly ready for immediate decisive action (this comes, no
doubt, from AD&D, where PC's routinely sleep in full plate armor, even after
having ridden in it all day! <G>).  Crews get complacent and sloppy, esp. in a
system where nothing much ever happens.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:31:38 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Re Piracy 

> >If ships come out where they want, then planets assign known, patrolled
> >exit points.
> 
> They can't assign entry points, however... they can't communicate with
> incoming traffic til it arrives.

That's a given.

> >If ships come out at a random point, then we are facing the 200-1 odds that
> >my earlier post indicated.
> 
> unles said random point is in a non-flat distribution, in which case it
> becomes a matter of figuiring out best intercept points.

Which is why taking *outbound* prizes makes more sense than taking inbound ones.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:36:08 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers

In a message dated 11/2/98 12:36:18 PM Pacific Standard Time,
wombat@premier.net writes:

<< This also brings up an important point...most merchant
 > vessels (at least the designed ships I have seen) do not routinely carry
laser
 > or maser comms, so they cannot surreptiously warn the defender.
 > 
 According to the description of commo packages in T4's QSDS (T4, pg 94),
 the basic, improved, and enhanced packages all carry some sort of
 1000AU-range tight-beam commo.  Earlier (and/or later) versions may
 vary.
  >>

	Thank you for reminding me of this...I use the HG/MT system, which made you
buy individual commo systems.  The basic sensor package from T4 doesn't have a
laser comm, the standard civilian package (standard for merchant vessels) has
only a 30000km maser comm...not much help if the SDB is on the far side of the
patrol area.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:49:27 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

> >Disclaimer:  The post that Steve replied to was written before I did the 
>                             ^^^^
>                           Thanks :)

De nada.

> >Because they're relatively cheap as warships go.  And they're both standard
> designs which makes them cheaper in quantity.  They're also pretty heavily
> armed for their size class as well as heavily armoured in comparison to
> civilian targets.
> 
>   Gazelles have J-5 (?) and they're going to be assigned to positional defense?

They're 400 ton boats designed for interdiction and customs duties.  The J5 
just lets them get around easier.  Can you say 'Colonial Fleet'?

> Wouldn't they do the patrols and let equivalent performance SDBs do orbits?

At 350ish MCr per, they're under half the cost of the Dragon.  And they're Jump-capable.  Like I say, an appropriate boat to run across in a backwater.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:50:30 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Not piracy! 

>   More importantly, can the TL 2 natives defend themselves against the
> pirate raiders, and even launch a counter boarding attempt between the
> laser shots every quarter hour? :) OK - so I lied about the no piracy...

????????

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:52:02 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: 100 Diameter limit

	One of the things central to the Great Piracy Debate is the effect of the
100-D limit.  Now, correct me if I am wrong about the following statements:

	1)  A starship can make a risky jump at 10-D, with a large chance of a
misjump.
	2)  A starship can make a safe jump at 100-D, with no effect on the
possiblilty of misjump (except for maintenance, etc.)
	3) NOWHERE in the rules does it say a ship MUST come out of jump only at the
100-D limit!!!

	Jumping as soon as you can safely makes perfect sense for merchants...after
all, time is money.  But who says you have to come out of jump at the 100-D
limit?  What if you don't intend to stay?  What if you are meeting a vessel?
Refueling and moving on?  One you head toward the mainworld, you get into the
main traffic pattern...how many of us have spent time in an airplane waiting
to land because either theirs too much traffic or the ATC comps are down
(which passengers don't usually get told about <G>)

	IMTU, where you come out of jump (or go into it for that matter) is mainly
decided by your navigator/astrogator...SysCon simply assigns you an outbound
or inbound vector and lets you do your thing.  Anybody else have any comments?

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:51:50 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: EW/ECM? 

> ...
> >against laser fire, not missile fire.  Presumably, this implies CT missiles 
> >are homers.  But it does make sense that M/E would screw up a jump attempt.
> 
>   Presumably then you'd want to drop flares, or say, donuts?  :>

Counter-battery fire from the target's lasers.  Of course, this means they 
don't get to use them to fire for effect until the next turn...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:54:06 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Skills in HG combat 

> As spokesman for the Laser Communications Division of the
> Postmark Design Bureau ("When your message must get through"),
> I feel that I must interject here: The Telstar XII was in no way
> a wepaons system - it is a peaceful device capable of focusing out
> to 1 million km and sending messages even through severe interferrence
> (eg 10cm of superdense and a couple of interior bulkheads).
> 
> Grav focused lasers can easily achieve spot sizes of 1cm at these
> distances with a 10m mirror. Following a tip from someone of the list
> about using batteries, the Telstar XIIb was even affordable.
> The main problem is 600MJ lasers at ROF800 and 20% efficiency -
> you just cannot dissipate the heat.
> 
> At TL13 you can use optically focused X-ray lasers that indicate
> the the Telstar XIII would be similar in cost to a 1998 real
> world telecommunication satellite. Especially if you considered it a
> remote controlled turret with power and sensors and put the crew in
> a space station or on the ground.
> 
> The Emerging Products Division of the Postmark Design Bureau
> ("Microwaving half baked ideas from acorss the galaxy") has done a
> design study that indicates that grav focused x-ray lasers could ranges
> of over 1 billion km - so they could be in Stellar orbit and protect
> the Gas Giants (apart from minor problems of targetting and light lag).
> 
> The laser device assumes that you are not facing proper warships
> (on these it could carve its name but little else). You could
> use a particle accelerator but then the cost goes up and unless
> your satellite has 3G, it would be a sitting duck when the enemy
> shoots back.

You're joking, yes?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:55:59 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)

In a message dated 11/2/98 13:07:19 PM Pacific Standard Time,
rboleyn@clear.net.nz writes:

<< 
 >As far as damage goes, according to HG, it is *impossible* for any weapon 
 >under Factor 9 to score a critical hit or interior explosion due to the +6
 DM 
 >added to the damage roll.  Since the lowest roll necessary for an interior 
 >explosion is a natural 5, this leaves only fuel, manuver, or weapon hits for
 >the surface explosion tables and computer and weapon hits on the radiation 
 >damage for the Gazzelle PA's.  >>

	Since I make Gunnery skill a part of the combat equation, I tend to make a
Spectacular Success roll able to inflict an unmodified Internal Explosion
roll.  A spec Failure, however, renders the turret inoperative until emergency
repairs are made.  This gives the "golden BB" effect that my players seem to
demand.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 11:52:43 -0800 (PST)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: New Thread:  Special Weapons

DustyLV769@aol.com writes:

>      My question for consideration is this:  just what are the procedures
> and protocols for nuclear weapons release w/in the Imperium?  Are nuke
> warheads really left in the hands of some brand-new Lt(jg) commanding his
> first DE?? Who makes the decision to use nuclear warheads? What are the
> conditions required to get a nuclear release option?

Probably the local senior officer can give nuclear weapons release -- given
communications latency, if you aren't willing to give your captains authority
to fire nuclear weapons, just don't give them nuclear weapons.  There's
probably regulations on when they can be used, and lots of paperwork later if
you use them.

>      A similar question might also be the use of kenetic-energy strikes on
> planets.  Granted these are not nuclear weapons...but the short-term
> effects are almost identical (even fallout can be reduced or eliminated by
> a high enough airburst) and they seem to share many long-term effects as
> well (dust in the atmosphere, etc.).

Weapons of mass-destruction against planets are generally banned.

>      And another thing to consider:  the effects of a nuclear detonation in
> space; how will this effect sensors, starship controls etc (EMP).  Is
> there an effect such as white-out, and what might that do to the detection
> solution as discussed in the piracy debate?

I doubt EMP is a problem -- don't think its even a factor in full vacuum.  In
any case, you need to harden starships against enough radiation of various
kinds that EMP probably isn't that big of an issue.  However, they'll nicely
muck with starship sensors -- a nuclear weapon itself will be detected more or
less automatically by ships in the same system as the weapon, but it will
probably dazzle sensors looking near the weapon.  It doesn't have any real
relevance to the piracy debate (blinding someone with a nuclear weapon is
hardly stealth), though as an issue of general military tactics it's
interesting.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 13:57:12 -0600
From: Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:

> >If you feel I insulted you, I apologize.
 
> I don't and I'm sorry if I gave that impression.

That's good.
 
> >This time it was the frustration of weeks of reading arguments about how
> >many pirates can dance on the head of a 100 diameter pin. ;->

> Now, that, OTOH, while not insulting, is something I don't care much for.
> If you think Gary, Steven, Walt, Keven, I et alii have been arguing about
> something inexpressibly silly, then that's your prerogative.

Lighten up, Hans.  You could discuss piracy in space until you're an
old man and never resolve the issue to everyone's complete
satisfaction. The same can be said for many other subjects, especially
ones that touch on the "c" word. Whether something is silly,
interesting or boring I'm happy to leave to each reader.

> It seems to me that you're concerned about something that we not really
> addressing at the moment. 

Just expressed my opinion in favor of less "official" detail. Didn't
expect it to be popular. Do you think I should agree with all your
opinions? I certainly don't expect you to agree with all of mine.

<snip of lots of stuff>

> Could you try to explain?

Probably, but that would just extend a debate that doesn't need to be
taking place.  I mean were's the profit from that? You believe A, I
believe B, others believe C, and it's all still Traveller...IMO, and
there are people here that disagree even with that! ;->

Eris,
  still a heretic and still saying "Phooey on canon!"

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1085
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, November 3 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1086



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: New Thread:  Special Weapons
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)
Re: Phooey on Canon
Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short)
Re: Skills in HG combat
Re: Piracy by the numbers 
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Piracy by the numbers 
Re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: Maize and Piracy
Re: Phooey on Canon
Re: New Thread:  Special Weapons
Re: Piracy by the numbers 
Re: High Guard and MT design sequences
Project: StarRise
Re: phooey on canon
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
Re: 100 Diameter limit 
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 
re: Piracy

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:01:28 -0600
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: New Thread:  Special Weapons

DustyLV769@aol.com wrote:
> 
<<snip>>

>         My question for consideration is this:  just what are the procedures and
> protocols for nuclear weapons release w/in the Imperium?  Are nuke warheads
> really left in the hands of some brand-new Lt(jg) commanding his first DE??
> Who makes the decision to use nuclear warheads? What are the conditions
> required to get a nuclear release option?

IMHO (the question hasn't come up yet in our current Traveller
campaign):

1.  The procedures for nuclear release would vary, depending on the type
of nuke in question.  Release for det-laser nukes would likely be more
easily obtained than release for impact nukes in space, because of the
reduced chance of radioactive contamination of the target.  Nuclear
release for planetary bombardment likely would require sector ducal
permission (or even higher).

2.  Similarly, det-laser nukes would likely be routinely found on ships
down to the DD level (e.g., the MIDU AGASHAAM class ships).  Impact
nukes (either anti-ship or planetary bombardment) probably are found
routinely only on ships of cruiser size and larger.  (Of course, mission
requirements may change this in either direction.)

3.  Nuclear release, even of det-laser nukes, probably will not be
granted in the vicinity of friendly worlds without _very_ good reason,
due to the potential effects on the planet's magnetic field and/or "Van
Allen Belt."

>         A similar question might also be the use of kenetic-energy strikes on
> planets.  Granted these are not nuclear weapons...but the short-term effects
> are almost identical (even fallout can be reduced or eliminated by a high
> enough airburst) and they seem to share many long-term effects as well (dust
> in the atmosphere, etc.).

What about the radiation effects of meson guns?  Would this be a
sufficient problem in planetary bombardment to require special weapons
release? 

>         And another thing to consider:  the effects of a nuclear detonation in space;
> how will this effect sensors, starship controls etc (EMP).  Is there an effect
> such as white-out, and what might that do to the detection solution as
> discussed in the piracy debate?

Good question.  I have no good answers.  Maybe someone else does.

>         I am looking for any opinions or methods you have or use in your universes.
> Complete compliance with the Official Traveller Canon Universe is not required
> <g>.
> 
> DustyLV769@aol.com

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:03:40 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)

In a message dated 11/2/98 13:07:19 PM Pacific Standard Time,
rboleyn@clear.net.nz writes:

<< But each weapon hit has probably cost you a MCr or so. A maneuver drive hit
 would probably cost a couple of MCr to fix, and if you don't catching that
 next victim will be that much harder. 
 
 BTW what happens if the SDB uses a nuke? In MT it makes it reasonably
 likely that the damage is in the 10+ MCr range. Also I see that a ship with
 4 triple laser turret will (in MT) be able to get criticals on a 400 ton
ship. >>

	As I see it, local defense forces don't HAVE nukes.  Can anyone think of a
country today who has placed the nuclear option in the hands of the
Reserves/National Guard/Militia forces?  I can't (and the only country I could
see it happening would be Israel...but thats not very likely either)

M-Drives in both HG and MT are dirt-cheap, relatively speaking...MCr.5 in HG,
.7 in MT.  and the critical hits on the 400 ton vessel can be negated by armor
very easily (AV1 w/ HG, AF 43 w/ MT, which already req an AF of 40 for a
starship anyway)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 13:02:25 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Phooey on Canon

>From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
>Subject: Re: Phooey on Canon
...
>approaches of the game. He's rejected even some of the fundamental
>assumptions of the game: he uses stutterwarp!

  STL stutterwarp hardly seems terribly crucial, particularly if it's
very slow - thrusters have their own problems, sadly. OTOH, I think
allowing micro-jumps substantially under a week would cause problems...

>The complaints about Traveller canon is that is is NOT self consistant...
>several bits contradict several other bits. In traveller, this seems to be
>unintentional. (In Glorantha, it is intentional as it might be in WoD,
>which is why I won't buy first-hand those products.)

  Heck, if Trav books are going to be contradicting themselves often enough
(and thus requiring too much of my time to read over troubleshooting) then
I'll just hang around the Alternity *Stardrive* web ring for scenarios -
and that only after playing all my Star Frontiers stuff again (the SFKH
series in particular was of higher quality than the IG stuff I bought).

...
>background... they just kept adding. (JFR, GW-UK basically approches
>universe canon with the mindset of Canon starts over every edition....)

  I'll bet you miss the WFRP-List flamewars, eh? :>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 13:02:46 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short)

>Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 21:20:23 -0500
>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short)
>
>Oh, almost forgot something in the analysis I posted a few minutes ago.
...
>the roll to repair the system doesn't take into account any Engineering 
>skills.  Methinks it should.  Quickie 'instant rule':  add all Engineering 
>skills together, divide by the number of the prize crew.  Round to the nearest 
>whole number.  That's the DM on the repair roll.  As is, a roll of 9+ repairs 
>the system in question.
>
>Comments?

  Presumably the 9+ assumes level-2, per HG. Further, repairs are stated to
require a full ships crew to attempt; this translates perhaps as "normal
damage control contingent for said ship must be available with the engineering
component averaging skill 2 to obtain a 9+ roll each turn"?

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 13:03:19 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Skills in HG combat

...
>>   HG assumes level 2; p. 44, "Individuals".
>
>That's because it's factored in already.  Abstract large scale battles, 
>remember?

  Stating that level 2 is assumed means it isn't covered?

...
>>   Specifically, a non-evading target means a long range that is limited only
>> by ones ability to achieve damaging energy densities at range. As an anti-
>> piracy measure one can amuse oneself by designing truly ludicrous weapons
>> (FS Weapons Div., anyone?) like the variant (deviant?) Com-Sat that some
>> commie sicko posted a ways back, and deploy them solely to slowly roast
>> targets that are matching ballistic trajectories out near the 100-D limit.
>
>These sats at the 100 diameter 'curb', they can be shot at, right?  And I
thought energy weapons could only be used at close range.  Something about
the ball of energy dissipating over distance...

  Clarification - energy as in "laser beam density sufficient to inflict
meaningful damage", not "Trav High Energy Plasma/Fusion". Such a sat would
function perfectly well fairly close to the planet, or further out.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:08:56 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 

> Late-period CT sensor rules.  In addition, once detected a ship may be
> tracked out to three light-seconds; the size-8 100-diameter limit is at
> four and a quarter light-seconds.   

Tracking to 3 lights.  But you gotta *find* it first.

> The loophole here is that CT military sensors are considered free with
> military designs.  You could extend sensor coverage by buying a couple
> of squadrons of cheap 10-ton _Iramda_ fighters and flying a rotating
> patrol out at the three light-second line.  You can buy quite a few of
> these sensor platforms for the same cost as one 400-ton SDB.  They can
> then vector in heavier ships of the planetary navy on pirates, or onto
> an invading enemy fleet.

It's also assumed that military grade stuff is gonna be kept strictly 
military, too.
 
> > If you assume even *minimal* brains of a professional pirate, you'll realise 
> > they'll take outbound prizes, not inbound ones.  Inbound ones are a good way 
> > to spend your formative years on a prison planet.
> 
> In addition, the pirate would have a chance to pick and choose targets 
> based on what they're loading in port, and could get a good idea of the
> ship's departure time, armament, and course.  The pirate could also try
> to suborn crew, or slip hijackers or saboteurs aboard as passengers.

Exactly.  Inbound targets aren't particularly inviting anymore, are they?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 12:12:28 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

>Still, I'd like to see your sensors resolve and discriminate between two 30 
>meter objects less than 10 meters apart at 600K klicks.  No *WAY* this could 
>be a Simple task!!

It's a relatively simple task for a medium-sized military sensor (the
kind you'd find on a 3000-dTon destroyer or so (PEMS-14.) 

of about 7m at this range. (It's a 30-m-diameter 50m2 area interferometric
array; costs about MCr 250 at TL15, making it a reasonably choice for a 
destroyer (or maybe a heavy destroyer.) A dinky little SDB will have more
trouble (although a LIDAR might be able to tell that there are two
targets there.) (A good SDB sensor - a PEMS-13.5 or so - woul dhave a resolution
of 20m at 500,000 km.) 

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:15:02 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 

> IMTU Hijacking is difficult, requiring a pretty rare mix of skills (to take the
> ship reasonably intact) and contacts (to safely sell the ship). If the only 
> object of the agents aboard is to disable the ship's drives, sensors and/or 
> commo at the right moment, that's a bit different. 

Howbout if that NPC crew dood you just hired for Engineering is really working 
for the local pirates?  <grin>
 
> Explosives can be substituted for computer/electronics skill, for
> example. Sufficient contacts to safely dispose of a hot starship
> may not be needed. 

I sill go for the old 'pull the fuses out' trick.  An oldie but goodie.
 
> I'll leave coordination between pirate agents on the planet and 
> the Corsair lurking somewhere in-system to intrepid criminal
> masterminds among us. <G>

Can you say 'role-play' not roll play?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:20:03 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers

In a message dated 11/2/98 14:07:25 PM Pacific Standard Time, ianw@orac.net.au
writes:

<< What stops an outbound target risking a jump from within 100 diameters ? It
 is a risk, but if the choice is being boarded and looted, many Free Traders
 would jump, and many Company Men may fear damage to their careers for not
 trying to safeguard Company property, and those fearful of a pirate's mercy
 may just take their chances in jumpspace. >>

	Why does everyone keep making this assumption???  Has anyone on the list ever
been robbed at gunpoint?  I have 5 different times:  Each time all the guy
wanted was the money in the cash register...he wasn't looking for trouble, but
he crertainly convinced me that if I was, he'd give it to me!!  Most merchant
crews don't care...give them what they want, let them leave, then scream for
help as soon as it's safe.  The insurance company pays off, and nobody
dies...probably including the pirates!
	BTW...I should mention that every time I was robbed, I was also armed:  for
the most part, it happened to quick to safely engage the criminal, since he
was already in the store.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:23:50 -0500
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <pbrenton@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Maize and Piracy

>> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>> >Subject: Re: Piracy
>>
>> <big snip>
>>
>> I take it you are not a signatory to the Sunbeard Declaration ?
>
>That the one that says space piracy is impossible and ridiculous on top of
>it?
> In that case, no, I'm not.  This does *NOT* mean I think there will be
>pirates *everywhere*.

No, its the one that says "Piracy is possible but limited to these specific
situations, and in these ways" and goes on to outline those situations in
sufficiently flexible terms that in Most Traveller universesthay can be
interpreted to be acceptable.

It is a good basis for ending the piracy debate, or at least getting to the
point where it is declared dead for the forseeable future (like, until
February or so).

This morning I deleted 100+ messages on the sole criterion that the word
"pirate" was in the header somewhere, in some form.  The signal to noise
ration (for me) improved significantly.

Maybe we should establish a "Pirate Debate" mailing list to get
this...stuff (that word edited several times) off the main TML.

Pete


                      Peter H. Brenton : pbrenton@mit.edu
"A Good Traveller has no fixed plans and no intent on arriving."
  -Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:23:21 -0600
From: Eris reddoch <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on Canon

William F. Hostman wrote:
> 
> [am not bothering to quote]

No reason to.
 
> Eris' statements of why he's anti-canon are just the tip of the iceberg...
> from his posts over the last couple fo years, I figure few of us would
> recognize much of Eris' game as traveller... a lot of house rules, etc.
> He's tweaked the rules, the settings (wait, no thrown that out), and the
> approaches of the game. He's rejected even some of the fundamental
> assumptions of the game: he uses stutterwarp!

You'd probably be wrong about that, I think most of the list would
recognize my games as being traveller, but it wouldn't especially
bother me if they didn't. Interestingly, my use of stutterwarp came
about because I was trying to maintain what I consider the fundamental
assumptions of traveller. We might disagree on what those fundamental
assumptions are, of course, but there *is* a set that I *would*
recognize as required for a game to have the traveller feel.

> Hooray for Eris? yes and no. He's got (or made) the time to do a nearly
> totally custom universe and severely tweak a set of rules.

That's what 20 years of work gives you.
 
> <biting sarcasm>
>         Much further, and he may as well not call it traveller anymore,
>         find a cooperative publisher, and produce something more his
>         liking....
> </biting sarcasm>

Boo hoo! I'm cut to the quick. ;-p 

> HOWEVER, don't miss the point: While people like Eris can (and will) throw
> out canon, many of us cannot due to lack of (choose from Imagination, Time,
> Willpower, Understanding of Macroecon, understanding of sociodynamics,
> understanding of physics).

Sheeze! Now you're insulting *everybody* except me!  Well, at least
you're equal opportunity about it. ;-> Wil, I use other people's
material when I can too. There's a middle ground between every piece
of published material fitting so tightly into a coherent whole that
you have to accept the total to get the part, and every piece of
published material being totally disjointed so you can't use it within
some "official storyline." All I'm saying is don't nail the coffin lid
down, us oldtimers still need some air to breath. 

> -Wil
> (a heretic, but still a canonist)

As I've said before many times before, I don't like the term "canon"
because of how it ends up being applied. It always seems to become
exclusionary.."don't follow the revealed word, then you aren't
'legitment' and you should be stoned!" ;-> Ok, for this kind of
conversation, being stoned might not be such a bad idea, but you know
what I mean. 

If you limit yourself to a small set of fundamental assumptions then I
could even be called by that "c" word myself, although I never would
admit it. ;->  But, because trying to identify that set of assumptions
would most likely set off another explosion, let's not. Personally,
I'm happy to let each person define the assumptions that make
traveller...traveller for themselves. 


Eris,
  maybe I'm a Traveller fundamentalist? 
  or maybe I'm a Traveller Bhuddist?
  I'm certainly still a heretic! ;->

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 13:25:22 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: New Thread:  Special Weapons

DustyLV769@aol.com wrote:

>         My question for consideration is this:  just what are the procedures and
> protocols for nuclear weapons release w/in the Imperium?  Are nuke warheads
> really left in the hands of some brand-new Lt(jg) commanding his first DE??
> Who makes the decision to use nuclear warheads? What are the conditions
> required to get a nuclear release option?

Well, in the first place, unless things are really, REALLY bad, the Navy
doesn't let a jg command much of anything...much less a heavily armed
warship. I suppose, given the C&C structure of the Imperial Navy,
planetary bombardment authorizations would land on the highest ranking
officer in contact with the units involved, ie: if the DE is part of a
fleet in the same system as our hypothetical Lt. Greenhorn, the overall
fleet commander has the authority. This authority will trickle down the
ranks by seniority as the size of the local Naval contingent decreases.
So, under the right circumstances Lt Greenhorn _would_ be the one to
authorize the use of nuclear or kk force.

However, there has to be intensive indoctrination of Naval officers in
the appropriate use of force throughout the academy, as this is probably
the most important thing to learn as a command officer in a
decentralized force such as the IN. Lt Greenhorn will undoubtedly face a
board of inquiry if he comes back to base with the seals on the nuke and
kkm armory broken. He will have to show to the boards satisfaction that
the use of the nuke was unavoidable in the face of a greater threat.
That bar is very high when it comes to nuking civilian populations; if
the board doesn't like what he did, he can be cashiered, courtmartialed,
or turned over to Imperial courts for commiting genocide under the
Imperial Rules of War.

IMO this is one reason that the Black War during the Rebellion got so
black...so many experienced naval officers had been lost that
inexperienced, untrained, and often more than a little fanatical people
ended up commanding these ships. 

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:26:56 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 

> << > What if the pirate gains a passive detection and uses LIDAR for the FC
> lock?
>  > No screaming there.  This also brings up an important point...most merchant
>  > vessels (at least the designed ships I have seen) do not routinely carry
> laser
>  > or maser comms, so they cannot surreptiously warn the defender.
>  
>  I'd assumed that the Intruder would hear the scream and know they're under
> time pressure.  For the purposes of my figures, whether they detected the
> scream or not is immaterial.
>   >>
> 
> 	 I would think that if you tight-beamed the target vessel and said "don't
> even try to call for help or I'll blow you away", then most merchants would
> just give over the cargo and not risk it...esp since the pirate would have
> enough time to destroy the merchant if they violated the order.  And remember,
> every turn that the SDB doesn't know whats going on (or spends trying to
> figure it out) is another turn for the pirate to work.  It seems to me
> everybody assumes that SDB crews are on a constant state of General Quarters,
> and are thus instantly ready for immediate decisive action (this comes, no
> doubt, from AD&D, where PC's routinely sleep in full plate armor, even after
> having ridden in it all day! <G>).  Crews get complacent and sloppy, esp. in a
> system where nothing much ever happens.

I refer you to the Original Post(tm) where the assumption is that the Scream 
has taken place.  How is immaterial to the scenario.  When was assumed to be 
the moment of boarding.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:29:55 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: High Guard and MT design sequences

In a message dated 11/3/98 11:11:47 AM Pacific Standard Time,
yikes@evansville.net writes:

<< 250, extrapolating from the rules on Black Globes in the MT starship combat
 chapter. >>

this also gibes with Striker that states that a starship laser is equiv to a
250 MW vehicle laser....

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:33:23 -0600 (CST)
From: "Jason Kemp" <Jason.Kemp@tdh.state.tx.us>
Subject: Project: StarRise

Greetings,

Not to change threads or anything, but I have a request for 
assistance that I would like to make to the list.  I will soon be 
starting a campaign called StarRise, taking place during the 
Solomani's first steps into the world of interstellar contact, 
starting with Barnard's Star in 2094AD.  I would like to keep as much 
with OTU canon as I can, despite the fact that I am using HERO System 
Rules due to player psych lims.

I would appreciate any references that anyone might be able to give 
me regarding the worlds and the milieu of the Solomani Rim during 
that time period.  (I don't have access to my AM:Solomani, 
unfortunately, and I won't until the holidays.)  I have seen Mick 
Bailey's Milieu 0 work on the Solomani Rim, and will be taking a lot 
from there, as well as Harold Hale's work on the Vegans.  (Are there 
any other minor races in the sector besides the chips?  I haven't 
found any references on the web yet.)  If I have used the wrong names 
in giving credit for hard work done, then I apologize.

In addition, there are a number of timeline continuity issues that I 
have noticed.  Solomani discovers Jump Drives on various dates in the 
latter half of the 21st century.  Solomani encounter Vilani in either 
2094AD or 2096AD, depending on your source.  (GT sites both.)  The 
Terran Confederations starts on either 2120AD or 2220AD (GT sites 
both.)  I've found on the net that it could have also been 2020AD.

One of the goals I have to build a reliable timeline from the present 
to the formation of the Terran Confederation and the beginning of the 
First Interstellar War.

All information that I compile for Project: StarRise will be made 
available via its website, which will be up by the end of November.  
(I'll post the URL once I've got it up and going.)  Thank you all for 
your time and help in this.  My gamers and I appreciate it.

Jason

============================
Jason Kemp, ADS Programmer I
(512)458-7111 ext. 3375

Internet Address: jason.kemp@tdh.state.tx.us

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:28:25 -0500
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil>
Subject: Re: phooey on canon

Keven wrote:
> 
> There's some things I use IMTU that I don't talk about here since they're not
> canonical.  For instance, my star charts & UWPs for the Deep as a whole aren't
> canonical simply due to the fact that I didn't have canonical info to base
> them on outside of Drexilthar Subsector.  I used what I could find, and worked
> from there.  Also, I factor in the 'solar jump limit' (100 solar diameters) in
> my game.  This means the main world of a system *MAY* be inside the solar jump
> limit, in which case, incoming ships will have a cruise to get to the main
> world.  The way Jump drives work IMTU, they exit at the 100 diameter 'curb'.
> *Entering* jumpspace is another story; if you want to chance entering before
> reaching the curb, go for it, but don't say I didn't warn you that it's risky.
>  If asked to supply portions of my PBEM for publication, I would naturally
> remove any non-canon material not necessary to the story arc.  This means, I
> wouldn't talk about a solar jump limit.
> 

Solar limits ARE canonical.  In LBB 6, Scouts, it talks about stellar
radii:  

"Radius is used to determine if orbits are possible, or if they would be
inside a specific star.  Radius can also be used to determine minimum
jump distance from a star (misjumps are more probable inside 20 radii
and 200 radii from the star)."

LBB 6 page 42

Greg

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:39:23 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds

In a message dated 11/2/98 16:09:45 PM Pacific Standard Time,
jamstar@glasscity.net writes:

<< OK, there's where I threw in the USP by battery 'fix'.  Each battery on the
P, 
 having only 3 lasers, would have a USP of 3, not 4.  Under the standard 
 assumption, you can take, for example, a 3KT boat and put 30 single laser 
 turrets on it, each turret configured as its own battery.  The ship's USP 
 value for the lasers is 8, unless they're TL13 or better lasers, in which 
 case, they're Factor 9.  Now, each laser is its own battery.  Does each 
 battery now attack as Factor 8, or does it attack as Factor 1?  Think very 
 carefully about this now.
 
 30 Factor 8 shots means your 3KT boat can outshoot a heavy cruiser.  Odd are,
 at least 15 of those shots will hit and penetrate.  On a 400 ton hull,
they'll 
 also inflict 4 critical hits for each hit, since if your weapons factor is 
 greater than the USP hull size, you get the difference in criticals.  We're 
 looking at 60 critical hits per combat round.  There's a 1 in 11 chance that 
 the ship will be vaporised.  60 critical hits makes this a statistical 
 certainty.  See what I mean? >>

	Now this is where I get confused by your "fix".  You can only get Factor 8 by
having 30 lasers firing AS one battery...other wise, you have 30 Factor 1
attacks which will not do Crits on the 400 ton ship.  The tables for HG list
the number of weapons needed to achieve the desired rating...but it makes no
difference how many weapons are in the turret, each turret weighs 1 ton.  If
you have 30 hardpoints, why only put in 1 laser (giving you 1Factor 8 attack)
when you can triple them up and get 3 factor 8 attacks??

	Using the lower numbers makes some tactical sense sometimes, at least in
larger ships.  Most lasers are only useful in a PD mode anyway (vs Capital
Ships,, I'm talking about) and free damage hits...so which makes more sense:
100 factor 8 laser batteries (which takes 300 lasers) or 200 factor 6 laser
batteries (which also takes 300 lasers)  Granted, the chance of penetrating
the lower factor is higher...but in the end, I think the numbers (i.e. twice
the # of attempts to stop the attack) make it a better option in some cases.


PS:  You can ignore the first part of this post...the situation you described
finally gelled in my drug-addled brain.  I was confused by the question you
had asked WRT what rating they fired at.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:42:55 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit 

> 	One of the things central to the Great Piracy Debate is the effect of the
> 100-D limit.  Now, correct me if I am wrong about the following statements:
> 
> 	1)  A starship can make a risky jump at 10-D, with a large chance of a
> misjump.

Under CT, you misjump on 13+.  DM's are +5 for being inside the 100 diameter 
curb, +10 for jumping inside the 10 diameter curb.  These are not cumulative.
This says, there's about a 33% chance of misjump inside the 100 diameter curb. 
 If you're on a schedule, do you REALLY want to take the chance?

> 	2)  A starship can make a safe jump at 100-D, with no effect on the
> possiblilty of misjump (except for maintenance, etc.)

Or using unrefined fuel.

> 	3) NOWHERE in the rules does it say a ship MUST come out of jump only at the
> 100-D limit!!!

*shrug*  This just adds more fuel to the argument I make that a pirate would 
take *outbound* targets rather than *inbound*.

> IMTU, where you come out of jump (or go into it for that matter) is mainly
> decided by your navigator/astrogator...SysCon simply assigns you an outbound
> or inbound vector and lets you do your thing.  Anybody else have any comments?

IMTU, you come out at the 100 diameter curb.  Rationalisation for this is, since it affects the *entrance* into jumpspace, it probably affects the *exit*, too.  But I *also* use the 100 diameter solar jump curb, too, and in detailed systems, the mainworld sometimes is inside this limit.  In a couple cases IMTU, *VERY* deep within it.  It adds a bit to the 'look & feel' of the game, IMNSFBHO.  YMMV.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:45:02 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 

> Since I make Gunnery skill a part of the combat equation, I tend to make a
> Spectacular Success roll able to inflict an unmodified Internal Explosion
> roll.  A spec Failure, however, renders the turret inoperative until emergency
> repairs are made.  This gives the "golden BB" effect that my players seem to
> demand.

Two questions.  You use MT, yes?  And the 'golden BB' effect applies equally 
to the Bad Guys, too, right?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:40:36 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy

Keven R. Pittsinger wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Capturing small craft isn't a bad business if you think about it.
> You can throw them in your (large) hold, then Strip them while in
> jump space--counterfit a new VIN, then sell them.

It's chicken stealing.  After awhile, those little boats start arming up and 
start becoming a pain in the ass.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I ran an economic analysis of piracy a couple weeks ago. If there is
a problem with taking the whole ship in the TU in question, this "chicken
stealing" is the pot of gold for pirates. A 20tn Lifeboat with no
computer and a 1G drive is worth 14 _Million_ credits, remember?

Walt Smith

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1086
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, November 3 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1087



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Skills in HG combat 
Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short) 
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: Gunnery Crew (was re: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080) 
Re: 100 Diameter limit
Re: phooey on canon 
Re: 100 Diameter limit
Re: Piracy
Re: 100 star diams in CT book 2!
Re: Off topic (re: response; long)
Re: High Guard and MT design sequences
Re: Phooey on canon!
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds
Re: Piracy 
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)
Re: Piracy by the Numbers 
Re: Dead Vilani
Re: Skills in HG combat
Re: Piracy (now about sensors)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:54:36 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Skills in HG combat 

> ...
> >>   HG assumes level 2; p. 44, "Individuals".
> >
> >That's because it's factored in already.  Abstract large scale battles, 
> >remember?
> 
>   Stating that level 2 is assumed means it isn't covered?

No, it means the default Gunnery-2 skill is already factored into the tables 
for hits and penetration.

> >>   Specifically, a non-evading target means a long range that is limited only
> >> by ones ability to achieve damaging energy densities at range. As an anti-
> >> piracy measure one can amuse oneself by designing truly ludicrous weapons
> >> (FS Weapons Div., anyone?) like the variant (deviant?) Com-Sat that some
> >> commie sicko posted a ways back, and deploy them solely to slowly roast
> >> targets that are matching ballistic trajectories out near the 100-D limit.
> >
> >These sats at the 100 diameter 'curb', they can be shot at, right?  And I
> thought energy weapons could only be used at close range.  Something about
> the ball of energy dissipating over distance...
> 
>   Clarification - energy as in "laser beam density sufficient to inflict
> meaningful damage", not "Trav High Energy Plasma/Fusion". Such a sat would
> function perfectly well fairly close to the planet, or further out.

OK.  I was thinking you were saying fusion/plasma guns there.

But still, let's ignore sensor limits here for a second.  The Intruder is 1.28 million klicks away from the planet.  That's 4.25 light-seconds & change.  Ignore the change.  Where's the sat?  If it's more than 300K klicks out, there is lightspeed lag to and from the sat for tracking update purposes and command purposes.  Best-case shot is 9 seconds turnaround time between aquisition of the image of Intruder at the curb and firing a response beam.  We're totally ignoring processor time and decision to fire time here.

And I don't know about you, but I find the thought of somebody hitting a target at 1.28 million klicks to be ridiculous.  Space is deep, and targets at that range are gonna be *small*.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:56:12 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, by the numbers, Pt 2 (short) 

> >Oh, almost forgot something in the analysis I posted a few minutes ago.
> ...
> >the roll to repair the system doesn't take into account any Engineering 
> >skills.  Methinks it should.  Quickie 'instant rule':  add all Engineering 
> >skills together, divide by the number of the prize crew.  Round to the nearest 
> >whole number.  That's the DM on the repair roll.  As is, a roll of 9+ repairs 
> >the system in question.
> >
> >Comments?
> 
>   Presumably the 9+ assumes level-2, per HG. Further, repairs are stated to
> require a full ships crew to attempt; this translates perhaps as "normal
> damage control contingent for said ship must be available with the engineering
> component averaging skill 2 to obtain a 9+ roll each turn"?

Interesting idea.  But what if we designate the prize crew is now 'the crew' for the purposes of the repairs?  Nothing stopping us.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 16:00:21 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

> 
> >Still, I'd like to see your sensors resolve and discriminate between two 30 
> >meter objects less than 10 meters apart at 600K klicks.  No *WAY* this could 
> >be a Simple task!!
> 
> It's a relatively simple task for a medium-sized military sensor (the
> kind you'd find on a 3000-dTon destroyer or so (PEMS-14.) 

But Defender is a 400 ton Fiery or a 400 ton Dragon.

> of about 7m at this range. (It's a 30-m-diameter 50m2 area interferometric
> array; costs about MCr 250 at TL15, making it a reasonably choice for a 
> destroyer (or maybe a heavy destroyer.) A dinky little SDB will have more
> trouble (although a LIDAR might be able to tell that there are two
> targets there.) (A good SDB sensor - a PEMS-13.5 or so - woul dhave a resolution
> of 20m at 500,000 km.) 

These arrays...  They don't take damage in combat?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:56:23 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy by the Numbers

Keven Pittsinger wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Explosives can be substituted for computer/electronics skill, for
> example. Sufficient contacts to safely dispose of a hot starship
> may not be needed. 

I sill go for the old 'pull the fuses out' trick.  An oldie but goodie.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If you haven't managed to replace crew members, you have to get from
the passenger areas _to_ the fuses. If you don't want to wreck lots of
the ship, you need computer skill to spoof the anti-hijack programs
and/or electronics skill to hotwire the locks. If you aren't concerned
about breaking things, you can blow big holes in the bulkhead
between you and the fuses you want to pull out.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 13:05:32 -0800 (PST)
From: Brannon Boren <brannonb@animal.blarg.net>
Subject: Re: Gunnery Crew (was re: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080) 

On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Keven R. Pittsinger wrote:

> > IYTU, what does a designated ship's gunner do during the 99% + of the
> > time the ship isn't under attack?
> 
> Depends on what he's interested in.  During Jump [snip]
>  Drink heavily.

Forget just Gunners. What does EVERYONE do for the week in jump? You can
only 'check the panel' so many times. The systems obviously do not require
constant attention, or else the scout pilot would be VERY sleep-deprived.

What are some of the ways that your PCs have found to pass the time in
jumpspace?

Ben

- --
Brannon (Ben) Boren
brannonb@blarg.net
http://www.solaria.net/brannonb/index.html

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:07:33 -0600
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit

DustyLV769@aol.com wrote:
> 
>         One of the things central to the Great Piracy Debate is the effect of the
> 100-D limit.  Now, correct me if I am wrong about the following statements:
> 
>         1)  A starship can make a risky jump at 10-D, with a large chance of a
> misjump.
>         2)  A starship can make a safe jump at 100-D, with no effect on the
> possiblilty of misjump (except for maintenance, etc.)
>         3) NOWHERE in the rules does it say a ship MUST come out of jump only at the
> 100-D limit!!!
> 
At least it doesn't address this in either LBB2 or T4.  I don't have MT
or TNE to check.

>         Jumping as soon as you can safely makes perfect sense for merchants...after
> all, time is money.  But who says you have to come out of jump at the 100-D
> limit?  What if you don't intend to stay?  What if you are meeting a vessel?
> Refueling and moving on?  One you head toward the mainworld, you get into the
> main traffic pattern...how many of us have spent time in an airplane waiting
> to land because either theirs too much traffic or the ATC comps are down
> (which passengers don't usually get told about <G>)

Alternately, an invasion force would want to jump closer than 100-D from
the target world, in order to achieve surprise (we actually did this in
our current campaign [my character is Colonel-in-command of an Imperial
Army Jump Infantry regiment {the 1199th}]).

> 
>         IMTU, where you come out of jump (or go into it for that matter) is mainly
> decided by your navigator/astrogator...SysCon simply assigns you an outbound
> or inbound vector and lets you do your thing.  Anybody else have any comments?
> 
How about assigning (in T4) difficult ratings, based on destination? 
F'r instance:

a.  To exit jump _somewhere_ in a system (without regard as to location
in-system):  EASY (referee randomly places you _somewhere_
in-system....)

b.  To exit jump at the 100-d limit of a given celestial body within
that system:  AVERAGE (the default setting)(failure has results as a.,
above)

c.  To exit jump at a planned point outside the 100-d limit of any
celestial body:  DIFFICULT (fewer gravitic cues)(failure has results as
a., above)

d.  To exit jump within 50-d of a given celestial body:
FORMIDABLE (failure results in major damage to jump drives [8-] or
misjump [9+])

e.  To exit jump within 10-d of a givern celestial body:
STAGGERING (failure results in destruction of jump drives [8-] or
destruction of the ship [9+])

(All exit tasks assume that you made your roll to enter jumpspace, and
are based on Astrogation.  Damage, misjump, and destruction results can
be adjusted 1 pip in either direction for each level of Engineering
skill the Chief Engineer has.)

Of course, these are off the top of my head, so please comment.

> DustyLV769@aol.com

- -- 
- ------
|    |  Reply to wombat_at_premier_dot_net
|JOLT|
|COLA|  Visit my Web site at:
|    |
- ------  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776/

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 16:19:24 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: phooey on canon 

> Solar limits ARE canonical.  In LBB 6, Scouts, it talks about stellar
> radii:  
> 
> "Radius is used to determine if orbits are possible, or if they would be
> inside a specific star.  Radius can also be used to determine minimum
> jump distance from a star (misjumps are more probable inside 20 radii
> and 200 radii from the star)."

But until LBB6 came online, it wasn't under CT.  *shrug*  It had been *implied* in one of the old JTAS's, but it wasn't in stone.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:39:33 -0600
From: Steven Bonneville <bonnevil@ima.umn.edu>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit

Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil> wrote:

> Solar limits ARE canonical.  In LBB 6, Scouts, it talks about stellar
> radii:  
>
> "Radius is used to determine if orbits are possible, or if they would be
> inside a specific star.  Radius can also be used to determine minimum
> jump distance from a star (misjumps are more probable inside 20 radii
> and 200 radii from the star)."

...and this is actually used in the TARSUS boxed set, in which it turns
out Tarsus/District 268 is within the local stellar 100-diameter limit,
adding travel time.  I'll have to find the quote sometime.

  -- Steve Bonneville

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:40:42 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy

 
> > > At 1,280,000 klicks???????????????????????????????????????????
> > > 
> > Ooops. In orbit it is. It is bright as hell to any sensor postulated
> > in traveller at the wimpy 4ls you mention :-)
> 
>Not true.  CT says military-grade sensors can pick up a drive at full function 
> at 2 light secs, civilian sensors at half a lightsec.
 
I don't care what CT says in this regard. 150,000,000 Joules/second
is a huge amount of energy. If CT says 2 ls for that, it's wrong.
Period.

If a ship with reaction drive (CT doesn't specify that drives are
reactionless as far as I remember) were to be thrusting you'd see it
if it was in orbit around jupiter.

> > even harder to defend. I think that many people neglect the (large,
> > IMO) amount of in-system traffic that occurs in traveller. 
> 
> Canonically speaking, the ships wouldn't come in at the solar jump point, but 
> IMTU, I use the concept of a solar jump point, too.  <grin>  Makes things 
>interesting.  Under CT, in-system traffic was pretty much ignored because most 

100 diamters is 100 diameters. Even in CT, if the world was within
the 100d limit of the star you had to be outside it to jump safely.

> > Capturing small craft isn't a bad business if you think about it.
> > You can throw them in your (large) hold, then Strip them while in
> > jump space--counterfit a new VIN, then sell them.
> 
> It's chicken stealing.  After awhile, those little boats start arming up and 
> start becoming a pain in the ass.
  
If you can disarm and disable a multi-turreted trader right next to
the system's primary world, then loot it--all within the 2 hour
response time of SDBs, then armed cutters a few days from help
shouldn't be a problem.

You can also limit the trusted crew (of the pirate) since you don't
need to have a prize crew (and who knows if you'll ever see them
again once they jump--now *you've* been robbed!).

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 13:42:31 -0800 (PST)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: 100 star diams in CT book 2!

- ---"Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net> wrote:
>
> > Solar limits ARE canonical.  In LBB 6, Scouts, it talks about
stellar
> > radii:  
> > 
> > "Radius is used to determine if orbits are possible, or if they
would be
> > inside a specific star.  Radius can also be used to determine
minimum
> > jump distance from a star (misjumps are more probable inside 20
radii
> > and 200 radii from the star)."
> 
> But until LBB6 came online, it wasn't under CT.  *shrug*  It had
been *implied* in one of the old JTAS's, but it wasn't in stone.

===
Ref: Book 2, 1st ed, 9th printing, p.4, para "Misjump" , quoth "a)
within 100 diameters of a world or star,"

Says it again in the next para, too.  Canon (boom).
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 16:42:14 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Off topic (re: response; long)

In a message dated 11/1/98 2:54:24 PM Pacific Standard Time,
Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca writes:

<< ObTrav: I think this can relate to starship armament. Possibly Imperials
 regard arms on merchants the same way most Americans regard handguns: as a
 right and necessary protection. Sure, the IN could stamp out piracy if all
 ships were disarmed, but that would be as unthinkable as disarming all
 Americans. Thoughts?
 
 
  >>
To start with, I think that the carrying of weapons is cultural. In Europe
(and any European culturally influenced countries with the exception of the
United States), it is pretty much unacceptable for the general civilian
populace to carry weapons. The one exception seems to be hunting and sporting
weapons for the wealthy. This started with the Medieval concept of the only
the high born being allowed to carry weapons (as a badge of rank) and to hunt.
This was reinforced after firearms became commonly available. While an
arquebus was an inferior weapon to a longbow, it could be mastered in weeks
rather than in years. Thus the peasants and especially the new middle classes
could now have weapons that could defeat the noble and royal soldiers. This
was decicdedly NOT a good thing in the eyes of the ruling classes who promptly
banned the posession of firearms by private citizens (it is interesting to
note that the upper classes adopted them like they did edged weapons in the
pre-gunpowder days, and left us impresive museum exibits). Thus the tradition
in most of Europe (a pity in my yankee biased opinion) that firearms are only
to be used by the police and the armed forces. Thus the European anti-firearms
laws passed, starting at the beginning of the 20th. century. (I also found it
interesting that both the fascists and the communists promptly confiscated all
privately held weapons as soon as they came to power). This view is further
reinforced by the relative lack of violent crime (I say relative- an armed
robbery is still a violent crime if the perp has a knife instead of a gun) in
Europe, Japan, and the former British dominions.

	The United States on the other hand is influenced by an entirely different
set of parameters.... This country was frontier when settled. It was vital
that the settlers own firearms to survive (though doubtless the Native
Americans would have preferred that they didn't have them...). In addition
there was the little matter of the Revolution (or the rebellion as our
estranged cousins on the other side of the pond would call it..:-) ). This
ingrained the concept of the armed citizen to oppose government oppression
(real or imagined) as put in writing in the 2nd Ammendment of the US
Constitution (whose lawed grammar has fueled the arguments on both sides of
the US gun control arguement). Lastly the "settling of the west" further
reinforced this concept of the private citizen's right to self defense. Many
of the infamous gunfights (like the James-Younger, Minn. raid, and the Dalton
gang Coffeeville raid) were settled by the townspeople defending themselves
via shotguns in their places of businesses. These concepts of armed civilians
have been eroded by 20th. century asassinations, the "roaring twenties",
immigration by peoples from lands where firearms posession is a "no-no", and a
desire to seem as "civilised" as the rest of the world. This last one I doubt,
as when I am at my local range, it is usually crowded by Asian and European
tourists renting fully automatic submachine guns to shoot (legally owned by
the range-the have a hard to obtain Federal class III machine gun permit).
Never the less, the firearms issue is a big one in the US, with the cities in
the Northeast, the upper Mid west, and the west coast, being anti-gun (their
laws are as least as restrictive as Europe and Japan), and the "heartland"
being very permissive.

	These opposing mindsets make for interesting observations by each side. As a
firearm bearing American; I find it repulsive and very dangerous to live in a
country where the government has a monopoly on violence. Of course a European,
Japanese, Canadian, or Australian no doubt thinks that I am a paranoid,
homocidal maniac. These widely differing viewpoints make compromise or even
civil debate very difficult (see the US debate on firearms control. Most
people gravitate to one pole or the other and both demonize the other side and
COMBINE to ridicule anyone tries to offer a workable compromise).

OB. Traveller: 
Well....
For one thing the law level seems to be a workable solution to small arms
ownership (though what is the law level INSIDE the extra-territorial Imperial
starport?). The polarized real firearms views could be mimicked in the
Imperium, and it could be as virilent as the pro-anti Psionics-Zhodani debate.
As for starship weapons; it appears that I have seen canon that suggests that
the Imperium is very laisse faire towards interstellar trade. I would think
that they would take the view to allow whatever promotes trade, and to ban
whatever hinders trade. Thus I see the allowance of turret weapons (with the
exception of nuclear missiles, turret and barbette PAWs (radiation hazard?),
fusion guns (radiation hazard?). I could see a ban on spinal mounts, bays, and
all Meson and particle weapons (weapons of mass destruction and/or radiation
clause), and screens (keep it a government monopoly).

	I could also see that the ships would need papers and licenses to own
weapons, and many exceptions to where they can and cannot take them (ex. no
weapons in naval depots and in core sector). Lastly, I can see individual
worlds in the Imperium setting stricter (but not looser) controls on shipboard
weapons. These laws would only cover the space "owned" by the local
government, and I can see much conflict about when and where Imperial starship
weapons laws jurisdiction begins, and ends (hmm... an adventure nugget for
"paperwork" based PC's).

Seth

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:42:57 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: High Guard and MT design sequences

>I've been tinkering with the High Guard Mechanics recently, and was
>wondering if anyone knows the following which would be useful:
>
>a) How many MW does an EP correlate to?

  250 or 252, per Striker.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:43:37 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon!

>Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 08:21:43 -0500
>From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
>Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
...
>Hm, Roger is sitting on the DGP stuff, but Marc has been remarkably
>generous in giving permission for people to xerox out-of-print material
                                              ^^^
  Be careful - they might sue!

  And people say that we're _that_ different from the Vilani bureaux...

...
>Subject: Canon: a way to agree about disagreeing?
>
>Possibly we could use a labelling convention to solve this one:

7) Canon has two, not three "n"'s, unless you're referring to a 
broadside of naval twelve-pounders or similar?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:49:30 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds

 
> > You're moving straight at them. The are NOT moving on the sky (not
> > very much, anyway). In 3 space, yeah, but your distance is all that
> > is really changing much, and lasers are bore-sighted, so it doesn't
> > matter.
> 
> Still, I'd like to see your sensors resolve and discriminate between two 30 
> meter objects less than 10 meters apart at 600K klicks.  No *WAY* this could 
> be a Simple task!!
  
It would be for a large passive sensor. About 80m in diameter gives
to 5m pixels at 600kkm. Newer design systems have assumed (rightly,
IMO) that traveller sensors are arrays of small sensors spread out
over the hull, this isn't a bad number for even a smallish warship
to have. probably not a 400ton SDB, but the planetary sensors in
orbit shouldn't have any trouble.

> > Unless pirates usually kill their targets' crew. Then they are dead
> > anyway as soon as the two ships are attached, that was my point.
> > Otherwise they close until they can resolve the target.
> 
> Uhm, methinks the SDB crew's orders would be *save the victims*.  if the pirates kill them, that's one thing.  If the SDB crew kills them, that's a *WHOLE* 'nuther matter.

My view of the Imperium tended towards the "punish the terrorists at
all costs." I see them as deciding that the rare loss of a merchie
crew to naval actions would be worth the deterrant effect of not
pulling any punches. They'd close in and *not* damage the trader if
their computers tolds them they'd arrive in time, mind you.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 16:52:20 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy 

> Keven R. Pittsinger wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> > Capturing small craft isn't a bad business if you think about it.
> > You can throw them in your (large) hold, then Strip them while in
> > jump space--counterfit a new VIN, then sell them.
> 
> It's chicken stealing.  After awhile, those little boats start arming up and 
> start becoming a pain in the ass.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>
> I ran an economic analysis of piracy a couple weeks ago. If there is
> a problem with taking the whole ship in the TU in question, this "chicken
> stealing" is the pot of gold for pirates. A 20tn Lifeboat with no
> computer and a 1G drive is worth 14 _Million_ credits, remember?

Compared to a Type M worth 237 MCr?  Chicken stealing.

I'm assuming you don't have a copy of LoM.  There's only 100 of them out 
there.  Typical prize shares on a pirate would be on the order of:

8 for the captain
6 for each bridge officer or prize master
4 for each gunner & engineer
2 for medic or prize officer
1 for each 'ordinary spacer'.

If the pirate is being 'backed' by investors, the prize pool is split 50/50 
with the crew after ships' expenses are taken out.  Standard crew is 9, but 
that *DOESN'T* include prize crews or boarding parties.  Andy's Type NP Raider 
has a minimum crew of 4, with provisons for 16 more to be carried.  Figure, 3 
or 4 for the prize crew.  Pilot.  3 gunners.  Navigator.  Commo/comp officer.  
Prize master, 3 prize crew, 3 engineers, 17 general spacehands for boarding 
parties.  This means 67 shares.

I wouldn't expect the lifeboat to be in showroom condition, so you won't get 
book value for it.  AAMOF, IMO, you'd be lucky to get 25% of book for it.  But 
let's be generous and say you get half value.  That's 7 million.  Pay the 
investors.  You have 3.5 million left.  Each share is thus worth 52238 
credits.  That's chicken stealing.

Assume the same crew takes a Type M.  They get the same 50% book price.  
That's 118.5 mil.  Repairs to the raider go 30 mil this cruise.  This leaves 
88.5 mil.  Half that is the crew's.  That leaves 44.25 mil.  Each of the 67 
shares is now worth 660,477 Cr.

Which crew do you want to be with?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:55:39 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)

 
> >As far as damage goes, according to HG, it is *impossible* for any weapon 
> >under Factor 9 to score a critical hit or interior explosion due to the +6
> DM 
> >added to the damage roll.  Since the lowest roll necessary for an interior 
> >explosion is a natural 5, this leaves only fuel, manuver, or weapon hits for
> >the surface explosion tables and computer and weapon hits on the radiation 
> >damage for the Gazzelle PA's.  >>
 
This is wrong. You get a "free" critical hit for each value by which
the weapon exceeds the ship size USP. Many military ships in the
400+ size range can critical trader sized ships multiple times every
time they hit.

(they need to have all one type of weaponry in a big battery,
usually)

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 16:54:23 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers 

> Keven Pittsinger wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> > Explosives can be substituted for computer/electronics skill, for
> > example. Sufficient contacts to safely dispose of a hot starship
> > may not be needed. 
> 
> I sill go for the old 'pull the fuses out' trick.  An oldie but goodie.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>
> If you haven't managed to replace crew members, you have to get from
> the passenger areas _to_ the fuses. If you don't want to wreck lots of
> the ship, you need computer skill to spoof the anti-hijack programs
> and/or electronics skill to hotwire the locks. If you aren't concerned
> about breaking things, you can blow big holes in the bulkhead
> between you and the fuses you want to pull out.

Or, small lock-blowing charges to unlock doors between you & the fuses.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:05:43 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Dead Vilani

Tue, 3 Nov 1998 02:16:08 -0500 (EST), neo@total.net
>It occurs to me that humans would be the only source of meat on Vland that
>could be consumed *without* processing by a Shugili. Any other kind of food
>has to be taken to the Shugili before you can eat it, and he of course
>takes a cut. But if you're really hungry and there's no processed food
>left, or you're in big trouble with the Shugili and you have to avoid him,

Well, first of all if a Shugili (by all acounts a member of society with a
lot of
pull) is going to try and starve you, the is going to make sure you don't have
access to any food.  Second have be unable to get any other food and be in
a position to have free access to significant numbers of recently deceased
(which is going to be rare) or you have to kill your own (which will be
vigorously opposed).  I really don't see this being any more common than
people on the Earth resorting to cannibalism when stuck in mountains
from an accident, etc.

>or you can't afford meat and you're having a Big Mac Attack, *and* you have
>no morals at all, there's always the temptation to knock off your old Uncle
>Eneri and making Eneriburgers...

Large numbers of people on the Earth have, and do, exsit with little
or no meat without resorting to cannibalism.

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu
(This is the net.  My e-mail address may be in Boston, but I'm in California.)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:09:17 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Skills in HG combat

>And I don't know about you, but I find the thought of somebody hitting a target at 1.28 million klicks to be ridiculous.  Space is deep, and targets at that range are gonna be *small*.
 
That's why you fire a bunch of shots at them. You mentioned in one
post "saving your ONE shot." I don't think anybody has assumed one
shot per 20 minute turn per weapon in a long time (if ever). The
assumption was that a ship fires many times, and has some chance of
one shot hitting in a turn. Newer combat systems define rates of
fire for lasers in hundreds of shots per hour. Probably a reasonable
figure.

The fact that you can engage targets at any significant range with
lasers that fit 3 to a CT-sized turret requires something like the
TNE concept of gravity focusing. Energy densities to burn through
metal are numbers that are actually known, so at the very least
those figures can be fairly accurate. Once you go to grav focus (the
only way to support the traveller feel of little lasers) then you
get weapons that can hit targets at several light seconds (or,
rather, they can do damage at that range if you hit).

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:11:38 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy (now about sensors)

Bruce's sensor info snipped
 
> These arrays...  They don't take damage in combat?

Yes, they take damage, and are in fact fairly fragile as individual
elements. Since they function as an array they can take damage
pretty well, though (like having a few bad pixels on your monitor).

- -Merrick

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1087
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, November 3 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1088



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Off topic (re: response; long)
Re: Chicken Stealing
Re: 100 Diameter limit 
Crime & Punishment (was Re: Piracy by the Numbers)
Re: Piracy
Re: Gunnery Crew (was re: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080)
re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: Piracy Adventure Seeds
Re: New Thread: Special Weapons 
Re: Extended System Generation
Lost Adventures Package
Re: 100 Diameter limit
Re: 100 star diams in CT book 2!
Piracy Payoffs
Re: Gunnery Crew
Re: 100 Diameter limit 
Re: Piracy
Re: Piracy 
Re: Piracy Adventure Seeds 
Re: Extended System Generation 
Re: Piracy Payoffs 
Re: 100 star diams in CT book 2! 
Field Repairs & Prize Crews
Re: Piracy 
re: Piracy

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:14:56 -0800
From: Scott William Brogley <sbrogii@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Off topic (re: response; long)

Seth,  My copy of Intel Landesk Virus Protect popped up with a virus
warning when I received your email.  You might want to check your copy of
word for macro viruses.

info form WProtect 4.0 below:

SIG=61CZ4F-A1VN-B8GC
VIRUS_NAME=WORD_Header.A
FILE_NAME=C:\TEMP\bo261
COMPUTER_NAME=SBROGII-PC,(080009BBE356)
USER=sbrogii
TIME=363F7EDC
ACTION=3
REAL_ACTION=3
SEND=1

Scott-
Scott William Brogley   IOS   Engineer Tech  ciscoSystems Inc.
sbrogii@cisco.com                                         408.526.5259
                    "Quo desiderat pacem, para bellum."

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 08:16:33
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Chicken Stealing

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
>Subject: re: Piracy
>
>Keven R. Pittsinger wrote:

>It's chicken stealing.  After awhile, those little boats start arming up and 
>start becoming a pain in the ass.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>I ran an economic analysis of piracy a couple weeks ago. If there is
>a problem with taking the whole ship in the TU in question, this "chicken
>stealing" is the pot of gold for pirates. A 20tn Lifeboat with no
>computer and a 1G drive is worth 14 _Million_ credits, remember?

Values are quite a bit lower when you get craft designed by cheapskates
under FFS2 - for example, my TL13 armed Customs Cutter/Anti Shipping
Missile came in at about MCr 1.4. Boats using T-plates are going to cost at
least MCr 3 though, because the 10m3 minimum size for T-plates means they
cost at least MCr 2.5 per thruster plate unit.

But yeah, chicken stealing is the bread and butter of a pirate. Hanging
around mainworlds runs into convoys going out, patrols around the perimeter
and having to play with mainworld defenses if you do manage to find a target.

If you can keep the air filters clean with proceeds from chicken stealing,
then when that opportunity for One Big Score comes along, then you wont be
dead ...

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:18:07 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit 

...
>Under CT, you misjump on 13+.  DM's are +5 for being inside the 100 diameter 
>curb, +10 for jumping inside the 10 diameter curb.  These are not cumulative.
>This says, there's about a 33% chance of misjump inside the 100 diameter curb. 
> If you're on a schedule, do you REALLY want to take the chance?

  Being attacked by a pirate, with all the risks of death and destruction
that entails, is preferable to risking a misjump? As though that wouldn't
affect the traders schedule?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:18:28 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Crime & Punishment (was Re: Piracy by the Numbers)

  Actually, it's this great work of litera - no, oops...

>Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers
...
>	Why does everyone keep making this assumption???  Has anyone on the list ever
>been robbed at gunpoint?  I have 5 different times:  Each time all the guy
>wanted was the money in the cash register...he wasn't looking for trouble, but
>he crertainly convinced me that if I was, he'd give it to me!! /...

  Armed robbery is a capital offense in your jurisdiction? (which assumes,
admittedly, that piracy might very well be in the 3I).

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:25:07 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy

>I wouldn't expect the lifeboat to be in showroom condition, so you won't get
>book value for it. AAMOF, IMO, you'd be lucky to get 25% of book for it. But
>let's be generous and say you get half value.  That's 7 million. Pay the
>investors. You have 3.5 million left.  Each share is thus worth 52238
>credits. That's chicken stealing.

More likely than not you'll be stealing ships doing business out in
the system. Cutters, shuttles, even specialty cargo ships that might
be trader sized, but without j-drives. 10s of millions would be more
like it.

> Assume the same crew takes a Type M. They get the same 50% book price.
> That's 118.5 mil. Repairs to the raider go 30 mil this cruise. This leaves
> 88.5 mil.  Half that is the crew's. That leaves 44.25 mil. Each of the 67
> shares is now worth 660,477 Cr.
>
> Which crew do you want to be with?

You need to add in that it takes longer to set up for taking the
starship. That it is *far* more dangerous (we could do a PBeM using
HG with Mayday movement and try a couple, perhaps). You also need to
have a prize crew (a % of which will take off with the ship). You
say you'll get 50% for the type M. You will likely need a new
powerplant and or Mdrive, add that in (you *had* to destroy one of
them to board, by definition).

you can also take multiple small craft in your hold.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 17:24:50 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Gunnery Crew (was re: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080)

In a message dated 11/3/98 1:06:47 PM Pacific Standard Time,
brannonb@animal.blarg.net writes:

<< What are some of the ways that your PCs have found to pass the time in
 jumpspace?
 
 Ben >>

RPG'ing a contemparary adventure setting... It's called Traveller....:-)

seriously; besides personal time; there would be a lot of time for personal
improvement. Ask any boomer out there, how many college correspondence courses
they took while out on patrol...

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 17:17:16 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy by the Numbers

Keven Pittsinger wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
 If you aren't concerned
> about breaking things, you can blow big holes in the bulkhead
> between you and the fuses you want to pull out.

Or, small lock-blowing charges to unlock doors between you & the fuses.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
These would work for the "privacy doors" on the non-pressure tight
partition walls you'll find between bulkheads. Most passenger areas
will be on the other side of bulkheads from the vital stuff (reference
Fat Trader & Free Trader deckplans (CT Book 7 and DGP's SOMv1
respectively) and 6 of the 7 passenger staterooms on the Far Trader
in CT Book 7), the pass-throughs on these bulkheads are pretty
damn strong. Iris valves and pressure hatches need strong stuff to
get through quickly, and you might need to go around some stubborn
crewmen by making another door anyway.

Walt Smith

Walt Smith
System Manager
Hartwick College
Oneonta, NY
smithw@hartwick.edu

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:25:45 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure Seeds

>>>I'd like to see your sensors resolve and discriminate between two 30
>>>meter objects less than 10 meters apart at 600K klicks.
>> It's a relatively simple task for a medium-sized military sensor (the
>> kind you'd find on a 3000-dTon destroyer or so (PEMS-14.) 
>But Defender is a 400 ton Fiery or a 400 ton Dragon.

(I know - I wasn't trying to change the rules - just state what sort of
ship you'd need to really do this.)

>(A good SDB sensor - a PEMS-13.5 or so - woul dhave a resolution 
>> of 20m at 500,000 km.)

>These arrays...  They don't take damage in combat?

They certainly do (I lost track of who's firing at the SDB at this point
in the scenario...) However, arrays have a fair amount of redundancy - each
element operates independently - so it takes a fair amount of damage to
knock one out completely.

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 17:32:24 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: New Thread: Special Weapons 

> >   My question for consideration is this:  just what are the procedures and
> > protocols for nuclear weapons release w/in the Imperium?  Are nuke warheads
> > really left in the hands of some brand-new Lt(jg) commanding his first DE??
> > Who makes the decision to use nuclear warheads? What are the conditions
> > required to get a nuclear release option?
> 
> IMHO (the question hasn't come up yet in our current Traveller
> campaign):

Hasn't come up in mine, either.

> 1.  The procedures for nuclear release would vary, depending on the type
> of nuke in question.  Release for det-laser nukes would likely be more
> easily obtained than release for impact nukes in space, because of the
> reduced chance of radioactive contamination of the target.  Nuclear
> release for planetary bombardment likely would require sector ducal
> permission (or even higher).

IMTU, it would depend on where the boat was from.  The Carrillians (a.k.a. 
'Carrots' IMTU) would authorise them quicker than the Imperials.  The 
Caledonians would authorise them under the same circumstances as the 
Imperials.  The Harmonies would launch them as a matter of course, especially 
if there's an Aslan on the recieving end.  A Rintaran would pay somebody 
*else* to launch them.  <grin>

All missiles IMTU hit the target & go boom.  No laser heads.

> 3.  Nuclear release, even of det-laser nukes, probably will not be
> granted in the vicinity of friendly worlds without _very_ good reason,
> due to the potential effects on the planet's magnetic field and/or "Van
> Allen Belt."

Again, it would depend on who was doing the shooting.  Some of the polities in 
the astrographical area of my PBEM wouldn't care that somebody glows in the 
dark.  Others want to get along with their neighbors even if the intended 
response is to be left the hell alone.

> > And another thing to consider:  the effects of a nuclear detonation in space;
> > how will this effect sensors, starship controls etc (EMP).  Is there an effect
> > such as white-out, and what might that do to the detection solution as
> > discussed in the piracy debate?

I'd figure that a military ship would be shielded against EMP as a matter of 
course.  So would a scout ship.  I've never thought through the implications 
of it against civilian ships, since nukes tend to be the exclusive property of 
the military.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 17:41:07 -0500
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation

C G Essery wrote:

> This is very similar to a question that I have been meaning to ask since
> I joined this list a couple of weeks ago.
>
> I am looking for a world that I can place my ship design/buiding agency
> on - it needs to be TL15 and possibly the home of a reasonably high
> noble.  Somehow in my mustering out of the IN I managed to get Knighted,
> but believe that I can put together a reasonable explanation if there is
> a high level Noble about.

Shouldn't be too hard.  Knighted in recognition of services rendered to
the Imperium.  Most TL 15 planets will probably have more nobles than
you can shake a stick at.

> Has anyone or a group on the ever mapped out the whole of the known
> space.

Yes.

>  Ideally it should be available on the Net so that people can
> place themselves on specific planets.

Try the Galactic software produced by Jim Vassilakos.
http://members.aol.com/jimvassila/progs.htm

>  If not are there any sub-sectors
> that have not been "surveyed" yet so that I could try and setup a planet
> for my character?

Depends on the Milieu you choose.  In Milieu 0, the sectors Fornast, Delphi
and Zarushugar are left undeveloped.

> Alternatively does anyone have a planet where they
> would not mind a new starship design bureau being setup?

There are a great many TL 15 planets.  Since you're not playing
in someone else's TU (Traveller Universe), just pick one.

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 22:50:14 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Lost Adventures Package

Paul, I remember getting a mailing from you on these, but I can't
find it (I put it aside for when I had time to deal with it).  I
have time to deal with it now, but I can't find the mailing.  If
you email me the info, I'll place an appropriate order.
- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:38:32 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit

...
>>         3) NOWHERE in the rules does it say a ship MUST come out of jump
only at the
>> 100-D limit!!!
>> 
>At least it doesn't address this in either LBB2 or T4.  I don't have MT
>or TNE to check.

  What about the JTAS ~21/22 article "Port to Jump-Point"? IIRC, the author
was a Great Old One.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:38:38 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: 100 star diams in CT book 2!

...
>Ref: Book 2, 1st ed, 9th printing, p.4, para "Misjump" , quoth "a)
>within 100 diameters of a world or star,"
>
>Says it again in the next para, too.  Canon (boom).

  FWIW, second edition has the same para (p.6) say "_of a world_".

  IAC, this may be insignificant enough to be unspecified in OTU,
and thus highly variable in specific campaigns.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:38:43 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Piracy Payoffs

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy 
...
>Assume the same crew takes a Type M.  They get the same 50% book price.  
>That's 118.5 mil.  Repairs to the raider go 30 mil this cruise.  This leaves 
>88.5 mil.  Half that is the crew's.  That leaves 44.25 mil.  Each of the 67 
>shares is now worth 660,477 Cr.
>
>Which crew do you want to be with?

  Isn't there going to be a real problem with crews retiring after
one or two scores that big? And aren't such defectors going to be
real potential hassles in several respects?

  Merchants aren't the only ones with problems with personnel.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 15:38:47 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Gunnery Crew

...
>What are some of the ways that your PCs have found to pass the time in
>jumpspace?

  Play Killer or LARPS? LARP: Aliens might do fairly well as combined
D-Con and anti-boarding drill :>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 17:47:37 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit 

> ...
> >Under CT, you misjump on 13+.  DM's are +5 for being inside the 100 diameter 
> >curb, +10 for jumping inside the 10 diameter curb.  These are not cumulative.
> >This says, there's about a 33% chance of misjump inside the 100 diameter curb. 
> > If you're on a schedule, do you REALLY want to take the chance?
> 
>   Being attacked by a pirate, with all the risks of death and destruction
> that entails, is preferable to risking a misjump? As though that wouldn't
> affect the traders schedule?

There's that...

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 08:46:32
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Piracy

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy 
>
>Compared to a Type M worth 237 MCr?  Chicken stealing.

Keven, mate.

The type M is a slow, undergunned, very fat trader.

Please explain what it is doing not in a convoy with a number of other
ships, escorted by a member of the local constabulary.

Costing MCr 237 should also mean that rounding error on the accounts allows
it to have a computer program suite including Generate.

If the system doesnt run regular convoys, then I personally cant see a type
M going there. Leave those sort of places to the devil may care ne'er do
wells in the Type A2s.

If you like, give me a budget for a smallish world for piracy prevention,
and I'll see how I go. I'll use HG for ship designs.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 17:55:58 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy 

> You need to add in that it takes longer to set up for taking the
> starship. That it is *far* more dangerous (we could do a PBeM using
> HG with Mayday movement and try a couple, perhaps). You also need to
> have a prize crew (a % of which will take off with the ship). You
> say you'll get 50% for the type M. You will likely need a new
> powerplant and or Mdrive, add that in (you *had* to destroy one of
> them to board, by definition).

That might be interesting.  Wish I had a copy of Mayday around here.

But the thing is, all you have to do is *disable* the M-drive or the power 
plant, not destroy it.

Also, if you took good care of your crew (paid them good, made sure they had 
medical attention when they needed it, got them good shore leave) and had a 
good track record of bringing in the prizes, it would cut down the chances 
they would skip out with the prize.
 
Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 17:57:36 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure Seeds 

> 
> >>>I'd like to see your sensors resolve and discriminate between two 30
> >>>meter objects less than 10 meters apart at 600K klicks.
> >> It's a relatively simple task for a medium-sized military sensor (the
> >> kind you'd find on a 3000-dTon destroyer or so (PEMS-14.) 
> >But Defender is a 400 ton Fiery or a 400 ton Dragon.
> 
> (I know - I wasn't trying to change the rules - just state what sort of
> ship you'd need to really do this.)
> 
> >(A good SDB sensor - a PEMS-13.5 or so - woul dhave a resolution 
> >> of 20m at 500,000 km.)
> 
> >These arrays...  They don't take damage in combat?
> 
> They certainly do (I lost track of who's firing at the SDB at this point
> in the scenario...) However, arrays have a fair amount of redundancy - each
> element operates independently - so it takes a fair amount of damage to
> knock one out completely.

Seems to me, one good hit with a 5 kt nuke would scrape it right off.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 18:00:36 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Extended System Generation 

> > Has anyone or a group on the ever mapped out the whole of the known
> > space.
> 
> Yes.

His Reavers' Deep data is pretty sketchy.  I can't remember which of my 
players asked him if he wanted to use the data I came up with.  Of course, I 
said 'go right ahead, I don't mind, I'm just babysitting it."

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 18:03:45 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy Payoffs 

> >Assume the same crew takes a Type M.  They get the same 50% book price.  
> >That's 118.5 mil.  Repairs to the raider go 30 mil this cruise.  This leaves 
> >88.5 mil.  Half that is the crew's.  That leaves 44.25 mil.  Each of the 67 
> >shares is now worth 660,477 Cr.
> >
> >Which crew do you want to be with?
> 
>   Isn't there going to be a real problem with crews retiring after
> one or two scores that big? And aren't such defectors going to be
> real potential hassles in several respects?

Possible.  But the tales they'll tell while 'on the beach' about their former 
skipper would likely influence possible recruits in a positive manner.

>   Merchants aren't the only ones with problems with personnel.

It all depends on your PR I think.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 18:05:20 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: 100 star diams in CT book 2! 

> ...
> >Ref: Book 2, 1st ed, 9th printing, p.4, para "Misjump" , quoth "a)
> >within 100 diameters of a world or star,"
> >
> >Says it again in the next para, too.  Canon (boom).
> 
>   FWIW, second edition has the same para (p.6) say "_of a world_".

I've got the 2nd edition.  I've also got the Traveller Book, but finding what 
you need in it *fast* can get interesting.

>   IAC, this may be insignificant enough to be unspecified in OTU,
> and thus highly variable in specific campaigns.

Which is how I take it under CT.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 16:06:09 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Field Repairs & Prize Crews

...
>>   Presumably the 9+ assumes level-2, per HG. Further, repairs are stated to
>> require a full ships crew to attempt; this translates perhaps as "normal
>> damage control contingent for said ship must be available with the
engineering
>> component averaging skill 2 to obtain a 9+ roll each turn"?
>
>Interesting idea.  But what if we designate the prize crew is now 'the
crew' for the purposes of the repairs?  Nothing stopping us.

  That's what I implied; the 9+ target includes skill 2, of course, and the 
time required by the prize crew would need to be adjusted for the difference
in DC complement. OC, some of those boarders would be earning Cr 4000+ /month
in the private sector (or similar in the military, presumably).

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 18:12:17 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy 

> >Compared to a Type M worth 237 MCr?  Chicken stealing.
> 
> Keven, mate.
> 
> The type M is a slow, undergunned, very fat trader.

Thus a prime target.

> Please explain what it is doing not in a convoy with a number of other
> ships, escorted by a member of the local constabulary.

Doing its job of making a specific trading route.  If there's no convoy 
availiable, there's no convoy availiable.  If they're behind schedule, they 
might take the risk.
 
> Costing MCr 237 should also mean that rounding error on the accounts allows
> it to have a computer program suite including Generate.

There's still a 50/50 chance they'll go out to a point on the sphere in the 
same hemisphere as you are, thus, it's still possible to intercept them.
 
> If the system doesnt run regular convoys, then I personally cant see a type
> M going there. Leave those sort of places to the devil may care ne'er do
> wells in the Type A2s.

Type M's & Type R's are specifically designed to do dedicated routes for 
governments or others who want to see new trade routes developed.  It's in 
their contract to visit some otherwise unvisited worlds.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 18:11:27 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy

Keven Pittsinger writes:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
But 
let's be generous and say you get half value.  That's 7 million.  Pay the 
investors.  You have 3.5 million left.  Each share is thus worth 52238 
credits.  That's chicken stealing.

Assume the same crew takes a Type M.  They get the same 50% book price.  
That's 118.5 mil.  Repairs to the raider go 30 mil this cruise.  This leaves 
88.5 mil.  Half that is the crew's.  That leaves 44.25 mil.  Each of the 67 
shares is now worth 660,477 Cr.

Which crew do you want to be with?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I'll take the crew that stays alive, thank you. And the crew with
a steady income, rather than the crew that keeps seeing
success slip through their fingers.

My analysis gave a 25% value to captured small craft and vehicles as
well. It also postulated a Traveller Universe where taking captured
ships with you was difficult and often unsuccessful, so you would often
have to survive on small craft, vehicles, vacc suits, spare parts, 
crew & passenger valuables and other things that were easily
plunderable. And it's trivially easy to make a starship impossible
to get away with, at least for the couple hour window you might get.

Consider that all your jump drive and maneuver drive repairs are
useless if the anti-hijack program running on the ship automatically
locked out all Generate/Jump programs for two hours after it detected
a piracy boarding situation, no matter what the crew did. I'm talking
a lock like a time-lock on a safe - unless you have a computer hacker
extraordinaire on board, you're not leaving with that starship. 

Consider a Junior Purser with a submachinegun. He can whack the
main computers in seconds, at least enough to keep you from
taking the ship. It's well worth the couple MCr damage if it means you
get to keep the  the MCr180 starship. There will be plenty of Corporate 
Security Officers indoctrinated to do just that kind of thing, with such an
expensive asset to protect. There will be plenty of hard-nosed independent
Free Trader captains who will do that out of desperation - they worked
decades to get their own ship, they'll not see it jumped away from them.
Sure, you can kill the crew in retaliation. You wanted a reputation as
a bloodthirsty murderer, so all the local merchant crews would resist
your boarding ops to the death, right?

Let's see, I jump at 80D, I'm OK on a 9 or less. I stay here, I'm
at the mercy of a crew of desperate characters who will kill me
if I look at them funny, or if they're having a bad day. Pirate reputations
will matter a lot here, but I'm not convinced that a pirate who hunts a
certain area long enough to get a reputation will survive the anti-piracy 
patrol his long-term presence will generate.

Consider the fuel situation. Did you bring enough fuel with you to
jump your ship away, _and_ a prize ship? Do you have enough time
to board, take control, EVA, rig hoses and transfer fuel? A problem 
if the target was inbound. Did the outbound target chicken out and 
not try a 11D to 99D jump? That's better, unless some crewman 
vented fuel before you boarded (our intrepid Junior Purser again) or 
you had to put some holes in the fuel tanks to catch him.

Would you like a copy of my earlier analysis of pirate economics?

Walt Smith

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1088
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, November 3 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1089



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Skills in HG combat
Re: Long range fire 
Re: Crime & Punishment (was Re: Piracy by the Numbers)
Re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: Phooey on canon
Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
Re: Piracy by the numbers
Re: Off topic
Re: Long range fire 
Re: Field Repairs & Prize Crews 
100 Diameter
Re: 100 Diameter limit 
Re: Piracy Adventure Seeds 
Re: Piracy 
Mayday 
Computers in the Far Future
Re: Lost Adventures Package
Re: Piracy by the numbers 
Re: Phooey on canon!
Re: 100 Diameter limit
Re: Phooey on canon 
Re: 100 Diameter limit 
Re: Piracy

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 16:19:53 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Skills in HG combat

>From: Phil Kitching <Philk@btinternet.com>
>Subject: Re: Skills in HG combat
...
>As spokesman for the Laser Communications Division of the
>Postmark Design Bureau ("When your message must get through"),
>I feel that I must interject here: The Telstar XII was in no way
>a wepaons system - it is a peaceful device capable of focusing out
>to 1 million km and sending messages even through severe interferrence
>(eg 10cm of superdense and a couple of interior bulkheads).

  Sorry, I meant _capitalist_ deviant (although I suspect Mr. Whitchurch
was the battery power evangelist you talked to). BTW, does FS know about
you? If so, you might want to specialize in armour and screens...

...
>The laser device assumes that you are not facing proper warships
>(on these it could carve its name but little else). You could
>use a particle accelerator but then the cost goes up and unless
>your satellite has 3G, it would be a sitting duck when the enemy
>shoots back.

  Why not just park it on an planetoid in planetary orbit? Everyone
needs a High Port, and metal hulls cost _bucks_!

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 16:19:58 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Long range fire 

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Long range fire 
...
>> Incidentally, it isnt that hard, under FFS2, to build a PAW that will fire
>> out past 100 diameters. But I consider that an unsporting argument to use,
>> becuase it is too rules-system dependant.
>
>I don't see a planet-bound PAW as being particularly effective at the 100
diameter curb.  The target is 4.25 light-seconds away.  You're going to be
correcting for where the target was 8.5 seconds ago.  What difficulty rating
would you give this task?

  IIRC, we're discussing targeting solutions in the context of zero delta
vee being employed, i.e., the target is not changing it's course. It's a
lot easier than you think. I believe the math bears this out.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 16:40:35 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Crime & Punishment (was Re: Piracy by the Numbers)

 
>>Why does everyone keep making this assumption???  Has anyone on the list ever
>>been robbed at gunpoint?  I have 5 different times:  Each time all the guy
>>wanted was the money in the cash register...he wasn't looking for trouble, but
>>he crertainly convinced me that if I was, he'd give it to me!! /...
> 
>  Armed robbery is a capital offense in your jurisdiction? (which assumes,
> admittedly, that piracy might very well be in the 3I).
 
Piracy requires that weapon be fired. Firing at a ship isn't armed
robbery, it's attempted murder. As far as I'm concerned (this goes
for here and now, as well :-) attempted murder and murder are the
same thing. You shouldn't punish somebody less because they didn't
succeed in what they tried to do.

Piracy is attempted mass murder then, and pirates should be treated
as such.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 16:43:23 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers

 
>  If you aren't concerned
> > about breaking things, you can blow big holes in the bulkhead
> > between you and the fuses you want to pull out.
> 
> Or, small lock-blowing charges to unlock doors between you & the fuses.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> These would work for the "privacy doors" on the non-pressure tight
> partition walls you'll find between bulkheads. Most passenger areas

The easiest thing to do is what my character did on a subsidized
merchant. Turn off the artificial gravity while under acceleration
(obviously this only works for hijacking). The door to engineering
is a *long* way down at 2gs :-)

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 10:44:11 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

Dear Folks -

Eris wrote (as part of a fine apology/justification piece):
>Tightly woven stories make for fine reading and interesting
>discussion, but IMO, they don't make for fine roleplaying.  What

Sounds like Dragonlance to me. Led by the nose the whole way...

IMTU, I have the 5FW starting in late 1105, just to keep the players
off-balance. Oh, and Regina has been subjugated - although the destruction
of the Zho 40th Fleet at Fulacin (!) will probably tip the balance back to
"normal" (ie. canon). Ah well, the PC's *will* insist on playing with those
newly-discovered Ancient weapons, won't they? ;-)

However, even though I change things IMTU, if I try writing something up
(like Tavonni) I modify things so that it fits into established canon as
well as possible. Official changes can be a pain - I have heard that
Glorithana (?) people call it being "Gregged".

I firmly belong to the "make the OTU stuff fit, but I will always change
things IMTU" group.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson        Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                       davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 16:45:04 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure seeds 
..
>They're 400 ton boats designed for interdiction and customs duties.  The J5 
>just lets them get around easier.  Can you say 'Colonial Fleet'?
>
>> Wouldn't they do the patrols and let equivalent performance SDBs do orbits?
>
>At 350ish MCr per, they're under half the cost of the Dragon.  And they're
Jump-capable.  Like I say, an appropriate boat to run across in a backwater.

  As a ship designed (at TL 14) for fleet operations and later deployed to
"protect ships from the menace of pirate activity.. ..in convoys with armed
escorts", why would it be wasted in positional defense?

  Of course, their use as Imperial or 'Colonial Fleet' ships on "routine
patrols in troubled areas in the hope of catching corsairs in the act"
would make the existence of such patrols quite explicable, in addition
to being canonical. :)

  Interestingly, even escorting J-2 (or 3?) ships they could use their
tanks to avoid having to refuel themselves to provide extra security at
particularly risky spots.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 16:45:28 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers

>From: DustyLV769@aol.com
>Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers
...
>	 I would think that if you tight-beamed the target vessel and said "don't
>even try to call for help or I'll blow you away", then most merchants would
>just give over the cargo and not risk it...esp since the pirate would have
>enough time to destroy the merchant if they violated the order./...

  Perhaps you and Mr. Pittsinger could debate combat systems for our
edification, as the Original Post (tm)* specified rules under which
what you're stating is not possible? Further, it would take non-trivial
time if it were possible except using special rules created for the
purpose. Finally, such an event happening with any regularity would
go a long way towards giving security elements carte blanche to kill
any confirmed target that wasn't docked to a liner or similar.

  * hmm, do I need a license for that?

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 16:45:39 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Off topic

>From: "Harold D. Hale" <hdhale@mindspring.com>
>Subject: Re: Off topic
...
>>Actually, the number published by the UN are intentional homicides per
>>100,000 population, so the differing populations ARE taken into account.
>>From memory (because I can't access the web from here): Canada 1.8,
>>Jamaica 5.x, USA 9.9, can't remember others.
>
>   This is what I'm talking about.  I could go on now to point out that
>Canada's incidents of gun violence have actually increased since the
>institution of stricter gun control, and that the numbers for the US are
>concentrated in urban areas with strict gun control.  Undoubtedly you can
>throw some more numbers at me, and so and so on.  This accomplishes nothing.

  Canada's incidence of violent crimes is decreasing slightly now, apparently
in connection with post-Boom demographics - thus it's just as erroneous to
attribute past increased shootings to gun control as it would now be to credit
ongoing tightening of registration with any further decreases. It would still
be unclear why our gun control laws would increase shootings, and yet your
_rate_ is so vastly greater with laxer regulations.

  It's probably a lot more accurate to say that gun related crimes are more
common in urban centers of any sort - North American, at least. The fact that
a difference in broad trends exists with Europe should alert us to something;
at a guess I'd relate it to the highly disjointed social structures of NorAm
cities, especially away from the Eastern seaboard, where most of the population
is relatively recent immigrants or very mobile.

  A recent UK newspaper article more or less briefly explained the higher
percentages for the US as basically "just because".

...
>   As long as starship weaponry is around, you will have armed commercial
>starships.  Space is too big for the navy or system defense forces to be
>everywhere all the time, and there are simply too many worlds producing
>starship weapons (and selling them to whoever can pay) to try to enforce
>any kind of overall ban.

  Well, you could, but then only pirates would have them :)  Seriously,
it would make their lives a lot easier - I wonder if a plot could be
made out of tracking the roots of a campaign to ban civilian ship guns.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 18:48:31 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Long range fire 

> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> >Subject: Re: Long range fire 
> ...
> >> Incidentally, it isnt that hard, under FFS2, to build a PAW that will fire
> >> out past 100 diameters. But I consider that an unsporting argument to use,
> >> becuase it is too rules-system dependant.
> >
> >I don't see a planet-bound PAW as being particularly effective at the 100
> diameter curb.  The target is 4.25 light-seconds away.  You're going to be
> correcting for where the target was 8.5 seconds ago.  What difficulty rating
> would you give this task?
> 
>   IIRC, we're discussing targeting solutions in the context of zero delta
> vee being employed, i.e., the target is not changing it's course. It's a
> lot easier than you think. I believe the math bears this out.

OK, contemporary military hardware is spec'ed to within 1%.  At range, what is the availiable width of the target in degrees?  It's been awhile since I did any geometry.  Personally, I still think hitting a 30 meter target at range is gonna be difficult at best.  So, let's see your math.  Convince me.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 18:52:46 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Field Repairs & Prize Crews 

> ...
> >>   Presumably the 9+ assumes level-2, per HG. Further, repairs are stated to
> >> require a full ships crew to attempt; this translates perhaps as "normal
> >> damage control contingent for said ship must be available with the
> engineering
> >> component averaging skill 2 to obtain a 9+ roll each turn"?
> >
> >Interesting idea.  But what if we designate the prize crew is now 'the
> crew' for the purposes of the repairs?  Nothing stopping us.
> 
>   That's what I implied; the 9+ target includes skill 2, of course, and the 
> time required by the prize crew would need to be adjusted for the difference
> in DC complement. OC, some of those boarders would be earning Cr 4000+ /month
> in the private sector (or similar in the military, presumably).

A 600K+ score once a year translates down to 50K a month.  Since you only need 
1 score, you could concieveably do this part time.  Not bad for a part time 
gig, assuming 1 prize taken per year.  And I didn't factor in the cargo either.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:55:14 -0800
From: "Leo Hale" <lhale@panlabs.com>
Subject: 100 Diameter

     Could someone quote for me the section that states, ships "must" come
out at 100 diameters, please.  IIRC that the 100 diameter limit was
convention and a safety factor, not a limiting event of the jump drive
technology.  Safety regulations required ships to come out of jump at 100
diameters, and governments did as well to protect there orbital
infrastructure.  What happens if you are jumping to a planet and do not
know they have built an orbital smelter, your calculations do not take it
into account and BOOM out you come and there it is right in your flight
path.  Now if your out at 100 diameters you have some time to alter course
or stop, but if your in the same orbital area as the smelter it's bye, bye
starship and smelter.  This is my opinion from what I have read, and does
not state canon or any life shattering developments.

Leo

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:57:10 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit 

>  Being attacked by a pirate, with all the risks of death and destruction
>that entails, is preferable to risking a misjump? As though that wouldn't
>affect the traders schedule?

That depends on social customs. If piracy is common and pirates have a 
reputation for (a) being very polite to people who surrender (putting them
on lifeboats), while (b) brutally killing anyone who fights (and a 
merchant with turrets and drive disabled can be completely totalled by a 
KKM), surrenders might be common - especially if there isn't much social
stigma attached (like in the 18th/19th century, when even warships would
surrender if outmatched.)

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 16:03:00 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Piracy Adventure Seeds 

>> >These arrays...  They don't take damage in combat?
>> They certainly do, however, arrays have a fair amount of redundancy 
>Seems to me, one good hit with a 5 kt nuke would scrape it right off.

Gods, now we're getting intot he whole nature-of-combat debate...
In TNE/T4 (which is the baseline many of us are using), and in a
Reasonable Technical Extrapolation from the real world (see various missile
debates in the archives), point defence lasers can get good enough that
contact nuclear missile hits are essentially impossible; the dominant missile
is the detonation laser, with a small role for fragmentation kinetic-energy
weapons (for civilians), chemical laser warheads (also for civilians) and
really high-end kinetic impact weapons (depending on the exact assumptions
used.) Besides, sensor apertures/array elements can be at least as "hard" as
laser focal/launch arrays (since they're basically the same thing - mirrors
or lenses), so scrapign the sensor off is no easier than scraping a 
weapon off.

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:04:59 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy 

> Which crew do you want to be with?
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> I'll take the crew that stays alive, thank you. And the crew with
> a steady income, rather than the crew that keeps seeing
> success slip through their fingers.

It's possible to have both.

> My analysis gave a 25% value to captured small craft and vehicles as
> well. It also postulated a Traveller Universe where taking captured
> ships with you was difficult and often unsuccessful, so you would often
> have to survive on small craft, vehicles, vacc suits, spare parts, 
> crew & passenger valuables and other things that were easily
> plunderable. And it's trivially easy to make a starship impossible
> to get away with, at least for the couple hour window you might get.

Chicken stealing.
 
> Consider that all your jump drive and maneuver drive repairs are
> useless if the anti-hijack program running on the ship automatically
> locked out all Generate/Jump programs for two hours after it detected
> a piracy boarding situation, no matter what the crew did. I'm talking
> a lock like a time-lock on a safe - unless you have a computer hacker
> extraordinaire on board, you're not leaving with that starship. 

I've not seen a computer program survive a 'red switch' since the 70's.  Are 
you going to introduce a virus program into the computer's OS?
 
> Consider a Junior Purser with a submachinegun. He can whack the
> main computers in seconds, at least enough to keep you from
> taking the ship. It's well worth the couple MCr damage if it means you
> get to keep the  the MCr180 starship. There will be plenty of Corporate 
> Security Officers indoctrinated to do just that kind of thing, with such an
> expensive asset to protect. There will be plenty of hard-nosed independent
> Free Trader captains who will do that out of desperation - they worked
> decades to get their own ship, they'll not see it jumped away from them.

Wouldn't those Security Officers be trying to repel the boarders?

> Sure, you can kill the crew in retaliation. You wanted a reputation as
> a bloodthirsty murderer, so all the local merchant crews would resist
> your boarding ops to the death, right?

Not necessarily.
 
> Let's see, I jump at 80D, I'm OK on a 9 or less. I stay here, I'm
> at the mercy of a crew of desperate characters who will kill me
> if I look at them funny, or if they're having a bad day. Pirate reputations
> will matter a lot here, but I'm not convinced that a pirate who hunts a
> certain area long enough to get a reputation will survive the anti-piracy 
> patrol his long-term presence will generate.

8 or less.

> Consider the fuel situation. Did you bring enough fuel with you to
> jump your ship away, _and_ a prize ship? Do you have enough time
> to board, take control, EVA, rig hoses and transfer fuel? A problem 
> if the target was inbound. Did the outbound target chicken out and 
> not try a 11D to 99D jump? That's better, unless some crewman 
> vented fuel before you boarded (our intrepid Junior Purser again) or 
> you had to put some holes in the fuel tanks to catch him.

Fuel hits only take a couple percentage points of fuel out.  I don't see the 
Junior Purser dumping fuel to deny the jump; with luck, the Target can still 
make an emergency jump.  If the ship is captured before the jump, the pirates 
*might* let the crew & passengers live if a jump isn't denied to them.  I 
don't see them being that charitable if the Junior Purser dumps the fuel.

Of course, the Pirate could always carry spare fuel in bladders in its hold...
 
> Would you like a copy of my earlier analysis of pirate economics?

That would be interesting.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 17:04:48 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Mayday 

>That might be interesting.  Wish I had a copy of Mayday around here.

  Mr. Miller still sells the zip-lock bag version (8.5x11" rules!)
through  <FarFuture@aol.com> - a beautiful product.

> >BOARDGAMES
>yes $15. >        G1      Mayday (Ziplock)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 17:04:57 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Computers in the Far Future

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
>Subject: re: Piracy
...
>I'll take the crew that stays alive, thank you./...

  Spoil-sport.

...
>Consider that all your jump drive and maneuver drive repairs are
>useless if the anti-hijack program running on the ship automatically
>locked out all Generate/Jump programs for two hours after it detected
>a piracy boarding situation, no matter what the crew did. I'm talking
>a lock like a time-lock on a safe - unless you have a computer hacker
>extraordinaire on board, you're not leaving with that starship. 

  Now here's where corporate keeners can have great fun:

  "Mother, our Jump program has locked itself out, and those
pirates will assume it's sabotage and _kill_ us!"

  "Your point, Captain Dallas?"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 17:10:18 -0700
From: Sanders <timmon@primenet.com>
Subject: Re: Lost Adventures Package

I'll mail you another catalog/order-form in tomorrows mail. :)

L8r,
Paul

At 10:50 PM 11/3/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Paul, I remember getting a mailing from you on these, but I can't
>find it (I put it aside for when I had time to deal with it).  I
>have time to deal with it now, but I can't find the mailing.  If
>you email me the info, I'll place an appropriate order.
>--
>Jeff Zeitlin
>jzeitlin@cyburban.com
> 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:11:24 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 

>   Perhaps you and Mr. Pittsinger could debate combat systems for our
> edification, as the Original Post (tm)* specified rules under which
> what you're stating is not possible? Further, it would take non-trivial
> time if it were possible except using special rules created for the
> purpose. Finally, such an event happening with any regularity would
> go a long way towards giving security elements carte blanche to kill
> any confirmed target that wasn't docked to a liner or similar.

It would just show how utterly ridiculous the amount of money you'd need to 
spend to prevent such incidents from happening.

>   * hmm, do I need a license for that?

Yes, you need a license for that.  I'll email you as to where to send the check.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 19:09:18 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon!

Craig Berry said:

>Because, in order to make a playable, manageable game, you *have* to
>(artificially) restrict the differences between the 57th century and
>today.  As many others have commented, almost all the plot drivers in
>Traveller arise from an economy of scarcity; people fight or bargain or
>steal to obtain resources which are valuable because they are in limited
>supply.  Interstellar trade happens because many products are expensive to
>synthesize locally.  Introduce nanotech, or large-scale transmutation of
>elements, or similar technologies, and the entire explanation for
>Traveller history and adventures as written goes out the window.


I see. So basically, what you're saying is that Traveller cannot change, and
as such can never be a viable and popular game unless there's a resurgance
in the popularity of older style sci-fi?

>Similarly, allow real AI and you get a world more like Ian Banks' than
>like Traveller-as-we-know-it -- the big AIs really call the shots, with
>living sophonts mostly as pawns.


One possible scenario, just as the Third Imperium is but one possible result
of Interstellar travel. We accept the Imperium as our shared universe...
because it was created 20+ years ago?

>Such universes do offer rich opportunities for role-playing, but these
>opportunities have little resemblance to Traveller-as-we-know-it.  And, if
>you introduce 'limited' nanotech or AI (or other canon-breaking tech), you
>are left in just as bad a position explaining why they are limited as
>ordinary canon faces explaining their absence.


Not quite. I was left with a hostile playing group that really wanted
nothing to do with Traveller's _technology_ the way it is. Even in limited
form they expected the science part of science-fiction.

You can only try to explain to your players that "the Vilani are resistant
to change" so long before you have to explain that it's not the Vilani, but
in fact the people who write the supplements and the game.

>Not hostility so much as conservatism in its original sense.  We are
>reluctant to make large changes in Traveller canon for fear of breaking
>its (already fragile) internal consistency.  For each new tech you add,
>you have to review the *entirety of Traveller pseudo-history* to make sure
>that the new tech wouldn't result in a massively different outcome.  Tech,
>in large measure, *defines* history by determining what can and cannot be
>done at any given moment.


Then people are going to pick up T5, flip through it, say "Yeah, that might
happen," and pass right over it. I like the background of Traveller. It's a
fine background, in a very broad sense. The niggling over little details is
where it falls apart and that's the Achilles heel of Traveller.

>I have yet to see a canon-breaking tech proposal which is well enough
>thought out to be incorporated into 'canon' Traveller without fatal damage
>to Traveller's stated history, sociology, and economics.


I have yet to see a Traveller version of the future that isn't hopelessly
mired in the sci-fi of the past. Seeing as I wasn't weened on the sci-fi of
the past, nor were my players, it's impossible for me to use Traveller's
canon. Since Traveller's canon is so inflexible I can hardly use any but the
broadest of supplements in my own campaign. As such, if T5 came out tomorrow
I'd likely buy very few of the books. This is the equivilant of several
customers lost, as the rest of my gaming group wouldn't be buying much
either...

>We want a blend of the two.  The 'future' we create must be recognizeable
>enough that players have some sense of what is possible, what their powers
>are, and what is expected of them.  This alone constrains our created
>'future' to be far closer to 20th century reality (or reality in a recent,
>well-known century, for that matter) than is likely to be the case in the
>real world, milennia from now.


It's an environment in which, according to canon very few types of
adventures can be created. The universe is tailored to mercenary adventures
and ill-suited to too much else. The Imperium can never change (as its
history past and future is broadly mapped out), so any sort of political
intrigue is nigh unto useless. The Traveller setting, like the Third
Imperium, is bounded by closed borders.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:08:36 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit

At 02:52 PM 11/3/98 EST, you wrote:
>	One of the things central to the Great Piracy Debate is the effect of the
>100-D limit.  Now, correct me if I am wrong about the following statements:
>
>	1)  A starship can make a risky jump at 10-D, with a large chance of a
>misjump.
>	2)  A starship can make a safe jump at 100-D, with no effect on the
>possiblilty of misjump (except for maintenance, etc.)
>	3) NOWHERE in the rules does it say a ship MUST come out of jump only at the
>100-D limit!!!

You can jump anywhere. I've had players jump successfuly while inside an
atmosphere. Once a character dumped a cargo bay full of TDX onto a Zhodani
town and decided he didn't want to wait for the planetary defense system to
open up on him. I set the appropriate throw modifiers and he made the role
without incident.

***Flame replies to above message prohibited*** 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:13:58 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon 

> I firmly belong to the "make the OTU stuff fit, but I will always change
> things IMTU" group.

I firmly belong to the 'use it if you can, but hit it with a hammer if you 
can't make it fit' school of thought.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:21:41 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit 

> 
> >  Being attacked by a pirate, with all the risks of death and destruction
> >that entails, is preferable to risking a misjump? As though that wouldn't
> >affect the traders schedule?
> 
> That depends on social customs. If piracy is common and pirates have a 
> reputation for (a) being very polite to people who surrender (putting them
> on lifeboats), while (b) brutally killing anyone who fights (and a 
> merchant with turrets and drive disabled can be completely totalled by a 
> KKM), surrenders might be common - especially if there isn't much social
> stigma attached (like in the 18th/19th century, when even warships would
> surrender if outmatched.)

I also don't see crews of corporation owned subbies fighting to the death for the Company when all they get is a paycheck, particularly if the aforementioned pirate crew has the 'A' reputation.  Personally, I don't see the axiom of 'every pirate attack *MUST KILL ALL THE WITNESSES*' as being very business-like or cost-effective in the long run.  Of course, if the Target's crew insists on continuing the fight long after the point where it's obvious they can't win, it's almost a no-brainer that the pirates *WILL* kill them.  However, this does *NOT* mean they'll kill the passengers, too.  Successful pirates are businessmen too.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 17:29:53 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy

>From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
>Subject: Re: Piracy
...
>If you like, give me a budget for a smallish world for piracy prevention,
>and I'll see how I go. I'll use HG for ship designs.

  Comrade Vice-Chair! I started researching this last week or so (as
an off-shoot of the "Rabid Poodle" Multi-Role SDB & co. posts). HG is
limited somewhat, but the vast majority of hardware and assumptions are
contained in HG/Striker/TCS. Sadly, I don't speak FFS2-ish.

  BTW, it looks like the UK paid the Yanks around three million pounds
in 1871 as compensation for the damage done to Northern shipping by the
commerce raiders built in the UK. Significantly, the authorities became
aware of the ships construction (despite Confederate efforts to conceal
them, and the fact that they were civilian ship classes), but were unable
to stop their deployment to foreign ports (where armament was installed)
as then-current international law only addressed _warships_.

  A good example, perhaps, of what the Imperiums attitude might be towards
both internal construction of major security threats and foreign states
with a tendency to explore Imperial tolerance.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1089
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, November 3 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1090



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Off topic 
Re: Playing with the HG rules 
Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080
Re: Playing with the HG rules
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
Re: Mostly Piracy
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1056
CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question
Re: Long range fire 
Taking The Hit
Definitions (Was - Re: Crime & Punishment )
Re: Computers in the Far Future 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 17:30:07 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Off topic 

>From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
>Subject: Re: Off topic (re: response; long)
...
>to be used by the police and the armed forces. Thus the European anti-firearms
>laws passed, starting at the beginning of the 20th. century. (I also found it
...

  IIRC, both mainland Europe and the UK had more restricted firearms
possession back somewhat further; I wonder if the British had been
influenced by the English Civil War and various later uprisings?

>	The United States on the other hand is influenced by an entirely different
>set of parameters.... This country was frontier when settled. It was vital

  So was Canada...  

>	These opposing mindsets make for interesting observations by each side. As a
>firearm bearing American; I find it repulsive and very dangerous to live in a
>country where the government has a monopoly on violence. Of course a European,
>Japanese, Canadian, or Australian no doubt thinks that I am a paranoid,
>homocidal maniac.

  Naw, you just allow more of them to have firearms. :>

  FWIW, military technology has so drastically changed since even the turn
of the century that all modern militaries in the OECD have an _effective_
monopoly on violence*, although it is highly dubious to try and contemplate
a situation in which the US military (for example) would turn en masse against
the civil order. OTOH, it happened in Argentina.

 * which probably isn't a bad basis for looking at the IN, given the 
economic data in Striker.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 00:31:28 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Playing with the HG rules 

 "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net> wrote:

>> If they are grouped as two USP3 hits the progression is USP3 - hit 1 first
>> battery killed remaining USP 3 - hit 2 USP2 - hit 3 USP1 - hit 4 last
>> battery killed.
>
>But you still have another battery of USP3, which is now down to USP2.  You'd
>need 6 weapons hits to take out 2 USP3 batteries.

I disagree with this interpretation of HG :-/

It states  p49, 2nd ed, that _Weapon-n_ is _each hit destroys one battery
of weapons_ ....._if the ship has only one battery of a type [Dom - ie the
first hit killed your A battery] a hit reduces the USP by the indicated
amount_. So the first hit kills one triple turret, and it takes a further 3
hits to kill the remaining one turret (not that I necessarily think this is
realistic, just more playable).

>> (of course, TL13+ Beam lasers are 1 USP factor higher).
>
>Yeah.  Which means, first hit knocks the mirrors out of alignment?  Further
>hits do 'real' damage?

I just assume they are more robust (Analogy -say a solid state device
compared to a valve - I've dropped chips and valves on a floor, but the
valves broke more often).

>> Is there an advantage to keeping two batteries at a lower USP? I don't
>> think that there is after ther first hit.... However, until the first hit
>> you get two attack rolls.
>
>Two batteries means two attack rolls.  I'm asking if each battery fires on
>its
>own, why use the full ship's USP weapon factor for hit and damage
>determination?  30 lasers on a ship means USP8.  30 batteries of 1 laser each
>means 30 attack rolls.  Are these rolls resolved at USP8, or are they
>resolved
>at USP1?  It's only *1* laser hitting per hit, not all of them.

My trite answer would be that it depends on the number of gunners - a
single gunner can fire a single turret  or a single battery of turrets....
I wouldn't allow more turret based batteries than the ship has turrets,
although I agree that this is not directly stated, probably because it
would outlaw mixed turrets. I don't normally allow mixed turrets on HG
designs, only on players ships (handwave, handwave from the rules for
ships<1kT). I would make 10 rolls at USP 3 or 1 roll at USP 8 (or if there
are 30 turrets 30 rolls at USP 1).

I also believe that the 'hit' in high guard represents the improved chance
of damage by firing multiple laser shots. This may be a better statistical
chance for a hit, or multiple shots hitting.... A barrage will hit a wider
arc and put more energy ablating defenses like sandcasters, thus increasing
the chance of a hit, represented by the USP increase of a 30 laser battery.

>> So, does the chance of a critical (which on TL13 ships sould actually be
>> the chance of three criticals off one battery, or 4 criticals off two
>> batteries) outway the downgraded weapon USP?
>
>That's the question, isn't it?  I'm surprised this hasn't come up before.

I would personally go for the doube battery on the basis that I think it
would achieve more hits. Some people may want to do the math, but I'm
running on intuition here. The single USP factor is a small diffence 7+ or
6+. Missiles have the same chance of hitting at USP 3 and USP4 (5+)....


Opening another can of worms, did you work in relative agility (and
emergency agility ) in your calc? It does effect the hit probability / to
roll value according to TCS.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 23:52:04 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Zho Battlerider (High Guard)

Sethkimmel@aol.com wrote:

>In a message dated 11/1/98 11:45:40 AM Pacific Standard Time,
>dom@cybergoths.u-net.com writes:
>
><< Nice - are you going to post the USP?
>
> I went for a few big secondaries in mine, and no black globe as it's a Zho
> rider. I thought a nasty use would be for commerce raiding.
>
> Dom
>  >>
>Here is the write-up and USP for the rider, and both tender designs:

<SNIP>

Thanks!

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 00:07:56 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080

Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au> wrote:

> There is a *good*
>reason Hon-Eel (the daughter of the Red Goddess who brought Maize from the
>Otherworld) is such an important goddess in Glorantha ...

Ohmigawd - Ditzie is an aspect of the Lunar Empire! Famile Spofulam as
agents of chaos, and Uncle Hengebar the Illuminate.......

Quick, let's flee beyond the frontiers and found the Sartite Pocket Empire.....

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 23:58:25 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Playing with the HG rules

shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson) wrote:

>>From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>

>>One thing  that I was never sure of is if you reroll if the equipment is
>>not present on the ship when you roll damage (eg does a weapon hit become a
>>re-roll if the battery is gone?).
>
>  HG specifies ignoring such results.

Got it, top of page 49....

I've read the rules many, many times but....

BTW, with the current discussion about HG why don't you resurrect your old
sig file? ;-)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 00:19:38 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)

 "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net> wrote:


>My points are the following:
>
>    Canon is only a good thing when it is an aid to creativity. The second
>canon stifles creativity, canon goes out the window.

No - canon is the structure within which the OTU is created and fleshed
out. If this cramps your style you can do what you want IYTU.

>    Canon was decided by the people who wrote for magazines like the JTAS
>and submitted supplements to GDW. Alot has happened in the 20 years since
>the heyday of Traveller. Trends in science-fiction have changed, and science
>itself has advanced. Traveller canon, at least as far as equipment and
>weapons go, does not entirely jibe with the way history has really gone. If
>it's a choice between insulting the sensibilities of my players by sticking
>to canon, or tossing canon out the window in favor of making the game fun
>for my players... Guess where canon's going.

And that is your decision.

>    The fact that people are willing to tell others that what they're doing
>isn't canon, and as a result "isn't Traveller" more or less drove me from
>posting regularly on the list in the first place. It gets old and tired to
>hear that "the Vilani were resistant to change, so this technology never got
>developed". This is a common response when somebody proposes that certain
>technologies should be more prominent in Traveller.
>
>Genetic engineering? "The Vilani are resistant to change."
>Computers? "The Vilani are resistant to change."
>AI or any sort? "The Vilani are resistant to change."
>Nanotech? "The Vilani are resistant to change."

Nanotech and cybertech are explained in GURPS Traveller - that is a design
decision.

>Why play a sci-fi game at all if you're going to remove the chance to
>extrapolate current trends in science into the far future? Anytime anyone
>tries to tailor the Traveller universe in any significant way he's met with
>a wall of hostility. What's worse is even if the new way makes more sense
>and is thought out _at_ least as well people still scream and moan about it.

>Do we want a consistent well thought out science-fiction universe, or do we
>really want the 17th/18th century in space?

No - I want the Traveller universe to remain consistent internally. I don't
want the great big universe shifting messes that things like TNE generated
with:

'Thruster Plates are unrealistic so everything uses HePLAR and T plates are
forbidden'
And jump drives and meson guns are realistic?

'Lets handwave laser weapons with a grav pulse to fix them and at the same
time drop fusion/plasma weapons because they aren't realistic'....
And the grav pulse handwave is...?

I want to play Traveller - for realistic Sci-Fi I sometimes play 2300.
Traveller *fundamentally* isn't a realistic 57th Century game. We *can't
predict* the future. So I object to people saying this and that isn't
realistic under todays' knowledge. Yes, let's smooth it over if we can but
you aren't playing 'Traveller' the setting if you assume that all modern
Sci-Fi is more appropriate. Fine - use the Traveller rules for your game,
but that is not the setting we know and love.

Canon is contradictory (by the very nature of multiple authors etc) but
needs to be homogenised as much as possible to make it work.

This isn't a rant at TNE - it is just the easiest rule set to point the
finger at for changing fundamentals of the background.

Dom



- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 00:26:34 +0000
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Mostly Piracy

Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au> wrote:
>Can you build me some cheap SDBs capable
>of playing with a type P ? I can do em under FFS2 (the infanous Four Fours
>Famile Spofulam SDB), but this debate appears to be in the paleolithic
>^k^k^k^k^k^k focussed on CT.

Reposted ----
095-0030 Suffren, Diaspora
"sdm Inc. announces diversification programme:

Following the recent changes in military procurement procedures from the
HG5.2 specification to QSDS/SSDS regulations, Starlane Drive Manufacturers
has announced a diversification programme that seeks to build on existing
areas of expertise. The drive design subdivision has been combined with a
local Diasporan design house, Lavondyss Associates, in a joint stock
arrangement.

The arrangement will combine the best of military drive technologies to the
naval architectural requirements of the commercial sector. A spokesman for
the company stated that "Although this merger moves Starlane into the
commercial sector, away from a dependency on military contracts, the
company does not rule out bidding for Naval contracts."

The company has denied any intentions to join the Imperial Ship Builders
Association (ISBA). A speaker for the company stated that "the ISBA is an
incestuous relationship between the manufacturers of the new Imperium and
the Throne. It is part of the ongoing attempts of the Imperium to
economically support its expansionist policies. The relevance of the ISBA
to this region is negligible - links with the Old Earth Union are much more
important."

<End Transmission>

130 -0030 Suffren, Diaspora.

In a surprise move, sdm Inc announced the immediate availability of a new
system defense boat, specifically designed to be incorporated in layered
defense of Jovian bodies within the systems. The system is a fusion of
Class 2 standard commercial equipment with state of the art military
hardware to the HG5.2 specification. Due to modifications to production
facilities, the vessel is also available in a variant which supports the
Imperial QSDS/SSDS standard. When asked how this new class of ship affected
the commercial diversification programme announced almost two months
previously, the company's representative stated that the design was a
'response to the requests of systems further coreward' and that the
diversification programme would continue.

Pirana Class System Defense Boat  Mk1: Type SDB(M)

High Guard  Specification:

SDB(M) - 23033D1-000000-00009-0	200dt		MCr115.132		TL12

Passengers=0, Low berths=0, Emergency Low Berths=1, EP=6, Agility=2,
No vehicles or Ships Troops. Fuel Purification Plant, Fuel=30dt, Magazine
containing 500 Missiles (10 Battery rounds, 1 extra in bay, single battery
round (nuclear) costs 7.5MCr), approx 0.3dt cargo,Crew =4 (pilot, engineer,
gunner/medic, gunner), 4 large staterooms.
Architects fee = 1.152 MCr.
Design notes: The ship utilises a standard streamlined hull straight out of
CT Book 2, which limits the space available to drives to 15dt. The drives
selected are standard civilian units, and the most noticeable weakness is
the large volume of power plant fuel required compared to military systems.
Military drives would require a fifth of the volume dedicated in the
design. This has important military ramifications (it would permit the hull
to be armoured, for a start).

There are two areas of dubious interpretation of the CT rules in this
design. The first is the use of a 100dt bay in a sub-1000 dt hull. However,
the MT supplement COACC uses a similar missile bay in the Guardian Class
orbital satelite, so I have assumed this is legal in CT Book 5. The other
area is the installation of a fuel purification plant - this has had a
negligible effect on the cost, but has consumed a further 6dt. Book 2 is
unclear as to whether streamlining includes the ability to process fuel to
a refined state. As the drives are standard civilian units, I have
installed a HG purification plant to ensure operation. I have assumed that
the configuration is a cylinder as there is no price modifier in the HG
rules for this configuration.

The Pirana is designed to operate in packs, striking from deep within a gas
giant, co-ordinated with orbital sensor platforms and other defenders. The
weapons system is cheap in terms of power and cost, but of limited
duration. It is likely that Starlane will upgrade the ship to a full
military specification soon to boost performance and sales. However, the
design at present is quick to manufacture and uses primarily civilian
components.

T4 Specification (converted with Rob Flammang's excellent system v2):

Tons: 200 Cylinder/SL	Volume: 2800		Cost 115.132
Crew:4			High/Med Passage:0	Low Passage:0 (ELB:1)
Cargo:0.3 dt			Controls: Mil std/Bridge/fib		TL12

8 Size rating				0: JDrive
4 Fire Control			3: MDrive
					3: Power Plant (1500Mw)
					30: Fuel/Scoops/Refiner
Missile Bay(x1) 180 (600)		0: Meson Screen
					0: Nuclear Dampers
					0: Sand casters
					8A 8P 16J Sensors
					Armour: 0 Structure: 12

Notes: Type A armour conversion (Missile magazine holds 500 missiles, bay 100).

CT Design Worksheet:

Item						Cost		EP
	Volume (dt)
Bk2 standard 200dt (185/15) hull		08 MCr	0		+200 dt
Streamlining					02 MCr	0		0
M Drive C (3G rating)			12 MCr	0		-5 dt
Power Plant C (Rating 3)			24 MCr	+6		-10 dt
Bridge					01 MCr	0		-20 dt
Fuel (0.1MJn+10Pn)			00 MCr	0		-30 dt
100 dt Bay (Bk5)				01 MCr	0		-100 dt
TL(12) Missile Bay	(Bk5)			20 MCr	0		0
Computer 4fib (D) (Bk 5)			45 MCr	-2		-8 dt
Staterooms (large x4)			02 MCr	0		-16 dt
Emergency Low Berths (x1)		0.1 MCr	0		-1 dt
TL(12) Fuel Purification Plant (Bk5)	0.032MCr	0		-6 dt
Missile Magazine (540 max) (MT)	00 MCr	0		-4dt
Totals:				MCr	115.132	4 rem	0 rem

Note that the 0.3 dt cargo is spare magazine space as 10 Battery rounds are
500 missiles (MT rules).

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com--------
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's still the notion
that the future is something we build. It doesn't just happen.
You can't predict the future, but you caninvent it. Build it." -
'Fallen Angels' Niven/Pournelle/Flynn ---All Rob Prior's
MacOS software @ http://www.cybergoths.u-net.com/ 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 23:42:46 +0000
From: C G Essery <cgessery@netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1056

In the books that I have read on the subject, the final range from Hood
to Bismarck was given as 11500 yards.  At that range, a 15" shell will
skip of the deck armour because the angle is too shallow, but it will
easily penetrate the _belt_ armour.

The belt armour on the Bismarck was 12.6" which was not as good as
either of the British Ships, at that range the 14" on PoW should also
penetrate Bismarck's belt as well.

If it was a 15" that finished Hood, then I believe that it probably
went  through the belt rather than the deck.  Note I have read an
account by the one of the officers in the spotting top of PoW.  He
claims that on the last salvo to hit Hood, he only saw 1 splash.  I
don't know if Bismarck was still firing 4 gun salvos or 8 gun broadsides
at that point of the battle.  Hood was either hit simultaneously by 3
(or 7) two ton objects travelling at about mach 3.  I don't think that
would do any ship much good.

Clive Essery
- -------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:10:21 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Capital Ships of WWII

In a message dated 10/27/98 8:02:57 AM Pacific Standard Time, Matt-
C@aetherem.demon.co.uk writes:

<< Let's look how much damage two of the newest and best RN units did to
 Bismark - The fast battleship HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales didn't
do
 a whole lot. >>

        This does not exactly do justice to the RN...Vice Adm. Holland
on the Hood
was not the most competent line officer in the RN.  He initially engaged
the
Prinz Eugen and ordered  Prince of Wales to do the same (Prince of Wales
soon
realized he had misidentified the Prinz Eugen and shifted fire on his
own).
Also, the RN ships were approaching the Germans bow-on in a effort to
close
the range ASAP (this was most likely due to Hood's vulnerability to
plunging
fire...which was dramatically demonstrated in short order); however,
this
reduced thier effective firepower by 50% as well.  I believe that the
engagement was not well though out on the British side; but I think the
Hood,
at least was a fair match for the Bismarck (Prince of Wales had just
been
commisioned...they still had civilian contracters working on board
during the
battle!!)

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 11:41:46 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question

Dear Folks -

Since no-one is taking me up on the "structured discussion" idea, I'm going
to kick off one of my own. ;-)

- --------------------------------------------------
CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question

PROBLEM: How do we reconcile the differences in canon over the Kinunir? The
problem appears to be one of irreconcilable dates.

REF 3.1: _Adventure 1: The Kinunir_ states that the ship was lost in 1097
(from memory).
REF 3.2: _The Regency Sourcebook_ and now _Behind The Claw_ (the latter
presumably quoting the former) state that the ship was discovered at
Shionthy in 1105. The other ships of the class were then "fixed" (they
talked to the AI computers with a very large hammer ;-).
REF 3.3: The RSB and BTC also say that Norris obtained his Warrant from the
ship, and this appears to have occurred sometime in 1108.
REF 3.4: _Digest 9: Before the Iridium Throne_ says that Norris made his
plea to Strephon at the same time that the four "Grand Tourers" were at
Capital - that is, around 1104-5 (again from memory).
REF 3.5: In _Survival Margin_, while forging his Archducal patent, Norris
mentions that he had "done this before" with his 5FW Warrant.

POINT 3.1: I will re-check the dates tonight, so if I have mis-remembered
please just pat me on the head and tell me so.
POINT 3.2: If the Kinunir was lost before 1100, and Norris didn't even ask
Strephon for a Warrant until 1105, there is NO WAY that the Kinunir could
have been the ship that was delivering the Warrant.
POINT 3.3: The SM quote could be interpreted differently; that is, Norris
meant that he received the Warrant and *then* acted.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION 3.1: The references to the "Kinunir" as the ship that had
Norris' Warrant on it are false. This was done in order to cover up the
truth, that he was unable to wait for word back from Strephon, and actually
forged his Warrant. The real thing came later, allowing him to justify his
actions, and then he had to create a cover story.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION 3.2: Norris did go off and retrieve his Warrant, but from
some other Red Zone. It was done in secret because Santanocheev had banned
all contact with Red Zone worlds in the Marches.
     PROBLEMS WITH 3.2: This sounds like a bad band-aid fix.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION 3.3: Solution 3.1 is correct, but Norris didn't forge the
Warrant, he had found it a few years before when he discovered the Kinunir
and hid it in his footlocker. ;-) I mean, kept it safe "just in case".
Plausible, since BTC says he was tooling around with the fleets in the
"Inthe Pocket", near Shionthy.
- --------------------------------------------------

Just add to the references/points/solutions/problems as desired. ;-)
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson        Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                       davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 16:53:36 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Long range fire 

>[hitting non-mauevering targets at several light-seconds.) 
>OK, contemporary military hardware is spec'ed to within 1%.  At range, what is the
>availiable width of the target in degrees?  It's been awhile since I did any
>geometry.  Personally, I still think hitting a 30 meter target at range is gonna
> be difficult at best.  So, let's see your math.  Convince me.

A 30-m target at 4 lightseconds is 2.5x10^-8 radians in size (1 millionth
of a degree for the old-fashioned among us, 0.005 arcseconds for the
astronomers.) 

Current military systems (which are probably a lot better than 1%) aren't
relevant here; we're not trying to aim Big Honking Hunks of Metal (good name for
an all-robot band...) but teeny-weeny little photons (a *lot* of teeny-weeny
photons, admittedly.) You do that by steering mirrors - in particular, by
aiming the main mirror of your laser (which looks like a big telescope) in
the right general direction (to within a few arcseconds) and doing fine
precision pointing with a smaller steering mirror. You control the smaller
steering mirror with a closed-loop system with a sensor looking "out" along
the same light path the laser will take. Such a closed-loop system 
using current technology (like the adaptive optics/tip-tilt system being
built for the Keck telescope) can hold a star still - even in the face of
the rapid, random jitter caused by the atmosphere - to within a few
thousandths of an arcsecond - which meets our requirements. All you have to 
do is boresight your laser with respect to the little sensor - not that 
hard to do - and your laser beam will always hit what the sensor is locked on.
(This is how (according to Aviation Week) the USAF's YAL-1, likely to be the
first operational laser weapon system, will work.)

Subtlties include issues of what to do with targets too dim for the boresight
sensor (offset from a nearby star) and what to do to correct for the 
constant velocity of the target - to do that you need a very precise range
to the target, whcih probably requires lighting it up with active sensors. 
(Or comparing observations from two ships to triangulate the target.) 
These are subtlties; basically, laser control systems can be made precise
enough even with modern technology to hit targets at million-km ranges.
This is Bruce's First Rule of space combat: Lasers Never Miss.
(Modifierd by the Second Rule: "...unless the target gets out of the way.")
A real hostile target will be devoting some effort to jinking and evading,
varying its velocity enough that -a syou point out - in the eight seconds
of delay there-and-back-again it won't be where the constant-velocity
assumption predicted. Evasion is very crucial to space combat. 
It does make life tough for people trying to hide - if you've shut down your
power plant to avoid thermal signatures, you can't evade, and the first hint
you have that someone has detected you will be a LIDAR lighting up your hull
(if you're lucky) followed by a laser salvo.

This is also why impact or nuke missiles are of limited use. Evasion is more
useful the furhter away you are - at a thousand km, even a missile that
is dodging at 100 G can't get out of the way fast enough; a laser can take
down such missiles as fast as it can fire.

Bruce Macintosh
(Opinions mine, not my employers, and based entirely on non-classified literature.)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:52:41 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Taking The Hit

> >> >These arrays...  They don't take damage in combat?
> >> They certainly do, however, arrays have a fair amount of redundancy 
> >Seems to me, one good hit with a 5 kt nuke would scrape it right off.
> 
> Gods, now we're getting intot he whole nature-of-combat debate...

No, now we're gonna get into a whole rules set debate.

> In TNE/T4 (which is the baseline many of us are using), and in a
> Reasonable Technical Extrapolation from the real world (see various missile
> debates in the archives), point defence lasers can get good enough that
> contact nuclear missile hits are essentially impossible; the dominant missile
> is the detonation laser, with a small role for fragmentation kinetic-energy
> weapons (for civilians), chemical laser warheads (also for civilians) and
> really high-end kinetic impact weapons (depending on the exact assumptions
> used.) Besides, sensor apertures/array elements can be at least as "hard" as
> laser focal/launch arrays (since they're basically the same thing - mirrors
> or lenses), so scrapign the sensor off is no easier than scraping a 
> weapon off.

OK, I've already mentioned I don't own a copy of T4 or TNE.  This means I don't have or use FFS.  So, I gotta ask about your point defense lasers a bit.

Are you using the stock ruleset or a variant?  I see a bit of 'we start with the rules and add this other stuff to them' here...  If it's under the stock rules, I can see where what you say has relevance.  If it's a rules variant, I can't see it at all as it's just another way of making sure your ship combats are as lethal as possible.  But hey, that's *your* TU.  If you're using point defense accuracy from TML archives, then you're running a variant ruleset not availiable to anyone with no net access.  To them, the variant doesn't exist.

Second off, if you're going to use Real World Extrapolations, how do you defend against a stealth bomber, or a stealth fighter?  And in the above mentioned superlaser, what happens if your target *also* has that superlaser system?  Hey, if *you've* got it, somebody else does too.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:58:10 -0500
From: steve daniels <stevedaniels@portcaddo.com>
Subject: Definitions (Was - Re: Crime & Punishment )

Merrick Burkhardt wrote:

> Piracy is attempted mass murder then, and pirates should be treated
> as such.

Generally, Piracy is much less than this.  Piracy isn't much more than
robbery on the high seas (or high space), in essence.  It was a
catch-all term for crimes in international waters, in which no state
can exercise its territorial jurisdiction to define and punish crime.

"The acts of robbery and depradation upon the high seas, which,
if committed on land, would have amounted to a felony.  Brigandage
committed on the sea or from the sea."  - Black's Law Dictionary.

In the US, this carries a penalty of life imprisonment.

IOW, armed robbery at sea = piracy.

A later refinement is "air piracy."
- -"Any seizure or exercise of of control, by force or violence or threat of
force or violence and with wrongful intent, of any aircraft in flight in air
commerce."  Title 49, United States Code Section 1472(i).

This one seems most applicable to the Traveller Universe, given the
Imperium's jurisdiction over interstellar commerce and things that
effect it.

For comparison:
Hijacking: "Robbery of goods while in transit, commonly from trucks.
May involve robbery of only goods, or of both vehicle and goods.
May also refer to commandeering an airplane." - Blacks Law Dictionary.

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:56:28 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Computers in the Far Future 

> >Consider that all your jump drive and maneuver drive repairs are
> >useless if the anti-hijack program running on the ship automatically
> >locked out all Generate/Jump programs for two hours after it detected
> >a piracy boarding situation, no matter what the crew did. I'm talking
> >a lock like a time-lock on a safe - unless you have a computer hacker
> >extraordinaire on board, you're not leaving with that starship. 
> 
>   Now here's where corporate keeners can have great fun:
> 
>   "Mother, our Jump program has locked itself out, and those
> pirates will assume it's sabotage and _kill_ us!"
> 
>   "Your point, Captain Dallas?"

ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!

Keven


tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1090
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest     Tuesday, November 3 1998     Volume 1998 : Number 1091



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Mostly SDB's
Re: Piracy by the numbers 
Re: Definitions (Was - Re: Crime & Punishment )
Re: Skills in HG combat 
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me) 
Re: Not Taking the Hit
Re: Taking The Hit
Re: Off topic (Gun Control)
[none]
New Website
Re: Crime & Punishment (was Re: Piracy by the Numbers)
Re: Piracy
Re: Long range fire 
Re: Field Repairs & Prize Crews 
Re: Piracy by the numbers 
Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question 
Re: 100 Diameter limit 
Re: Piracy by the numbers 
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
Re: Phooey on canon
Re: Taking The Hit 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 18:29:13 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Mostly SDB's

>From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
>Subject: Re: Mostly Piracy
...
>Steve, my copy of HG is long gone. Can you build me some cheap SDBs capable
>of playing with a type P ? I can do em under FFS2 (the infanous Four Fours
>Famile Spofulam SDB), but this debate appears to be in the paleolithic
>^k^k^k^k^k^k focussed on CT.

  Sure - did you catch the "Crazed Animal" HG design series I started
posting a couple of weeks ago?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 18:29:25 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 
...
>It's also assumed that military grade stuff is gonna be kept strictly 
>military, too.

  Fighters and SDB's _aren't_ military?

>> > If you assume even *minimal* brains of a professional pirate, you'll
realise 
>> > they'll take outbound prizes, not inbound ones.  Inbound ones are a
good way 
>> > to spend your formative years on a prison planet.
...
>Exactly.  Inbound targets aren't particularly inviting anymore, are they?

  I've noticed a conspicuous lack of commentary from the Old Guard of the
"pro-pirate" school. Have you by any chance already indoctrinated them
off-list?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 18:31:46 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Definitions (Was - Re: Crime & Punishment )

 
> Generally, Piracy is much less than this.  Piracy isn't much more than
> robbery on the high seas (or high space), in essence.  It was a
> catch-all term for crimes in international waters, in which no state
> can exercise its territorial jurisdiction to define and punish crime.
> 
> "The acts of robbery and depradation upon the high seas, which,
> if committed on land, would have amounted to a felony.  Brigandage
> committed on the sea or from the sea."  - Black's Law Dictionary.
> 
> IOW, armed robbery at sea = piracy.

I buy this if they come up, fire a shot over the bow, and you give
up. If they capture you by shooting at you until your ship is dead
in the water then they have probably killed somebody anyway, and if
they didn't it was sheer luck (since any weapon that can cripple a
ship will certainly kill people).

As I understand it, piracy rarely took the form that it would have
to in traveller--that is you *must* disable the target by force.

besides, the legal definition of piracy only includes taking the
ship, etc. There is no reason you wouldn't also charge the pirates
with murder if they killed anybody while commiting this other
(lesser) crime. Or attempted murder, or assault. All in addition to
"piracy."

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 18:29:35 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Skills in HG combat 

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Skills in HG combat 
...
>>the MT task system.  Very interesting.  And MT takes in gunner's skill, while 
>>CT Book 2 *does* but HG *doesn't*./...
...
>No, it means the default Gunnery-2 skill is already factored into the tables 
>for hits and penetration.

  HG _doesn't_ take the gunner's skill into account, because it's
already factored in? Somebody is missing something here.

...
>And I don't know about you, but I find the thought of somebody hitting a
target at 1.28 million klicks to be ridiculous.  Space is deep, and targets
at that range are gonna be *small*.

  I understand that naval engagement ranges were restricted to a few thousand
yards just before the turn of the century, and that after being stalled at 
under a thousand yards for over two millenia.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 20:32:01 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me) 

> 'Lets handwave laser weapons with a grav pulse to fix them and at the same
> time drop fusion/plasma weapons because they aren't realistic'....
> And the grav pulse handwave is...?
 
*grin*

Actually, I use fusion & plasma guns IMTU.  They're military issue only.  Show 
up in a starport with them mounted, and the local sherrif shows up and says, 
"Where'd ya get the guns, son?"

> I want to play Traveller - for realistic Sci-Fi I sometimes play 2300.

I never got into 2300.

> Traveller *fundamentally* isn't a realistic 57th Century game. We *can't
> predict* the future. So I object to people saying this and that isn't
> realistic under todays' knowledge. Yes, let's smooth it over if we can but
> you aren't playing 'Traveller' the setting if you assume that all modern
> Sci-Fi is more appropriate. Fine - use the Traveller rules for your game,
> but that is not the setting we know and love.

IMNSFBHO, Traveller is space opera of the highest order, with dirty ashtrays 
and litter.

> Canon is contradictory (by the very nature of multiple authors etc) but
> needs to be homogenised as much as possible to make it work.

Like I say, I use canon as much as possible.  When it doesn't make sense *IN 
THE CONTEXT OF THE GAME*, I hit it with a hammer until it does.
 
Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 11:31:33
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Not Taking the Hit

0
>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Taking The Hit
>
>Are you using the stock ruleset or a variant?  I see a bit of 'we start
with the rules and add this other stuff to them' here...  If it's under the
stock rules, I can see where what you say has relevance.  If it's a rules
variant, I can't see it at all as it's just another way of making sure your
ship combats are as lethal as possible.  But hey, that's *your* TU.  If
you're using point defense accuracy from TML archives, then you're running
a variant ruleset not availiable to anyone with no net access.  To them,
the variant doesn't exist.
>

Umm, Keven, rapid fire point defense lasers have been around since Striker.
Point defense lasers hitting multiple targets can be extrapolated from HG,
because a single laser can sometimes stop an attack by multiple missile
turrets.

>Second off, if you're going to use Real World Extrapolations, how do you
defend against a stealth bomber, or a stealth fighter?  And in the above
mentioned superlaser, what happens if your target *also* has that
superlaser system?  Hey, if *you've* got it, somebody else does too.
>

Well, things either start to get solidly built, or rely on getting the
first shot off, or start to mount lots of sandcasters.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 18:41:20 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Taking The Hit

In TNE space combat (variants are highly recommended, but I'll take
it stock for this post :-) ships are bloody hard to disable quickly.

Most of a trading ship is fuel and empty space (cargo). Even fully
armed a free trader is certainly no more than 1% weapons in terms of
surface area, so disarming it would also be tricky (this would be
true in CT as well, weapon hits have always been too likely, but I
guess you assume that the damage tables only count "good" hits).

I would expect it to take a few hours for a pirate to disable a
trader that tried to escape/fight.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 12:41:10 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Re: Off topic (Gun Control)

Dear Folks -

Seth said:
>To start with, I think that the carrying of weapons is cultural.
AND
>These opposing mindsets make for interesting observations by each side.

Thanks, Seth, for a clear, well-rounded discussion outlining the basis of
the differing gun control views. Rarely have I ever seen the matter
discussed so dispassionately and even-handedly.

...even if I do think you probably are a homicidal maniac. ;-P (Aren't all
Americans? I've seen "Rambo". ;-)

Seriously, I really appreciated your take on the situation. And I like the
ObTravRef as well - the RSB gave us some of that viewpoint, with the
snooty-nosed snobs in the Imperial Core looking down on the dirt-grubbing
lawless bandits of the Lunatic Fringe - sorry, Imperial Rim - oh, call it
what you will! (obscure Trav reference).

>(though what is the law level INSIDE the extra-territorial Imperial
starport?)

Law level 1 when wandering around, but this doesn't apply to what's inside
the starships.

>(hmm... an adventure nugget for "paperwork" based PC's).

My PC's have gone through this while trying to obtain their starmerc/merc
platoon licences. They preferred fighting the Zhodani.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson        Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                       davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 17:46:13 -0800
From: "Jesse LaBranche" <Vanquer@email.msn.com>
Subject: [none]

Jesse.
Vanquer@EMAIL.MSN.COM
http://www.gryffon.com/leta for all your gaming needs.
ICQ. 8004143

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 17:47:36 -0800
From: "Jesse LaBranche" <Vanquer@email.msn.com>
Subject: New Website

Hello all,

    Just a quick note to let everyone know that my Website
is now officially open to the public. This is not specifically
"on-topic", however it is RPG site that features this setting
as well as all others that I am able to gain access to.
    We will be featuring contests, auctions, links to various
gaming sites, free membership, a monthly newsletter, and
many bits of information on the latest in the gaming world.
    Come on in check it out in the bare-bones. It will be added
to on a regular basis. Comments to the webmaster and myself
are welcomed- and encouraged.
    Our goal is to make this your one-stop link to all the great
gaming sites out there. On this end, if there are any sites that
you would like to see added to our pages- please let us know.

Thanks.

Jesse.
Vanquer@EMAIL.MSN.COM
http://www.gryffon.com/leta for all your gaming needs.
ICQ. 8004143

P.S. Monitors- I apologize for the post, I think that it is "related"
though?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 18:59:50 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Crime & Punishment (was Re: Piracy by the Numbers)

>From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
>Subject: Re: Crime & Punishment (was Re: Piracy by the Numbers)
...
>>  Armed robbery is a capital offense in your jurisdiction? (which assumes,
>> admittedly, that piracy might very well be in the 3I).
...
>Piracy is attempted mass murder then, and pirates should be treated
>as such.

  The authorities need some kind of ability to use their judgement,
otherwise they just encourage the more extreme sorts of loonie. OC,
with nobles holding various offices in the appeal chain (at least,
and probably in the MoJ prosecution process) then not only will the
pirates who didn't do much have a real hope of being treated fairly,
but cracking cases (and conspiracies) will be made easier by offering
deals to flunkies who want to get on with their lives.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:00:06 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy 
...
>Fuel hits only take a couple percentage points of fuel out./...

  As indicated previously, HG fuel hits all cost at least 10 Dt of L-Hyd;
this is 2% of 500 D-tons of current onboard fuel.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:00:19 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Long range fire 

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Long range fire 
...
>OK, contemporary military hardware is spec'ed to within 1%.  At range, what
is the availiable width of the target in degrees?  It's been awhile since I
did any geometry.  Personally, I still think hitting a 30 meter target at
range is gonna be difficult at best.  So, let's see your math.  Convince me.

  1%? I really do hope it's got some decimal places after that, or hitting
anything is going to be virtually impossible. :)  Explains friendly fire...

  Assuming that none of the astronomers touches this, it'll take me a day
or three to find the files with the reference info.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:00:29 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Field Repairs & Prize Crews 

...
>A 600K+ score once a year translates down to 50K a month.  Since you only need 
>1 score, you could concieveably do this part time.  Not bad for a part time 
>gig, assuming 1 prize taken per year.  And I didn't factor in the cargo either.

  What use is 600K a year if you never retire?

  Even better, cargo can't get hit under HG!

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:00:49 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 
...
>It would just show how utterly ridiculous the amount of money you'd need to 
>spend to prevent such incidents from happening.

  So determining that providing warships and other defence systems for
the mainworld and its' immediate area is impossibly expensive doesn't
require any calculations?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 21:02:20 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question 

> PROBLEM: How do we reconcile the differences in canon over the Kinunir? The
> problem appears to be one of irreconcilable dates.
> 
> REF 3.1: _Adventure 1: The Kinunir_ states that the ship was lost in 1097
> (from memory).

It was lost in 1088.  As of 001-1105, it haddn't been found, according to Adv 
1.  The adventure seed was meant to allow PC's to do the actual finding, so 
the 'found' date may vary if the adventure was used.  Otherwise, quien sabe?

> REF 3.2: _The Regency Sourcebook_ and now _Behind The Claw_ (the latter
> presumably quoting the former) state that the ship was discovered at
> Shionthy in 1105. The other ships of the class were then "fixed" (they
> talked to the AI computers with a very large hammer ;-).

I don't have these.

> REF 3.3: The RSB and BTC also say that Norris obtained his Warrant from the
> ship, and this appears to have occurred sometime in 1108.

The Rebellion started in 1116.  I don't remember the dates of the 5FW off the 
top of my head, but methinks it's possible for the Kununir to get to Depot and 
back at least.

> REF 3.4: _Digest 9: Before the Iridium Throne_ says that Norris made his
> plea to Strephon at the same time that the four "Grand Tourers" were at
> Capital - that is, around 1104-5 (again from memory).

I was under the impression that Norris and Strephon never met in person.

> REF 3.5: In _Survival Margin_, while forging his Archducal patent, Norris
> mentions that he had "done this before" with his 5FW Warrant.

He mentioned that he *USED* the warrant 'that Strephon gave me' to remove 
Santanochev for gross misconduct in the 5FW.  He didn't say he *forged* it.
 
> POINT 3.2: If the Kinunir was lost before 1100, and Norris didn't even ask
> Strephon for a Warrant until 1105, there is NO WAY that the Kinunir could
> have been the ship that was delivering the Warrant.

I can't remember when Norris was supposed to get the warrant delivered into 
his hand.  I *do* know he had it when he took over command for the 5FW.

> POINT 3.3: The SM quote could be interpreted differently; that is, Norris
> meant that he received the Warrant and *then* acted.

I take it that he had the warrant in time to finish the 5FW.  Date is a bit 
fuzzy for me.

> POSSIBLE SOLUTION 3.1: The references to the "Kinunir" as the ship that had
> Norris' Warrant on it are false. This was done in order to cover up the
> truth, that he was unable to wait for word back from Strephon, and actually
> forged his Warrant. The real thing came later, allowing him to justify his
> actions, and then he had to create a cover story.

On Pg 22, the Captain's Cabin of the Kununir is noted to have an envelope with 
a signed Imperial Warrant in it.  This Warrant *could* be Norris' and not 
delivered 17 years late.  The book doesn't specify who it's made out for.  
IIRC, I don't think Norris was even in power in 1088.
 
> POSSIBLE SOLUTION 3.2: Norris did go off and retrieve his Warrant, but from
> some other Red Zone. It was done in secret because Santanocheev had banned
> all contact with Red Zone worlds in the Marches.
>      PROBLEMS WITH 3.2: This sounds like a bad band-aid fix.

Very.
 
> POSSIBLE SOLUTION 3.3: Solution 3.1 is correct, but Norris didn't forge the
> Warrant, he had found it a few years before when he discovered the Kinunir
> and hid it in his footlocker. ;-) I mean, kept it safe "just in case".
> Plausible, since BTC says he was tooling around with the fleets in the
> "Inthe Pocket", near Shionthy.

*nod*

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 20:15:34 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit 

> You can jump anywhere. I've had players jump successfuly while inside an
> atmosphere. Once a character dumped a cargo bay full of TDX onto a Zhodani
> town and decided he didn't want to wait for the planetary defense system to
> open up on him. I set the appropriate throw modifiers and he made the role
> without incident.

It's concievable, I guess, if you roll a natural 2 on 2D6, or you allowed DM's 
for Pilot, Nav, and Engineering skills.  Otherwise, the stock +10 to the roll 
comes into play and they misjump on 13+.  Between me thee & the door post, I 
would NOT wanna try *that*.

One of my players tried doing that in the game I was running about 16 years 
ago.  She didn't make the roll.  When they landed the ship again on the same 
planet they tried escaping from, they found out why they had to do a dead 
stick landing with no power.  Seems when they checked the power plant & Jump 
drive, all they found was open space.  All the various connectors were severed 
in a sphere, as was portions of the ship.  The edges were mirror-smooth.  
Finally, I broke down and told them that their jump drive and power plant were 
heading toward the edge of the Universe on a one-way trip.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 21:09:19 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 

> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> >Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 
> ...
> >It's also assumed that military grade stuff is gonna be kept strictly 
> >military, too.
> 
>   Fighters and SDB's _aren't_ military?

Yeah, they're military.

> >> > If you assume even *minimal* brains of a professional pirate, you'll
> realise 
> >> > they'll take outbound prizes, not inbound ones.  Inbound ones are a
> good way 
> >> > to spend your formative years on a prison planet.
> ...
> >Exactly.  Inbound targets aren't particularly inviting anymore, are they?
> 
>   I've noticed a conspicuous lack of commentary from the Old Guard of the
> "pro-pirate" school. Have you by any chance already indoctrinated them
> off-list?

Nope.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 19:31:56 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)

>  I suppose that a consistent, well thought-out science-fiction universe
>where many macro scale effects are _similar to_ those of Earths' 17th &
>18th centuries isn't an acceptable option?


My point was to make people think about where Traveller is, where it's been
and where it will end up heading to. Nothing more, nothing less :-)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 21:06:27 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)

>With no established background, there is no direct canon. Indirectly, the
>writer is obligated to look at the implications of an addition (which is
>actually much harder), but this always applies.


With all honesty, I don't think that whoever first inserted Battle Dress (ie
Powered Armor) into Traveller thought about the implications or how much
sense it made. It was something that sci-fi fans of the time (familiar with
Starship Troopers) expected to be in there, so it was in there, just like
elves and wizards in D&D.

The Third Imperium seems to be deeply rooted in Asimov's "Foundation"
series. Somehow I don't think anybody _really_ thought about it too much, it
was just a good 60s/70s sci-fi background.

and so on...

>Hm, Roger is sitting on the DGP stuff, but Marc has been remarkably
>generous in giving permission for people to xerox out-of-print material
>for other fans. Given that the list membership collectively has multiple
>copies of everything ever published, I'd say everything _is_ available.


Where to start on getting the info? Does one write, hoping to not step on
anyone's  toes, and then seek approval? Or should someone get all Traveller
canon materials first and then write?

>On the other hand, who wants to have a campaign of 20 years overturned
>because a writer decided to change everything? Especially as there's so
>much virgin territory out there...


With all honesty, I've found very little virgin territory. Most places
already have a history, some more detailed than others.

>In your Traveller universe, sure. My personal universe doesn't follow
>Traveller canon either. But when I write for publication I stick to canon,
>so that other referees can use my material without change.


If many people play with certain variations anyway, then everything still
has to be tinkered with in order for them to use something, canon or not.

>Now, an easy way around this is for the writer to explicitly identify any
>varient rules/background used.


TNE's "Fire, Fusion and Steel" was a step in that direction. Despite its
flaws, it was a wonderful attempt. In reality it was a return to the
Traveller of old, before it was tied to a rigid and structured background.

>Leaving aside the fact that some people scream and moan about anything?


Largely true. It could be argued I'm doing that right now.

>Remember that you are free to do anything you like in your own game, as
>are we all. However, every change to a common background means more work
>for everyone using that background, so you should see why some people are
>complaining.


It seems like everyone already has one or more "variants" running at any
given point. It could be argued that's the way already.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 19:30:05 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon

>I don't see the problem here unless you want Marc or Loren to publish it as
>part of the OTU. It will fit perfectly into your own TU, because you wrote
it,
>so you have no trouble using it yourself. You can still get it published if
>it is good, it will just have to be marked as a variant (Examples of this
>are the Dynchia and IRIS). It's true that you won't be able to use the
>official version should you ever get hold of the 20 year old book or should
>it be republished, but you wouldn't be able to use a newly published book
>about that subsector that didn't agree with the 20 year old book either, so
>what's the difference?


Pardon me if I'm reading incorrectly, but what you're saying then is that
canon really isn't that important? Or maybe there's a level of canon at
which discrepencies aren't important?

>It's one thing if the new product is written by someone who knows the old
>stuff and deliberately change some things in order to make the OTU more
>consistent, it's quite another if it is inconsistent because the writer
>didn't know about it (unfortunate, but excusable if it was a small, obscure
>product, inexcusable if it was one of the major products) or didn't care
>(totally inexcusable).


One of the "major products". What then _are_ the major products? There are
very few Traveller products still in print.

>As I said before, I don't expect miracles. If the author didn't know
because
>he had very little chance of finding out, it is unfortunate, but excusable.
>If he didn't know because he didn't bother to find out, that's another
thing
>entirely.


Where to draw the line on bothering to figure it out? I make an attempt to
buy Traveller stuff when I come across it at a reasonable price. Should I
make an open invitation to ask everyone to send me all of their canon
information? Is that reasonable to ask? It doesn't seem that way. If, like
me, the Traveller bug bit late I'm completely out of luck on all fronts.

>Wnen two canonical statements contradict each other or when a canonical bit
>is self-contradictory or very, very unlikely[*], then my creativity is
>stifled.


Many bits of canon are already self-contradicting. To many people, a
majority of the Traveller universe is very, very unlikely.

>[*] I don't mind unlikely and I can usually handle very unlikely, but I
draw
>    the line at very, very unlikely ;-)


That's just it, of course. A consistent universe means if one part is "very,
very unlikely" then the whole thing goes down in flames.

>OTOH, the possibilities of getting help has increased enourmously. Post a
>plea on the TML for information about any star system and odds are very
good
>that there are people who can provide you with the most obscure references.


In order to be properly briefed on canon, it seems one has to have a
Doctorate in Travellerology :-)

>Here you're pressing quite a different button of mine. IMO the Traveller
>Universe is not the Real Universe and dose not have to correspond 100%
>to the Real Universe. I think it is a mistake to try to shoehorn the events
>of the last 20 years developement in the Real World into the TU. Fix a date
>(say, 1979) as the time the TU and the Real World started to part company
>in earnest and don't try to update the TU to fit new RW inventions unless
>the fit without much effort.


If Traveller can't adapt to meet modern day science fiction then there will
be no new fans, no new blood... and Traveller will become as extinct as the
dinosaurs.

>I want a consistent, well thought out 18th Century in Space. ;-)


Okay, at least you're honest :-)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 21:12:43 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Taking The Hit 

> In TNE space combat (variants are highly recommended, but I'll take
> it stock for this post :-) ships are bloody hard to disable quickly.
> 
> Most of a trading ship is fuel and empty space (cargo). Even fully
> armed a free trader is certainly no more than 1% weapons in terms of
> surface area, so disarming it would also be tricky (this would be
> true in CT as well, weapon hits have always been too likely, but I
> guess you assume that the damage tables only count "good" hits).
> 
> I would expect it to take a few hours for a pirate to disable a
> trader that tried to escape/fight.

Not if you're postuiating 'one-shot kills' from orbit to the jump curb.  If 
they can disable me from 1.280 million klicks away, I can do it up close and 
personal in the same amount of time.

You don't get it both ways.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1091
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest    Wednesday, November 4 1998    Volume 1998 : Number 1092



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Piracy by the numbers 
Re: Long range fire 
Re: Playing with the HG rules
Four Fours Spofulam SDB?
re: off topic
Re: Long range fire 
Re: Not Taking the Hit 
Re: Playing with the HG rules 
Re: 100 Diameter limit 
Re: Off topic (Gun Control)
Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question
Re: 100 Diameter limit 
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
Re: Plasma guns, canon, bureaucracy and High Guard
Maize in the old world
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)
Re: Off topic (re: response; long)
Re: Crime & Punishment (was Re: Piracy by the Numbers)
Re: Taking The Hit

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 21:25:08 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 

> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> >Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 
> ...
> >It would just show how utterly ridiculous the amount of money you'd need to 
> >spend to prevent such incidents from happening.
> 
>   So determining that providing warships and other defence systems for
> the mainworld and its' immediate area is impossibly expensive doesn't
> require any calculations?

I wanna see them justify their defense spending in backwater worlds.  The 
theory that subbies *won't* visit backwaters is totally against the purpose 
the subbies were built in the first place.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 21:26:59 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Long range fire 

> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> >Subject: Re: Long range fire 
> ...
> >OK, contemporary military hardware is spec'ed to within 1%.  At range, what
> is the availiable width of the target in degrees?  It's been awhile since I
> did any geometry.  Personally, I still think hitting a 30 meter target at
> range is gonna be difficult at best.  So, let's see your math.  Convince me.
> 
>   1%? I really do hope it's got some decimal places after that, or hitting
> anything is going to be virtually impossible. :)  Explains friendly fire...

1.  Incoming fire has the right of way.

2.  Friendly fire *isn't*.
 
Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 19:34:43 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Playing with the HG rules

>From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
>Subject: Re: Playing with the HG rules
...
>Got it, top of page 49....
>I've read the rules many, many times but....

  I only spotted it while looking up something else. I find HG really nice
to work with due to the relative compatibility with Striker.

>BTW, with the current discussion about HG why don't you resurrect your old
>sig file? ;-)

   For a fellow believer? Of course!

 The CT Creed: "There is no Game but Traveller, and High Guard is its' Product"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 21:59:52 -0600
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>
Subject: Four Fours Spofulam SDB?

Steven Hudson wrote:

>
>>From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
>>Subject: Re: Mostly Piracy
>..
>>Steve, my copy of HG is long gone. Can you build me some cheap SDBs capable
>>of playing with a type P ? I can do em under FFS2 (the infanous Four Fours
>>Famile Spofulam SDB), but this debate appears to be in the paleolithic
>>^k^k^k^k^k^k focussed on CT.
>
>  Sure - did you catch the "Crazed Animal" HG design series I started
>posting a couple of weeks ago?


	Hmmm... I don't ever recall doing an SDB.  A THUDDD Patrol Cruiser
that was 100td overweight and couldn't rescue squat, but with a Honking Big
Spinal Mount, yes, but no SDB.  What was the design and who did it?  I
suspect I can figure out why it was infamous :).


Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 21:56:21 -0800
From: Mark Urbin <eclipse@ultranet.com>
Subject: re: off topic

>  IIRC, both mainland Europe and the UK had more restricted firearms
>possession back somewhat further; I wonder if the British had been
>influenced by the English Civil War and various later uprisings?

British citizens were still fairly well armed up to the 1920's.  The
government 
moved to disarm them due to fears of socialist uprising.  US civilians shipped
arms to the UK to arm the Home Guard during WWII.



- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
eclipse@ultranet.com -- These opinions are mine, no one else wants `em.
"Driving a Hudson Hornet on the disinformation triple bypass: cruising for 
burgers & garage sales. Hooks baited, lines entangled, roadkill cooked" 
                 http://www.ultranet.com/~eclipse/
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 21:55:02 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Long range fire 

> 
> >[hitting non-mauevering targets at several light-seconds.) 
> >OK, contemporary military hardware is spec'ed to within 1%.  At range, what is the
> >availiable width of the target in degrees?  It's been awhile since I did any
> >geometry.  Personally, I still think hitting a 30 meter target at range is gonna
> > be difficult at best.  So, let's see your math.  Convince me.
> 
> A 30-m target at 4 lightseconds is 2.5x10^-8 radians in size (1 millionth
> of a degree for the old-fashioned among us, 0.005 arcseconds for the
> astronomers.) 

Yup.  Now, what is the tolerance for said laser burst at that range?  Can you 
*aim* that accurately at range?

Remember, in a vacuum, a laser beam shows no flash, so there's no *WAY* you 
can tell if you've hit or not unless the target is getting painted.  If the 
target moves as little as 30 meters in a random direction at range, your 
calculations are thrown off and you're now shooting blind again.  And in 8.5 
secs from rest, a 3G ship can move 255 meters.  Best spend the money for a 
supercomputer to aim that super laser.

> Current military systems (which are probably a lot better than 1%) aren't
> relevant here; we're not trying to aim Big Honking Hunks of Metal (good name for
> an all-robot band...) but teeny-weeny little photons (a *lot* of teeny-weeny
> photons, admittedly.) You do that by steering mirrors - in particular, by
> aiming the main mirror of your laser (which looks like a big telescope) in
> the right general direction (to within a few arcseconds) and doing fine
> precision pointing with a smaller steering mirror. You control the smaller
> steering mirror with a closed-loop system with a sensor looking "out" along
> the same light path the laser will take. Such a closed-loop system 
> using current technology (like the adaptive optics/tip-tilt system being
> built for the Keck telescope) can hold a star still - even in the face of
> the rapid, random jitter caused by the atmosphere - to within a few
> thousandths of an arcsecond - which meets our requirements. All you have to 
> do is boresight your laser with respect to the little sensor - not that 
> hard to do - and your laser beam will always hit what the sensor is locked on.
> (This is how (according to Aviation Week) the USAF's YAL-1, likely to be the
> first operational laser weapon system, will work.)

How big is the *emitter* for this big honking laser that's cranking out all 
this power out the business end to the grav focus?  And how much does this all 
*cost*?
 
> Subtlties include issues of what to do with targets too dim for the boresight
> sensor (offset from a nearby star) and what to do to correct for the 
> constant velocity of the target - to do that you need a very precise range
> to the target, whcih probably requires lighting it up with active sensors. 
> (Or comparing observations from two ships to triangulate the target.) 
> These are subtlties; basically, laser control systems can be made precise
> enough even with modern technology to hit targets at million-km ranges.
> This is Bruce's First Rule of space combat: Lasers Never Miss.

How bright is a 30 meter metal target at 1.28 million clicks?  Assume flat 
black paint.  You can't hit what you can't see.

> (Modifierd by the Second Rule: "...unless the target gets out of the way.")

Easy enough at range.  You only have to move 30 meters and at lightspeed lag, 
this translates to 3.529 meters per second, or well under 1/3 G.  Unless you 
declare this can't be done using manuvering thrusters...

> A real hostile target will be devoting some effort to jinking and evading,
> varying its velocity enough that -a syou point out - in the eight seconds
> of delay there-and-back-again it won't be where the constant-velocity
> assumption predicted. Evasion is very crucial to space combat. 

Should be simple enough with manuvering thrusters.

> It does make life tough for people trying to hide - if you've shut down your
> power plant to avoid thermal signatures, you can't evade, and the first hint
> you have that someone has detected you will be a LIDAR lighting up your hull
> (if you're lucky) followed by a laser salvo.
> 
> This is also why impact or nuke missiles are of limited use. Evasion is more
> useful the furhter away you are - at a thousand km, even a missile that
> is dodging at 100 G can't get out of the way fast enough; a laser can take
> down such missiles as fast as it can fire.

At a thousand klicks, your lightspeed lag is .0033 secs one way.  We'll assume 
that the Laser projects a Beam visible from any angle, which doesn't happen in 
the real world as well.  Assuming zero response time, this doubles to .0066, 
as you see the results of your shot, correct, and shoot again.  Now, a missile 
evading at 100G is moving 1000 meters per second minimum.  In that .0066 
seconds, its position from rest changes 6.6 meters.  How bloody big *IS* this 
missile????????

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 22:19:24 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Not Taking the Hit 

> 0
> >From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> >Subject: Taking The Hit
> >
> >Are you using the stock ruleset or a variant?  I see a bit of 'we start
> with the rules and add this other stuff to them' here...  If it's under the
> stock rules, I can see where what you say has relevance.  If it's a rules
> variant, I can't see it at all as it's just another way of making sure your
> ship combats are as lethal as possible.  But hey, that's *your* TU.  If
> you're using point defense accuracy from TML archives, then you're running
> a variant ruleset not availiable to anyone with no net access.  To them,
> the variant doesn't exist.
> >
> 
> Umm, Keven, rapid fire point defense lasers have been around since Striker.
> Point defense lasers hitting multiple targets can be extrapolated from HG,
> because a single laser can sometimes stop an attack by multiple missile
> turrets.

Nice try, but you didn't answer the question.  Is this in the ruleset 
someplace or is this a variant?

> >Second off, if you're going to use Real World Extrapolations, how do you
> defend against a stealth bomber, or a stealth fighter?  And in the above
> mentioned superlaser, what happens if your target *also* has that
> superlaser system?  Hey, if *you've* got it, somebody else does too.
> >
> 
> Well, things either start to get solidly built, or rely on getting the
> first shot off, or start to mount lots of sandcasters.

I ask again, is this in the ruleset someplace, or is this a variant?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 22:20:26 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Playing with the HG rules 

> >From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
> >Subject: Re: Playing with the HG rules
> ...
> >Got it, top of page 49....
> >I've read the rules many, many times but....
> 
>   I only spotted it while looking up something else. I find HG really nice
> to work with due to the relative compatibility with Striker.
> 
> >BTW, with the current discussion about HG why don't you resurrect your old
> >sig file? ;-)
> 
>    For a fellow believer? Of course!
> 
>  The CT Creed: "There is no Game but Traveller, and High Guard is its' Product"

Heheh.

I like.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 22:27:36 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit 

At 08:15 PM 11/3/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> You can jump anywhere. I've had players jump successfuly while inside an
>> atmosphere. Once a character dumped a cargo bay full of TDX onto a Zhodani
>> town and decided he didn't want to wait for the planetary defense system to
>> open up on him. I set the appropriate throw modifiers and he made the role
>> without incident.
>
>It's concievable, I guess, if you roll a natural 2 on 2D6, or you allowed
DM's 
>for Pilot, Nav, and Engineering skills.  Otherwise, the stock +10 to the
roll 
>comes into play and they misjump on 13+.  Between me thee & the door post, I 
>would NOT wanna try *that*.

Think the combined DM was +5, pilot had a 3, engineer had a 2, may have
even been a nav bonus in there somewhere. They weren't really worried about
the misjump, though :)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 22:33:42 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Off topic (Gun Control)

In a message dated 11/3/98 5:42:02 PM Pacific Standard Time, david.d.jaques-
watson@centrelink.gov.au writes:

<< Thanks, Seth, for a clear, well-rounded discussion outlining the basis of
 the differing gun control views. Rarely have I ever seen the matter
 discussed so dispassionately and even-handedly.
  >>

Thanks for the compliment. Frankly; I thought that I would get badly flamed by
both sides of the gun debate, AND by all of the non Americans on the list.

I think that the most important aspect of the post, is that we all respect
differences, and don't interfer with how another country legislates its'
domestic policy. I am a firm believer in the right to carry arms, but as much
as I disagree with Europe's and Asia's gn policy; I would never interfer with
their choice. I do demand the same of them however... (and all of your
tourist's wouldn't be able to play with machine guns here while on
vacation....:-) ). This explains part of America's low opinion of the United
Nations. Some UN legislation is seen to smack of anti American sovreignity.

Ob Trav: Any equiv. politics here (US vs UN)?

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 14:34:42 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question

Dear Folks -

Keven wrote:
>It was lost in 1088.  As of 001-1105, it haddn't been found, according to
Adv 1.

POINT 3.4: This makes it even more difficult for the Kinunir story. Norris
had to anticipate the 5FW (probably in 1103!), send a ship to Capital and
have it arrive in 1105, then have the Warrant returned by ship so that he
could use it in 1107-8. The Warrant in Adv 1 could NOT have been his! It
must have dated from 1088 or thereabouts.

>The Rebellion started in 1116.  I don't remember the dates of the 5FW off
the
>top of my head, but methinks it's possible for the Kununir to get to Depot
and
>back at least.

POINT 3.5: Um, I don't understand this comment. Norris had the Warrant for
the 5FW, not the Rebellion. And if the Kinunir was missing between 1088 and
1105, it couldn't have travelled anywhere - it was sitting in the Shionthy
Belt all that time.

>I was under the impression that Norris and Strephon never met in person.

REF 3.6: In _Digest 9: Before the Iridium Throne_, Norris made his plea to
Strephon via pseudo-reality hologram. No, they have never met. In the OTU
(ie. MT/TNE) they never ever meet. Will they meet each other in G:T? Only
time (and Loren) will tell...

>  This Warrant *could* be Norris' and not
>delivered 17 years late.  The book doesn't specify who it's made out for.
>IIRC, I don't think Norris was even in power in 1088.

POINT 3.6: The Warrant in the Kinunir couldn't be for Norris. See point
3.5.

REF 3.7: Imperial Warrants do not specify who they are for, except in the
case of "limited power" warrants issued for a specific purpose. They just
say "Assist the bearer with all the power you can bring to bear". See my
Library Data site for an example of such a Warrant.

>> POSSIBLE SOLUTION 3.3: Solution 3.1 is correct, but Norris didn't forge
the
>> Warrant, he had found it a few years before when he discovered the Kinunir
>> and hid it in his footlocker. ;-) I mean, kept it safe "just in case".
>> Plausible, since BTC says he was tooling around with the fleets in the
>> "Inthe Pocket", near Shionthy.
>*nod*

     FIX TO SOLUTION 3.3: This is looking a likely solution. Add the idea
that Norris expected a reply by 1107, didn't get one and so used the
concealed Warrant, and then the real Warrant arrived later. I really will
have to check Digest 9 for the dates!

BTW, glad you realised I meant that Norris hid the WARRANT in his
footlocker, not the ship itself (poor grammatical construction, there! ;-).
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson        Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                       davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 23:01:29 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit 

> At 08:15 PM 11/3/98 -0500, you wrote:
> >> You can jump anywhere. I've had players jump successfuly while inside an
> >> atmosphere. Once a character dumped a cargo bay full of TDX onto a Zhodani
> >> town and decided he didn't want to wait for the planetary defense system to
> >> open up on him. I set the appropriate throw modifiers and he made the role
> >> without incident.
> >
> >It's concievable, I guess, if you roll a natural 2 on 2D6, or you allowed
> DM's 
> >for Pilot, Nav, and Engineering skills.  Otherwise, the stock +10 to the
> roll 
> >comes into play and they misjump on 13+.  Between me thee & the door post, I 
> >would NOT wanna try *that*.
> 
> Think the combined DM was +5, pilot had a 3, engineer had a 2, may have
> even been a nav bonus in there somewhere. They weren't really worried about
> the misjump, though :)

These ain't in CT at all, just the distance, fuel, milspec, or scout ship DM's.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 20:26:59 -0800 (PST)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)

> Nanotech and cybertech are explained in GURPS Traveller - that is a
design
> decision.

Yet another reason to ! (bang) GT.


==
IMTU tc++ tm !tn t4+ ?tg tt- to ru++ ge 3i c+ j+
[0601] au st+ ls pi ta+ he+ !kk !hi as+ va+ !dr
       so zh vi da+ !sy !ne Beowulf Lives!
- ------------------------------------------------
Sword Worlds: named after famous weapons of
lore.  The people are fiercely competative
merchants.  The storyline was first introduced
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 14:25:55
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Plasma guns, canon, bureaucracy and High Guard

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me) 
>
>*grin*
>
>Actually, I use fusion & plasma guns IMTU.  They're military issue only.
Show 
>up in a starport with them mounted, and the local sherrif shows up and says, 
>"Where'd ya get the guns, son?"
>

Yep. If you are using FFS2, small PAWs (especially circular PAWs) have
similar functionality to plasma and fusion guns under HG - short range
nutcrackers that are sand-resistant.

>Like I say, I use canon as much as possible.  When it doesn't make sense *IN 
>THE CONTEXT OF THE GAME*, I hit it with a hammer until it does.

Yep. My personal hammer is marked 'Assume Rational Behaviour'.

>From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
>Subject: Re: Off topic (Gun Control)
>
>>(though what is the law level INSIDE the extra-territorial Imperial
>starport?)
>
>Law level 1 when wandering around, but this doesn't apply to what's inside
>the starships.
>

IMO effective law level in Imperial territory (ie starports) is at His
Magesty's Pleasure i.e. it depends on exactly who is running the place. It
could be anything from 'I dont care if that *is* a Marine-surplus Fusion
Gun, just as long as you pay for any damage' to 'No hawkers, no spitting,
and definitly no brawling'.

>>(hmm... an adventure nugget for "paperwork" based PC's).
>
>My PC's have gone through this while trying to obtain their starmerc/merc
>platoon licences. They preferred fighting the Zhodani.

*grin* may I suggest that intrepid mercenaries find some small world and
sign up as their regular army ... that way, the world can 'engage in
legitimate support of their offworld interests' in exchange for, say, a 15%
cut of the starmerc contract.

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Taking The Hit 
>
>> I would expect it to take a few hours for a pirate to disable a
>> trader that tried to escape/fight.
>
>Not if you're postuiating 'one-shot kills' from orbit to the jump curb.  If 
>they can disable me from 1.280 million klicks away, I can do it up close and 
>personal in the same amount of time.
>
>You don't get it both ways.

No problem. Very long range fire can be dodged easily (d=0.5*a*t^2 and all
that), but if you are dodging, then you arent boarding an at-rest merchant
ship.

Incidentally, it does take a coupld of combat rounds to disable a merchant
ship under HG, especially if it is more than power-1, maneuver-1, jump-1
and has a couple of different weapons systems.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 98 22:26:57 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: Maize in the old world

On 11/02/98 at 07:08 PM,  shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson) said:

>>It's like saying 'It's a society like Medieval Britain, but they have
>>maize' - if you have maize, then your economic structure is so different
>>that you just wouldnt have medieval Britain any more.

>  That would be due to increased crop yields by acreage? (with
>increased water requirements, IIRC? - not that that should be a big
>problem)

Maize, even the varities available a thousand years ago, would have
improved crop yields a *lot*, but only with a couple of big ifs.  

IF growth of maize by farmers and its consuption became widespread,
and that's no sure thing.  Farmers are notoriously conservative when
it comes to crop choices and it's unlikely they would have rushed to
plant this strange new plant that was so different from what they
were used to.  Even if the farmers did plant corn, would they..or
villagers..be interested in eating something that looked, cooked and
tasted so different.  

IF the climate in Britain during that period was warm and wet enough
for maize to grow and produce good yeilds.  Maybe I'm wrong, but
wasn't the climate somewhat colder in those days?  Again I could be
wrong, but corn isn't really a cold climate crop is it?

Of course, IF it was accepted and could produce reasonable yeilds
then the growth of maize might have freed up a lot of labor for
other purposes.  Just what purposes those would have been and what
effects it would have had on culture I wont' hazard to guess.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 23:33:15 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long)

In a message dated 11/3/98 12:47:36 PM Pacific Standard Time,
jamstar@glasscity.net writes:

<< > Since I make Gunnery skill a part of the combat equation, I tend to make
a
 > Spectacular Success roll able to inflict an unmodified Internal Explosion
 > roll.  A spec Failure, however, renders the turret inoperative until
emergency
 > repairs are made.  This gives the "golden BB" effect that my players seem
to
 > demand.
 
 Two questions.  You use MT, yes?  And the 'golden BB' effect applies equally 
 to the Bad Guys, too, right?
  >>

	To answer both questions:  Absolutely.  Whats fair for one is fair for all
:-)

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 20:39:33 -0800 (PST)
From: Roberto Camino <swordworlder@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me)

- ---Chris Seamans <semo@pil.net> wrote:
> The Third Imperium seems to be deeply rooted in Asimov's
"Foundation" series. 
==
Only much smaller and pettier, like H. Beam Piper's Empire.
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 23:39:24 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Off topic (re: response; long)

In a message dated 11/3/98 13:44:32 PM Pacific Standard Time,
Sethkimmel@aol.com writes:

<<  (though what is the law level INSIDE the extra-territorial Imperial
 starport?).  >>

	I have always set a Law level of 4 in the starport...pistols and shotguns,
but nothing heavier.  Compliance is nearly universal, since the regs tend to
be enforced by Imperial Marines (battle dress and fusion guns!  <g>)

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 23:43:19 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Crime & Punishment (was Re: Piracy by the Numbers)

In a message dated 11/3/98 14:23:37 PM Pacific Standard Time,
shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca writes:

<< >	Why does everyone keep making this assumption???  Has anyone on the list
ever
 >been robbed at gunpoint?  I have 5 different times:  Each time all the guy
 >wanted was the money in the cash register...he wasn't looking for trouble,
but
 >he crertainly convinced me that if I was, he'd give it to me!! /...
 
   Armed robbery is a capital offense in your jurisdiction? (which assumes,
 admittedly, that piracy might very well be in the 3I). >>

	Out here (Las Vegas) some would say that depends on the ethnic background of
the perpetrator <sarcastic grin>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 22:15:41 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Taking The Hit

 
> > I would expect it to take a few hours for a pirate to disable a
> > trader that tried to escape/fight.
> 
> Not if you're postuiating 'one-shot kills' from orbit to the jump curb.  If 
> they can disable me from 1.280 million klicks away, I can do it up close and 
> personal in the same amount of time.
 
The planetary defenses are a hair larger than would fit in your
600dton pirate. The pirate could fly into the muzzle, probably.

> You don't get it both ways.
 
_You're_ trying to disable. The planetary defenses will happily
_Kill_ you. You have to pull punches as a pirate or you have 2 bad
problems:

1. No income.

2. A reputation as a needless killer--this will get the navy to not
wait around with SDBs, but to actively hunt you--and the crappy
destryers they can afford to send out will toast you in a heartbeat
:-)

It is a much different kind of combat to try and disable/disarm
without risking a kill. Large spinal weapons, or concentrated
turret weapons will kill a 600dton pirate in most combat systems.

Remember that a 600dton ship is virtually small craft to real naval
ships. BTW, the 400dton SDB is a cool ship (I've always loved the
look of them), but "real" SDBs need to be big enough to be useful
units in a naval engagement (on _some_ level). To be useful, you
either need hundreds and hundreds of them (there is little
difference in naval terms between a 400dt SDB and a heavy fighter,
really) or they need to be bigger units. Either way pirates suffer
(patrol is easy if 10% of your SDBs patrol the 100d limit and that
is 100 ships).

- -Merrick

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1092
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest    Wednesday, November 4 1998    Volume 1998 : Number 1093



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Not Taking the Hit
Re: 100 Diameter limit (Exiting)
Re: Plasma guns, canon, bureaucracy and High Guard 
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 
A little different Traveller
Move quickly!
Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question 
Bilanidin Font. Anyone have it or know where it is?
Re: Gunnery Crew
Re: Taking The Hit
Re: Plasma guns, canon, bureaucracy and High Guard
Re: Gunnery Crew (was re: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080)
Re: Eris's Heresy (was: Phooey on Canon)
Re: Long range fire
Re: Four Fours Spofulam SDB?
Re: Not Taking the Hit 
Re: Crime & Punishment (not Dostoevsky)
Re: Crime & Punishment (not Dostoevsky)
Re: Off topic 
Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question
Small Craft & Sensors under High Guard
medicine in Traveller 3: heat,cold and Electricity

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 22:35:26 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Not Taking the Hit

 
> > Umm, Keven, rapid fire point defense lasers have been around since Striker.
> > Point defense lasers hitting multiple targets can be extrapolated from HG,
> > because a single laser can sometimes stop an attack by multiple missile
> > turrets.
> 
> Nice try, but you didn't answer the question.  Is this in the ruleset 
> someplace or is this a variant?
 
My Striker ruleset is in a Striker box (with GDW on the side) under
my black box of LBBs. It has vehicle mounted lasers (and even
mentions grounded ships doesn't it?) hosing down hundreds of arty
rounds per turn.

> > Well, things either start to get solidly built, or rely on getting the
> > first shot off, or start to mount lots of sandcasters.
> 
> I ask again, is this in the ruleset someplace, or is this a variant?
 
Huh? the stealt fighter, or the sandcaster. The latter is in all the
rules, I bet you can make a stealth under Striker, and certainly
FFS.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 23:34:21 -0600
From: Jimmy Simpson <nimrodd@fastlane.net>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit (Exiting)

At 02:52 PM 11/3/1998 -0500, you wrote:
>	3) NOWHERE in the rules does it say a ship MUST come out of jump only at the
>100-D limit!!!
>
<Snip>
>	IMTU, where you come out of jump (or go into it for that matter) is mainly
>decided by your navigator/astrogator...SysCon simply assigns you an outbound
>or inbound vector and lets you do your thing.  Anybody else have any comments?
>
>DustyLV769@aol.com

Page 93 of the MT Imperial Encyclopedia (Starship Operating Procedures #10)
states:
"The ship emerges at the limit of the gravity well (at about 100 diameters
out) of the destination world that the navigator designated in jump
preparation."

Jimmy Simpson
	nimrodd@fastlane.net
"Cannot say.
 Saying, I would know.
 Do not know.
 So cannot say."
		-Zathras (Babylon 5)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 00:37:49 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Plasma guns, canon, bureaucracy and High Guard 

> >Actually, I use fusion & plasma guns IMTU.  They're military issue only.
> Show 
> >up in a starport with them mounted, and the local sherrif shows up and says, 
> >"Where'd ya get the guns, son?"
> >
> 
> Yep. If you are using FFS2, small PAWs (especially circular PAWs) have
> similar functionality to plasma and fusion guns under HG - short range
> nutcrackers that are sand-resistant.

*shrug*  I don't have or use FFS, but PAW's are also military issue only IMTU.

> >Like I say, I use canon as much as possible.  When it doesn't make sense *IN 
> >THE CONTEXT OF THE GAME*, I hit it with a hammer until it does.
> 
> Yep. My personal hammer is marked 'Assume Rational Behaviour'.

Mine is "Make it match the look and feel".

> >>(though what is the law level INSIDE the extra-territorial Imperial
> >starport?)
> >
> >Law level 1 when wandering around, but this doesn't apply to what's inside
> >the starships.

I read someplace that the Law Level of the 3I was administered as if it were 
LL4.  I have no clue where I read this though, but it was within the last day 
or 2.
 
> IMO effective law level in Imperial territory (ie starports) is at His
> Magesty's Pleasure i.e. it depends on exactly who is running the place. It
> could be anything from 'I dont care if that *is* a Marine-surplus Fusion
> Gun, just as long as you pay for any damage' to 'No hawkers, no spitting,
> and definitly no brawling'.

IMTU, it's pretty much the same, with enforcement variable with the owners of 
the port.  LL4 would tend to show, no military gear in the hands of civilians. 
 In my old game, there were a few times where the party was approached by the 
port authorities who looked at them and said "Got an end user certificate for 
that?"
 
> >>(hmm... an adventure nugget for "paperwork" based PC's).
> >
> >My PC's have gone through this while trying to obtain their starmerc/merc
> >platoon licences. They preferred fighting the Zhodani.

IMNSFBHO, military equipment *SHOULD* be hard to get.

> >> I would expect it to take a few hours for a pirate to disable a
> >> trader that tried to escape/fight.
> >
> >Not if you're postuiating 'one-shot kills' from orbit to the jump curb.  If 
> >they can disable me from 1.280 million klicks away, I can do it up close and 
> >personal in the same amount of time.
> >
> >You don't get it both ways.
> 
> No problem. Very long range fire can be dodged easily (d=0.5*a*t^2 and all
> that), but if you are dodging, then you arent boarding an at-rest merchant
> ship.

I nevewr knew you needed a pilot to lead a boarding party.  I'd always assumed 
the boarding party could just hop out the air lock on their pirate ship and 
use their suit thrusters to approach and board.  And while they're boarding, 
why can't the pirate *ship* be dodging?

> Incidentally, it does take a coupld of combat rounds to disable a merchant
> ship under HG, especially if it is more than power-1, maneuver-1, jump-1
> and has a couple of different weapons systems.

Then you switch rulesets to FFS and take out the pirate with 1 shot from a Rabid Armoured Beachball From Hell?

Besides, all you need to do is render the target incapable of running and incapable of fighting you in space.  That means, you take down the weapons and either the M-drives *OR* the power plant.  If you get lucky and get the power plant, the ship can't jump until it's field repaired.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 00:39:23 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 

>  Two questions.  You use MT, yes?  And the 'golden BB' effect applies equally 
>  to the Bad Guys, too, right?
>   >>
> 
> To answer both questions:  Absolutely.  Whats fair for one is fair for all
> :-)

I can live with that.  What I *can't* live with are Rabid Impregable 
Beachballs From Hell.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 98 23:52:24 -0600
From: "Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>
Subject: A little different Traveller

On 11/03/98 at 12:56 PM,  "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net> said:

>Somebody said Eris uses stutterwarp.  I'm *in* his PBEM & haven't
>seen it yet. 

You haven't been on the bridge of a ship yet either. ;->

I don't think my technology is all that different from standard
Traveller and even where it is the effects are pretty much the same.

I use stutterwarp for slower than light travel, there are no
tplates, and for FTL, jump is still the only method.  Depending on
TL, and how much money a shipbuilder wants to put into things, a
ship's pseudo velocity can get up to a couple percent of c.  That's
fast, but ships routinely have to cover one to two hundred million
km to get out to and in from jump points so they need the speed.
Sensor ranges are relatively short due to lower power requirements
and the non-reaction nature of movement.  Combat ranges are
relatively short as well especially *effective* ranges (it's hard to
hit a stuttering ship).

Computers are large and power hungry in keeping with traditional
Traveller.  Rather than just saying they *are* because some book
said they are, I came up with a reason.  I postulate that gravity
based devices (the foundation of virtually all the advanced tech)
play merry heck with micro-electronics.  Cultures have a
choice..they can have advanced micro-electronics *or* gravity
control, they can't have both.  Just about everybody opts for gravity
control.  The practical effect is that devices are larger, heavier,
need more power, require increased shielding, have shorter MTBF, and
costs are higher, but that matches CT.  Nanotech would be barely
possible, but hasn't been made to work...as for as the PC's know
anyway.

I won't go on, but that's the sort of technological differences I'm
using.  The details might be different, but not as much as some
folks seem to think.  

> I *do* know the basic ruleset he uses is TNE with some house
> rules.   

Oh, it's more complicated than that.  ;-> I use bits and pieces from
all the versions of Traveller as well as a number of ideas from
FUDGE and GURPS.  I *do* use a d20 in task resolution, though, so
maybe that's where Keven gets the "TNE with some house rules."


Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
"Eris Reddoch" <eris@gulf.net>    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 21:42:16 -0700
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Move quickly!

>Please distribute this to everyone (on earth, that is) you know. 
>
>When John Glenn returns from space, everybody dress in Ape Suits. 
>
>You have 6 days in which to bury the Statue of Liberty up to her head.

- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 22:47:37 -0700
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question 

At 09:02 PM 11/3/98 -0500, you wrote:

>> REF 3.5: In _Survival Margin_, while forging his Archducal patent, Norris
>> mentions that he had "done this before" with his 5FW Warrant.
>
>He mentioned that he *USED* the warrant 'that Strephon gave me' to remove 
>Santanochev for gross misconduct in the 5FW.  He didn't say he *forged* it.

	- He didn't forge the warrant, he forged his Archducal patent
(promotion ...)

> 
>> POINT 3.2: If the Kinunir was lost before 1100, and Norris didn't even ask
>> Strephon for a Warrant until 1105, there is NO WAY that the Kinunir could
>> have been the ship that was delivering the Warrant.


	- IIRC from Adv 1, the warrant *wasn't* written specifically for
Norris, so he just got hold of it and used it ...

- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

   I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too
   much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
      -- Thomas Jefferson

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 01:06:45 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Bilanidin Font. Anyone have it or know where it is?

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

- ------=_NextPart_000_0006_01BE078F.641EA400
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

On my old computer, before it crashed, I had a copy of the Bilanidin =
font installed. After the crash I lost it. Has anyone seen it "laying =
around"? Anyone have it? Any help would be much appreciated.

semo@pil.net


- ------=_NextPart_000_0006_01BE078F.641EA400
Content-Type: text/html;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>

<META content=3Dtext/html;charset=3Diso-8859-1 =
http-equiv=3DContent-Type>
<META content=3D'"MSHTML 4.72.3110.7"' name=3DGENERATOR>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2>On my old computer, before it =
crashed, I had a=20
copy of the Bilanidin font installed. After the crash I lost it. Has =
anyone seen=20
it &quot;laying around&quot;? Anyone have it? Any help would be much=20
appreciated.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2><A=20
href=3D"mailto:semo@pil.net">semo@pil.net</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV></BODY></HTML>

- ------=_NextPart_000_0006_01BE078F.641EA400--

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 00:21:19 -0600
From: Charles R Hensley <z3crh@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Gunnery Crew

Brannon Boren wrote:

>On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Keven R. Pittsinger wrote:
>
>> > IYTU, what does a designated ship's gunner do during the 99% + of
the
>> > time the ship isn't under attack?
>>
>> Depends on what he's interested in.  During Jump [snip]
>>  Drink heavily.
>
>Forget just Gunners. What does EVERYONE do for the week in jump? You can
>only 'check the panel' so many times. The systems obviously do not require
>constant attention, or else the scout pilot would be VERY sleep-deprived.
>
>What are some of the ways that your PCs have found to pass the time in
>jumpspace?

Engineers and gunners are the maintenance crew and do minor repairs.
Stewards have to take care of passengers.
others take advantage of every mistake I have made in allowing them to
buy training equipment (out of date military training manuals, civilian
training programs, etc.), gambling, drinking (I would not let these
players fly me anywhere)

Charles

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 23:16:06 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Taking The Hit

>Subject: Taking The Hit
...
>Second off, if you're going to use Real World Extrapolations, how do you
defend against a stealth bomber, or a stealth fighter?  And in the above
mentioned superlaser, what happens if your target *also* has that superlaser
system?  Hey, if *you've* got it, somebody else does too.

  Stealth aircraft are detectable, just harder. It's fairly similar to the
late edition Trav experience of stealthier warships, except that where Trav
ships light themselves by applying thrust, modern aircraft (IIRC?) are more
likely to tip themselves by going offensive.

  In the same way that big lasers or PAWS are powerful, they're simply part
of the equation that determines military trends in a particular game universe.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 23:18:23 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Plasma guns, canon, bureaucracy and High Guard

 
> > No problem. Very long range fire can be dodged easily (d=0.5*a*t^2 and all
> > that), but if you are dodging, then you arent boarding an at-rest merchant
> > ship.
> 
>I nevewr knew you needed a pilot to lead a boarding party. I'd always assumed 
> the boarding party could just hop out the air lock on their pirate ship and 
> use their suit thrusters to approach and board. And while they're boarding, 
> why can't the pirate *ship* be dodging?
 
It has to match courses, thruster packs aren't gonna kill 10s of
km/s relative velocity--but a stripped down small craft might be the
order of the day for pirates.

the prate ship needs to be spending whole gs of accelration on
dodging to really be effective (less the farther away it is from the
shooter, obviously).

> > Incidentally, it does take a coupld of combat rounds to disable a merchant
> > ship under HG, especially if it is more than power-1, maneuver-1, jump-1
> > and has a couple of different weapons systems.
> 
> Then you switch rulesets to FFS and take out the pirate with 1 shot from a Rabid Armoured Beachball From Hell?
> 
> Besides, all you need to do is render the target incapable of running and incapable of fighting you in space.  That means, you take down the weapons and either the M-drives *OR* the power plant.  If you get lucky and get the power plant, the ship can't jump until it's field repaired.
 
the problem seems to be that you either fire weapons with USPs that
won't critical the target (too many of them reduce your chances of
getting away with the prize, or of having one) and then it'll take a
few turns to hit all the right systems (to be fair the pirate
shouldn't know any of the damage results other than by watching to
see if the target maneuvers or returns fire, BTW). Otherwise you use
a big battery and take yer chances blowing the thing up. Again, you
start looking like a raider, and the navy gets amazingly pissed.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 19:38:04 +1300
From: "Frank Pitt" <frankie@mundens.gen.nz>
Subject: Re: Gunnery Crew (was re: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1080)

>Forget just Gunners. What does EVERYONE do for the week in jump? You can
>only 'check the panel' so many times. The systems obviously do not require
>constant attention, or else the scout pilot would be VERY sleep-deprived.
>
>What are some of the ways that your PCs have found to pass the time
in
>jumpspace?


Playing practical jokes on each other

Roller-blading the corridors

Grav-surfing the corridors

(What you do is get the life suport computer programmed to
 create "waves" of gravity changes down the corridors with
 the grav-plates.)

Assaulting the engine room.
(gives the Marine's practice in defending it.)

Practicing and training your psionics
( just like Luke on the Decade Duck )

Chatting up passengers/crew so you can get laid.

Playing "Killer"

Stripping and rebuilding every single piece of equipment
that isn't currently being used. Especially if you've
got fighters or grav tanks on board.

Watching "the Young & the Restless"

going slowly crazy, until somene snaps and murders all the rest
in their sleep.....

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 22:44:49 -0800 (PST)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: Eris's Heresy (was: Phooey on Canon)

> Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 14:30:19 -0500
> From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
> 
> > He's tweaked the rules, the settings (wait, no thrown that out), and the
> > approaches of the game. He's rejected even some of the fundamental
> > assumptions of the game: he uses stutterwarp!
> 
> That's strange.  I'm in his game & I haven't seen it used yet.

Yes you have, if you're monitoring the 'main party' posts.  The _Venture_
is stutterwarping out from Kurzu to the jump point, and I'd guess the
vessel you were on was a stutterwarper too; we don't mention it anymore
after more than a year of playing in Eris's weird yet wonderful TU.  And
yes, he has *both* stutterwarp for in-system work *and* more or less
Traveller-canonical jump drive. 

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      "Ripple in still water, when there is no pebble tossed,
       nor wind to blow..."

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 23:46:39 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Long range fire

 
> target moves as little as 30 meters in a random direction at range, your 
> calculations are thrown off and you're now shooting blind again.  And in 8.5 
> secs from rest, a 3G ship can move 255 meters.  Best spend the money for a 
> supercomputer to aim that super laser.
 
One, we were specifically talking about a target that wasn't
evading. That means it isn't using any thrust. Two, your PC is a
supercomputer by CT standards, even at TL15 :-)

You could point the laser now, with a PC. predicting where a
drifting target will be in 8.5 seconds in a vaccuum could be done on
my HP calculator.

The simple solution in cases where the target is evading (by
definition not docking, so we needn't worry about hitting the
trader) is to raster your beam across the sky. If you can put enough
shots into a given area there is a *chance* you will hit. It turns
out that (I'll dig up the math, I actually did it and made a table)
it is so hard to miss out to a few light seconds (even assuming a 6g
evading target that doesn't evade at all in the laser-target
direction) that you could drop weapon ROF way way down from TNE
levels and always get 1 hit per turn. 

- -merrick

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 23:56:18 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Four Fours Spofulam SDB?

>From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>
>Subject: Four Fours Spofulam SDB?
...
>	Hmmm... I don't ever recall doing an SDB.  A THUDDD Patrol Cruiser
>that was 100td overweight and couldn't rescue squat, but with a Honking Big
>Spinal Mount, yes, but no SDB.  What was the design and who did it?  I
>suspect I can figure out why it was infamous :).

  IIRC, Mr. Whitchurch was channelling for some of the FS youngsters
earlier this year. You have liability insurance, yes?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 23:57:08 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Not Taking the Hit 

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Not Taking the Hit 
...
>> Umm, Keven, rapid fire point defense lasers have been around since Striker.
>> Point defense lasers hitting multiple targets can be extrapolated from HG,
>> because a single laser can sometimes stop an attack by multiple missile
>> turrets.
>
>Nice try, but you didn't answer the question.  Is this in the ruleset 
>someplace or is this a variant?

  Striker is a Classic Trav rules addition, and still available from
Mr. Miller, IIRC: <FarFuture@aol.com> - another beautiful product.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 23:57:18 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Crime & Punishment (not Dostoevsky)

...
>	Out here (Las Vegas) some would say that depends on the ethnic background of
>the perpetrator <sarcastic grin>

  What, they shoot Yankees there?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 23:07:57 -0800
From: "Jesse LaBranche" <Vanquer@email.msn.com>
Subject: Re: Crime & Punishment (not Dostoevsky)

>> Out here (Las Vegas) some would say that depends on the ethnic background
of
>>the perpetrator <sarcastic grin>

>  What, they shoot Yankees there?


Heh. The Nevada desert is full of holes...

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 23:18:20 -0800
From: "Wayne Ewart" <wewart@home.com>
Subject: Re: Off topic 

>> The United States on the other hand is influenced by an entirely
different
>>set of parameters.... This country was frontier when settled. It was vital
>
>  So was Canada...
>
But the US was settled by sending out the settlers first then the law (as
show by US old west lore). Canada sent the law out first then sent settlers
(Canadian lore of the NWMP{now known as RCMP})

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 00:26:55 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question

...
>POINT 3.4: This makes it even more difficult for the Kinunir story. Norris
>had to anticipate the 5FW (probably in 1103!), send a ship to Capital and
>have it arrive in 1105, then have the Warrant returned by ship so that he
>could use it in 1107-8. The Warrant in Adv 1 could NOT have been his! It
>must have dated from 1088 or thereabouts.

  Wasn't the Warrant on Kinunir blank - literally carte blanche to an 
Imperial official willing to face the eventual heat?

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 00:27:39 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Small Craft & Sensors under High Guard

...
>> >It's also assumed that military grade stuff is gonna be kept strictly 
>> >military, too.
>> 
>>   Fighters and SDB's _aren't_ military?
>
>Yeah, they're military.

  Theoretically then, fighters could come under the "military starship
sensor" heading, and SDB's must. To avoid munchkinism it might be best
to restrict B:2 era light fighters to "ordinary" sensors, and restrict
the best gear to small craft with bridges. Thus a 95 Dt "Slavering
Hamster" gunship with a MCr 0.475 mil-spec bridge would get the two LS
coverage while smaller units mostly wouldn't.

  MT required adding specific sensors during ship construction - how
would converting B:2/HG computer levels to sensor steps/mods work (and
a negative DM for lack of a bridge or dedicated sensor op) work?

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 08:28:19 +1100
From: "Robert O'Connor" <Robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: medicine in Traveller 3: heat,cold and Electricity

1. Disorders of Temperature Regulation
Overview
Internal temperature is tightly controlled in humans and other
warm-blooded
animals by a series of feedback loops.
Sensors : warm and cold receptors in the skin, blood vessels and gut
(sparsely distributed in the last two).
Control centre : the anterior hypothalamus at the base of the brain in
humans.
Effectors : nerves to sweat glands, muscle and the higher centres of the

brain.(Sweating, shivering and moving around are good ways to modulate
temperature).

Normal core temperature is 37 +/- 0.5 degrees C (98.6 +/- 0.9 F).
The 'core' is defined as the metabolically active organs (heart, lungs,
liver, kidneys, brain and the blood).

This may be increased by up to four degrees C with maximal exercise (eg.

marathon runners).

Metabolic rate : a specific activity scale
The physical activity ratio (PAR) is a way of expressing the energy cost
of
an activity in terms of basal metabolic rate.

PAR      Activity
1.0-1.4  Reading, writing, eating, standing at rest
1.5-1.8  General office work, washing dishes, ironing
1.9-2.4  Dusting, cooking.
2.5-3.3  Walking at 3-4km/h (1.9-2.5 miles/h), vacuum cleaning,
         making beds, operating machine tools, painting and
         decorating.
3.4-4.4  Walking at 4-6km/h (2.5-3.7 miles/h), gardening, window
         cleaning, mopping the floor, sailing, golf, bricklaying,
         carpentry, motor vehicle repairs.
4.5-5.9  Walking at 6-7km/h (3.7-4.4 miles/h), dancing, slow
         cycling, swimming, chopping wood or felling trees,
         labouring, hoeing, road construction.
6.0-7.9  Walking uphill with load or cross country ; climbing
         stairs, average jogging, cycling, football, energetic
         swimming, tennis, downhill skiing.
8.0+     Marathon running, biathlon, cross-country skiing.

At extremes of temperature, or in situations where the normal
compensatory
mechanisms can't work, serious injury can occur.

*Hypothermia : an abnormally low core temperature.
Severity Temp, C   Temp, F
Mild     32 to 35  89.6 to 95
Moderate 28 to 32  82.4 to 89.6
Severe   < 28      < 82.4

Mild hypothermia is most commonly encountered during general
anaesthesia.
Patients are unconscious and paralysed. Body cavities are open
permitting
evaporation. Theatres are often cooled to keep the surgical team
comfortable.

Controlled hypothermia is used in cardiac and neurosurgery to permit
longer
operating times. Core temperature averages 20 degrees C (68 F) on
cardio-pulmonary bypass.

Uncontrolled hypothermia is usually secondary to exposure, with
complicating
factors of extremes of age or other medical predispositions eg.
hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid).

Metabolic rate decreases by 6% for every degree fall in core temperature

(compound interest effect).
Unconsciousness occurs at 30 degrees C (86 F)
Muscle rigidity occurs at 25 degrees C (77 F)
Brain activity becomes undetectable at 20 degrees C (68 F)

It is therefore difficult to distinguish between someone who is very
cold
and a corpse.
Resuscitation continues until core temperature is normalised, at which
time
brain death can be confirmed or excluded.

The big problem with moderate to severe hypothermia is that heart muscle

becomes very irritable at low temperature. Death occurs because of
ventricular fibrillation (VF) - a rapid, dis-coordinated movement of the

heart muscle which is ineffective at pumping blood.

VF can be triggered by rough handling (a bumpy ambulance ride or a
sudden
jolt is sufficient).
Standard treatment for VF is DC electric countershock, which attempts to

'reset' the heart muscle. It is usually ineffective until core
temperature
exceeds 30 degrees C, however.
CPR is performed until cardio-pulmonary bypass is initiated, or the
victim
warms up enough.

Frostbite or frostnip may arise in extremities whose temperature drops
below
freezing.
At somewhat warmer temperatures immersion in cold water can lead to
similar
injuries from localised shunting of blood away from the cold part (eg.
trench foot).

Management
Mild : gentle external rewarming eg. heated blankets
Moderate : ABC - control airway, ensure breathing, give warmed IV
fluids,
consider internal rewarming (fluid-filled gastric tubes, etc.)
Severe : ABC - as above, internal rewarming advantageous.
Cardio-pulmonary
bypass optimal until gravisonic modulator available.

*Hyperthermia : core temperature greater than 38 C (100.4 F)
Heat production exceeds heat transfer rate.
Evaporation (sweat) and convection are the most effective mechanisms
under
usual circumstances.
Extremes of age or exercise, and some medical conditions are significant

predisposing factors to the development of hyperthermia.

Metabolic rate increases by 6% per degree increase in core temperature.
Cardiac output increases by 3L/min/degree C (normal resting adult value
70mL/kg/min) increase in temperature as heat transfer to the skin is
attempted.
Patients look very flushed and have a rapid, high volume pulse.

The highest reliably recorded core temperature was 44.4 degrees C
(112 F) in a woman who suffered an adverse reaction to a general
anaesthetic
(malignant hyperthermia).

Active organs literally cook themselves.
Brain - confusion -> coma -> seizures
Heart - haemorrhage or muscle death (infarction)
Muscle - dissolves : rhabdomyolysis
Liver - fails : internal haemorrhaging
Kidneys - will fail because of muscle proteins in blood
Blood - activation of clotting factors leads to random clotting with an
overall 'thinning' of the blood : disseminated intravascular coagulation
or
DIC.

Treatment
Evaporative cooling (allow fluid to evaporate off skin).
Conductive cooling (second line, e.g. cold packs/ice baths)
IV hydration (aggressive)
ABC if unconscious or fitting (+anticonvulsants)
(Antidotes for provocative drugs, if available)

**Game rules :-
>From T4 : check Average:Endurance every hour
Hypothermia                      Hyperthermia
Temperature     < 10  -1         > 30   -2
(Celsius)       < 0   -2         > 40   -4
                < -20 -3         > 50   -6
                < -40 -4         > 60   -8
Exertion   moderate   +1                -1
           heavy      +3                -3
Rest/fluid                              +1
Clothing                          varies with armour
    cold weather      +2
    extreme           +4
Situational modifiers
    Wet or windy      -2                +2
    Immersed          -4                +4

Failure :-
*1D stun damage + 1 point frostbite    *1D stun
*When one char. zero, further dice     *Unconscious once one char.
are frost damage.                       zero.
*Two char. zero - unconscious          *Further damage is from
*Another failed check precipitates     heat.
VF (Destroyed level damage)            *Failure with two
                                       characteristics at zero
                                        precipitates fitting.
                                       (Destroyed level damage).

Treatment task (damage level), Medical/First Aid, Edu, uncertain
Superficial Easy              Total Truth : +1 DM to recovery checks
Minor       Average           Some Truth : baseline
Major       Difficult         Some Untruth : -1 DM
Destroyed   Formidable        Total Untruth : -2 DM

Hypothermia                           Hyperthermia
    Successful A,B,C tasks (if required) : +2
warmed IV fluids +1                   evaporative cooling +2
blankets +1                           conductive cooling +1
internal rewarming                    internal cooling
  fluid instilled into body cavities     +1
  cardiopulmonary bypass                 +3
  gravisonic modulator                   +4

2. Burns
Radiant energy will cause surface damage. Tissue survival is unlikely
beyond
45 degrees C (113 F).

Burn severity depends on : the percentage of body surface area (BSA)
involved, the depth of  involved tissue, and the regions involved.

The "Rule of 9's" is used to calculate the %age BSA :-
Head and neck 9%
Anterior trunk     2 X 9 = 18%
Posterior trunk    2 X 9 = 18%
Upper limbs        9 each
Lower limbs        18 each
Genitalia/perineum 1
There are modifications of this rule for infants.

Superficial : (first degree) : skin (the epidermis or superficial layer)

becomes reddish (erythema) and very sensitive. Resolution in two weeks
without scarring is anticipated. Eg. sunburn.

Deep dermis : (second degree) : the dermis, or living layer of the skin,
is
partially involved.
Blistering of the skin is evident on inspection. Pain is common and
often
intense. Resolution over months is common, with scarring usually a
complication associated with infection. Eg. flash injuries.

Full thickness : (third degree) : The skin feels leathery. There is no
sensation as the nerves have been destroyed. Healing is by scarring and
may
take months with or without treatment. Plastic surgery is usually
required.
Eg. from burning clothing or house fire.

Burns of the face and neck are potentially life threatening. The intense

inflammatory response which occurs in response to thermal injury leads
to
gross swelling (oedema) which can cause airway
obstruction.

Inhalation of hot gases can injure the lungs and airway.
People that cough up blood stained or sooty material require close
attention.

Circumferential burns of limbs or trunk are dangerous in that scarring
(eschar) which develops over the days after the burn usually contracts,
embarrassing circulation or breathing.

Management
Burns induce an intense inflammatory reaction as the body attempts to
repair
itself. Metabolic rate can increase to more than eight times its resting

value (equivalent to calisthenics or cross-country skiing!).
Pain when present is intense.

Immediate Action
Remove patient and rescuer from dangerous situation, if possible.
Cool burned areas with water, give pain relief.

Determine areas involved as per trauma rules.
Use rule of 9's above to estimate %BSA.

Superficial and Minor : superficial burns
Major : deep dermis
Destroyed : full thickness

A : Airway - may need to create a surgical airway in those with severe
face and neck burns.
(Major+ damage, unconscious, failed catastrophe check)
B : High flow oxygen is mandatory. Ventilation is sometimes required,
especially with airway burns. (Major+ face or neck damage)
C : Aggressive fluid resuscitation is required for burns greater then
15-20%
BSA (up to 10L on day of burn IV). Burned surfaces rapidly lose fluid.
Fluid
requirements are greatly increased anyway because of metabolic rate.
Regimens vary from centre to centre. Large amounts of salt containing
fluid
IV is the first line treatment.

Definitive Treatment
Severe (>20% BSA), circumferential limb, hand, face and neck burns are
best
managed in specialised units.
Critically ill patients can be stabilised in ICU and transferred.

Generally, the inflammatory response begins to settle after 3 to 4 days.

Hydration requirements decrease (day 1,2 and 3 post burn roughly half
that
of initial day -> back to normal).

Infection is the major problem at this stage. Aggressive antibiotic
treatment combined with surgery to remove dead tissue is often required.

Plastic surgery and skin grafting
Skin substitutes : skin banks TL 7+, synthetics TL 7+, pseudobio TL 12+
Dressings        donor (living, dead, or another animal eg. pig)
                 synthetic material plus growth factors
Epidermal substitutes  }
Dermal substitutes     } grafts, cultured tissue, pseudobiological
Bilayer substitutes    } materials

Treatment task, progress and aftercare as per Trauma rules.

3. Electric Currents
Key variables : amount of current, duration, tissues traversed by
current
arc
Current       Source            Effects
10-100microA  Earth leakage     Microshock
30-400microA  Faulty equipment  Tingling (harmless)
> 1 mA              "           Pain (withdraw)
> 10 mA             "           Tetany (can't let go)
> 100 mA            "           Macroshock (VF)
> 1 A               "           Burns and tissue damage
> 1000A       High-tension line Severe burns, limb loss
> 12000A      Lightning         Coma, severe burns, limb loss

Microshock occurs when there is a small current leak which travels along
a
direct path to the heart eg. pacing wires or through IV lines. VF can
result.
Tetany refers to current induced muscle spasm. Alternating current is
much better than direct current at inducing this (automatic over 20-30
cycles per second. Domestic mains usually 50 Hz).
Burns occur at entry and exit points of current arc. Currents can also
be
induced in carried metal objects (tools, keys, cigarette lighters,
coins,
etc.) leading to distant burns.
Limb loss can arise from sustained muscle contraction (can shear muscle
from
bone, or cause fractures), congealing of blood and solid tissues or
calcining of bone (turns to ash).

**Rules :-
Laser weapons produce point burns. They can ignite clothing. Rigid
armours
are usually ceramic or metallic and will not burn, they will just have
holes
punched in them!
Plasma weapons act like a combination of fire and lightning. Damage dice
can
be divided up at the referee's discretion.

Current level     Damage
> 1mA             one point (stun) per ten seconds in circuit
> 10mA            one point per second in circuit
> 100mA           VF (if consciousness check fails, else 2D stun
                  and knocked down/back)
> 1A              as above + 2D burn damage
> 1000A           VF chance + 4D burn damage
> 10000A          VF chance + 6D burn damage.
                  Automatically unconscious

Microshock : catastrophe check when IV lines in place. VF on
Spectacular Failure.

Next time : Radiation and Cryobiology

Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gearhead, Gaming Enthusiast

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1093
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest    Wednesday, November 4 1998    Volume 1998 : Number 1094



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Medicine in Traveller 3a: Nuclear Radiation (long)
Medicine in Traveller 3b:Cryobiology - Low Berth Medicine
Medicine in Traveller 4 : Drugs, Poisons and Disease (long)'

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 08:29:49 +1100
From: "Robert O'Connor" <Robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Medicine in Traveller 3a: Nuclear Radiation (long)

Radiation
Nuclear transformations and some electronic rearrangements can
yield highly energetic particles and photons.
Colloquially these are called 'radiation'.

The damaging effects produced by radiation arise from molecular
disruption (direct effect) and energy transfer leading to the
production of charged species called free radicals (indirect
effect) which can bind to other molecules, impairing their
function.

There are dose-dependent (nonstochastic) effects which are an
inevitable consequence of a given dose, eg. skin burns.
Stochastic effects are those whose probability of occurrence is
related to dose, eg. leukaemia or thyroid cancer.

Dosage is the amount of energy absorbed per unit mass.
It is measured in rads (radiation absorbed dose) :
1 rad = 0.01J/kg
or grays (Gy) : 1 gray = 1J/kg

Biological effect is related to the amount of energy and the way in
which it is transferred along the trajectory of the particle
or photon.

Dose equivalent = absorbed dose X quality factor

The units of dose equivalent are the rem (one rad of radiation with
a quality factor of one) and the sievert (Sv - one gray of
radiation with a quality factor of one).

Radiation type        Quality factor  Comments
X-rays and gamma rays    1            High-energy photons
beta particles           1            Energy > 0.03MeV
                         1.7                 < 0.03MeV
alpha particles          10           helium nuclei
neutrons                 2            Energy to 1keV
                         2.5                 to 10keV
                         7.5                 to 100keV
                         11             500keV to 1MeV
                         10           Energy not specified

Alpha particles have 2 protons and two neutrons. They are therefore
quite large (large damage potential) and have poor penetrative
ability.
Beta particles are electrons or positrons. The slower they are the
more damage they can cause (more chance to form free radicals or
gamma rays in tissue).
Neutrons are uncharged and therefore have good penetrative ability.
Their damage potential is high because of this and their size.

The electron volt is an energy unit. An electron which moves across
a potential difference of one volt has a kinetic energy of one
electron volt. It is equal to 1.6 X 10^(-19)J.

Radiation Sources
We are continually bathed in low-level radiation. The discovery of
nuclear energy and electronics adds several new sources to the
mix.

i. Natural
There are two sources in this category, cosmic rays and terrestrial
radiation (originating from radioactive material in the planet and
in our bodies).

The origin of cosmic radiation is still not yet understood.
There is a background throughout known space of high energy protons
(~87%), alpha particles (~11%) and other nuclei and electrons.
Energy levels range between 10^8 and 10^20 eV, with the majority
between 10^8 and 10^11eV.
Baseline 2.7 rem per year (unprotected) - range 27 mrem to 7.3 rems
per year. (mrem = millirem or 1/1000 rem)
Radiation belts, particularly around gas giants, can have levels
up to a *thousand times* greater than this.

Standard atmospheres absorb most of the incident cosmic radiation.
Secondary particles are generated (neutrons, photons and pions).
The radiation flux varies with altitude and latitude.
At 'sea level' (1 atmosphere pressure) :- 27 mrem per year.
This doubles with every 1600m increment in altitude.
Near the magnetic poles of a world, the exposure rate varies with
the strength of the local field.

Terrestrial radiation
Of the elements found on or in a given world, about a fifth are
radioactive.
Heavy core worlds usually have larger concentrations of
radioactives than are the average.
Gamma rays account for nearly all terrestrial radiation.
The range varies from 15 to 200mrem per year, depending on local
conditions.

Internal radioactivity arises from potassium 40 (which comprises
0.0118% of body potassium - some 0.0157g in a 70kg human), and
ingested environmental nuclides such as carbon 14 and radon 222.
The typical exposure is 28mrem per year.

ii. Artificial
Medical exposures : 3-300mrem per year
Building materials : 7mrem per year (brick and masonry)
Power plants : plant workers 400mrem per year
Air and space travel : 3 (passengers) to 400 (crew) mrem per year
Television and cathode-ray displays : 0.2 to 1.5mrem per year.

Occupational exposures should not exceed 400mrem per year.

For character generation :-
Base 100mrem per year (200 if heavy core world, 50 if icy body)
and 400mrem per year of service in any spacefaring or nuclear energy
related field. Exposure cannot be 'rolled back' by conventional
means (but see below).

Weapons
Roughly 15% of the energy of a detonating nuclear weapon is high
energy radiation. 'Enhanced radiation weapons' or neutron bombs are
designed to increase this fraction to nearly 50%.
This refers to detonations within an atmosphere ; in space, 90% of
the explosion's energy is dissipated in this manner.
Particle and meson beams also produce significant radiation effects
at their points of impact. Almost all of a meson beam's energy is
converted to gamma radiation when the mesons decay.

Exposure :
Nuclear weapons (instantaneous)
Total destruction radius (obliteration) : 6000rems
Primary destruction radius
(unreinforced buildings flattened) : 600rems
Secondary destruction radius (flash) : 60rems
Multiply by 3 for neutron weapon OR
Multiply by 6 for detonation in space

Weapons fallout : 1 rem per day (within blast area).
Induced radiation : (blast rems/20) per day for each zone above.
The half life for fallout is two hours.
The half life for induced radiation is one year.
Fallout activity is about half the radiation load of a
conventional nuke, 1/10 that of a neutron bomb.

Tables have been listed in FF&S(1 and 2?), Striker and JTAS 23 for
blast radii with yield.

Particle and meson weapons (instantaneous)
C-PAW or N-PAW : (10 X intensity)rems
meson gun : (intensity)rems

Radioactive material, power plants
Shielding failure
fission plant : (power output in MW)/10 rems per minute
fusion plant  : (power output in MW)/5 rems per minute
High level waste/material : 1-10 rems per hour
Medium level : 0.1 rem per hour
Low level : 1 mrem per hour

The values above assume that you're standing right next to the
source, unshielded.

High level : highly enriched fuel or weapons grade material.
Medium level : reactor grade fuel, 'tailings' from reprocessing
plant, activated materials from within reactor vessel (eg. old
shielding, coolant).
Low level : reactor or mine worker's protective clothing. Ores.

Protection
Distance and shielding are the primary protection methods after
exposure minimisation.
Radiation intensity falls with the square of distance from the
source. (1/4 at 2m, 1/9 at 3m, etc..)

Shielding
Efficacy depends on material and its thickness.
The table below shows the thickness of material required to
reduce the intensity of gamma radiation by 50%.
Alpha particles travel 5-7cm in air, betas 2-8m.
Fast neutrons (energy > 500keV ) may have more penetration than
gamma rays.

Material              Thickness, cm
Wood                  22
Water                 12
Earth                 8
Concrete              6
Steel                 2
Lead                  0.5
Composite Laminate    2
Crystaliron           2
Superdense            0.4
Bonded Superdense     0.4

Personal armour : dose reduction multiplier
Vacc suit  Standard      Hostile Environment
TL 7-9        0.9               0.8
   10-11      0.8               0.6
   12-13      0.7               0.5
   14-15      0.6               0.4
Armour :
Battle dress
TL 13         0.3
TL 14         0.2
CES (TL 10)   0.7
Combat armour
TL 11         0.4
TL 12         0.3
TL 14         0.2
NBC/Hazmat suit
TL 6-7        0.9
TL 8          0.8

CES - combat environment suit
NBC - nuclear-biological-chemical

Composites or plastics containing elements with good neutron
capture or absorption properties eg. boron, cadmium, silver,
indium, graphite, beryllium, and hydrogen will have better values
than plain composite laminate.
Alloys containing depleted uranium and similar heavy atoms will be
at a penalty due to induced radiation (eg. neutrons may cause
fission).
Crystaliron, superdense materials and electropolymorphic plastics
may have an extra advantage in protecting from cosmic radiation,
due to the presence of the stabilising current, or its magnetic
properties (crystaliron hulls are effectively a single magnetic
domain). A protective belt of charged particles may form around the
ship.

Radiation Effects
Whole body exposures are the most problematic. Doses which would be
lethal if applied to the entire body are routinely used in
radiotherapy.

Radiation most readily damages dividing cells. Those tissues which
turn over rapidly are the most radiosensitive eg. bone marrow,
gonads, gut lining, cornea of the eye, and skin.

Acute dose (rems) Probable effect on population
5 to 70           Headache, nausea and vomiting
                  for 6-12 hours in 10%.
70 to 150         Nausea and vomiting for 2-20 hours in 30%
150 to 300        Nausea, vomiting and fatigue in 20-70%,
                  onset 2 hrs to 2 days after exposure.
                  10-50% will require hospitalisation 3-5 weeks
                  after exposure. 10% will die.
300 to 530        Nausea, vomiting and fatigue in 50-90% after
                  2 hours to 3 days. Unable to perform complex
                  tasks (prompt onset).
                  Hospital : 10 to 80% afer 2-5 weeks.
                  Fatalities : 50% at upper dose range.
530 to 830        Nausea, vomitting and fatigue in 80-100%
                  after 2 hours to 2 days. Skin erythema.
                  100% hospitalisation within 5 weeks
                  50-99% fatalities.
830 to 3000       Nausea, vomitting, weakness, diarrhoea in 100%
                  after 30 minutes to two days.
                  100% hospitalisation within 6 days.
                  100% fatality rate in 2 to 3 weeks.(1000 rems)
                  100% hospitalisation within 4 days
                  100% fatality rate in 5 to 10 days.(3000 rems)
3000 to 8000      Nausea, vomitting, diarrhoea, headache
                  within 30 minutes to two days.
                  Partial thickness burns.
                  100% hospitalisation within 2 days.
                  100% fatality rate within 3 days.
8000+             Nausea, vomitting, headache within 30 minutes to
                  one day.
                  100% mortality rate within 24 hours.

Haemopoietic syndrome : 100 to 1000 rems
The bone marrow is suppressed or destroyed. There are few or no
functional white blood cells to fight infection.
Gastrointestinal syndrome : 1000 to 5000 rems
The cells lining the gut are suppressed or destroyed.
Diarrhoea results from inability to absorb and exaggerated
secretion of fluid. Infection is common as gut bacteria enter the
body.
Central nervous system syndrome : 5000+ rems
An acute inflammatory reaction takes place in the blood vessels of
the brain, as well as the brain itself. The brain suffocates as
oxygen can't diffuse across the inflamed vessel walls.

Treatment
Effective treatment of high levels of radiation exposure are not
available until TL 13.
Partial treatments are available at lower tech levels :-
TL 5+ : antibiotics, heavy metal binders (chelators)
TL 8+ : bone marrow transplantation
TL 9+ : low berth
TL 10+ : broad spectrum vaccines to protect against opportunistic
infections.

Rules :-
Damage level  Dose, rems  Damage  Task penalty  Catastrophe Check?
Superficial   5 to 150    1D (stun)    -2        one at 24hr
Minor         150 to 300  2D        one level    weekly for 1D
                                                 weeks
Major         300 to 530  4D        two levels   daily for one
                                                 week
Destroyed     530+        6D      incapacitated  1D damage a day

Make consciousness check (Difficult, End).
Establish venous access, volume resuscitate (Minor+).

treatment task (Difficulty), Medical, Edu, uncertain

Superficial Easy
Minor       Average
Major       Difficult
Destroyed   Formidable

Lab investigations can be ordered as per trauma post.

The measures below contribute to success and certainty checks :-
TL 13 treatment + 4
antibiotics, chelators + 1         Require IV access
bone marrow transplant + 2         hospitalised only
broad spectrum vaccines + 2

Chelation therapy is used for ingested or inhaled material.
(exposure to fallout, usually).

Total Truth : +1 DM to recovery tasks
Some Truth : baseline
Some Untruth : -1 DM
Total Untruth : -2 DM

Recovery rates as per trauma post.

Late effects :-
Cataract : At 3 months, check (exposure severity), End - difficulty
levels as above.
Failure leads to the development of cataracts (lens opacities).
Treatment is required as blindness will ensue within 2D months.

Malignancy : At each aging point after exposure, check (exposure
severity), End.
Failure leads to the detection of a malignancy.
Roll 2D to determine system :-
2-5 skin
6-8 blood (bone marrow)
9   gut
10  lungs
11  central nervous system
12  gonads

Sterility
Dose (rems)    Effect
150            Sterility for 1-6 weeks
250            1-2 years
500-600        permanent sterility in 75%
800            permanent sterility in 100%

Rolling back radiation damage :-
Cloned or regenerated parts, or reanimation will reduce total
exposure. For simplicity, replacement parts reduce exposure by 10%
per part.
Reanimation returns total exposure to the level before the lethal
dose. Cataract and malignancy checks are one level of difficulty
easier.

Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Next time : Cryobiology - low berth medicine.

Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gearhead, Gaming Enthusiast

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 08:31:12 +1100
From: "Robert O'Connor" <Robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Medicine in Traveller 3b:Cryobiology - Low Berth Medicine

Cryobiology : the study of the physiology of low temperature.

Prior to the advent of modern medical science, it had been observed
that survival from severe hypothermia was possible, if uncommon.

Many animals enter states of dormancy to conserve water and energy
during particularly adverse climatic conditions eg. dormice and
bears, lungfish and some desert toads on Terra.
However, there is a limit to how long dormancy can be maintained.
Metabolism continues, albeit at a greatly slowed rate.

Long term tissue preservation requires metabolic arrest. To effect
this, cell water must be locked in place to prevent cellular
proteins from working.
Water unfortunately expands on freezing (crystallisation), which
causes cell rupture and death.
It had been observed that rapid freezing limited the size of ice
crystals formed.
Immersion in liquid nitrogen (-196 degrees C) was used to preserve
sperm, ova, embryos, seeds and pollen as early as Tech Level 6.

By Tech Level 8, it had been shown that animals such as frogs and
mice could be snap-frozen, thawed and revived. Survival rates were
predictably low.

The great breakthroughs which usher in the modern era of low
berthing take place at Tech Level 9.

Hibernation
'Fast drug' is a combination of cell signalling factors and
receptor blockers which are typically discovered in the course of
early research into metabolism and aging.

Its effect is to slow down metabolic rate a staggering sixty
times.
Unconsciousness ensues within two minutes of adminstration.
Body temperature attains ambient levels within four to six hours.

As a result, muscle rigidity is typical (below core temp 25
Celsius). It is difficult to distinguish between fast drug
administration, severe hypothermia or recent death.
TL 9+ blood testing will identify fast drug residues.

Fast drug induced dormancy is referred to as hibernation.
It can be augmented by cooling to cause further slowing of the
metabolism (chill berthing) or, with sufficient precautions, be
used as a sole agent (fast berthing). Intravenous hydration is
required.

Minimum monitoring for fast berthing : ECG/EKG.
Minimum monitoring for chill berthing : ECG/EKG, serum levels of fast
drug weekly, cooler system monitoring (tight control of temperature
required).
(ECG/EKG - electrocardiogram)

All facilities must have readily accessible resuscitation
equipment.
Chill berths above TL 12 usually have built-in automeds, or
provision for these to be installed.
Chill berthing operating temperature is usually 4 degrees Celsius
(39.2 F). Water is at its maximum density. Bacterial and fungal
growth is maximally inhibited.

Fast drug takes about two months or sixty days to be eliminated.
Agents which can safely reverse the effect before this time are not
developed until TL 12.

Freezing (Vitrification)
It is generally realised that the size of water crystals formed is
the main determinant of successful revival from freezing.
The development of compounds which depress the freezing point of
water without being toxic to an organism enables the first
successful revival from cryogenic freezing at about the same time
as the development of hibernation.

Cryogenic freezing technology becomes known as vitrification, as
tissue water is changed to a supercooled liquid and then a solid
with falling temperature.

Installing a patient into low berth in the early days was
equivalent to connecting them to life support. Infusion lines,
airways and monitoring devices needed to be surgically connected.
The procedure was expensive (low temperature high flow pumps,
etc.)
and hazardous. Failure rates of 5-10% were common.

The development of the gravisonic modulator at TL 11 greatly
simplifies the process. Based on inertial compensator technology,
this device enables cooling and warming at the cellular level.
No antifreeze agents are required and monitoring requirements are
greatly decreased.
Failure rates are greatly reduced due to the generation of biomaps
during the freezing process.

The emergency low berth is designed for use by unskilled
personnel.
At the earlier tech levels, prompt immersion in cryogenic fluid is
used. More advanced versions use gravisonic modulators and minimal
'quick and dirty' biomapping procedures.
Revival is somewhat more difficult under these circumstances.

Use of hibernation or vitrification technology.
Metabolic slowing or arrest is widely used in modern interstellar
society.
Critically ill patients can be stabilised and then placed in chill
or low berths to await definitive treatment.
Low berths enable cheap interstellar travel.
There are some associations of unusual individuals who use low or
chill berths to 'time travel' into the future : 'timer clubs'.
Some societies place criminals and dissidents 'on ice', as do some
athletic and mercenary organisations to extend the useful lifespans
of their personnel.

**Rules
1. Hibernation

To install someone safely into a chill berth :-
Average, Medical, Edu

Fast berthing at -1 DM.
This includes establishing IV access.
Failure : catastrophe check
(Difficult, Medical/First Aid (attendant), End (patient) : 1D
damage if fails)
Spectacular Failure : VF during cooling. Resuscitation required as
per Trauma rules. Requires cardiac massage.
Spectacular Success : +2 DM to revival task

To safely revive someone from hibernation :-
Difficult, Medical, Edu

fast berthing : -1 DM
TL 12+ : +2 DM (fast drug antidote)
gravisonic modulator : +2 DM
Failure : roll catastrophe check - if fails, adverse reaction or
fast drug overdose apparent (1D damage). Task needs to be repeated.
Spectacular Failure : VF on warming. Resuscitation required as per
Trauma rules.

2. Vitrification

To install someone safely into a low berth :-
(difficulty), Medical, Edu

Difficult at TL 9-10
Average at TL 11+

Failure and success : as per chill berthing.

To revive someone safely from vitrification :-
Difficult, Medical, Edu

DM -2 if emergency low berth
DM +2 if gravisonic modulator
Failure : catastrophe check
Spectacular Failure : VF on warming, resuscitate

Long-term Considerations
1. Hibernation :-
Fast berthing 60:1 slowing of metabolism.
Chill berthing 600:1 slowing of metabolism.

Hydration is required to permit long-term hibernation.
The maximum safe period of time without fluid replacement is three
days (so 180 days with fast berthing or 1800 days with chill
berthing).
Beyond this, 2D damage per day (60 or 600 days) until treatment or
death ensues.

With hydration :-
Starvation : rapid weight loss (1kg/d for first ten days then
0.3kg/d thereafter).
- -1 from Str and Dex every two days until zero. Then -1 from End
every week until death or feeding ensues.
Multiply this by 60 or 600 depending on the hibernation type.

With IV (or gastric) feeding :-
Roll catastrophe check every year (infection at IV site?)

2. Vitrification
1 point of damage is sustained for every 25 continuous years spent
'on ice'.

Healing and recovery is as per trauma notes.

Next time :- Drugs, Poisons and Disease.

Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gearhead, Gaming Enthusiast

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 08:46:43 +1100
From: "Robert O'Connor" <Robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Medicine in Traveller 4 : Drugs, Poisons and Disease (long)'

Over the years many medical treatments have arisen, ranging from
diet and exercise to nanomachine based 'drugs'.

While some of the ailments have changed, the basic principles
remain the same. Improved technology generally yields more
efficacious treatments.

The Universal Drug Profile, v1.0
There are five basic categories of drugs :-
i. Anagathics : slow or stop the aging process.
ii. Anti-infectives : kill pathogenic agents, or limit their
growth.
iii. Depressants : reduce the activity of an organ system. Eg. a
sedative is a central nervous system depressant.
iv. Stimulants : increase the activity of an organ system.
v. Vaccines : bind to infective agents, toxins or rogue cells,
enabling their rapid neutralisation.

All agents have the following characteristics :-
Potency : the quantity of drug required to obtain desired effect.

Routes of administration : applied to skin? taken orally? injected?
inhaled? etc.

Systems affected : which organ systems are being intentionally
targeted? How marked are these effects? How long do they last?

Side effects : which organ systems are being unintentionally
targeted? Severity? Duration?

Abuse potential : is there any (a function of effect profile)?

Potency                      Routes of administration
1 micrograms                 1 IV infusion
2 tens of micrograms         2 IV injection
3 hundreds of micrograms     3 intramuscular or subcutaneous
4 milligrams                   injection (IM or SC)
5 tens of milligrams         4 oral (swallowed)
6 hundreds of milligrams     5 oral (under tongue)
7 grams                      6 inhaled
8 tens of grams              7 topical (applied to skin or
                             intended area of effect).

Typically agents that can be adminstered by multiple routes have
differing effective doses by each route.
Roughly :- IV X 10 = IM or SC ; IM or SC X 10 = oral (for those
drugs which can be absorbed orally). Drugs which can be applied
topically are either not meant to be absorbed or the dose
required approximates the oral one.

Systems Affected
1  Respiratory - includes ear, nose and throat
2  Cardiovascular
3  Gastrointestinal - liver, stomach, gut
4  Musculoskeletal
5  Peripheral Nervous - from spinal cord to sensory/motor endings
6  Central Nervous - brain and spinal cord, includes eyes
7  Genitourinary - kidney, ureters, bladder, accessory structures.
8  Haematological - bone marrow and blood components. Includes
                    immune system, clotting cascade.
9  Skin
10 Endocrine/metabolic - pituitary, thyroid, adrenals, pancreas,
                         gonads.

Anagathics, antibiotics and vaccines are regarded as generally acting
and have no stimulant or depressant effect, except perhaps as side
effects.

Interrelations between systems (important feedback loops) :-
Nervous system <-> cardiovascular (rate, blood pressure)
Cardiovascular <-> genitourinary (renal blood flow has an effect
                  on blood pressure)

Extent of Effect
Stimulation :-
3 Severe   eg. VF, hypertensive crisis, psychosis
2 Moderate eg. strong diuretic (increased urine flow)
1 Mild     eg. low dose caffeine's effect on the brain!
0 nil/baseline
Depression :-
- -1 Mild     eg. mild pain relief
- -2 Moderate eg. local anaesthesia, strong pain relief
- -3 Severe   eg. coma (general anaesthesia), cardiac standstill

Duration : the relationship between required dose and duration of
effect is complicated, to say the least. Here are some ballpark
values.
1 Minutes - circulation time is one minute which is the practical
            lower limit.
2 Hours
3 Days
4 Weeks
5 Months

Side effects are treated similarly. Typically they occur only on a
Spectacular Failure from a catastrophe check.

Safety margin : the ratio of dangerous to effective dose
1 5 or less
2 10
3 20 - most drugs
4 40
5 80
6 >160

If a dose exceeds the safety margin, the following check should be
made :-
(Extent of effect), Med/First Aid (attendant), End (patient)
Mild     Average          Failure : Minor damage
Moderate Difficult                  Major damage
Severe   Formidable                 Destroyed damage

Treat as per trauma rules (Resusc, etc. as required), plus see
Poisons, below.

Abuse potential : usually confined to drugs with central nervous
system effects (moderate or better stimulants or depressants).
Other substances eg. growth hormone (endocrine/metabolic, severe
stimulant) may be abused, given the right circumstances.

Effect   Abuse potential
Mild     low     (Easy)
Moderate average (Average)
Severe   high    (Difficult)

Dependency and withdrawal

To avoid dependence on a given drug :-
(abuse potential), (Int + End)/2

- -2 if peers abuse drug
- -1 if drug lasts for minutes
+1 if drug lasts days
+2 if drug lasts weeks
+4 if drug lasts months
Other situational modifiers at ref's discretion

To avoid withdrawal symptoms :-
Difficult, (Int + End)/2

Check every 4th multiple of the duration of effect after
discontinuation.
Failure :- all tasks at -1, reverse drug effects (e.g. if drug is a
mild gut depressant, withdrawal leads to mild gut stimulation -
diarrhoea).
Spectacular Failure :- all tasks at one difficulty level harder,
reverse drug effects are severe (using the previous example,
intractable nausea, vomitting and diarrhoea ensue).

Examples
1. A generic local anaesthetic
Potency is in tens of milligrams
It can be administered IV, by subcutaneous injection, topically
(special time release patch) or be inhaled (eg. spray the back of
the throat to permit passage of an airway).
Its primary effect is on peripheral nerve.
It is a moderate depressant of peripheral nerve activity.
Side effects are mainly central nervous (altered consciousness) and
cardiovascular (rhythm disturbances). A minor effect is increased
bleeding at the injection site.
Duration of effect is up to an hour.
Safety margin is 20.
Abuse potential is low.

2.  An analgesic agent
Potency is in milligrams.
It can be given by injection or orally.
It is a moderate depressant of peripheral nerve activity.
Side effects are on the central nervous (mild stimulant, with nausea
and vomitting), respiratory (mild depressant) and gastrointestinal
(mild depressant, causes constipation).
Duration of effect is up to three hours.
Safety margin is 10.
Abuse potential is average.

3. Fast drug
Potency is in grams.
It can be given by injection or orally.
It is a severe depressant of metabolism.
Side effects are unconsciousness, muscle rigidity and incidental
hypothermia.
Duration of effect is two months.
Safety margin is 5.
Abuse potential is low.

A reminder :- drugs by TL
3-: (var. with local plant and animal life)
4 : inhaled general anaesthetics, narcotic analgesics, insulin
5 : antibacterial agents, synthetic steroids and analgesics
    immunisation for common diseases. IV anaesthetics.
6 : antipsychotics, antidepressants, sedatives
7 : immunosuppressant drugs for transplant surgery
8 : early anti-virals
9 : fast drug
10 : growth accelerants, broad-spectrum vaccines
13 : radiation treatment, reanimation
15 : anagathics

**Poisons
Can be regarded as drugs which are deliberately given in doses much
larger than the safety margin.
Potencies are typically of the order of tens of milligrams or less
in acute poisonings ; grams may be required of heavy metals, etc.
Routes of administration as above.
Safety margins and abuse potential are not generally applicable.

Effect   Damage     Treat Task Difficulty
Mild     Minor      Average
Moderate Major      Difficult
Severe   Destroyed  Formidable

Immediate action :- as per trauma notes
Other manoeuvres include bandaging to trap venoms at bite site
(block lymph drainage), neutralising poison eg. vinegar for
stinging jellyfish, etc.

Treatment task :-

(difficulty), Medical, patient's End

but uncertain if substance or animal/plant unknown.

Treatment DMs :-
Specific antidote available : +4
Specific antidotes include antivenins (usually pooled human or
animal antibodies) or chelating agents (for heavy metal
poisonings).

However, most toxic substances have no specific antidote,
or are present in the blood in concentrations higher than
that which vaccines can safely neutralise (gram potencies or less).

In such cases, absorption needs to be limited (for ingested substances).

If this can't be done, blood needs to be filtered (dialysis).
Absorption limitation is an Average Medical task.

Methods include introducing activated charcoal (TL 6+), and bowel
lavage solution (polyethylene glycol, TL 7+).
Gastric lavage (washing the stomach out) is employed between TL's
4-8, but is potentially very dangerous (-2 to catastrophe rolls).

Successful resuscitation : +2

Assuming absorption is limited :-
TL 10+ broad spectrum vaccine : +3
TL 13+ broad spectrum vaccine : +4

If dialysis is required (TL 7+) : +3 to treatment task

Uncertainty DMs :-
Laboratory investigations can reduce uncertainty :-
TL   +DM to uncertainty roll
4-5  +1
6-8  +3
9-11 +4
11+  +5 - lab or medical scanner/computer (interchangeable)

Spectacular Success rolls back 2D of damage
Spectacular Failure causes 1D of damage
Failure : catastrophe check.

Recovery and aftercare as per trauma notes.

Examples
1. Generic snake venom
Potency is in milligrams
Primary actions : severe depressant of muscle activity (causes
muscle to dissolve) ; severe depressant of blood clotting
(haemorrhage!) ; severe depression of peripheral nervous system
(paralysis).
Route of administration : must be injected
Duration is three to four hours.

2. Cyanide
Potency is in milligrams
Primary action : severe depression of respiratory system (prevents
cells from using oxygen).
Side-effects : severe central nervous stimulation (fitting).
Routes of administration : oral, injected ; hydrogen cyanide can be
inhaled.
Duration is hours without treatment (very tightly bound).

Disease
This discussion will concentrate on infectious diseases. It is
assumed that aging crises constitute acute exacerbations in
degenerative processes.

The myriad of potential infectious diseases that could exist can
be described by a small number of parameters.

Agent type : general class of organism
Infectivity : how readily disease can spread from one individual to
another.
Routes of transmission : how transmission is effected.
Incubation period : the interval of time between infection and the
development of symptoms.
Systems affected : where does the bug act?
Severity : the disability or death rate.

The Infectious Disease Profile, v1.0
Agent type
1 prion
2 viral
3 'incomplete' bacteria
4 'complete' bacteria
5 amoeba or fungus (single celled)
6 parasite - multicellular plant, fungus or animal.

Prions are proteins which can transform host proteins into copies
of itself, leading to damage. Eg. spongiform encephalopathies.
Viruses require host cellular machinery to reproduce. These are the
most common (70+%) infectious agents encountered.
'Incomplete' bacteria require host cells for shelter or energy
supply eg. Chlamydia, Rickettsia species.
Most bacteria are 'complete'.

Transmissibility/Infectivity
1 Very low (1% or less)
2 Low (5-20%)
3 Medium (20-40%)
4 High (40-75%)
5 Very High (75+%)

Routes of Transmission
1 Body contact
2 Respiratory droplets
3 Water supply, or food
4 Blood or infected body fluid - requires contact with a mucous
membrane or entry into bloodstream.
5 Requires vector eg. mosquito and malaria, host animal in soil or
water, etc.

To avoid infection, given appropriate exposure :-
Infectivity     Difficulty
Very Low        Easy, End
Low             Average, End
Medium          Difficult, End
High            Difficult, End-1
Very High       Formidable, End

Incubation period
1 Years  eg. BSE
2 Months eg. leprosy
3 Weeks eg. TB
4 Days - most organisms
5 Hours eg. plague

Systems affected
1  Respiratory - includes ear, nose and throat
2  Cardiovascular
3  Gastrointestinal - liver, stomach, gut
4  Musculoskeletal
5  Peripheral Nervous - from spinal cord to sensory/motor endings
6  Central Nervous - brain and spinal cord, includes eyes
7  Genitourinary - kidney, ureters, bladder, accessory structures.
8  Haematological - bone marrow and blood components. Includes
                    immune system, clotting cascade.
9  Skin
10 Endocrine/metabolic - pituitary, thyroid, adrenals, pancreas,
                         gonads.

Viral respiratory infections are the most commonly encountered (60+%).
Organisms transmitted by contaminated water or food typically dwell in
the gastrointestinal system.

Example Symptoms
Fever is usual, but may not occur in the elderly, or in some
infections.

Respiratory : running nose, earache, cough, sore throat, mouth ulcers,
gum bleeding, chest pain, shortness of breath, coughing up mucus,
phlegm, pus, blood or oedema fluid (pinkish froth from near terminal
lung inflammation or heart failure).

Cardiovascular : unstable blood pressure (low or high) - dizziness,
headache. Chest pain, sensation of heart racing (palpitations),
shortness of breath (on mild exertion, on minimal exertion, at rest
in order of increasing severity).

Gastrointestinal : nausea, vomiting (food, fluid, blood), abdominal
pain, diarrhoea (fluid, mucus, blood), constipation, jaundice (skin
yellowing from liver dysfunction), bruising (liver dysfunction)

Musculoskeletal : joint aches and pains, joint swelling, muscle aches,
wasting, muscle breakdown (myolysis ; muscle attains leather or wooden
consistency).

Peripheral nervous : disturbed sensation (decreased or increased),
weakness without muscle wasting (early), instability of blood pressure,
loss of sweating or sphincter control. Regionalised, unlike central
problems, which are global.

Central nervous : headache, nausea, vomitting, altered state of
consciousness (decreased or delirious), fitting, disturbed perception
(eg. vertigo, blurred or double vision, ringing in the ears),
eye pain, tearing, and as per peripheral nervous system.

Genitourinary : flank or loin pain, frequency of urination, pain on
passing urine, blood or pus in urine. Hypertension, fatigue and marked
decrease in urine output with renal failure.

Haematological : fatigue, shortness of breath (anaemia), prominent
lymph nodes in neck, armpits and groins with most infections (if not
immunosuppressed), abdominal pain (?enlarged spleen), bruising or
bleeding (platelet or clotting dysfunction).

Skin : rashes, blisters, boils, peeling, hair loss, etc.

Endocrine/metabolic : blood pressure instability, pain (neck, headache,
abdominal) weight loss, dizziness (low blood sugar or low blood
pressure).

Severity
1 damage only on Spec. Failure of catastrophe check
2 damage on failed catastrophe check
3 damage automatic

Damage as per previous posts
1 Superficial 1D
2 Minor       2D
3 Major       4D
4 Destroyed   6D

If vaccinated, maximum severity is 1-1

Immediate action - take if required
Volume resuscitation mandatory in septic shock (Major+ damage).

Diagnosis task :-

Difficult, Medical, End, uncertain

Laboratory investigations can reduce uncertainty :-
TL   +DM to uncertainty roll
4-5  +1
6-8  +3
9-11 +4
11+  +5 - micro lab or medical computer (interchangeable)

Treatment task :-

(difficulty), Medical, patient's End

but uncertain if organism unknown.

Damage level     Difficulty
Superficial      Easy
Minor            Average
Major            Difficult
Destroyed        Formidable

Laboratory investigations reduce uncertainty.

Treatment DMs :-
successful resuscitation +2
appropriate anti-infectives +3
TL 10+ broad spectrum vaccine +3
TL 13+ broad spectrum vaccine +4

Spectacular Success rolls back 2D of damage
Spectacular Failure causes 1D of damage
Failure : catastrophe check.

Recovery and aftercare as per Trauma notes.

Biological warfare agents are usually bacterial or viral, optimised
for infectivity (respiratory droplets), infectivity (very high) and
severity (high lethality).

Rules guru input and constructive criticism welcome+++++

Next time : Psychiatry and mental illness.

Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gearhead, Gaming Enthusiast

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1094
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest    Wednesday, November 4 1998    Volume 1998 : Number 1095



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

What's a backwater?
Designing Stealth aircraft
Re: Plasma guns, canon, bureaucracy and High Guard 
Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question 
Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question
Variant Colonial Cruiser IBFH
Re: Piracy, By The Numbers
Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 
Re: Piracy Payoffs
Re: What's a backwater?
Re: Crime & Punishment (not Dostoevsky)
Re: 100 Diameter limit 
Re: Long range fire 
Canon
Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me) 
Re: Move quickly!
Re: Bilanidin Font. Anyone have it or know where it is?
Re: 100 Diameter limit (Exiting)
Re: Canon problem 3: The Kinunir question
Re: Crime & Punishment (not Dostoevsky)
Re: Bilanidin Font. Anyone have it or know where it is?
Re: Piracy by the numbers 
re: Taking The Hit

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 00:56:18 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: What's a backwater?

...
>>   So determining that providing warships and other defence systems for
>> the mainworld and its' immediate area is impossibly expensive doesn't
>> require any calculations?
>
>I wanna see them justify their defense spending in backwater worlds. /...

  Before the work gets too much further we might want to define "backwater"
for this purpose; assuming that it's off the main trade routes, what GDP
are we basing exports off of, and what TL range are we talking?

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 01:16:37 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Designing Stealth aircraft

>From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
>Subject: Re: Not Taking the Hit
...
>Huh? the stealt fighter, or the sandcaster. The latter is in all the
>rules, I bet you can make a stealth under Striker, and certainly
>FFS.

  Not Striker, IIRC, but FFS 1 at least should be retrofittable?

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 01:16:50 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Plasma guns, canon, bureaucracy and High Guard 

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Plasma guns, canon, bureaucracy and High Guard 
...
>Besides, all you need to do is render the target incapable of running and
incapable of >fighting you in space.  That means, you take down the weapons
and either the M-drives >*OR* the power plant.  If you get lucky and get the
power plant, the ship can't jump >until it's field repaired.

  While rapid mission kills are more likely under B:2 (something around 10%
per hit, although some of those will be criticals and thus largely counter-
productive) that works both ways; a corsair has a one in 36 chance of being
eliminated as a result of _each_ hit under B:2.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 23:48:24 -0900
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question 

"Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net> wrote

> > PROBLEM: How do we reconcile the differences in canon over the Kinunir?
 
> >The problem appears to be one of irreconcilable dates.
> > REF 3.1: _Adventure 1: The Kinunir_ states that the ship was lost in 

> It was lost in 1088.  As of 001-1105, it haddn't been found, according 
> to Adv 1. 
 
> > REF 3.3: The RSB and BTC also say that Norris obtained his Warrant 
> >from the ship

> > POINT 3.2: If the Kinunir was lost before 1100, and Norris didn't  
> > even ask Strephon for a Warrant until 1105, there is NO WAY that the 
> > Kinunir could have been the ship that was delivering the Warrant.

> On Pg 22, the Captain's Cabin of the Kununir is noted to have an 
> envelope with a signed Imperial Warrant in it.  This Warrant *could* 
> be Norris' and not delivered 17 years late.  The book doesn't specify 
> who it's made out for.  IIRC, I don't think Norris was even in power in 1088.

Norris became Duke in 1098 when his father died.  Prior to this point he
had a career in Naval Intelligence.  I assume that Norris & Strephon met
at this point when Norris had an assignment at Capitol/Core but this is
not a necessary assumption.

What if the signed Imperial Warrant in the Captains cabin of the Kinunir
is addressed to "The Duke of Regina"?

Imagine this scenario:  The Fourth Frontier War ends in 1084.  Strephon,
at Capitol, gets the news in 1085.  He is not too impressed with the
stalemate that ensued.  He is not really sure what to do about this so
he mulls it over for a year or two.  In 1086 or 1087, after hearing good
things about Norris's father, he decides to issue an Imperial Warrant to
the then Duke (Norris's father) and sends it off on the Kinunir.  The
Kinunir travels from Capitol/Core with the warrant. When the Kinunir is
only a few parsecs from Regina it has some problems & gets stranded in
the Shionthy Belt.  Strephon never knows that Norris father did not get
the warrent.  Nobody else knows either, possibly Strephon gave it to the
Kinunirs Captain in person or the courier who brought it to the Kinunirs
Captain is not in a position to check up on it.

Then in 1104 or 1105 so Strephon gets the message from Norris asking for
more power in case of a crisis.  Strephon responds "You can use the
Imperial Warrant I sent your father in 1087, it says "The Duke of
Regina" so you are entitled to use it."  Norris gets this message in
1105 or 1106.  He immediately says "_What_ Imperial Warrent?"  He then
checks all his fathers papers (which may take months to make _sure_ it
was not misplaced), confirms it never arrived and simultaneously has his
staff start looking for it.  [This is an excellent opportunity for the
PC's to meet Norris's psionic attache Branj, for him to confirm
psionically that they are honorable & to ask them to keep an eye out for
the warrent. If you want your Traveller universe to be a bit more
conspiratorial

Babylon 5 Season 4&5 SPOILER Warning

S
p
o
i
l
e
r

You can have Branj pull a Bester and have hidden psionic controls
implanted in one or more of the PC's.

Either he finds it, is behind the PC's who find it in Adventure 1, the
PC's find it on their own & give it to him (which I would like to think
is their patriotic duty), or he learns about the PC's and gets it back.
To keep canon consistent I would suggest that the PC's in Adventure 1
find it as suggested in the adventure at the same time that Norris has
discovered it is in the belt.  Norris's ship then jumps in & gets the
ship from the PC's when they leave the wreck of the Kinunir. (which is
also a cool way for them to meet him).  He then uses it, when needed, to
sack Santanocheev.  Note that the PC's will have commited a High Justice
crime by going on board the Kinunir in the first place so Norris now has
them where he wants them for any other future items he needs taken care
of (Unless your PC's don't mind being taken out and shot....) Which may
be useful in a campaign.

Note that in this scenario Strephon has been a bit sloppy with an
Imperial Warrant to not notice it was missing for _18_ years.  You can
either assume that this 1) is necessary for the scenario 2) is about all
the level of attention to detail that you can expect from any Emperor of
Trillions 3) is an indication that Strephon has some problems (further
indicated by MT's Rebellion) or 4) (my favorite) a bit of all of these.



- -- 
The Universe is governed by the complex interweaving of three things:
matter, energy, and enlightened self-interest.  --G'Kar

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 23:57:15 -0900
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question

david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au wrote

> > >Norris didn't forge the Warrant, he had found it a few years before 
> > >when he discovered the Kinunir and hid it in his footlocker.

> BTW, glad you realised I meant that Norris hid the WARRANT in his
> footlocker, not the ship itself (poor grammatical construction, there! ;-).

I thought everyone knew that all important charecters in Traveller have
their own personal Ancient Artifact.  Norris has a footlocker with a
pocket dimension built into it (Sort of like a Bag of Holding in D&D) so
when he found the Kinunir in the Shionthy Belt he did indeed put it in
his footlocker.  Where do you think all those Ancient Artifacts that
PC's find in adventures _go_ when the MIB's take them away from the
PC's?  Remember Rank Hath Its Privlidges.   :)

[ducking rapidly]

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 02:12:43 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Variant Colonial Cruiser IBFH

  Impregnable Beachball From Hell*
 * (please note that "Rabid" was dropped due to legal concerns)
  
  Please keep in mind that TL 12 designs are not SOTA (well, except in
M:0, but they haven't invented HG yet); cost is actually substantially
_reduced_ if the power plant is TL 13.

                IB-65344F2-640000-44003-0       MCr 579.39      600 tons
        batteries bearing   1     11  1                            TL=12
                batteries   1     11  1                          Crew=16 
        Fuel=204. EP=25. Agility=2. Troops=25.

  Here we have a so-called Colonial Cruiser (actually a police ship for the
local power to send around their tradeworlds to prop up friendly regimes in
typical gunboat routines) with a top of the line computer, decent Agility
and the ability to run emergency Agility at 3 or 4, and tough enough not to
take criticals from anything short of a capital ship spinal mount.

  As an exciting contrast for SDB crew and boarding troops, this ship does
go out and see a variety of interesting places and patrol/police/suppress
them. To reduce the number of volunteers for these slots to a reasonable
level the ship is a somewhat crowded, under-equipped hell-hole; after a
while, deck crew will enjoy reminiscing about pigboat duty.

  The crew is calculated per HG with some trimming of the command staff,
although it's still substantially larger than required by Book 2. The power
plant is a non-standard size; factor 4 rated, dropping fractions. Shutting
down the beam lasers adds one to Agility.

  There are two internal bays for 10 ton small craft; typically these are
troop landers/AFV's, but they could be fighters. Troops can be replaced by
low berths at a 4:1 ratio, which could provide some extra muscle for bad
situations, and beats storing disciplinary cases in a stockade :>

  The most cost-efective upgrade would be to install a TL 13 powerplant, 
and beef up the non troop strength related capabilities with the extra
24 Dt; the MCr 72 savings is a bonus. Easier for local construction would
be to import TL 13 or 14 weapons (if available) giving +1 factor to the
various offensive batteries - criticals on 400 Dt civvies!

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 02:57:34 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy, By The Numbers (long) 
...
>>   Since a warship can detect a silent running ship at 1 LS (p. 32) why
>> not have warships park at that orbital distance? Or a further such increment
>> out to allow overlap with the ranges of orbital facilities/craft?
>
>The Intruder and Target are at 4.25 light seconds, the 100 diameter jump curb.

  So the defenses are deliberately set up not to monitor the danger area? The
lowest possible orbit only makes sense if the defenders have only a single
SDB and choose to threaten a response universally.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 02:58:02 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Armoured hulls in High Guard 
>
>>   HG & Striker armours (although not the scaling system, even with the
>> conversion chart in S/B:2) are theoretically comparable. It seems very
>> likely that the "volume" requirements for HG armour go down as superior
>> materials are used at higher TL's (see the parallel to the Striker charts)
>> rather than them merely compacting the styrofoam more tightly.
>
>I said that already, didn't I?
>
>>   The fixed base % ("+1" at TL 14-15, varies by TL) must be structural
>> engineering (tabs & slots); a reasonable explanation for the increasing
>> marginal explicit cost of armour at all TLs is still lacking.
>
>Because the metal needs more working to fit the spaceframe?

  That's fairly credible, although the function still looks _really_
weird. Ignoring the fact that great big honking armour plates (which
eventually appear as ships get heavily armoured?) are almost certainly
fairly cheap to work with (although the capital to do so may not be -
similar to the problems with early iron plate armour), this is totally
at variance with Striker, and the turnover between that design system
and HG is over ten Dt, and quite possibly up to 100-200 Dt for heavy
orbital gunships.

  If such a factor exists in one of the other design systems (CSC, FFS
1 or 2) I'd like to know about it, particularly if the system in question
scales fairly smoothly from AFV up to heavy gunboat size.

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 02:58:23 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Piracy Payoffs

...
>> >shares is now worth 660,477 Cr.
>> >
>> >Which crew do you want to be with?
>> 
>>   Isn't there going to be a real problem with crews retiring after
>> one or two scores that big? And aren't such defectors going to be
>> real potential hassles in several respects?
>
>Possible.  But the tales they'll tell while 'on the beach' about their former 
>skipper would likely influence possible recruits in a positive manner.

  <giggle><snort>  Wouldn't the cops just _love_ that! Follow the rumours,
look up his crew papers to see if he's telling tall tales - and then bring
him in and question him if you think not. If he was a pirate you offer
clemency (time served if no murders?) and don't ask about his bank account,
in exchange for shopping the old crew.

  Would you join a lethally persecuted profession that relied on secrecy
after hearing about a contact from some drunken f*** in a startown bar?

  Honour among thieves?

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 08:44:36 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: What's a backwater?

At 12:56 AM 11/4/98 -0800, you wrote:
>...
>>>   So determining that providing warships and other defence systems for
>>> the mainworld and its' immediate area is impossibly expensive doesn't
>>> require any calculations?
>>
>>I wanna see them justify their defense spending in backwater worlds. /...
>
>  Before the work gets too much further we might want to define "backwater"
>for this purpose; assuming that it's off the main trade routes, what GDP
>are we basing exports off of, and what TL range are we talking?
>
Maybe not main trade routes, but at least far enough away from core society
that most people wouldn't give a rodents backside of care about. Sort of
like Southern Ohio/Appalachia.

***Note to potential flamers - Yes, I live there.***

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 08:40:39 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: Crime & Punishment (not Dostoevsky)

At 11:07 PM 11/3/98 -0800, you wrote:
>>> Out here (Las Vegas) some would say that depends on the ethnic background
>of
>>>the perpetrator <sarcastic grin>
>
>>  What, they shoot Yankees there?
>
>
>Heh. The Nevada desert is full of holes...
>
Thought most of them were from nuke tests. It's the people that end up with
bullet holes.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 08:27:13 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit 

At 11:01 PM 11/3/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> At 08:15 PM 11/3/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> >> You can jump anywhere. I've had players jump successfuly while inside an
>> >> atmosphere. Once a character dumped a cargo bay full of TDX onto a
Zhodani
>> >> town and decided he didn't want to wait for the planetary defense
system to
>> >> open up on him. I set the appropriate throw modifiers and he made the
role
>> >> without incident.
>> >
>> >It's concievable, I guess, if you roll a natural 2 on 2D6, or you allowed
>> DM's 
>> >for Pilot, Nav, and Engineering skills.  Otherwise, the stock +10 to the
>> roll 
>> >comes into play and they misjump on 13+.  Between me thee & the door
post, I 
>> >would NOT wanna try *that*.
>> 
>> Think the combined DM was +5, pilot had a 3, engineer had a 2, may have
>> even been a nav bonus in there somewhere. They weren't really worried about
>> the misjump, though :)
>
>These ain't in CT at all, just the distance, fuel, milspec, or scout ship
DM's.
>
>Keven

Your right, it isn't. I was playing MT rulesset at the time.

Like I posted in the piracy thread, I won't debate rulesset, so saying this
wouldn't work under CT will simply be ignored by me.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 13:44:55 +0000
From: Phil Kitching <postmark.design@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: Long range fire 

At 21:55 03/11/98 -0500, "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net> wrote:

<snip>
 
>Easy enough at range.  You only have to move 30 meters and at lightspeed
lag, 
>this translates to 3.529 meters per second, or well under 1/3 G.  Unless you 
>declare this can't be done using manuvering thrusters...

The Telstar XII is specifically designed to engage pirates who are attempting
to dock with ships out near the planet's 100D jump limit.

By definition such ships are not evading (unless the merchant ship is -
I don't think that it is possible to dock with a ship that is still evading.)

So the problem is just one of pointing and energy density.

Hmmm,

If you assume that it takes 30 min to dock, unload (or capture) and undock
then with no manoeuvre, you know where the ship will be for the next 30 min
so the laser shot has 15 min to get there.

That's 270 million km

At  TL13, given top of the range sensors, lasers and pointing devices...

	"Announcing the Telstar XIIIg grav focused x-ray communications satellite!

	"Capable of providing anti-piracy cover from stellar orbit 0
	 out to the close gas giants.

	"Expected availability Y400."

By TL15, they might even work

:-)

Phil Kitching
- --
  Phil Kitching <postmark.design@btinternet.com>
  Postmark Design Bureau, Emerging Technologies Division.
 "Microwaving half-baked ideas from across the Galaxy"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 08:47:04 -0500
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil>
Subject: Canon

I've been reading the discussions on canon with interest.  I'm curious
about a couple of things:

1.  What kind of transponders are used in TNE?
2.  Why do we assume that the DSR don't have 57th century Stealth to
mitigate againsth them?

(1) I logically can't see the intelligent transponders being used
anymore, after what happened (Virus?) so we go back to what we had
before... and a "bad idea" (in some people's opinions) goes away.

(2) Why don't some of the gearheads (excludes me) develop a workable(?)
stealth suite or other Sci-Fic technology that would be used to make the
ranges of the DSR and grav-focused lasers much less?  I believe that we
have had increases in offensive weaponry and sensors, but little in the
way of defending against them.  That would be an area of intense
research, I'd think.  Even to the degree of creating "shields" [ducking]
that are effective against lasers at extreme ranges....

Greg

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 09:10:15 -0500
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Phooey on canon! (Was: What canon means to me) 

"Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net> writes:
>> 
[snip]
> Marc has been remarkably
>> generous in giving permission for people to xerox out-of-print material
>> for other fans. Given that the list membership collectively has multiple
>> copies of everything ever published, I'd say everything _is_ available.
>
>Thing is, I've been on the net for *years*.  I only found out about the
>TML 
>list about a year & a half ago. 
[snip]
>
>
>Point I'm making is, the netizens of a Traveller-oriented mailing list
>are 
>going to be a small percentage of the people who bought Traveller to
>begin 
>with.  Sure, we've got permission to clone limited numbers of copies of
>the 
>GDW stuff, but what percentage of the old Traveller market is going to
>*need* 
>these?  I don't see it as a problem for Marc cause he's not really losing
>a 
>*LOT* of money.  If *everybody* that ever did Traveller was on the net
>and in 
>these groups, I'd expect the 'go ahead and clone them' policy to stop.

The point I was trying to make was that a WRITER could get access to the
material. While I don't expect every writer to know about the TML, I would
expect them to make a decent effort to get old material, which _is_
available. 

Part of the fault/responsibility lies with the editors, who should be
pointing out to writers where they can get the material (seeing as all the
current Traveller publishers, ie. Loren and Marc, have access to the TML).
IG was particularly bad about this, in that they didn't bother doing any
consistency checking and hired writers who didn't bother either. (Leaving
aside their habit of not paying for things.)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 07:24:45 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Move quickly!

"David J. Golden" wrote:
> 
> >Please distribute this to everyone (on earth, that is) you know.
> >
> >When John Glenn returns from space, everybody dress in Ape Suits.
> >
> >You have 6 days in which to bury the Statue of Liberty up to her
> head.
> 
Oh, damn, Dave...you nearly made me wet my pants laughing!!! :-)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 14:17:57 -0000
From: "Peter L.S. Trevor" <ptrevor.trisen@zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Bilanidin Font. Anyone have it or know where it is?

Cris Seamans wrote:
> On my old computer, before it crashed, I had a copy of the
> Bilanidin font installed. After the crash I lost it. Has anyone
> seen it "laying around"? Anyone have it? Any help would be much
> appreciated.




To get the Vilani TrueType font (Bilanidin) PC users click
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8275/bilani.zip

and Mac users click
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8275/Bilanidin.sit



Regards PLST
"Rome wasn't burned in a day."

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:44:53 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit (Exiting)

In a message dated 11/3/98 21:38:58 PM Pacific Standard Time,
nimrodd@fastlane.net writes:

<< Page 93 of the MT Imperial Encyclopedia (Starship Operating Procedures #10)
 states:
 "The ship emerges at the limit of the gravity well (at about 100 diameters
 out) of the destination world that the navigator designated in jump
 preparation." >>

	I guess I see the 100-D limit as the closest you can come out of jump to a
world...the gravity well then forces a starship out of jump.  There is no
requirement (as I see it) that you must come out exactly at that point.  As I
said in my original post...there may be reasons (both legit and shady) NOT to
come out at the 100-D limit (perhaps you have already overstayed your welcome
on this world previously...or you just may not want customs to examine you
cargo manifest. :-)

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 15:54:35 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Canon problem 3: The Kinunir question

David Jaques-Watson writes:

>- --------------------------------------------------
>CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question
> 
>PROBLEM: How do we reconcile the differences in canon over the Kinunir? The
>problem appears to be one of irreconcilable dates.
> 
>REF 3.1: _Adventure 1: The Kinunir_ states that the ship was lost in 1097
>(from memory).
>REF 3.2: _The Regency Sourcebook_ and now _Behind The Claw_ (the latter
>presumably quoting the former) state that the ship was discovered at
>Shionthy in 1105. The other ships of the class were then "fixed" (they
>talked to the AI computers with a very large hammer ;-).
>REF 3.3: The RSB and BTC also say that Norris obtained his Warrant from the
>ship, and this appears to have occurred sometime in 1108.
>REF 3.4: _Digest 9: Before the Iridium Throne_ says that Norris made his
>plea to Strephon at the same time that the four "Grand Tourers" were at
>Capital - that is, around 1104-5 (again from memory).
>REF 3.5: In _Survival Margin_, while forging his Archducal patent, Norris
>mentions that he had "done this before" with his 5FW Warrant.

If you will forgive me for not posting the reference (my books are at home),
I have another datum to add:

3.6: Somewhere (I _think_ it is in 5FW, but it could also be SMC) we're told
that the Norris' warrant was on a courier ship that was forced to land on
Algine. No details about what caused it to do so. Norris' dilemma was that
Algine was Interdicted and Santanocheev had specifically reinforced the
orders forbidding anyone from violating interdicts (pleny of scope for
conspiracy theories there, but no other hard facts). If the courier
contained his warrant, Norris could justify violating the interdict,
because he would then have the authority to overrule S. If it wasn't in
the courier, Norris would be in a LOT of trouble if he did. In the end
he did go down on Algine, retrieved the warrant, and went back and took
over from S.

My suggestion is to go back to this version. The warrant was never on the
Kinunir, so the discrepancy goes away.


      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: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:57:14 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: Crime & Punishment (not Dostoevsky)

In a message dated 11/3/98 22:59:48 PM Pacific Standard Time,
shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca writes:

<< >	Out here (Las Vegas) some would say that depends on the ethnic background
of
 >the perpetrator <sarcastic grin>
 
   What, they shoot Yankees there? >>

	Actually, it does sometimes seem that those of Hispanic and African-American
descent tend to try to shoot it out w/ the cops...Seth will recall the Ron
Mortenson case here locally.  For those not familiar w/ it, an off-duty Metro
officer went out and did a drive-by w/ his partner and killed a Latino teen.
The driver of the vehicle (his partner) was NOT charged in the killing (Daddy
was a Metro detective).

	This line of discussion could actually get out of hand...the Police Dept.
here is made up of, for the most part, very fine individuals. They do a very
difficult job and generally do it well.  They deserve all our support.

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 11:24:02 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: Bilanidin Font. Anyone have it or know where it is?

>To get the Vilani TrueType font (Bilanidin) PC users click
>http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8275/bilani.zip


Thank you. This is much appreciated

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:15:08 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 

>  I've noticed a conspicuous lack of commentary from the Old Guard of the
>"pro-pirate" school. Have you by any chance already indoctrinated them
>off-list?


mode.lurk=disabled

Alas, real life has a nasty habit of intruding...and with the current list
message volume, I am hard pressed just to keep up with the general topics of
the multitude of threads currently be discussed (as I demonstrated all to
graphically recently!  :)

(sigh)

douglas

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

mode.lurk=enabled

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:24:20 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Taking The Hit

>[classic KKM/nukes are no use against PDL discussion by me snipped]
>OK, I've already mentioned I don't own a copy of T4 or TNE.  This means I don't 
>have or use FFS.  So, I gotta ask about your point defense lasers a bit.

>Are you using the stock ruleset or a variant?

Stock rules in that in TNE and its supporting games (like BL), the designers
assumed that impact-type missiles were so useless that they didn't even include
rules for them (and explicitly mentioned them in the designers notes.) 
So somebody playing "official" TNE can't use such missiles. This had lead to
various irritated people on the list designing variant KKMs and trying to 
produce rules for them, and various other people coming up with variant 
point defence rules to better reflect this kind of interaction...but since
you don't want variants, we'll stick with not having the missiles :-) 
(If you do want variants, the general consensus is that the lasers win 
except against highly specialized very expensive missiles.)

>Second off, if you're going to use Real World Extrapolations, how do you defend 
>against a stealth bomber, or a stealth fighter?  And in the above mentioned supe
>rlaser, what happens if your target *also* has that superlaser system?  Hey, if 
>*you've* got it, somebody else does too.

I'm not sure what relevance this has... I wasn't worrying about whether you
could detect missiles (although a missile that's going to hit you is almost
certainly close enough to detect easily with active sensors.) In the real
world, it may well happen that both sides' aircraft will have lasers (some day-
currently only the US has the technology.) In that case, air battles in the
twentieth century may turn into duels between armoured laser-carrying 747-sized
aircraft...

In Traveller, of course both sides have lasers - so neither side can hit 
the target with a impact-type missile.

Bruce

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1095
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest    Wednesday, November 4 1998    Volume 1998 : Number 1096



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

May I suggest a small change to the list?
Re: Long range fire 
Re: Long range fire 
Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?
Weapons hits (Re: Taking The Hit)
Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question
Subsidized merchants (was Re: Piracy by the numbers)
Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?
[TML] Re: 100 Diameter limit
Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?
Re: Long range fire 
Re: Long range fire 
Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?
Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?
Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?
REPOST Economics of Piracy (Long)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:27:06 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: May I suggest a small change to the list?

Heyo,

Has anyone else noticed that list traffic is about 4x what it was a year
ago?  This is good...a lot of information goes by that I find very valuable.

However, it is making the administration of my mailbox...um...tedious.  I've
automated it somewhat, but there is no way, currently, to sort by subject
and there are (at least) 4 addresses associated with the TML.

What I would like to suggest, and since the TML is a majordomo list it is
fairly simple (a change of the configuration file would be required, making
it automatic), is that a header be added to the subject lines of mail coming
from the list.  [TML] seems appropriate, what do the rest of you think?

douglas

p.s.  I don't suppose everyone would be interested in also adding a code to
the subject line denoting the basic topic of their posts, would they?    ;^)

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:32:10 -0800 (PST)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: Long range fire 

Some ignored problems in long-range fire (not directly related to whether it's
possible):

a)  An evading ship isn't necessarily very accurate, there could be significant
problems with vibration-damping, and most high-resolution systems just don't
turn all that quickly.  Of course, making ships only able to fire while not
evading just turns combats into even more of a turkey-shoot (except at really
long ranges, it's probably better to shoot and not manuever than to manuever
and not shoot).

b)  All traveller rulesets I've seen ignore the fact that hitting with meson
fire if you don't have _exact_ rangefinding (to within the length of the target
vessel, basically) is essentially impossible.  There's too much space before
and after the target.  As such, a meson weapon at a light-second either
involves two sensors which are themselves a good part of a light-second across
(and have good communications, which is a problem at that distance) or are
using an active rangefinding sensor.

c)  While less obvious, the same rules apply to lasers.  FF&S lasers are
described as being focused down to a single square centimeter (so they have
reasonable penetration).  In order to get that level of focus at one
light-second with an X-ray laser, you need roughly a 3 meter (grav-focused)
mirror.  This isn't all that challenging to do -- but it means that a beam
which was 3 meters wide at it's base is focused down to one centimeter wide at
a light-second.  A 1% error in computing the distance to the target moves you a
significant distance along the cone, increasing the area the beam is focused in
from one square centimeter to about 8.  1% accuracy in range-finding with
30-meter visible light telescopes requires a pair of sensors at least 500
meters apart.  This means that single warships must, again, use active
rangefinding to be effective against hostile warships.

d)  Active rangefinding is probably relatively easy to deceive ;)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:47:58 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Long range fire 

I should note that (a) this debate might be better on TTL, and (b) a lot of it
is in the archives; I hope Mr. Pittsinger will try and dig it up.


>> A 30-m target at 4 lightseconds is 2.5x10^-8 radians in size (1 millionth
>> of a degree for the old-fashioned among us, 0.005 arcseconds for the
>> astronomers.) 

>Remember, in a vacuum, a laser beam shows no flash, so there's no *WAY* you 
>can tell if you've hit or not unless the target is getting painted.  If the 
>target moves as little as 30 meters in a random direction at range, your 
>calculations are thrown off and you're now shooting blind again.  And in 8.5 
>secs from rest, a 3G ship can move 255 meters.  Best spend the money for a 
>supercomputer to aim that super laser.

As a minor note, there is enough scattering off typical levels of 
interplanetary dust for a decent sensor to see the laser beam. However, this
isn't particularly crucial; the closed-loop tracking systems described in
my post pretty much guarantee that the laser goes where you think you've
pointed it, to about ten nanoradians or better. Yes, a ship can move out of
the way if it's accelerating randomly - but that's *not*the*case*we*were*talking
about (grumble, grumble); I was explicitly responding to a discussion of
non-evading targets and to Kevin imply that hitting a stationary 30-meter
target at 1 couple of lightseconds is difficult. It isn't. Evading targets,
yes - but I said that in my post. 


>How big is the *emitter* for this big honking laser that's cranking out all 
>this power out the business end to the grav focus?  And how much does this all>*cost*?
I'm not sure what you mean. The size of the laser and the price are defined
by your favourite rules set. In the real world, closed-loop fast steering
mirrors, sensors, and control systems are only $100K  for astronomical
applications. 

>> This is Bruce's First Rule of space combat: Lasers Never Miss.
>> (Modifierd by the Second Rule: "...unless the target gets out of the way.")

>Easy enough at range.  You only have to move 30 meters and at lightspeed lag, 
>this translates to 3.529 meters per second, or well under 1/3 G.  Unless you 
>declare this can't be done using manuvering thrusters...
I freely admit this; ships at several lightsecond range have a good chance
of evading fire. (The relevant acceleration at 4 lightseconds is 
given by (1/2)*(A)*(8sec)^2=30m for A=1 m/s^2 or one tenth
of a G. Of course, even one tenth of a G sustained for hours requires
a fair amount of power - you can't just sit there with your power plant
turned off...

>At a thousand klicks, your lightspeed lag is .0033 secs one way.  We'll assume 
>that the Laser projects a Beam visible from any angle, which doesn't happen in 
>the real world as well.  Assuming zero response time, this doubles to .0066, 
>as you see the results of your shot, correct, and shoot again.  Now, a missile 
>evading at 100G is moving 1000 meters per second minimum.  In that .0066 
>seconds, its position from rest changes 6.6 meters.  How bloody big *IS* this 
>missile????????
In the closed-loop case, seeing the beam is irrelevant. If the missile is
stationary, you'll hit it. If it's accelerating and evading, in 0.0066 seconds
it'll move (0.5)*(1000m/s)*(0.0066)^2=0.02 meters from its projected position;
the missile is certainly smaller than that. (You've used the wrong formula
for calculating how far something moves from rest or predicted course; it's
really (1/2)(acceleration)(time^2), which makes life really rough at short
ranges.

>How bright is a 30 meter metal target at 1.28 million clicks?  Assume flat 
>black paint.  You can't hit what you can't see.
This is a legitimate issue, though it's not what we're talking about; the
debate was about whether you can hit something at this range, not see it. I've
done a *lot* of work on the question of whether you can see it - my sensor
rules are available on a couple of web sites, and I recommend you take a
look at them. A 99% black 100 ton ship has a visible-light signature
of about -1; 1.5 million km is a range factor of 11.5, so a PEMS-12.5
will barely detect it and a PEMS-13.5 (about the right sensor for a small
warship) has a good chance. A 99.99% black hull ("military ultrablack" is
significantly harder. Of course, if the ship has any working powered systems
its much easier to see in the IR. In either case, you'd probably use a 
LIDAR for real fire control. The overall consensus in the interminable
pirate-hiding debate was that a clever pirate with an expensive ship can
hide from a moderate-to-low capability world's sensors, asssuming that
the world doesn't have 6-12 sensor stations or SDBs pre-deployed
around the hundred-D limit. 

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:53:00 -0800 (PST)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?

Douglas Glatz writes:
> However, it is making the administration of my mailbox...um...tedious. 
> I've automated it somewhat, but there is no way, currently, to sort by
> subject and there are (at least) 4 addresses associated with the TML.

Hm..not sure what 4 addresses you're thinking of, I've never seen it with
anything but traveller@mpgn.com.
> 
> What I would like to suggest, and since the TML is a majordomo list it is
> fairly simple (a change of the configuration file would be required, making
> it automatic), is that a header be added to the subject lines of mail
> coming from the list.  [TML] seems appropriate, what do the rest of you
> think? 

Tacking headers on is evil and unnecessary, any half-competent mail program can
recognize mail from the TML by scanning the headers for the address.  Also, it
takes up space in the message display window which would otherwise be available
for the subject of the message.
> 
> p.s.  I don't suppose everyone would be interested in also adding a code to
> the subject line denoting the basic topic of their posts, would they?   
> ;^) 

Given a choice between unreadable codes and readable subject lines, I'll take
the readable subject lines.  Given that people don't even change the subject
line when they're replying to digests (or when they're changing the subject), I
think it's safe to say expecting topic codes in messages is not going to
happen.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 12:04:05 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Weapons hits (Re: Taking The Hit)

Merrick, on starship combat:

>true in CT as well, weapon hits have always been too likely, but I
>guess you assume that the damage tables only count "good" hits).


I always assumed these type of hits not only included the weapon system
itself, but also the power grid that supplied the weapons. This made it
marginally more believable for me.

BTW, I found a variant starship damage table for MT I came up with several
years ago, the biggest difference being that all hits were rated according
to the Superficial/Minor/Major/Destroyed system in the MT task system. It's
typewritten, and I though about scanning it in to make a digital copy.
Would anyone like to see it?

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 12:04:08 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question

>>I was under the impression that Norris and Strephon never met in person.
>
>REF 3.6: In _Digest 9: Before the Iridium Throne_, Norris made his plea to
>Strephon via pseudo-reality hologram. No, they have never met. In the OTU
>(ie. MT/TNE) they never ever meet. Will they meet each other in G:T? Only
>time (and Loren) will tell...


Ooh. Norris and Strephon meet, and out comes Norris' handy snub pistol ...

GT Shattered Imperium, anyone?

<ducking>

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 12:04:07 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: Subsidized merchants (was Re: Piracy by the numbers)

>I wanna see them justify their defense spending in backwater worlds.  The
>theory that subbies *won't* visit backwaters is totally against the purpose
>the subbies were built in the first place.


The problem I have with this thinking is that it assumes governments that
are willing to subsidize big fat merchant ships aren't willing to subsidize
protection for said big fat merchant ships.

I don't think a subsidized route means an unprotected route. It can mean
that it is potentially more dangerous or less profitable. If anything, I
would think that subsidized merchants could *expect* escort, in order to
protect the multi-megacredit investment the government in question is
making. As mentioned previously, one lost subsidized merchant (or a badly
shot up one) is a worth a lot of anti-piracy measures.

To start a somewhat different thread, what would a standard subsidized
merchant contract be like? What are the legal issues involved? The
economic? Why subsidize a merchant? Would you see it only with relatively
"smaller" ships like the type R, or would there be subsidized
megafreighters in the multi-ktn range? Would megacorps be in on the action,
or would they be excluded for anti-trust reasons (isn't a megacorp close to
a monopoly anyway?).

I hope I can get as clear a rundown on the issues on this thread as I have
on the piracy thread.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 12:02:17 -0600
From: David Lightfinger <lightfinger@home.com>
Subject: Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?

Douglas Glatz wrote:
> 
> Heyo,
> 
> Has anyone else noticed that list traffic is about 4x what it was a year
> ago?  This is good...a lot of information goes by that I find very valuable.
> 
> However, it is making the administration of my mailbox...um...tedious.  I've
> automated it somewhat, but there is no way, currently, to sort by subject
> and there are (at least) 4 addresses associated with the TML.
> 
> What I would like to suggest, and since the TML is a majordomo list it is
> fairly simple (a change of the configuration file would be required, making
> it automatic), is that a header be added to the subject lines of mail coming
> from the list.  [TML] seems appropriate, what do the rest of you think?

I second this motion. I have 4 other mailing lists that get sent to my
account, two of them do not have headers - TML and a small, but
extremely important list to me. Thus, I have to wade through TML posts
to find the important posts. It will also make mail filters easier to
configure for others.

- --David

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 12:06:15 -0600
From: Ryan Dooley <ryan@coe.missouri.edu>
Subject: [TML] Re: 100 Diameter limit

<lurk mode off>

Hey There,

>>	3) NOWHERE in the rules does it say a ship MUST come out of jump only at the
>>100-D limit!!!
> 
> You can jump anywhere. I've had players jump successfuly while inside an
> atmosphere. Once a character dumped a cargo bay full of TDX onto a Zhodani
> town and decided he didn't want to wait for the planetary defense system to
> open up on him. I set the appropriate throw modifiers and he made the role
> without incident.

Once within a group very from a town not so far away, we barely made a
jump off the surface to avoid an orbital bombardment when a system we
nt from yellow to red overnight :) ... no we won't be doing that again
anytime soon, but it did make for a very dramatic exit for the intrepid
heros.

'Course we didn't end up anywhere that we recognized, in fact I can
remember the navigator sounding confused before he realized that that
gravity well essentially forced a misjump.

"Hrm.  That's not good." I said.  "So 1) do you know _where_ we ended
up? and 2) How much fuel do we have left".  The only reply was "nope
and none." ... oh well, the good old days :)

cheers,
	--ryan

  ryan@coe.missouri.edu ... (573) 882-2162 ... [573] 884=5158

  Key fingerprint = C2 61 A8 2E D4 93 57 1F  68 1D 2D 54 F3 51 70 B0

  Under US Code Title 47, Sec.227(b)(1)(C), Sec.227(a)(2)(B)
  This email address may not be added to any commercial mail list with out
  my permission.  Violation of my privacy with advertising or SPAM will
  result in a suit for a MINIMUM of $500 damages/incident, $1500 for repeats.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 13:09:50 -0500
From: Rob Miracle <rwm@tansoft.com>
Subject: Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?

This was proposed last year and we changed it for a few days to see how it was
liked.  There was a 51% against / 49% for, so we didn't go for it.  If you are
using mail software that filters, it shouldn't be an issue.  All mail should
have a From: line of traveller@mpgn.com

The one situation where I would like the codes is at nights and weekends, were
I dial into the Unix boxes and use (cough) ELM (choke) to read my mail.  ELM's
filtering (if you
can call it that) is painful at best, but a majority of the subscribers are
using a real mail program any way.

Rob


At 09:53 AM 11/4/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Douglas Glatz writes:
>> However, it is making the administration of my mailbox...um...tedious. 
>> I've automated it somewhat, but there is no way, currently, to sort by
>> subject and there are (at least) 4 addresses associated with the TML.
>
>Hm..not sure what 4 addresses you're thinking of, I've never seen it with
>anything but traveller@mpgn.com.
>> 
>> What I would like to suggest, and since the TML is a majordomo list it is
>> fairly simple (a change of the configuration file would be required, making
>> it automatic), is that a header be added to the subject lines of mail
>> coming from the list.  [TML] seems appropriate, what do the rest of you
>> think? 
>
>Tacking headers on is evil and unnecessary, any half-competent mail program
can
>recognize mail from the TML by scanning the headers for the address.  Also, it
>takes up space in the message display window which would otherwise be
available
>for the subject of the message.
>> 
>> p.s.  I don't suppose everyone would be interested in also adding a code to
>> the subject line denoting the basic topic of their posts, would they?   
>> ;^) 
>
>Given a choice between unreadable codes and readable subject lines, I'll take
>the readable subject lines.  Given that people don't even change the subject
>line when they're replying to digests (or when they're changing the subject),
I
>think it's safe to say expecting topic codes in messages is not going to
>happen.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 10:12:23 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Long range fire 

Phil Kitching writes
>The Telstar XII is specifically designed to engage pirates who are attempting
>to dock with ships out near the planet's 100D jump limit.
>By definition such ships are not evading (unless the merchant ship is -
>I don't think that it is possible to dock with a ship that is still evading.)
>If you assume that it takes 30 min to dock, unload (or capture) and undock
>then with no manoeuvre

Another interesting approach is a missile. The one case that even I - the
most rabid of anit-KKM people - will admit a KKM is useful for is against
stationary targets; an incoming fragmentation missile can detonate/deploy
submuntions 30,000 km out or so, far enough out to be relatively safe
from point defence fire. 
It takes about 80 G to get to
the 100-diameter limit from a standing start in 30 minutes. It should be
possible to design a TL13 or 14 HEPlaR missile that can do 80 G for
half an hour, with a warhead of (say) 1000 kg of BSD rods (maybe 100x10 kg
rods; they deploy 30 second before impact into a ~10m radius circle.)
That pretty much guarantees 1-2 rods hitting the target at about 1400 km/s,
with 10000 MJ of energy each - enough to cripple a typical target. 
(1000x1kg rods might be more efficient.) It'll be a big expensive missile,
of course, and you'll need to fire about 10 of them to make sure one gets
through.

The downside is: the merchant gets hit by several rods and probably gets
completely destroyed, but the merchant's family will be deeply consoled by
the knowledge that the pirates were caught to.

(Of course in practice, the pirate will see the missile coming and
run away at the last minute - it creates a race between the pirates
unloading cargo and the missile coming in.)

Advertising to sell this without merchants catching on would be tricky.
"Introducing the BAMTech BT-100 'Ineluctable Doom' Fast Rescue Launch...
delivering a tonne of vital metal supplies to distressed merchants within half
an hour or less." 

(Hopefully Kevin et al will realize that all this is heavily tounge-in-cheek.)

(Seriously, it's worth noting that a merchant with either no operational laser
or no operational drive is also incredibly vulnerable to kinetic weapons - 
vulnerable enough that a sensible merchant will pretty much surrender
immediately once its in that state; a pirate could otherwise pretty much
destroy the ship with only a couple of missiles.)

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 10:55:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@iii.com>
Subject: Re: Long range fire 

Bruce Alan Macintosh writes:
> It takes about 80 G to get to
> the 100-diameter limit from a standing start in 30 minutes. It should be
> possible to design a TL13 or 14 HEPlaR missile that can do 80 G for
> half an hour, with a warhead of (say) 1000 kg of BSD rods (maybe 100x10 kg
> rods; they deploy 30 second before impact into a ~10m radius circle.)
Actually, make it a mix of submunitions -- I'm not certain of the performance
of TL 13 chemical rockets, but 20 seconds * 15 Gs is almost certainly viable
and sufficient to handle last-minute manuevering by most vehicles.  Deploy 20
seconds before impact, give five of the missiles sensors and short-range
moderately tight beam comms (mostly, the comm needs to not go towards the
target ship) and the remainder receivers (it may be viable to give all of the
missiles sensors, but picking up a ship at a hex might be tricky even though
you know where it is).  Unless all of the sensor missiles are killed, control
is sufficient that (even against an evading target) _all_ of the missiles will
hit -- ballistic systems in space easily match laser accuracy -- and you can
avoid hitting the merchant at all.

This is not to say that this is all that ideal a weapon system, it's probably
inferior to a xaser warhead, but it isn't unusable.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 11:14:20 -0800
From: "Douglas Glatz" <douglas@teleport.COM>
Subject: Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?

>This was proposed last year and we changed it for a few days to see how it
was
>liked.  There was a 51% against / 49% for, so we didn't go for it.  If you
are
>using mail software that filters, it shouldn't be an issue.  All mail
should
>have a From: line of traveller@mpgn.com


I remember that - tho' I didn't realize there was a vote being take on the
issue!  :)

>
>The one situation where I would like the codes is at nights and weekends,
were
>I dial into the Unix boxes and use (cough) ELM (choke) to read my mail.
ELM's
>filtering (if you
>can call it that) is painful at best, but a majority of the subscribers are
>using a real mail program any way.


I used to use PINE extensively - but something at either my ISP or here at
work changed.  Now when I open PINE, it resets any mail that is sitting in
my mailbox to (as far as either Netscape Mail or Outlook Express is
concerned) 'new'.  Since I have my work machine set up to download copies of
(but not remove from the server) my mail...well with the 100+ messages the
TML is generating per day (and the fact I only download/remove mail from
home every couple of days) it can get ugly.

>
>Rob
>
>
>At 09:53 AM 11/4/98 -0800, you wrote:
>>Douglas Glatz writes:
>>> However, it is making the administration of my mailbox...um...tedious.
>>> I've automated it somewhat, but there is no way, currently, to sort by
>>> subject and there are (at least) 4 addresses associated with the TML.
>>
>>Hm..not sure what 4 addresses you're thinking of, I've never seen it with
>>anything but traveller@mpgn.com.
>>>

I hate it when assumptions I made three years ago, creep up and bite me
today.  You are correct - I should
be able to filter on two addresses (traveller@mpgn.com and
traveller-digest@lists.mpgn.com).  For some reason (probably dating back to
when I was learning to read headers) - I got it into my head that there was
a phaser-showcase address as well.

>>> What I would like to suggest, and since the TML is a majordomo list it
is
>>> fairly simple (a change of the configuration file would be required,
making
>>> it automatic), is that a header be added to the subject lines of mail
>>> coming from the list.  [TML] seems appropriate, what do the rest of you
>>> think?
>>
>>Tacking headers on is evil and unnecessary, any half-competent mail
program
>can
>>recognize mail from the TML by scanning the headers for the address.
Also, it
>>takes up space in the message display window which would otherwise be
>available
>>for the subject of the message.

Short is good, well - not evil any way.  And it does tend to tag a message
as to the source, which is also good.  Personal viewpoint I guess....

>>>
>>> p.s.  I don't suppose everyone would be interested in also adding a code
to
>>> the subject line denoting the basic topic of their posts, would they?
>>> ;^)
>>


ok, ok!  I was joking!  :)

douglas

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~douglas/traveller
IMTU tc+ t4+ tg- ru(+) ge(+) 3I+@ pi+ jt au- st ls
The early bird gets the worm, BUT
   the second mouse gets the cheese!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 14:33:54 -0500
From: Rob Miracle <rwm@tansoft.com>
Subject: Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?

At 11:14 AM 11/4/98 -0800, you wrote:
>>This was proposed last year and we changed it for a few days to see how it
>was
>>liked.  There was a 51% against / 49% for, so we didn't go for it.  If you
>are
>>using mail software that filters, it shouldn't be an issue.  All mail
>should
>>have a From: line of traveller@mpgn.com
>
>
>I remember that - tho' I didn't realize there was a vote being take on the
>issue!  :)

Looks like (according to my Votes mail box -- us pack rats don't throw anything
away) that we voted on it from 2/9/97 through 2/20/97 so it has been a couple
of years.  I think one of the big concerns was for the digest readers which
represent a majority of the subscribers to the list having all that extra [TML]
put in the subject listings of the digests.  It would be quite annoying there.

Rob

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 14:40:17 -0500
From: Kurt Feltenberger <kurt@blazenet.net>
Subject: Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?

The area the subject code, [TML], would really help is when people cross
post to several lists at once.  My filters are set to look at the address,
but, when they are sent as part of a mass posting, sometimes I have three
or more copies of the same post in the same mailbox.

Kurt


At 01:09 PM 11/4/98 -0500, you wrote:
>This was proposed last year and we changed it for a few days to see how it was
>liked.  There was a 51% against / 49% for, so we didn't go for it.  If you are
>using mail software that filters, it shouldn't be an issue.  All mail should
>have a From: line of traveller@mpgn.com
>
>The one situation where I would like the codes is at nights and weekends, were
>I dial into the Unix boxes and use (cough) ELM (choke) to read my mail.  ELM's
>filtering (if you
>can call it that) is painful at best, but a majority of the subscribers are
>using a real mail program any way.
>
>Rob
>
>
>At 09:53 AM 11/4/98 -0800, you wrote:
>>Douglas Glatz writes:
>>> However, it is making the administration of my mailbox...um...tedious. 
>>> I've automated it somewhat, but there is no way, currently, to sort by
>>> subject and there are (at least) 4 addresses associated with the TML.
>>
>>Hm..not sure what 4 addresses you're thinking of, I've never seen it with
>>anything but traveller@mpgn.com.
>>> 
>>> What I would like to suggest, and since the TML is a majordomo list it is
>>> fairly simple (a change of the configuration file would be required, making
>>> it automatic), is that a header be added to the subject lines of mail
>>> coming from the list.  [TML] seems appropriate, what do the rest of you
>>> think? 
>>
>>Tacking headers on is evil and unnecessary, any half-competent mail program
>can
>>recognize mail from the TML by scanning the headers for the address.
Also, it
>>takes up space in the message display window which would otherwise be
>available
>>for the subject of the message.
>>> 
>>> p.s.  I don't suppose everyone would be interested in also adding a code to
>>> the subject line denoting the basic topic of their posts, would they?   
>>> ;^) 
>>
>>Given a choice between unreadable codes and readable subject lines, I'll take
>>the readable subject lines.  Given that people don't even change the subject
>>line when they're replying to digests (or when they're changing the subject),
>I
>>think it's safe to say expecting topic codes in messages is not going to
>>happen.


Kurt Feltenberger

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a
habit.
- --- Aristotle ---

mailto:kurt@blazenet.net

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 11:51:59 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: REPOST Economics of Piracy (Long)

This is for Keven Pittsinger, my attempt to mail it direct came back with
errors. My apologies to the rest of the list.

Repost begins:
- -----------------------
I'm working on the numbers at home, but I thought I'd give a little
preview of the ideas I'm working with. To wit: what a pirate gets
for his troubles.

Let's assume we're using a 400tn _Nishemani_ class corsair, the
classic example pirate ship - probably a refitted armed merchant
or paramilitary ship. It's got a 110tn cargo bay that can, among
other things, hold a 100tn ship. Like a type-S Scout, or a Seeker,
or an X-Boat, or any one of those small craft that are all over an
inhabited system. It also has twenty low berths, so you have
somewhere to put the crews of those craft.

Now, I've got some assumptions about piracy that I'd like to
reiterate, just so critics know my basis and can kibbitz properly.

1. Pirates need to clear out quickly; for most targets, the patrol
will be on the way.

This limits what you can take. Small craft (the big profits). Vehicles. 
Vac suits. Supplies. Passenger valuables. Select items from the 
cargo bay. The contents of the ship's safe. Missiles & sand canisters
(if the target hasn't "given" them to you already).

What you can't take: Ship components. Bulky cargo items. Fuel.
Starship weapons. Valuable things, but you simply don't have the
time to get them.

This will not apply if you've hit the target in an unpatrolled system, and
that's good - you may well have taken a hit or two from a target well-
equipped enough to be in an unpatrolled system alone, you'll need all
the booty you can get.

2. It's very hard to jump away a starship you take.

If the target had fuel, it would have jumped away from you. It's almost
trivial for the crew of the target to lock out their computers long enough
for the patrol to catch up. And if you had to put a couple laser bolts into
their Engineering Compartment to convince them to give up, they're
not going anywhere anyway.

There will be exceptions to this, but I feel they will be rare enough that
we can ignore them for the purposes of this study. The captain who
succeeds at taking and selling a major starship has a right to be proud
of his unusual accomplishment.

3. You can use or sell what you take.

Here are my assumptions on value for items:

- ----------------------------

Starships: 10% of value. Starships are so well documented that it is
expensive to dispose of stolen ones. They may simply be used as
auxiliaries to the "pirate fleet". Few will be taken, as per #2 above.

Small Craft: 25% of value. They are more ubiquitous, and tend not to
be kept track of in interstellar databases as much. (note: one lifeboat
taken will pay all maintenance, life support and salary costs for a
400tn corsair for about three years).

Vehicles: 25% of value, for the same reasons as small craft.

Supplies: Spare parts, tools and life support essentials can be taken.
There is a bit of a handwave here, but I assume that the pirate can use
these to defray some costs of life support and to affect the price of his
annual maintenance. Total up what the target ship spent on life support
for the current trip, and credit the pirate 25% of that towards his life
support expenses only. As for annual maintenance, reduce the cost
to the standard .1% per year - the stolen parts and tools help make
up for the bribes and extra costs, even in a law level zero port, of
getting annual maintenance done on a less than legal starship.

Vac Suits: assume one per crew member of the target, plus two
spares. Each one worth Cr10,000, pirate recoups 25% of that.

Rescue Balls: Assume one per passenger including low berths, 
Cr600 each, pirate recoups 25% of that.

Passenger valuables: Assume, as a minimum average, cash and other
easily convertable valuables on hand equal to the price paid for passage.
These valuables are recouped with no reduction (or the reduction is
included in the average). High passenger Cr10,000, Low passenger
Cr1000, Middle passenger Cr8,000.

Ship's Safe: Ships need to carry cash, they can't remain on-planet
long enough for credit to clear in a crisis - whether it's a fine that needs
to be paid or an opportunity speculative cargo. Figure as an estimated
average, Cr25000 per 100tns of ship. Note that my only real source
for this is the Cr100,000 the _March Harrier_ had on hand at the start
of _The Traveller Adventure_, it may be much higher. This will be in
cash, recouped at 100% of value.

Ship's Locker: Ignored. Assume that items go to replenish equipment
stores on the pirate, the locker is really so varied from ship to ship
that it's hard to come up with an average. We can safely assume that
a pirate ship will run out of storage space, rather than run out of
miscellaneous equipment.

(However, a note: in the AD&D game, the most commonly overlooked
type of treasure is household goods. Those kobolds may have only
had a handful of pennies, but that big iron cookpot is worth a gold piece
or two.)

Cargo: The pirates will have to (very) quickly evaluate the cargo, and
guess what they have time to take. A zero-G cargo handler robot or
exoskeleton would be a very good thing here. Variation is too high
to allow a very useful average value of what can be taken, as one ship
may have two tons of gemstones while another may have nothing but
grain. I decided on allowing the pirates to recoup an average value of
Cr250 per cargo ton of the target (25% of Cr1000 per ton). This allows
some losses for travel, middlemen, and the other expenses of getting
even a valuable cargo to market.

(Note: In AD&D, the second most often ignored type of treasure was
trade goods. <G>)

Passengers: I decided to leave kidnapping for ransom or slavery out of
the equations. There will be exceptions, and I even have some ideas
(for later) that the slow communications time of the Imperium may make
kidnapping for ransom far easier than it is on Earth today, if you are 
patient or ruthless enough.

- ---------------------------

With the above numbers, I've hit a tentative conclusion as to what a
pirate needs to do to keep going: 

A Far or Free Trader will get him about Cr100000. A Fat Trader will get
him about MCr3 and change. Small craft are worth several MCr each.

Not counting the value of the ship, the pirate needs to spend about
MCr1 a year in maintenance, salary and expenses. 

So:

One starship taken in the course of a corsair ship's career will pretty
much amortize the entire value of the pirate ship for five years or
more.

Each small craft taken and popped into the cargo bay will pay
expenses for at least two years, or pay part of the value of the
pirate vessel. 15 lifeboat/launches is all it takes to completely pay
off the current value of a 400tn Corsair, pinnaces and ship's boats are
worth even more.

Ten Free Traders taken in a year will pay all expenses except battle
damage.

One Fat Trader taken will pay all expenses for about three years except
battle damage.

Most battle damage will probably occur in an unpatrolled system,
as the stakes are higher and the target vessel is probably better armed.
Unpatrolled systems are the only systems where a pirate will want to
fight at all - the risks are too high compared to the rewards in a system
where patrol ships are en route to the fight.
Targets taken in unpatrolled systems can almost always be considered
valuable enough to cover cost of damage - unless the damage stops
the pirate from jumping back to base.

Therefore:

Even if a pirate has to hunt for an entire year to bag one Fat Trader,
he's still making reasonable money. I believe this answers some 
arguments that a pirate loses too much money by lying in wait for 
targets, or by having to transit several systems to get from a base 
to a good hunting area.

Income can be far, far higher than just expenses if the pirate hits a few
good targets. This allows there to be enough income potential to make
up for the really bad luck a pirate can have - one missile hit can cost
millions, even if it doesn't kill you. Piracy therefore becomes high-risk,
but very profitable if the risks pan out.

There may be more efficient uses for a starship than piracy, but there are
people who cannot do legal careers for various reasons and ships they'd
not be able to use legally. Combine the two, and you get Corsairs.
 I believe my analyses show that a pirate can make money, if the setting
IYTU allows them to survive and travel.

Please take a look at my assumptions, especially those on the value
of the booty, and comment - these assumptions are critical to the
economic viability of the pirate career.
- --------------------

Walt Smith

Walt Smith
System Manager
Hartwick College
Oneonta, NY
smithw@hartwick.edu

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1096
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest    Wednesday, November 4 1998    Volume 1998 : Number 1097



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Off topic
Re: Taking The Hit6
re: Small Craft Sensors under High Guard
re: Piracy
Re: Long range fire 
Re: Taking The Hit
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1095
Traveller Web Site
Near Star List and Earth's Subsector
SDBs (was Re: Taking The Hit)
Re: Piracy by the numbers
Re: canon
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1095
Re: A little different Traveller 
Re: Move quickly! 
Re: Medicine in Traveller...
Re: canon
Re: Not Taking the Hit 
Re: 100 Diameter limit (Exiting) 
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1095

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 12:47:07 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Off topic

Wayne Ewart wrote:
> 
> >> The United States on the other hand is influenced by an entirely
> different
> >>set of parameters.... This country was frontier when settled. It was vital
> >
> >  So was Canada...
> >
> But the US was settled by sending out the settlers first then the law (as
> show by US old west lore). Canada sent the law out first then sent settlers
> (Canadian lore of the NWMP{now known as RCMP})

Well, lore and reality are two very different things. Actual accounts of
the settling of the US west show it to be a roung, hard, somewhat
dangerous, and rather staid way of life. There was effective law
enforcement, on the whole. People moved with sheriffs and judges as they
went.

In actuality, what is typically precieved as 'the American west': the
shootout at the OK corral, Dodge City, Jesse James, Butch and Sundance,
etc, occured in the 1860's and 70s, long after the initial settlements,
and a well established justice system was in place.  One cause was the
displacement of vast numbers of trained, armed soldiers, mostly
Confederates after the civil war. (the James brothers, IIRC were members
Quantrells Raiders, a Confederate guerilla group...what would be called
specops forces nowadays.)In Traveller terms you see the same thing
occurring after the FFW, as Vargr combatants turn to raiding, (big
surprise there :-) or during the waning days of the Rebellion,
particularly in the conflict zone betwen Margaret's realm and the
Solomani. See Survival Margin for some examples.

The other cause was cowboys coming into town, getting paid three or four
months wages at once as the cattle they were driving were sold, and
hitting the entertainment spots in town, where the townsfolk cooperated
heartily in separating them from as much of that cash as possible. 

The other major areas of lawlessness were, as always, mining boom towns,
same cause as the cowboys. People come into town with a sudden
accumulation of wealth, alcohol flows feely, and that's a volatile mix.
 
- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 12:57:43 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Taking The Hit6

 
> >Are you using the stock ruleset or a variant?
> 
> Stock rules in that in TNE and its supporting games (like BL), the designers
>assumed that impact-type missiles were so useless that they didn't even include
> rules for them (and explicitly mentioned them in the designers notes.) 
> So somebody playing "official" TNE can't use such missiles. This had lead to
> various irritated people on the list designing variant KKMs and trying to 
> produce rules for them, and various other people coming up with variant 
> point defence rules to better reflect this kind of interaction...but since
> you don't want variants, we'll stick with not having the missiles :-) 

Since the design rules are canon, if you want to be a nitpicker
about it it's canon if you can design it :-)

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:14:02 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Small Craft Sensors under High Guard

Steven Hudson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
  Theoretically then, fighters could come under the "military starship
sensor" heading, and SDB's must. To avoid munchkinism it might be best
to restrict B:2 era light fighters to "ordinary" sensors, and restrict
the best gear to small craft with bridges. Thus a 95 Dt "Slavering
Hamster" gunship with a MCr 0.475 mil-spec bridge would get the two LS
coverage while smaller units mostly wouldn't.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I really like the interpretation that a small craft bridge on a military ship
includes milspec sensors. Put bridges on command and recon fighters,
have other fightercraft more limited.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:02:27 -0500
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Piracy

Keven Pittsinger wrote, on computer lockouts:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I've not seen a computer program survive a 'red switch' since the 70's.  Are 
you going to introduce a virus program into the computer's OS?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My installation's computers do plenty of security things when I boot them 
up. It would be a cinch to have a merchant ship's computer time lock 
generate/jump software if it's rebooted and it's initial sensor data shows a 
"we've been boarded by pirates" scenario. Military ships wouldn't want
this ("Good, the damaged computer is back on line. Emergency
jump escape maneuver alpha!!"), but merchie ship owners would gladly
trade the two hours lost flight time for a greater chance of keeping
their very expensive ship.

If all the pirates in a sector know that Cadmo Shipping has all their
ship's computers set up this way, they'll know they'll not take a 
Cadmo ship with them and will attack other targets. How long before
other shipping companies follow suit?

The pirate crew can get around this, if they have a competent
computer hacker on their crew. I already said a competent computer
hacker would get them around this.

Keven again, on crew disabling their computers:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Wouldn't those Security Officers be trying to repel the boarders?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Disabling the ship's computers would take a couple of seconds.
Matching velocities, docking and boarding will take tens of minutes.
The security officer will have plenty of time.

Keven again:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Fuel hits only take a couple percentage points of fuel out.  I don't see the 
Junior Purser dumping fuel to deny the jump; with luck, the Target can still 
make an emergency jump.  If the ship is captured before the jump, the pirates 
*might* let the crew & passengers live if a jump isn't denied to them.  I 
don't see them being that charitable if the Junior Purser dumps the fuel.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Murder the crew, say hello to the flotilla of IN patrol units that will convert
your M to E by way of C squared in one volley, turnaround or not.

When you rob a convenience store, you're taking a day's profits and the
owner will probably go along with it. You take the whole ship, you're
stealing someone's life, livelihood, home and world. The crew will take
some risk to prevent you from taking the ship with them, or will risk
a misjump if they have the fuel.

Keven, I realize that taking a ship - even a dinky Free Trader - is the BIG
SCORE  for a pirate. Realize what this big score costs other people.
These other people will take measures to reduce your chance of taking
a big score out of their pockets, even if it means a risk to those crewmen
they hired last month. The "chicken stealing" you're turning your nose
up at is livelihood of a pirate, it pays the bills and keeps the ship in the
game until all the luck comes up right and you get a shot at the big score.

How many employee's lives will an investment firm put at risk to reduce
the chance of losing a MCr300 asset, especially if taking those steps
regularly will reduce the chance (in the long run) that either employees
or asset will be put at risk?

There's no point in threatening to kill the crew if you can't steal the ship,
when you and the crew both know that things have been arranged so you 
can't steal the ship itself. All those threats will do is make your target 
scared and dangerous.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 12:08:04 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Long range fire 

>Some ignored problems in long-range fire

>a)  An evading ship isn't necessarily very accurate, there could be significant
>problems with vibration-damping, and most high-resolution systems just don't
>turn all that quickly.
This one probably isn't much of a problem. The closed-loop fast-steering-mirror
system will take out vibrations as well as any other small, fast motions.
The tracking for big motions (like the rotation of the ship) can therefore
be much less precise - systems that track at 10 degrees/second should be 
fairly practical.

>b)  All traveller rulesets I've seen ignore the fact that hitting with meson
>fire if you don't have _exact_ rangefinding (to within the length of the target
>vessel, basically) is essentially impossible. 
I did actually put this into my MCS rules - evasion is more effective against
meson fire.

>c)  While less obvious, the same rules apply to lasers.
>[discussion of focussing meaning the beam spreads]
There's another reason you need accurate range: you can't figure out how
much to "
lead the target by unless you know how far away it is. This drives rangefinding
to be much more precise than a percent. Of course, as you fire multiple shots
you can "walk" them in...or a really good sensor operator could use the 
information from his own ship's acceleration to calculate range (like a passive
sonar getting range today from speed information), but accurate weapons fire
will require active sensors. (To simulate this, make laser fire one or two
difficulty levels higher unless
(a) the target is detected with active sensors
(b) two or more ships have a passive detection of the target
(c) the firing ship's sensor operator makes an Impossible sensor roll

>1% accuracy in range-finding with
>30-meter visible light telescopes requires a pair of sensors at least 500
>meters apart.

I think this is not quite correct (probably dropped a couple of important
factors...) A 30-m telescope can measure a position to within 10^-10 radians...

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 15:21:37 EST
From: Sethkimmel@aol.com
Subject: Re: Taking The Hit

In a message dated 11/3/98 9:16:01 PM Pacific Standard Time,
merrick@shell.rt66.com writes:

<< Remember that a 600dton ship is virtually small craft to real naval
 ships. BTW, the 400dton SDB is a cool ship (I've always loved the
 look of them), but "real" SDBs need to be big enough to be useful
 units in a naval engagement (on _some_ level).>>


I think canon (Ack!) said somewhere that they can get to 5000 tons disp. I
have seen SDB's in JTAS#22 that were 1000 and 2000 tons. Sturdy birds...

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 12:41:48 -0800
From: "Leo Hale" <lhale@panlabs.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1095

- ------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 08:47:04 -0500
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil>
Subject: Canon

I've been reading the discussions on canon with interest.  I'm curious
about a couple of things:

1.  What kind of transponders are used in TNE?
______________________________
We never used any, since most of the problems had come about do to their
use we determined that the RCES did not use them.  Any ship that entered
RCES space was challanged and fired upon if they did not respond ASAP.


2.  Why do we assume that the DSR don't have 57th century Stealth to
mitigate againsth them?
_______________________________
Not touching this one with a ten foot poll.



(1) I logically can't see the intelligent transponders being used
anymore, after what happened (Virus?) so we go back to what we had
before... and a "bad idea" (in some people's opinions) goes away.

(2) Why don't some of the gearheads (excludes me) develop a workable(?)
stealth suite or other Sci-Fic technology that would be used to make the
ranges of the DSR and grav-focused lasers much less?  I believe that we
have had increases in offensive weaponry and sensors, but little in the
way of defending against them.  That would be an area of intense
research, I'd think.  Even to the degree of creating "shields" [ducking]
that are effective against lasers at extreme ranges....

Greg

- ------------------------------

Maybe people are afraid of changing Traveller so much that it soon
      resembles one of many T.V. or movie SciFi items.



Leo

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 15:48:45 -0500
From: Andy Slack <AndySlack@compuserve.com>
Subject: Traveller Web Site

Good start. Things I'd like to see...

1. Every so often an update on how T5 is going.
   (I approve of taking the time to do it right,
   but my heart sank a little at the thought of
   late 1999.) What bits you are working on,
   whatever you can say about discussions with
   publisher(s).

2. A "T5 Lite" for download as SJG have done for
   GURPS - core rules in say 4 or 8 pages. I think
   the guts of the task system, fast character
   generation, combat and equipment could be done
   in a page apiece. I'd be happy to help with
   this if that's of interest.

3. Errata for T5 as and when published.

Have you considered publishing an e-copy of the
rules, say via Hyperbooks? It seems to work for
Greg Porter with 3G3.

Cheers -
Andy

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 15:48:37 -0500
From: Andy Slack <AndySlack@compuserve.com>
Subject: Near Star List and Earth's Subsector

Message text written by Thomas Vickers:
>Seems like I remember someone wondering how the
real stars would convert to the subsector containing
earth.
Here is a page that converts 2300's core sector
(which is based on real stars around earth) to a
Traveller subsector.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/AndySlack/Ch75b.htm
This might be interesting for you.<

Thanks for the plug TV! Should have a map to go with it
sometime in the not too distant future...

Things for interested gearheads:

1. The map uses the Gliese data from 2300 AD, not the more recent
   Hipparcos stuff.
2. It hasn't been converted to galactic co-ordinates, which is
   what a proper canon Traveller map would use.
3. It only shows inhabited worlds on the 2300 AD 'mains' as
   otherwise the map gets a wee bit crowded when you squash it
   into 2D.
4. If you're seriously into real starmaps, check out a website
   called "The Weird World of Winchell Chung" (can't remember the
   URL, but you shouldn't get too many hits for that title).
5. I'm sure I came across an Earth Colonies Development League
   webpage with a similar approach using 10x8x9 subsectors and
   real stars. Damn, can't remember the author's name or the URL.
   Some cool aliens too.

Andy

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 15:10:40 -0600
From: yikes@evansville.net (Joseph R. Dietrich)
Subject: SDBs (was Re: Taking The Hit)

><< Remember that a 600dton ship is virtually small craft to real naval
> ships. BTW, the 400dton SDB is a cool ship (I've always loved the
> look of them), but "real" SDBs need to be big enough to be useful
> units in a naval engagement (on _some_ level).>>
>
>I think canon (Ack!) said somewhere that they can get to 5000 tons disp. I
>have seen SDB's in JTAS#22 that were 1000 and 2000 tons. Sturdy birds...


Let's not forget Defense *CruRon* Regina mentioned in the _Rebellion
Sourcebook_ and _Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium_, as well as
other references to "monitors" in various sources. IIRC, the former was
listed as an example of a system squadron (and thus are non-jump capable
system defense boats).

I am under the impression (from the _Imperium_ boardgame) that BB sized
SDBs (i.e., monitors) are not uncommon in the Imperium.

Ciao,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 16:14:39
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Piracy by the numbers 
>
>I wanna see them justify their defense spending in backwater worlds.  The 
>theory that subbies *won't* visit backwaters is totally against the purpose 
>the subbies were built in the first place.
>

Sure. Lets deal with a backwater world. 10 million population, TL8. Average
income is therefore Cr 8000 a head. Now I cant find my copy of Striker Book
2 right now, so I'm going to assume their credit trades at 0.3 to a TL12,
Starport B credit.

This world spends 1% of GDP on System Defense, buying the excellent Pirahna
class SDBs (I'd guess they'd spend another 1% on their army, and kick 1% to
the IN). This is Cr 80 per head, or Cr 25 a head in the credits.

Assume that Piranha class costs 20% of sticker cost per year in
maintainence. We can therefore easily afford to keep a fleet of eight.

Two are getting repaired, three are in reserve, and three are ready to
escort outgoing convoys, including to any mining camps in the system. If we
have any change, we'll buy a couple of type S scouts, in order to have a
courier service. With three ships on convoy duty, we could run one every
two days.

Note this is entirely with local resources. I find it quite reasonable that
an Imperium that claims the space between the worlds will assist worlds
with defending themselves from raiders who come from the space between the
worlds.

Now, the issue of subsidised merchants visiting backwaters ... we need to
disengage the concepts of 'subsidised trade' and 'subsidised trade only
happens in a specific class of vessel'.

The above government may well want to subsidise trade with it's neighbours.
To do so, it would probably have a look at the specific routes, their risk
profile, and come to an appropriate deal. A better method of subsidy may be
to offer to cover all combat damage within your system, for example.

Personally, I believe that if your local Imperial authorities wish to
co-operate, then they can do a lot to secure trade. For example, IN
elements could supplement local forces in protecting a system, or could
offer to send (for example) a Gazelle or similar along with any trader that
wants to go from a world with a Naval base to an insecure developing world.

Finally, for worlds with micro-economies, I'd advise you to have a look at
the bits of the Sunbeard declaration that deal with trade in insecure
areas. Also have a think of how much trade goes into these systems, and
thus to how long a pirate would need to wait until it found a target.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 16:04:50 -0500
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil>
Subject: Re: canon

Thanks for the post, Leo.  

Leo Hale wrote:
> 
> 1.  What kind of transponders are used in TNE?
> ______________________________
> We never used any, since most of the problems had come about do to their
> use we determined that the RCES did not use them.  Any ship that entered
> RCES space was challanged and fired upon if they did not respond ASAP.
> 

So ships that were already in RCES (can't remember what that stands for)
going from one system to another didn't have any automated beacon saying
who or what they were, and patrols could/would challenge all/some
ships?  That works.  Was the RCES a survivor of the Virus or were they
coming out of the mayhem of a collapsed society?

> 2.  Why do we assume that the DSR don't have 57th century Stealth to
> mitigate againsth them?
> _______________________________
> Not touching this one with a ten foot pole.
> 

Yes, I can understand that.  I look at "canon" as growing.  The Deyo
chips were a logical progression that ultimately took its toll.  The
next generation might not even use transponders (as yours didn't) or
might use them just for traffic control...  So from 1130 say, you either
have no transponder or just the basic.  New "canon" should take that
into consideration when or if new canon is published following that
timeline.


For lasers, etc. I just think it would be a logical progression to
attempt to stealth your ships better.  Grav-focusing should appear at a
certain date.  So should the better sensors (give it a hand wave as to
why they weren't so good before).  Adventures etc from pre-that date
should use the CT style lasers/missiles/sensors...  After that date they
should use the next generation, then, if there are new stealthing
techniques, they should begin to be seen around another such date,
resulting in the change to combat, etc.

> 
> Maybe people are afraid of changing Traveller so much that it soon
>       resembles one of many T.V. or movie SciFi items.
> 
> Leo

Yes, that must be what it is.

Greg

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 14:34:34 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1095

 
> 2.  Why do we assume that the DSR don't have 57th century Stealth to
> mitigate againsth them?
> _______________________________
> Not touching this one with a ten foot poll.
> 
> (2) Why don't some of the gearheads (excludes me) develop a workable(?)
> stealth suite or other Sci-Fic technology that would be used to make the
> ranges of the DSR and grav-focused lasers much less?  I believe that we
> have had increases in offensive weaponry and sensors, but little in the
> way of defending against them.  That would be an area of intense
> research, I'd think.  Even to the degree of creating "shields" [ducking]
> that are effective against lasers at extreme ranges....
 
DSR has "stealth" for high TLs, it's called ultrablack, and reduces
the sig considerably. There are two fundemental problems with steath
in space. One, there isn't really a prefered direction, so if there are 
sensors spread out in space, you'll have trouble hiding from active
sensors since *somebody* will be bouncing a signal normal to your
hull surface. Two, as Bruce has shown, even assuming that 90% of the
energy that a ship radiates is cleverly pointed away from enemy
passive sensors, ships are really, really bright in the IR. Hard to
steath that much energy.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 16:41:44 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: A little different Traveller 

> On 11/03/98 at 12:56 PM,  "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net> said:
> 
> >Somebody said Eris uses stutterwarp.  I'm *in* his PBEM & haven't
> >seen it yet. 
> 
> You haven't been on the bridge of a ship yet either. ;->

Reread his past history.  He's an ex-Free Trader crewie.

> I don't think my technology is all that different from standard
> Traveller and even where it is the effects are pretty much the same.

You've kept the look & feel of things.  Who cares how it works?

> > I *do* know the basic ruleset he uses is TNE with some house
> > rules.   
> 
> Oh, it's more complicated than that.  ;-> I use bits and pieces from
> all the versions of Traveller as well as a number of ideas from
> FUDGE and GURPS.  I *do* use a d20 in task resolution, though, so
> maybe that's where Keven gets the "TNE with some house rules."

Yup.  And it doesn't bother me a *bit* to haul out percentage dice in my game either.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 16:43:00 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Move quickly! 

> >Please distribute this to everyone (on earth, that is) you know. 
> >
> >When John Glenn returns from space, everybody dress in Ape Suits. 
> >
> >You have 6 days in which to bury the Statue of Liberty up to her
> head. 

*LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!*

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 14:44:53 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Medicine in Traveller...

Sorry to "waste" the bandwidth, but somebody needs to say it (again,
I guess it was stated before :-).

WOW.

Nice work.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 16:51:06 -0500
From: Kurt Feltenberger <kurt@blazenet.net>
Subject: Re: canon

At 04:04 PM 11/4/98 -0500, you wrote:

>For lasers, etc. I just think it would be a logical progression to
>attempt to stealth your ships better.  Grav-focusing should appear at a
>certain date.  So should the better sensors (give it a hand wave as to
>why they weren't so good before).  Adventures etc from pre-that date
>should use the CT style lasers/missiles/sensors...  After that date they
>should use the next generation, then, if there are new stealthing
>techniques, they should begin to be seen around another such date,
>resulting in the change to combat, etc.

I could agree with this if there was a tech level differance, but there is
not.  A TL-12 laser from CT/MT is vastly different than a TL-12 Laser from
TNE/FFS1/FFS2.  

There are too many differances in the way the technology is presented, IMO,
for it to be a simple matter of "next generation."  If that was the case,
where are all the leftovers from when the Virus happened?  It also does not
take into consideration the relic ships that are found, not to mention the
Virus possessed ships, would they not have the earlier generation?

Not a flame, just an observation.



Kurt Feltenberger

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a
habit.
- --- Aristotle ---

mailto:kurt@blazenet.net

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 16:30:33 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Not Taking the Hit 

>  
> > > Umm, Keven, rapid fire point defense lasers have been around since Striker.
> > > Point defense lasers hitting multiple targets can be extrapolated from HG,
> > > because a single laser can sometimes stop an attack by multiple missile
> > > turrets.
> > 
> > Nice try, but you didn't answer the question.  Is this in the ruleset 
> > someplace or is this a variant?
>  
> My Striker ruleset is in a Striker box (with GDW on the side) under
> my black box of LBBs. It has vehicle mounted lasers (and even
> mentions grounded ships doesn't it?) hosing down hundreds of arty
> rounds per turn.

Nice try again, but I wasn't asking about where your variant ruleset came 
from.  Now when you want to play Traveller, let me know.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 16:34:04 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit (Exiting) 

> At 02:52 PM 11/3/1998 -0500, you wrote:
> >	3) NOWHERE in the rules does it say a ship MUST come out of jump only at the
> >100-D limit!!!
> >
> <Snip>
> >	IMTU, where you come out of jump (or go into it for that matter) is mainly
> >decided by your navigator/astrogator...SysCon simply assigns you an outbound
> >or inbound vector and lets you do your thing.  Anybody else have any comments?
> >
> >DustyLV769@aol.com
> 
> Page 93 of the MT Imperial Encyclopedia (Starship Operating Procedures #10)
> states:
> "The ship emerges at the limit of the gravity well (at about 100 diameters
> out) of the destination world that the navigator designated in jump
> preparation."

In the Traveller Book, the picture showing the basics of FTL travel specifically shows the ship coming out *beyond* the 100 diameter jump curb.

Now, what I'm about to propose *ain't canon*, but I'd *seriously* think about what kind of damage would be caused to jump engines if they *could* come out within 100 or 10 diameters.  Considering there's a chance for the to be damaged jumping out due to the gravity gradient, it seems to me that there should be some chance of damage for them jumping into a simular gravity gradient.

Otherwise, what's to stop somebody from jumping insystem about 4 klicks above the surface of the planet?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 16:48:19 -0500
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1095

Merrick Burkhardt wrote:

<snip>
>
> hull surface. Two, as Bruce has shown, even assuming that 90% of the
> energy that a ship radiates is cleverly pointed away from enemy
> passive sensors, ships are really, really bright in the IR. Hard to
> steath that much energy.
> 

Hard to stealth that much energy NOW, in the confines of our tech.  A
challenge would be to come up with whatever new tech you would need to
be able to stealth better, even IR.  That's what I'm saying.  A black
globe does it, so it can be done.  Maybe the first step to deciphering
the black globe, or at least developing capability similar to it, would
be to figure out how to mask IR.

Greg

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1097
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest    Wednesday, November 4 1998    Volume 1998 : Number 1098



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: on Traveller
Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 
Re: Piracy by the Numbers
Re: Plasma guns, canon, bureaucracy and High Guard 
Re: Taking The Hit 
Re: Crime & Punishment (not Dostoevsky) 
Re: Not Taking the Hit 
Re: 100 Diameter limit (Exiting)
Re: What's a backwater? 
Re[2]: 100 Diameter limit (Exiting) 
re: Canon
sensors, stealth, and technological assumptions
UTUP (Long)
Re: Not Taking the Hit
Re: Taking The Hit
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1095

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 10:52:59 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: on Traveller

At 19:08 2/11/98 -0800, Steven Hudson wrote:
>...
>>It's like saying 'It's a society like Medieval Britain, but they have
>>maize' - if you have maize, then your economic structure is so different
>>that you just wouldnt have medieval Britain any more.
>
>  That would be due to increased crop yields by acreage? (with increased
>water requirements, IIRC? - not that that should be a big problem)

IIRC frost resistant Wheat wasn't devloped until the late 1300's and
without that the crop failure in England runs at about 1 in 3, forcing you
to stick with Oats and Barley. Again IIRC Maize is somewhat more frost
resistant so it would be like having a modern high yield Wheat avialible.
Also at least some varities will grow in much worse soil than Wheat.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 10:46:23 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers (long) 

At 18:48 2/11/98 -0800, Steven Hudson wrote:

>>And by the way, it's Kev*E*n.  My parents were *quite* specific about that.
>
>  I know how you feel - only about 15% or so of people understand that
"Steven"
>has six letters in it...
>
>        Steven Hudson

'Round here there are a fair number of Stevens along with Stefans etc,
although you are still outnumbered by the Stephens by quite a margin. For
real fun I've found that my family name is hard to beat though, especially
when allied with three first names, the last of which is my personal name.
Sends government computers wild. "George Thomas Rupert Boleyn" tends to
turn into something like "George Thomas Boyden" or "Bullen" or somesuch.
Shows the lack of historians in this country.


- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 10:39:29 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Piracy by the Numbers

At 18:15 2/11/98 -0700, Merrick Burkhardt wrote:
>I think that the initial assumption of "screaming" when boarded is a
>little out of whack. I'd expect a distress call as soon as they
>realize they are under attack.
>
>I'd expect a pirate to:
>
>1. Lock the target with passive sensors.
>2. Fire as close as they can get without being suspicious. If they
>fire at long ranges, or if the target isn't evading, then they
>should be able to get some kind of bonus on attack--at least the
>first shot (picking hull areas to be hit, perhaps, if they are close
>enough).

When using BL I allow shots to be made at specific hit locations as if you
were firing at a ship of one size smaller. Thus you need a targeting lock
at +1DM (harder) and then you fire at +1DM to hit. However I'm considering
making this harder, as it has seemed too easy when it was last tried.
Perhaps +1DM for the lock, and when firing if you would've hit at +1Dm you
hit a random location and if you would've hit at +2DM (or maybe with an
outstanding hit, but that seems too hard) you hit where you wanted to.

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 16:59:27 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Plasma guns, canon, bureaucracy and High Guard 

> > > No problem. Very long range fire can be dodged easily (d=0.5*a*t^2 and all
> > > that), but if you are dodging, then you arent boarding an at-rest merchant
> > > ship.
> > 
> >I nevewr knew you needed a pilot to lead a boarding party. I'd always assumed 
> > the boarding party could just hop out the air lock on their pirate ship and 
> > use their suit thrusters to approach and board. And while they're boarding, 
> > why can't the pirate *ship* be dodging?
>  
> It has to match courses, thruster packs aren't gonna kill 10s of
> km/s relative velocity--but a stripped down small craft might be the
> order of the day for pirates.

You're assuming two things.

1.  The Pirate *must* remain at rest relative to the Target for as long as the 
boarding party is away.  This does not need to be.  All you need is to be 
relatively motionless to drop off boarders and retrieve them.  In the 
meantime, you can do whatever you want.

2.  You're assuming that at closing for boarding, velocities will be on the 
order of km/s.  More like, on the order of maybe 100s of meters per sec.  Big 
difference.

And I'm *NOT* going to go into something published in a JTAS once that said a 
standard vacc suit could effect up to about 2 km/sec vectoring.

> the prate ship needs to be spending whole gs of accelration on
> dodging to really be effective (less the farther away it is from the
> shooter, obviously).

Not at range.  It merely needs to move 30 meters in 8.5 seconds or so.  About 
a third of a G.

> > Besides, all you need to do is render the target incapable of running and incapable of fighting you in space.  That means, you take down the weapons and either the M-drives *OR* the power plant.  If you get lucky and get the power plant, the ship can't jump until it's field repaired.
>  
> the problem seems to be that you either fire weapons with USPs that
> won't critical the target (too many of them reduce your chances of
> getting away with the prize, or of having one) and then it'll take a
> few turns to hit all the right systems (to be fair the pirate
> shouldn't know any of the damage results other than by watching to
> see if the target maneuvers or returns fire, BTW). Otherwise you use
> a big battery and take yer chances blowing the thing up. Again, you
> start looking like a raider, and the navy gets amazingly pissed.

And this gives the Navy permission to kill the victims in order to save them?  
I thought I'd heard the last of *THAT* kind of nonsense 25 years ago.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 17:02:28 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Taking The Hit 

> >Subject: Taking The Hit
> ...
> >Second off, if you're going to use Real World Extrapolations, how do you
> defend against a stealth bomber, or a stealth fighter?  And in the above
> mentioned superlaser, what happens if your target *also* has that superlaser
> system?  Hey, if *you've* got it, somebody else does too.
> 
>   Stealth aircraft are detectable, just harder. It's fairly similar to the
> late edition Trav experience of stealthier warships, except that where Trav
> ships light themselves by applying thrust, modern aircraft (IIRC?) are more
> likely to tip themselves by going offensive.

How many Stealth planes were shot down in the Gulf?  Zero.  Before the Gulf 
War, Patriot missiles were claimed to be 98% accurate.  Latest figures show 
them to be on the close order of 50% accurate, with the caveat that some of 
the Patriots were attacking SCUD debris after the aforementioned SCUD 
exploded, whether on its own or a previous Patriot hit.

>   In the same way that big lasers or PAWS are powerful, they're simply part
> of the equation that determines military trends in a particular game universe.

Whatever happened to game balance?

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 17:08:14 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Crime & Punishment (not Dostoevsky) 

> ...
> >	Out here (Las Vegas) some would say that depends on the ethnic background of
> >the perpetrator <sarcastic grin>
> 
>   What, they shoot Yankees there?

No, just gringos.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 17:11:01 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Not Taking the Hit 

> >> Umm, Keven, rapid fire point defense lasers have been around since Striker.
> >> Point defense lasers hitting multiple targets can be extrapolated from HG,
> >> because a single laser can sometimes stop an attack by multiple missile
> >> turrets.
> >
> >Nice try, but you didn't answer the question.  Is this in the ruleset 
> >someplace or is this a variant?
> 
>   Striker is a Classic Trav rules addition, and still available from
> Mr. Miller, IIRC: <FarFuture@aol.com> - another beautiful product.

I've got a copy of it around here someplace.  Bought it in '83.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 14:14:24 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit (Exiting)

>Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 23:34:21 -0600
>From: Jimmy Simpson <nimrodd@fastlane.net>

>At 02:52 PM 11/3/1998 -0500, you wrote:
>>	3) NOWHERE in the rules does it say a ship MUST come out of jump
>>only at the
>>100-D limit!!!
>>
><Snip>
>>	IMTU, where you come out of jump (or go into it for that matter) is
>>mainly
>>decided by your navigator/astrogator...SysCon simply assigns you an outbound
>>or inbound vector and lets you do your thing.  Anybody else have any
>>comments?

>Page 93 of the MT Imperial Encyclopedia (Starship Operating Procedures #10)
>states:
>"The ship emerges at the limit of the gravity well (at about 100 diameters
>out) of the destination world that the navigator designated in jump
>preparation."

This describes where you emerge when the destination is world.  I don't read
it that the author intends to require you to come out 100 diams from a world.
Add to this the fact that such a restriction would make examples of using
jumps to set up deep fuel depots that appear in the Traveller history (the
Solomani getting the Barnard's start w/out jump 2, the Zhodani deep space
base, the Navy's secret route that cuts through the great rift)

______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu
(This is the net.  My e-mail address may be in Boston, but I'm in California.)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 17:14:29 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: What's a backwater? 

> ...
> >>   So determining that providing warships and other defence systems for
> >> the mainworld and its' immediate area is impossibly expensive doesn't
> >> require any calculations?
> >
> >I wanna see them justify their defense spending in backwater worlds. /...
> 
>   Before the work gets too much further we might want to define "backwater"
> for this purpose; assuming that it's off the main trade routes, what GDP
> are we basing exports off of, and what TL range are we talking?

A low tech planet with a C, D, or E star port, under a billion people, a 
couple parsecs off the Xboat network.

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 98 14:12:59 pst
From: "Jesse Degraff" <Jesse_DeGraff@smtplink.acer.com>
Subject: Re[2]: 100 Diameter limit (Exiting) 

     I was just re-reading the SOM and I thought I saw something about 
     something inherent in the JD technology that wouldn't LET a ship 
     emerge within 100AU, but possibly close depending on how the navigator 
     plotted the course based on nav charts and orbit data.  I'll have to 
     check when I get home.
     
     Jesse


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit (Exiting) 
Author:  traveller@MPGN.COM at smtplink-acs
Date:    11/4/98 2:02 PM


> At 02:52 PM 11/3/1998 -0500, you wrote:
> > 3) NOWHERE in the rules does it say a ship MUST come out of jump only at the
> >100-D limit!!!
> >
> <Snip>
> > IMTU, where you come out of jump (or go into it for that matter) is mainly 
> >decided by your navigator/astrogator...SysCon simply assigns you an outbound 
> >or inbound vector and lets you do your thing.  Anybody else have any 
comments?
> >
> >DustyLV769@aol.com
> 
> Page 93 of the MT Imperial Encyclopedia (Starship Operating Procedures #10) 
> states:
> "The ship emerges at the limit of the gravity well (at about 100 diameters 
> out) of the destination world that the navigator designated in jump
> preparation."
     
In the Traveller Book, the picture showing the basics of FTL travel specifically
shows the ship coming out *beyond* the 100 diameter jump curb.
     
Now, what I'm about to propose *ain't canon*, but I'd *seriously* think about 
what kind of damage would be caused to jump engines if they *could* come out 
within 100 or 10 diameters.  Considering there's a chance for the to be damaged 
jumping out due to the gravity gradient, it seems to me that there should be 
some chance of damage for them jumping into a simular gravity gradient.
     
Otherwise, what's to stop somebody from jumping insystem about 4 klicks above 
the surface of the planet?
     
Keven
     
tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy 
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep
     
     
     

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 14:26:08 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Canon

>2.  Why do we assume that the DSR don't have 57th century Stealth to
>mitigate againsth them?

There are stealth technologies - thermal masking, radar stealthing, milblack
hulls. They help, just not enough to let you hide at medium or short ranges
This is not necessarily a bad thing. It's worth noting that the *only* era
I can think of in which naval sensor ranges were shorter than naval weapon 
ranges is the twentieth century - submarines, carrier-aircraft (considered
as a weapon for the carrier rather than as distinct entities), and SSMs. 
For the previous four thousand years of naval warfare, sensor ranges (=eyeballs)
exceeded weapon ranges. The idea that starship combat would be sensor-dominated
with short sensor ranges seems to have originated with 2300AD (and not been
very well handled there...); I don't see any reason to expect it to be 
that way...

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 14:33:50 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: sensors, stealth, and technological assumptions

> (2) Why don't some of the gearheads (excludes me) develop a workable(?)
> stealth suite or other Sci-Fic technology that would be used to make the
> ranges of the DSR and grav-focused lasers much less?  I believe that we
> have had increases in offensive weaponry and sensors, but little in the
> way of defending against them.

A couple of other points:

First, my sensor model started with what I thought could be made to work at
TL8-9 or so. At that TL, in space, IR sensors are way ahead of what can be done
in the way of stealthing. For higher TLs I assumed things stayed about the
same - no miraclulous advances in stealth/IR masking, no miracularous
advantages in sensors either[1]; the two stay about even. I should note that
I can't think of even an SF-ish way of getting rid of waste heat other
than radiating it, or making a ship's hull more than 99.99% black...and I
didn't want to introduce anything that fundamentally warped the laws of 
physics; Traveller has always paid at least lip service to physics.[2]

Bruce
[1] There is a fundamental advances in sensors at TL10, when sensors stop
being telescopes and start being visible-light phased-arrays. I may produce
someday a "conservative sensor rule" set that assumes this advance never
happens...
[2] Except for the law of conservation of angular momentum, of course. And
conservation of momentum. And conservation of energy. But aside from those
three minor laws, Traveller stays within physics :-)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 16:36:22 -0600 (CST)
From: "Jason Kemp" <Jason.Kemp@tdh.state.tx.us>
Subject: UTUP (Long)

Universal Traveller Universe Profile (UTUP) v1.0:

Considered to be a Traveller-specific adaptation of the geek code
commonly referred to as the IMTU code, similar to the UPP and UWP
profiles used in official Traveller products.

The format is as follows:

UTUP 0101 A-1234567-B-C-D

POSITION COORDINATES (0101)
These coordinates are measured as absolute "latitude" and absolute
"longitude" from Normal, Illinois (IL).  The position is calculated as
follows:

First Digits
These display the relative location of the Traveller fan, and where
the UTUP is practiced.  These are determined as below:

00   You don't play Traveller, and you don't know why you're filling
this out.
01   You live and/or play in IL. 
02   You live and/or play in the Midwest. 
03   You live and/or play in the United States.
04  You live and/or play in North America.
05   You live and/or play in the Western Hemisphere.
06   You live and/or play in Europe.
07   You live and/or play in Africa. 
08   You live and/or play in Asia. 
09  You live and/or play in Australia.
10   You live and/or play in Antartica.
11   You travel too much to call anyplace on Earth home.
12  You live and/or play somewhere offplanet.  (Cool!  Can I join 
your game?)

Second Digits:
These digits indicate the location of the Traveller fan and where the
UTUP is practiced, relative to Normal, IL, as indicated on a computer
keypad.  These are indicated below:

00   You don't play Traveller, but this looks like fun.
01   You live and/or play South-West of Normal, IL.
02   You live and/or play South of  Normal, IL.
03   You live and/or play South-East of Normal, IL.
04   You live and/or play West of Normal, IL.
05   You live and/or play in Normal, IL.
06   You live and/or play East of Normal, IL.
07   You live and/or play North-West of Normal, IL.
08   You live and/or play North of Normal, IL.
09   You live and/or play North-East of Normal, IL.
10   You live and/or play within 100 planetary diameters of Terra.
11   You decline to answer on the grounds that you'd violate your 
First Contact assignment.

Some sample location coordinates are given below:
Normal, Illinois 0105 
Phoenix, Arizona 0301 
Austin, Texas 0302
Connecticut 0309
Nagoya, Japan 0801
Ireland 0609

GAME SYSTEMS (X-)
This section details the game system rules used in YTU.  The actual
code is as follows:

0   Classic Traveller primarily
1   MegaTraveller primarily
2   Traveller: The New Era primarily
3   T4: Milieu 0 primarily
4   GURPS:  Traveller primarily
5   Classic Traveller with heavy house rules modifications
6   MegaTraveller with heavy house rules modifications
7   Traveller: The New Era with heavy house rules modifications
8   T4: Milieu 0 with heavy house rules modifications
9   GURPS:  Traveller with heavy house rules modifications
A   Mix of various Traveller systems
B   Mix of Traveller and other gaming system(s)
C   Other gaming system(s)
F   I don't play; I just enjoy the background

RACES SECTION (-XXXXXXX-)
The races section details the level of involvement of the various
official Traveller races in the mileau described by the UTUP.  The
races are presented in the following order:

Aslan
Droyne
Hiver
Humaniti
K'kree
Vargr
Minor/Other Races

The values selected for each of the races are the same, identifying
amount of involvement in your milieu, as well as proximity to canon. 
The values are:

0   What?  Never heard of em?  Not in MTU!  (0% Occurrence)
1   They exist, at least according to Library Data.  (10% Occurrence)
2   They appear in the Library Data and occasional News announcements.
 (20% Occurrence) 
3   A PC has seen one.  They must exist.  (30 %Occurrence) 
4   PC(s) have interacted with one during the course of the campaign. 
 (40% Occurrence) 
5   PC(s) play the race, but do not interact with others.  (50% 
Occurrence) 
6   PC(s) play the race, and/or interact with a few others.  (60% 
Occurrence) 
7   PC(s) play the race, and/or racial presence is felt in the game.  
(70% Occurrence) 
8   PC(s) play the race, and/or deal with racial interstellar 
society.  (80% Occurrence) 
9   PC(s) play the race, and/or deal extensively with racial 
interstellar society.  (90% Occurrence) 
A   PC(s) play the race, and game is set in midst of culture.  (100% 
Occurrence) 
B   Low occurrence; variant version(s). 
C  Medium occurrence; variant version(s). 
D   High occurrence; variant version(s). 
E   Multiple variant versions, dramatically alterred from canon. 
F   I don't play; I just enjoy the background.

HISTORY/TIMELINE CODE (-X-)
The History/Timeline section details the specifics of the history and
timeline followed by the particular campaign.  Within this code, the
Strephon, Two Timelines, Third Imperium, Canonicity, etc, are
addressed.  The specific codes are as follows:

0   Pre-Industrial  (I don't like my fantasy gaming rules, so I use
Traveller instead.) 
1   Industrial (maybe in some sort of first contact or Cyberspace 
campaign.  *shrug*) 
2   Early Stellar (circa First Imperium or Rule of Man) 
3   Low Stellar (Long Night and Milieu 0/T4 era) 
4   Mid Stellar (from circa 200 to 1000) 
5   High Stellar (1000 to 1115; Classic Traveller) 
6   Shattered Imperium (1115 to 1130ish; MegaTraveller time period 
and background) 
7   Regency (TNE time period circa 1200) 
8   Grand Imperium(1115 to 1130ish; G:T alternate timeline) 
9   Alternate timeline; split at some other point in canon history. 
A   Alternate location/background outside Charted Space. 
B   Alternate background/no such thing as Charted Space. 
C  The only thing Traveller in this game is what we call it. 
F   I  don't play; I just enjoy the background.

TECHNOLOGY CODE (-X-)
This code clarifies the TU's stance on technology, as well as the
upper average available in the campaign world.  Certain technology
variations are covered toward the end of the list:

0   Pre-Industrial  (TL 0-4)
1   Industrial (TL 5-8)
2   Early Stellar (TL 9-10)
3   Low Stellar (TL 10-11)
4   Mid Stellar (TL 12-13)
5   High Stellar (TL 14-15)
6   Extreme Stellar (TL 16-18)
7   Pre-Ancient and higher (TL 19+)
8   Jump Drives are not the only FTL travel.
9   Jump Drives at higher TL overcome canon limits (beyond
Jump-6/under 100dt) 
A   Jump Drives are not possible.  Other means are used to travel 
FTL. 
B   FTL travel and Gravitics do not exist in this universe. 
C   Non-standard, widespread use of alternate scientific advances, 
such as Nanotechnology. 
F   I don't play; I just enjoy the background.

CANONICITY CODE (-X)
This section describes the relative canonicity of the setting and the
campaign overall.  The list below details the various levels:

0   The official universe is my universe!  (0% Deviation)
1   Only minor interpretational differences exist, mostly background
related.  (10% Deviation) 
2   Minor interpretational differences exist, some of the gaming 
system affected.  (20% Deviation) 
3   One major interpretational difference exists, mostly background 
related. (30% Deviation)
4   One major interpretational difference exists, major impact on 
system.  (40% Deviation) 
5   Some modification has occurred in most areas.  Still 
recognizable.  (50% Deviation) 
6  Major modification of the campaign milieu and rules system.  (60% 
Deviation) 
7   Modifications make thecampaign milieu almost unrecognizable.  
(70% Deviation) 
8   The names have been changed to protect the innocent.  (80% 
Deviation)
9   I'm definitely not violating any copyright laws.  (90% 
Deviation) 
A   Traveller is the name I hide my new system under.  (100% 
Deviation) 
F   I don't play; I just enjoy the background.

===============================
This is what happens when people get bored.  Hope it formats 
right.  It's now yours to play with....
============================
Jason Kemp, ADS Programmer I
(512)458-7111 ext. 3375

Internet Address: jason.kemp@tdh.state.tx.us

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 15:47:26 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Not Taking the Hit

 
> > > Nice try, but you didn't answer the question.  Is this in the ruleset 
> > > someplace or is this a variant?
> >  
> > My Striker ruleset is in a Striker box (with GDW on the side) under
> > my black box of LBBs. It has vehicle mounted lasers (and even
> > mentions grounded ships doesn't it?) hosing down hundreds of arty
> > rounds per turn.
> 
> Nice try again, but I wasn't asking about where your variant ruleset came 
> from.  Now when you want to play Traveller, let me know.

Striker is Classic, dyed in the wool, traveller. Not a variant. What
planet are you on? Striker is pre-Mega Traveller. As such is is as
much in the canon as say Scouts, or Fifth Frontier War.

Striker is traveller, jeez. Anything published with "traveller" on
it (assuming it was at least licenced, and therefore legal) IS
traveller.

- -Merrick 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 15:48:25 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Taking The Hit

"Keven R. Pittsinger" wrote:

> How many Stealth planes were shot down in the Gulf?  Zero.  Before the Gulf
> War, Patriot missiles were claimed to be 98% accurate.  Latest figures show
> them to be on the close order of 50% accurate, with the caveat that some of
> the Patriots were attacking SCUD debris after the aforementioned SCUD
> exploded, whether on its own or a previous Patriot hit.
>

For a variety of reasons, the Gulf War was a very poor proving ground
for many technologies. It was mostly a clear demonstration that a large,
well coordinated Air/land/sea attack by well lead, professional forces,
with the best intel available, at least  one TL higher, can really
demolish a poorly lead, conscript army with worn out vehicles, no air
support, and near zero intelligence capabilities in a very short order.
It was sort of like the New York Yankees taking on the average Little
League team. When the Little League team is expecting the Joe's Pizzeria
team when they walk onto the field.

Iraq did not have a very highly advanced anti-aircraft radar network,
and even less of one after our radar-homing missiles got done with them.
The AA around Bahgdad was primarily real TL-6 stuff, mostly 20 and 40 mm
stuff (remember all those night-vision shots of all the tracers?), IIRC
they didn't have many SAMS and the ones they did have anymore were of
quite old design.

Not hard for a stealthy aircraft to get through all that, they came in
low, fast and hard to see, dropped their bombs and split. Not many
aircraft of _any_ type were shot down during the war.

As you said, the Patriots, on the other hand, were rather conclusively
proven not to work well. Again, not at all surprising, in retrospect.
The Patriot is an antiaircraft SAM pressed into service as an
antimissile weapon. We're _very_ fortunate that modifying short range
missiles into medium range higher payload weapons systems is (literally)
rocket science, and the Iraqis are quite short of rocket scientists.
Otherwise all those SCUDS would have not broken up on their own, and we
_would_ have immediately seen how poorly the Patriots were performing. I
have seen estimates that only one or two SCUDS actually performed as
they were supposed to, one of which was the one that hit the barracks in
Dahrain. The rest broke up before impact, causing a lot less damage than
they would have if they had actually worked.

The Patriots _psychological_ advantage, OTOH, helped dramatically,
primarily by keeping Israel from turning Bahgdad into a large puddle of
slag in the desert.

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 15:51:12 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1095

 
> > passive sensors, ships are really, really bright in the IR. Hard to
> > steath that much energy.
> 
> Hard to stealth that much energy NOW, in the confines of our tech.  A
> challenge would be to come up with whatever new tech you would need to
> be able to stealth better, even IR.  That's what I'm saying.  A black
> globe does it, so it can be done.  Maybe the first step to deciphering
> the black globe, or at least developing capability similar to it, would
> be to figure out how to mask IR.
 
A BG doesn't actually do it. This raises an interesting problems
with BGs, actually. The entire radiated output of a ship with a BG
must be absorbed by the globe and there fore finds its way back into
the caps. The energy doesn't go away even with a real BG, you have
to use it in some way that gets rid of it.

So even a real, ancient BG doesn't stealth you, it just delays the
emission until you vent it (or blow up :-)

- -Merrick

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1098
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest    Wednesday, November 4 1998    Volume 1998 : Number 1099



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Plasma guns, canon, bureaucracy and High Guard
Re: 100 Diameter limit
Re: Long range fire
Re: Long range fire
Re: Taking The Hit 
[WWW][Zine] Freelance Traveller Updated
Re: Taking The Hit
[WWW][Zine] Freelance Traveller Updated (CORRECTED)
Re: May I suggest change / mail filtering
Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1097
Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?
Striker in contemporary times
Re: Taking The Hit
Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question
Re: Four Fours Spofulam SDB?
Re: SDBs (was Re: Taking The Hit)
Re: Backwater World Defense Budgets
[Fwd: Traveller * Backwater worlds]
System Defense spending on Gov 7 worlds
Re: What's a backwater? 
re: Small Craft Sensors under High Guard

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 15:58:37 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Plasma guns, canon, bureaucracy and High Guard

 
> 1.  The Pirate *must* remain at rest relative to the Target for as long as the 
> boarding party is away.  This does not need to be.  All you need is to be 
> relatively motionless to drop off boarders and retrieve them.  In the 
> meantime, you can do whatever you want.
 
You still have to match velocities at some point to drop the guys
off (within whatever the delta-v of a jetpack is).

> 2.  You're assuming that at closing for boarding, velocities will be on the 
> order of km/s.  More like, on the order of maybe 100s of meters per sec.  Big 
> difference.
 
Then how does the pirate close the 10s of thousands of km (even
using a 50,000km attack range from CT) in time to reach the target
before help arrives. At 500m/s it'd take 27 hours to close on your
trader from 50,000km.

> And I'm *NOT* going to go into something published in a JTAS once that said a 
> standard vacc suit could effect up to about 2 km/sec vectoring.
 
About 1/8th of what a 1g ship does in 1/2 an hour.

> > the prate ship needs to be spending whole gs of accelration on
> > dodging to really be effective (less the farther away it is from the
> > shooter, obviously).
> 
> Not at range.  It merely needs to move 30 meters in 8.5 seconds or so.  About 
> a third of a G.

Assuming the guy only fires once. If he shoots into an area defined
by how far a ship can junk in the time lag (anybody with a pc to
drive their laser would do this unless they were trying to miss) and
can get off a few shots then he will hit.
 
> > see if the target maneuvers or returns fire, BTW). Otherwise you use
> > a big battery and take yer chances blowing the thing up. Again, you
> > start looking like a raider, and the navy gets amazingly pissed.
> 
>And this gives the Navy permission to kill the victims in order to save them?  
> I thought I'd heard the last of *THAT* kind of nonsense 25 years ago.
 
Huh? You just said the prate dropped off the boarders and went off
evading. He isn't close anymore, so I'm not risking the trader.
Besides, I was suggesting that the PIRATE needs to be careful of
trashing his prize completely.

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 17:19:36 -0600
From: Steven Bonneville <bonnevil@ima.umn.edu>
Subject: Re: 100 Diameter limit

Here's the text I mentioned from the TARSUS boxed set that places 
Tarsus/District 268 inside the star's 100-diameter boundary, and
what this means for star travel.

from TARSUS Referee's Scenario Sheet 1 (Openings), page 1:

"Break Out From Jump Space: The ship has just emerged from jump space,
 and lies about 120 million kilometers from Hote (the central star).
 This distance is necessary because the ship cannot emerge closer than
 100 diameters to any astronomical body.  Since Hote has a diameter of
 about 1.16 million kilometers, 120 million kilometers is a safe 
 distance.  Good navigation has placed the ship as close as possible
 to Tarsus (Tarsus is about 50 million kilometers from Hote), about
 70 million kilometers distance.
     A mistake in navigation could place the ship farther from their
 desired location, (but never closer in).  Commercial ships rarely
 make such mistakes, but they may occur in private vessels.  Throw 10+
 for a slip in computations to cause a mistake in navigation; DM 
 -navigation skill.  If such a mishap does occur, the ship will be 2D
 times 10 million kilometers farther from Tarsus.
 
"Moving to Tarsus: The trip to Tarsus takes about 32 hours at 2-g, or
 47 hours at 1-G.  (The formula for this computation is in TRAVELLER.)"

  -- Steve Bonneville
 

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 12:25:58 +1300
From: Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Long range fire

At 16:51 3/11/98, Ian Whitchurch wrote:

>Incidentally, it isnt that hard, under FFS2, to build a PAW that will fire
>out past 100 diameters. But I consider that an unsporting argument to use,
>becuase it is too rules-system dependant.

That's largely why I didn't bring it up either. As I use FF&S1 all I need
to do to get that sort of range is stop making pencil-thin PAW tunnels ;)

- -- 
IMTU tc+ tn++ t4- tt+ tg- ru+ ge+ 3i+@ jt+@ au- st- ls- hi+ va+ so+ sy--

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
 
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Web Page: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/rboleyn/index.htm

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 17:02:22 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Long range fire

 
> >Incidentally, it isnt that hard, under FFS2, to build a PAW that will fire
> >out past 100 diameters. But I consider that an unsporting argument to use,
> >becuase it is too rules-system dependant.
> 
> That's largely why I didn't bring it up either. As I use FF&S1 all I need
> to do to get that sort of range is stop making pencil-thin PAW tunnels ;)
 
Yeah, but I'll fire a EMM Masked missile at the PAW station in stock
BL, and you won't be able to get a lock on it to shoot it down so
the PAW will be out of action ;-)

- -Merrick

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 19:03:40 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
Subject: Re: Taking The Hit 

> "Keven R. Pittsinger" wrote:
> 
> > How many Stealth planes were shot down in the Gulf?  Zero.  Before the Gulf
> > War, Patriot missiles were claimed to be 98% accurate.  Latest figures show
> > them to be on the close order of 50% accurate, with the caveat that some of
> > the Patriots were attacking SCUD debris after the aforementioned SCUD
> > exploded, whether on its own or a previous Patriot hit.
> >
> 
> For a variety of reasons, the Gulf War was a very poor proving ground
> for many technologies. It was mostly a clear demonstration that a large,
> well coordinated Air/land/sea attack by well lead, professional forces,
> with the best intel available, at least  one TL higher, can really
> demolish a poorly lead, conscript army with worn out vehicles, no air
> support, and near zero intelligence capabilities in a very short order.
> It was sort of like the New York Yankees taking on the average Little
> League team. When the Little League team is expecting the Joe's Pizzeria
> team when they walk onto the field.

It was a *VERY* good proving ground for testing new weapon technologies.  How 
much better can you *get* than a live-fire exercise that some Pentagon hack 
can't fake the reports on??

Keven

tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 00:19:01 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: [WWW][Zine] Freelance Traveller Updated

02 Nov 1998

Freelance Traveller, The Electronic Fan Supported Traveller
Resource, has been updated.  This update consists of a couple of
minor changes:



A new link to a new Traveller web site - Marc Miller's/FarFuture
Enterprises'! We've also updated a couple of changed URLs. 

We inadvertently omitted a credit from one of the pictures on
Chris Cox's Take Ship II page in the Multimedia Gallery. Fixed.
Our apologies to both Chris and Jesse DeGraff. 



We expect our next update to be around US Thanksgiving.
- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 17:07:04 -0700 (MST)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@shell.rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Taking The Hit

 
>>In the same way that big lasers or PAWS are powerful, they're simply part
>>of the equation that determines military trends in a particular game universe.
> 
> Whatever happened to game balance?
 
You try to write the design/combat rules so that things work the way
we'd expect (expect in the traveller universe!). Ranges for sensors
and weapons can change from CT and it's still traveller as long as
big ships have (useful) spinal mounts, and the various hierarchys of
weapons stay the same (turret->bay->spinal).

I don't think balance per se is important in the sense that every
measure have an exact countermeasure. A TL15 Imperial ship is just
plain better than a TL13 Zhodani one. Period. That isn't balance.
the TL15 one might even be cheaper, that's OK, too. What it tells
you is that the lower tech guys then have to spend more money to
stay level since it'll take a couple of their ships to fight the
enemy's better one.

- -merrick

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 00:25:13 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: [WWW][Zine] Freelance Traveller Updated (CORRECTED)

02 Nov 1998

In our last sending of this notice, we omitted the URL for
Freelance Traveller.  Freelance Traveller can be found by
pointing your browser at
http://www.tightbeam.com/FreelanceTraveller, with mirrors at
http://w3.execnet.com/jeffz & http://www.cyburban.com/~jzeitlin.
We apologize for the omission.

Freelance Traveller, The Electronic Fan Supported Traveller
Resource, has been updated.  This update consists of a couple of
minor changes:



A new link to a new Traveller web site - Marc Miller's/FarFuture
Enterprises'! We've also updated a couple of changed URLs. 

We inadvertently omitted a credit from one of the pictures on
Chris Cox's Take Ship II page in the Multimedia Gallery. Fixed.
Our apologies to both Chris and Jesse DeGraff. 



We expect our next update to be around US Thanksgiving.
- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 11:45:46 +1100
From: rolfe@skie.its.unimelb.edu.au
Subject: Re: May I suggest change / mail filtering

I use this one account to recieve mail from multiple lists; simple
filtering rules that filter on  <any header> contains "traveller" are more
than sufficient to keep the lists seperate. I use eudora (v3) on my mac
most of the time, but have set up similar filtering in outlook on my home
pc.  The unix gurus here swear by "procmail" as being the be-all and
end-all of excelent filtering programs, though I've not used it myself.

Cheers,
Rolfe

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 17:10:37 -0800
From: "Leo Hale" <lhale@panlabs.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1998 #1097

- ------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 16:04:50 -0500
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@helot.arl.mil>
Subject: Re: canon

Thanks for the post, Leo.

Leo Hale wrote:
>
> 1.  What kind of transponders are used in TNE?
> ______________________________
> We never used any, since most of the problems had come about do to their
> use we determined that the RCES did not use them.  Any ship that entered
> RCES space was challanged and fired upon if they did not respond ASAP.
>

So ships that were already in RCES (can't remember what that stands for)
going from one system to another didn't have any automated beacon saying
who or what they were, and patrols could/would challenge all/some
ships?  That works.  Was the RCES a survivor of the Virus or were they
coming out of the mayhem of a collapsed society?
________________________________
The RCES stands for the Reform Coalition Exploratory Service, the main navy
of the Reform Coalition.  The RCES is from TNE and were a civilisation
that, with the help of the Hivers, had recovered from the virus and were
busy attempting to contact as many worlds as could be brought into the fold
(so to say).

*HUGE SNIP*

Greg
- ------------------------------
Sooner or later changes will be made to the Traveller universe by default.
I remember when there was no such thing as "canon" because we were all
making it up as we went.  I still do this to an extent in any campaign I
run in the Traveller universe.  In the games we are involved in right now,
we have to come up with some explanation for the EW since we have moved
into year 1207, and the EW was to hit the Regency boarder in 1205.

Leo

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 20:00:20 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: May I suggest a small change to the list?

At 12:02 PM 11/4/98 -0600, you wrote:
>
>
>Douglas Glatz wrote:
>> 
>> Heyo,
>> 
>> Has anyone else noticed that list traffic is about 4x what it was a year
>> ago?  This is good...a lot of information goes by that I find very
valuable.
>> 
>> However, it is making the administration of my mailbox...um...tedious.
I've
>> automated it somewhat, but there is no way, currently, to sort by subject
>> and there are (at least) 4 addresses associated with the TML.
>> 
>> What I would like to suggest, and since the TML is a majordomo list it is
>> fairly simple (a change of the configuration file would be required, making
>> it automatic), is that a header be added to the subject lines of mail
coming
>> from the list.  [TML] seems appropriate, what do the rest of you think?
>
>I second this motion. I have 4 other mailing lists that get sent to my
>account, two of them do not have headers - TML and a small, but
>extremely important list to me. Thus, I have to wade through TML posts
>to find the important posts. It will also make mail filters easier to
>configure for others.
>
>--David

Can't you use the reply-to field to filter them? It's what I use.

For those who ask, I'm using Eudora Light.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 17:18:22 -0800 (PST)
From: Glenn Goffin <gmgoffin@yahoo.com>
Subject: Striker in contemporary times

Excerpts for your interest from BILL GERTZ, THE WASHINGTON TIMES,
November 4

The entire article is at:
http://www.drudgereport.com/gertz.htm

Chopper crew hit in eyes by laser; Training flights halted over Bosnia 

A U.S. Army helicopter crew suffered eye burns from a laser beam while
flying over Bosnia-Herzegovina, prompting a temporary halt in training
flights and new rules requiring eye protective gear for all flights,
the Pentagon said yesterday. 

*****

As a result of the laser use, the Army rushed new protective equipment
last week to all U.S. helicopter crews. "The equipment provides laser
protection during both day and night operations," the statement said. 

*****

Local police in Bosnia and soldiers of the international Stabilization
Force, or Sfor, searched the town of Zenica and confiscated a pen-type
laser device, he said.

Military officials said the helicopter crew reported seeing inside the
cockpit a red dot believed to be a laser, which tracked the aircraft
for several minutes. 

*****

The last laser incident occurred in April 1997 during a Canadian
helicopter surveillance mission of a Russian freighter suspected of
spying on U.S. nuclear missile submarines near Washington's Puget
Sound. 

Canadian Armed Forces Capt. Pat Barnes and U.S. Navy Lt. Jack Daly, an
intelligence liaison officer, suffered permanent eye damage after a
flight to photograph the Russian ship Kapitan Man. 

A Pentagon investigation later determined the two men were injured by
a laser but were unable to confirm that it was fired by someone on the
ship.

******************************************************
Food for thought, as Roger Sanger would say.

- --Glenn Goffin
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 20:31:32 -0500
From: Imaginactra <russcm@zoomnet.net>
Subject: Re: Taking The Hit

>Iraq did not have a very highly advanced anti-aircraft radar network,
>Not hard for a stealthy aircraft to get through all that, they came in
>low, fast and hard to see, dropped their bombs and split. Not many
>aircraft of _any_ type were shot down during the war.

Inacurrate.

Most of the F-117's over Baghdad never went below 10,000ft.

One tactic often thought effective by attack aircraft disproved by the war
in Iraq was the low and fast ground attack. Most of the time standoff
missiles and LGB's were launched at medium altitide at mid - subsonic
speeds. Once the area early warning radars were knocked out, most of the
short range radars that had the balls to go active were ineffective anyway
and the target never knew the planes were in the area until the big boom.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 12:38:52 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Re: CANON PROBLEM 3: The Kinunir Question

Dear Folks -

I looked up Digest 9, and have amended ref 3.4 to read:

REF 3.4: _Digest 9: Before the Iridium Throne_ says that Norris made his
plea to Strephon at the same time that the four "Grand Tourers" were at
Capital - that is, around 1104-5 (again from memory). (Hyphen) The Digest 9
adventure begins on 066-1104.

I'm not that happy with Hans' solution, it is really just a fix of 3.2 ("
Norris did go off and retrieve his Warrant, but from some other Red Zone.
It was done in secret because Santanocheev had banned all contact with Red
Zone worlds in the Marches.") This was the solution that I said was just a
bad band-aid fix.

Peter's solution (Norris retrieves his DAD'S Warrant at Shionthy) is
better, except that (as about three people have pointed out, and I didn't
include originally because I thought it was a known thing ;-) Warrants are
not generally made out to specific individuals. Take this out and it looks
better.

Oh, and may I be one of the first?:
UTUP: 0901 A-882A284-5-5-1
;-)
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson        Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                       davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 21:24:27 -0600
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>
Subject: Re: Four Fours Spofulam SDB?

Steven Hudson wrote:

>
>>From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>
>>Subject: Four Fours Spofulam SDB?
>..
>>	Hmmm... I don't ever recall doing an SDB.  A THUDDD Patrol Cruiser
>>that was 100td overweight and couldn't rescue squat, but with a Honking Big
>>Spinal Mount, yes, but no SDB.  What was the design and who did it?  I
>>suspect I can figure out why it was infamous :).
>
>  IIRC, Mr. Whitchurch was channelling for some of the FS youngsters
>earlier this year. You have liability insurance, yes?

	Oh dear... I wonder what the little br..., er, darlings were up to
while I was gone :).

	Does anyone have the design still hanging around?  I'd like to see
it :).



Roderick Darroch Elliott <rde@ican.net>

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 21:42:43 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: Re: SDBs (was Re: Taking The Hit)

In a message dated 11/4/98 13:09:36 PM Pacific Standard Time,
yikes@evansville.net writes:

<< I am under the impression (from the _Imperium_ boardgame) that BB sized
 SDBs (i.e., monitors) are not uncommon in the Imperium.
  >>
	This would, in effect, make them battleriders...which is a whole 'nother
debate entirely!  :-)

DustyLV769@aol.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 12:43:22
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@orac.net.au>
Subject: Re: Backwater World Defense Budgets

>From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@glasscity.net>
>Subject: Re: Taking The Hit 
>
>>   Striker is a Classic Trav rules addition, and still available from
>> Mr. Miller, IIRC: <FarFuture@aol.com> - another beautiful product.
>
>I've got a copy of it around here someplace.  Bought it in '83.

<stuff deleted, and topic moved to On Backwaters>

>
>A low tech planet with a C, D, or E star port, under a billion people, a 
>couple parsecs off the Xboat network.

Good. I cant find my copy of Striker Book 2 right now, so we'll use yours.

First of all, a TL8 world with a Type D starport and 80 million people.
Assume it's Imperial, and that it splits it's 70% of it's 4% defense budget
70/30 between Navy and Army/Wet Navy.

Personell in the Navy are Long Service Professionals, paid for with local
credits. Equipment is imported from a B starport TL12 world.

Secondly, a TL 5 world with 10 million population and a type E starport.
Pretty unimpressive, huh. On the other hand, their interstellar trade is
goanna be pretty low, too, as their GWP in Imperial Credits is even worse.

Finally, a TL6, E starport world with 700 million people. Defense budget is
the same as the first world mentioned.

Cases One and Three should be able to mash a 400 ton pirate fairly
adequatly, and if they cant, well, what is stopping The Man Who Would Be
King ?

In either case, you will have enough local navy to quite adequately escort
any traders out to the 100 diameter limit. I can even imagine an honour
guard ...

Ian Whitchurch 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 20:55:35 -0600
From: David Smart <warlock@imagin.net>
Subject: [Fwd: Traveller * Backwater worlds]

Received: from gw3.octel.com (gw3.octel.com [148.147.1.15]) by mail.imagin.net (8.9.1/8.8.0) with ESMTP id TAA45682 for <dsmart@imagin.net>; Wed, 4 Nov 1998 19:26:23 -0600
Received: from curly.eng.octel.com (curly.eng.octel.com [148.147.200.26])
	by gw3.octel.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA27144
	for <dsmart@imagin.net>; Wed, 4 Nov 1998 17:25:52 -0800 (PST)
Received: from buzz.ons.octel.com (buzz.ons.octel.com [155.184.13.4]) by curly.eng.octel.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA18749 for <dsmart@imagin.net>; Wed, 4 Nov 1998 17:25:51 -0800
Received: from ex-ons0.ons.octel.com (exchange [155.184.13.159])
	by buzz.ons.octel.com (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA01602
	for <dsmart@imagin.net>; Wed, 4 Nov 1998 19:25:50 -0600 (CST)
Received: by exchange.ons.octel.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.1960.3)
	id <WDRW7PC2>; Wed, 4 Nov 1998 19:25:45 -0600
Received: from woody.ons.octel.com ([155.184.13.5]) by ex-ons0.ons.octel.com with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.1960.3)
	id WDRW7PCB; Wed, 4 Nov 1998 19:25:38 -0600
Received: from gw3.octel.com ([148.147.1.15] (may be forged))
	by woody.ons.octel.com (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id TAA25051
	for <David.Smart@ons.octel.com>; Wed, 4 Nov 1998 19:25:41 -0600 (CST)
Received: from smtprich (smtprich.nortel.com [192.135.215.8])
	by gw3.octel.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA27043
	for <David.Smart@ons.octel.com>; Wed, 4 Nov 1998 17:25:10 -0800 (PST)
Received: from zrchb161.bnr.ca (actually zrchb161) by smtprich;
          Wed, 4 Nov 1998 16:53:48 -0600
Received: from crchy271.us.nortel.com by zrchb161.bnr.ca 
          with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.0.1460.8) 
          id V6TB3N5A; Wed, 4 Nov 1998 16:54:04 -0600
Received: from caeth25f.us.nortel.com by crchy271.us.nortel.com 
          with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.0.1460.8) 
          id V6P3D6KC; Wed, 4 Nov 1998 16:54:03 -0600
Sender: "Robert Eaglestone" <Robert.Eaglestone.eaglesto@nt.com>
Message-ID: <3640DAF4.2B63CFD9@nortel.com>
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 16:53:40 -0600
From: "Robert Eaglestone" <Robert.Eaglestone.eaglesto@nt.com>
Reply-To: "Robert Eaglestone" <Robert.Eaglestone.eaglesto@nt.com>
Organization: Nortel
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.06 [en] (X11; I; HP-UX A.09.05 9000/712)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Smart David <David.Smart@ons.octel.com>
Subject: Traveller * Backwater worlds
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit



> ----------
> From: 	Robert Eaglestone[SMTP:ROBERT.EAGLESTONE.EAGLESTO@NT.COM]
> Sent: 	Wednesday, November 04, 1998 4:53:40 PM
> To: 	Smart David
> Subject: 	Traveller * Backwater worlds
> Auto forwarded by a Rule
> 
David,

Steven Hudson on the TML quite rightly says we need to
define what a "backwater" system is before we try to talk
about system defense in backwater systems.

I'd say a backwater system can be defined purely by its
ability to defend itself -- just as a rule of thumb or benchmark.

Arbitrarily, then, a system which cannot afford the payments on
one new 400t system defense boat is "backwater".  So, fix the
defense budget of a backwater world at under MCr2 per year.

A system which cannot afford one grav fighter is "wild".
Could you pretty please post this?

Rob

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 21:56:00 EST
From: DustyLV769@aol.com
Subject: System Defense spending on Gov 7 worlds

	I am curious...

	Since we assume that the local defenses are built and paid for by the local
government...who takes care of SysDef in cases of balkanized worlds?  Would
you want to trust some OTHER country w/ the monopoly on the defense
forces...or would an arms race start, as each nation begins to feel threatened
by the expanding naval forces of the other nation??

Dusty

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 20:36:12 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: What's a backwater? 

...
>> >I wanna see them justify their defense spending in backwater worlds. /...
>> 
>>   Before the work gets too much further we might want to define "backwater"
>> for this purpose; assuming that it's off the main trade routes, what GDP
>> are we basing exports off of, and what TL range are we talking?
>
>A low tech planet with a C, D, or E star port, under a billion people, a 
>couple parsecs off the Xboat network.

  So the out of system trade of a world like modern Earth isn't
worth the sub-sector (or higher) authorities trouble to protect?

  Big Backwater         C-xxx9xx-8   (P=8)

  GNP of TCr 6.4 (Cr 6.4 x10^12), but trade sufficiently low as to
be non-existent? OK, so uber-Albania* here is also populated by real
fools, so they spend only 3% on defense - BCr 192, of which BCr 64
goes straight to the Imperium where it's spent on dancing boys and
wine to no real purpose. 40% of the remainder is wasted on the local
ground force militia, leaving only BCr 76.8 for system space defenses.

  Using standard exchange ratios (Striker, although that not being 
real Traveller we'll use the identical [?] chart in TCS) that's less
than 22 BCr of TL C starships - call it 21 after transaction costs
incurred in dealing with those tricky off-worlders.

  This will maintain only BCr 105 of TL C warships (Striker), so we'll
buy these wogs at least 30 "Leaping Chihuahua" SDV's at MCr 1516.37 per.
Why they need starships is unclear, and why they spend over 50% of their
naval budget on marching bands and gold piping can only be attributed to
cultural oddities - but tourism is booming.

  Hopefully the math checks out OK?

  * Elbonia was already in use...

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 20:48:34 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: re: Small Craft Sensors under High Guard

>From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
>Subject: re: Small Craft Sensors under High Guard
...
>the best gear to small craft with bridges. Thus a 95 Dt "Slavering
>Hamster" gunship with a MCr 0.475 mil-spec bridge would get the two LS
>coverage while smaller units mostly wouldn't.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>I really like the interpretation that a small craft bridge on a military ship
>includes milspec sensors. Put bridges on command and recon fighters,
>have other fightercraft more limited.

  The alternative is to make it mostly based on comps (in the same way 
that a lack of a small craft bridge reduces its' effective comp level
by one, IIRC), in which case all but the weirder fighters (3I heavy from
S:9) will be around trader capabilities, and SDB's will routinely have
sensors far superior to any HG pirate (excluding what amount to purpose-
built commerce raiders or warships).

  It looks simply like the CT sensor rules are too old to be of much use
except to gearhead-phobe campaigns (which I might run) and in roughing
out debates like this one - where at least it's easier to agree on than
Striker/MT/TNE/T4/DSR/GURPS ground rules...

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1998 #1099
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@MPGN.COM".  If you want
to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from,
such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the
"subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-traveller":

subscribe traveller-digest local-traveller@your.domain.net

A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "traveller-digest"
in the commands above with "traveller".

Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
